December 22nd

Familia

Wow, I am very excited for Karen`s employee.. I think that is wonderful!! What a great time to share this time of the year. 

So, this is my last family letter.. I feel like it would be a lot better in person and not written. I am not very good at writing, but it is such a blessing that ya'll have been able to read the "blogs" to let others know the life of a missionary. 

This week we were able to go to the temple as a group of us missionaries that are leaving. Maybe you don't know, but I had asked Grandma and Grandpa Paredes  to send me names to be able to do in the temple. I was able to go through for my aunt Juana de Dios Sepulveda Sotomayor. It was a blessing to be able to go through for one of my own family names and to do it in "her" temple. The temple has such a special place in my heart and I am excited to come back home to go through the Phoenix temple.

We also had our baptism yesterday!! M____ M____. A little difficult through it all. The Bishop who was supposed to baptize her got there a little late. but such a wonderful experience through it all.- there it is. A baptism :)

 

I want to leave it all with my testimony knowing that this time is a time to think about our Savior Jesus Christ. He is the reason that we celebrate this time of the year. A scripture that our President mentioned is in 1Nephi 11:16. To think that Christ came down to be born of humble circumstances in His reign is unimaginable. There is no way we will ever understand or know what He had to experience to be born and live as man would live. He did it willingly and we must also do the will of God with a willing heart just as Christ did. I am so blessed to have been among the people of Chile for a time. I will never forget all of the small experience that made up all of my 18 months. What a blessing to come as a representante de Jesucristo. I know that Christ Lives and that His Atonemente and Resurrection is the reason we celebrate His birth. 

 

 

I cant wait to talk to Alex and to see the rest of you real soon. Love you and thank you for it all

FELIZ NAVIDAD!

Sister Jasmine Berthelson

Chile Santiago East Mission

September 15th

kind of stinks, I have a few more pics to send yall.... but the computer i am at right now is pretty old and there is no where to plug in my camera. I am well!
This week has been full of conferences, service, work... We were able to have a conference with our President Wright and his wife and an area 70, Elder Resek were able to come and speak to us Thursday. It was powerful conference and we were able to focus more on helping South America Statistically. Startaling the challenge there is in South America for the members to 

1. Actively come to church and 

2. Pay tithing and fast offerings.

 

I am so blessed to have learned these commandments at a young age because it is sad to see the numbers in the members who are members and do very little in the building of Zion. There is only RECENTLY a construction of the temple in Concepción and our little temple in Santiago with all of the members in the whole country of Chile. It gave us a clear overview of what we can focus on as far as teaching... We were also cleaning out the area book and we found a name that the elders had been teaching a couple of years ago. We stopped by the house to find the gal they were teaching and another young woman came out. Her name is C_____ and she was an active member of the chuch up until she was 12 years old. She had family problems and her mom stopped taking her to church. She wants us to start coming back to teach her. Difficult because she only remembers a little of wht she was taught 8 years ago. But is was such a blessing to find her because she said she really feels "lost" in this time of her life. We have plans to continue to visit her this week. We are still working hard with our two investigators with baptism dates-. M_____ and M_____. Also C____ G_____ who is the daughter of our convert M___ G_____. 

Sounds like everyone was busy this week. Hope everything turned out for the funeral and it is good to hear that both dad and k were able to help out. It also sounds great that y'all are going to visit the Dodd's this Thanksgiving. And Elder B sounds like he is doing great! like the pics as well. Hope everyone has a good week. I will be sending pics the next week bc we are going to be celebrating a lot of 18 like last year!!! yeahhh