Monday, March 28, 2016

Week Twenty-nine: Happy to be in Santo Domingo

Hola Mi Familia!
I´m still in Santo Domingo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hermana Corado and I are both staying here and we're pumped for this new change! I am so so so very excited! I don´t have a ton of time to share everything that happened this week but oh man what a week it was.
As a missionary you come to learn a lot about the opposition that Satan likes to put in the work. The families we're teaching are all facing a lot of challenges right now. It´s really hard to see but we know that the Gospel is strengthening them during these hard times. Even with all of the opposition, we've felt the spirit so strongly as we´ve visited them and counseled them. The spirit truly is the real teacher in this work.
I have come to truly love the Atonement here on the mission. The Atonement is the best!!!!!!!!!! I can't imagine what my life would be like without my Savior Jesus Christ. I know He lives! I have felt that so strongly in the past few weeks as we have been teaching more about His Atoning Sacrifice during this Easter time. I learned from a missionary this week that the purpose of the Spirit is to first comfort us, and then to testify that Jesus is the Christ, and I have felt that so strongly this week.
The Book of Mormon is true! We faced a lot of apostasy this week, and it was hard, but not because it shook our testimonies because it didn't, but because we left each visit with a smile on our face and a prayer of gratitude in our hearts for the great blessing of having the true Gospel of our Lord and Savior in our lives! I love this Gospel and I love this work!
Sorry I don't have time to write more! I love you all! Keep the faith!
Hermana Beutler

Future Hermana Delgado! I´m going to miss her tons! She´s going to serve in Trujillo Peru!
A picture with my favorite muchachos. We matched :)
My Ecuadorian Family

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Week Twenty-eight: Moments leading to marriage

Hola mi familia! 

Wow what a week it has been! 

Miracles! 

We had four families in the church on Sunday....FOUR!!!!!!! What?!?!?! Agh!!!!!!! It was so amazing! Three of the families aren´t married but ya mismo!!!!! All of them have plans of getting married this month or next month. It´s incredible! I feel so grateful to have the opportunity to teach these children of our Heavenly Father. 

 The biggest miracle of them all was when we went to visit Emilda and her husband was there! We´ve only been able to teach him twice and we talked with them about the law of chastity and they have plans to get married in April and he accepted baptism! WHAT?! The miracles that we see in the work of the Lord will never cease to amaze me. 

The Salas and Villareal families are also doing super well! I can´t imagine leaving them in a week from now! We have changes a week early because of the changes in the MTC but I don´t want to leave Santo Domingo! I´m convinced I´m staying but then again we never know! The only thing I know is that I will cry all night long if I have to leave my families! 

Another miracle! We found the Noboa Macias Family! They are the best! We taught the Restoration and the spirit was so strong! They are so excited to know more about the gospel and receive answers. They aren´t married but when we talked about marriage Anderson the husband surprised his wife and told her that he went to the Registro Civil (the place where people get married) and got the information he needed to start the process. She almost started crying! That was on Saturday at fourish our time here in Ecuador. Right when Carmen was getting married! Heavenly Father blessed me with a cute marriage moment too. :) 

Ah! I wish there was time to tell you all about everything that happens here in the mission! Next week I´ll try to make more sense I promise! :) 

This week I have thought a lot more about the Resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ and about the beauty of the Atonement during this special time of Easter. I know that Christ lives. I know it with all of my heart. And through His Atonement, we can all live with peace in our hearts as we become converted to Him, knowing that we have a Friend and Redeemer who loves us and will always be here for us. I love the Gospel! I love being a missionary! 

I love you all so much! 
Hermana Beutler


She tells me that I make her look black because I´m so white.
She´s pretty funny. :)
We had divisions in Quito. They made me shrink so they wouldn´t look so short. Love them.
Mis latinas. Parguay, Argentina, and Guatemala
We went to go paint Ines´ house and we also ended up
taking pictures with this little guy.
It´s real ya know...Ines´husband supposedly caught it
and paid someone to make it all creepy and stuff like that.
Love this picture
Our week's selfie.
The view of Santo Domingo from on top of Bomboli. 
Bomboli excursion
Bomboli trail
a 2 foot long iguana on top of Bomboli today.
It´s not the first one I've seen here in Santo Domingo
Mis amigos coloridos
Hey look Carmen I found your name!!!!!!!!
Our smiles and happy hearts :)

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Week Twenty-seven: " . . . do our part . . .no empty chairs"

Hola mi familia!

The Villareal Family came to church yesterday! Oh man that was the best feeling in the world. If I came on the mission just to find and teach them it would make everything 100% worth it. They are the best! Rene (the dad) came in with his tie on and everything and it was awesome! The kids Renata and Justin loved primary and Melany looked so happy when she left Young Womens! Ah! We're so happy for them! Fatima (the mom) told us that this was the happiest and most united that she has seen her family. She also loved the classes and felt strongly the spirit testify to her that the church is true. Prayers answered!!!!!!!!!! The ward did SUCH AN AMAZING JOB welcoming them and taking them to the classes and showing them all of the love in the world. We were so happy to see that. They are truly prepared to be strong members of the church and converts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. SUCH A MIRACLE! I'll probably never be able to describe how happy we are for them! We're praying that all will go well with his process of getting divorced from his ex wife and married to Fatima!

On top of that, yesterday night we went and taught them with some members from the ward about temples. As we taught about eternal marriage we felt so strongly the spirit as Rene told us that he would do whatever it takes to make it to the temple with his family. I realized in this moment that this is the best work in the world! Even though it's going to be difficult not being in the temple this Saturday with my sister as she gets sealed to her eternal companion, I can have peace in my heart knowing that I'm here helping other people who never even knew it was possible, prepare themselves to do the same. It's the best feeling in the world. 

I don't really have much else to say. Nothing really can top what happened this week with this family that is so very near and dear to my heart. I hope we can all remember that this is why we're here on this earth, to learn, have families, and go to the temple so that we can have eternal families and eternal happiness! We shouldn't let anything stop us from having that! 

I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the true church. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know that Christ lives and loves us. I know that we have a Heavenly Father who hears and answers each and every one of our prayers. I know that the temple is the House of the Lord. I know it with all of my heart!

I love being a missionary and I love you all! I hope and pray that we will all be together with our families in the Celestial Kingdom enjoying of the eternal glory and blessings that are awaiting us! Let us all do our part so that there are no empty chairs!

Con todo mi amor,
Hermana Beutler

Me and Hermana Corado! Surprise I got a haircut!
The bishop´s family
The birthday boy! Jose Antonio! He´s the bishops son. He turned six. He also turned into Iron Man. 
With my best friend Spider Man aka Mahonri. He´s the bishops son, he´s four, and he likes to flirt with us by sneaking us oreos from under the table after lunch.

All he wanted for his birthday was to be Iron Man
The greatest picture ever.
Spider Man climbing the wall
Está mordiendo el pastel. Tradición por los cumpleaños.
I love the concentrating look on Mahonri´s face. Haha 
The brother had to have a turn.
The Bishop told us that when asked who he wanted at his birthday party, all that Jose Antonio said was his family and the missionaries! Ah! I love those boys so much! Even when they're absolutely crazy!

Monday, March 7, 2016

Week Twenty-six: "Long email, but it's worth the read."

Hola Mi Familia!

Wow! What a week it has been! I´ve learned so much this week! I hope my stories and thoughts make even a little bit of sense.

First off, Heavenly Father has a plan for especially designed for each and every one of us. So Ines didn´t get baptized this week. So long story short her husband works in the Oriente, which is pretty far. He works for twenty days and is home for ten. I´ve never even met him. Because he has been opposed to her getting baptized in the past he needs to sign a paper now saying that he´s fine with it but Ines told us that her husband was going to be working a "double shift" of 40 days! We found this out two days before her baptism. I was so stressed out! This isn´t the first time that I´ve had to tell someone that they can´t get baptized for purposes other than themselves. But I´ve always seen miracles because of it so we pushed forward. We got permission to get over the phone permission from him so we went to her house to call him and she wouldn´t let us talk to him about the baptism. And that´s when we knew that something was up. So we decided to postpone her bautism. It´s so hard to watch someone you love plead with you to be baptized when you know that they are ready but something or someone else is holding them back. But I´ve learned that we´re here as missionaries to baptize converts and in order to have the support in her home she needs to wait a little bit longer. Luckily her husband now is going to come back in less than two weeks so we are going to work hard and pray hard that he´ll have his heart softened.

Hermana Corado, una amiga, y yo

We found a miracle family this week! The Salas family! Ah! They´re so great! We first taught Martha the mom last week and then we taught the whole family this past week and Julio (her husband) is so interested in the Gospel and told us that he wants to change his life. They have five kids and we´ve only met three of them, one of which is 14 and can get baptized but we are going to meet the two older kids soon and we are so excited! Julio, Martha, and Kayer (the one that´s 14). and the two younger daughters all came to church this Sunday! It was the best! Finding a couple that are ready to accept the Gospel in their lives and get married here in Santo Domingo is so rare! But we found them!


And guess what! We found two! The other family we found was a miracle! The Villareal family! Oh man I love them so much! They live super close to where we live and we normally don´t contact near the house (I´m not sure why because our neighbors are golden) but we passed by their house and felt so strongly that we needed to contact them. Turns out that they listened to the missionaries about a year ago but never asisted because they felt content where they were at. Well we taught them the Restauracion (I don´t know how to spell that in English) and the spirit was SO strong. We taught more with the Bible in the lesson than we usually do because we felt prompted to do so and Fatima (the mom) was blown away. She almost started to cry. She had doubts about the God head and we helped her answer them with the Bible and she was so excited we felt like she was going to walk to the church right then and there to be baptized! And her husband is so great! He is a bit older than her but he cracks us up! He always says that whatever his wife says goes, so if she says that they´re going to church then they´re going to church. They have such an awesome relationship and its so funny and cute the way they talk. AHHH they´re the best! He was and still is married to his ex-wife that lives in Spain and we talked to them about the law of chastity and they are finishing up the divorce process this week! They can´t wait to get married and get baptized! It´s a miracle! On top of that they already had two copies of the Book of Mormon in their house! Such a miracle! 



I love this work so much! I´m eternally grateful for the experiences and oportunities I get to have here on the mission! It´s absolutely the best!


God loves us so much! He sent His Son Jesus Christ for us! I know He lives with all of my heart and I know that the church is true! 


Sometimes we contact people that really don´t want anything to do with us and just want to combat our beliefs. We were heading back to the house at night and needed to drop off a big bag of stuff and so we dropped it off and then noticed that we still had five minutes left so we headed out to contact and we contacted a couple. The man was very nice and we could tell that he already knew what we were doing. He invited us to go to his church so we could compare messages to see which one is better. I told him that we aren´t here as missionaries to compare messages with others but really we´re here to invite people to pray to our Heavenly Father to know for themselves if it´s true. He asked me "and how do you know?" I explained to him that I´ve prayed and I´ve felt through the spirit that it´s true, and that I know it with all of my heart. He went on to tell me that my answer practically is invalid and that we can´t receive answers that way. That God works differently than that and that we need to rethink our decisions. 


I left that contact wondering what good we had done and why Heavenly Father wanted us to spend our last five minutes of the night contacting this man that was completely closed off to the truth. Then I remembered what Elder Holland told us in our conference. He said that the Atonement never was easy for the Savior, and so this work never should be easy for us. If it´s easy then we´re not working hard enough. I learned so much that night and thought a lot about how our Savior felt as the same people that he would die for were rejecting Him. I realized that this work never will be easy but it will always be worth it, because it is the work of the Lord. 


I love being a missionary and I love this Gospel!


Keep on keeping the faith! I love you all!


Con mucho amor,

Hermana Beutler