September 30,2013- A Mixture Frailty and Divine Potential

• So once again, I´m at a loss for where to start. So much happens in one week that it´s impossible to know what to tell.
  We worked so hard this week. Walking more than ever, and just striving to open our mouths. (Have to proclaim it like an angel.) We come home every night and just about melt into our beds, but it´s the best feeling! This week we have 14 people preparing for baptism in the coming weeks. We taught so many amazing people in the streets. We found another family with 7 kids! Honestly, you wouldn´t believe the differences we´ve seen in our short time here. Starting from nothing. We´ve been so blessed. The miracles continue! 
  
  

  Okay, so we´ll start with Lucia. She´s going to be baptized this weekend! In between sessions of conference, and needless to say, we are stoked! She´s faithfully come to church the past month, and really already feels like a member. 

  
  

  One of my favorite moments this week was during Abrir la Boca. It was getting late, and we were on our way to our last lesson. I saw an older man walking with a cane. He was blind. I told hermana Lybbert that I wanted to go talk with him. We chased him down, and I put my hand on his shoulder ¨Permiso, Señor.¨He turned around with a big smile. We talked for a few minutes, and then I told him who we were. He smiled again, You know, I´ve talked with missionaries before, Elders, but they haven´t come around for a while.¨¨ We got his information, he´s not in our area, but the elders are going to see him. He asked me if I was from Chile, because he says I talk like a Chilean (well, wrong country, but they speak pretty, ¨sing-song¨spanish, I´ll take that!) We talked for a bit. I asked him about his beliefs and why he has faith in Jesus Christ. and he said, shaking his cane ¨Hermanita, Jesus Christ GUIDES my life.¨ he told me about his experience losing his sight, and how he´s never blamed God because He knows that he´s always there. It hit me so hard how true that is. I was so grateful for this man and his humble testimony of the reality that God never leaves our side. With tears in my eyes, I took his hand and thanked him. I´m so grateful for those strangers in the street who sometimes teach me more than I teach them. 

  
  

  More than anything, this week I´ve come to appreciate so much more the miracle of the Plan of Salvation. The complexity, but at the same time, the simplicity of the phrase ¨walking by faith rather than sight.¨

  Something that was a goal of mine starting my mission was to teach FAMILIES. it´s something that in my previous areas, we kind of struggled with. But this time around, it seems like that´s all we´ve found. And BIG ones at that. 

  It never ceases to amaze me how much I love these people. Honestly sometimes I have no idea why I love them so much. And that´s something that´s so rewarding about this work. You work with these incredible people. You see them go from nothing, to finding this hope, learning, reading, praying for the first time, literally changing their lives. It´s amazing to be a part of something so intricate! 

  We´re still working with the familia Ramirez-Poblete. Finally teaching mom, dad, and kids!! We taught them the Family Proclamation this week, and they LOVED it. After, we started into the Plan of Salvation, but first we sang ¨families can be together forever.¨ Once again, my testimony of this simple primary song grew as I looked at their faces. They looked at each other, smiling, the spirit was tangible! As we finished, there was quiet, and then Gustavo, the dad, looked at us eagerly and asked ¨Families really can be together forever?¨

  Oh my heart was so full of love for this family, and gratitude for the perfect plan of our Heavenly Father. We testified to them, that YES, their family can be together forever.

  We´re going back tonight to finish the Plan of Salvation. I cannot wait! 

  
  

  Every week as we talk to people, as I study more, and read and learn about the incredible blessing that is this gospel, I am more and more grateful for the ¨set up¨of this life. 

  I love the way M. Russell Ballard put it in ¨Our Search for Happiness¨: 

  ¨So we came to earth, a mortal mixture of human frailty and divine potential.¨

  Each day I´m so grateful to know that everyone we talk to, all of these incredible people, are spirit children of our loving Heavenly Father. But right now a lot of them don´t know it yet, that´s our job to remind them, bring them back. A lot of them have weaknesses, trials, hurdles, as do we all. But they have every opportunity to become like him, and to reach that potential, to become the beings they were intended to be. 

  
  

  I love you all. I´m so grateful for the knowledge that You are mine. Forever.

  Have fun this week! I can´t wait to see all the pictures of the goings-on.

  Les Quiero, Mucìsimo!

  Esta semana que viene,

  xoxox Your Hermana C 

 once again, I´m at a loss for where to start. So much happens in one week that it´s impossible to know what to tell.