Writing Rachel

I have updated the "Write Rachel" link.  Rachel has very limited email time and won't have time to respond to emails, let alone read most of them. If you want to contact Rachel please send a letter via mail, or use DearElder.com.  DearElder.com will print off your letters and send them via pouch mail to Rachel. 

Remember, Rachel only receives mail every 6 weeks, so keep writing, she will receive them eventually and get back to you!

Happy New Year!

  This week is New Year´s! I can´t believe that it´s almost 2015. I will be spending this whole year in the mission. That's so crazy to think about. Also, Happy Birthday Mom! How awesome is it that I get to email on your birthday?! So this last week was Christmas! Skyping on Christmas was...strange. I´m not even sure how to put it. Hna. Rodas told me that it was super weird for her to hear me speak in so much English. Haa maybe that's a good sign! I´m glad to hear that I´m not missing any snow back in Minnesota. This last week has been way hot here, as summer is just about to be in full swing! Hna. Rodas and I literally pray for rain! Haa it's so great because we just laugh all the time at the weather and our ridiculous tan lines.

    So what did we do for Christmas? Christmas Eve we had to be in our pension by 6 pm because it was dangerous for us to be out in the streets so we made tomales and watched Monsters University in Spanish with English subtitles. Maybe one day I won´t need those :) It was a super calm night. Oh, I also kind of got sick on Christmas Eve for a few days, but I´m all better now so no worries! A family invited us over to spend Christmas Eve with them, but we couldn´t go because they don´t have a car to bring us back to our pension. On Christmas we got to skype and then it was back to work! The work of the Lord never rests! We had a Christmas miracle...we taught a lesson!! We were looking for this lady we had been trying to find earlier this week and we found her daughter. She let us in and we were able to teach her a lesson. What a blessing. 

 

   Something that´s really funny here is that people have so much trouble with my name. People always say it´s too confusing or too hard and I even had someone ask me if I had another name...haa. There was this elder that just returned from his mission to Brazil in our ward and when we shook his hand he went, "Hna. Rodas." then he shook my hand, looked at my nametag...and walked away...things like that always give us a pretty good laugh. 

 

    Another miracle happened this week... yesterday actually! At chruch...I understood almost everything!! Best day of my life! Haa we had lunch after church with this lady who also works in the mission home and I remember my first day hearing her speak and thinking "I did not learn anything in the MTC" and then I understood almost everything she was saying during lunch! What a blessing. We've been working with members and less actives this week about setting goals for the new year. I never realized how amazing goals really are until the mission. If we set goals to do better, to be better, and to work harder, we are so much more likely to become the person that God knows that we can become. Goals help us reach our full potential and are so, so important. I encourage everyone to set goals for this new year and not just to set them, but to work towards them diligently so you can look back at the end of this year and are satisfied with what you achieved. 

 

    One thing that I´ve learned this week is how to be happy despite your circumstances. I think this is one of the most valuable lessons we can learn in life. One of Satan´s biggest tools is discouragement. When we are discouraged, we can´t feel the spirit, and then we start to lose faith. Heavenly Father believes in you. Christ is on your side helping you along the way. One of my favorite quotes from preach my gospel says, All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is because of Christ that we can have hope. Because of Him that we have all of the blessings of the gospel in our lives. He is the Gift.

Happy New Year!

Hermana Feldermann

Merry Christmas/Feliz Navidad

It´s almost Christmas!!! It´s so weird because it honestly feels nothing like Christmas here because it´s so hot! My whole life I´ve had nothing but snow for Christmas and this quite the difference, but I mean I guess I don´t mind it. I´ll be tan for the first Christmas ever in my life! Haa so this week...I GOT MAIL! We had zone conference this week, and they brought us mail. I don´t know if I mentioned this earlier, but we only get mail once every 6 weeks (every transfer) or at zone conference (every 3 months). So anyways it was super exciting. Best thing about zone conference, I understood practically everything! Maybe it´s just because it was the gospel, but I definitely thing it was such a blessing of the Lord because after that I went back to my regular old not understanding much of anything self. It was such a blessing. That same day I had exchanges, which is where I switch companions for a day and go to a different area. It was actually super fun! The sister that I went with is from California and she has the most amazing Argetine accent every. Something that I hope and pray to one day have! We also got to speak english...which was the weirdest thing ever for me. I realized how grateful I am to have a companion that forces me to speak spanish otherwise I would practicaly know nothing. The trains here are something. We had to take a train to go to our area for exchanges, and it was crazy. People were practically hanging on the outside of the train to fit and we were all packed in like sardines!

    So something that we did this week that was a lot of fun. We made a ton of cookies for all of the less active members in our area, and last night we got together a group of about 15 members and the elders serving in our area and went to their houses and sang them Christmas hymns and delivered the cookes. It was such a wonderful experience and the spirit was so strong. Christmas is such a wonderful time to have the chance to reflect on all the Savior has done for us and given us. 

   

A funny story from this week. So we had an appointment with this woman, who had rescheduled with us 2 times beforehand. We went to her house and she runs this business where she sells fruit and veggies and such...a ton of people here run little businesses out of their home like that. So we clapped at the door and a couple little kids rain out and we said, Hi! We´re missionaries from the chruch, is your mom here? So the little girl runs back and goes, Mom! It´s the girls from the church! She got hushed right away and then when she came back she goes, My mom isn´t home right now. Haa it was so funny. Hna. Rodas and I were just like hmm...oh really? That´s interesting. haa what can you do? I´ve been thinking so much lately that if only people could realize how important what we know really is. Not just people who aren´t memebers of the chuch, but memebers too! If everyone realized the magnitude of how much we have been blessed with the gospel and the knowledge we have to be able to return home to live with our Father in Heaven again then everyone would be running out to share the gospel with everyone. I firmly believe this. This gospel, is the most important thing in the world, because through Christ and his Atonement, throught baptism and making covenants with our Heavenly Father, we can be made clean and get to live with God again. We know where we came from, why we´re here, where we´re going, and the way to have so much happiness in this life! Is that not just the greatest thing that you´ve ever heard in your whole life? I know it is for me. I´ve also been pondering why people don´t want to have the gospel in their lives sometimes or hear our message and I think it´s because they don´t know what they´re missing. It´s kind of like this. Say that all you´ve ever had to eat for breakfast were cheerios. That´s all you´ve ever had and all you ever knew was possible to have for breakfast. You´re content, because you don´t know that there´s any more options, or that there´s something better out there. Until someone comes along and makes you pancakes and then you realize, that even though you were content with what you had before, you can now be so much happier! I think it´s a lot like that. 

   

 I hope you have a very Merry Christmas, and remember the true reason that we celebrate this time of year. Jesus Christ. The way the truth and the life, and the reason that we can have hope in this life of becoming better and returning to live with Him again. Feliz Navidad!

Con amor,

Hermana Feldermann

Biggest News Ever This Week!

You will never guess what I found out this week....THEY´RE SPLITTING MY MISSION. In July, they´re creating a new mission out of my mission, the Buenos Aires West Mission. Isn´t that just crazy? July is exactly halfway through my mission, and I may or may not be moving to a new mission and getting a new mission president! Are you as mind blown as I am? It´s crazy, and I´m not sure how I feel about it. They´re taking the whole section by the coast and making it into a mission. They´re also creating two new stakes. I´ll keep you updated when I find out if I¨m leaving or staying.

    So this week was so much better than last week! Haa first weeks, first days of anything are way hard and I knew that if I could just make it past my first week things would get easier. WE HAVE INVESTIGATORS! Yay!! Finally, we´ve gotten to know the members better and the area. My very first lesson was actually a huge blessing. We were walking down the street to try to find some less actives, and we ran into this man that we had talked to a few days prior and ended up giving him the first lesson right there in the street. I chimed in as much as I could in my broken Spanish. Hna. Rodas let me recite the first vision and the spirit was so strong. It was an amazing experience. My frist lesson!

    Something funny that happened this week. Actually, a lot of funny things happened this week. First, we taught a lesson to this menos actvio, and when we were about to leave she went wait, I have to show you something! And she brought us over to this big metal box on the ground that was covered with a mattress on top, and lifted up the matress and inside was....an albino rabbit! Haa it was the craziest thing! It was all white and had red eyes and I didn´t understand what she was saying at all really, but it was just so funny. On Saturday we had a ward activity at the chapel and we had the chance to play futbol, or soccer. It is so huge here, no suprirse! So we were playing right and.....I scored a goal! My first Argentina goal. Who knows, maybe after my mission I´ll just join the pro leagues and stay down here. Just kidding. But it was so fun and funny because I´m so awful. After the ward activity just as we were about to go out it started this huge thunderstorm, and Hna. Rodas and I were standing in the chapel and all of a sudden she goes... our clothes!!! Haa there´s some ladies in the ward that will do some of our laundry for us, but some of it we had to do ourselves and that morning we had hung them out to dry. We kind of laughed about it and then when we got back to our pension our clothes had fallen off the clothesline and were laying in the mud. It was actually so funny, to get to try to scrub the mud out of my clothes because of course they don´t have washers here so we have to do all of our laundry by hand.

     So yesterday, was awesome. I love Sundays. We went out after church and walked up to talk to this lady who was just about to shut her gate on us...side note; everything here is gated. All the houses are behind gates and the buildings and everything! We started talking to her and she warmed up to us a little bit and was telling us how she teaches Italian. Then I told her I have a friend serving a mission for our church in Italy and she asked me about it and we were able to set up a meeting with her and go on our way. After we left Hna. Rodas goes, I didn´t know you spoke Italian! I was so confused and told her I didn´t, then she told me that the woman spoke to me in Italian and I answered correctly. I told her I thought she was speaking spanish! Haa it was so funny, but also so cool at the same time. The gift of tongues is a real thing! That night was another huge miracle because we were looking at the house for an investigator and this grumpy old man answered the door and just said one word in spansh, which means across the street. So we turned around and there were two houses, so we picked on, and it was the right one! The man´s name is Martin and the woman´s is Celeste. They let us in and we had the chance to teach them the first lesson. They have 3 boys and a brand new baby girl. They aren´t married, but have an interest in the church, which was great. One thing about Argentine´s, they talk sooo much. Haa you ask them one question and they can go on for about 5 minutes!

    This week I´ve been so much more grateful for the opportunity I have to serve the people down here in Argentina. I know that this gospel is true, and that this gospel is for everyone, no matter what. If we look every day, to try to see the hand of the Lord in our lives, I promise that at the end of every day, we can look back and see how he touches our lives every day. One thing that I´ve learned a lot here, is to trust in the promises the Lord has made to us. He will always, always, answer our prayers. He will never leave us alone and if we live obediently to the commandments, we can have the blessing of always having His spirit to be with us. What a wonderful gift God has given us.

Con amor,

Hermana Feldermann

A few pictures from the Asada

Argentina!

Wow, so I´m here! I just finished my first week in the mission field! I don´t even know where to begin. The flight to Buenos Aires was long, but we made it! And when we got to the airport...they weren´t expecting us! haa it was kind of funny. So we had to hang around in the airport for 40 minutes and wait for someone to come pick us up. Someone came and got us and took us to the mission home. The driving here is insane...haa it´s so funny and I feel like I´m going to die everytime I´m in a car or on a bus and I just kind of laugh because I´ve never seen any accidents or anything, so they must know what they´re doing. There´s no street signs anywhere, and the only traffic signals are the occassional stoplight.

My mission president is so great! His name is President Thurgood and him and his wife are so sweet. I met my trainer, and her name is Hna. Rodas, from Mexico! She´s been in the mission 15 months, so I´ll probably be her last companion. She´s way sweet, but hardly speaks any english. It´s hard because I like to know what´s going on and how to do things but I can´t really understand her too much and so it´s been a little challenging. It´s good for me though, because it forces me to use my spanish at all times!

Hna. Rodas and I are whitewashing our first area, which means that we´re both new to the area. I honestly feel so bad for her because she knows nothing and I know even less than nothing. We have no investigators, and we´ve been trying to get to know the ward and meet people as well. It´s amazing, how I understand just a little bit more every day. I understand and can speak a little bit more every day and I know the Lord is helping me. The accent here is hard. They speak with so many sh´s all the time that it´s an adjustment for me to try to speak and understand. It is definitely not what they taught me in the MTC!

 So the food here is so great. It´s funny, because our big meal for the day is lunch. We have lunch almost every day at a members house, and then we don´t eat dinner because we have such a big lunch! It´s actually the best thing ever. Something that´s really popular here are empanadas and pizza. Empanadas are like tortillas almost stuffed with all sorts of different kind of things and they roll them into different crescent shapes. Also the pizza is nothing like what it is back in the states! When I say pizza I mean a crust with queso and peppers and onions, or something like that. It´s way interesting.

    

It´s so hot here! Hna. Rodas keeps telling me that it´s only the spring still! haa it´s so great. There´s no air conditioning anywhere really, the only place I´ve seen it is in the bishops office at the chapel and at the stake center. Other than that we usually keep our windows open. Everything here has about 6-7 ft tall fences around them, and all of the windows have bars on them. 

 

None of the windows in our pension have screens, and so bugs like to come and visit us sometimes. One morning when I was exercising, I found a cockroach under a bookcase that we have. When we sprayed it with Raid it started doing this little dance and it reminded me of the song that´s like "cuchara...cha!" I hope you know what I´m talking about. It was pretty humorous. We find an average of about one cockroach a day. Something different here is...there´s horses all over! The recycling men ride horses everywhere and they share the roads with people. 

 

Our pension that we live in is nicknamed hotel, because it´s where missionaries stay if they come from a long ways away, so it´s bigger then normal. The church is amazing, and they have put filters in all the pensions so we have safe water. Most people have filters in their houses, but people here don´t like to drink water. They drink so much pop and tang. One custom I love here is that the women at least great each other with a kiss on the cheek. It´s so friendly, and I think someone should start that in the states. It seriously makes everything so much more friendly! 

 

There are also dogs everywhereeee. Everyone has a dog and our neighbor has this tiny little weiner dog that likes to come visit us sometimes. Hna. Rodas and I were practicing starting teaching a lesson and when I opened the door to go outside he darted in our pension! Haa it was funny.

   

So we taught our first lesson on Saturday to this sweet lady that´s less active in the ward. We have these little targetitas...I´m not sure the word for them in english...that we pass out to people on the street and it´s a video the church made for Christmas called "He is the gift". the link is navidad.mormon.org. Go look it up! It´s just so wonderful. It´s such a great missionary tool as well. One thing I´ve learned this week is to have patience. 

 

Starting out, things are a lot harder than I anticipated. The language, the culture, the lack of investigators...but I´ve been realizing that everything happens according to the Lord´s timetable. If we can learn to accept His will and follow it, we will be sooo much happier in our lives! I love this gospel, and I know this church is true. No matter where you go in the world, Minnesota to Argentina, you will find the same gospel of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It´s such a small sacrifice to make, to follow Him, when He´s given us so much.

Con amor,

Hermana Rachel Feldermann

Argentina Bound!

Finally!! This is my last email you will be receiving while I am still in the MTC! Our P-Day got changed to Wednesday this week instead of Friday because of Thanksgiving. We have infield orientation all day Friday and then we depart nice and early Monday morning!! I am so excited. 5 days! Less than that actually. This week has been such a good week! I feel like every day is a good week. How could it not be when you're serving the Lord 24/7?

So last week I met a bunch of missionaries serving in Minnesota! It was so great, and I'm way excited for them. I told them that they had the best mission in the world. Sundays here are amazing, if I haven't already said that a million times. We had another district leave in our zone, so now we are officially the oldest! Our of two zones...but it's great. They had 3 sisters leave and 5 elders to Mexico! They sang a farewell song and I had the chance to play for them as well. It was "Come Unto Christ" and was so beautiful! I just loved it. Funny story, so there was this huge flat screen TV on a stand by the wall, and I sat kind of near it so I could have easy access to the piano. After the talks were over, when I was going up to the piano I completely tripped over the TV stand...haa classic Rachel move, huh? I love being a missioanry. 

On Monday, the coolest thing happened. I was in line during lunch and I thought I might have accidentally cut in front of the couple that was behind me so I went to apologize and talked to them and then they were older so I asked where they were serving their mission, because older couples that are serving missions come to this MTC as well, and they told me that they would be serving in the MTC for the next two years! So I thought wait a minute...and then I asked them if they were the new MTC presidents and they said yes! Oh my goodness! So I met the new MTC presidents and then when I was sitting down the current MTC president, President Nally stopped and talked to me. What a neat thing, they are such great people! I was so fortunate to be able to meet them even if I won't still be here when they're serving. Mom! You know how you asked me about Hermana Cannon? She is in my district!! I love her so much! Her mom had asked her if she knew me as well. She's such a great person. 

Tuesday was the best day ever! It was November 25th, but since we aren't going to have a cold or snowy christmas in Argentina, we decided to celebrate Christmas on November 25th instead! Oh my goodness it was so fun. I convinced everyone to wear Christmas colors so we all showed up to class wearing red and green and sang Christmas songs all day. And everyone loved the little stockings! It was such a fun day. The spirit of Christmas can be alive any time of year, right?

Celebrating Christmas on November 25th

Sister Turner and I on "Christmas" I love her!

Also to add to that, we got to hear from Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles!! Best Christmas ever!! He gave such an amazing talk and I was just so humbled to be in the presence of an apostle of the Lord. During choir beforehand, our choir directer said something that really hit me. We sang the song 'Nearer My God to Thee' and he said that God and Jesus Christ have the power to solve all of our problems in an instant. So why don't they? I guess I always knew that sort of, but I never really thought about it that way. I thought more about it and I was thinking that sometimes we are allowed to suffer through hardships and trials because we need them. We need them to become better and to become the people that our Heavenly Father knows that we can be. I read this quote once that said something like, "Every trial you suffer is necessary for your salvation." So the things we go through, all our difficulties and trials, are not pointless. Everything has something that can be learned. It's amazing too, because even though we may suffer sometimes, we never have to suffer alone. When we turn to Christ, everything in life is so much easier to bear. 

I feel so blessed with this amazing opportunity to serve the Lord. The more I'm out here, the more I realize how much this is not my mission, but it's the Lord's. Dallin H. Oaks gave this really cool analogy of comparing a missionary to a pen, and being an instrument in the hands of the Lord. The pen is an instrument. The outside of the pen are our bodies, and they need to stay healthy. The inside of the pen is all the stuff we're filled with. When we pick up a pen we want it to write what we want it to write. We don't want the pen to say "I'm too tired to write today" or "it's P-Day" so I'm not going to work today. I love this! We need to be willing to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord. We need to desire to do His work, His plan, according to His timetable. We become less effective when we are disobedient, or choose to do our will rather than His. 

Can I say again, I love being a missionary?? Thank you for all of the letters and packages! Also, please don't send me any more dear elders after friday morning. They don't print them during the weekends so I won't get them if you send them to me! I love you all very much and I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for me in Argentina! I might not be able to write for a couple of weeks because I don't know what my schedule will be like when I get down there, but I love you and I love doing the Lord's work!

Alas, my nickname "felderdude" from highschool made it to the mission too! I lost my tag and one of our hermanas found it and made this for me. So funny!

Our favorite russian sisters! they live near us and they left this week and we love them!

Con amor,

Hermana Feldermann

Happy Thanksgiving

This week was amazing!! I was going to wait until the end of the letter but I'm way to excited soo.....WE GOT OUR TRAVEL PLANS TODAY!! I'm so beyond excited! We leave the morning of the 1st and arrive in Buenos Aires the morning of the 2nd! So a really long 24 hours, but it will be so worth it and I am so excited to finally be arriving in the place I have been called to serve!

   

 I just want to say that I am so grateful that I am learning Spanish. There are these Russian sisters that live by us that I've gotten to know that are soo amazing! I love them so much, and I'm so amazed by their ability to learn Russian. One of the sisters I actually knew before the mission because she's from minnesota! Brynn Balls-Barker. She's speaking Russian, but serving in Washington State. I was talking to her one night and she told me that she's the first Russian speaker that is being sent to her mission, and they they told the people in her mission about 2 months ago to start learning Russian. Isn't that crazy?! I can't even imagine...her comapnions won't even speak Russian! I feel so blessed to be going to a place where everyone speaks Spanish, even if I don't! On Tuesday we had the chance to give a skype discussion to a member in Mexico. It was the coolest thing ever. I'm pretty good at understanding Spanish, but speaking it on the other hand is a whole different story. Wednesday was the best day ever because we got to host the new missionaries that were coming in! They had 700 new missionaries come in this wednesday, it was crazy! My first sister was serving her mission in Singapore speaking Mandarin, my second sister is serving in Hungary speaking Hungarian and my last sister is serving in Sweden speaking Swedish. Did I mention that I'm soo grateful for Spanish? It was so great to meet all of these wonderful sisters and introduce them to the MTC.

   

 This last Sunday Hna. Morgan from my district and and elder from the new district sang a duet and I played for them! I play for church every Sunday here, and we have a district leaving this Sunday who asked me to play for them as well. I love accompanying so much. So Dad, you will probably find this funny, but literally no one can pronounce my name here! It's not that hard and I don't really understand what the problem is. It took my teacher about 2 weeks to stop from stumbling over it...so I'm interested to see how they will say it in Argentina. 

   

 What I've learned this week is that the Lord has given us commandments sot hat we can be blessed. Most of the time when we go through difficult times, we aren't quite sure what the Lord is trying to teach us at that time and we just have to trust and him and endure it well and in the end we will be blessed. The 2nd counselor in our branch presidency shared this poem this week that said, "Winning is no more than this: to rise each time you fall." I absolutely love this. Life isn't about winning or losing, it's about enduring and trying to be the best person that you can be. Trying to be better than you were the day before, even if it's just a little bit. Like it says in Ether: , "I give unto men weakness that they may become humble." As I've been studying more, I've been discovering what things in myself that I can improve on. It's such a blessing to be able to recognize those things, so we can learn how to become better. Our purpose as missionaries is to invite others to come unto Christ, and one of the best ways to do that is to try to become more like Him, to become one of His disciples. This gospel is amazing, the MTC is great, but I'm so excited to get to Argentina!! I cannot wait! I love you so much!

Con amor,

Hermana Rachel Feldermann

November 14, 2014

Hola! I cannot BELIEVE how fast time is flying here!! It feels like it's going by a million miles an hour and I can barely keep up. We only have about 2 weeks left here in the MTC! I can hardly believe it. I'm closer to being in Argentina than I am to having left home! The weather has held out soo nicely here! At the beginning of the week we were even able to go outside and play sand volleyball during gym time. This last Sunday, we had one of the districts in our zone leave for Mexico. So exciting! They sang this song written by the cousin of a member of the branch presidency, and asked me to play for them. They sounded so great! We had another hermana leave this week. She was supposed to go to the Madrid, Spain MTC, but didn't get her visa in time, so she spend about a week with us and then left for Spain. She was one of the 2 new roomies that we got. The other sister is Samoan! She's so funny, and it so great to have around. She likes to teach us awesome native things, like how to hula dance.

This Sunday, we heard from the Young Women's general President! She gave an amazing talk. Every day I'm realizing more and more, that forgetting yourself and serving others is the key to happiness. We will be the most happy in our lives when we focus the least on ourselves. A few weeks ago we were told something really cool. A speaker came and spoke to us and said that the language you are called to serve your mission in is the language you can best teach the gospel in. Isn't that amazing? Trying to teach anything in English is actually way harder than Spanish! it's so crazy.

So Thursday was the best day every. IT SNOWED!!!! i was so beyond excited! I was starting to get worried that I wouldn't be able to see any snow before I left! There was one other hermana that was excited with me, and besides that everyone else was not happy it was snowing! I don't get it! how can you not be happy when it snows! I'm trying to enjoy the snow and cold as much as I can now, because I would have a white Christmas for the next 2! 

I'm learning to love every minute here! Although I can't say I'm not way excited to get to Argentina. The Lord blesses me so much every day, and I promise I will have much more to write about in just a couple of weeks! One little miracle that's been happening in my life lately: bed time is 10:30 and we're supposed to get up at 6:30. I've made it a goal to be in bed by that time and to never sleep in, even an extra couple minutes and I have not been tired the whole time i've been here. It's been amazing. Everyone is always complaining about being tired but I always feel so alert and have so much energy! Exact obedience brings miracles! The Lord is amazing, this gospel is amazing, and I just keep thinking about how it says in my call letter "More happiness awaits you than you have ever experienced." Mom, thank you for all your little life lessons that you've repeated a million times to me. I've been using the "you can't change other people, you can only change yourself" one so often and I even used it in a lesson once! Keep the faith, work hard, and the Lord will bless you!

All of the Sisters in my zone.

Con amor,

Hermana Rachel Feldermann

Hola!

Wow! Time is such a funny thing. The first week I was here dragged on so much...but now time just seems to fly by! It's so nice, because we are always busy and always doing so many things in one day that before you know it a week has passed. This week was so great! On Sunday it was fast Sunday! I bore my testimony....in Spanish during church! I love that I'm able to do that now. Even though it was bad spanish, it was still spanish! After church we had mission conference, where all the missionaries in the whole MTC along with their branch presidencies met for a conference. On the way there we met none other than....President Nally! The President of the MTC! He chatted with us on our way there about where we were from and where we were serving, etc. It was way cool. He was the last speaker in the conference and when he got up to speak he started talking about how he had met a few sisters on the way in and in his own words...."I would like to invite Sister Feldermann to come up and share her testimony with us." What! I could not believe my ears! He asked me to stand up so he could see where I was sitting and then told me to come up and I bore my testimony in front of everyone at the MTC...which is over 2,000 people. I have never felt so small, nor so humble. The only way I made it through was the spirit! I was way nervous and I barely remember anything I said, but I know that the spirit really guided me. People are still coming up to me telling me good job or saying "aren't you the girl that bore her testimony at mission conference?" yes...yes that is me. Sunday night was awesome because we had a devotional by the wife of Russell M. Nelson! So great! Her devotional was absolutely amazing.

     On Tuesday we had the chance to go to BYU for their morning devotionals! It was kind of nice to get out of the MTC for a while. with the way things are set up here, you don't get to see much of the sky because the walkways are all covered and sometimes I forget that Utah even has mountains! But anyways, we were invited to go to the devotional and I ended up seeing a few people I knew! I saw Samantha and Sam! That night, we were supposed to have an apostle come speak to us but then he canceled last minute because of flight delays!! It was kind of sad, but the speaker than came in place of him spoke very well. We will get to hear from an apostle on Thanksgiving so that will be so neat! Oh and I got your package mom! Thank you so much again. As I've said before, getting mail is one of the best things in the MTC. DearElder is so awesome for while I'm here at least. In the next week feel free to start sending mail to Argentina because it will take forever to get there!

     So the elders of the leaving district wanted to sing this song for their last Sunday and they asked me to help them out playing it and learning it. It was written by one of our branch presidency member's cousins. Imagine trying to get 8 elders to all focus and learn a song... haa they've been practicing the last few nights and have really managed to pull it together! It's been an experience that's for sure. I'm so grateful that I can play the piano! Thank you for never letting me quit lessons, mom. Nothing great in life comes without effort, that's for sure! 

     The Lord blesses me in so many ways every day throughout my week. It's truly possible to see his hand in all things if we look for it! This week we were teaching an "investigator" who is really a member, and it was supposed to be our last lesson with him so afterwards he was talking to us. His name is Marco and he's this cute little man from bolivia. He asked us for our emails and said he would write us every week on our missions and that he writes over 80 missionaries a week! Isn't that crazy?! He gave some of the sweetest advice, and told us that he has a daughter and he hopes that she will be able to become like we are. He has polio so he was never able to serve a mission, but he said that he likes being taught by the missionaries because he feels like through us he can learn a little bit of what a mission is really like. 

     Keep praying every day! the Lord truly hears and answers our prayers. I love you so much!

Con amor,

Hermana Rachel Feldermann

Pictures

Happy Halloween!

So I tried to upload some pictures but they aren't working on the computers here...but I will keep trying! I got the packages from you both so thank you so much! Also, thanks so much for the Dear Elders! There's something about getting mail that just makes you day soo much better! So the MTC. I've been here for over a week now, so I'm officially not new any more. So grateful for that! We taught our very first lesson in Spanish 2 days after we got here...the lesson was completely in spanish because our investigator 'didn't speak english.' Talk about getting thrown into things! It's been so great though because it helps us learn so much faster.

    The MTC is hard. There are good days, better days, and not so great days. It's so true what everyone says that days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days! I'm learning to like it more and more each day, and my district is so great. I always feel a little bit bad for our 2 elders surrounded by 9 hermanas...but the one elder had 6 brothers and no sisters, no now he has 9! A little tender mercy that happened this week: We had just learned to bear our testimonies in spanish and our teacher took us outside and told us to find 3 people to bear our testimonies to. The first person I went up to was....latino. Haa just my luck right? So he already knew Spanish. His name was Elder Hernandez and after talking for a little bit I found out that his brother served in my mission! He was so excited and told me some wonderful stories about his brother and the mission and talked about the area quite a bit. It was so nice to hear good things about my area and it got me excited all over again. 

 

     The awesome thing about the MTC is that you have such little time for yourself! You're always thinking about what to teach investigators and how you can better love and serve your companion that little things like if my hair got messed up or if I didn't put on a ton of makeup that morning or things like that, don't even matter and you don't even think about it. You're always thinking about other people and I love that aspect about it. We talked a lot about our purpose as a missionary this week, and I really learned that to be truly converted to this gospel, you have to turn out to love and serve others. I realized that to get what I want most in life and to become the person I want to be, I have to focus on everyone and things other than myself. By losing yourself in the service of others, you find yourself. My companion, Hna. Glazier has given me such great opportunities to love and serve her and sometimes I feel like I pray for her more than I pray for myself. Prayer is the best thing ever! We pray ALL the time here, and it helps us always have the spirit with us. 

 

     Sundays are AMAZING here! My whole district joined the MTC choir, which sings at devotionals on Tuesday nights, but we also have devotionals on Sundays as well. We were told that if you can make it to Sunday, you can make it through your mission. After devotional we can pick which movie we want to watch, and we decided to watch The Character of Christ, by David A. Bednar. It was so amazing. It completely changes your attitude on the mission and what your purpose is. This tuesday we heard from Rosemary M. Wixom, the primary general president. She gave the best talk! Wednesday was our Week-iversary! I was so excited. I'm so glad you sent me all that candy mom, because I wrote little notes that said "happy one week-iversary!" and put them on everyone's desk as a surprise! It was so fun. I learned that if you always try to make the best out of tough situations, they end up turning into the most wonderful learning experiences. THANKS SO MUCH for the piano music! I had been missing playing the piano sooo much! Hna. Morgan plays the piano too and she has a beautiful voice so we had the chance to go play for a while. It's so nice to have that with me. I'm definitely bringing my music to Argentina. Wednesday was one crazy day though. I wasn't feeling that great after lunch and then after dinner during class time I ended up getting sick for real. I'm pretty sure that it was either food poisoning or the stomach flu, but that was probably one of the worst nights ever. I won't go into detail because you know what that all entails, but my companion was so great. I honestly got so lucky though! I'm so glad I got sick at night so I didn't really have to miss much class or studying. Also it was such a huge blessing because Hna. Glazier prepared everything we needed the night before for a surprise lesson that we didn't know was coming the next morning! I felt bad also, because that same night that I got sick...we got 2 new roomies!! They are so amazing! We now have a full room, 6 girls in a room. 3 of them snore, 2 of them talk in their sleep, 1 has a super creaky bed...so let me tell you night times are something interesting. My goal every night is to fall asleep before the snoring starts. The new hermanas were so sweet about everything and I think they'll be so great!

 

     My experiences already have helped me grow a lot, and I'm so excited for what my mission can teach me! I love you so much! Thank you for all the prayers and letters. Please feel free to keep using dearelder while I'm in the MTC at least! I pray for you all the time, and I'm so grateful to know that the Lord is watching over you for me. I just want to bear my testimony, that I know this church is true and that this gospel is the only way to true happiness. I know that as we turn away from ourselves and focus on serving others and finding the good in them, that we will come to find ourselves in the process. We are never alone, because the Lord is always with us. Pray always, for He is always there listening. If you give the Lord everything you have, He will bless you with everything you need and more. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Con amor,

Hermana Feldermann

October 24, 2014

Hola!

I'm here! It's only been 2 days here, but it feels like so much longer. Also, time moves by so fast. You have every second of your day planned out, and that's pretty much how it is when you're actually in the mission as well. I made it here safely Mom and Dad, so no need to worry. I have to give you some grief though, because many of the girls in my district already got letters/emails/packages from their families and when I went to check my email today what did I see? Nada. Es muy triste. It's okay though, I'm sure that you didn't through too big of a party when I left.

 

     So the MTC. My keyboard is super messed up, so please ignore the grammatical errors...I still cant really believe that Im here. That I'm actually a missionary. We jumped right into things the first day. I met my companion! Her name is Hermana Glazier. She is so wonderful. She showed up and guess what....we were wearing the same skirt. And her first name is Rachel, too. Shes from California and so great. My district is comprised of 9 hermanas and 2 elders. Everyone keeps telling us that is completely unheard of. Most districts are made of of all elders, or mostly elders with only a few hermanas. The poor elders. The girls are all so great though. I'm hoping that I can try to motivate us all to work hard and be more obedient. 6 hermanas in my district are going to my mission, including my companion! The others are going to Paraguay, Ecuador, Canada, and San Diego. Our first class was taught entirely in Spanish. I actually understood so much more that I thought I would be able to! The gift of tongues is an amazing blessing of being a missionary, and I feel like I have only scratched the surface of truly being able to access that. Mom! I met this Elder whose name was Elder Perkis and he's from the Leeds, England area. His family grew up in the Wakefield ward. He said that his parents would have been in their teens when you were serving there. Did you know them...(sorry my question mark key isn't working...) 

 

     My roommates are so awesome. There's 4 of us in a room and I was able to get them to all come work out with me in the mornings! We have to get up at 630, but there's these work out classes that start every morning at 6! They are so willing to come with me and are such troopers. We teach our first lesson tomorrow....entirely in spanish, so pray for my companion and I! We were able to go to the temple this morning....Oh by the way my P-day is Fridays in case you hadn't noticed...and the temple was just amazing. I'm getting used to things here, but I can't wait til I get to Argentina. There are rumors to be having problems getting our visas...so we'll see if Argentina is the first place I end up after here! I've officially, as of today, seen every Minnesotan that is in the MTC! It's been so good to see all of them and have that little piece of home. 

 

     The spirit here, is amazing. We pray all the time and I just feel so close to the Lord all of the time. He truly has blessed me so much in my life. We had this amazing lesson yesterday, and we were told that your mission will be the best training ground for almost anything for the rest of your life. I've really been trying to focus on my relationship with my companion because other than the Lord, we were taught that there is no other more important relationship to have. I'm so blessed that Hna. Glazier is so easy to love. I'm learning so many wonderful lessons here, including many things about myself that I need to improve on. I love you so much! Please write me letters! I feel like I'm going to value those soooo much more than emails! Plus I have so much more time to read them.

P.S. Mom will you PLEASE send me my piano music! The one's of hymn arrangements. I miss playing the piano so much!

I will send pictures in another email!

Con amor, 

Hermana Feldermann