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| Hermana Tuft with a white bunny that looks just like our BELLA. September 2013 |
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| Hermanas Tuft and Matias, 18 September 2013, Chilean Independence Day |
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| This is an older picture I THOUGHT I added but has Mamita and Papito in it, where they live - 18 July 2013 |
Hello All!
It's been another great week here in Arica, of course. :) I love it here so much, and we have started to work more and more with the members, especially since they've been home from their temple trip. We had zone conference this week and tri-monthly interviews, so President and Hermana Dalton were here for the weekend and we had great experiences with those we are teaching. I love this work! I love seeing the change in people's lives as they accept this gospel and accept the Atonement into their lives. It truly is incredible.
To answer a couple of questions, it's been really hot here. It's about 85° from noon to 7 pm, and then the nights do still get a little chilly. Just like summer nights in Utah, we just bring a light jacket and we're fine. :) But that's 85° with really strong sun, so it feels hotter. Or I'm just a 'Lily' and not used to the sun... :P I love it here though so much, heat and all. :) (Dad, that alarm clock that broke in the MTC and then you guys sent me a new one has the temperature in Farenheit and Celsius, so that's been nice! :))
We had a wonderful conference this week. It was with all the zones here in Arica, and we talked a lot about the new goals for the mission and how we are going to get there. We had a mission fast last month to know what goals we should make, and then we wrote President about our thoughts and impressions. Then he looked at all of our impressions and made the goals for the mission accordingly. We are going to be working a lot with keeping people active, reactivation, and working with the families. A lot of time it's so much easier to teach the kids of the family because they are much more accepting, but we need to work more with the families, because this gospel is for families. We are so very blessed to have families in our lives! So the conference was great, and we're excited to work more closely with the ward and with the families that are being prepared for this gospel!
We had our zone conference in the morning, so in the afternoon we got to go out and teach as normal. Hermana Matias and I both had some strong impressions about specific people throughout the conference, and so we went to visit them that night. We stopped by one of our investigator's house. Her name is Andrea and we had the strong feeling that we needed to share with her dad and sister, whom she lives with. We had a great lesson with them. Her dad is Penticostal, and knows a lot about the Bible. Andrea came to church for the first time yesterday as well, so we were excited about that! We'll continue to share with her dad and sister as well. Later that night we stopped by a new member's house. His name is Osvaldo and he has 2 daughters. They aren't members, and don't want much to do with the church, but they'll usually listen if we invite them to. So we started talking with Osvaldo and he told us his conversion story, how he didn't believe in God, but little by little he started going to church and reading the Book of Mormon. He was baptized 3 years after he started meeting with the missionaries (last year about this time) and is planning on going with the ward in February to the temple. (They're going to start going 2 times every year! :D) After he told us his story, the spirit was so strong, and we felt impressed to ask him how he felt like we could help his daughters accept this gospel as well. He got a little emotional, and told us ways he thought they might start listening more. We had a wonderful experience there, and I'm excited to see what the Lord has in store for them.
We also got to meet with Fabiola and Jorge on Saturday, and they are continually reading the Book of Mormon and praying diligently. They are so wonderful!! They changed their wedding to January, because that's when Jorge's family can come up and when they'll been done with school and work for about a month. In the meantime, they continue to go to church and meet with us, and they are learning so very much. They're both planning on going to Conference with us both days this weekend, so we are SO very happy about that. :D Hermana Matias asked Jorge what changed for him, because in the beginning he didn't believe any of it, nor did he want to read the Book of Mormon, etc. It was pure questions from him in the beginning, like he was trying to stump us... He smiled when Hna Matias asked him that, and continued to tell us that he researched a lot in the internet and such, and then when Fabiola started reading things in the Book of Mormon that we had assigned, he started to be more curious and wanted to find out more from us, rather than the internet. He kept saying how much it just makes sense, and how he really things that it's true, but that he wants to finish it to find out for sure. That was completely fine with us. :) He also talked about how he called his family and told them that Fabiola and him were getting married, and they were very supportive in the beginning! But then a couple days ago his dad called and said they didn't want them to get married, that they're too young, they need more time, etc. But Jorge (who was reluctant to accept our invitation to be married so quickly) told him that he knew that this is what they needed to do and that they are getting married. He knows there will be more trials ahead, because he still hasn't told his family about the church, that he wants to be baptized, etc, but he said this is something that they really do want. And that they are preparing to go to the temple the following year. He told us that they just want something small for the civil wedding, because they know "the other wedding is more important anyway". Dah!! We were so very happy. It was an incredible lesson. And I hope that all made sense... :)
We're still working with Jasmin and her brother Nacho, and still hoping to have a family night with them sometime soon to meet with their parents as well... Every time we plan it, something comes up and they can't... :( So we're still working on that one. :) We haven't seen Andres in a while, because he's never at his house these days... We'll continue to stop by and see how he is and see if we can't talk to his mom sometime... She works a lot and is gone most of the time, but we'll keep at it.
For General Conference this weekend we'll all be going to the stake center. We will be watching it live as well, so it'll start at 1 pm instead of 10 am. :) And we'll be watching a rebroadcast of the General Relief Society Meeting on Saturday morning, so NO I didn't get to see Megan Walker!! :( But I will be looking very closely for her on Saturday in her mint green shirt next to the Conductor! :D So exciting she got to do that!! Also, we got a call the other day and it was Paulina Porrus' mom! She'll be at conference, so we'll finally get to meet up with her. I'm pretty excited. :) I love Conference. :) It was weird to think that a year ago I was at home and heard the announcement about the age change, and here I am in Chile on my mission one year later. :) That was a fun thought for me. :)
A couple funny moments and then I'd better head. :) We had the lesson with Andrea and her dad & sister, and at the end we invited Andrea to say the closing prayer. (They're redoing their house and have dirt/rocks for a floor right now, just as background.) She didn't want to say it, but asked her dad to. So he asked if we could kneel, to which we, of course, said yes! So we knelt in these rocks thinking it would be a fairly short prayer...literally 5 minutes later he finished. Hna Matias were dying as we got up and had little gravel rocks stuck in our knees! Hahaha we've been laughing about that one for a couple days. :) Good prayer though... :) Also, Mamita and I have these lovely little "scare wars" and every night when we come in we try and scare her, because she always scares us when we come down for breakfast/to leave for the day/etc. She's always scaring us. AND she gets us every time... Hahaha so the other day we came in and she was eating 'once' (a food they eat a lot pronounced 'own-say') with her son and daughter-in-law, and Papito was watching the news. (He's always on our side... :P) So we sneeked in and we knew Papito could see us out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't turn and we jumped around the corner and shouted BOO and Mamita flew back in her chair and she was holding a KNIFE!! Hahaha so we were very glad she didn't have the reflex to throw it....that would've been very bad, but she was laughing so hard and we finally got her back. :) I love Mamita and Papito, they are so very great, and they said to send their love to the family. :)
I'm not too sure how I like this whole email thing cause I'm not ever sure if it makes sense, but there you go and I hope that some of that did actually make sense. :) The work is hastening, and I feel so very blessed to be a part of it. We are all a part of it! How blessed we are!! I know this Church is true. I know that Joseph Smith restored it and that we have the power of God on the earth today, and that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet today. I am so very excited to hear from him this weekend, and can't wait to hear all your thoughts from Conference! :)
All my love,
Hermana Tuft
=================
Hellloo there Family!
It sounds like you all had a very busy and interesting week! I know that you might not have had the results that we were all hoping for in New Mexico, but I know that you all went for a reason. That baby has something to do with the story I think.... Peter Shirts continues to stump us. He was a wanderer while he was alive, and he didn't cease in death... Someday we'll find him, and someday his story will be complete. :) I loved hearing about your experience, thank you so much! I felt almost as if I was there. :) Didn't get to face-time like Elder Davies did, but close enough. :D I'm glad you got to have the experience that you did. Be sure to write about it! :D
The cough has gone! I got the meds from the mission doctor last week in the mail and they seem to have helped a lot. One is for a cold and the other is for allergies, so something in one of them is working. That and lots of prayers. :) Thank you very much! I love you all and hope you all have wonderful weeks full of smiles! :D
Until next week,
LOTS of love,
Kristen
=================
Hello Mom and Dad! Thank you for your emails and love and stories. Oh how I love them so much. I love you both LOADS!! Still no sign of my package, BUT I still have hope. :) It'll come. Someday... :) Hna Howell's mom sent a package and it got here in 3 WEEKS and we think it's because it had the Virgin Mary pictures on it... So sad, but that seems to be the way it works... You said that a couple weeks ago Mom, but yes it does work I believe... If you could sent a couple more things with it when you do send it, that would be great... If not DON'T WORRY. :) I would love to have a couple whitening tubes if possible. I have my retainer/trays so if POSSIBLE that would be great. If not, the whiteness of my teeth isn't really important to anyone but me so... :P Also the half socks that you bought me Mom, those would be great. Probably about 6 more tan colored ones. They sell them here, but they’re out of the nylon fabric so they last for about a day... :( And my prenatal vitamins if possible... I just ran out the other day... That is all... :) AND I'm going to write Megan this, but if Paulina comes the first week of December to Arica the chances of me seeing her are 50/50! If I get transferred on the 20th I probably won't see her, but I think I'll be staying at least one more... But who knows... That would be exciting! :D Thanks for all the news, and thank you for the poem as well Dad. Hahaha I did laugh at the ‘big and small plates’ thing, Mom. It's true, but I love it cause I get the best of both worlds! :) I LOVE YOU BOTH. I hope you both have a fantastic week. :)
Love,
Kristen
It's been another great week here in Arica, of course. :) I love it here so much, and we have started to work more and more with the members, especially since they've been home from their temple trip. We had zone conference this week and tri-monthly interviews, so President and Hermana Dalton were here for the weekend and we had great experiences with those we are teaching. I love this work! I love seeing the change in people's lives as they accept this gospel and accept the Atonement into their lives. It truly is incredible.
To answer a couple of questions, it's been really hot here. It's about 85° from noon to 7 pm, and then the nights do still get a little chilly. Just like summer nights in Utah, we just bring a light jacket and we're fine. :) But that's 85° with really strong sun, so it feels hotter. Or I'm just a 'Lily' and not used to the sun... :P I love it here though so much, heat and all. :) (Dad, that alarm clock that broke in the MTC and then you guys sent me a new one has the temperature in Farenheit and Celsius, so that's been nice! :))
We had a wonderful conference this week. It was with all the zones here in Arica, and we talked a lot about the new goals for the mission and how we are going to get there. We had a mission fast last month to know what goals we should make, and then we wrote President about our thoughts and impressions. Then he looked at all of our impressions and made the goals for the mission accordingly. We are going to be working a lot with keeping people active, reactivation, and working with the families. A lot of time it's so much easier to teach the kids of the family because they are much more accepting, but we need to work more with the families, because this gospel is for families. We are so very blessed to have families in our lives! So the conference was great, and we're excited to work more closely with the ward and with the families that are being prepared for this gospel!
We had our zone conference in the morning, so in the afternoon we got to go out and teach as normal. Hermana Matias and I both had some strong impressions about specific people throughout the conference, and so we went to visit them that night. We stopped by one of our investigator's house. Her name is Andrea and we had the strong feeling that we needed to share with her dad and sister, whom she lives with. We had a great lesson with them. Her dad is Penticostal, and knows a lot about the Bible. Andrea came to church for the first time yesterday as well, so we were excited about that! We'll continue to share with her dad and sister as well. Later that night we stopped by a new member's house. His name is Osvaldo and he has 2 daughters. They aren't members, and don't want much to do with the church, but they'll usually listen if we invite them to. So we started talking with Osvaldo and he told us his conversion story, how he didn't believe in God, but little by little he started going to church and reading the Book of Mormon. He was baptized 3 years after he started meeting with the missionaries (last year about this time) and is planning on going with the ward in February to the temple. (They're going to start going 2 times every year! :D) After he told us his story, the spirit was so strong, and we felt impressed to ask him how he felt like we could help his daughters accept this gospel as well. He got a little emotional, and told us ways he thought they might start listening more. We had a wonderful experience there, and I'm excited to see what the Lord has in store for them.
We also got to meet with Fabiola and Jorge on Saturday, and they are continually reading the Book of Mormon and praying diligently. They are so wonderful!! They changed their wedding to January, because that's when Jorge's family can come up and when they'll been done with school and work for about a month. In the meantime, they continue to go to church and meet with us, and they are learning so very much. They're both planning on going to Conference with us both days this weekend, so we are SO very happy about that. :D Hermana Matias asked Jorge what changed for him, because in the beginning he didn't believe any of it, nor did he want to read the Book of Mormon, etc. It was pure questions from him in the beginning, like he was trying to stump us... He smiled when Hna Matias asked him that, and continued to tell us that he researched a lot in the internet and such, and then when Fabiola started reading things in the Book of Mormon that we had assigned, he started to be more curious and wanted to find out more from us, rather than the internet. He kept saying how much it just makes sense, and how he really things that it's true, but that he wants to finish it to find out for sure. That was completely fine with us. :) He also talked about how he called his family and told them that Fabiola and him were getting married, and they were very supportive in the beginning! But then a couple days ago his dad called and said they didn't want them to get married, that they're too young, they need more time, etc. But Jorge (who was reluctant to accept our invitation to be married so quickly) told him that he knew that this is what they needed to do and that they are getting married. He knows there will be more trials ahead, because he still hasn't told his family about the church, that he wants to be baptized, etc, but he said this is something that they really do want. And that they are preparing to go to the temple the following year. He told us that they just want something small for the civil wedding, because they know "the other wedding is more important anyway". Dah!! We were so very happy. It was an incredible lesson. And I hope that all made sense... :)
We're still working with Jasmin and her brother Nacho, and still hoping to have a family night with them sometime soon to meet with their parents as well... Every time we plan it, something comes up and they can't... :( So we're still working on that one. :) We haven't seen Andres in a while, because he's never at his house these days... We'll continue to stop by and see how he is and see if we can't talk to his mom sometime... She works a lot and is gone most of the time, but we'll keep at it.
For General Conference this weekend we'll all be going to the stake center. We will be watching it live as well, so it'll start at 1 pm instead of 10 am. :) And we'll be watching a rebroadcast of the General Relief Society Meeting on Saturday morning, so NO I didn't get to see Megan Walker!! :( But I will be looking very closely for her on Saturday in her mint green shirt next to the Conductor! :D So exciting she got to do that!! Also, we got a call the other day and it was Paulina Porrus' mom! She'll be at conference, so we'll finally get to meet up with her. I'm pretty excited. :) I love Conference. :) It was weird to think that a year ago I was at home and heard the announcement about the age change, and here I am in Chile on my mission one year later. :) That was a fun thought for me. :)
A couple funny moments and then I'd better head. :) We had the lesson with Andrea and her dad & sister, and at the end we invited Andrea to say the closing prayer. (They're redoing their house and have dirt/rocks for a floor right now, just as background.) She didn't want to say it, but asked her dad to. So he asked if we could kneel, to which we, of course, said yes! So we knelt in these rocks thinking it would be a fairly short prayer...literally 5 minutes later he finished. Hna Matias were dying as we got up and had little gravel rocks stuck in our knees! Hahaha we've been laughing about that one for a couple days. :) Good prayer though... :) Also, Mamita and I have these lovely little "scare wars" and every night when we come in we try and scare her, because she always scares us when we come down for breakfast/to leave for the day/etc. She's always scaring us. AND she gets us every time... Hahaha so the other day we came in and she was eating 'once' (a food they eat a lot pronounced 'own-say') with her son and daughter-in-law, and Papito was watching the news. (He's always on our side... :P) So we sneeked in and we knew Papito could see us out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't turn and we jumped around the corner and shouted BOO and Mamita flew back in her chair and she was holding a KNIFE!! Hahaha so we were very glad she didn't have the reflex to throw it....that would've been very bad, but she was laughing so hard and we finally got her back. :) I love Mamita and Papito, they are so very great, and they said to send their love to the family. :)
I'm not too sure how I like this whole email thing cause I'm not ever sure if it makes sense, but there you go and I hope that some of that did actually make sense. :) The work is hastening, and I feel so very blessed to be a part of it. We are all a part of it! How blessed we are!! I know this Church is true. I know that Joseph Smith restored it and that we have the power of God on the earth today, and that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet today. I am so very excited to hear from him this weekend, and can't wait to hear all your thoughts from Conference! :)
All my love,
Hermana Tuft
=================
Hellloo there Family!
It sounds like you all had a very busy and interesting week! I know that you might not have had the results that we were all hoping for in New Mexico, but I know that you all went for a reason. That baby has something to do with the story I think.... Peter Shirts continues to stump us. He was a wanderer while he was alive, and he didn't cease in death... Someday we'll find him, and someday his story will be complete. :) I loved hearing about your experience, thank you so much! I felt almost as if I was there. :) Didn't get to face-time like Elder Davies did, but close enough. :D I'm glad you got to have the experience that you did. Be sure to write about it! :D
The cough has gone! I got the meds from the mission doctor last week in the mail and they seem to have helped a lot. One is for a cold and the other is for allergies, so something in one of them is working. That and lots of prayers. :) Thank you very much! I love you all and hope you all have wonderful weeks full of smiles! :D
Until next week,
LOTS of love,
Kristen
=================
Hello Mom and Dad! Thank you for your emails and love and stories. Oh how I love them so much. I love you both LOADS!! Still no sign of my package, BUT I still have hope. :) It'll come. Someday... :) Hna Howell's mom sent a package and it got here in 3 WEEKS and we think it's because it had the Virgin Mary pictures on it... So sad, but that seems to be the way it works... You said that a couple weeks ago Mom, but yes it does work I believe... If you could sent a couple more things with it when you do send it, that would be great... If not DON'T WORRY. :) I would love to have a couple whitening tubes if possible. I have my retainer/trays so if POSSIBLE that would be great. If not, the whiteness of my teeth isn't really important to anyone but me so... :P Also the half socks that you bought me Mom, those would be great. Probably about 6 more tan colored ones. They sell them here, but they’re out of the nylon fabric so they last for about a day... :( And my prenatal vitamins if possible... I just ran out the other day... That is all... :) AND I'm going to write Megan this, but if Paulina comes the first week of December to Arica the chances of me seeing her are 50/50! If I get transferred on the 20th I probably won't see her, but I think I'll be staying at least one more... But who knows... That would be exciting! :D Thanks for all the news, and thank you for the poem as well Dad. Hahaha I did laugh at the ‘big and small plates’ thing, Mom. It's true, but I love it cause I get the best of both worlds! :) I LOVE YOU BOTH. I hope you both have a fantastic week. :)
Love,
Kristen
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