Hola Familia! 

Well this week was hard but good at the same time.  I really learned that there isn’t anything better for the feelings of hurt or sadness than working hard and putting all your effort and thoughts into the work of the Lord. This helped me soo much!!

We found a nuevo named Nicholas. He is awesome. He is 21 and really wants to know more about the gospel. When we found him the first thing he said was teach me everything about your church, I want to know everything about your church. So we taught him the first lesson and the Sabbath day and then told him we needed to come back another day because it´s impossible to teach it all in one night. So he agreed and then we left. It was so awesome. We ended up teaching him again last night about the plan of salvation and the word of wisdom. He told us he didn’t have any problems with the word of wisdom and accepted to live the word of wisdom. He also accepted the invitation to pray to see if this is true and if it is to be baptized! We are really happy about that. We just need to work really hard with getting him to attend church 3 sundays and to be baptized. He told us that he wants to do the things the Lord commands and to be on the right path. I know that he will receive an answer that this is true. We also taught our investigator Maria. She is progressing so fast but she just hasn’t come to church yet. That seems to be the biggest problem here is that people don’t want to come to church.  We taught her and invited her to be baptized which she accepted. It was awesome. She also told us something that is really amazing. She told us that the elders always knocked on her door and that she didn’t want anything to do with them. But the day that we knocked she was getting ready to leave and didn’t want to talk to anyone and that when she opened the door she thought we were angels and let us in without thinking of anything else. Well then she told us about a dream she had about 20 years ago. She said that she had a dream about 2 young girls that were so happy and when she opened up the door to us that one day she realized that we were the 2 girls she had from her dream 20 years ago.  It´s really amazing how the Lord prepares people for us to come and find them. I know that she is a really special daughter of God and we really love her so much. She really loves when we come to teach her because she said she has a different feeling in her home that she loves and always wants. Her home feels more happy and peaceful when we come than any other time during the week. She wants to be baptized but she just needs to come to church!! 

It’s really amazing to me to see all of these miracles each week. Sometimes I think oh I don’t have that missionary revelation of having a burning feeling or a voice saying where to go and what door to knock, but it’s always just a little wonder in my head of like oh why not knock this street or this house and it´s weird cause I just do it. I don’t really think a second time about it, the thought just comes and I think oh why not and we do it and then it ends up being that we find someone who is so ready for the gospel. That happened another time this week as well. we went to go finish knocking a street (where we found Nicholas) and then ended up finding this woman named Daniela. She asked who we were and we told her and started asking her about if she had religion and she said actually I´ve been thinking a lot about mormonism. Obviously we were shocked and didn’t really say anything for a minute and then she was like come in!  We went in and found that she is a less active member but her husband isn’t a member. So we are excited to teach her because she wants to return to church. She was also talking about her family and said that she had family that lived higher up than us (in the elders in our branch´s area). The last name sounded familiar to me so I asked her if she had relatives in a street in our area. She said yes and then I asked about a girl  Hermana Castleton and I used to teach before she moved to the elders area. She was like... oh ya that´s my little sister!  She´s the only one that is not a member but she is really receptive to the gospel. I ended up calling the elders that night to tell them about it and that they needed to find her in their area. It was an awesome experience!! 

We also taught the family Martinez this week about the word or wisdom and fasting. They accepted them both without a problem! They are progressing so fast and we expect the put a date with them this week. The mom (Jacqueline) said to the elders in lunch yesterday that she knows she will be baptized because she loves the church and all the things we teach and offer. All we need to do is get her to accept a date to be baptized!! 

My companion has a problem with her Achilles tendon in her foot that when she walks uphill or upstairs it hurts her A LOT. We end up having to walk super slow and it´s a problem. Well we are going to Viña today to get her some boots for her foot and if they don’t help her with walking uphill then she will be transferred out of the area for health reasons. We are hoping they work. She has a week from today to get her foot feeling better and if not, then in two weeks we have transfers (well basically 2 weeks). We have been getting along a lot better which is awesome!  We really are trying to help each other with everything even though there still are days that we are frustrated with each other or with ourselves. We are doing a lot better in our companionship. Also she snores SOOO loud. I´m not kidding I sleep with ear plugs in and the fan on and I can still hear her snoring so I have not been sleeping very good at night. I wake up every night for at least an hour and I just lay there and cry because I´m so tired but can’t sleep because of her snoring. I finally talked to one of the elders who gave me an idea of listening to music while I sleep. So last night I put the speakers under my pillow and slept that way. It was the first time all week that I have slept all through the night. Everyone has been saying things to me about me being tired because my right eye is all red. I´m hoping that goes away soon because I’m thinking it´s because I´m not getting enough sleep at night. 

This week we had a night of salads. I made the salad with the berries and almonds. I couldn’t figure out how to sugar them so that failed. and then I couldn’t find the vinaigrette (I added some chicken) but in the end no one really ate it or liked it. People here don’t have berries very often and so when they saw it they thought it looked good and said that to me but then no one really wanted to try it. So that was kinda sad but it´s fine.

I´ve been praying for you all every prayer. I know that this week has been hard on all of us. But I know that the Lord loves each one of us. I know He is always with us and he can help us in all of our afflictions. There is a scripture (cant remember where) that says that if we do all that we can and trust in the Lord, He will strengthen us and carry the heavy burdens that we have in this life. He doesn’t take our burdens away but He will give us the strength we need to be able to carry these burdens. Pray everyday for the Lord to bless you with His love and with strength to be able to go about everyday to deal with the burdens of everyday life. This life is not easy and we all knew that but we still chose to come here and experience all that this life has to offer. People aren´t perfect but the gospel of Jesus Christ and our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ are perfect. The plan of Salvation is Perfect. There isn’t a single flaw in this plan of life. We just need to endure and push forward with all of our effort and I know that if we do that and do all we can in this life that God wants He will make up the rest for all of our shortcomings. I love you all and I pray for you each and everyday. I miss you but I´m working hard and I´m loving every minute here, I know there are a lot of days here and moments here that are so hard but I know that I´m growing in the process. I´m not perfect in teaching or finding or actually at being a missionary. But I know that there are things that I can do perfectly like being obedient in all of the rules and serving my companion and the people here and being happy, etc. I love this gospel with all of my heart and I´m so thankful for the opportunity I have to be here on my mission and to serve all of the people here and to help them come closer to Christ. I know that this is true, with every part of my soul I know its true.

I love you, Keep working hard and be happy. Remember that when life becomes to hard to stand, Kneel. Until next week!

Hermana Tycksen