Hola familia y amigos,
Yep that's right, today is my sweet 16, I complete 16 months in the
mission!
I'm pleased to report that this week nothing crazy happened! There were no
freak accidents, injuries, dog drama or hospital visits. It was a normal,
average week in the life of a missionary.
On Monday I passed the day with the hermanas lideres and worked with them
in their sector. It was great to be able to work without holding back for my
foot or my knee. The doctor in the clinic told me I'm good to go with my
spider bites. They have already formed into nice little scars that I will have
for the rest of my life. It will be a great mission story. I was talking to our
ward mission leader the other day and he said that you haven't served a mission
in Latin America until you have a scar somewhere to prove it! haha.
On Tuesday Hna Torres and I reunited and it felt so good haha. I saw Hna
Pinto in the bus terminal! She's doing great and loves Chiloe but she said there
are tons of hills to climb and the house they live in is haunted. Other than
that she`s good. It was great to see her and hang out with her and Hna Torres
for a little bit. Two Colombians together is a real show.
On Tuesday we were also able to contact 4 cute old grandpas that have known
eachother for over 50 years and meet up at the same park bench everyday in the
plaza at about 7pm. We made plans to come visit them the next day to teach them
the Plan of Salvation and bring them cookies but it rained all week so they
didn't meet up outside.... Today it's sunny so we`re hoping to find them again
haha.
We also contacted a 22 year old girl with her 4 year old son in the plaza, At first she didn't want anything to do with us but then she opened up when she
heard Hna Torres speak because she loves the Colombian accent. Hna Torres has a
very unique way of speaking and it really calls people's attention. We talked
with the girl, Pamela, for a while and made plans to visit her in a couple days,
she was really cool. We took a selfie with her haha.
On Thursday we called the same Pamela to see if we could come visit her,
she said she was at a friend's house but told us to come over because her friend wanted to meet us too and hear Hna Torres 'accent. So we found Vanesa's
house and they let us in and were super nice and fun and Hna Torres made them
arepas from Colombia. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and the Spirit was
super strong; it was an awesome lesson! They were super receptive. We set up
another day to come back.
What's super cool is that Pamela is a cousin of a member family in the
ward.
on friday we did service and helped our mamita cecilia do yard work in her
patio. dad, thanks for always making me do yard work when i really didn't want
to. now i understand why you always said that we had to do it so we would learn
to work hard. thanks for not letting me be lazy (even though i was still pretty
lazy)
We taught the familia F and our RM friend Aldo came to the lesson. It was great because their 22 year old son who works Puerto Montt was there and
Aldo was able to build confidence with him and the rest of the family. Hna
Torres made her famous arepas rellenas and Colombian hot chocolate. Delicious. I
want to visit Colombia one day. We taught the familia F about the Book
of Mormon. They`re struggling with their progression, we feel that we are
running around in circles with them.
Saturday we planned a family home evening for the whole branch and
investigators and friends and we were going to watch the movie Meet the Mormons... but in
the end only 5 people came and they were all members and we couldn't get the movie to stream. We had an awesome lesson about the Atonement and watched
Mormon Messages instead.
Our investigator M had a baptismal date for the December 5th and then
she had to work last Sunday and couldn't come to church so her date fell through,
We put her back on for December 12th... but she didn't come to church yesterday
either. We even called and reminded her a billion times and called and woke her
up in the morning and we offered to go pick her up but she said no she would
come alone ... but then never showed up. So her date fell through again. We are
feeling a little exasperated but we have faith and determination that this woman
will be baptized!
Our mamita served us pasta with red sauce three times this week and then
we ate the same thing with members yesterday. We don't want to eat pasta ever
again haha.
Yesterday we contacted a lady who was really nice and we talked with her
about the Plan of Salvation and we were about to ask her when we could come back
to teach her when she realized we were Mormon missionaries... turns out she's a
less active member who was baptized years back and became less active because
the Branch President said something that offended her. We listened to her rant
for about 20 minutes about how mad she was and how she swore never to come back
to the Mormon Church. It was sad.... it hurt my heart. We tried to explain to
her that Christ's church is perfect, but the people in it are not. She
wouldn't listen. You would think that after 16 months of hearing lots of stories
like that, it would stop hurting, but it doesn't, you just get used to it. But
i'ts okay, I've learned that we should never let anything get in the way of our
personal salvation.
Overall it was a good week. We are struggling to have more support from
the members. We planned to have a mini training for the members in how to help
the missionaries but they never gave us time to do it. We have some good
ideas to get the members pumped.
It wasn't a very exciting week, thank goodness, so there really isn't
anything super interesting to write. We didn't celebrate Thanksgiving, I tried to
get Hna Torres and other people excited about it, but they didn't really get it.
We did eat arepas with the familia F... so it was kind of the same
thing. I missed my family dearly on Thursday and thought of you all a lot
(without getting too trunky)
Something that I've learned on my mission is: if you`re not happy, work
harder. We are never in a standstill moment, if we are not progressing,
improving, we are moving backwards. We should always strive to be better every
single day, which comes with hard work and dedication. I bear testimony that God
lives, His Son Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and that this is their
work. I am grateful to be a missionary.
love, Hermana Williams
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