This weeks letter theme..Moroni 7:29 (read it!!)

"han cesado los milagros, mis queridos hermanos? Os digo que no!"

ok i dont have my eng BOM with me but the theme is miracles! I
have an amazing companion!! Hermana Anderson rocks!! She is an
incredible teacher and we have a great time together. We have alot of
work to pick up in this area together which has been dead for a
while. We have both been out 5 months! :) Working at the VC is great. I
have seen some incredible miracles there. It is fun being able to give
tours. I guess what makes this VC different than others is that we give
tours. The mission president encourages all the missionaries to take
all of our investigators there when we being teaching. Theres a really
good statistic that i think, not exactly sure, but 30% of converts had
a good experience at a visitors center. We give tours to people who
walk in and it is great. OH something really crazy happened. when we
get to the VC, we also work in the calling room, we call our referrals
we receive from the VC and send the missionaries if they accept. well
since i a m new, the sisters gave me some older referrals. I opened my
bag and i had one from Meagan Ricks referring her friend Crystal. I was
like...wait this must be super old because shes been out a year i
think! And someone had brought it from the MTC. How crazy is that?!!?!
So i called her and only chatted for a couple minutes because she was
busy but wanted me to call her back! coincidence, i think not! haha.
my first tour i gave was an unscheduled tour, a latino family walked in
and i was working on the floor greeting, which means i can give them
tours when they walk in. SO it was a member family from virginia and
the mom had her brother there that wasnt a member. He wanted the
missionaries to come :) it was a tender mercy that happened! i was
just excited i was able to teach the restoration by myself :) I am so
so grateful for the gospel. We are all so blessed to have the truth in
our lives, to receive many many blessings!


Today we went to the city and up to the Washington Memorial :) we
were able to spot the temple from the north side. It is huge! Im
grateful to have temples, and to work at a Visitors center. We went to
the Smithsonian of the natural history! Super cool!!!!! it was
beautiful. DC is s super cool area!!


love you sooo much,

Hermanita Tav

This is Chelsies new web site-PICTURES TOO!

http://www.missionsite.net/sisterchelsietavernier/main

When the Lord calls....He qualifies

BuENAS!!!!!!

Well I thought i would start off with that sweet scripture because
this week was A MIRACLE WEEK :):) Rony got baptized on Sunday!!!!!!!
:))) So we found him about 6 weeks ago and taught him everything, and he
bailed out of his b date. He didn't call us for about 3 weeks-so
weird!!! BUT he continued coming to church...yes very strange. So we met
with him after not seeing him for a couple weeks and finally did last Wednesday night. Me and Hna Gomez extended baptism date for Sunday and he had
concerns...we resolved them and he got baptized!! it was the coolest
thing ever and soooo precious because he was my first find :):) What a
miracle, I have truly witnessed through prayer and fasting the miracles
the Lord will provide!!! Fernanda is AMAZING!!! i did get transferred,
so hopefully I will go back to her baptism, but her crazy husband agreed
to come to the Visitors center with us. He was not open at all, but
poor Fernanda just wants to have her husband and her be baptized
together. This is just something that she has to do, and something that
will take time for her husband. It was sad saying bye to my
investigators. :( i started crying LOL. But what happens is we get call
outs Monday telling everyone in our zone where we are going. I am
serving now in Glenmont. My comp is Hermana Anderson. SHE IS LEGIT!!!
Ive been blessed with the most amazzzzzzing comp's ever! SO fun and cute,
all of them :) I really cannot complain! She is from Idaho-so we are the
only Spanish companionship of sisters here that are both American LOL.
Everyone was like "uh oh you two are together?!" lol. I guess they
think were both a little hyper?? hmmmm. But she is a lot like me. she came out 4
transfers ago, and i met her in the MTC lol. We are both babies still.
she has known Spanish her whole life and taught in Guatemala for 1 ano.
:) pdays are Thursday. I started my FIRST DAY at the Visitors Center
yesterday! It is so different. Most likely I will be working there 4
days a week either AM or PM shift. we gave a couple tours so it was
nice. Still getting used to it all. Im sure many miracles are to come
there too :) its getting a little cooler here-wish i was still on bike
lol. Its weird to have a car. Our area is HUGE. we have a pretty good
size teaching pool as far as i know. Im used to full-pros and always
filling the day, so it will be a big change now. Spanish
is......great!!! i feel soooo blessed that i can speak now without
problems. it totally came out of the blue within a couple weeks ago.
:))))its sweet! i have a quote i really want to share. It is about
service from President Monson. It is so great. "The Savior taught His disciples,"for whosoever shall save his life shall lose it, but whosoever
will loose his life for My sake, the same shall save it." I believe the
Savior is telling us that unless we loose ourselves in service to others,
there is little purpose to our own lives. Those who live only for
themselves, eventually shrivel up and figuratively loose their lives,
while those who loose themselves in the service to others grow and
flourish and in effect SAVE their lives" I LOVE THAT. Do we get so
caught up sometimes in our lives that we forget about others? I know
that as we continue to step back and evaluate our works, if we see we aren't as happy as we could be or there are problems upon problems,
something is wrong with us and we must change that! I know through the
Savior we can change and become more like Him as we incorporate His
attributes into our lives and strive and live to be like him. i have a
testimony of this incredible work. I know it is true. Share it with
everyone!! That is our purpose in this life is to progress and I know we
can progress and feel of that gozo when we truly live the gospel and
tell everyone about it. I know for me personally, I am the happiest ever
when i am sharing the gospel!!!! :) continue serving others, find every
way :) The Lord will bless us, I know that!!!


love you all so much-

Hermana Tavernier

The mission is SAWEET!!!

Hola madre y padre y todos!
loved getting all the emails about Chase's...I mean "ELDER" Tavernier's !I just write him a letter and mailed it off. That first week letter that I know he will want to hear next week. lol. The mission is SAWEET!!! Wow times are hard right now, sometimes it doesn't seem like anyone will listen! But the Lord knows the desires of our hearts and blesses us with knowledge and tender mercies in our companionship that seem to shake us a little, like a too good to be true companionship. She is incredible and man we have been getting good work done. We met with Fernanda, she has a testimony!!!!!! We found her about 3-4 weeks ago and man was she prepared already. I started balling in the lesson when she told us she knows the church is true, that this is the best feeling she has ever had. Shes been repenting and feels something change in her life, like she wants to just go around doing good!! Her husband is the problem. The BIG problem bc he is anti! He hates mormons...yikes! The funniest part is he called us a couple days ago and was like you guys should come to my mass and have a little "chat" over the web with my friends in Mexico....omg! we were like...um we aren't he to bible bash! You can just imagine two smiling happy giddy girls talking to some big crazy macho mexican guy lol..he was suprised because we just continue to bare our testimonies. SO we saw her yesterday and she apologized for her husband calling us. She said they got in the biggest fight ever is their marriage(been married for 1 yr and have a 5 month yr old girl) SOO we feel awful of course bc this is not the point of the Gospel to tear apart families of course!!!! We have been praying forever for him and guess what? He agreed to go the the Visitors Center @the temple with us!!!! he only met us once at church too and talked to us for probably 30 seconds. We met her a Friday, and she was like yeaaa id love to go to church and bring my husband. When they got there, her husband was like, I think this is the Mormons....she was like yea i think it is too..wink wink. LOL Soooo pray for them!!! She is incredible!!!!!!!!! Rony finally called us back!!!! me and menendez(my mom) found him last transfer and he stopped contacting us for about 3 weeks, and he had a baptism date too!!!! So we found him in his car last week and hes like..see you at church!! we were like...can we meet? he kept dogging our appointments, but continues to go to church! so weird! So we pulled him out of class (pushy sister missionaries) and talked to him and found out everything under the "iceberg." Hes been missing church and so forth...so we are meeting him tonight and extending bdate for 2 weeks. Our investigators have really gone through heck and back since we have taught them, and Satan knows they are INCREDIBLE people. They will be the future leaders of the church, they are both in their late 20's. my testimony of the power of the Book of Mormon has grown so much. Me and my comp teach the Book of Mormon as our first principle now because we prayed and felt inspired to teach that first. Since then, we have really seen a great change in our teaching pool. When people gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon and recieve all of the wonderful promises listed in the end of the B.O.M, they really change and have that desire to be baptized. The church is true, and I am soo grateful for it. Since being on my mission, I knew things were true before and had a testimony, but it never felt that strong, but when nurtured properly by study, ponder and prayer, it grows and there isnt a day that goes by that the Holy Ghost has touched me and told me yes, its true! Im grateful for the witness of the Holy Ghost. This transfer comes to and end this week!!!! :( but I have received a testimony of prayer this transfer. My comp has taught me through her testimony about prayer. She is a convert of a couple years. She is incredible and the people are touched by her conversion story, especially the Latinos bc they are ALL Catholics like she was too. She has helped me so much strengthen my testimony. I am grateful for my wonderful parents who taught me to read my scriptures and gain a testimony of them when i was a small child! I have always known they were true because of that feeling I felt when a child, and I have had the opportunity to share that with a lot of people this week :) I think my english is getting worse! I gave a lesson at our District meeting, and could barely get out the words! ey ey...and praying!!! i dont even want to try out loud in english!! haha. It is funny! they say when I go to the VC(probably this next transfer) i will be using lots of english and spanish, so that will be good.
Love you all and take care. There is an awesome gen conf talk by Wirtlin, april 2009 conference called the one or something like that, read it!!!! its is incredible!!!!!!
Love you alll!!!!! la iglesia es verdadera!!!!! good news!!!!

Love,
Hermana Tav

my companion have been really working hard the past week

Hola!!!!
Well this week has been great! We had our Zone Conference on Monday and wow it was incredible. There are a lot of new changes in the mission, some new curriculum, but it is excellent. We will be seeing a lot of success now from it. Me and my companion have been really working hard the past week and have been really asking and praying for answers to help our investigators. This morning we had a really neat experience. We were sharing what we read about the Book of Mormon. We shared how we new it was true and the experiences we have had through prayer. The power of the Book of Mormon is incredible. There is a triple promise if we read and ask if it is true! One, we will know Jesus is the Christ, two, we will know Joseph Smith was the prophet who restored the church, and three, we will know that The Church of Jesus Christ is the true church. It is so important for others to gain a testimony that this Book is true. The words help, inspire and uplift others to do GOOD!! To want to be better and to change, that is how it has helped me so muuuch. I know that it is true and the words are for our days!! I know that id we pray before we read and ask our Father in Heaven to help give us scriptures to apply to our lives, they will indeed come out to us and come to life!! So amazing! We have 3 steady progressing investigators who are great. We had an incredible lesson last night and in the afternoon with two of them! I am learning the importance of testifying and how important it is to help them gain their own testimonies, and not just teach lessons, but to teach to people. I feel so privileged to have this Gospel of GOOD NEWS!!! It is wonderful, and no matter what goes wrong, Heavenly Father is waiting for us to just pick up our phone and dial in, because he will give us what we need if we really ask for it! love you all and pray for our investigators that they will be able to gain testimonies and enter into the waters of baptism!!!!!
Con mucho amor,
Hermana Tavernier :))

Holocust Museum today-INCREDIBLE!!

HI :) how are you!? thanks for the emails and letters! I know things are hard, things are really hard always! Heavenly Father, I know this for surety that He tests us for a reason, and its because He knows already that we can handle it! We volunteered to come to earth and to pass the test! And its our job to ask. With everything that has gone on, rejection and rejection, canceled baptisms a couple days before here in the mission field, I KNOW that if we ask and tell Heavenly Father please "I cannot do this!" he WILL answer us and help us. One thing I have really learned is that He does not want us to be confused, we aren't here on the earth just to WORK, Work, WORK, make money, spend it, that cycle which I have seen in pretty much every person I meet. He wants us to become like Him, and LIVE the gospel of His Son. It is incredible some of the experiences I have, well i might say all of them, which truly test my faith, and I feel most of the experiences I have are for me.
So today, we were heading back from the city-we finally went!!!! Visited the HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL-again-it was INCREDIBLE!
On the Metro home we got off our stop and were walking up to the car, all of the sudden at the bus stop we see Jose(a recent convert) waiving in the bus driving by! We have been praying praying praying to find him. About 3 weeks ago we saw him in the street and he told us that he didn't want anything to do with the church because of some of the things he had done, etc. He doesnt have a phone number, and the place he lived at was empty the past couple weeks. Basically he didn't feel the atonement would work in his life. It was a MIRACLE in the middle of some random street we saw him. He got off the bus and headed towards us.We talked with him and helped him realize it doesnt matter what you did, as long as you are williing to repent and never go back. So we got his new address. Wow it is incredible how the Lord truly knows the thoughts and intentions of our hearts and answered our prayers. This gospel is a gospel of truth and miracles, it completes and edifies people in a way that we would never see possible without someone who sacrficed His life for us. On my planner i have a saweet picture of a blind man and Christs hands touching his eyes and I cut out in the Liohona this "El puede curar TODA HERIDA" which means "He can heal any wound." I love that. I have really seen that throught the Atonement of our Savior, wow when we sin, he will help us, if we have weaknesses, he will make them stronger, if we have sadness, he can really make them go away. The Atonement isn't just for sin, its for times of sadness, and weakness, trials and frustration. We have to act right? thats the only way! We can really feel of that love after we submit our will. It is the best feeling. I am grateful, so grateful for the happiness and comfort of this gospel, of the message of LOVE that it is. I have learned that love and charity are essential and if we illuminate this Christlike attributes into our lives and live them, we will become more like him and change. Change is good! I think a lot of people don't accept change well, a lot of missionaries don't wanna see that "change" in themselves, but hey, that's what we are here for on this earth, to change and to become more Christlike, to accept the downfalls and learn from them and grow from them :) My theme i write in all my planners is "let the mission change you!" I dont want to go back to where I was before and if i do, then wow I really didnt learn anything on my mission, and it would deny the existance of our purpose here on earth. I love this area. Its been tough but I know that the Lord always provides, and it may not be always in the way we want it to be. Its super humid still! Today a little rain, which was a nice refresher. My comp is excellente!!!! we have such a fun time, she is really funny and we enjoy every minute together, i really just love her with all my heart. She is helping me so much with Spanish, I wont let her speak English with me lol. We have had a lot of funny things happen to us just the couple weeks we've been together. Its saweet!!!!!


Well g2g time is so short!! I love you all and pray for everyone! ::)
take care
Con Amor,
Hermana TAV :)

I LOOOVE missionary work. IT rocksss!!!!!

Im STAYING :) in Olney South-they are keeping it FULL-PROS :)wahooo and BIKES:) my new comp is sooo great! Hermana Gomez. She is from here-but yea she is from slavador i think. :)We had our second baptism this past Sunday!! Luis got baptized(the one with the lower leg amputated.) The baptism was incredible and the spirit was so strong. He brought his walker into the font for stability. It was so cool. I love this area. Its gonna be great this next transfer. We are finding a lot of potentials. I have really loved working with Hermanna menedez. she taught me a lot, hard work and obedience. I love her sooo much..shes my "mom" :) haha. There arent any new sisters this transfers. Im so excited to work with Hermann Gomez. she has strep right now though :( it is a little sad :( and i stil have the "death cough" as my roommates call it. I was sooo sick on thursday. I had to sleep during my studies it was awful then i was like..i cant do this anymore(sick thing) so i took a shower, said a prayer with my comp and got ready and i felt better that night and since then its been better. For about 2 days my body was soo weak. I hated those days. But im better :)
We are working with Rony right now, he is so great and is really progressing a lot. We took him the the VC last night and taught him about lesson 3-the gospel of Jesus Christ. Wow the spirit was so strong and we were watching a talk sobre the importance of baptism and everything. I love this work and the opportunity I have everyday to share my testimony and see the light in other people's eyes. I am grateful for the comfort and happiness I feel through the Atonement and through this gospel. I have really learned so much about who I am, and what I want to be :) I am grateful for faithful hardworking members of this church who really make things possible because members of our ward are incredible and really are dedicated to helping us. :)
I love this gospel, I LOOOVE missionary work. IT rocksss!!!!!
G2g LOOOOVE YOOOU
Hermana ChelsieTavernier :)

Had our FIRST BAPTISM this past week

We had my first BAPTISM on sunday!!! wow it was so amazing. Miguel :) He is so great and the spirit was so strong at his baptism! It was so cool. We have ANOTHER baptism this sunday with Luis! It is so good. The work is finally coming up in our area, wheras it was dead for a while. We have a couple other investigators who we will be extending dates to soon this week. :) It was an eventful week. Particularily because there was a huge storm/tornato like downfall. The power was our for a couple days, thankfully not in our apartment because ours has its own plant system. BUT everywhere else=NO power. And still they dont think it will work until saturday in most areas here in this county. It is sad! There was an earthquake about 2 weeks ago too! And they have never had one here before. But the storm was sunday around 3 right after we left church. We were going to go home, but thankfully members invited us to eat at their home so we werent on our bikes :) close one there! So things have been kinda rough for a lot of members here. Other than that everything is great! We have transfers next pday already! I cannot believe it! That was the fastest 6 weeks ever!!!!!!!! It feels like I just got to the mtc still. Well...everything is coming along and I finally feel adjusted to everything, time the streets and places, the bike, the culture and the weather! :) I am so grateful to be here at this time, to have my companion who continues to help me progress and learn how to be a great dedicated missionary. Spanish is comin along. :) So I was reading in the Gen Conference ensign from may 2009 the talk by E. Eyring called "Adversity." It is such a wonderful talk. Please read it! It is a wonderful talk that will help anyone with any issue or circumstance that seems unfair. It is powerful and motivating! I am grateful for our prophet and apostles who tell us exactly what we need to hear. They are incredible, inspired men! i love this quote by Uchdorft..."as we extend our hands and our hearts towards others in Christlike LOVE, something wonderful happens to us! Our own spirits become HEALED, more REFINED, and STRONGER. We become HAPPIER, more PEACEFUL, and more receptive to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit." Wow i love that. I mean isnt that what we all want right? To be happy and peaceful and strong? I know I do! lol. And as we do a self check daily of who we were that day and what our actions where...do we resemble Christ? I know that when we act as He would act, we feel His love, and nothing else matters, because we are focused on Him and who we want to become. I am so grateful for this gospel and its message of happiness, love and truthfulness! How fortunate we are to have it in our lives.
I love you all veddddy much :) Hope everyones doing excelllent. hugs to all :)
Love always,
Hermana TAV :)

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 :))

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

picture looks like she just won the lottery????