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Last Supper

Well family here it is..... the last email as a missionary!

Well family here it is..... the last email as a missionary! Who would have thought that time passed SO fast! I can´t believe i will see you all this week! 

Last monday we went to my old area and visited some of the members there. It was really fun to see everyone! I love them! This week has been great! We had a baptism sunday morning. It was the best baptism i have ever been in. She was so ready! The bishop baptized her and the ward was really supportive! We had a few despedidas with the members and a few more today... :( I am going to miss Costa Rica and the people here so much but I can´t wait to see you guys. I just had my last interview with President Hayes. I love that guy :) He is the best. We are going to san jose right now to buy some stuff then tomorrow we have dinner at presidents house and wednesday we are going to the temple then thursday we go home..... HOW CRAZY!!!!! 

Well family I Love you all so much! I don´t have to much to write this week but we will have more to talk about soon I am sure! I love you all so much!! Thanks for everything you do for me!!! :) 

Hermana Chatwin

Where do I even start!

Hi Family!!!!

Where do I even start! This has been a crazy week!

We went to the temple on Wednesday and it was the sweetest experience of my mission. I love the temple. I felt so much peace walking in and when we sat down to start the session I just felt the Love of my heavenly father. I knew that in that moment he was happy with me. I know that he knows I am not perfect and that there are SO many things I need to change but I know that he Loves me and he is so patient with me. I was sitting there waiting to go into the celestial room and I just remembered the first time I went to the temple and walked into the Celestial room and saw you guys there waiting for me. That Dad gave me a great big hug! I thought of the last time I went to the temple with you mom and we just sat on that couch crying. I was just sitting there thinking of how much I love you guys and how grateful I am for the gospel in my life that because of the gospel we can have an eternal family. Then i thought if I am this happy to see my family and I know how sweet that reunion will be just imagine how much sweeter the reunion with our Father in Heaven will be when we get to see him again. I can't wait for that meeting. I just hope that we will all be able to come into his presence and find every member of our family there waiting for us. Because it sure wouldn't be heaven without you guys!!! I sat in the celestial room just crying because of the joy I felt. The love that I could feel from my heavenly father was so clear and so strong. I know that the temple is the house of the Lord and that there we make covenants that will help us come back to the presence of our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ. President Hayes and Sister Hayes did the session with us and they were the witness couple. It was such a great experience. I love them SO much! After we had left we went to a little meeting with them. President shook my hand and said I saw you crying hermana how are you?? I said good I am really good. Those were happy tears. Hermana Hayes said tears from a Job well done. I know that I have not been the perfect missionary and I still have time to work :) it's not over yet. But I know that I have fulfilled my one purpose as a missionary. To inivte others to come to Christ. When I was in the MTC Elder Holland came and talked about that purpose. He said you can't invite someone to come somewhere you aren't. The first person you have to bring to Christ is yourself. That is 100% true. I coudn't be an effective missionary until I had come unto Christ. After that I understood so much better the purpose of missionary work and the purpose of the Gospel. I have come to know my Savior over the past few months. I have come to know for myself that the Gospel is true. That we have a living Profeta. That the Atonement is real! And it works! I know that we don't have to be perfect to get home to our heavenly father we just have to do our best! I am so grateful for the blessings I have recieved in my life. Going on a mission was the best decision I have ever made! I know that Heavenly father sent me on a mission to help other people but honestly he sent me on a mission because he loves me and he wanted to make sure that I would be able to come home to him. He sent me here to realize what is REALLY important in life and to go home and LIVE the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the past few weeks I have realized that there is 1 difference between members of the church and disciples of christ. It is not the number of times you go to church or the temple, or the number of times you read the scriptures and say your prayers. It is the way you LIVE the gospel. The gospel is not a list of checks it is a constant process of change and Love. It gives us hope that no matter what we have done or no matter how many times we fall that we can get back up and try again, and again , and again! In confrence they talked a lot about living the gospel and I have come to realize that if we truly live it everything will be okay! Also in the letter that Mom sent me today she was my second witness of that. Really the little things in life matter so much more than we think they do! We sometimes think that watching a movie with a little bad in it or being on facebook a little to long or playing video games a little to much is okay. But these are things that drive the spirit from our lives. If we are not careful we will fall right into the trap that satan is setting for us trying to distract us from our one goal in life. Which is to return and live with our Heavenly Father. When we remember that every other choice is a lot easier to make.

Well family I hope you know I love you all so much! I can't wait to see you! I am going to miss my mission SO much! All of the people I have met here and the Spirit you feel as a missionary is the best. But I know that it doesn't end when I go home. I still have a lot to do. Thank you so much for all the love and support you guys have given me these past 20 years of my life. I don't know what I did to deserve such a great family but I love you all so much! See you soon!!!!! :)

Con MUCHO Amor <3

Hermana Chatwin 

Hi family!!!! :) 

What a great week we have had. Seriously I don't know how to describe how great  being a missionary is. This week has gone SO fast!!! I don't know how the days go SO fast!! It is crazy! 

We have been teaching this refrence from a member who is a 16 year old boy named Marco. He is AWESOME! He loves the church and really wants to get baptized. We have been teaching him for a while and he always comes to church with this family.But he told us a few weeks ago that he wanted to wait to get baptized on his birthday. He thought it would be a good experience. We thought about it and didn't really say anything, because his birthday is in November. But we had been praying that he could change his mind.So he had a little chat with the Bishop ( who is awesome by the way! We have the best Bishop in the world!!!) He just told him that he should pray about it and ask the Lord if he wanted him to wait until november. So he did. Then we had a lesson with him on Saturday o sea 2 days ago. He told us he had prayed about it and that he was ready to get baptized this month. So we were really happy! Then yesterday he came to church in a white shirt and tie. He is really just the greatest kid. At the first of my mission I thought it was kind of silly to baptize jovenes. But the more I have been here I have learned that really some of them have the strongest testimonies and they help their families to become members of the church ask well. It has really been a testimony builder to me that you don't have to be an adult to know the church is true. You can know it when you are a little kid and then your testimony just grows and grows. 

Things are good with my companion I love her. She reminds me A LOT of me when I first got here. A little stressed and felt like I was never going to be able to do it but now I can look back and say I did it with the Lords help. So i just tell her everyday she can do it. She just has to be paciente and do her part so the Lord can help her. She is really great though! 

I have just come to love the people here in Costa Rica so much. One thing that I love is that members of the church in all places of the world are the same. You can always feel their love for you and know that they believe exactly what you do. That even though we are from very different places and cultures that we are all children of God. That he knows us and Loves each and everyone of us. 

Well family I hope everything is good. Everything is good here. We still can use your prayers to help us find some new people to teach as always but I love being a missionary with my whole heart. I can't tell you how grateful I am for the oportunity that my Heavenly father has given me to serve his children!! I love being a missionary!!! 

Thanks for everything family!!! Love you all!!!

Hermana Chatwin

Mission conference?

Well another crazy week in Costa Rica!

Hi family!!!! 
Well another crazy week in Costa Rica!! I love it here. I can´t even tell you how much I love it here. This week we had the oportunity to see two of our investigators be baptized. It was a very special baptism because they were refrences of a less active family. The boy that baptized them was inactive but started coming back to church with them. He had already been ordained a priest so after a few weeks of preparation and some goals with the Bishop he was ready to baptize them. It was such a neat experience. Also his parents came who are both members but are inactive as well. It was such a neat experience to see that he really has wanted to change and to be active in the church for his own decision not for his family. He is really excited! I love seeing how the gospel changes peoples lives. And how people come to know the savior so much better through church attendance. Also in the gospel principles class we were talking about going to the temple and basically all ofour recient converts are getting ready to go to the temple and do baptisms in a few weeks. 

I love seeing them be worthy and ready to go to the temple. It is really just helps me to remember why I am here. That it is not about numbers that these are real people who are preparing to go home to our father in heaven. My whole mission I have been very focused on numbers and always trying to be the best. Which I don´t think is bad because it has helped me to learn to work really hard. But now I have realized the reason behind the hard work.That everysingle one of the people we meet is a child of God. That he loves them just as much as he loves me. 

I am so grateful for the experiences I have had here and how it has helped me to know what kind of member i want to be when I get home. I went on divisions this week with some hermanas and I met some members that have like a family home evening but it a noche de groupo. So they invite all the members that want to and the recent converts, menos activos, and investigators. It was the coolest thing! I love the feeling that members get when they start working in the Obra misional. I can´t wait to go home and start working there as well. I just wish that all members could feel that love for missionary work. 

Well family I love you guys!!! Today was my last day of changes..... the next one i will be going home....how weirdis that! I can´t believe it! But I am going to give my heavenly father everything I have this change! I want to finish my mission happy :) I love being a missionary!!! Miss you guys! Love you!!  I hope you all have a good day! 

Hermana Chatwin