Dear family and friends,
So I left for the mission exactly 1 year and a day ago. It’s been an interesting experience to say the least. I’ve had tons of ups and downs and I don’t think I’ve ever grown so much or learned so much in my whole entire life. I remember having a conversation with my mom while I was deciding about coming to the mission or not and she told me that in the mission I would learn what would take me in the normal world about 10 years or so to learn in the short amount of 1 and a half years. She also said that that meant it would be super hard and stressful but that it would be worth the pain and struggle that it would take. I just want to say, my mom is a very wise woman! 🙂 Love ya Mom!
We had a Baptism this week!!! It was Great! We had a ward family home evening right after to help with attendance for the baptism and it really worked! We had quite a few members there. We’re super excited to have Maxen as our Haitian member here in Cautin to accompany us to our lessons with other Haitians. Actually we have a lesson tonight with his cousin Avrine that he brought to his baptism on Saturday and to his confirmation on Sunday. (They were there all three hours) Honestly he’s so great and I feel like he’s going to help the members here a ton with motivation cuz they seem to be lacking somewhat in that aspect. I’ve gotta say that with every baptism I feel like I have one more family member here in Chile. I’m grateful to have one more.
I have been trying to develop my charity and I honestly think that I’ve been having a little bit of success. I felt Charity and love for Maxen when he got baptized and I also felt charity yesterday when we had a really tough lesson with an investigator that had us over just to try to convince us that the book of mormon contradicts the bible and is a complete lie. By the end of it she dropped us and after we had left I began to cry cuz I was super worried for her. My companion helped me to understand that God has a perfect plan and because she really wants to have the truth and everything, a little bit later on when she understands things better she will accept it. We just need to trust in God because his plan really is perfect and we are not so we won’t understand it until later on. For a small second I thought that Charity sucked cuz it makes us love people and feel bad because they fail in some way and reject the truth but then I realized that I had Charity for Maxen and we are going to have sad moments but in the end it’s worth it for the happy ones.