Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Letter 27: Fighting for the right.

Hey mom!

Wow this week has been filled with things that happened. Also, side-note, I feel like my English is getting worse so I apologize in advance for all spelling and grammar errors haha. 

Okay, well everything started with the changes. I´m am still her in Los Vilos, for better or worse haha. Actually i´m really happy to have stayed, I want to be here for Elvia and Luis and their family. There is a lot of work to do there and I know they´re going to be baptized. I´m still with my companion Elder Gonzales. I was a little worried at first because I didn´t want to have another change like my last one (in terms of having to be the one constantly pulling and carrying) and so when I had interchanges for a day with Elder Benavente my district leader I just told him everything, how I was feeling, my worries, what I wanted to do better, and he was able to give me alot of good advice. We later got on to talking about our experiences in the mission, or in other words some of the difficulties we have had and some he said really struck me. He said there are many times in the scriptures we see the word Remember. How many times is the Lord, or the prophets telling us to remember? Remember the things we know, the spiritual experiences we have had, how loving and merciful the Lord is...Even if we are in dark moments, even if we are in obscurity and even if our hope is small and beaten, Remember the times when we HAVE had the light, we have felt the love of God, remember all of the times we have been guided and received inspiration! And then look forward the to times that will come. All of us will pass through these dark moments throughout our life, it´s part of the plan, but ITS OKAY, we only need to remember and look forward to better days. That is part of faith. 

We had interviews with President Kahnlein this week. It went well...he is a president that really likes to cut people or in other words, say all the things you are doing wrong. He always asks how we are and everything but i never feel like we get a good ¨hey, good job!¨ Hahah. It makes it a little difficult but that´s alright. We are here to improve. He made me promise to but a baptismal date with Elvia and her family and I promised, he told me to call him later in the night to see how it went. So we went that day and right as we arrived the family was just yelling at each other really loud and fighting so we weren´t able to enter (obviously)...so I had to call him and tell him we we weren´t able to do it. He told to not get frustrated and keep trying. And that´s what we´ll do!

We have been visiting and teaching Elvia and her family a lot lately. Luis left to work for another 20 days, but we took all of the pamphlets we have and a book of Mormon and marked several passages to read and all of the essential parts in the pamphlets for him to read while he is up there. He went to church with His son yesterday and is progressing which is great. But on Friday, the day before he left we passed by and Elvia was just in tears. She told us that she was going to move and the family was going to separate because of all the problems. At that moment Luis came out and after talking for a minute he asked us ¨isn´t there something you can do? Is there someone that can please help us?¨, as his eyes began to fill with tears. I have to say, I have never felt such strong feeling of sadness and pain for my the people I teach as I have with this family. We told him the yes there was someone that He and Elvia could go and talk with. We have a couple serving here in Los Vilos too and they are from The States. We told Elvia and Luis to meet us at the chapel at 8:00. We went to the chapel for our family night (we do family night in the church every friday), and talked with Elder and Sister Shcramm to see if they could please talk with them and offer them advice. They agreed and were able to meet with them for about an hour and a half. I called Elder Schramm later that night to see how it went. He told me that they talked a lot about the prayer and reading the scriptures together as well as individually, they talked about their own marriage and things they had to overcome, and they were able to feel the spirit really strongly. Elvia offered the first prayer and she by the end all 4 of them were in tears because they felt the spirit so strongly. I am so grateful we have the Schramms here, after the meeting they are both motivated and desire to try to stay together now and resolve the problems in the family. They have been together 22 years..and they were thinking about ending everything. Satan is working so hard to tear apart families. The sad thing is that all of this started a few weeks after we arrived, Satan knows that they are so close to baptism and later in their lives, the temple. We are fighting for this family Mom, and we won´t stop. We were able to have a lesson the day after their meeting with the Schramms and we talked about baptism and the book of Mormon. We committed them to pray specifically to know if the book of Mormon is true and to pray about baptism. They agreed and we were able to testify and feel the Holy Ghost really strongly. Elvia really opened up and told us how she felt so afflicted and so sorrowful because of all that is happening. It was rough to see her cry and hear it all, but The Lord strengthened us and put words in out mouths so that we could bring peace and direction. Yesterday night we went by to see how she was doing and she said something along these lines ¨you know, it´s interesting, I was talking last night with my son and he noted how we joke around sometimes and have a good time, but when we teach a speak the words of Christ, they aren´t the words of the Elders, there is something different about it¨, She then told us how she knew is was the Holy Ghost and that us being so young, couldn´t possibly know her situation and say the words she needed to hear without the help of The Lord. We told her that was exactly true, and that there is a reason we are here in this moment at this time, because the Lord cares about her and her family and He knows that this is what they need to unite the family.

I´m praying for this family everyday mom, I want them to stay together and to progress so much. I know that we can only do so much and the rest will be up to them. But I hope and pray they choose to do the right thing and rely on our Heavenly Father. Elvia went to church with us yesterday and the talks in sacrament were completely directed towards her! It was amazing. I sat there and knew the Lord had a hand in it. God truly takes note of the small things, of every one of us, and he is there to help us always. We are going tomorrow to give her a blessing of comfort and direction. Man, I want this family to succeed mom. I want them to be happy.

Anyway, on a much lighter note I don't know if I told you or not but, the water here doesn´t have fluoride...it actually has trace amounts of cyanide and mercury (no worries I buy purified water every week every since I found out), but I found a cavity on my molar so I called the nurse to set up an appointment and I was mad because I didn't want to ask you guys for any more money for dental stuff and so I was going to use some of my monthly money to pay for it. After a few days I went back to look, and it was gone! And no, i´m not going crazy, it really was there haha. So that was a mini blessing which was great. 

I´m super glad to hear you are all doing so well. That whole hotel trip thing made me super jealous! It will be a good day when I can eat American food again! Actually today we are going to eat with the Shcramms and hopefully they cook something delicious. I know, i´m a little frustrated with the whole mail system too! But hopefully  it arrives in May so I can finally read the letter you all wrote back in..January? Haha! We should be having another zone conference not this week but the next, so I´ll let you know!

That book sounds amazing! I love to read things like that and just think. And the awesome thing is that if we can feel the Holy Ghost, we know that there is truth to it. Well I love you all so much and i´m so grateful for your constant prayers and support for me. While your weather is warming up, mine is cooling down and it´s going to start raining soon! Speaking of which, that jacket we bought up by thanksgiving point is AMAZING...it´s actually two jackets in one which is pretty sweet. We also finally received more blankets from the mission today after waking up from cold for a few weeks, so that will be nice as well. Man, I miss you guys but I´m way excited to Skype soon!!! Woooo!!! Hahah Love you!! Have a great week! Tell Nichole CONGRATS on graduating!! I await the pictures. Don't forget!

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