Wow. It feels like
a year has passed since the last time I wrote you all!
Okay as you can
tell since I'm writing on Monday, there were cambios! And Hermana Laguna left
Francke to train the next nurse, who was actually called to be the official
mission nurse, but she stayed in my district so that's fun.
And now I am
companions with myself. Yeah it was some pretty interesting inspiration that
Presidente got there...
He called me on
Sunday and asked me to train Hermana Gardner! We usually meet the new
missionaries on Wednesday, but Hermana Laguna and I had to give a presentation
about the health and so I met all of them on Tuesday night! So I had the privilege
of participating in the President's devotional that he gives to the new
missionaries and then the group dinner after. In the dinner I by chance ended
up sitting in the exact same seat that I sat in for the dinner MY first night
in the mission. When I realized that I turned to President and said, ‘‘It was
here that you said to me, Hermana Olson, in this mission you will get fat, but
don't worry, it just happens to all the sister missionaries.'' And his wife
said, ''What you said that to her her first day?!'' And then president with a
smirk on his face said, ''Well, did you gain weight?'' And I said, ''YES!'' And
he said, ''So my prophecy was correct then.'' haha it was fun reliving my first
day. And now I am just having a blast reliving training!
Well actually it
started a little bit WAY different than I expected! The planes here went on
strike and so no one could fly down to Coyahique or Punta Arenas and there were
two new sister missionaries that were going there to start their missions.
Their trainers didn't come up north to meet them and they were going to have to
wait four days before they could go down. President asked me if I would be
alright having three little ducklings working with me. And I said OF COURSE! It
was a blast. There was not a single experience in the mission that compares to
walking around with three new gringos on their first day in the mission field.
I don't have much time to talk about all that! The four days ended up lasting
just one day, but in that ONE day we got so much work done! And we went around
caroling in a chorus to a lot of people.
At the end of the
day, we passed a menos activo in the street that I didn't even know existed,
but the member we were with recognized him and so we turned around and asked if
we could teach him a lesson. He asked his son who owned the house, not member,
and he said he doesn't like to listen to stuff about God. But he let us go in.
We invited his wife, Patricia, to listen and each one of us taught separate
parts of the lesson. There was so much faith in that lesson because there were
3 new missionaries just trying to bring the spirit through their broken Spanish.
Anyway, it made for a very very awesome lesson with a powerful Spirit. Patricia
accepted to be baptized in January, but said that she is worried about how her
husband would react. Then, upon leaving their house, to our pleasant
(understatement) surprise, we found the mission president and his two
assistants contacting Hector, Patricia's husband, out in his yard! Apparently
they had stopped by our house to pick up the suitcases of the other hermanas
that were going to be leaving the next day, and we weren't there yet, so they
decided to kill some time and find someone to teach. It ''just so happened''
that that same house they decided to walk to was the house where we had been
teaching! I know it wasn't chance, the spirit took care of that one, because
they helped Hector understand why he should accept the gospel. And now we are
teaching all of them.
Amazing right?! But
that's not even the half of everything that has happened this week! I have learned
so much from my wonderful companion, Hermana Gardner. She has so much faith and
is so fearless. She's soaring in her speaking abilities and struggling with the
crazy velocity of the Chilean dialect, but she has no problem trusting in the
spirit and following the whispers.
We focused a lot on finding and meeting the
individual needs of all of our investigators this week and the spirit has
really been able to manifest their needs. And we both have experienced
profoundly what it means to speak and let your mouths be filled with what it is
that they need to hear. This week we challenged 8 people to be baptized and
every single one of them said YES! Four of them accepted a date to prepare to
be baptized and 2 of them want to meditate and pray about it.
Claudio, our
investigator that sells Completos, had had a date set for his baptism on the
12th but had only gone to church once, so his date fell through. On Thursday we
went to teach him, and the first thing he said with a very puzzled face, ''Why
didn't I get baptized this Saturday?'' In my mind, my mouth dropped! He thought
he was going to be baptized last Saturday!!! And we hadn't realized he didn't
understand what he needed to do to be ready. So we changed our lesson plans and
taught him about what the covenant means and focused on the commandment of
keeping the Sabbath day Holy, what the sacrament was, and why it is so
important to set a habit before we are baptized. After explaining all of that,
he said, ''So I shouldn't be working on Sunday.'' He's struggling a lot with
his little business, and so he is very worried about giving up a whole day of
work, but we promised him that to put the sacrifice, Heavenly Father would
bless him. After thinking for a while in silence he said, ''I am going to push
myself to keep this commandment. Now I understand why it is important. Can I
try to prepare to be baptized for January 9th?''
We basically said,
''Um. OF COURSE.'' So this Sunday he didn't work until 12, so he only missed
half an hour of church. Even though it wasn't the whole sacrifice he is getting
there. It's amazing the clarity of the gospel that was notable in his
conviction. On Sunday we were walking passed his stand, and he was sitting out
on his little picnic table reading the book of Mormon. What progress!
That's one story of
the eight baptismal invitations. They are all equally amazing and individually
special. There isn't any more time.
Two of our
baptismal invitations were towards people that weren't even our own
investigators. On Friday and Sunday our zone along with the members of the
stake did a huge contacting Christmas campaign in the plaza in Osorno and La
Union with the stake choir and posters and balloons and cookies. It was so
great! One of the contacts on Friday was just barely looking for a church to be
baptized with her daughter but was confused on which one was the right one to
be baptized in, (sound familiar to anyone like a 14 year old boy?!) So we
taught her, invited her to be baptized she said yes, now the elders in another
ward are teaching her! And the same thing happened with a really awesome
contact with a 20 year old skater boy last night in the plaza in La Union, but
we taught him about the plan of salvation. And now he wants to get baptized so
that he can serve a mission! The elders met up with him and we just saw them
today and they said that kid is amazing and so ready!
OK. Well as you can
see this week was amazing. We had 15 lessons with a member and 21 others. We
are really developing as better missionaries. Hermana Gardner is awesome and
I'm learning so much from her. She and I almost never speak in English because
she wants to get as immersed in Spanish as we can. In the streets we are never
talking about anything but the work and what we can teach or what we could do
to help out our investigators. So we still have yet to get to know each other
better, but from these six days we've been together the ONLY difference we've
found between ourselves is that she likes the smell of gasoline and I
don't.
OH
YEAH, AND JUAN CARLOS GOT MARRIED!
Yes!
This actually happened! It was one of my favorite moments to see them LITERALLY
GLOWING from happiness. Last night we visited them and they said that they
never thought there would be such a difference in how they felt actually being
married. But now, after 10 years, they said that they have received a purer
testimony of the spirit you can receive when living all of the commandments of
Heavenly Father! We are so happy for them! Now he just needs to get baptized so
he can start preparing to be sealed in the temple!
I. LOVE. THIS. WORK!
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