Cambio de Emergencia

I am going to Colloa Tuesday! I am leaving Hualqui in the middle of the transfer to go be a Sister Leader back in the same stake I was in when I was serving in Nonguen. I will be able to go to mini transfers there with the sisters so that will be cool. It is also the same house that I was in....the sister dream house. 

It was very hard to hear the news just because we were going to finish the transfer with 4 baptisms. SPEAKING OF WHICH DINA GOT BAPTIZED!!!! She was so so sick the day of her baptism and it was POURING RAIN. Probably the worst rain storm we have had all winter, but came anyway.  She said it wasn't going to do her any bad and if anything, she would come out all healed up. 

So it is hard to leave so much great work here. But there is something very true that happens on the mission. And that is that some missionaries reap more than they sow and some sow more than they reap. . Some are the planters...the seed starters and they do not always get to see the fruits of their efforts and others tend to enjoy that end results more than others. But I can happily say that I feel as though I have had my fair share of them both. That I have been able to come into sectors un poco bajito and start planting! And I have even been able to see tons of the fruits come from all of it and now I get to leave some behind for others. I actually was starting to think it was getting too good in Hualqui being able to make it to the end with all the investigatores. President had told me on Thursday and I could not tell anyone till Sunday and it was so very hard acting like nothing was going to happen while teaching. 

 

Poor Hermana Heaton though. She will not be in a trio with the other hermanas she has to find a member to leave with her every day and keep our part of the sector progressing. She is nervous but I trust her and I know she is ready for this. I am excited for her to see how much she really knows. 

Jose: The husband of the convert Maria...he finally stopped drinking after we stopped visiting him for a while. He then realized what he was missing. He is addiction free; it has been almost 2 months now!!! He looks different like there is a physical change in him and it rocks! He picks up the lessons faster and because they can not read they have been listening to the hymns like non stop to learn them. 

Richard (49 years old): He is preparing for his baptism. He had been smoking since he was 12 years old and then we had him bring out everything he had against the word of wisdom and put it on the table and his sister (member) took it to her boss to have. He wanted his last 2 smokes but we told him no. He had been smoking 10 every day. He stopped smoking one day from the next for a whole week.....but he smoked on Sunday after he found out I was leaving.......but no worries we made a plan for the next time he gets down an activity to do instead. 

Tired...Success...Unity

This past week has been wonderful. I will start where we finished.....Sunday. There were 6 investigators in the church with a baptism date :) The ages range from 11-70. A group of people we found from just about ever finding way. Old investigators, part member inactive families, street contacts, member references; It has be wonderful seeing all of the results of the word after 4 months here in Hualqui. 

The mission has a great program that helps us get the ward motivated with the work. We are required to have at least one lesson with a less active or recent convert with a member every day and one lesson with an investigator and member activo every day and then a lesson with an active family every day to be able to get a point for the day. It is called a vision point! There are some missionaries who are good at points and others who understand the purpose of the vision, can earn points but at the same time find and bring people to church. The temptation with this system is that at times if your plans fall through there is always the opportunity to get the vision by bringing the member to a house of a less active or investigator that never ever progress but that always receive you. 

But we have seen in Hualqui how very blessed we have been for having CHOOSEN members leave with us for specific people and see and feel how they can help them make commitments.

Hermana Heaton only has 3 weeks left of her training and it shows. She was a bit frustrated the other day with feeling like she talks sometimes in lessons just to talk and she wants to be more productive. So we talked about why we teach people certain things in the first place...to be baptized....and how do they get to their baptism....by repenting through the commitments we leave them with. So we teach with the end goal of them accepting the compromiso. 

So I made this game. She had to draw from 3 piles a piece of paper. One group had the type of person she was teaching, investigator, less active, active family or convert. The second group had a theme or lesson she was going to be teaching. And the last group had the compromiso she was going to extend. Then with those 3 pieces of information she had to present the lesson and commitment, or teach a part of the lesson and I had to guess what was the commitment she was going to take to me. We had to adjust it a lot as we went but it was fun. 

I love teaching so very much. And planing for specific people! Having Hermana Heaton is great. We get along so well and she is very obedient. And not having to deal with problems of unity or obediencia we have been able to focus so much on the work and see so much success. Now we just have a responsibility to guide them all to their baptism. 

As for the pictures this week. As missionaries we have to talk to everyone. So you may as well include the man selling cotton candy :)

Elder Moura says hi to the gringa life first off. 

I had a request from a lovely sister to spicy up my blog post a little bit so I will do my best :) 

Tiny Pray Mirical:

One day as we were opening a lesson with an older lady their neighbors started to blast their music and hardly a thing was being heard between us. Talking/screaming very loudly was the only way to be heard. The spirit was not their and it was kinda a live or die lesson with our investigatore we were either going to keep visiting them our stop after that lesson of checking their intentions and desires. She said she had asked them to stop before but they do not do anything. So I asked her if I could say the pray to start. In the pray we prayed very specifically so that the music would stop completely to be able to let the spirit guide the lesson and teach us of the truthfulness.....by the end of the pray the music had stopped. 

Dina Update:

She is coming back Tuesday night and we will see her Wednesday in the morning! 

Conversos: 

Richard: active as ever! Does not miss a Sunday or reading his scriptures

Carlos: He is a home teacher now and had been to the temple, gave a talk in sacrament, and last Sunday was given a calling as a ward mission leader. 

Me and my two hijitas in the rain. 

Bad News or Good News First?

Bueno....that baptism we were going to have on Saturday got canceled one day before. Dina has been taking care of this 90 year old man for over 20 years. They are like family. He got very sick on Friday ONE DAY BEFORE HER BAPTISM and she had to leave town to go get special care for me. It was heart breaking and especially for the Ward. And she will not be back for 10 more days. So will be maintaining contact by phone with her but it will be hard. She feels horrible for not keeping her commitment but we are not going to give up on her. It is so very frustrating though.

I am not going to say that being a missionary was getting easy but maybe I was a bit too comfortable and then we got something crazy thrown at us. I think I get the most frustrated when it is out of my control. Of course one always trys to think and analyze what did I do wrong; did we miss something. It only makes me crazy nervous to have such a big break of 10 days without seeing her and just phone calls. The Ward will be in contact with her as well for support.

It was a bit frustrating because it was the first time in over 3 months that we did not have someone in church with a baptism date. But we have 6 more days to change that :)

It is so interesting because the week before someone gets baptized WITHOUT fail there is a big trial for them. I guess I should not be too surprised anymore but it only goes to show that they are doing the right thing. That someone is working extra hard on them so that they do not achieve what they need to do and more importantly what God wants them to do.

BUT there is good news! In the pictures this week there is a sweet older lady. She is a less active with depression and the winter months really bring her down. We made a chain of blessings with her and we left her with papers to keep adding on when we are not there. She also taught us how to make pan (bread). I may have dropped a few by juggling but just like my dad always says there is more fiber that way. Anyway...she is doing very well. One of the very first to get to church now :)