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There`s a blog for the mission called CHILE SOJOURN where you guys can see what the mission Chile Concepción Sur is up to.

Alright! I finally remembered to bring the cable to my camera! So I have at least a couple of pictures.

Monday: A relaxing p-day. We spent almost the entire afternoon in the house playing card games and writing in my journal. We also made an agenda for an Elder in our zone who is going to end his mission in April. Elders for their last transfer ask Hermanas to make them an "agenda trunky" full of pictures of couples and cheesy things like "wow, you`re ending your mission! Go home and get married." It`s super fun. So we spent the day cutting out pictures of Elder Fetters and pasting his head with photos of pretty girls and stuff like that. Hahaha it`s really dumb actually, but kind of a tradition in our mission. I don`t remember anything else.

Tuesday: INTERCAMBIOSSS!! I went to hermana Bazaes` part of Arauco, and we had a dandy time contacting and teaching. She really is an incredible missionary. I love her to pieces! When we got home, Hermana Abalos with Hermana Custodio found a family of 5! So overall, epic day.

Wednesday: We had a full day of citas and people to visit! The highlight of it all was Miguel Briceño. He. Is. Awesome. We taught the restoration of the gospel and he had all kinds of questions, and was really listening. I love it when people ask questions, it shows they actually are trying to learn and understand. He shares his point of view and is very teachable. Really awesome dude.

Thursday: We climbed up the STEEPEST HILL I HAVE EVER WALKED. We found a little grandma who`s the sweetest thing, but VERY evangelical. It`s kind of hard to teach them because they`re so caught up in the idea that all roads lead to Jesus and stuff like that. We teach them and they say that`s great for you! Yeah, I`ll bet Jospeh Smith was a prophet! But you know what, I feel good in my church and that`s where I`m staying. I guess you could say they`re a little stubborn. But hey, I`m stubborn too, so that makes two of us. We also taught our little Golden family, Guierrmo and Natalia. She kind of has the same attitude, like, " well it would be interesting to know if Jospeh Smith was a prophet." But the true intentions aren´t quite there. Hahaha she even said she would get baptized, but never ever wants to come to church. So today we`re going back to visit them, and the plan is to explain D&C 20:37 and WHY baptism is important, and what we need to do to be worthy. Something that Jhonny said in his email from the Netherlands is that people are suprised when we don`t obligate people to do anything. We only invite and persuade. I`m trying to work on my persuassivness. (spelling? Who needs spelling?) But they`re a special bunch of folks. Being in a mission really is a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn to love unconditionally a group of people. I really do love the Chilenos with all of my heart. They`re very kind and very loving, and even with all their faults they`re still incredibly important and loved.

The weekend was pretty great, and yesterday we visited Miguel again, and explained a bit about the book of Mormon. He is beginning to change and it`s so cool how we have the privilage to be a part of an eternal change in the hearts of God´s children. He promised to read it so we`ll find out how it went on Friday.

This Wednesday we`re going to have a conference with Elder Packer from the 70, the son of President Packer! It`s going to be awesome and we`re going to spend the night in San Pedro! Woo!

Wish you all a great week! Bye bye!

Sister Ashlee Bowling
♥ from Chile!

Note from Karen: I couldn't find the blog Ash was talking about but when I do I'll be sure to link to it.

Me and my darling hermana Abalos!! We`re on top of a giant hill in Arauco called "El mirador" (The lookout) That`s the ocean behind us. 

In the back of a van going to lunch. Merp. Those are the bishops kids =) 

The best day of my life, when Leo and Romina found us in Arauco. Leo got baptized and they`re getting ready to be sealed in the temple!

So, the work keeps moving on. I forgot my agenda so it`s not gonna be such a detailed report this week. But now that I think about it I`ve hardly ever sent very many detailed letters. Sorry bout that  

Monday: We had our zone activity where we played water volleyball and mafia and games like that. Our zone is literally like a great big family. We in this zone are made up of Elders from Lota, Coronel and Camilo, and then the four hermanas from Arauco. We all get a long but just splendedly, and it reminds me of my first sector in Gorbea. The zone over there was also really unified and super fun, and its been one of my favorite cambios and sectors so far. Afterwards we ate completos, flippin sweet, and I got to sleep for an hour! We then went and visited... umm people. Hahaha I honestly don`t remember anything I``m sorry! 

Tuesday we had our district meeting, which was really Chill. My district leader is Elder Bausserman from Virginia, and this is his first time as a district leader, and he`s knocking it out of the park. His old sector was in Los Angeles where an ex president of the mission was in the ward, and it seems like he did a number of capacitations with the missionarys over there. We played mafia again, which I think is THE best game missionarys can play. Its funny how racisim is a little bit of a joke here in Chile. Not just among the missionarys but the culture. People aren`t offended when you ask them where they`re from and stuff like that. It`s a breath of fresh air to be far away from "political correctness" and stuff like that. Anyways, back to the mission haha. We got some really cool contacts and visited a lot of less active familys. Something I`ve learned here in the mission is the importance of being an active participant in the church. Going inactive is just the worst thing. You miss out on so many blessings. And there`s a lot of people here who could use the blessings the church brings. 

We also got stopped in the street by a young man who asked us if we were mormons. He told us he had been a member since he was 8 years old and that lately he had been feeling a lack of spiritual experiences in his life. More than anything he also remembered that the Elders who used to visit their family gave him a few priesthood blessings, and that he would like to recieve another one. Miracles! I really do love working with less actives. So we visited with him and invited him to come to church and he said he would! 

Wednesday: Intercambio! Hermana McGreggor came over and she is just the freaking best. I saw her when she started the mission and it`s cool to see how much she`s grown. She`s a contacting machine, and we met a really cool family that have been experiencing a lot of death and saddness, and we were able to tell them about the hope and joy the restored gospel brings to familys and how it can help unify them and explain the purpose of our life. 

Thursday: We took a bus down to curanilahue to help out some of the sisters with their sector. The investigators they had been focusing a lot on turned out to not progress and they ended up without hardly anyone to teach. We went on splits again and I and hermana Guibarra from Bolivia went a serchin´ for needy people. We met a few cool people and got a lot of good contacts. And I got to see Elder Sanchez again! He was in my first zone and we started the mission at the same time! He`s a zone leader now! Ugh, they just grow up so fast. 

Friday: Not much happend friday. A very sweet old lady named Ema passed away thursday night and in Chile, the viewings are normally held in the houses. The husband of the sister asked me to sing, and so I stood in their livingroom and sang hymns while the visiters quietly conversed. It was kind of funny. Funny in the sense that it was uncomfortable. 

Saturday: We went to the funeral of Ema, and I was again invited to sing in front of a crowd of about 150 people haha. Really awkward again, but I did it because the family is really special and they love the missionarys a lot. Hermana Ema was paralized from the earthquake in 2010 and although understood and was perfectly sound mentally, didn´t have the ability to do anything for herself. She was around 85 years old. 

Afterwards we went and visited a couple of less active familys. Really, being less active is the worst! I also got to know a really cool lady that hermana Abalos and her old companion were visiting before, who said that she was looking for the one true church of God. This is something really rare and awesome! Satans lie here in South america is that all the churches are good and lead to Christ, no matter where you`re at. It`s just what people prefer. We as members of the church know that that is not true and that we need to complete covanants through god`s priesthood to be able to live in Gods presance again. So we invited her to pray and ask God if what we`re teaching is true. 

Sunday: Yasser Sebastián who stopped us in the street on Tuesday came to church and recieved a blessing! He said that this is what he had been missing from the last few years of his life. He was taking pictures and audio and all kinds of stuff and sending them to his mom haha. Kind of funny. We also went back to some contacts we`d made and got to know Miguel! Miguel had been having doubts about the church that Christ established and what happend to it. Another miracle! I love when people actually think about things because if they thing long enough they`ll begin to realize that there was an apostasy. A period of time when revelations and prophets and priesthood power ceased to be. We explaind a bit and afterword he told us that that was the best and most clear explanation that he had ever heard, even from pastors in his church. That really stroked my ego haha. 

No pictures again! I^M SORRY! I KEEP FORGETTING THE CABLE TO MY CAMERA BUT WHEN I SEND PICTURES BE SURE THAT YOU´LL BE GETTING A TON. 

A bit of info:

The branch of Arauco has about 40-50 active members, but hundreds of less actives. We have a ward mission leader who just recently, about 2 months ago, returned from his mission in Mexico. Our branch president is Guierrmo Brand, (he served a mission in New York, in the gangster part with Queens and all those places, and speaks very gangster english). We have an awesome relief society that come with us to visit people often and a lot of love and support from the branch. Our sector inclues three little pueblitos that you can only reach by bus: Carampangue, Laraquete, and another one to the south, don`t remember como se llama. ALL of our money goes towards locomotion, taking buses and taxis to get to the outer hard to reach spots of our sector. The chapel is about 3-4 blocks from the beach. We`re literally right on the edge of the pacific ocean and Arauco is a well know tourist spot. The cheese here is famous. There`s quite a few returned missionarys in the ward, and the members are wonderful. We`re going to move our house soon to a sector a little safer and a lot closer to the main part of town. Curently we have to walk about 30-40 minutes to get to our house on time at the end of the day. Arauco has, I think 50,000 people, including all of the surrounding country. 

Have a great week! I love you all so much! 

Sister Ashlee Bowling

♥ from Chile!

Facebook Messenger Extra

I got a friend request on facebook last week from Alejandro Aguilar and when I looked him up I discovered he lives in Ashlee's current city Aracuo. I accepted his request and he has sent me a few messages, photos and even some video about Ashlee so I'm going to share it all here.

  
  


Here are the videos...

Los Araucanios

Alright, I have a little bit more time this week to tell yall what happend

Monday: we had an activity with the other hermanas, and one of my ex compañeras, Hermana Lobos, where we went to the beach and buried our weapons of war (all the things we were doing that were keeping us from being concentrated on our missions) it was a cool opportunity to reflect on the things I`m doing that may not be so bad in the worlds perspective but keep me from having the spirit %100 of the time. If there`s something I`ve learned in the mission, it`s the importance of the spirit in our work. We literally couldn`t get anything done if we didn`t have the spirit guiding us. We taught a little mini english class to a family who are really cute, but don`t have much true interest in the message we teach. We`re hoping that teaching some gospel basics will help them realize the impact the gospel could have in their lives. Til then we`re just talking english haha. People ask me ALL THE TIME to help them with their ingles, and it`s a really cool opportunity to find more people and get them interested in the message.

Tuesday: My poor little companion is so delicate, and we had a super crazy lunch. She was dead on her feet so we went home and rested for a bit. I really don`t remember what happend the rest of the day. I think it was a good one though. But I coudn`t tell yall details.

Wednesday: Another snore. I`m honestly starting to loose all my ability to focus and remember things haha.

Thursday: We had zone meeting which was super amazing. THe missionary department for the chuch made some big changes to the mission schedule and now we are a lot more able to move things around depending on what works best for where we`re at. We don`t get home at night til 10:30 now. we went to Concepción again for my follow up apointment with the foot doctor. We got there early to buy some new shoes. We went to a shoe store I`ve been in before and the shop owner recognized me. He tried to kiss me and I basically had to dodge under his arm to escape hahaha. Chilenos greet eachother with kisses on the cheek, but we obviously as missionarys can`t do that. Some people get really offended, and say "It`s just our culture man!!" But most people understand. But this shoe guy was really cool. He`s just a chill friendly dude. He gave me a big discount on the shoes I bought and we talked a little bit about what we do as missionarys. He lives in Osorno, and said he`s seen a ton of missionarys before, and that the next time he runs into some he`ll be sure to stop them. The plantillas I got (don`t remember how to say that in English) are really cool and they`ve helped me a TON to feel better and want to work hard. I`ve turned into a little hunch back lady, because by the time we get home I`d rather walk up the stairs on my hands than on my feet and heels. I wouldn`t be suprised if they`re cracked. But the new shoes help a ton and now I feel great. That pretty much took the whole day.

Friday: Taught english class at the church. People really are so animated to learn. I really love english hahaha.

Saturday: LEO GOT BAPTIZED!!! He is so incredible. It was very spiritual and just all around the best day of my life. He asked me to give a talk and I explained to him about the holy ghost. He later asked if I could confirm him a member on Sunday hahaha, so it looks like there`s still a little more to teach him. But he really is just the best.

 A good day. hahaha I have to go again. Never enough time. I love you all! Have a great week!

Sister Ashlee Bowling

♥ from Chile!