Testimony

I (Ashlee's sister) was asked to speak in church this past Sunday on the subject of testimony and so in my initial preparation I wrote to Ashlee and asked if she would share with me her testimony and a little bit about how she came to have it. This is her reply:

I`ve never had my testimony put through so much until I came here in the mission. Never in my life have I questioned so profoundly the truthfulness of the church. Every day we are surrounded by people who tell us we`re wrong. Every day I feel Satan trying to tear down the work that we`re doing. But every day, with all of the opposition that we receive, it helps me to realize even more that what we`re sharing has to be true. It could never be easy to be a part of this work if in the end it didn`t matter. I know the Church of Jesus Christ is the Lords kingdom and that the things we do here are eternally significant. Serving a mission is the hardest thing I`ve ever done. But its the most fulfilling, most wonderful work I`ve been a part of. I know the church is true, because it is the same everywhere. Here in Chile, where there`s less than 50 members in our branch, the church works the same. We partake of the sacrament every week and we teach the same things and the organization is the same and it means so much to me to see the perfect form of the church blessing the lives of people so far away. I know Christ is aware of every one of us and that Heavenly Father has a perfect plan for us. 

Semana Celestial

So this week was a HUGE week of learning for me. We had two intercambios which means that I stayed in my sector, and a missionary in a different sector came to my area for the day. It`s such an unexplainable phenomenon, but you learn SO much when you`re with other missionaries. 

It`s been raining like crazy here, but I honestly love it so much because the rain brings so many miracles. We found a ton of new people to teach this week and Hermana Lobos and I have really started to be on the same page. She`s an amazing companion and I love her to death. She`s loca, always cracking a joke, always messing around in some way and it keeps things fresh.

Next week is cambios, so I`ll let you all know if I`m staying in Victoria or not and who will be my companion. The last time we had a new mission presidente, the first cambio was absolutely crazy, so with our new president May, nobody has any idea what to expect. Wish me luck! Love you all bunches! 


Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile!

Fast Time In Chile

Not much to tell about this week. We got invited to a disco by the family of an investigator. Haha that was pretty cool. A disco here means that they put a big metal disc over a fire and fill it full of chicken, steak, ham, and oysters with white wine and peppers and onions. It was suuuuuuppppper delicious. 

We also had our zone activity this week, with a relay race against the zone in Victoria. We almost won, but one of the activitys was to walk with an spoon in your mouth with an egg to the end of the basketball court where we were playing outside the chruch. One companionship of elders finished their part of the relay, and when they went to tag the other hermanas, he ran into her and made the egg fall, which was hilarious. 

It rained almost every day this week, and it even hailed at one point! One of the members bought us rain coats on the internet, which was the nicest thing ever. 

How´s summer vacation? What is everyone doing with their free time? Let me know how everything goes in Bicknell! 

Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile

My Zone

My district

We were invited to a "disco"

¡La! ¡Laaaa! ¡La mejor zonaaa!

So here´s a cool story that happened. Yesterday I woke up with a monster headache and a really bad cough. To top things off it was raining. But we still went out to work. First we went to visit our investigator Fidel, who is going to be baptized this week! We went with him to church, and he´s super ready! then throughout the day, although I wasn´t feeling 100%, we kept working and visited all the people we had scheduled to see. Even though the day was super normal, I felt awesome. I´m starting to actually, really truly love the mission. Even when I have a cold, I´d rather be out in the rain and cold working than sitting in the house. But right now during this time of the year, it gets dark really early, around 6 in the evening. It was getting pretty cold and Hermana Lobos wasn´t feeling good either, and we had already visited all our apointments, and so we decided we would go home about 15 minutes early. As we were walking, we felt we should knock one more house. And so we did, and a middle aged man answered, and we had waved hi at him earlier that day! He told us to come on in, and we shared a little bit about oursevles and our beliefs, and they are awesome! At the last minute we found amazing people to start teaching! Heavenly Father will always test us but if we past the test and are steadfast and immovible, the law irrevocably decreed in heaven demands that we recieve blessings for our faithfulness! It really lifted our spirits a lot and we ended up having an awesome week!

Me and Hermana Lobos are doing awesome! We´re getting along super well and are trying to improve a lot. It´s hard becuase we both have less than 6 months in the mission (I have 6 months two weeks but the first 6 weeks were in the MTC), and so we really in a lot of ways have no idea what we´re doing. It´s a little bit hard, because Hermana Lobos has kind of an obidience problem. It´s nothing gigantic or difficult to deal with, but it makes me feel really responsible for everything we do, since I am the senior companion. So I´m trying to do my best to help us improve and be obediente without being commanding. Every week I love the mission more.

Thanks so much for everything you´re all doing for the church and for writing and supporting me! Love you all! ¡Hasta la próxima!

Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile!

Happy 4th of July!!!

Hello everybody! This week we`ve been able to see a ton of miracles, but the biggest miracle of all is that I haven`t frozen stiff in the street. It is freezing here! One of the members told us that it was -4º (celcius) the other day. It`s really incresed the ferventness of my prayers to enter into a house.

I forgot my camera, but we had a ton of cool stuff happen this week. We`ve been trying to do things different than just knocking on doors, and so we`ve been trying to find ways of serving people and being more than a tape recording that we have "a special message to share with you." only the most chosen of the chosen want to listen to someone share a message así. So on Saturday we went early in the morning to the house of a memeber, who taught us how to make sopaipillas. we went into the center of Victoria with pamphlets and pass along cards and gave out the sopaipillas for free and contacted. It was super fun haha. We sung hymns, and there was also a stand of Jejovas witnesses to our right. It was really cold that morning and so we went over and gave them some of our treats and a pamphlet. They were super friendly actually haha. But it was cool to look through their pamphlets briefly. Something that I noticed is that every single one of the things we pass out has an image of Jesus Christ. Every point of our beliefs, what we talk about, what we have in the church is centered on Christ. But the pamphlets of the Jehovas witnesses talk about, I don`t know, nothing to do with Christ. One pamphlet talked about the origin of life and had a scientific timeline of the evolution of man and all kinds of random stuff. I don`t know, it`s kind of cool that that`s what they talk about in their church, but it was a testimony builder to me to see how our church really is so focused in the ultimate and most important truths. Everything else just falls into place.

We have quite a few people who are progressing wonderfully and we`re working really hard to be the best missionaries we can be. thanks so much for your prayers and help and emails. Love you all bunches!

Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile!

I'm super white!

Sooo..... I`m officially here in Victoria! My sector is called Tolhuaca but I`m working in the actual down town part of Victoria. It`s pretty small, maybe like Richfield, but I love it a lot! It sure is a lot bigger than Gorbea! We actually have a grocery store! I`m also closer to the Andies, and so even though I`m a little bit more north, it`s a LOT colder! Our zone is also tiny! We have only 10 missionaries, again! The zones in San Pedro and Los Angeles have over 26 missionaries easily. I just I`ll always just be a small town girl.

My companion is Hermana Lobos from Buenes Aires, Argentina! Another Argentinian! Which is really funny, becuase the US lost to Argentina on Wednesday, but Chile won the Coupa de America Sur against Argentina AGAIN on Sunday! WOO!! So we had a great time in the house, with the 3 of us rooting for Chile and poor Hermana Lobos. The house is much more lively here in Victoria than it was in Gorbea; Hermana Lobos is a hoot. She`s always cracking jokes and lightening the mood, but she knows a TON about the scriptures. It`s really cool to teach with her. Her family and her are converts of about 6 years ago, they`re pretty much the golden family every missionary hopes for. They`re all active in the church and have callings, and the dad is even working for the church constructing chapels. The other Hermanas in the house are Hermana Fres from Santiago and Hermana J. Silva from Brazil! So i`m the only white girl in the house! Woo!

We have a bunch of incredible investigators that Hermana Lobos has helped to prepare. We`ve got a family of 4 that are progressing incredibly. The only thing they need is to get married: the trial of Chile. We`re working really hard to help them resolve the doubts they have. The dad, Louis, was married before but recently finalized his divorce, and he`s doesn`t want the same thing to happen again. But it`s good because the members here are absolutely incredible! The presidente of the rama is a super spiritual guy and a hard worker, and is very dis-positioned to help us out. So we`re going to try to have a lesson with him and Louis this week.

I`m starting to actually love the mission! It`s such a fun adventure to be here in a new place. I feel the responsibilities I have even more now that I`m the senior companion for the first time. It`s been a really cool experience, but even better because Hermana Lobos is super capa. I wish you all the best and love you all!

Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile!

I saw Hermana Kleinman in Temuco!! 

Volcanos we can see from our sector.

Hermana Fres, Hermana Lobos, Hermana J. Silva, and me =D