The biggest change!

Hola familía y amigos! Extraño a ustedes muchisímo! Me encanta la mision en serío. I cannot even begin to express to all of you the changes in me that have taken place but this is my attempt to describe the drastic changes the Lord has now stretched my spirit to fit. I have a tough time even typing these words at this time because of my gratitude for my Savior and for my mission. I feel 10 years more wise and experienced. I have faced some incredibly difficult things out here that have made the great times even greater. Ive had experiences far to spiritual to tell over the internet and Ive felt my whole heart fill up with the light of christ and overflow with love for the people of Argentina. They mean everything to me. So this is my attempt to type as fast as possible and update you on a fraction of my experiences this last week.

 

      Mosiah 26:13 "and now the spirit of Alma (Ashley Gillum) was again troubled; and he(she) went and inquired of the Lord what he(she) should do concerning this matter, for he(she) feared that he(she) should do wrong in the sight of God.... and it came to pass that after he (she) had poured out his(her)  whole soul to God, the voice of the Lord came to him(her), saying...."

 

January 2011 - This was the first day of our new work out and we woke up at 5 a.m. to do a Plyometric Workout on the roof of our apartment. It was awesome and personal study in the morning filled me with personal revelation. We were off to a great start feeling healthy spiritually and physically. We took a remise to Zarate for our district meeting where Elder Macavilca bore his testimony to us and it was incredible. It had me in tears to see this matured Missionary at the end of his mission, bearing the things of his heart that he has learned. He is so humble it amazes me! He said "like Nephi said, the Lord has prepared a way for us to all return home with honor and im not sure if Ive done everything that I was supposed to do or if I have become all that he wanted me to become but I know we all can, we just need to follow all of His teachings and do it His way, that is where pure joy can be found!" I teared up because I love Elder Macavlica with a deep respect for His spiritual perspective. Its been such an honor to have had him as a leader on the mission. I have always seen Elder Macavlica give out many letters and packages to all the missionaries in his group but never have I seen him recieve hardly anything. He is from Peru and very humble and hard working so I thought, it was best to spend a little bit of extra money I had left from when we went without eating one day, and get him a journal that I put pictures of christ in and Im having all his mission friends sign. I plan to give it to him this week because transfers are Feb. 8th and who knows where everyone will get split up to. Our area is all of North Buenos Aires and also Rio Gallegos which is the very tip of the bottom of the world right before Antartica. I would freeze my buns off down there because I dont have any winter clothes so im hoping to staying here where I can enjoy sweating to death everyday like I prefer haha. almost everyone gets sent south though so who knows! we will have to see. If I get sent to the south, I apologize to all of you waiting for letters, letters take even longer down there and everything is much more difficult and far away. Im hoping to stay here in Campana one more transfer because Im just now getting everything down great! But if Im to go to Tigre or Capital or any where else, I know that the Lord knows best and I will greatly miss these families here. Elder Erickson and Leon are always making sure that im stepping up my Español so Ive been improving day by day. We set our for Alejandra Tapias house in the farthest villa Las Acasias to apply the newly recieved revelation from the meeting. We were exhausted beyond belief from all the heat and then God sent beautiful rain that showered down all the jungle greenery and it was a gorgeous evening. Walking in the pouring rain with huge smiles on our faces for the love of Heavenly Father that we saw all around us, expecially in the beauty of the scenery. I remembered a disabled boy that I saw walking near a bus stop and watching what house he went to so i was strongly prompted to visit them. Turns out that was his grandmothers house so we went on a hunt to find his right address and one miracle after another led us to His family. Sometimes we feel like soldiers and the people look at us like we are. The rain and our heavy backpacks with nametags and how we keep pressing forward all feels like we are soldiers here to save these people. Because of this ive been even more grateful for my country because freedom isnt free, its hard work. Just when the day couldnt have been more beautiful with the rain we looked to see a boy in a wheel chair hooked up to machines enjoying the cool weather while he sat under a tin roof of his grandmothers home. As we started to pass by his eyes lit up real big and he started to smile and stare at us. I stopped dead in my tracks. I felt like he knew exactly who we were. I walked up to him and held his hand and said hello. He could hardly speak but he didnt want to let go of my hand. He just smiled so big. The grandmother seemed to be surprised by us taking time to talk with him and she was grateful for our kindness. We set up a later appointment with her and I walked away with tears in my eyes. I have so much love for those with special needs. It teaches me more charity, more patience. To me they are angels sent here to earth to teach us what we lack. Sure enough the exact timing we left him, we ran into the boy we had been searching for that lived near by. As we approached his tiny home barely holding together, I was filled with so much humility and love for these gorgeous children living here. One by one they poured out of the house with curious faces of our purpose for being there and their eyes were the most beautiful color Id ever seen. Then a woman approached us with eyes matching all of theirs and we made the connection that this was the mother of all 7! I was so excited for what we were about to share with them.

January 26, 2011- The best thing about this day was the love of my Heavenly Father that I had come to feel more than ever before. I had literally felt a much closer connection with Him and with my purpose for being here. In my Journal I wrote the words, " the greatest feeling in the whole world, is feeling the God who created me wrap His Fatherly arms around me for who Ive now become."

January 27, 2011- This morning was beautiful, my comp and I woke at 5 am to excercise one the roof and we studied and finished weekly planning. An extremely heavy feeling came over me. A feeling of saddness, lack of revelation, lack of progression, lack of ability and a feeling of despair. I couldnt recieve any answers for what we needed to do for our people. It was so frustrating. I knew that I needed to go into our room, shut the door and be alone for a while. So thats what I did. I knelt down and as it says in the scriptures, I offered up my soul in fervant prayer and conversation with my Heavenly Father. that prayer turned into an hour long conversation with Him for all the things im grateful for and for every single tiny and big thing ive needed to repent for such as any pride, any lack of faith etc. etc. That prayer seemed to be as if I were knelt before His very presence in complete humility and gratitude for the life He has given me. My blanket was covered in a puddle of tears and i trembled while speaking because my whole soul cried out for the benefit of these families and their progress. I felt so small and yet so important. I Encouraged my companion to do the same and so she did. I was so filled with light that I was beaming with energy for the work. That day was filled with miracles.

January 29, 2011- at 6 am Hermana Romo and I were working out on the roof. I felt so great watching the sun rise and starting the day off great. In personal study my comp studied about having more faith and I studied Agency. We both recieved amazing revelation for our investigators. We worked incredibly hard this day. We covered our entire area, speaking to everyone in our path and my shoes were thrashed by the end of the day so I had to super glue them together. What a great feeling it is to wear out yoru shoes in this work. We have great investigators at this time that we love but it has been alot of work. Nadia, is a sweet girl 15 years, but her boyfriend seems to be all that she thinks and talks about. She and her mother look extremely simliar like my mother and me so in a way I see a little bit of me at 15 in her. I try to hold onto a connection when I find one so the spirit can speak even more clearly to them. We have been teaching her that she does not NEED him, she needs to establish her stability and standards on the gospel of Jesus Christ, and for doing that, she will be blessed. She has a baptism date for this month. PLEASE PRAY FOR HER!!! We have a baptism date for Alejandra the mother of Estefania, and also her two daughters Milagros and Susana so PLEASE PRAY FOR THEM TO ALL STAY STRONG! This week was so hard for me because we did some reorganizing. It was time to say goodbye to some of our long investigators that have not progressed on their own, or have progressed but then stop after a certain point for too long. We had to tell the Milla family goodbye because there had been so many times that they have ignored us at their door or have hid from us, but then other times they let us in and they read the Book of Mormon with us, they come to church, they tell us that we are family to them and they love us and are so happy that we have come to them, but then they never return our calls and they ignore our knocks at the door. They progress and make committments then they dont progress. When we told them goodbye, I cried walking away. It was so sad for me because I love them so much but we cannot keep investing time into teaching them when they hid from us. Lucas, the son, is incredible also and he had a date to be baptized but then became missing and never returned our calls. His mother joked about him wanting to work more to save up money and come see me in the united states. So every time we looked for him they said he was working. I still believe that one day, they will be ready to keep their commitments and ready to all be baptized. They are all very amazing people. Hermana Romo re-visited the family of 7 kids and we didnt come empty handed, we brought loaves of bread and banannas to feed the children and that night we taught all of them with their parents the plan of salvation. Their eyes lit up with joy. They couldnt believe the knowledge we shared with them. They felt the spirit so strong and excepted to be baptized. We will set a date on our next meeting. PRAY FOR THEM TOO!! >That night after we finished planning and I bandaged up my blistered feet, I sat on the floor with my companion after our prayer and just cried. I was so happy. Something deep in my heart changed in this moment. I poured out all my thoughts to Hermana Romo and said, " I just had a huge change in my heart today, I know that ive said it before, but today was different, when we were walking through the villa and I saw all the trash in the sewer water in the ditch and all the dirty dogs in the streets, and heard all the blasted happy spanish music from the humble homes barely stable to stay up I looked at the sunshine in the clouds and said, I dont know if I ever want to go back to the united states. I want to be here forever until I help every person here! Argentina is now home to me, I cant leave here until ive done everything I can to help these families!" My comp looked at me and said, "its hitting you! the mission age is now hitting you! congradulations hermana gillum!" haha I loved this new feeling. I cried to her saying " im scared to go back to real life and scared of changing into the person I was before my mission. I was still a good person, but I was not at my full potential like Christ wanted me to be and now here I am feeling so much stronger, so much wiser, so much more grateful and I NEVER EVER EVER want that to go away!" In this moment everything hit me at once. Christ is the center of everything that matters most. As much as I love music and everything about it, I realized that ive even put music before Him before, Ive put many worldly things before Him until now... now He is the music, He is the most important thing to me and I made a promise to spend the rest of my life dedicating myself to bettering this world by doing my part.

January 30 2011- This day was bizzare. I had a sever head cold, but its like 110 degree weather plus humidity. So that doesnt make sense, but the heat really has been making us sick. We ate lunch at a less active members house that we love but the food was not my favorite. I was quite scared when I saw what they pulled off the grill to serve us and my stomach turned upside down. Intestines, heart, and cow brain with salad that had mold on it. I stuck to eating bread and washing the salad down with the pepsi that was poured into my dirty cup. My comp dared me to taste the brain with her and if you know me, you know how squimish I am about the tiniest thing in my food but sure enough I braved up and put a piece in my mouth, as I chewed I tried keeping composure and sure enough I spit it out of my mouth so fast and wiped my mouth with my napkin. I couldnt do it. She was much more tough than me. She ate it all. I felt so bad because they looked at me wierd since it was like their favorite food but there was no way I could eat that stuff. It tasted like salty slimey microwaved sea food and I couldnt handle it. So I remember what my mother used to say she did when she was little at her grandmothers when she didnt like the food and she would feed the dog under the table, so that seemed to save me in this moment also. I went home and threw up, and used a half a bottle of mouth wash. At least I can bee cool like all the other missionaries and say i TRIED!

Today was also a very awesome day, we have had so many big changes. I have such an incredible companion that Ive grown to be best friends with. She means everything to me. She never leaves my side when I need her shes there and not just because she HAS to be haha. She reads me inspiring things from the ensign and the scriptures, she tells me stories before we go to sleep and she makes me laugh all the day long with her great animation! She is a blast and I know that after the mission, we will be lifelong friends. We are planning to visit eachother often. She lives in Los Angeles so we are planning a disneyland trip for 2012 already and im so excited to meet her family and have her come to St. George. She means so much to me. To all you girls out there who want to go on the hardest greatest adventure of your life that will change you for the better.... I SUGGEST YOU SERVE A MISSION! Its by far the best decision ive ever made! Thanks to all of you who faithfully write me, I owe all my success to your encouragement!!!!! MIssionaries need support of loved ones and you are all helping the work move forth!
I   LOVE   YOU    ALL   SO    MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! xoxoxo

til next time, chao for now, suerte y besitos!!!!

 

con amor,

 Hermana Ashley Ann Gillum