4/28/14 Email

From: Camille Weller [mailto:camille.weller@myldsmail.net]
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 11:08 AM
To: Melissa Wheatley;

Subject: 13 months!!

 

Que Tal!!! (: wow this week was so much better!! i swear i love the mission more and more each day!! Yesterday was the 13 month mark.. how crazy is that! it makes me and my companion both so sad that we have so little time left but it also makes us more and more determined to give it all we´ve got! Were still working on getting new investigators but we met with some awesome families this past week that were hoping we will get to teach more this week! We also started working out at the park infront of our house with the elders here every morning and working on our basketball skills. Were really working as a team with the 4 elders who are here and i think that we all help eachother to stay possitive and to remember why were here. (p.s if elder hulets mom is reading this he is the best!! your son is an amazing missionary!) We also decided to create a new key indicator...lessons with an alpaca present.. haha there are seriously alpacas everywhere here!! and about once a day we see the market place with like 10 skinless alpaca bodies ready to slice and sell.. its sick.. but hey thats life for ya here in chivay!!! Its starting to get colder but not too bad, i think weve got the wardrobe down for cold weather now. (:

We had a lot of really awesome activities this week. we started our english classes at the Municipalidad and the second class we taught this week there were 60 kids there between the ages of 8 and 12. I love teaching them and now whenever we pass any of them in the street they run up to us and yell "profesora!! profesora!" its the cutest, they even brought us flowers last class. The best part was that because of that class they came to our movie night that we have on saturdays, some of them with their familes, and a couple of them even ended up coming to church on sunday!! We also did a big "mi familia" activity in the plaza on saturday morning and handed out the my family booklets and taught about the importance of family history! it went soooo good! we even had a little portable printer there so we took people pictures and printed them out for their little books right there! they loved it and in the process we met some famlies and others that we are going to meet with this week!  

At church this week we had 24 in total which is the highest there has been in Chivay so far! Were still working with teaching all the members and especially the less actives so that they can start to take this branch into thier own hands(: The Relief Society president came back this week so me and hna stone taught primary which was a blast, and next week im in charge of young womans! Wish me luck.. hopefully i learned something in my youth to help them out (; I just love this little branch more each and every day. Me and my companion are finally starting to feel like were doing what the Lord needs us to do here in Chivay.. and that He will lead and guide us if we put in our part and just keep working. 

THis week our zone leaders came up for pday and then stayed for district meeting on tuesday and gave us a bomb lesson on how possitive things happen to possitive people. and that if we follow the first commandment, which is to love God, that we will love and serve his other children. Weve both been working on just staying possitive and trusting in the Lord no matter what happens.. Which was really good for us because this week we litterally had two doors slammed in our faces... (: but we didnt let it get  us down.. it just means that there were people that are more ready for us! Another thing i studied this week was a talk that one of my friends sent me, The best is Yet to be, by elder Jeffrey R. Holland. It talks about never looking back.. and just looking ahead. heres some parts that i love...

As a new year begins and we try to benefit from a proper view of what hasgone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone nor to yearnvainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. Thepast is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim theembers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we havelearned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that wehave experienced, then we look ahead and remember that faith is alwayspointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings andtruths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives.

When something is over and done with, when it has been repented of asfully as it can be repented of, when life has moved on as it should and alot of other wonderfully good things have happened since then, it is notright to go back and open some ancient wound that the Son of GodHimself died to heal.

Let people repent. Let people grow. Believe that people can change andimprove. Is that faith? Yes! Is that hope? Yes! Is that charity? Yes! Aboveall, it is charity, the pure love of Christ. If something is buried in the past,leave it buried. Don’t keep going back with your little sand pail and beachshovel to dig it up, wave it around, and then throw it at someone, saying,“Hey! Do you remember this?” Splat!

Well, guess what? That is probably going to result in some ugly morselbeing dug up out of your landfill with the reply, “Yeah, I remember it. Doyou remember this?” Splat.

And soon enough everyone comes out of that exchange dirty and muddyand unhappy and hurt, when what our Father in Heaven pleads for iscleanliness and kindness and happiness and healing.

Such dwelling on past lives, including past mistakes, is just not right! It isnot the gospel of Jesus Christ. In some ways it is worse than Lot’s wifebecause at least she destroyed only herself. In cases of marriage andfamily, wards and branches, apartments and neighborhoods, we can endup destroying so many others.

Perhaps at this beginning of a new year there is no greater requirement forus than to do as the Lord Himself said He does: “He who has repented ofhis sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more”(D&C 58:42).

The proviso, of course, is that repentance has to be sincere, but when it isand when honest effort is being made to progress, we are guilty of thegreater sin if we keep remembering and recalling and rebashing someonewith his or her earlier mistakes—and that someone might be ourselves. Wecan be so hard on ourselves—often much more so than on others!

Now, like the Anti-Nephi-Lehies of the Book of Mormon, bury yourweapons of war and leave them buried (see Alma 24). Forgive and do thatwhich is sometimes harder than to forgive: forget. And when it comes tomind again, forget it again.

Isnt that the best??? The atonement works.. i know it. THere is no reason to look back or dwell on past mistakes.. whether they be ours or someone elses.. Jesus Christ died so that we wouldnt have to do that. so that we  could move on and look ahead with faith. He loves us and wants us to be happy and clean, and he is the only way in which we can feel that way! i know that the atonement works.. and that we can be freed from our past mistakes!!  i hope that everyone is doing great at home!!! Be possitive and look ahead!!! Love you all!! 

Hermana Weller (: