Adventures of the Holladay family…
So… my greatest fear has come to pass and I got moved to the city. I’m now serving in Temuco (Cautin is the name of my sector inside the city). Here we have a ward that’s trying to not be downgraded to a branch because at the moment about 20-30 people are attending regularly.
This week we taught the word of wisdom to Nelly and Jonny and we are now helping Nelly to quit smoking. She’s currently got 4 days free of smoking. In our first lesson with them on Tuesday we taught them the commandment and challenged them to keep it. Then Nelly was all like, uhh no offense but you guys have never had an addiction like this and it’s going to be really hard so I can’t just drop it like that. I’ll try to drop it little by little, but I can’t do it all at once. We went away from that lesson feeling sad and defeated a little bit. I then spoke with a missionary who has helped many people to quit smoking, including themself, and got some really good advice. We returned to Nelly and Jonnys house on Thursday and taught them about how we have to choose in this life who we will follow, (God or Satan) and what we decide affects what happens to us after this life. I then said, trusting on the spirit and trying to show all the confidence cuz I knew what I was saying was true, Nelly do you believe God can do miracles? She said yes. I then continued to explain to her that it’s true that he does and how with him anything is possible. He sent me and Hna. Gourley to help her and he would help her as she prayed and everything so that she can stop smoking. I had to ask her to commit to quit smoking 3 times. The third time she said yes and I knew she meant it. We then were like ok Nelly in that case we have a present for you. We then handed her 2 handfuls of packets of gum as well as a box of vitamin c, and then asked her when she normally smokes marked it down in our agendas and told her that we would be calling her at those times. Now she’s gone 4 days without smoking. I know that anything is possible with the help of god and that he will bless us for making sacrifices and giving our best.