Apparently I talk in my sleep in Spanish... progress?
What a spirit filled week! On Wednesday we took a bus to Temuco to listen to a conference by Elder Bednar for all of the South America South Missions. Elder Bednar really knows how to slap a person in the face with his words. He talked about a lot of things, and everyone felt very directed at me. At one point he begins talking about faith. Faith without works is dead, which is something we tell our investigators all the time. You have to act on the things you´re feeling are true. And then he said something really close to "how many of you have heard this during a prayer in sacrament meeting or church: ´please help the people who aren´t here this week to be here next week´. It´s a great sentament. And it´s utterly faithless!" I was down in my seat about as low as I could get at this point. He went on to say how our prayers should sound: "after this meeting is over, we´re going to drive to the houses of those people who didn´t come to church today, we´re gonna knock on their door, and we´re gonna ask them, ´why weren´t you at church today?´ We´re gonna help them and serve them, and we´re not going to sit around and wait for you to do it for us". You know how you know something, you´ve heard it said your whole life, but it doesn´t become a part of your knowledge until you have a moment of clarity about it? That happend for me. We are the instruments of the lord. In other words, we don´t ask the lord to magically make things happen for us. Don´t ask to magically somehow have this desire to choose the right and go to church and to have faith. You have to do your part! You have to act in faith before you recieve your knowledge! Open your mouth, start talking, and then after you display your faith will the promise be fullfilled and you will know what to say. Only after you step into the water will it be parted. It was really cool. Lots of miracles this week, lots of people to teach with no time. We found another absolutly miraculous person this week. He tried to go to church at 8 at night on Sunday because he had no idea when it was, but he wanted to go! WHAT? And the best part: He came to church yesterday! He has a fetcha and everything, and we´re hoping he´ll get baptized before the end of March!
Love you guys! Chao!
Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile!
Monday, February 29, 2016
Monday, February 22, 2016
Hola a todas!
Hello everybody! My second week in Chile!
· There are dogs everywhere. They all have fleas/might not be friendly and so we kind of have to shoo them away and avoid them and I can´t pet any of them. It´s hard. Especially when they´re cute, but I have a feeling that by the end of my mission I´m not going to like dogs anymore.
·It is super temerate and nice here! The weather is very similar to warm weather in Utah I think. It´s not ultra humid ever, and being in skirts helps too. But it is starting to get more rainy.
· WE HAD A FEW INCRDIBLE THINGS HAPPEN. Just typical missionary stuff. It´s always, always thrilling to schedule a lesson and then have the person actually be there when we go because people are kind of big fat liars here. But when that person is actually home and wants to talk with us; oh my word that is absolutuly the best feeling ever. There was a lady whos house we knocked that told us, "why haven´t you come before?" She helped the very first missionaries in Gorbea find an apartment and knows all about our church. She has a lot of really good questions and needs becuase her husband died not long ago and she has questions about that.
· we ran into the most crazy person ever. It´s kind of a long story. My very first day here, a man approached us asked why we haven´t talked to him yet. My companion had contacted him a few months ago but had never gone back. We went to visit and he told us that in 2005 he had a dream about two blonde girls who would help him find the true church. He would see my companion walk with Hermana Moran from El Salvador and think, I recognize the blonde girl, but her companion is different, and so he never came up to them. But when he saw me, he immediatly felt the spirit tell him that he had to talk us. We´ve taught him a few short lessons but today we´re going to teach him for real! Hope it goes well!
· really though, when a person has good questions its the best thing ever. A lot of people here believe us, and when we teach they agree, but they never seem interested in going to church or keeping the commitments. They´re just lazy and hard to get a hold of. hahaha I´m complaining a lot, but I really do love these people. They easily accept our message and are open to the spirits teachings, but they´re just difficult to help progress. But one guy, who my companion has been trying to get a hold of for over 3 months, finally was at his house when we went. he had incredible questions like, how did people get to the americas? the book of mormon is about america right? He´s read to 2nd Nefi right now! This was our first lesson with him! And he´s never had a lesson with other missionaries! At the end of the lesson we asked him to pray and he did it perfectly! A lot of people here don´t pray to heavenly father and don´t end their prayers in the name of jesus christ, even after we teach them how. But he did it without us even explaining! This guy is incredible!
· I also feel like I will never be truely, actually clean again while i´m here haha. It´s all good though. It´s just part of the life ^^
· Lastly, the videos, I can´t find hastag on this keyboard, but it´s (hastag)becausehelives. These videos are amazing. I think they´re also called The Life of Jesus Christ Bible Videos. These are amazing, please watch them.
Love you guys! Appreciate the gift it is to be born in the gospel and have the testimony of generations behind you. Nobody here has that. It´s a blessing I am very grateful for. No matter what has happened, I have never actually lost my belief and knowledge of this church.
Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile!
· There are dogs everywhere. They all have fleas/might not be friendly and so we kind of have to shoo them away and avoid them and I can´t pet any of them. It´s hard. Especially when they´re cute, but I have a feeling that by the end of my mission I´m not going to like dogs anymore.
·It is super temerate and nice here! The weather is very similar to warm weather in Utah I think. It´s not ultra humid ever, and being in skirts helps too. But it is starting to get more rainy.
· WE HAD A FEW INCRDIBLE THINGS HAPPEN. Just typical missionary stuff. It´s always, always thrilling to schedule a lesson and then have the person actually be there when we go because people are kind of big fat liars here. But when that person is actually home and wants to talk with us; oh my word that is absolutuly the best feeling ever. There was a lady whos house we knocked that told us, "why haven´t you come before?" She helped the very first missionaries in Gorbea find an apartment and knows all about our church. She has a lot of really good questions and needs becuase her husband died not long ago and she has questions about that.
· we ran into the most crazy person ever. It´s kind of a long story. My very first day here, a man approached us asked why we haven´t talked to him yet. My companion had contacted him a few months ago but had never gone back. We went to visit and he told us that in 2005 he had a dream about two blonde girls who would help him find the true church. He would see my companion walk with Hermana Moran from El Salvador and think, I recognize the blonde girl, but her companion is different, and so he never came up to them. But when he saw me, he immediatly felt the spirit tell him that he had to talk us. We´ve taught him a few short lessons but today we´re going to teach him for real! Hope it goes well!
· really though, when a person has good questions its the best thing ever. A lot of people here believe us, and when we teach they agree, but they never seem interested in going to church or keeping the commitments. They´re just lazy and hard to get a hold of. hahaha I´m complaining a lot, but I really do love these people. They easily accept our message and are open to the spirits teachings, but they´re just difficult to help progress. But one guy, who my companion has been trying to get a hold of for over 3 months, finally was at his house when we went. he had incredible questions like, how did people get to the americas? the book of mormon is about america right? He´s read to 2nd Nefi right now! This was our first lesson with him! And he´s never had a lesson with other missionaries! At the end of the lesson we asked him to pray and he did it perfectly! A lot of people here don´t pray to heavenly father and don´t end their prayers in the name of jesus christ, even after we teach them how. But he did it without us even explaining! This guy is incredible!
· I also feel like I will never be truely, actually clean again while i´m here haha. It´s all good though. It´s just part of the life ^^
· Lastly, the videos, I can´t find hastag on this keyboard, but it´s (hastag)becausehelives. These videos are amazing. I think they´re also called The Life of Jesus Christ Bible Videos. These are amazing, please watch them.
Love you guys! Appreciate the gift it is to be born in the gospel and have the testimony of generations behind you. Nobody here has that. It´s a blessing I am very grateful for. No matter what has happened, I have never actually lost my belief and knowledge of this church.
Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile!
Monday, February 15, 2016
Gorbea es Bae ♥
Thank you so much everybody for being so patient with me! More bad news though, my email time has been cut short once again. While I still have an hour to email, I have to email my mission president cada semana first! But! Please dont stop writing me! I love to read them and if I don{t have time i print them out and read them later. I dont think im going to hardly have any time ever to reply to all of you cada semana and so los siento ahora that Im never going to reply haha! I will still read them though! The best way to get a response from me is to write me letters! Itll take around 3 weeks for me to get the letters and then another bunch of weeks to get my letter back haha. Its the way it goes though. SO! My address, first of all.
Castellon 1063, Oficina Sur
Casilla 3580
Concepcion
Bio-Bio
Chile
Send everything to this address!
SO! My first area iss......... GORBEA! I am as far south into the mission as sisters can go! Theres another zone below us but only Elders are allowed to go there. We are in one of the more poor areas in our mission I believe, but that just means the spirit is here even stronger. We have one recent convert here who lives in a one room little house with his bed and fridge and table all right there. His name is Miguel and he loves being our member for each lesson we teach to investagators. He is the cutest guy I have ever encountered. My first day, he handed us two wrapped packages, one with hair ties and bows and another with a mug with disney princesses. He is incerio the nicest person I have ever met. I cant understand hardly anything he says though. Besides the Spanish, he has a pretty heavy lisp. But honestly all of the people here are incredible. My first Sunday here was one of the best I{ve ever had. There were 42 people at church including the 6 missionaries. Two elders had to visit from another area because our branch president and his councelor are both going to be gone working for a few weeks. I never thought wards could exist that were so small. Everything that everyone has ever said about missions is suddenly becoming so true. But I love all of them so much! A few of them seem to be kind of holding on to old beliefs that they had, and so Im feeling a huge amount of responsibility to teach these people correct doctrines and make them strong in the church. My companion, trainer, and mom told me that it is our responsibility to grow this ward. We need to reactivate inactives, baptize more members, and teach everybody correct principles. It{s so important that I am as worthy as possible to let the spirit teach through me, and that I can be the absolute best possible example for these people to follow. I never, ever thought I could feel this way about other people. Every single thing that I do, I{m wondering and questioning if it{s, either now or in the long run helping the people of Gorbea. I already love it here and never want to leave. Its incredible to already be feeling the changes the mission makes in people. Like, I cant put into words at all how amazing this is. Obviously this is the best decision I ever could have made in my life.
MY TRAINER IS THE BEST PERSON EVER! Her name is Hermana Kleinman, and she is from Mesa Arizona! She is also the youngest in her family of 4 brothers and sisters, and were both very white and very blonde. We legit are turning heads everywhere. I{ve been asked probably 3 or 4 times if my hair is natural, which yes, it is. We get whistled at constantly. Two white blonde young girls, speaking (soon to be!) fluent spanish must look quite the sight in small town Gorbea. A lot of people wonder why were here. It{s making for some cool opportunites to talk to people. She is the most serving, Christlike person I{ve ever encountered and its making me want to serve her better. It{s cool! It{s a cycle! Serving others makes them want to serve which inspires even more people. UGHDSAL! THE CHURCH IS TRUE! I LOVE IT! I{ve had a ton of incredible experiences, every single day, incerio, that build my testimony and make me love being a missionary. I can see how this is the most exhausting work that could exist. Constantly carring about other people, constatnly worrying about them and hoping they keep their compromismos and praying for them; feeling crushed when they dont read and didnt pray, the absolute joy, through the roof feeling when they say they read and prayed and felt the spirit. Theres nothing else like this in the world guys. The people here are very humble. So is our casa. It{s nothing like the homes in America. But it is on of the nicest that they have in the mission and Im so grateful for it and for the church. My old MTC roomate, hermana Curtis is in the same house as me! Shes training wtih Hermana Lockling, who is from Santiago Chile and is going home in 3 months! My district here is way cool and our district leader every night during our phone call yells and screams and is so enthusiastic. It is hilarious. Evedently, I am a ´machine´. cool beans.
The picture with the three of us is my mom, Hermana Kleinman, and my abuela, Hermana Rich! We look like actual sisters! Chao chao! Muchas grasias por su oracions y amor!
Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile!
Castellon 1063, Oficina Sur
Casilla 3580
Concepcion
Bio-Bio
Chile
Send everything to this address!
SO! My first area iss......... GORBEA! I am as far south into the mission as sisters can go! Theres another zone below us but only Elders are allowed to go there. We are in one of the more poor areas in our mission I believe, but that just means the spirit is here even stronger. We have one recent convert here who lives in a one room little house with his bed and fridge and table all right there. His name is Miguel and he loves being our member for each lesson we teach to investagators. He is the cutest guy I have ever encountered. My first day, he handed us two wrapped packages, one with hair ties and bows and another with a mug with disney princesses. He is incerio the nicest person I have ever met. I cant understand hardly anything he says though. Besides the Spanish, he has a pretty heavy lisp. But honestly all of the people here are incredible. My first Sunday here was one of the best I{ve ever had. There were 42 people at church including the 6 missionaries. Two elders had to visit from another area because our branch president and his councelor are both going to be gone working for a few weeks. I never thought wards could exist that were so small. Everything that everyone has ever said about missions is suddenly becoming so true. But I love all of them so much! A few of them seem to be kind of holding on to old beliefs that they had, and so Im feeling a huge amount of responsibility to teach these people correct doctrines and make them strong in the church. My companion, trainer, and mom told me that it is our responsibility to grow this ward. We need to reactivate inactives, baptize more members, and teach everybody correct principles. It{s so important that I am as worthy as possible to let the spirit teach through me, and that I can be the absolute best possible example for these people to follow. I never, ever thought I could feel this way about other people. Every single thing that I do, I{m wondering and questioning if it{s, either now or in the long run helping the people of Gorbea. I already love it here and never want to leave. Its incredible to already be feeling the changes the mission makes in people. Like, I cant put into words at all how amazing this is. Obviously this is the best decision I ever could have made in my life.
MY TRAINER IS THE BEST PERSON EVER! Her name is Hermana Kleinman, and she is from Mesa Arizona! She is also the youngest in her family of 4 brothers and sisters, and were both very white and very blonde. We legit are turning heads everywhere. I{ve been asked probably 3 or 4 times if my hair is natural, which yes, it is. We get whistled at constantly. Two white blonde young girls, speaking (soon to be!) fluent spanish must look quite the sight in small town Gorbea. A lot of people wonder why were here. It{s making for some cool opportunites to talk to people. She is the most serving, Christlike person I{ve ever encountered and its making me want to serve her better. It{s cool! It{s a cycle! Serving others makes them want to serve which inspires even more people. UGHDSAL! THE CHURCH IS TRUE! I LOVE IT! I{ve had a ton of incredible experiences, every single day, incerio, that build my testimony and make me love being a missionary. I can see how this is the most exhausting work that could exist. Constantly carring about other people, constatnly worrying about them and hoping they keep their compromismos and praying for them; feeling crushed when they dont read and didnt pray, the absolute joy, through the roof feeling when they say they read and prayed and felt the spirit. Theres nothing else like this in the world guys. The people here are very humble. So is our casa. It{s nothing like the homes in America. But it is on of the nicest that they have in the mission and Im so grateful for it and for the church. My old MTC roomate, hermana Curtis is in the same house as me! Shes training wtih Hermana Lockling, who is from Santiago Chile and is going home in 3 months! My district here is way cool and our district leader every night during our phone call yells and screams and is so enthusiastic. It is hilarious. Evedently, I am a ´machine´. cool beans.
The picture with the three of us is my mom, Hermana Kleinman, and my abuela, Hermana Rich! We look like actual sisters! Chao chao! Muchas grasias por su oracions y amor!
Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile!
 |
| New sisters in mission |
 |
| CCM district |
 |
| Ashlee, Hermana Kleinman (mom), Hermana Rich (grandma) |
 |
| Ash & her trainer Hermana Kleinman |
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Que pasa calabasa?
Hey everybody! This is my final week! Me and the rest of my district, along with 10 or so other people all leave for Chile Santiago on Monday at 3:00pm! The flight is going to be around 8.5 hours and then we'll catch a second hour long flight to Concepcion! I am very excited to be leaving but at the same time just a little bit nervous. The real work begins! I forgot my notes, and so I don't remember a ton of things this week, but so far we've been still having a lot of fun. I really really like my district a lot. We've been playing volleyball during almost every gym time and we're all getting pretty boss. We got to watch the testaments(?) on Sunday for our movie and it was a super spiritual experience for all of us. The spirit has witnessed to me so many times that this gospel is true. Thanks so much everybody for your love and support! I've already grown a ton and can't wait to learn even more. If I don't email you next week, it may be because I think our p-day on the mission is on Monday. So I'll see you in two!
Elder Cheney is turning into the funniest person I've ever met. He kind of reminds me of Grant Sorenson ^^ Making jokes, someone gets made fun of: Elder Cheney "oh! There's no burn center at the CCM!!"
Stacking our chairs for the end of the night, we stack all of them into one huge tower: Elder Cheney "look, it's the leaning tower of cias! If the leaning tower of cias falls in a classroom and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Sister Ashlee Bowling
Elder Cheney is turning into the funniest person I've ever met. He kind of reminds me of Grant Sorenson ^^ Making jokes, someone gets made fun of: Elder Cheney "oh! There's no burn center at the CCM!!"
Stacking our chairs for the end of the night, we stack all of them into one huge tower: Elder Cheney "look, it's the leaning tower of cias! If the leaning tower of cias falls in a classroom and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile!
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