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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

When people accept Christ in their lives, nothing else matters.

Hola mi familia!
Thank you for your wonderful emails, I especially enjoyed dads haha. He cracks me up! I look forward to all the emails on wednesdays.
Mission life is terrific! It is going great and I continue to see many miracles everyday. Days are sometimes really long, but the days that start out rough-really really get good near the end of the day, so I like those days. :) Mom got your package Gracias! :)
Sooo this week was good! We are planning the baptism for Miguel Angel!!!! We are SUPER stoked! I feel so lucky to see a baptism within my first transfer in my area-i guess it was dead for a while-onyl about 2 baptisms for 4 transfers. But Miguel is wonderful and has a lot of support from his sister and brother in law who are recent converts. Part member families are the best! His baptism is sunday after church-also his birthday :) What a wonderful day! Luis is getting baptized in about a week and a half too :) His sister has been a member for a while and he finally came around. We gave him a powerful testimony about baptism and faith and how he needs to get baptized! My comp layed it down!! She is the bomb! haha. So he is great. We have been teaching someone new-Rony who is around 25 or 30(dad-maybe I can hook him up with babbs-hes pretty cute lol) He is funny-he tries to speak english for me haha. Im like-dude just speak spanish I understand it, just cant speak it well enough yet haha. He came to the VC last night with us to watch the Joseph Smith movie. That movies brings me to tears every time! It is so powerful and strong. He also went to the "Why I believe" night at the VC on sunday and really liked it. Pres and Sis Matsumori were there and spoke-they are sooo rock solid! It was a wonderful night.Yesterday we witnessed a grand miracle! Aw... it was HOT on our way out-HOT!!! And we were checking up on our referrals-NO luck! wow it was a long and hot couple hours. We started walking out of the building and saw a door-(mainly all apartments in our area) so we both were like-yea lets knock why not. And opened the door-freddie-who is the brother in law of Lopez family in our ward-Miguel angel is brother too) and we met freddie once during FHE at their house when he was picking up his daughter. We knew the previous situation with his wife who was in the hospital last week because of her liver. Some of the members went and gave her a blessing a couple days ago. She was happy to see us and we were excited to finally meet her. We had NO idea they lived there. The Lord really put them in our path. We taught their family and we are going back tomorrow night :) THey are really humble! Wow that was a great experience. :) I am so grateful for this gospel. I have been learning so much just the few weeks I have been here. Learning so much about faith, and how important it is to have a sure foundation of faith. This morning during my personal studying I started readying "our search for happiness" by Ballard. I read it in the MTC but wanted to read it again. I LOVE the beginning where he talks about the story of his father seeing Christ. WOW it is incredible and put me to tears. As I am going through ups and downs, I realize how much I am putting my everything to the Lord. SO much prayer and fasting. It is incredible how close we can be to the Savior, it is up to us to put ourselves close enough to Him, so he can guide us. I am so grateful for the scriptures! I am just eating them up in my personal study and am almost done with the BOM again. WOW i have learned so much. I feel so lucky and blessed to be here. I am grateful the Lord has put people and things in my path to lead me to my mission. There are a lot of things that had happened before my mission and I know if I had made other decisions that I would have not been here. There is a scripture I found that I adore. "And thus we see the great call of diligence of men to labor in the vineyards of the Lord; and thus we see the great reason of sorry, and also of rejoycing-sorrow because of death and destruction among the men, and JOY because of the LIGHT of CHRIST unto Life!" Alma 28:14. That scripture hit me! We see that so many times-the rejecting of the word, but the joy when they see the light of christ into their lives! When people accept Christ in their lives, nothing else matters. There could be tragedy, sorrows, pains and sins, yet with the Lord, nothing else matters! I love this work! It is fantastic and it has changed my life! I love you fam sooo much!!! :) thanks for the support and updates :) me and my comp are doing great. She continues to push me and help me.
Hope to hear from ya sooon :)
Con Amor,
Hermana Tavernier :))

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Slip & Sliding at Zone Confererence today!!!

HOLLAAAA!
WE had our Zone activity this morning and we just got done. It was sooo fun!!!! We played kickball with water-home base was a slipin slide! I was soo pumped to see that bci have been dying to do one. It was soo fun and i got drenched!! At the end i just jumped on that slide-gotta take every opportunity to get wet right?! HAHA we palyed soccer for a long time-got a good work out. Our zone is sooo fun. We had our zone conference yesterday. President was there. We had our interview. It was sooo good We had a wonderful conversation. He is great!!!! Wow so powerful, professional and kind. ME and my comp are doing good. Yesterday we had a bit of a problem bc our investigator who is supposed to be getting baptized Saturday is "re-thinking" things. Satan is really working hard. So he met with other amazing elders and talked. We meet tonight-hopefully things go good. The mission is wonderful. I am having fun and really trying to eat up every moment of goodness. I have a small miracle journal I keep and record the miracles. I think there is one every day weather they be small or grande! I love this area. We have some amazing members in our ward who accompany us in our lessons. Though our ward is very small for a Spanish ward, it is wonderful. I have learned so much about myself and have really seen why Heavenly Father has placed me here in this mission. I love that confirmation! If I could only say one thing about how much the mission has changed me, it is that being Christlike is the way to go. If we are more like Him, nothing else in the world matters, no worries, no struggles-even though there will always be hard times, but they won't be as bad! Reading scriptures everyday. WOW. What a blessing! The scriptures enlighten us and make us stronger and we know our purpose! I have come to appreciate the power of prayer. As a missionary, wow we pray a LOT. It is incredible. What a blessing! Spanish-is good! Its getting there. I am working on patience. Patience is a virtue. HAHA. But wow I love spanish-I cant wait until that day when i can speak without thinking. LOL. I am so grateful for my wonderful parents who taught me so well, who always taught us children gospel principles and doctine, and to read the scriptures and to pray. I was talking to a lady who was brought up in the church and she is less active. She has a son who is 3 and says she doesnt want to force him to go to church. I told her how I was SO grateful for my parents who took me, and encouraged me to go to church, thats why I am here. :)
biking is fun! it was raining hard yesterday morning but cleared up at night. Thank goodness :) It was a cool night. Today isnt bad either. :) I love this work, I am grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow and preach this wonderful message to everyone!!!!! It is FABulous!!!
Love always,
Hermana Tavernier

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Chelsie in DC w/first companion

Met my new Mission President Pres. Mastumori & his wife

HoLA from DC :) How are you?
Everything is GREAT!!!! I am loving the work! Man i can really see how the Lord has prepared me the past couple months, and years with people in my path to help me for this mission!!! I have seen so many great miracles since being here. It is incredible! I actually was reading about that during my studies this morning. Faith is the reason we have miracles right? So if we want a miracle-we much trust and have faith in the Lord. Like Ether 12:12 says too-and 2 Nephi 26:13. Those are GREAT verses. I am just loving everything. I love BIKES-1.stop and talk to everyone! 2. a lil cruz never hurt anyone 3. good exercise lol. I love my COMPANION 1. She is a hard-worker 2. she is so sweet 3. can teach the gospel and touch the hearts of many people in spanish. i love this MISSION 1-people from everywhere! we have investigators from Chile, Nica, Salvador, Panama, Mexico. everywhere! I love the NEW mission pres. 1-we met with him monday for our zone conference. WOW HE IS INCREDIBLE and so is sister Mautismori!!! She spoke and WOW she is incredible. They are powerful and bold, yet funny and tender. We don't have cars so we had to get a ride home from the Senior couple missionaries and so we got to stay after and eat lunch with president and the senior couples- we were lucky missionaries that day! haha. So we chatted with them, it was great! Anyways there have been so many wonderful experiences thus far, and I am truly blessed to serve in this area. President Matsumori told us we are the luckiest group of missionaries bc the First Presidency said they only send the best missionaries to the Capitol of USA to represent the church. We were all very emotional. It was a great moment and it boosted my confidence. I feel privileged to serve here! We are teaching about 4 investigators who i am just coming to love so much. Well g2g-im going to write a letter because not a lot of time left.
I love YOU all soooo much.
Thanks for prayers and everything!!! I attached 2 photos :)
Con Mucho Amor,
Hermana Tavernier

Thursday, July 1, 2010

First Emails tracting in Wash DC!!!

Dear Family-

I AM GREEEAT. Tracting is SO GOOD. It was incredible! We have 3 investigators-Tayna is from El Salvador-she works with Manuel(recent convert) at some country club-they are cleaners-very humble and amazing!-Manuel convert a month ago-his wife Hermana Lopez converted 5 years ago-SHE IS INCREDIBLE-even though i can barely understand them lol. So we meet her Saturday-she is a referral-member referrals are the best. We took her on a tour-the spirit was SO strong-she didn't know anything about Mormons. We watched the Joseph Smith movie-she loved it. :)

It is HOT! and HUMID!-we sweat SOOO much lol.

We eat at members houses about 5 times a week. Sometimes more or less. GOOOD food!
My companion Hermana Menendez is from Ecuador-she speaks very little English-that is why it is so hard for me-because im like-OK so who can understand how i feel-cuz it is hard to communicate!! But I am understanding A lot of Spanish-it is incredible!!!! :)

We don't have to wear knee highs :) wahoo

LOVE-YOU!!! Thank you for that quote. It was GREAT! I LOOOOVE that talk-His Hands. My favorite one from conference. I LOVE what you described about prayer. It is true! He does know what we need. ASK and YE SHALL RECEIVE!!-but the part I love most is-KNOCK and it shall be opened-We must do-act in all things right?

Ok so my first night tracting-was SO cool. We had an appt with Luis-he is about 65. He lives with his sister who is a member. She is so nice. Anyways she is really pushy with the church on him. He had his foot cut off about a week ago-gangrene. sad. but my comp has been in this area-Olney South for about 2 transfers now-and her compa dn her taught his about 4 times-like 3 months ago. BUT be was in the hospital for 6 weeks.He has been humbled now-so we extended him a bap date for julio 30. :) he accepted! First day! So cool!! I was like-wait is this really happening? this is missionary work!? haha. I didnt know what to expect. I didnt know that the Lord prepares the people too-we cannot convince and keep teaching until they are ready. We teach people-but they dont want it. Some people are coming to us! Like Alfanzo-he calls us all the time! HAhaa.I think tonight or tomorrow we are extending a bap date!!! im excited. So last night was great. OK the whole day was great. sun was so hard bc we didn't get into any doors-i felt awful! we talked to so many people too. BUT yesterday we went into about 5 or 6 homes. We taught Jovino who was baptized in December-hes 25- his story is incredible. baptized in 3 weeks. He lives at Dinaminas house who is 29-divorced has 2 kids-SHE IS INCREDIBLE! and speaks English! haha her story is great too-missionary's knocked on her door instantly after praying-she said she was going through hell at 18 yrs old. She married a great Mormon guy at 21...etc. didn't work out. She is from Dominican republic, moved here to Maryland when she was 10? So pretty Americanized. But she takes everyone into her home-has a heart of gold. anyways we were teaching them last night and then her friend asked to be taught! it was incredible.! It is hard for me to speak Spanish-but my comp is INCREDIBLE and is sooo diligent and hardworking. But Jazmine said that when i bore my testimony it was so clear and bold, powerful and she said sure.She wanted hers to be sure too. I told her everything is because of the Savior! It is true-the only reason I can understand Spanish in about 3 months is because of the Savior! Man it is incredible-the power I feel everyday-I have never felt this spirit so strong ever in my life-it is a HAPPY, comforting feeling. I cannot describe it. I LOVE this work! It brings me peace and assurance that this is where I am supposed to be. This is the greatest thing that could happen to me. I love it. I hope that everyone is well. Everyone is always in my prayers. :) I love you all so much and have loved this rocky yet joyful taste of my first week here. I love the culture and the language.

I love you all so much!!!

Con Amor Siempre,

Hermana Tavernier :)