June 8, 2015 - Singing in the Rain

hola familia y amigos,

once again thank you very much for all the birthday wishes and emails. It was really fun to hear from everyone.

this week we spent a lot of time finding, contacting and  knocking doors. but it all paid off because we found 5 new people to teach. we`re pretty excited and we`re praying really hard that they wont drop us haha.

on monday we ate lunch with all the other hermanas here in valdivia in a super nice restaurant that a member works at and we ate octopus pot stickers... they were surprisingly good.

on monday we taught a pair of fraternal twins, C. and J. that are studying here in validivia. reminded me of Scottie, it was fun to be able to talk about twin stuff haha. it was a super awesome lesson and they had lots of really good questions and understood everything. teaching young people is very refreshing.

its been raining super hard here all week, with thunder and lightening and on tuesday we lost power in our house and had to study by candlelight in the morning haha. it was fun.

my birthday was super fun! we had our district meeting in the morning and they surprised me wit a mini party with cupcakes, rice krispy treats and other goodies. it was sweet, and they took pictures for me because i dont have my camera. we weren't able to teach anyone, but we did do 21 contacts haha to celebrate my 21 years. at night rodrigo and margareth had a family home evening/ party planned for me in the lavanderia. and when we were walking over we played a really mean trick on them haha. we called and said that we couldn't come because we had a lesson with a family that we can never find and this is our only chance to teach them haha. margareth got soooooo mad at me haha, but we walked into the lavanderia 5 minutes later and she wanted to kill me hahahaha.

Rodrigo and margareth made a big video slideshow for my birthday with a whole bunch of photos and mini videos from people from home. it was soooo fun to see, thanks for all the videos mom and dad. i cried so hard. especially with the ukelele song, i miss that.

after wards we ate cake and hung out and they sang to me and then they drove us home. they gave m a tee shirt and a mug that has a picture of the avengers and then my face and it says in very broken english "they save the life, but you save my salvations, i will be always thankfull" so cute haha.

so it was a very good birthday!

this week i locked the keys in the house on accident... so the zone leaders had to come over and break into our house. it worked, and now we have keys thank goodness.

the same day we had a really rough day, we weren't able to teach anyone, everything fell threw and it was raining like crazy. and at 8pm we went to visit a contact that i did with hna conde months ago. we knocked the door and they let us in and we were able to teach the restoration to a beautiful family of mom, dad, and 2 year old daughter. it was the best. we`re coming back to visit them tomorrow. we feel very blessed.

thursday, hna espinoza woke up at 6am and thought it was 7am and turned on all the lights and starting teling me to get out of bed. i looked at the clock and had t tell her to go back to bed hahaha. i learned a lot about patience and love hahahaa.

our investigator marcelo came to church again. he told us he was going to come with his friend who is mormon too, but turns out his friend is adventista oops haha but they both came anyways and stayed for all 3 hours! it was great!

we`ve been working a lot this week, despite the rain and thunderstorms. the other day i saw hail the size of pennies. validivia is crazy. but i love it here.

I know that Heavenly Father loves us and miracles do happen. I know that the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints is his church. and i want everyone to be able to enjoy the blessings that come from this gospel. i love being a missionary. I know that He is helping me every step of the way. I know that Jesus Christ is real and his Atonement works. through Him we can do all things.

have a great week!

love, hermana williams