La Obra Misional es Maravillosa!!! ES VERDAD!!

HOLAAAAAAA!! Familia!!!!!

Hello! I am now in the feild!! I have a latina as my companion! She is from Honduras and this is her first time training! Es muy muy loco! When Presidente assigned us our companions the assistants were reading who we were with and the said ¨Hermana Durfee with Hermana Flores¨ And I just had this feeling inside of me that I was going to be with a latina. Padre Celestial was preparing me. I am very greatful for the opportunity to be with her cause she doesn´t really know English so I have to speak Spanish to her to be able to communicate. And so far we have been getting a long great! Su nombre es Hermana Flores. Ella es muy genial. Genial es cool en ingles. Ella es muy patiente y el mejor entrenedora en el mundo. The best trainer in the world.

So, I have had the opportunity to teach lessons with people and to bear my testimony countless times. It is so cool! Two of my favorite lessons so far have been with Oriana we taught the Plan of Salvation and with Alejandro we taught El evangelio de Jesucristo. The gospel of Jesus Christ. Oriana asked me where I was from and I told her that I was from Estados Unidos and so then she asked me to translate this ¨Me gusto conocerte¨ Which in ingles means I want to get to know you. Haha! She wants to get to know me which is a good thing! :) lol. I love that everyone here is so kind I really appreciate that about the people of Chile. Especially the members. Anyways so we had a lesson with Alejandro on Saturday and it was super genial. I loved it. I got to teach like half of the lesson this time, and it was a struggle cause sometimes I will accidentally sometimes say english words and the person I am talking to will just smile kindly and wait for me or try to guess what I am saying. Haha! Which I appreciate cause most of the time it is what I am trying to say.

Yesterday, was my first Sunday in the feild and it was so cool cause el obispo, the bishop asked me if I would bear my testimony. And of course I did. I feel that it went really well and that the Holy Ghost was able to communicate to them in the ward my desire to work with them and for them. In my patriarchal blessing it says that I will be able to bear testimony to others and they will want to change because of my testimony and I have only been out for un mes y media and I have already been seeing the results of my testimony. I am so greatful that I have that blessing from Padre Celestial. It is on of the thing estoy agradecida por.

I love this work so much. I am living my childhood dream. I feel that I have the opportunity that not many people have. Oh, I forgot to tell you all Alejandro came to church yesterday!! Any Elder White is my zone leader. Garret White from South Jordan. Garret is this kid that I grew up with for those of you who do not know and I have experienced an earthquake during my fourth week in the Ccm. and I saw Daniel Argyle who is also serving in Santiago Oeste. But Elder White being my zone leader, whoa!!! WHOA!! CRAZY!! When I saw Elder Argyle I really wanted to hug him but of course could not, because Soy una misionera!! lol :) Entonces lots and lots of crazy things!! Ahaha! I am so excited to just work hard. Mi papa es el mejor porque el enseno me este principio en me vida. Trabar duro. DURO, Work hard!!

I love you all very much!! TRABAJA DURO!

Hermana Durfee. :)

P.S. La obra misional es maravillosa. I am so blessed to be a part of this amazing work.

...So yeah, Kidney Stones... cont. And A Little More.

So last e-mail I got kicked off so I'll quickly finish then tell you all about how awesome this week was!

Wednesday, while passing the kidney stone, Sister Mendenhall (my mission president's wife) came to check up on me. After a little bit she says she needs to talk to me about something other then my kidney stone. She then tells me that both her and President Mendenhall feel inspired that I should go back to Spanish... but here is the big part... that there are three Spanish sisters coming in my last transfer and that they want me to train. Honestly that didn't help me feel any better. Here I was having served a whole year in English out of my year and a half. They're asking me to go back to Spanish for my last two transfers and my last one they want me to train in Spanish. I felt sooo... whats the word, unqualified. Why me? Why was I called Spanish? Its been so hard for me to learn. I want to be able to teach. She asked me to pray about it and let her know.

After she left it wasn't even an hour later (and I hadn't even prayed about it) when I felt this crazy strong feeling of "You can do it! I'll help you! You'll dominate this next transfer and when it comes to your last you'll be ready to train!" I knew that was my answer to my unasked question. I called her to let her know and she was so happy! It so cool to see how the Spirit will help us in our lives. I suggest all of you work toward getting that haha. ;)

Come Friday, I felt really bad for Sis Claros. She just seemed so bored. So Sis Pitchforth asked Sis Mendenhall if we could watch Disney movies and she said yes! So guess what I watched?! Frozen! hahaha It was really good! Saturday we watched: Prince of Egypt, The Jungle Book, Ice Age, and a little bit of Up. It was pretty enjoyable (made me feel less of a missionary but again I was really sick soo... haha).

Saturday we also found out what was happening. I was indeed transferred to Spanish, back to my old area where I was before the YSA with my mom (trainer) Hna Espinosa. I was super excited. (still am!). AND that night when I woke up to take my pills i wasnt in pain so I waited for next alarm. Still wasn't in pain. Well! That was seriously anticlimactic. haha. So I went to church. The Branch was so sad to see me go. President Lloyd (second counselor) cried and had me bare my testimony which in turn made me cry. President Johnson, the stake president (my stake president for a whole year), was there as well and wasn't happy I was leaving either. BUT, the Lord knew that I needed to be here.

Its been so amazing to be back in Downtown Denver. Always a party like usual and since its Hna Espinosa last transfer we have all of our p-days planned with crazy fun stuff so I'll have some exciting e-mails coming up. (Speaking of that and not at all truncky comment ;) After this only 10 more e-mails). We have been working on finding investigators that "inquire of us diligently" instead of us "inquiring of them". Its been pretty awesome to see the crazy miracles that happen. We found... 4! investigators that already inquire of us. Its so cool! Plus I have been able to teach in every lesson and then last night we had an AMAZING lesson where I totally killed it! I wanted to cry because of how amazed I was. The Lord truly has helped me this last week.

One of our new investigators of this last week isn't so new to me. His name is Justino (can't exactly remember if I told you guys about him since that was 6 months ago). He's amazing and he had to drop us because his wife was getting jealous but he came to church tour (loved it) read to 1 Nephi 11 (loved that as well). He was doing so well but then had to stop seeing us. When I left the missionaries tried to contact to him but with no success so they put him aside. Well my first week back, guess who we were able to contact and see? Justino. He's still as amazing as ever and is getting a divorce with wife (which is not the best but he was really unhappy). And even remembered me! (The reason I say that is because hahaha there are a handful of people that remember the quiet missionary that was with Trujillo. Not even the Bishop. Dont worry I'm not upset about it but this time its going to be different.) Espinosa really likes him so I'm really happy and excited to see what happens.

Then on Friday unexpected we get a knock on our door. I opened the door too see a package and didn't even pick it up and ran to the window. It was my wonderful mom and dad who were in town for my cousin/sister's daughter's baptism. All we got was a wave at each other but it made this amazing week even better.

Alright friends and family. I love you all! Sorry this is so long(:
Stay Sweet
Dont Do Drugs
Write me if you can (1250 Main St, Broomfield CO 80020) especially since I only have a few more weeks left!(:

Hermana Charlene Durfee

...So yeah, Kidney Stones...

Man guys, I can't wait to go back and read in my e-mails how many times I say this but, missions are crazy!!!

Last week starting Monday I was feeling a little weird but I didn't think too much about it. Of course slowly but surely it got worse. I thought maybe it could have been... that time of month (haha sorry). We go to FHE and it was so sad because here it is my last FHE with the branch (I had a very strong guess I was being transferred) and I couldn't even play volleyball... I pretty much was laying on the stage stairs curled up in pain. It was awesome though to see how the branch took care of me. The following day I was still in a lot of pain. I took some ibuprofen and we went to have lunch with Justin.

When we get there he had taken his dog to the vet but Sis. Pitchforth was there. She happily let us in and made us lunch (which actually I didn't eat). She saw how much pain I was in and told me to go lay down downstairs. I did but that wasn't helping. Justin came home and started taking care of me. He got me water, midol (just in case), got me a hot pad, made me toast, played games with Sis. Claros. Around 3 I was still in a lot of pain and Sister Mendenhall told me to go to the hospital. Sis. Pitchforth sacrificed going to the temple to take me to the ER.

They took a blood test and urine test, and we waited... and waited... and waited. Keep in mind I'm still in a ton of pain. I thought maybe I was just being a wimp and here I was at the ER making a big deal out of nothing. Then they came in and took me for a cat scan because my white blood cells were high. Then we waited some more... and waited. Eventually Sis. Pitchforth pushed my pain button because I didn't want too. They came in and told me I had a kidney stone. That it would take 2-7 days to pass and I would be in a lot of pain during that time. So they gave me drugs! Oh thank goodness for wonderful technology haha. (Promise I'm not still high on them).

Sis Pitchforth insisted on taking me to her house and having me stay there, which Sis. Mendenhall approved. So the next 5 days consisted of drugs, sleeping, card games, Justin entertaining us and a ton of peeing. hahaha. If they were taking the dogs to the park they would drag me along on a long board to get some fresh air. I didn't feel like a missionary. I did feel lazy but what could I do about that?

Ugh. out of time. Okay so all you need to know is that I'm back to normal! (I'll finish the story next time! These computers kick us off).

Love you
Don't Do Drugs
Stay Sweet

Hermana Charlene Durfee