8/25/14

Hey family and friends!

This week has been super super crazy . . . I feel like I always start my emails like that, but I feel like every week in the mission is crazy and awesome, lol. 

On saturday, Angy, who´s 15, the only member of her family that wasn´t a member of the church, got baptized on saturday! It´s so awesome, because when I got here about 3 months ago, when we´d do Family Home Evenings in her house, she would go in her room and wouldn´t even want to talk to us or anything . . . I don´t know what changed, but God was definitely working on her. She went from being really closed off person, that wouldn´t even smile and greet people, to being lively and happy and the youth of the ward just flocking to her. She´s so super happy and her baptism was beautiful, because of her glowing testimony. She said that she can´t wait to go on a mission and that the gospel hasn´t just changed her life but it´s changed HER. 

I think that´s really what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about: Change. That´s the whole purpose of our time here on earth. We are a part of an eternal progression, and progression can´t come without change. Sometimes change is really hard. Change of cities, homes, friends, school, habbits, personality traits . . . it´s all needed for our benefit and growth. There is something that is often overlooked in the parable of the rich man, that I absolutely love. When the young rich man approaches Christ, he asks what he must do to inherit eternal life, and Christ tells him to keep the commandments. He then replies that he has kept the commandments since his youth, and then asks Christ, ¨What lack I yet?¨ 

How often are we willing to sincerely ask the Lord what we lack, and what we need to perfect and change in ourselves to become better than we are? I encourage all of you to go to the Lord in sincere prayer and ask Him, ¨Lord, what lack I yet.¨ Because, like He told us in Ether 12:27 of the Book of Mormon, if we come unto Him, He will show unto us our weaknesses, and if we are humble and have faith, He will help us that they may become strengths. It´s not easy to change, but I know if we have a humble and willing heart, the Lord will help us progress and become a better person than we were before. 

I know that this gospel is true and that God has an eternal plan for the salvation and exaltation of His children. I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Hna. Hulse 

8/18/14

Hola todos!

We had transfers and they were crazy!!!! Not as crazy as they have been in the past, but I´m finally with a real missionary!! Hna. Osorno, from Mexico (no sé porque la mayoria de mis compañeras han sido de México, pero es lo maximo). She´s so super awesome!!! Also . . . we´re the Sister Training Leaders for this part of the mission (three zones) and so I´ll be working a little less in my area and focusing more on helping the other sister missionaries, but I´m excited for the chance the Lord has given me to learn from the other sisters and help each other be better missionaries and gospel teachers. One thing really interesting about our mission is that we all live SO super close, that we have to do suprise work visits. Seriously, walking down the main road that passes through our area, 30 minutes walking and I can pass through three zones . . . I think only returned missionaries might have an idea of how small that is, but everyone else, just trust me that our mission is really small, because there are SO many people, but yeah. Anyway, I´m excited for the chance to get to know all the sisters and work with them and learn from them and hopefully help them be better. 

The mission finally has permission to go visit the Center of Lima, the historical touristy part of Lima, so I´ll finally get to see a lot of awesome stuff that Lima has to offer other than dirt and houses, haha. So that´s what we´re doing today as a zone and we don´t have much time to email, so sorry this one is super short. 

I´ll send pictures next week of my visit to Lima! I love you all and remember who you are: children of a Heavenly Father! I love you all!

Hna. Hulse

8/11/14

Hey Everyone!

This week has been super great. I´m mostly excited because . . . this week is transfers already (I can´t believe how fast time is going by) and I´m finally going to have a real companion! Hna. Sedano has been super awesome, and she´s learned a lot and is going to be an amazing missionary! But I´m excited to have a real missionary as a companion again. It´s kind of hard to explain why, but just trust me that it´s different, haha. Soooooo, she´s going home tomorrow, and I´ll be getting a new companion. 

So, I´m gonna tell you a little more about Belen and Ashley, because I´m just so grateful for the chance God has given me to know them and be a part of their life, because they teach me something new every week. Even though they´ve been receiving a ton of blessings, they´ve been having trials as well. That´s how life goes, right? So this last week, Belen, still jobeless, received a pension from her husband for the week to buy food . . . about 20 dollars. They were walking down the road (because they can´t afford the 20 cent bus ride to the market) and they found a woman who was walking with her son. Her son had rags tied around his feet, and the woman was incredibly skinny and malnourished looking . . . well, long story short, Belen and Ashley ended up giving their week´s pension of 20 dollars, to this woman and her son. When they got home, empty handed, minutes after sitting in the kitchen, wondering what they were going to do, a knock at the door came, and our ward mission leader´s wife had a box of food. She said that the bishop had called and they felt they needed to put this box of food together for her. God has stayed true to His promise, that she never would have want of food if she followed Him. It´s so true that everything we have literally comes from God, and if we want to prosper, we have to put Him first. When we put the world first, we receive only what the world can offer, and those things will fade with time, sickness, theives, and disasters. God is the only sure thing that we have in this world. I´m so grateful for the opportunity I have to share the happiness of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and let everyone know about a better life and a better world that awaits them. I know that this gospel is true, and the only way to be happy is to LIVE it. 

I love you all so much and I hope that you have a great week! Remember that we work to live, not live to work. Take care of yourselves spiritually so that you can be ok physically and be able to take care of those around you.  Love you!!!

Hna. Hulse

I don´t know what order the pictures are in, but one is of Belen and Ashley at their baptism, the other is Jenny and her kids (I LOVE this family, and Jenny and her husband are getting ready to get baptized, but we´re waiting for some documents to get here so they can get married first), the other is of me and my companion having Lunche . . . they don´t really eat dinner here. It´s usually something like bread and hot chocolate, or something super simple like that. The other picture is . . . soup in a bag (Kristin and Selina, you should know how to say that . . . haha sorry everyone, inside joke). But yeah . . . they always sell liquids in thin bags and it freaks me out. Sometime I´ll send a picture of someone drinking lemonade from a plastic bag out of a straw. It´s a thing, here. 

8/4/14

Hey everyone!

So, this week has been super awesome, as usual. An update on Belen and Ashley, this week Peru has been celebrating its birthday, so everyone´s out of school and people are having parties and celebrating. Welllll . . . Belen´s family came this week and apologized and made ammends, so we barely saw them, but they were happy and with their family! And I know with all of my heart, it was because they followed Christ, and kept His comandments, and made covenants with God. I know that God always come through with His end of the bargain if we keep OUR end of the bargain. It´s really hard to take leaps of faith, because sometimes, those leaps are over pits of fire and brimstone, but if we don´t make the leaps, eventually, we´ll end up walking right into it and falling in. God will always be there to catch us, lift us up and bring us higher than we were before, if we´re willing to trust in Him, make the sacrifices necessary, and BE desciples of Christ. 

This last week we were teaching a lesson with a less active member who´s gone though some pretty hard trials with rejection from her family and living more in the world than remembering her covenants she made at baptism. So, we´ve been teaching her agian, and her non member sister, Angie, who´s 15. We invited Angie to pray to receive an answer if this is the true church, and if God told her it´s true, to be baptized this month.  This girl, Aracely, felt that she needed to warn her sister about being baptized . . . about really thinking it through, and being sure that she´s up to making that commitment and to think about the consequences of being baptized. . . . in moments like this, God really tests my patience, haha. But I testified to Angie and Aracely, and I testify to all of you, that we should think about the consequences of NOT being baptized and NOT keeping our covenants. If God witnesses to us once that this is the true church, what more do we need to know? God knows everything, and so we should trust in what He tells us. We cannot enter into the Kingdom of God without keeping our covenants at baptism, and part of that covenant is enduring to the end. Baptism (and entering the temple) is not a one time show. It is not the end! It is the beginning of a long hard road full of obstacles, temptations, heartache and tests of endurance, faith, and deligence. But it is the only road that leads the Eternal Life. It is the only road that leads to the Celestial Kingdom, where families are eternal and where we will dwell as exalted celestial children of God. If you doubt it, LIVE it, and you will see. 

I love being a missionary. I love serving God and I love bringing happiness and truth to His children here in South America. It´s not easy, but it´s definitely worth every thing that I´ve given to be here. I love you all so much, and I hope that if you´ve fallen behind a little on keeping your covenants, that you can change today, and start to put your trust in God, instead of the world. Get on your knees, and talk with your Heavenly Father, who is all knowing and all powerful, and most of all, your Father. 

I love you all so much! Thank you for all your prayers and support. I hope you have a great week!

Hna. Hulse

P.S.

I´d love to hear from everyone! 

cassandra.hulse@myldsmail.net