Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Jan 26 - Week 2 - we are poor

hey!

This week was super busy and so much happened. 
first of all, on monday hermana Conde got bit by a dog! we knocked a door of an old investigator and their blind dog came out, sniffered her foot and then bit her ankle, it came out of nowhere! it wasnt a bad bit at all, only a little blood and it wasnt deep. it looks like a vampire bite haha. so we had to go back to the house so she could clean and bandage and rest it. but that was the highlight of monday haha. 

a hermano in our ward, hermana Salas who is rich has been married three times and his family makes up half the ward. im pretty sure hes more well known than the bishop. anyways, he invited us to his house for a mutual activity to share something with the young men and young women because they were non member friends there. we taught the restoration using pizza haha. we made pizza and explained that Christ set up his church with the priesthood (pepperoni) scriptures (crust) prophets (sause) etc... but during the apostacy a whole bunch of people took stuff off the pizza cause they didnt like it or added ingredients that didnt belong and Joseph smith restored the original pizza haha. it was interesting, im pretty sure the yw and ym just wanted the pizza. but it was fun. 

we had zone conference on thursday! i got to see Elder Wilson from my first district in punta arenas. Hermana Obeso lets the hermanas call old companions on her cell phone so i got to call Hermana Jenkins! it was so awesome to talk to her, she says that victor and blanca are still progressing and that they've found a lot of really great people. 
I sang a special musical number for the conference. I sang "I know that my redeemer lives" in spanish, with hermana Maready (other hermana) and our zone leader on violin. it went pretty well. 

the past four days were absolutely crazy. we have an investigator, daniel, 18 years old, who lives in a cabaña behind the house of hermano salas. hes been investigating the church for a month and accepted a baptism date. he's really timid and quiet but really awesome and sweet. hes from a different city and when he was younger he was kind of a rebellious teenager and got into some bad stuff. he witnessed a serious crime and was a witness in a court case. Hno Salas was the lawyer and thought daniel had potential so he offered him a job and a place to live here in valdivia. Daniel completely changed his life around and is super prepared to recieve the gospel. the thing is, in his home town there are people looking to hurt him because he was a witness in court. he has so travel back to his city because his mom is sick. its complicated. 

on thursday we had a lesson with him and hno salas. Daniels baptism date fell through because he didnt have 3 church attendances but hermano salas said that he really felt that daniel needed to be baptized this weekend, like sunday (yesterday) he was very persistent. daniel said he wanted to be baptized and it didnt matter what day. but later than night after the lesson we called daniel and he said that he just finished praying and he recieved his answer that he knows the church is true and he wants to be baptized asap. we all felt that he should be baptized this sunday

so we spent thursday and friday calling district and zone leaders trying to see if we could get an exception of the rule of 3 attendances. it was stressful and crazy but we really did feel that daniel needed to get baptized. it finally ended up that the zone leaders met with him and they decided that he needs to wait until next week. so we accepted the revelation and authority of our zone leaders and decided to wait. he had his baptism interview and passed. so now we have a week to plan everything. but it was crazy. 

daniel is super special, ive only taught him twice and i already love him a lot. he`s very spiritual and the gospel makes sense to him and he can grasp things very easily and hes already really converted and its so great! 

after his interview we went to mcdonalds to celebrate and him and hermana conde ate their first every happy meals, we took photos. 

in church yesterday i sang the same song from the zone conference. i found out 10 minutes before church started that hermana maready and i were doing it. but it was fun. daniel came to church and now has his 3 attendances haha. 

there was a huge event this weekend, it was a beauty pageant, Reina de los Rios. there were tons of people camped out on the costanera and a huge stage set up and crazy music it was awesome. we contacted some people but didnt get too into the festivities. 

last night we accidently left our windows open during the day and we came home to find a huge bug on hermana condes bed. and when i say huge, i mean it was gigantic, the biggest bug ive ever seen. we screamed and hermana conde ran and hid in the bathroom and then we spent 20 minutes trying to get it out of the house because hermana conde didnt want me to kill it. the task included a bucket, a dress, two brooms and a piece of cardboard... it was crazy. i have a photo! there was a lot of screaming. 
Hermana Conde lives close to san martin de porres in peru! ella vive en los Olivos, i dont know where that is exactly but she says its in your mission. she likes to cook arepas with huancaìna sauce. dont know if you know what it is but its super rico!

this week was better, im starting to get used to the new area and the new people. its still hot haha. right now we are poor because we ran out of minutes on our cell phone to call any one but missionaries. so we've been calling the hermanas, to have them call everyone for us. we also ran out of gas in our house... so we cant cook anything on the stove and we dont have warm water... only cold showers. so we've been taking showers in the house of the other hermanas, they are good sports. 

for some reason i was really trunky yesterday and today. i feel a little homesick for punta arenas and bothell and i dont know why exactly. but Im gonna keep on working hard and trying my hardest and take one day at a time. 
i know that this gospel is true. i know it can change lives. ive seen it. im so grateful to be a missionary. 

love, Hermana Williams

1 comment:

  1. Sister Williams,

    It occurred to me while reading of your “poor” circumstances that these times are kind of like when you go to girl’s camp and rough it for a while. They remind us how blessed our lives are most of the time. It helps us feel gratitude for the “little” things like warm showers ;) Kari had at least one area where they never had warm showers…But anyway, it can contribute to feeling a little homesick for things comfy and familiar. I know you will get through it and have stories to tell. Its wonderful that you are having positive teaching and conversion stories especially!

    Love,
    Aunt Chris

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