¡ESTOY EMBARAZADA!

When you get to your first area in your mission you have a trainer. In mission vocab your trainer is your mom or your dad. I AM GOING TO TRAIN! I am going to have a daughter! Hence the subject that means I am pregnant!!! haha!

This week was full and empty. It was full of cool spiritual lessons, but empty when considering new people we found. We are working a lot with the ward and getting lots of references! We just need to go find them now!

One really spiritual thing that happened this week was teaching an eternigator without a plan. We showed up with some ideas of scriptures to share and then went by the spirit. I felt the spirit guiding my every word. By the end of the lesson the investigator told us that he would make us a deal about his baptism. That he would go ask God about it and if he could discern an answer he would talk to his mom about giving him permission to get baptized. This is what we wanted from the beginning!!!!

This week was also Zone conference! Something I love about my president is that he takes us on these crazy scripture tours and pulls out crazy doctrine that just makes sense. I can't share all of what he shared, but I can share my testimony. I already knew but now I am even more convinced that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church on the earth. Jesus himself established a perfect church when He was on the earth and again has established the same church in the exact same form through a young man named Joseph Smith. I know that the new prophet of the church is called of God and has the authority to be His mouthpiece to all the world. I love this gospel and I know there are many people who need it in their lives.

I am humbled more every week by the amazing love of the people here and feel truly privileged to have the opportunity to be amongst them preaching the love of the Savior.

Have an awesome week!

Fun Facts:

- Every week here we give English classes to invite more people to come to the church and to help all the people here who want to learn English!

- It is raining and super cold here and I have ruined basically all my shoes in the mud hahaha!

-- Don't count the days, make the days count!

~Hermana Madsen

5 feet in front of Me

This week I officially hit 1 year as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That is 2/3 of my time here. Honestly, looking back, it does feel like a year has passed, but it went by so fast. Something I decided to do a year ago is look 5 feet in front of me. That sounds stupid if you take it literally, but for me it always meant focusing on the most important things in the moment. As I have gone through this year of church service, it has been a struggle to not look too far ahead into the future, or outside of what I have been called to do. But I have done it. Now with one year in my pocket and half a year to go, it is even harder because the end seems so much closer and more real than before. I start thinking about my family, about going back to college, about the food I'm gonna eat... and then I remember... 5 feet in front of me.

Bonnie L. Oscarson said it perfectly in the last General Conference: "Heavenly Father may have placed those who need us closest to us, knowing that we are best suited to meet their needs." At reading this, not only did I think back on all the people I still need to help here, but very specifically the people RIGHT AROUND ME. So I told my companion we were going to contact our neighboring houses. In our walk to go contact, Hermana Jeppsen stopped and said, "This door too?" and I just went with it, and we knocked on a yellow metal door right behind our house. A TON of little kids came running to see who was knocking, and we invited them to listen to a story about Jesus and prophets. They came out and we sat in the middle of the dirt road and we taught all 15 children the first lesson. My companion knew exactly how to teach the rowdy kids so they would all understand, and would be interested.

During this lesson it was easy to look 5 feet in front of me.

We also found a young girl named Adelaida through a less-active member. This member helped place an elect soul 5 feet in front of us. The first time we talked with Adelaida she told us she wanted to go to a church, but was just confused about which one to go to. For a missionary, this is PRIME MATERIAL, because we can answer that doubt with the first lesson of the Restoration. After the first lesson and an invite to pray to ask if the church was true, she asked us why we went through trials and sadness in our lives. For a missionary, this is also prime because we teach just that in the second lesson. I am so grateful we found this wonderful daughter of God.

My invitation to all of you is to look 5 feet in front of you. Bonnie L. Oscarson said in the same talk from October 2017:

"I can guarantee that there will always be someone at every Church meeting you attend who is lonely, who is going through challenges and needs a friend, or who feels like he or she doesn’t belong. You have something important to contribute to every meeting or activity, and the Lord desires for you to look around at your peers and then minister as He would."

Look around you and join the work force of the Lord. I promise that if you do this, you will receive the wonderful blessings and the joy of the missionary work of the Lord. No effort is lost in the eyes of God.

Fun facts:

- To take the sacrament this week there were just 4 normal sized cups in the tray that we had to take a swig of and pass it to the next person.

- Because they use gas in air form here, it is super cheap. A full tank of gas is about 8 Bolivianos. That's a little over $1!!!

-- Don't count the days, make the days count!

~Hermana Madsen

Bebé, ¡Regaláme tu Corazón!

The men here tease and cat call a LOT. Especially when there are two North American girls walking by in dresses. It is actually hilarious what they say sometimes. This week one called out to us (in direct translation), "Oh Baby, gift me your heart!". I was tempted to turn around and tell him my heart was dedicated to God, but that seemed very extreme and dramatic so we just picked up our pace and laughed about it later.

Bolivia does have my heart. I look out my window every night and thatnk god that I have the chance to be here. then I wake up in the morning, happy to see my beautiful city of Cochabamba. There are so many people here that I absolutely love, and it just keeps growing.

Someone I love for being able to help her, is Cristina. She got baptized about a year ago and has gone through a lot of trials ever since, and has become less active. When we met her this week, she let us in immediately just because we were the missionaries. Before we started talking she was crying. She unloaded all of her problems and heartache onto us. We gladly took it. We read and prayed and decided to fast together. It was an amazing experience that I hope she takes and wants to come back to church- back to God.

Someone else who has my heart and patience is Jhulver, an amazing young man with desires to know the truth. He is SO ready to be baptized. He is just scared of messing up or regretting his decision later. He also got scared to pray because a few weeks ago we read him the story of Joseph Smith, and he doesn't want to be overcome by a dark spirit like Joseph was... oops. So this week we shared the story of the Prodigal Son and focused on the fact that the Father came running just at seeing his son, even though far off, headed in the right direction.

This is my testimony that God loves us with all His heart and will accept us and carry us home if we just TRY to walk in His path. In the October 2017 General Conference, Elder Holland quotes an author, Leo Tolstoy...

"Attack me if you wish, but don't attack the path I follow. If I know the way home but am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side?...Do not gleefully shout 'Look at him! There he is crawling into a bog!' No, do not gloat, but give your help to ANYONE trying to walk the road back to God."

Fun facts:

-Supposedly everyone is on summer vacation right now, becuase it's supposed to be summer. But it is SO COLD sometimes because it is cloudy all day so the sun never gets to us.

-I ate the best mango in the world this week. You can argue and say you had a better one, but you will be wrong.

-- Don't count the days, make the days count!

~Hermana Madsen

And on top of it all, we killed his cat.

So funny story.... this week we had a bunch of problems with our apartment. Our freezer filled up completely with ice so we let it all melt and discovered an age old ginger root. We took out the garbage for the first time in like 3 months because we finally were home when the garbage truck passed, but we dripped all the garbage juice down our 4 flights of stairs along with lots of maggots. And on top of everything, the owner's cat got onto our balcony and jumped off, basically committing suicide. It is a really good thing cats have 9 lives.

Other than that I had some really cool experiences this week! We taught an amazing woman named Yolanda who wants so badly that her daughter gets a chance to hear about Jesus. We taught her the Plan of Salvation, and it was amazing how much she is just ready to accept it all. The only problem is that she went on a trip, and we cant teach her for a couple weeks. But we gave her a Book of Mormon to take with her, with all faith that she will read at least a little.

Also one of my old investigators from Jaihuayco, Giovana, got baptized this week! I got permission from the president to go to her baptism and I was so happy to see her get in the water after so many missionaries visiting her. Even though she had to re-do it three times, the important thing is that she got baptized=)

But another great part of that night was the fact that I got the chance to participate by giving a talk about the spirit. I have learned a ton this week about how important the spirit is in missionary work. So many times this week I have just opened my mouth and let the spirit guide what I say. I trust so much more now in God and that he will tell me what I need to say in the perfect moment. Like we also were in Jaihuayco for the farewell night of a member that now is headed out on a mission. And while we were sitting there, the brother directing the meeting said "and then we will turn the time over to Hermana Madsen to give a message about how the mission has blessed her in her life". So I immediately started praying to know scriptures and a good train of thought to share. When it came time, I felt confident and full of the spirit. I was able to share something that i hope touched this pre-missionary's heart along with anyone else who was listening. 

That is our job as missionaries. To teach to everyone who receives us. And as we do it, as we trust in God to guide us, we will not only be blessed with success in the mission, but also blessings in the Eternities.

Fun Facts:

- We were in a house that recently got renovated. We were helping them prepare for their house-warming party, and in walked a catholic priest blessing the new house.... and he sprinkled us with holy water as he chanted his prayer.

- Carpet literally doesn't exist here so neither do vacuums. 

{I think this is making a surprise cake for Sister Pastillo's birthday, one of her favorite companions ever}

-- Don't count the days, make the days count!

~Hermana Madsen

Christmas?? 2018??? Where is the time going?

So this is a short one, but this week was awesome! Last monday I got to talk with my amazing family, and I am so grateful for them in my life. It only made me homesick for a minute and then we got back to work=)

Christmas Eve is when all the people in Bolivia celebrate Christmas. We went caroling at a hospital, and a children's home and it was AMAZING. My favorite part of this Christmas was NOT getting presents. Seriously it helped me see the real meaning of Christmas and gave me the opportunity to serve others=) 

{her Christmas package did NOT arrive, and as far as I know, is still not there... hope someone liked the duplicate mini Sister Missionary stockings, candy, Cochabamba Mission necklaces, guitar music CD's, and candy canes.  Merry Christmas, Mr. Postworker!!}

Christmas night we talked with a new investigator named Franklin. He has listened to the missionaries before, but was just really scared to make promises he feels like he can't keep. We talked to him with the Elders, and by the end of the night he was just asking what he had to do to be baptized. There was a change in the light in his eyes. He is so ready and I am excited to see where he goes.

Then at the end of the week we saw some miracles in contacting. We were late to an appointment one night and we ran into this guy that we had talked to before. He had listened to the missionaries in Chile and even had a baptismal date, but didn't feel ready... so he told us he wants to take the lessons again and get baptized here in Bolivia! Then because we were talking to him, we ran into another girl on the street who said that she had talked with the missionaries before but she lost contact with them and wanted to come closer to God again. So we have appointments with them this week and I am just so grateful to God because I know He is watching over us and blessing us=)

My area here is awesome my comp is awesome and time is going WAY too fast. 

Love you all! Hope you have a great rest of Break!

Fun Facts:

-Here there is a lake called Lake Titicaca and there is a myth that there is a city of gold at the bottom, but every time someone goes down to take the gold, they disappear or die. It is impossible to reach the gold because there seems to be something guarding it! They say it might be mermaids.

{best part of Christmas BY FAR}

-- Don't count the days, make the days count!

~Hermana Madsen