The Love of God

                                                                                                                            June 24, 2013
Hola mi familia!!! Les amo mucho!!!!!!!!!!! Con todo mi corazon! Thank you for your letters! This is getting to you so late because we had a wonderful conference in Concepción today to say goodbye to our wonderful mission President, President Humphrey and Hermana Humphrey! My heart is so full today. I have been crying the whole time I have read your letters. What a marvelous week full of the blessings of our Savior and our Heavenly Father, and their love for us.  

 

So I have a new companion - Sis. Garcia from El Salvador!! I went to Parral to pick her up on Tuesday and she is amazing! We are the best of friends and have a ton of fun together. Also, my Spanish is improving!!  Also, I have a new sister!!! In the mission, our trainers are called our moms. So Hermana Call is my mom, and she is training again so now I have a new little Sister. Her name is Hermana Skirvin, and she is from Utah. She reminds me a lot of myself when I first got here. We have so much fun together too, and it is so fun to have a little sister. The Elders left their house really dirty for us! We cleaned a lot and now the house is perfect. I love our little rama, One sister gave us a washing machine, and mentioned something about wanted to find us a dryer as well, and the branch wants to get us a stove as well. I love these people with all my heart. They are so humble, they don´t have much, but they give all that they have to help others. They are near and dear to my heart as they are examples of the Savior in all moments

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This week we found two new investigators to teach! We invited them to baptism on Thursday and Friday (Those two special days!!!!!!!!!)  One is named Sis M. and she is so sweet as we taught her the first lesson and she prayed. She wants to keep learning but her husband is not interested. She wants us to teach her somewhere else, and there is a member that lives right by her who has offered to let her be taught in his home. His wife is less active, so we are hoping they can be good friends. When we last visited Sis.M, she had her 12 year old granddaughter over. We couldn´t teach the granddaughter because her parents are Catholic and haven´t given permission, but we asked Sis. M. to read the pamphlet about the restoration and then pray to know if it is true. I told the granddaughter a little bit about our Young Women's program and about my friend who is part of the branch and is her same age.  I wanted her to feel the love of the Savior that I began to feel more when I started attending Young Womens and participating in the program. How inspired the Young Women's Program is!!  Anyway, when we returned to visit Sis. M. (the grandmother,) we ran into the granddaughter outside the door and she said, "I read the pamphlet and I know that it is true!"   I asked her how she knew and she said that she had read it, and that she had prayed about it and God had answered her.  We really want to teach her as well. So please pray for her and her parents! We want to teach the whole family!! Our other investigator is Sister G.  who lives by a member too! We love her so much and she has had a lot of hard struggles in her life, but she accepted the invitation to be baptized the first time, and has a baptismal date set as well. Sadly, she didn´t come to church this week, but we are going to do all we can to encourage her to come. Please pray for her, her daughter and granddaughter. Thank you so much for praying for our investigators! I love them each so much!      

 

So, real quick what I learned this week. Last night there was a incredible broadcast on missionary work from the Marriott center in Provo. We heard from many of the twelve apostles:  L. Tom Perry, Neil L. Anderson, Russel M. Nelson, Boyd K. Packer, and our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson. There was a large choir made up of missionaries from the MTC  and all of the new mission presidents were there, and we got to watch it all the way here in Chile! It was such and amazing and sweet experience!!! Also there were many videos along with music, and there were about three shots of our Girl´s camp! I got see Christina and Rachael!!! The broadcast was all about members being missionaries and working with the full time missionaries to bring others into the joy of the gospel. I especially loved Russel M. Nelson´s talk. He spoke about how our actions should always be motivated by love. When we feel in our heart that we should do something for someone else, we should do it and not wait to be asked. We need to share the gospel with our friends by finding opportunities to do so everyday, creative opportunities. There was a video clip and I hope that it is on lds.org now, but it was about a family in which each member of the family did something to share the gospel with those they meet, and it was incredible. They dad offered service to a elderly neighbor, and invited the missionaries to do the service. The mother received help from someone else and then served them and invited their family over for a family night with the missionaries. The elder son invited a friend to play basketball and the missionaries came. The daughter had a friend at work going through a hard time and introduced her to the missionaries. And the youngest son invited a friend and his family to his birthday party and also to his baptism. There they met the missionaries. It was such an incredible video and it renewed my testimony that we can share the gospel in so many ways and work with the missionaries. But we should do it because we love the people. All of Christ´s actions were motivated by pure love. We can pray for and strive to have this pure love for all people, and when we do this, we will be able to be better representatives of Jesus Christ. But the main message I loved is that we must learn to rely on the Spirit and trust the inspiration we receive that is motivated by our love for others. Boyd K. Packer taught us to learn to only depend on the Spirit as we share the gospel and President Monson taught that we must have the faith to act. Our faith, coupled with effort to share the gospel  will bring the blessings of Heaven, and the Lord will show us how to do His work. I wish you all could have seen this broadcast! It was incredible!

 

This week marks 4 months in the mission. Time is flying and I have so much left to do, I want to use every minute to share the gospel and help them feel the pure love of God!!! Scripture for the week!!! 1 Nephi 11:22,23  We have all felt the love of God this week as we have rejoiced in the blessings of His gospel and how He loves us and made a way for us to return as eternal families. It is my prayer that we can share this perfect, joyous love of God with everyone. I love you !!! Chou for this week!!