Then Sings My Soul, My God, How Great Thou Art

Email from Monday, February 23, 2015

 

Hello Family, Friends, and Blog-Stalkers,

It´s been so long that I´m not sure if you guys even remember who I am or what I´m doing but I´m still Hermana Gauger and I´m still loving every moment serving the Lord in Santa Cruz, Bolivia! 

I have no idea where to begin because SO MUCH has happened in these 2 weeks! Carnaval was actually not too bad, it was actually really awesome to have so much time to study, learn, and watch every single video the church has ever made......haha no but seriously, I learned so much! Not to mention that we had a conference with President and Hermana Willard the Friday before Carnaval that literally changed my life forever. I cannot even explain it but let me tell ya, personal revelation, it is so real! Heavenly Father knows us perfectly and He answers our prayers ALWAYS.

I saw some truly, truly incredible miracles this week and I honestly could hardly believe it. Heavenly Father has blessed us so much in this work and I´m so humbled by His mighty blessings. This week, we had awesome support from the members which equals miracles, pretty much because MEMBERS ARE SO IMPORTANT in this work. I´ve secretly grown to despise the phrase "missionary work" because it´s the WORK OF SALVATION! Aka we are talking about the eternal consequences of our life here and our salvation is at stake. And that alone should inspire every one of us who loves our friends and family to SHARE THE GOSPEL! Seriously, go share the gospel today with someone or call your local missionaries and ask how you can help. 

This week is going to be transfer week and I have NO IDEA what´s going to happen. All I know is that during our conference with President, he called me out of the conference, like, only me, out of all the missionaries, and he just wanted to chat with me and he gave me a lot of advice and then said "I don´t know the transfers yet but I want you to feel prepared for the responsibilities that may be coming your way next week" so yeah.......we´ll wait and see what happens this Wednesday! 

Gracias a Carnaval, I have about a bajillion #justBoliviathings to share with y´all this week

• first, Carnaval = Mardi Gras...the last chance to sin and party before lent but here they celebrate by dancing, drinking, and throwing paint and water on everything and everyone in the street, there´s literally no respect....even for a poor little sister missionary like me who got a BUCKET OF WATER dumped on me in the street yesterday (yesterday is Carnavalito aka the celebration of the end of Carnaval) and then I got pelted with water balloons by jovenes...but surprisingly enough, I didn´t cry, I just kept walking with my head held high and then we took a selfie because we were soaking wet and I was just laughing so hard because this is such a #JenGaugerProb
• We waited 40 minutes for our micro to show up the other day and in that time, I got the worst sunburn of my mission aaaaand a man showed up selling baby chicks in a bag. 
• we saw a dead rat fully intact in the beginning of the day and by the end of the day, flies had eaten all of the insides of it-fortunately enough for you guys, Hna Mejia didn´t let me take a picture of it
• I watched a dog eat a poopy diaper that was on the side of the road
• here, the doctors write your prescription on a piece of paper and then the pharmacy fills it but sometimes they can´t read the handwriting and you end up with the wrong medicine....oops...but it´s all good now and my verruga is improving! 
• I hate dogs more and more every single day

These 2 weeks were probably the most rollercoaster-type days of my mission. On one hand, I had some of the greatest moments so far but on the other hand, I also had my first night where I was just crying in my bed. The mission is like that sometimes. But it´s so comforting to know that each new day is a new chance to do our best and try to be a little better. I can testify that Christ truly is the difference in our making our efforts come to pass. I am so so so grateful for the Atonement and before my mission, I heard a lot of people tell me that I would understand the Atonement more on my mission than ever before in my life and I didn´t know what they meant. I thought they meant that I would have more time to study so I would learn more but nope, it´s so much more than that. As a representative of Jesus Christ, you truly gain additional abilities to learn and understand more. Man, I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. And I am so grateful for the gospel in my life and the chance I have to share it. 

I love you all!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Gauger

 

 

 Raw meat, awkward lessons in the street while sitting on a rock.

Conference time!

 

After we "celebrated carnaval" with a member who´s headed on her mission in June

 

God Be With You ´Til I Write Again

Email from Monday, February 9, 2015

 

Dearly beloved, I will not be writing to you again until Febuary 23...I know, sad day. But it´s because of the dumbest holiday of all time....carnaval. I have to be in my house for  THREE DAYS STRAIGHT studying and trying not to die. Wish me luck. We can´t leave because it´s super dangerous and everyone´s drunk and being ridiculous in the streets. So yeah, I´ll try to make this email awesome.

First, happy birthday shout outs to Danielle Clark and Breanna Scott! Go party it up and eat a cupcake for me! 

Second, I think I could talk about this week of my mission for the rest of my life because so much happened!  #justBoliviathings

• I went to the hospital! And yes, Mom, I am totally fine now. I didn´t want to admit it but you people need to know the real facts of mission life....I had.....a....beruga....which being translated means....a wart.... que verqüenza, no ve? but it´s true.  they´re super normal in the mission (so they say) so I went to get it removed and the doctor was just texting while he explained stuff to me in Spanish that I didn´t understand while I was sitting on a hospital bed in the emergency room in Bolvia. But yeah, he didn´t have the stuff to do it that day so I have to go to the dermatologist this week for my wart. Ew. I know.
• I was attacked by a dog! Luckily it only bit my skirt and would have completely yanked it off but even more luckily I had just eaten 2 pieces of pan con harina so my skirt was a little snug in that moment *tender mercy*
• I was attacked by a drunk man....okay not attacked but this morning when we were walking to take a micro to come write our lovely families, a drunk man had like a pole/stick thing in his hand and he totally whacked me with it while I was crossing the street, it was just my arm though and  it hardly left a mark
• we had the worst thunderstorm of my life this week and I couldn´t even sleep because it was so loud so I was just laying in my bed  from 2-3am, it was the worst
• we´re teaching a lady that has 2 little boys and we visited them this week and one asked us if we live in heaven. When we said no, he was very confused because he said he thought we were angels. It was so sweet! 

But on the spiritual side of things, this week I fell in love with the Book of Mormon again...okay that happens every d ay I guess. But seriously, I  am learning SO MUCH. My soul delights in the words of the Book of Mormon :)

This week, I read  2 Nephi 9 and found  53 references to Jesus Christ. There might be more, but still! It seriously is another testament of Jesus Christ and through it , we can know more about Him and His teachings and truly have a relationship with Him. I´ve seen so many miracles in my short time out here and I´ve already lost count of how many prayers have been answered, even the small and simple  desires of my heart have been answered before I even had a chance to pray. God knows us perfectly and loves us individually. He is waiting to bless us.

I won´t be able to write next week so I want to leave you with something special, and the most special thing I have here with me is my testimony.

I know that God lives and loves us. I know He hears and answers our prayers. I know Jesus Christ is our Savior and that it is only in and through His Atoning sacrifice that we can be made clean and whole. I know He under stands us perfectly. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church of God with the fulness of His gospel. I know that Joseph Smith really saw God the Father and His son. Jesus Christ and that through the prophet Joseph Smith, the gospel was restored for our day. I know we have a living prophet today to guide us and help us know what God wants for us. I know that Thomas S Monson is that prophet on the earth today. I know with all my heart that this gospel is true and that it is taught simply and perfectly through the Book of Mormon which is the word of God just like the Bible. I know miracles happen according to our faith and that evidence of God´s love is everywhere. I testify of all these things as a representative of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

 Con mucho amor,

Hermana Gauger

P.S. I got the cutest Christmas card ever from my adorable family! And a package came today that was sent at the beginning of January (box from Dad, haven´t opened it yet) and the Antelope Stake Juniors will be getting a letter from me soon (and by soon I mean 7 weeks because this is Bolivia) but I´m going to write my reply during my jail time-err..I mean my p-day in the house during carnaval )

 Family Photo of me with Hna Hall, Hna Mejia, and Hna Zapata 

-Hna Zapata trained Hna Mejia and then Hna Mejia trained Hna Hall and now me technically...so we´re one big family!

 Lots of juices and drinks come in bags. We just bite off the corner and bam! The most delicious chocolate milk ever

 I was walking and a caterpillar fell on me after I hit my head on a tree branch.... #tallgirlprobs

 Hna Crandall and I during our exchanges this week. 

We got lost and some stories need to be told in person in 14.5 months....

 We celebrated Hna Mejia´s one year in the mission with some french fries. 

It´s a cumple mes thing and then the other hermanas got mini pizzas for us!

 We also had  the birthday of our investigator this week and they invited us for cake 

and of course....it was strawberry....we can´t eat strawberries...so I ate around them and it was so delicious! 

And I am Grateful Love is Spoken Here

Email from Monday, February 2, 2015

 

FAMILYYYYYYYY! 

I feel like it´s been years since I was last here writing you but I guess it´s only been a week. Warning ya now, this email might be full of spelling errors because this keyboard is broken. Oh Bolivia, siempre hay algo :)

But this week was really good! I´m feeling a lot better and motivated this week because I think I discovered the source of all my problems and I´m so grateful that Heavenly Father shows us our weaknesses so that they can become strengths. It´s so helpful. I´m excited to see  the miracles come to pass  this week.

This week, I finished 1 Nephi in Spanish and now I´m starting the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi....hahaha....it´s actually making more sense in Spanish because I have to really study and compare in my English scriptures and I´m learning so much. I studied 2 Nephi 4 this week and it pretty much was the greatest thing ever.  10/10 would recommend. (Actually all of the Book of Mormon is 10/10 and I recommend it every single day to all people everywhere ;)) 

This week, I reached a new level in my Spanish abilities because I have now adapted certain Bolivian phrases or ways of saying things and people have noticed how much my Spanish has improved. I´ve  noticed too that I´m more willing to try to explain things differently rather than using the same old memorized words. But I still have a ton of embarrassing Spanish moments including...when I said ¨me gusta su caballo" to a little girl....caballo is horse... .I meant to say hair which is "cabello"...oops.  nimodo. :) 

 I´ve also seen the Spirit work in marvelous ways to have me say something different than what I planned. Like this week, I started to share a story but then the spirit totally took over and I ended up sharing  the experience of  my family´s various attempts at morning scripture study and how I can´t remember learning anything at all from the Book of Mormon when Dad woke us all up at 6am and made us come sit on the couch and read  BUT I do remember how determined my parents were to have this habit in our family and to this day, that memory remains with me. I shared that with a family that´s been struggling lately to incorporate the gospel teachings in their homes. It  made me really grateful for all the lessons my parents taught me even when that wasn´t exactly their intent. :)

This weekend was our stake conference and we had Elder Carlos Soliz from the Seventy. And I got to shake his hand afterwards. That makes 2 stake conferences in a row that I had a Seventy present and I got to meet him! It was about The Work of Salvation and Traditions of a Latter-Day Saint and I honestly cried during it because a lady spoke that has 2 sons on missions right now and she said ¨the new MTC is the home¨ and it hit me so hard because Dad said that EXACT same thing when he spoke in our stake conference in August. I´m so glad that I was blessed to be raised in an awesome MTC with the best teachers I could ever ask for and that I now have the chance to teach other people how to teach their children the gospel so that they can shape the future of their family for generations.  

#justBoliviathings

• dead things-I don´t know why but there´s just always dead animals...I´ll send a picture, don´t worry.
•  anyone who knows me knows that I´m always lying when I say I like dogs but here my dislike has grown into a full blown hatred of them. I have to admit it...I hate dogs-sorry dog lovers.
• jello-every one is obsessed with jello and I´ve actually acquired a liking of it now.

I don´t usually share specific details of people that we´re teaching because I could spend hours describing them or experiences I´ve had with them and it wouldn´t do justice to them and I could never express how great they are or how much they mean to me. It´s been such a gift of the spirit that I can sincerely feel a portion of the Savior´s love for every person that we teach . I love the mission so much and I can´t express enough gratitude for the privilege it is to be here and give my all to the Lord so that He can help me reach my full divine potential and become the person He wants.

I love you all more than I love the fact that I can buy fresh warm bread on every other street corner! Have a great week and go out with the missionaries for an hour or two this week! :)

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Gauger

 Hermana Mejia. She´s a doll! :)

Our first Sunday together.

Hermanassss. Hna Crandall is the other giant american here and Hna Cabaña is still here with me. They live in the room above us and serve in our ward too. It´s such a blast. :)

 

 oh Bolivia... when we  got stuck in the POURING rain and I was soaked to the bone....

...and then a fun sight on the side of the road :)

 My Cumple Mes. I hit 3 months in the mission and celebrated with a new 

toothbrush and french fries :) 

 Why I'm gaining weight....darn empañadas con queso and sometimes our

pensionista gives us dinner at 10 at night.

 Hna Crandall had me cut her hair! 

Me being the cutest sister missionary ever from the Gauger family

Are we out of the heat yet are we out of the heat yet are we out of the heat?

 

*cue my back-up vocalists screaming "no!"* (Taylor Swift 4eva)

 

Email from Monday, January 26, 2015

Hey There Family and Friends!

I hope this email eventually gets to you because I´ve spent 40 minutes of my 90 waiting for this stupid computer to load and I´m sitting here in tears while everyone else is laughing at their emails. Just my luck.... 

This week was really hard for me because apparently, I have no patience. I was really down on myself this week and I felt like such a failure. Ugh. I know God has trusted me enough to be here but I´m still working on trusting myself that I´m worthy to be doing this work that has eternal consequences for everyone involved. 

My Spanish is improving a lot and I officially dreamed in Spanish. (Technically I had my first Spanish dream during week 3 in Bolivia but it doesn´t count because it was that I was in a lesson and couldn´t understand anyone) but we watched The Testaments in Spanish as an activity at the church and I understood the whole movie. It was so awesome. 

As far as spiritual things, there are so many great experiences that happen in the mission but the one thing that I absolutely LOVE with all of my heart maybe more than anything else is to hear people pray in a first lesson. It is an experience that words can´t describe when you hear someone talk to their Heavenly Father. Sometimes it´s their first time ever praying aloud or they are really nervous or embarrassed but to see them overcome that and talk to their Father, it is incredible. The spirit is always so strong in these short, simple, and completely sincere prayers. Ah I LOVE IT! Another thing that has been on my mind is how perfectly God knows us. He knew I needed to be here in this mission over any other mission and in this area and with this companion. I love that. 

Hna Mejia and I get along really well and we´re starting to get to know each other more. I made her a guide to pray in English and I really want to help her feel more confident in learning English. Her last companion taught her the first verse of Come Thou Fount in English so sometimes she sings it and it´s honestly so precious. She´s incredibly patient with me which I appreciate so much. 

I decided this week that when I have a bad day, I´m just going to spend 2 bolivianos on an ice cream and watch The District 2: Law of Chastity, German....oh my heck, anyone who has seen that knows what I mean, and if you haven´t, go spend 5 minutes laughing your face off. :) 

#justBoliviathings

• I have a mosquito bite the size of a quarter on my arm. I´m pretty sure I learned at Young Women Camp that if it´s bigger than a quarter, you´re going to die so I´m pretty happy that it´s just the exact size of a quarter and I´m still alive
• sometimes we meet very...interesting people and have lessons with them too...like this one lady who answered every question by saying something about her desire to listen to the word of God. Including when my companion asked ¨What do you like about this picture of Jesus Christ?" and she said "I just love it so much because it´s the word of God".....awkward moments are my life here
• also I´ve never seen West Side Story but I´m pretty sure they could do a version of it between the Mormons and the Testigos (Jehovah´s Witnesses) in Santa Cruz, Bolivia... Sometimes they show up at the house of an investigator DURING our lessons and I can´t count how many times I´ve seen someone pull out the pamphlet that we gave them and they have a testigo paper with it.....argh! 

But all in all, everything is well here with me. As far as changes, I´m gaining weight and freckles and my hair is getting lighter and longer. I´m learning and growing each day in testimony and capability but I´m still just as silly and normal as ever. As evidenced by the selfie I took with Hna Mejia when we found a cockroach in my bed, it was her first cockroach so we had to take a picture, right? :)

I love you all and pray for you daily!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Gauger :)

Heavenly Father, Are You Really There?

 Email from Monday, January 19, 2015

 

Buenos Dias a todo mi familia y mis amigos!

This week...I could lie or I could tell you that I am so so so far from being perfect. This week was tough! It´s hard to have patience with myself when I want so much to be perfect and know everything. But tough times=opportunities to learn and I learned a lot this week! 

First of all, I got my first LATINA MAMÁ :) Oh yeah. It´s all Spanish, all the time. Hna Mejia is probably the sweetest sis ever. She´s about to have a full year in the mission. We get along really well and we have a ton in common, not so much in our life experiences exactly but in what matters most like our goals for the mission and our lives. She´s from Guatemala so I told her about the time I went to Guatemala for 5 minutes with the Meso2014 trip. (It still counts!) She speaks very little English as in she knows a song from Dora and the word "freaking" hahaha. She´s really fun though and it´s been a huge blessing that I understand 99% of what she says. The next goal is for me to be able to speak as much as I understand! Already though, I´m thinking in Spanish most of the time and learning fast. She´s really patient, even when I speak in English on accident whenever I´m tired or not paying attention. It´s so funny. She asked me for someone´s phone number yesterday and instinctively I responded in English. She´s so cute because she just smiles and waits until I realize. We´re going to have an awesome time together.

As for my #justBoliviathings this week...

• During a lesson, I look down and see a baby SCORPIAN near my foot and I ask the member what I should do and everyone´s like "oh that´s not bad, you´re fine" and I was just staring at this SCORPIAN INCHES AWAY FROM MY FLESH and then the member realizes what it is and has her brother kill it and THEN the brother tells me "oh wow good thing you noticed that because recently a woman got stung by one of those and she died" ....I could have died...but I didn´t so I´m laughing about it now
• In other bug adventures, we found a giant dead cockroach when we cleaned this morning, I was just glad it was not alive and I killed the biggest ant that ever walked this earth during our mission coorelation meeting...it took 3 stomps to die... 
• We contacted a lady while her kids were unloading a pick up truck bed FULL of cheese and she gave us a pound of cheese....shout out to those menonites because I ate some of the cheese and man it was delicious even though it came out of the bed of a dirty truck from a stranger
• I filled in the eyebrows of 2 latinas this week, I never thought I would be deemed worthy to do someone´s eyebrows before but they practically begged, it was hilariously awesome and I know my sisters are either laughing or rolling their eyes about this fun fact

But seriously this week, I just went to my Heavenly Father a lot and just talked with Him and a lot of the conversation was just me acknowledging how weak I am. My first afternoon with Hna Mejia was so hard. I didn´t know everywhere to go and when we found a house, no one was there and I was supposed to be helping Hna Mejia know the area but I was just praying in my heart and singing A Child´s Prayer in my mind and trying everything I could not to break down in tears in the street. But let me testify right now that prayers are answered and not in the way we expect. I wanted God to provide a perfect map in my mind and have everyone we meet invite us in and accept baptism but instead I had dear, sweet, Hermana Mejia offer to head back a little early so we could have a good daily planning and then we both cried when we got back because this work is tough. And then a miracle came in the fact that Hna Lyon got to come visit to pick something up and I needed that so badly, and so I got to hug her, cry some more and get an extra dose of confidence from my first mission mom that will forever have a special place in my heart. 

But I just want to take this chance to testify that He is there, He hears and answers prayers, He wants to help and bless us. He is our LOVING Father in Heaven and He is waiting to hear from us through prayer. Without Him, I am nothing but with Him, I am unstoppable. I am grateful for the example of my earthly parents who love me so much that I cannot even fathom how much He loves me. I testify that His love is for every single one of His children and it is available every single second of the day.

I love you all! Go take a warm shower and eat a strawberry for me! (We can´t eat strawberries, pork, or lettuce so actually go eat all of those things for me please!)

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Gauger :)

 

 

 These are old but our bishop took these during Christmas time. Sorry its all I have this week! :(

 

 

I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints....

Which is a RESPONSIBILITY not just a hobby. :)

Email from Monday, January 12, 2015

Hola Familia, Amigos, y todos! 

Before I left on my mission, I promised myself I wouldn´t be that sister missionary who thinks she knows everything since she´s on a mission. And I promise I don´t think that, if anything, I know less now than when I left since I now realize how much more there is to know! But anyway, I do want to share something with you guys so we can all learn and grow on my mission! :) Just like Jorg Klebingat warned in GC, I will speak boldly in order to make my message clear, please take no offense. :)

This week, we met with an older woman and taught her about the Restoration and the spirit was so strong during the lesson. We then invited her to attend church and she asked us what she had to do before she could go. We were confused and told her that anyone was welcome! She then shared an experience that broke my little heart. Apparently when she was a teenager, her family lived in a house with another family that were members of the church and she always saw their joy in going to church and church activities and yearned to join them and go to the church and make friends but they NEVER invited her. They never even talked about church to her. She felt she wasn´t allowed to go, that there were certain requirements or standards that she´d never meet, she felt rejected. She spent her entire life thinking that she wasn´t good enough to be a part of or even be invited to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. What a shame that those members never took the opportunity to share the gospel with their friend and bless her life and her family. When we are baptized, we PROMISE with our Heavenly Father that we will be His witnesses AT ALL TIMES, IN ALL THINGS, AND IN ALL PLACES. Sharing the gospel is NOT the work of the missionaries. It is the work of our Heavenly Father and we have COVENANTED to do our part. I´m not saying that you all need to serve a full-time mission but I am thinking that we could all improve in our willingness to share the gospel and invite our friends, neighbors, and loved ones to share in the joy and privilege of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It´s for everyone. So this week, do something to share the gospel! Give a reference to the missionaries in your area and ask them for help. I promise they will be eager to help you in this great and marvelous work. :)

Okay, that´s my exhortation for this week. I just hope we all take a moment this week to evaluate how we could be better, more converted members. Imagine if the missionaries were teaching you and your family right now as if you were investigating the church for the first time, would you be considered progressing investigators? As in, are you reading the Book of Mormon and praying each day? That alone will make a world of difference. I can promise you that. :)

As for my #justBoliviathings this week,

• we almost got attacked by a dog, it was terrifying! Hna Lyon was about to throw her Book of Mormon at it to save our lives (desperate times call for desperate measures...)
• I tried to contact an ostrich this week, didn´t go so well but I got an AWESOME picture out of it :)
• Discovered that Boliva is FAMOUS! If you don´t believe me, go check out pg 214 of your nearby Preach My Gospel book (232 if you happen to have a Spanish edition) and check out how BEAUTIFUL the Cochabamba temple looks! I´m definitely going there someday!
• ironically enough, we also saved a dog´s life this week when it got stuck in the fence, it was barking and growling at us the whole time (ungrateful) but we helped it out anyway. Then I made the analogy of how the dog is a representative of the people we contact that are rude to us...we´re just trying to save your soul, sorry! 

This week, Hermana Lyon heads back to the States and I get a new companion Wednesday and it´s completely up to me to know the area, the investigators, and the members. I´m pretty nervous because our area is huge so for all of you that are praying this week, please pray that I will be able to know the area and remember all that I´ve learned in these past 6 weeks. Specific prayers receive specific answers. Thank you all a million times! 

I don´t really know how many people read these and I don´t suppose I ever really will. I don´t think we ever realize the impact we have on others in this life but to you, whoever you are, that´s reading this, thank you. As a gift to you for your time spent here, I just want to share a portion of my testimony. I know that God loves and knows us perfectly. I know that He has a plan for each of us and has provided us so many resources in this life to return to live with Him. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and He lived a perfect life so that we could follow His example. I know that we have commandments as guides for how to live a happy life and that following the commandments becomes less of a "ugh do I have to?" and more of a "yes I want to!" when we truly understand all that Jesus Christ has done for us and truly develop a love for Him. 

I love it here and I am so blessed every single day! I am so grateful for this chance to demonstrate my love for my Savior and to stand (or to walk 4-6 miles each day) as a witness of God. 

Thanks for your love, support, and prayers!

Con mucho amor,

your favorite missionary in Bolivia,

Hermana Gauger :)

(this is assuming you don´t know any other missionaries here....)

Botanical Gardens- P-day activity last week with the hermanas. 

ENGLISH CLASS

oh my heck, so fun! 3 of our investigators came and the rest are youth from the ward. one of the boys in our ward made an i love Taylor swift sign...it wasn´t clear but i think they were talking about me and one of them is weirdly obsessed with me...awkward but I took a picture of his sign anyway :)

Random Bolivia Things...

 

Rosa is one of our investigators, she makes me look like I´m a giant.......