Semana 16 en Parque Subercaseaux

"The egg fight went well, but left me devestated. I made an egg that had bYu on it, and elder fuller made one from U of U, and wrote 13-0 underneath. And his egg destroyed mine. I am still trying to recover from the defeat.

"I got the easter card last week. thanks! The box was good and I liked everything. We have already used the egg lesson 3 times and everyone loves it. Thank you for taking the time to put that together for me I truly appreciate it. Tell Melia and Jose felicitaciones on the baby.

"The lesson went well with Eduardo and Paula, we have to call them today to set another cita. Liliana came to church yesterday! She has two daughters: Natalia (13) and Paulina (4). Paulina came to church, but Natalia didn´t. They are also redoing the bathrooms and baptismal font and putting in a parking lot (out of cement instead of dirt, seems like a good improvement) in our chapel. It is one of the oldest chapels in Chile. So they will be constructing until June 5 and in the meantime we have to go to church in the stake center, San Miguel. We haven´t seen Maria or Seba in a while but we are going to visit this week.

"So pretty much the worst day of my mission happened on Saturday. Nothing drastic, it was just a super lame day. We had appointments at 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 o´clock, and all five of them fell through, which was a rather large trial of our patience. We then spent some time searching for an apartment building to find a reference that Elder Fuller and Elder Arango (the elders we live with) gave us, her name is Cherti and her sister is a member of their ward. The only problem was that her sister wasn´t sure of the exact address, so she just gave us the intersection of two streets and said that she lived in number 22B. There are literally 8 apartment buildings in that area, and I was getting pretty frustrated, but we didn´t give up and finally found the building, but Cherti wasn´t home. End of Saturday. On Sunday at 8 we went by again, and the receptionist let us go knock her door because the intercom was broken. We introduced ourselves to her and asked her if she was Cherti. She looked kind of surprised that we knew her name, and we explained that her sister was a member of the church and told us we could pass by her house. She thought about if for a second and then said "pasen" (come in), so we did. She talked to us for about 30 minutes about her family, she has three sons, 16, 13, and 12 years old (I can´t remember their names right now). Apparently the doctors told her that she was infertile and would never be able to have kids, but she and her husband spent all of the money they had doing the petri dish insemination thing, and she finally got pregnant, and had the oldest son. Then three years later she just randomly felt sick one day, and went to the doctor. He told her that she needed to take a pill to get her period started again, but she felt that she shouldn´t take it, and went back two weeks later to find out that she was pregnant, this time naturally. If she would have taken the pill she would have killed the baby. After she told the story, we explained a little about the eternal families, we said something to the effect of "it seems like a miracle how God has blessed with such a great family, but an even greater miracle is that your family can be eternal, if you do some certain things" and right about at this point her husband got home. The look on his face was classic. I honestly thought of our family history story of Robert Harris when he found Wilford Woodruff in his home talking with his wife. He sat down in front of us and was kind of just staring at us then asked Cherti who we were. She said "oh these are the missionaries, he is from California and he is from Arizona" but he didn´t seem too happy. Then she asked him what was wrong. He said "nothing, I´m just surprised to see two missionaries sitting in my house" then he asked us what we were doing there, what our goal was as missionaries, what we wanted with his family, etc. I knew at that point that what we said in the next few moments was crucial, and I felt the spirit so strongly as we taught. We explained to them the message of the restoration and how it is a blessing for their family. At one point of the lesson Cherti stopped and turned to Jorge her husband and said "they are very focused on the families. I like that." Honestly the spirit was so strong there I felt like I knew every word that I had to say. I have never felt so confident as I have testified about the restoration and the Church. I didn´t feel like I was defending or arguing a point. I was just saying the truth how it was and the spirit bore testimony of it. It has honestly been a long time since I have felt so happy, it is so hard to find people to teach in this sector. I am very excited to teach this family. We still don´t have another appointment with them, since Cherti said that the two of them were going to converse as a couple to see when we could come by again, and she will call us. I asked her for her telephone number to call her just in case she forgets and she said that would be fine. We will hopefully be with them again this coming weekend.

"It is so strange how strong the ups and downs are on the mission. The sadness we feel when someone rejects us or doesn´t progress, and the pure joy of finding new people to teach and then helping them to receive the gospel in their lives. I just have to not get discouraged when times are bad, because I know that the blessings are right around the corner. I know without a doubt that this is the Lord´s church, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church on the face of the Earth. It is the only one that has the Authority of God to seal families for time and all Eternity, and the only one that can perform ordenances that will have effect here in the earth as well as in the heavens. I am so grateful for this time to serve and grow and for all of the blessings that our family has. I love all of you so much and thank you for always supporting me. "