PAINTBALL ON P-DAY WITH THE ZONE
Hola hola!!!
Well first of all, it was absolutely wonderful talking to you guys yesterday. Yes technology is awesome because it's a lot better being able to see you and talk to you rather than with just a phone. And that was the last call home, next time I see you it will be in the airport a little more than two months from now. Wow that's a scary thought jaja because I thought that time flew way fast from the time we talked on Christmas until yesterday. But that's ok, I just have to make the very best of these 2 months that I have left.
Anyways moving on, we talked about a lot of stuff yesterday but we didn't really talk about the week at all so I will just go into that. Over all it was a strange week that turned out better than we though it was going to in the end. This Saturday we had this big open house in the church as a missionary activity in the chapel and we were way stoked about it. It had been in the planning for like a month and all of the auxiliary organizations put up stands in the cultural hall for their different organizations. So we basically spent most of our time this week doing 10 to 15 minute visits with all of the members, sharing an inspiring scripture and experience and then giving them invitations and commiting them to inviting their friends, family and neighbors. Everyone accepted invitations and everyone commited to inviting a bunch of people so we though that it was going to turn out awesome.
Saturday comes around and the ward organization in the assignments for the stands and everything was incredible. The ward mobilized and everyone followed through with their parts and the stands were awesome for the relief society, priesthood, youth and primary organizations. I know that organization and the execution in plans in our ward back home is normal, but I had never seen anything like it here in Chile. So that was the awesome part. The not so awesome part was that only seven investigators came, and two of those were eternal investigators that always come to the activities. Yeah I guess it could have been worse but we were still pretty bummed, especially since it took up the majority of our time this week. But that's ok, we learned from our mistakes and learned that the ward is capable of organizing and putting stuff together for future events.
Also on Thursday we had zone conference with all the zones here in the center of the mission and it took all day but it was one of the best conferences that I´ve been to in my whole mission. It was awesome and very inspiring. And we saw a talk that Elder Holland gave in the MTC in January that very well could be the most inspiring and just plain best talk I have ever heard on Missonary work or maybe even just in general. Yeah it was awesome and I left that meeting feeling like I am ready to be the best missionary this world has ever seen, besides Alma and Ammon and all of those guys.
So back to the open house. It was good I guess for the members but really disappointing, I had high expectations. We put all our chips in for our work time for the week in this activity, and we lost... So leaving it we were pretty bummed and just decided to spend the few hours of the day that were left going to contact the few future investigators that we found during the week. So we went to this single Mom´s house named Patricia who was friendly but said that she was busy but to come by another time. So we gifted her a picture, the famous picture of Christ in Gethsemani, and told her to read the explication on the back side and that we would explain what was happening there the next time we came by. She is a paramedic and has an unpredictable schedule but Saturday night after the activity we got lucky and found her at home and she let us in. We small talked for a little bit to find out a little more about her and then we told her to bring in the picure and we read the back together and started to talk about the atonement of Christ and the role it plays in God´s plan of Salvation.
As we talked, the spirit in the room grew when we told her that God has a plan of Happiness for us personally and that Christ is the center. But after I said the words ¨plan of happiness¨ she just started silently crying. Then she told us a little about her life and about the hardships that she has been going through with her kids and how she turned bitter against God and didn't want anything to do with him. She said that she talked to us the first time just to be polite but then something caught her attention about the picture we gave her. So she let us come back. Short story long she told us that she felt good seeing that picture and that hearing what we were saying made her feel even better. That she was stressed with life when we walked in but that while listening she just felt this huge load taken off her sholders and felt relaxed. We then identified that what she was feeling was the Spirit and explained a little how the spirit works. Now this Sunday she couldn't go to church because she had to go out of town to visit her Mom but she is extremely excited to learn more about the plan of salvation and to start her journey back to God after all this time in bitterness and unbelief. Due to her schedule it's going to be tough but I really feel that she is sincere and well it was the strongest that I had felt the spirit in a while. Yeah so I'm really excited for her.
Well in other news that's not quite as big of a deal is that today for P-day we went paintballing, our zone vs. the southern zone of Los Angeles. Jaja it was expensive but it was a blast!!!! I'll send a few pictures that my comp took on his camera. Well that's all I got for today. Elton is kind of stuck in a rut so we will see if we can get him to turn around this week or we might have to drop him. So I was really spiritually recharged this last week and even though it was awesome seeing you guys and talking to you I am stoked for these next two months I have to work here en la viña del Señor. Les amo y hasta luego!!!! CIAO!!!!!
con amor, Élder Harper
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment