We See Miracles When We Are Diligent!

                                                                                                                   February 10, 2014
Hola mi familia amorosa!!! Les amo muchísimo! Estoy feliz que todos están bien y que están disfrutando sus aventuras. Lo siento que hace tanto frío allá. Feliz Día de Amor este semana! Les amo todos! That is so fun that you were able to go to Elder Fisher´s an Elder Mitchel´s farewells! I bet the Spirit was so strong! They will be amazing missionaries! I can´t wait to hear about your missionary miracles! I will be praying for you this week! 

I have so much to tell you all this week!!! We have seen miracles as we have been diligent every day. We were working really hard to work with the members this week and get to know them. We visited a lot of less actives and new converts and we had lessons so full of the Spirit.

 

One of these miracles happened on Thursday I think. It was about 5:45 when we got out of a lesson and so we were going to go straight to our plan for 6:00, but then we decided to follow the plan for 5:30 instead. We were looking for an inactive sister from our ward list. We found her house in a little street and we called Alo. A little woman came out and told us that the sister didn't live there anymore. So, we asked if we could share with her and she said no. We asked if she knew of someone who would be interested  in and benefit from our message. She pointed us in the direction of her neighbor 3 houses down. We contacted her and she said no too. She didn't know of anyone with whom we could share. We slowly walked to leave the little street. As we got to the end, we ran into a teenage girl named Andrea. She had shared with missionaries before. In fact, her mom had just been baptized and she was learning all about the gospel too in a different area. They were there visiting her grandma,  who is a inactive member of our ward. She invited us to share a message with her family. As we shared about the Restoration and the light that it brings to all of our lives, Andrea told us that she loved everything about the church but she hadn't received an answer yet. Her mom shared her testimony  of how she was converted and knew that everything was true. Her grandma also shared about her experience and how she had become less active. She didn't believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. We then testified about how by reading the Book of Mormon and praying with real intent, we can know if everything is true, if Joseph Smith was a prophet, if the Church is the true church of Jesus Christ, everything! The Spirit was so strong in that lesson, and in the end they all committed to read it and pray to know. Andrea didn't want to say the closing  prayer when invited, but she did. And as she prayed, she began to cry as she thanked Heavenly Father for our visit and for the message of the Restoration. I know that she  received her answer!!! I love my mission! These are the kind of miracles we are blessed to see every day. We get to help these people. We won't be able to teach her more, but we were able to help her in that moment and we will continue to help her grandma. 

 

We visited about 5 less active members and 3 came to church. Including a teenage boy named   Franco, who has a desire to know if the church is really true. We also taught the less active daughter of an amazing sister in our ward. She was committed to come to church. She wasn't able to come, but we were able to help her with our visit and we will continue to strengthen them! None of our investigators came to church, but we found 5 new this week, including Juan, a man who lost his wife recently  after taking care of her for 3 years while she was so sick. He feels like something is missing in his life. And we all felt the Spirit as we taught him that he needs the Restored Gospel, it is exactly what he is missing. We also taught Cesar finally! His wife wasn´t there but we are going to visit them tonight. He wants to be baptized so please pray for both of them. We also found Sulema who needs to pray about baptism. And last night we found Javier and Fernanda. Fernanda is inactive and the sister of a member we visited this week. Her husband isn't a member, and they are very receptive and interested. Please pray from them that they can understand the need for this baptism. We tried to visit Carmen again, but her husband said that they don't want anything because they have a different religion. But we will not give up hope! 

 

This week I learned a lot about following the Spirit. I think sometimes it is hard to know if you have an idea or if it is a prompting from the Spirit. I remember I watched a Mormon message in  which Elder Bednar said, that if it is a good idea and it invites us or others to come closer to Christ, then do it. IT IS THE SPIRIT!!! My companion and I have learned this week that when these promptings from the Spirit come, we must be worthy and ready to hear them and follow them. They may be subtle, but they are heaven sent. We have adopted the saying, ¿Porqué No? or Why not? If it´s a good idea and there is no reason not to do it, then we should follow the prompting. When we chose to follow the 5:30 plan instead of the 6:00, we said, Porqué no? And we went. We must always follow our plans but when the Spirit prompts us otherwise, we must be ready to listen. God always knows what is best!

 

Well, now for the funny stories. I have quite a few. We were contacting this one guy, and he gave us his address and phone number so we could share a message with him and I was thinking, wow he is going to be someone really prepared...I was thinking that until he asked me on a date ha ha first time that has happened in my mission :) Oh Chile!

 

Another night we were close to home and it was almost 10 but we still had 2 minutes so we went to contact one more house in front of our house. There was an iron gate with a hole  in it and as we approached the hole, I see this face with a light shining on it peering out of the hole!! Hermana Blau and I almost died of heart attacks. I have no idea why but it was a little girl who was playing on an ipad in the  dark outside at night and just decided to stand very close to her gate with the hole in it. I think she just wanted to scare the innocent sister missionaries.

 

Lastly, today we had the brilliant idea to make french toast, because I finally found syrup at Lider (like Walmart)! Well, to use the stoves in Chile, you have to buy a gas tank and connect it. We bought the gas today for a little stove top that the mission had given us and we lit the stove, it was looking all good until about a minute later, a part behind the stove unit burst into flames! ha ha It was so crazy. Our first reaction was to blow it out like a candle, but it was being fed by gas so of course it wasn't going to go out that way. I finally thought right and just turned off the gas. But I think I got about 3 wishes in there from blowing first ha ha Well long story short, we resorted to making the french toast in the microwave. Word of caution, it is not the same. Don't try it at home. ha ha next week we are going to buy a griddle. No gas, and no fire! Perfect!!!

 

Well I hope you all have an amazing week! I love you all so much and I am so proud of each of you!!! Keep being my examples! You make me so proud! I love you!!! Have a great week, and eat some french toast for me!!! Hasta luego!