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| Proud companion |
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| Hna Huber |
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| Hna Jennings givin some love to the mission baby |
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| Missionary work is hard labor |
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| another pic of the baby bump |
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| Ley de Castidad... surprise!! |
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| cute hna Jennings and me |
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| my daughter Hna Portillo is going to have a sister! |
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
9 months!!! I have my mission baby!!!
Okay so sorry I didnt get this out BEFORE all the crazy drama started happening with my asthma and stuff... but I thought I could share the fun pictures we took the week that I went to the hospital (a few days before).. Okay so here are my 9 months pictures! No I am not actually pregnant.It is just a fun tradition for the sisters... because it is exactly half way through the mission :) so here are some of my fun pics of that.....
1.15.13 Happy Late Pday!
Hey Fam,
Okay so this week I had a bit of an interesting experience. I want to start off with MOM.. Dont freak out on me. You know my bad luck.. but I am okay :) Basically I had an asthma attack Saturday night and so I went to the hospital and they gave me lots of medicines cuz I kinda stopped breathing. I am totally fine though. But then they released me and the next day I had a nother one in the middle of sacrament meeting. Thankfully president wright and his wife were there for a baptism so they drove me to another hospital really quickly.. but that time I was still breathing (got better ha ha). Anyway I had to stay inthe hospital for 4 days because I apparently had an "crisis de asthma" or an asthma crisis I think.. Also on top of that some infection in my lungs so that made it even worse. I am ok now though.. I had lots of breathing treatments and about 10 different medicines. right now we are going to be living in the president-s house for a few days beacuse I can-t go outside and there are a lot of fires which makes it worse. Okay sorry I had to give you this information! But i am totally fine. the lord has been looking out for me! If you have any questions you can call and talk to Hermana Wright the mission president's wife (just in case you don=t believe I am okay) Sorry I missed p day! I love you guys so much and I miss you tons! I look forward to writing you a longer letter on the next p day! Okay?12.23.13 Feliz Navidaddd!! Merry Christmas!!!
Feliz Navidad everyone!
I can just say that I will be spending Christmas a whole lot differently here! It is supppeeerrrr HOT and I am away from you guys.. but to tell you the truth I think it will be one of my most memorable Christmases! There will be no snow, christmas lights, orchestra concerts, ribbons, wrapping paper, Santa, gingerbread cookies, candy canes or fireplaces, or my family...- but I will be surrounded by the people that I love here. I will be able to share the Christmas spirit with the Chilean people, and give the gift of sharing the gospel to Christ this Christmas :) I can't lie and tell you that it won't be difficult but I sure can tell you that I know it will be worth it :) I feel blessed t o be able to be here and to spend a Christmas serving the Lord. Ifeel like the sacrifices are really really really miniscule compared to the blessings that I am recieving! I am so glad that you guys got to go to Savior of the World. I LOVE that play... it really brings the spirit into Christmas and helps us focus on the true meaning. This past week I have really been able to focus on the true meaning of Christmas aswe have shared our message with people here... I love to read Luke 2.. the original story of Christ's birth and then to talk about 2 Nephi 9:21 because the story of Christ's birth would not mean anything if it weren't for his infinite atonement.. if it weren't for the fact that he suffered so that we could have the opportunity to repent and to live with our families and with Heavenly father forever. I am extremely grateful to know this truth and to be able to celebrate Christmas with this in mind. I pray that I can be the kind of missionary that God expects me to be so that I can help bring this beautiful truth to other people. It is difficult in the world today because of all the many distractions, but I know that it is possible and that the Lord has a lot planned for us.
This week was a great week for us! We found a new investigator named Sonia who is really interested! It also turns out to be a very small world! Come to find out... Sonia's son is married to our other investigator, maria's daughter. Also she was lisxtening to missionaries before.. but when they left pirque they didn't leave her information in the area book. Dang Elders! Also.. we happened to have contacted both her son and her husband on two seperate occasions. Can I just say THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS COINCEDENCES! ha ha.. well I sure hope not.. because to me it really seems like Heavenly Father is working hard to get us to teach her! Anyway she is really humble and extremely receptive. She also said that her son is atheist and asked us if that meant he was a bad person. We explained that maybe he just never felt the blessings or thelove of God in his life. She told us that that might be ture because his life has been prettyt difficult. She said that he told her that he wanted to listen to us thought, but after her first lesson with us. Sweet right!?
Also we had yet another memorable lesson with Berta. She told us that we have changed her life and that she is working hard to help her husband accept the gospel. She broke down bawling and asked us to pray for her so that her family will accept her getting baptized. She is a very very very special woman to me and I feel like the opportunity i have had to get to know her alone has been a huge blessing!
I love you guys soooo omuch! I wish you a very very very very MERRY CHRISTMAS! and I pray that you can feel the spirit throughout the whole week! I will miss you, but I am soo excited to tlak to you on Wednesday through skype! :)
Love
Hermana Hailey
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12.16.13
Hey you guys!
It feels like this week was forever long! I couldn't wait to talk to you this monday! Well the week passed fast but it feels like forever ago that we last spoke! I am doing really well. I was SUPER bummed to find that I couldn't recieve my package but my companion helped me feel better :) We are really getting along so much better and I feel like we are both putting in 100 percent effort to work together. it is official. I am going to be in Pirque ANOTHER CHANGE!!!"!! :D yay! The bad news is that Hermana Tax had changes :( we cried for hours. seriously. She is my best friend here on the mission and we have been together since the MTC so it was super hard to have to say goodbye to her. That is the way missions are though! So I can't complain too much! I went from being the only gringo in the pension last change... to being 1 of 3 gringos! My poor companion is the only latina now! The new companion is Hermana Jennings from Georgia.She is really nice and she seems to really like Pirque. I hope that we can all get along really well and have a lot of fun!
We had an awesome lesson with Maria. We read 3 Nephi 11 and she told us that she knows the book of Mormon is true and that she is willing to get baptized! She is leaving on vacation for a week and said she will take the book of Mormon to read :) Sweet right!?
WEll I am super excited for Christmas! It is actually really cool to be here on my mission in this timie of the year! We went to the Chilean Christmas devoitional yesterday. It was an outdoor concert and it was liek a sweet christmas concert mixed with Chilean culture.. from Easter Island (cool polynesian dancees) and Mapuche dances. Also David Archuleta sang alot of songs. It was beautiful!The only bummer is that we came a little late.. well right on time.. and we had to stand outside the gate of where it was and it was super hard to see. There were sooooooooo many people! But we got to listen at least! We also went inside and we looked at a litttle collection of nativity scenes from all over the world and Chile. It was sweet! That is about it!
I love you guys so much! Thanks for everything that you do for me and for all of your prayers.l definately feel them here on my mission! I am so grateful for the family and friends that I have and for there love and kindness. I love you all so much!
Love
Hermana Hailey Sommerfeld
12.9.13 December is Here!!!!
Hey family!
Well this week was an absolutely crazy and busy week! I am exhausted! But in a very good way! I am just gonna tell you day by day what went on!
Tuesday
We went to San Vicente... it is a super far ways away from the rest of our sector and there is literally a house every other mile... we walked a ton!!!! But we had a feeling we should keep contacting. Finally we came to a house and the person said Come in! we were super surprised because we had been rejected by every one else in the past 2 hours. So we walked in and there was an older lady that had a broken arm and was a little sick and apologized for not being able to walk out and recieve us. Anyway we talked to her for a bout 45 minutes and we had an awesome lesson! She lives with a lot of her family in a giant parcela (it is a piece of land iwth about 5 houses.. usually the kids don't leave home when they grow up.. they just add another house.) And she said that the rest of her family is probably interested in our message too! How cool!
Also awesome lesson with Berta. I don't know if you remember when I talked about Berta, the older woman that has cancer. Well we are still working with her becuase she is progressing, surely but slowly! Anyway we went this week to teach her a lesson and when we got to the house she was really grumpy and said she couldn't recieve us. I asked her what was going on because that was wierd for us because even when she is super sick she always lets us in! We got to talking for a little bit and then she told me "I never thought that I would ask why me.. but I am asking this right now. Why me? Why am I suffering why is everything bad happening to me? I feel abandoned by God. He doesn't love me. He has left me solo." We told her that that is not what is going on and asked if we could come inside to help her. She let us in and we talked a little bit about her divine nature.. How she is a child of God and he is letting her have all her trials so that she can become stronger. It is crazy how many trials she really has... Her son died in the earthquake in 2010, she has cancer and can't eat anything, her daughter was just diagnosed with leukemia, she has to take care of her granddaughters, her husband is sick but still has to go to work for 11 hours each day and recently had a problem so he can't drive the car anymore, and soooo many more trials. We couldn't ever possibly explain to her the reason why she has each trial, but we testified to her of God's love for her and we asked if we could read a talk with her. We were inspired to bring "Nobody was with Him" by Elder Holland, and it was for a good reason! The first paragraph says "This is for those that feel abandoned and alone." Exactly how she felt. We were supposed to take turns reading the paragraphs, but she read the whole talk.. and would stop after every other sentence and just pause in silence. She would then weep and continue on reading. I can honestly say I have never felt the spirit so strong in my life, and reading the talk with her actually taught me also! I felt my testimony of the atonement grow and I felt the love that Heavenly Father and the Savior have for each one of us. It made me feel kind of dumb that I complain about my few and very little tribulations that I have day to day.. to think that someone that has as much trials as Berta keeps on going and keeps her faith in Christ. It was a beautiful experience and it really made me feel like my time here is definately worth it. I am so grateful for this opportunity to strengthen my testimony and to see others develope one of their own. Also Berta told us that she told her family that she was going to join our church, and they all pretty much said that she was not welcome to family events any more because they were all centered on a catholic belief. She told us that she quoted the scripture from the bible that says Leave mom and dad and cleave unto God, or something like that, and that she is ready to follow Christ and to join this church. We didn't get a date set, but I am sure that she is closer than ever to being baptized. I know that if it is not her time to be baptized with us she for sure will be baptized with other missionaries. I think Satan knows what power she will have when she joins the church, so he is doing everything possible to hold her back. Cool experience.
Also we taught Guido. He is a super cute old man that lives alone and he has a learning disability so we have to teach him like a child.. He actually has read from the book of mormon each night though! We just have to assign him one verse at a time and he works really hard to try and understand that verse. He said he believes the church is true because every time we talk to him he feels peace. He is progressing reaaaallllllyyyy slowly, but not because he isn't trying.. just because it is hard for him to understand everything. I will keep you posted on him :)
Wednesday:
Nothing special. Lots of lessons. lots of contacting. lots of walking.
Thursday:
We went to the church for a ward council meeting and a guy walked in and asked us if there was a priest present. We told him no but asked what he needed. He said that he was really scared and felt really bad because there was a voodoo witch lady that tried to cast a spell on him and he felt like he needed help from a priest. I tried asking him what happened and how he felt, but my companion cut in and started to talk a lot... like usual and pretty much said "Oh its okay.., its just to scare you.. you are fine." There was a return missionary there too and he said the same thing.. then the guy walked out. I got frustrated and i kind of yelled at my companion and the return missionary.. Okay I didn't yell but I talked to them in my frustrated voice and I said "YOU JUST LET A MISSIONARY OPPORTUNITY WALK OUT THE DOOR." They both looked at me and immediately went and brought him back into the church.. Then Hermana Tax and I gave him a card that has Christ knocking on a door and the order of prayer on the back. We talked about how he can develop spiritual protection from those kinds of things and how if he prays he can feel peaceful again, and all the bad feelings can go away. We went into the chapel and kneeled down and asked him to offer a prayer. He offered the prayer and then told us "Wow. I feel really peaceful right now. " We got his address and he actually called us the next day to thank us for what happened. Goes to show that we can be missionaries in every moment. we just need to recognize when we have those opporutnities.
Friday
We had divisions. I went to apoquindo.. it is the super rich part of Santiago.. It is beautiful and reminds me of California! Seriousl yit is just like california.. I will send pics :)
Saturday
Divisions too. We taught a guy that just graduated from the University with a degree in Baptist Ministry.. like he is literally a baptist preacher. He has been reading the book of mormon searching for errors.. he is in alma 30 something and still hasn't found one. Sweet.
Also we went and sang Christmas songs to an old people home as relief society. it was an awesome experience because we were able to talk to all the sweet little old ladies and we really felt the spirit. I love going and doing that kind of thing.. makes me super happy! Reminds me of the Christmas' I always have had at home :)
And that is it!!!
My challenge to you guys this Christmas season is to pray about someone with whom you can share a book of Mormon as a family! I know that someones name will come to your mind! What a better gift to give the savior!
Love you guys with alllllssss offf my heart!
Hugs and kisses! and Christmas wishes! :) ha ha how cheasy.
Hermana Hailey Bailey Sommerfeld
12.2.13 What thinks Christ of me?
Hey guys!
This week went by super super quickly.. just like all of the other weeks!!!!! How was thanksgiving? How is mom with her surgery? Does she feel better? I thought she was going to do that in December? Thanksgiving was just like any other day here... Except for Mauricio took my companion and I to KFC because he felt bad that I wasn't going to be able to eat a good old American Thanksgiving fest. It was really cute :) We were really content... The wierd thing is that KFC here doesn't come with the usual sides like mashed potatoes, colslaw and biscuits.. It only comes with French Fries and Cheese empanadas... really odd combination for me, but it was yummy :) I am officially so sick of drinking sodas! I will be perfectly happy to drink only water. Welll. Nothing else extraordinary happened. We walked a lot. Taught little :( We are excited trhough for Christmas... and it should be fun to contact people with the christmas cards :D That is about it for today! Sorry for the short letter! Oh yeah! So we went to the specialist this week for all my problems.. and he told me that I basically have had a permanent sinus infection because of the allergies that I have here... and i have to take another inhaler, a nose inhaler thingy, and 2 more allergy medicines, and an antibiotic.. Thankfully none of these give the usual drugged up effect and I will be able to work like a normal person!!! So weird though that i only have allergies so bad here!!! It might be because there are so many trees that produce pollen... Now I feel like you dad! ha ha! Okay.. Thats about it.. I went shopping for some summer clothes today so I feel happy :) You guys know how much I love to shop and how it is a destressing activity for me ha ha! I figured it is okay because it is christmas time :)
Well for spiritual thought;
I read a great talk this week by Elder Niel L. Andersen.. entitled What thinks Christ of Me?
I like the part when he says "Jesus's call 'Come, follow me' is onot only for those prepared to compete in a spiritual olympics. In fact, discipleship is not a competition at all but an invitation to all. Our journey of discipleship is not a dash around a track, nor is it fully comparable to a lengthy marathon. In truth it is a lifelong migration towa4rd a more celestial world."... I was thinking about how often we may compare ourselves to others and our testimonies to others.. but it shouldn0t be that way, because we are all on our own different journeys and there is no way to compare our journeys with those of others.
I also loved the part that says "Miracles are not always so immediate. At times we thoughtfully wonder wh the miracle we have so earnestly prayed for does not happen here and now. But as we trust in the Savior, promised miraccles will occur. whether in this life or the next, all will be made right. The savior declares "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." In the world ye hsall have ttribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" Itestify that as you love Him, trust5 Him, believe Him, and follow Him, you will feel His love and approval. As you ask "What thinks Christ of me?" you wil know that you are >His disciple, you are His friend. By His grace He will do for you what you cannot do for yourself. "
If you have time you can click on the link and read or listen to the whole talk. It is absolutely wonderful :) I know as we start to think more like this we will forget our problems and we will trry to work hard to become better disciples of Christ.
I love you guys!
Hermana sommerfeld
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