Leadership Conference & Baptism

This week was incredible. The son  of the recent convert family got baptized. It was a miracle!!! His girlfriend had a ton to do with it, she's reading her Book of Mormon like crazy and she wants to be baptized too. She lives outside our boundaries, but she is already visiting with the other missionaries. Like always, the preparations for the baptism were crazy. We threw together a lot of things we had including avocado and tomatoes and we made a dip. And we bought some sweet tarteletas and Karina made some delicious sweets. We had to fill the font and clean the whole church before. Baptisms are like a huge party. He bore his testimony in the end and it was incredible. He testified that he needed to be baptized so that his entire family could start the path toward having an eternal family. And he will work hard so that they enter the temple as a family. It was beautiful. Go eternal families!!! After the baptism, all of the boys played soccer until 10 at night. I have never seen him so so happy. 

We also had a mission leadership meeting in Viña. 

Continuing Near Viña

There is a sister in the ward who works really hard for her own welfare. She just graduated from message therapy school. This week she wanted our help to make chocolates to sell for Valentine´s Day. Since she is a ward missionary, she was going to go with us to an appointment after. We went and helped her melt the chocolate and put it in mold cases. We were melting white chocolate, and she told us specifically ¨do not mix the water with the chocolate.¨  Well what did I do, I accidently put some water in. Since she was blind she didn´t see, but I told her while my comp was dying of silent laughter outside the room in the hall. But it turned out ok. She was in the lesson with Nicolas when we put the baptismal date. 

An investigator family who asked us to stop coming is back!!! We left them for a month, and they told us right when we stopped coming to them, a lot of bad things began to happen to them, like the dad lost his job and they didn´t have money. But right when we began to visit them again, he found a job and things began to look better. So they have been humbled and they are ready to take things a little more seriously!! wahoo!! The only problem is that the dad is not willing to drop working on Sunday because he likes the extra pay. But we had Stake Conference this weekend, and so they came together as a family to the Saturday night conference and they loved it. I am super excited and I know they will be baptized. Maybe not when I am here still, but they will be baptized, I strongly felt that while they were sitting in church. When their little toddler began to be a little fussy, I gave him my mints, my cards, or I made faces so that he would be happy, and it all worked out. 

At Zone Conference for sister missionaries.

Sweet Rolls

"We had an appt with a newly baptized family on Sat. We had a lesson planned and everything. We came in to the smell of freshly popped kettle corn and a movie all set up for us to watch. Its about the man who found a Book of Mormon without a cover and defended it his whole life until he was finally baptized. It's found on youtube in Spanish. ¨no quemarè mi libro¨  I will not burn my book. You should watch it. But it was fun to have a small little movie night. They call us their adoptive daughters, its going to be hard to leave this area. I will just have to find and baptized a new family!!":)

"I love days in the mission when everything goes perfectly smoothly. Saturday was that kind of day. We went from appointment to appointment very smoothly and arrived just when we needed to. Yessica, a member in the ward was baptized a year ago and just recieved her temple endowments.  We had a feeling to pass by and so dropped in. Yessica was thrilled to see us. Her husband was there and we had a spiritual lesson about prayer."

On a exchange.

Making sweet rolls!

Baptism!

Familia Zamora

Thinking of Ethan on his 12th birthday!

Maggie's district?

Past The 1-Year Mark

Yes, I am passed my one year mark, I am very old in the mission language. The last 6 months is going to fly by. 

This week had a lot of ups and some downs. Our wonderful investigator family passed their baptismal interviews and will be baptized this Saturday at 8 pm. YAY!!! Our District Leader was so impressed by how amazing this family is. I can honestly say that they are the most prepared family for baptism than every single other person that I have taught. Its because they act. They read, pray, go to church and they do it all with the right heart. We had an appointment with the bishop and he was awesome as always. 

Throughout Sunday, nobody wanted to talk to us..and it was a little comical, but almost everybody who we talked to told us that they would let us in, but their husband doesn´t like religion and would get mad. And a man argued with us for some time how not everybody are sons of God. He was not making sense. And the top this great day with a huge red cherry, our recent convert called us (we had an appointment her her at 7 because her husband was leaving at 5) and she told us that she could not meet with us.

We will just keep fasting and praying a LOT!! But my comp and I get along really well and I love life, and I feel at peace with everything, I know everything will work out ok. 

One day, we had a hard day, a lot of people got rid of us. We were sitting in our last appointment, and we were trying to pray, but both my companion and I got the giggles (its better to laugh than to cry right?) We couldn´t pray because we had the giggles so bad. The lady was looking at us like ¨what is your problem?¨ We controlled ourselves began, and she began to tell us why she will never ever go back to church because somebody offended her.

Hitting the 1-year mark!

Standing outside of the apartment on an interchange.

With Sister Stewart.

One Year Mark!

Our wonderful investigator family is incredible. The mom said, ¨I will go to church every single week unless I am on my death bed!!¨ And ¨It's not that I want to go to the temple and seal my family, I WILL go to the temple and seal my family forever.¨ The dad said, "I will pay my tithing faithfully, its as if I am building the churches one brick at a time.¨ They are awesome. And miracle!! The son came to church. He woke up early dressed in a niced buttoned up shirt and came with the family without any pressure. We were so so happy to see him there sitting with his family. There will be baptized January 25, 2014. We are excited and telling everybody about it so that we have a good show. 

We found some new investigators who also came to church. They have it really hard. She wants to be healed, and so she came to church. She's a fighter. She received a priesthood blessing for comfort and peace. 

An entire less active family came to church. Both parents and the three children. It was beautiful. wahooo!!!

Interviews with President Kahnlein.

Christmas In Chile!

This Christmas was a lot of fun. We ate a big dinner at 9 at night with a part member family and the next day with a less active family. It was delicious with a fun atmosphere. I'm sending a bunch of pictures of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

One of our great investigator families came to church again and loved it. They told everybody about their baptismal dates and they are progressing nicely. We are going to spend New Years Eve with them. We have to be in the apt at 11, so we will watch the fireworks from our apt complex (good thing we live on the 7th floor) But I guess its incredible what the Chileans do. They have huge ships that line the coastline and shoot off fireworks at midnight.

Its incredible to see the changes in people after their baptismal. Maria Luisa is planning on serving a mission, she´s already counting down the days, and Cristina started bringing a less active to church and now he comes every week.

Ruth and her sweet girls are in Santiago for the celebrations and wow do we miss them. For Christmas Eve we went over there and we sang Christmas songs and danced in circles, and acted out Samuel the Lamanite and Christ´s birth. I haven´t had that much fun for a really long time. We were all laughing and having a good time. The church really blesses lives temporally and spiritually. Its incredible. 

In the apartment complexes, we are really good friends with the children that are always playing outside. So my companion and I decided to have a Children activity with them. So yesterday, we brought over our Primary Children's Song Book and we sang and danced with them. Head shoulders knees and toes, Do as I'm doing, and others. They all participated and had a good time. The next step is getting to know the parents. wahaha and them baptism!! wahaha

Christmas decorations.

Christmas Eve

Christmas morning.