GOOD-BYE ANTARCTICA!

Fetal positions everybody!

 

Cambios just came out like 5 minutes ago and I found out I´m returning to infancy. Rahue Alto here I come! (In case no one remembers, I started my mission in Rahue Alto in the sector Camino Real...I´m going to Zona Rahue Alto Sector Rahue Alto).  I´m going to be with Hermana Kelley who came to the mission in January and she is just southern belle. At Christmas, all us sisters were in the mission home and prez pulled out her picture and said ¨look who´s coming to the mission¨ we all just died because she´s so beautiful, but then consoled ourselves with the fact that we all get fat out here and one day she will too. :). Nah, it´s all a joke.  But seriously, we are in for some good times.

So the elders called us last week and said ¨Hermana Bourne, you have to be downtown at 930 tomorrow with your first suitcase to send because you are leaving.¨ LAME. I won´t lie...I cried. I can honestly say that I´ve absolutely enjoyed and relished every day I´ve had down here...wind and evil gross dogs and slipping on the ice and menos activos and all. 

 I think one of the greatest joys I´ve felt was yesterday was during church.  During the sacrament, I was praying and then ended and looked up to take the sacrament and who should it be but Davidcito...Melisa´s son.  I hadn´t realized that he was passing the sacrament.  It was his very first time and he did it with such reverence and dignity I just burst into tears.  I just stared at him the rest of the sacrament (not creepily...don´t worry) with disbelief at the joy and love that God has allowed me down here at the end of the world.  I watched him pass the bread and water to Melisa and she just cried with joy.  ah, the simple things. I LOVE this family.

I was sitting at the piano when all this happened and tried to compose myself...but then I saw Alvaro and Laura (the Uruguayans) take the bread and water and just smile and just about died with love.  I looked at every single face in the congregation and knew their names and what was happening in their families and what their worries and hopes are and my body just filled with a love that I don´t think I´ve ever felt before.  I know Heavenly Father loves these people. I know He cares for them in their worries and problems and I know our Savior died for every single one of them.  There are many of them that I think I might do anything for.

Speaking of love. BAPTIZZLE! Alvaro and Laura were baptized this Saturday in a small, reverent, beautiful, and joyful baptism.  Their hyperactive four year old named Franco laughed with childlike joy as he watched his parents get baptized.  Then he shouted ¨I´m going to swin when I´m eight.¨ No wonder we have to become as little children.

Good-bye Straits of Magellan!!!

Shoutouts....ALmost died laughing when I found out that Haven cries every time dad holds her! BAAHH! Don´t feel too bad dad, I make children cry unintentionally down here all the time.... Maybe we just have really creepy faces...no se. 

 Blob, thank you for your hilarious emails! My papito is getting LASER surgery this week so that just makes me happy we´re on the same wavelength. I love hearing from you- you are phenominal..don´t let my family push you and your gigantic head around.  James, thank you for writing me. It seems you are getting better and better every day.  Done Sean, ask my little sister out on a date for pete´s sake!  Tiff, I love you so much. I hope you´re doing well.  Good luck in Europe, it will be the adventure of a lifetime!!

Katie, keep up the amazing life and the awesome grades! Holy shrapnel!  You know my opinion about the whole schpeel...listen to Ashley and mom--ALWAYS...they will never lead you wrong....

Well, I´m headed off now. Love you all!

Hermana Bourne

Sophie and baby Haven miss Emily!!

Lumbering away at the bottom of the earth.....

Well family,

the old addage ¨Modest is Hottest¨ was never truer or purer than it is here in Punta Arenas as a missionary.  Like the Antarctic adventurers of old, we do whatever is necessary to stay warm and dry.  There is no style or pride anymore.  I´m sitting here with two pairs of wool tights over thermals with a fleece vest...my companion decided to wear tights over sweatpants today (figure that one out) and we both are secretly swaddling our feet in plastic bags hidden only by our sensible boots. There is nothing left to the imagination at all and I am frequently reminded of Hagrid when I catch a glimpse of our shadows lumbering down the street.  truely, modest IS hottest.

 

Really great, normal, happy, work-filled week.  IT SNOWED! Happiest feeling ever.  Too bad innocent, beautiful snowflakes are turned to devil ice chunks of death when the Punta wind comes along. Alvaro and Laura (the Uruguayans...best people on earth) are getting baptizzled this Saturday and I just can´t believe sometimes the humility and faith that they have to make all of these changes so fast in their lives.  They stopped smoking the day of Palabra de Sabiduria and left drinking cafe and te and started praying and reading and coming to church all the time....They prayed for the first time in front of us the other day (they had been ¨practicing¨ praying together) and it was just a beautiful experience.  Halsy (ps, where have you been?!) always said it was a blessing to kneel down and pray as a missionary and I second that motion.  To recognize that we might as well be bowed down before a Heavenly Father who is right in front of us...as real as anything...and communicate astounds me sometimes. Prayer is something we can always improve.

 

Katie, Preach My Gospel will change your life.  Make sure you read and study chapter 3 and then 4 and 6 and 5 and 1 and 2 probably in that order.  INCREDIBLE.  To really understand the doctirne of Christ is something very powerful and It has been the greatest blessing to understand it a little more and learn more every day.  It´s also a LOT easier to obey commandments and live the gospel when we understand the reason!  You could use Friday to write to me what you are learning (and it would make a cool study journal) and the other day to do service of some kind.  Seriously Katie, I´m still praying for you and you´ll be great!

 

Well family and friends, shoutouts to luz, jess, mikey, mom and dad and katie.  I think the biggest shout out will go to my dad...he wrote a LETTER and I think it might have surpassed my mothers for the first time ever. Lets all congratulate him! Yay dad!!! Love you. Thanks for the letter. :) Liz and Jess I´m glad you had a great experience. Love you both!

Mike and Baron- off my bed!!

James- Love you- write me!!

Until next week!

 

Hna Bourne

 

 

Advice on serving a mission

****** I have prayed for about 5 months now that you would consider a mission and never fear, I´m not here to pressure you at all to turn in papers or anything I just want to share how I feel about the whole business (obviously your decisions are up to you).  Obviously, I am biased because I´m in the throws of the work.  But let me just say that it is the thing of greatest worth that I have ever done and I´ve never been happier or closer to the Savior Jesus Christ.  Rememer  when you KNEW that Jesus Christ was your Savior and that THIS is right and the ONLY way.  As missionaries, we get to help people find that daily and I think a natural result of really having a testimony is the desire to share it with other people.  I didn´t REALLY consider a mission until I REALLY started getting my own testimony (which was about the same timeish as you...19 or 20). 

Wow, my thoughts won´t be organized at all because my little heart is just screaming GO, GO, GO! Just how when you drew closer to the Savior, you knew HIm better...you understood...so much more is it when you enter the temple and then the mission field. I wrote just this morning in my journal how ashamed I am at the lack of understanding I had before the mission...of the plan of salvation, of the Savior, of other people, of myself.   You learn things out here that will only help you get better and better (eternal progression is the whole point, right?)  I can´t imagine my life without this calling.  I lay in bed last night and felt the beautiful changes that have come over me the last 9 months.  You might be able to find a few of them in my blog, but the rest will hopefully just be manifest in how I live the rest of my life...

 Okay, I could rave all day about how YES is the decision you should make, but it all comes down to you.  I know it was real and I know you grew close to the Savior...I can see it in your face and read it in your letters. Obviously you came to a knowledge of the Savior .  You discovered that He cares and He loves you.  God is able to answer prayers.  But with the whole mission decision will all come down to you. I think Heavenly Father would LOVE all of His daughters to serve in this capacity...but he leaves it to us to decide.  I have found with every companion I´ve had that there was at least some oposition in their decision (boys, TIME was a huge one...they thought it was so long or they couldn´t finish school or stuff like that, family problems, money)  We can rule out family problems and money because we have the best of those worlds.  For you, I bet it will come down to time. (You´ll have all sorts of boys interested liike always...but whatever).  It probably seems like a really long time or you´ll feel like you will miss something that otherwise would´ve happened if you hadn´t have served a mission.  FALSO! Those two are false.  Heavenly Father would never restrict blessings based on a good and righteous decision.  Don´t you worry for one second that you´ll somehow miss something if you decide to go.  and two, it is the shortest time of my life.  

 Basically it all comes down to you.  Meditate, think, study the scriptures, evaluate your own testimony, think of the good you can do and the lives you can change and how this opportunity will never, ever come again in your life...even if you serve with your husband (president holland said it, not me) Think of the joy and changes YOU personally have experienced from having the Savior be such a huge part of your life..think of the stories you will tell your children…think of the increased knowledge you can have of the Savior from serving day alter day in the Spirit, think of the depth of your testimony that comes from the sactifying process of the atonement…and then think of your Father in heaven and what He would have you do.  Of course I´m going to say GO, nothing in my life has meant more to me than this.  I love you so much and thats why I´ve been praying since January for you to think about serving.  I have never found anything of greater worth and thats why I want to share it with you.

 I can´t imagine you having a companion that wouldn´t just absolutely adore you. I know you can work hard and I know you are exceedingly capable in whatever language, country, weather, or situation.  Your mission president would LOVE you and you have a testimony of the Gospel you have the capacity to reach down into people´s low points and give them a high and eternal hope.  Nothing in my life will ever be the same because of this and I´m eternally grateful.  I can´t make the decision for you (although I´d like to :) ), but please just trust me when I say you will be phenominal and will find nothing to do that is of greater worth (except start your own family).  The decision is between you and the Lord (but I´m still going to pray for you).  There´s a part where Paul is preaching in the Bible and he says that he counts his life before his ministry as dung...now I don´t think my life before was dung, but everything is so much more meaningful...so much more beautiful and so much happier.  Vicky (a 19 year old girl we baptized) wrote me today and she expressed her love for me and for God, she has a calling and is preparing to go to the temple to get married to a return missionary.  I almost cried with joy and felt that I would work the rest of my mission without baptizing one more person if she would remain faithful till the end. I know she will.

Well, I could write to you for hours and hours and hours about experiences and people I love with a pure love. I would do anything for some of these people and I KNOW Christ DID do everything for these people.  ****, Christ did it for us, too. 

 Nothing will be of more worth, nothing will bring you greater happiness at this time in your life, and NOTHING will bring you closer to God than to enter the holy temple and then serve with all your might.  All he requires is a worthy heart and willing hands.  You don´t have to be perfect, you don´t have to know everything.  The burning knowledge that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world and restored HIS Gospel (the only way back) through the prophet Joseph is what you need.  Pray, pray, fast, pray, study, breath, and pray.  You will know what you should do.  I love you so much ***** and will be overjoyed at whatever decision you make and support you in wherever life takes you (seriously).

Em

Snow like sisters...

Family,

So I really looked in the mirror for the first time since coming here and was shocked! I think when people see angels, those angels have just come from three cambios in Punta Arenas because their skin is really white..".yea and the whiteness thereof doth exceed the whiteness of the driven snow. " Holy Shrapnel, I´m translucent. 

But, as with everything else, we can draw a spiritual parallel.  This pureness of the epidermus didn´t come from one day cloistered away in my one room apartment with the comp (the apartment contains two beds a bathroom and a kitchen..all in one room...figure that one out).  This blancura came from hours and days and weeks of applying spf 75 and weeks of the sun setting at 4pm.  Just as our own spiritual purity or talents or great and marvelous things that we want to accomplish don´t come from one big burst of effort or one week of taking the sacrament...this snow-sister-like state has comes from weeks of effort.  I think Alma 37:6-7 are some of my favorite verses of scripture.

Anywho, great week family.  Shoutouts to BUNDIAL! (I really want that wedding invitation), Katie, mom, dad, and grandma cynthia! Oh yeah, and a shout out to Brooke Bagley (brookie, my comps hands look exactly like yours...it´s really creepy).

 

Creepy slash funny anecdote...we were walking down Ovejero looking for a house when, all of a sudden, Burnmeister says ``my skirt fell off``. There it was...around her ankles.  Luckily, in about .8 seconds she had gotten it back up to the proper position...unluckily, Ovejero is the main street in our sector.  But, luckily again, the only witness was a man who had apparently just drunken a tank alcohol.  He almost fell over laughing. Luckily again, we are in Punta Arenas and we usually wear two or three pairs of tights, thermals and then pants on most days...Also, really luckily again, we are sister missionaries and have absolutely no shame.

Dad, we got into a house and started to teach when I realized that the movie  A Few Good Men (I think thats what its called) was on the TV.  We told the investigators they couldn´t handle the truth and left.

(Joke! We taught a really sweet lesson and she´s progressing.) Thought you´d like that dad!

Well, everything is just dandy down here at the bottom of the world. Great to hear liz and jess are doing well! (someone tell Liz to wait at LEAST till February for me!) Grandma, send Gpa my love and congrats on the fundraiser again! I love those things!

It´s almost 100% likely that I´m leaving Punta Arenas on June 16 which is the lamest thing I´ve ever typed. I can´t even begin to express my LOVE for this sector.  I love so many people here and have had an exceedingly high number of incredible experiences.  I don´t want to think about leaving the sector, so for now I´ll just keep working and helping people develop faith in Christ (the happiest work on earth!)

The picture is me kissing an Indian foot (there is some monument to Magellan here with some big iron Indian), 

I LOVE YOU ALL! Go help the missionaries wherever you are!

This blog entry probably doesn´t make it sound like I´m a missionary at all. But I really am! We´re obedient, working, and exceedingly joyfull (and don´t forget white) When the Punta Arenas missionaries emerged back up into Osorno we all thought they were creepy and white...Creepy whiteness, here I come!

Hermana Bourne

 

Dear ones,

 

Wow, really full, good week.  Davidcito (Melisa´s son) got baptized and that is the best news ever! To watch people take a step towards exaltation is an extremely wonderful, gratifying process and I´m grateful to be part of it.  Two from that family down, two to go! Me and the Burnmeister are having a really wonderful time here in Ovejero...we are absolutely exhausted at the end of every day and we are striving to follow what the Spirit says to us at every turn.  It´s lead us to yet two more incredible families. Other than that...the work continues. Saturday was zone conference and the baptism...exceedingly wonderful day.

 

Shoutouts go to TEEF! and Hal and various members of the family! But the biggest shoutout of all time goes to MOM...the single best mother in the entire world.  I received two large packages full of love and clothes. THANK YOU SO MUCH! We had cutey outfits for the baptism. Thank you thank you thank you! Mom, in the package you sent me a whole load of pictures and in the midst is some picture of some guy skiing and I have no idea who it is...it´s not MIkey, James or Dad or Hal...who is it? Why would you send me a picture of such a luscious bowl to be skied?! (ha!  a mission is better :) )

 

A large holy shrapnel to Tiffany Andrews...way to follow the Spirit...don´t you just LOVE the people from Uruguay? Our next baptism is a couple from Uruguay and they are 100% phenominal.  He was a professional futbol player and she is Hermana Aponte´s TWIN.  We were at the end of a really horrible day and it was raining and dark again and we felt impressed to knock this specific door and Alvaro opened up, let us in, let us teach him, accepted fecha and brought his wife to church the next day! This last week, they quit smoking, fasted, and came to church again. They read the BOM every day and pray and just love it all. I´m just beyond impressed with the disposition of these people to make such huge changes in such a short amount of time...the gospel works miracles.  Thanks for your example of DOING Tiff.  I think sometimes we say a lot of things that we should do without actually DOING them.  keep doing and you will receive more and more impressions! I was actually thinking about you this morning and was SO happy to receive an email from you....thank you. I love you!

 

Well people, Chile is awesome as ever.  It´s so cold outside and the houses are so warm that my pens have started exploding in the inside of my jacket spontaneously.  The temperature change isn´t really good for the ink apparently (or for my clothes!)

 

I had a great experience during personal study that I want to tell you about.  I´ve been praying a lot to know how to improve and help the other hermanas in Punta Arenas and I got such a tender mercy from Heavenly Father this morning. I prayed, studied the BOM for about a half hour (Bourne family challenge!) and cracked open that book that Halsy sent me with talks from GA´s.  I opened to ¨Swallowed up in the Will of the Father¨ by Maxwell and received a whole load of personal revelation.  Consecration (of time, talents, basically our whole lives) is the end all of everything we do.  We are here to submit our wills to God´s will. We do that by ceasing to worry about our own spiritual temperatures and look to see the fevers raging all around us.  Even when we don´t understand why something is happening to us or a loved one...when we REALLY do not understand, we fall back on our faith and knowledge of the heart and mind of God and trust that He understands.  

Oh, man, the best part is when he says that to leave the Telestial Level we need to stop committing sins of commission (actually doing bad things or making mistakes), but to leave the Terrestrial Level and reach the Celestial- we must leave completely the sins of Omission (the misuse or underuse of our time, talents, energy, and lives).  That part just killed me.  How many times have I NOT prayed, studied, helped, lifted, served, shared, been kind or loving? How many times have I not done something because I was sure someone else would?  How many times did I seek for the will of God in the daily things? How many times did I not?

 

I´m more committed to not only seek for the will of God in the daily mission things (we´re already very focused on that), but I want this concept to become part of me. I don´t want to return from here only to leave what I´ve learned and do finally what I want to do and build up myself, my resume, or my ego.  I really want to desire to do God´s will in 5 years and in 50 years. He describes consecration as a process.. given drop by drop throughout our entire lives and that was the part that absolutely terrified me.  When we really leave that which we want or desire, it´s scary and hard because it´s what we wanted! But I´ve found as I´ve given maybe one or two drops out here that our capacity to experience joy is expanded with every drop we give. That there is no happiness apart from God because it doesn´t exist outside of Him.  I think a lot of our dissapointments or discouragements come from looking to something other than God for happiness and I hope I can always remember that. I´m more committed to developing these habits of consecration that will be carried with me throughout my life so I can desire God´s will.

 

I don´t know, people...keep doing what your doing.  Thanks for your examples of faith, testimony, and consecration of your time and talents to God...because in the end, that´s what matter´s, right? Love you all!

Hermana Bourne

HIKING!