Hola todos!
Ha sido un semana espectacular en Arica. We did a lot, talked with a lot of people and most important, we baptized!
To recap the week, we actually didn´t have anything particularly special. We met with a lot of families and are getting ready for la conferencia del barrio esta semana (ward conference). Here in Chile, it means that in addition to the difference in church meetings on Sunday, we are having an activity every night this week including but not limited to: Autosuficiencia (self sufficiency)classes, movie night, devotional, Q&A session, and a church open house. It is my first open house but I am looking forward to it. It should be a really good opportunity to help people understand the church and our message. Afterward we are going to have a baptism!
I learned a lot about the importance of goal setting and sticking with the plans we made to accomplish them. I had to really take a look at myself and see what I could improve. On Saturday night I made plans to change and on Sunday, I implemented them. My confidence boomed and I felt better the whole rest of the day. This I learned is because faith is a principle of action. Because I set my goal, Heavenly Father was able to use that to help me. Faith is the hope for what we can become and should be centered in Jesus Christ, but because we have our freedom of choice, God will not obligate us to do or be anything. Thus it is super important to have a goal or at least a vision for what we want to be so that Heavenly Father can help us out.
We had a baptism this week with F. He is super awesome. He was a reference from a missionary in the other sector. We have been working with him for about a month and in this time he has stopped marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol. It was a big change but it was the Holy Ghost that worked through us to help him. He likes to draw and is starting a t shirt company. He is also studying topography at the University. For his baptism service, Elder Campos and I performed a musical number which was a tiny miracle, because I am not musically gifted and am especially bad when playing in front of other people, but we did it and it went just like we practiced!
Challenge for the week: Search #IlumineElMundo or #LightTheWorld and use one of the ideas to help out someone this week. Then write to me with you experience! It would mean the world to me!
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| My llama girlfriend |
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| Kids having fun |
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| Fabian
Excerpt from family letter
It has been a pretty good week. I had some hard days, but that is normal and I feel good now. I have come to realize a lot more that faith is a principle of action. I have felt my faith become very low, but this past weekend my faith has been fortified. I made a lot of easy mistakes this past weekend that shouldn't have happened or because of other things they did. But I learned a lot from them. What I did is that I wrote goals for the problems that I feel I was having and made plans to improve for the next day. I think it turned out well and my faith increased a lot because of it. Goal making is really an essential step to progressing.
This week we baptized F! He is super cool and super flyte. He likes to draw and is looking at starting his business printing Tshirts. We are looking to get him to make us T shirts for the Zone. He had to stop doing drugs and alcohol to be baptized and he did! He got baptized with his piercings which was unorthodox, but we were able to help him take it out for his confirmation the next day. We are going to teach him on Wednesday and hopefully help him improve and understand the importance of it. For his baptism service, we did a musical number of Nearer my God to Thee. I played the piano (only the right hand because I can't do it yet with both) and he sang. It turned out well! I feel like we didn't drive the Spirit away so that is a plus :)
We buy our own food and defend it ferociously. Peanut butter especially. That is the best and worst part of intercambios (exchanges) is being able to see what the other guy has to eat while at the same time hoping that he doesn't eat all your food. ;)
I saw an answer to a prayer yesterday. We were trying to track down people that were given a baby blessing but had never been baptized and so we went to this one house and actually first tried the neighbor. We talked with her and I participated and thought I gave an awesome door side lesson. The Spirit was there and we were able place a fecha for a bautismo with her for the 2nd of Dic. It was an answer to a prayer because I had been struggling a lot with my confidence (Saturday was way hard) but because I made goals for how to improve and implemented them on Sunday, I felt the Spirit as I was teaching and I spoke well and confidently and it was something that I had been missing I feel. I definitely felt the Lord with me.
We don't have weird things happen that I can remember. It is all pretty normal. But the best part of the mission is probably learning to grow. I have had the hardest times in the mission, but also I have felt some of the greatest times of confidence and peace. When we are able to teach something to someone, I like to imagine that we are adding a little bit more light into their lives.
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