Hola amigos! This week was another strange this week, and I'm kind of starting to embrace the fact that this change is just going to be a weird change. BUT still good. Yeah, still good.
First I'll talk about general conference! The 12 encourage all to watch General Conference in their native language, so we get to watch it in English! Woooot! That's really exciting because I really would've cried if I didn't get to hear Elder Hollands or Elder Bednar's talks in Spanish, it's so much more powerful when it's their real words and their real voices. General Conference for missionaries is like Christmas, and as a result Elder Hadlock and I bought an obsene amount of gummy candy and oreos beforehand. It was 10 hours of pure joy, and a lot of notes, I want to share a few thoughts about what some of them said if I have time. Here the sessions are at 1:00 and 5:00 at night, and on Saturday the Preisthood session is at 9:00. So as missionaries we even get to stay out late on general conference Saturday! It's essentially you're only opportunity to do so your entire mission, so I enjoyed it immensely.
So the week! Like I sayed, this week was weird. In fact, I honestly don't know where to start. I'm going to start by giving a little bit more details about what's been going on with investigators because I really have been a little lame about that, it's hard because I want to tell all the stories! But alas, I cannot tell all the stories. Lame.
SO if you remember a while ago I told you about an investigator named Cristian that is actually a great investigator, we can just never pass by him because he's always either working or sleeping. He has problems with the Word of Wisdom, and a few weeks ago we taught him the Word of Wisdom, and this week we were finally able to pass by him and he told us that he had given up drinking entirely and is smoking much less, which was way exciting. Especially since we're not passing by very often at all, I'm very proud of him. Perhaps with time, he'll be able to be baptized, but likely not while I'm here. I don't know much about him because I personally have only taught him twice and Elder Hadlock originally found him and got to know him.
Pedro and Rosa were two of the new investigators that we found last Tuesday, and we weren't able to teach them again this week but I think that they have real potential. They're honestly trying to find out which church is the true church, which is really rare here for Chile. Missionaries passed by there house several times before, but for whatever reason never taught them. Our first lesson with them gave me the impression that they're really just curious what we believe and want to be taught what we believe, so we're going to have to make sure that they understand that not only are we going to teach them, but we're going to invite them to come unto Christ. But, if we do that I think that they have good promise.
Another one we have is Carina and her husband, who we're not able to teach too often either, but we were actually able to teach her Saturday which was easily one of the highlights of my week. I'll get to the story a little later in the letter, but her and her husband are devout in the religion of their parents, and being taught by us is also simply a matter of curiosity for them as well. We have invited them to baptism, but think that they're very scared at the thought of abandoning their current faiths. I don't know them very much either because I've only been able to teach them two times, but I think they're great people.
Our real highlight family this change is La'Cote and her family. They're the people that we teach English to every week, and we've become extremely close with them. With them, we're able to pass by them 2 to 3 times a week, so we've actually been able to gain a relationship with them. We've been nervous to start teaching them the gospel because so far we've only been doing English, but finally we're starting to share with them our purpose as missionaries and what we do. We're exhillerated by the fact that we're finally starting to teach them, and that perhaps we can bring them to Christ and His church, because they easily have the potential of becoming a Celestial family, and though we love all of our investigators they hold a very special place in our hearts. They're Catholic, but haven't attended church in a very long time. They had a son who passed away at a very young age (about 4 or 5) and I think that that has distanced themselves from their church and from God, the first spiritual message that we gave them brought extremely mixed results. At the mention of death some of them tensed up while others hearts seemed to soften. We were able to teach La'Cote alone this week, who is the daughter in this family and is about 29 years old, and that lesson was one of my most powerful mission experiences. I'll definitely talk about that story in this letter too.
Then there's Rina. Rina has brought me the most joy and also greatest disspointment of my mission thus far, because still we haven't able to teach her again. We found out that she's offended that we can't go in her house when she's alone, and whenever we try to make an appointment or even get close to being able to teach her again she usually makes an excuse. She was clearly prepared by the Lord to hear this message, so it's very frustrating that something so stupid is impeding her progress in this way. It really goes to show you that the devil can have a very real influence over people who are just starting to see the light of the Lord's gospel.
We ''technically'' have more investigators, but those are the only ones we've been able to talk to recently enough to consider them people that we're currently working with. Our other new Investigator from last Tuesday, Jesus, moved to Santiago this week, and sadly we don't have his address at the moment so we're unable to pass a reference. The news of his move was at the end of an already really hard day for me, so I was disappointed, but I believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ will reach his ears again, somehow.
So the story of our lesson to Carina! The reason I share this story is that recently I've been feeling like I haven't been teaching with the Spirit and testifying and inviting others to come unto Christ as much as I should, and I haven't been taking much part in the lessons, and I no longer have the language barrier as an excuse for either of those things. But this lesson I felt like my words were guided by the Spirit, and I felt myself for the first time in my mission be able to testify and teach with the convincing power of the Spirit. We went in prepared to teach them the Plan of Salvation, but our plans changed when Carina said that she felt bad that we kept spending time on her when her and her husband haven't shown any interest in the church. In our past lesson with her I got the impression that her investigation was only really motivated by curiosity, and viewed us just like any other church out there. Instead of teaching the Plan of Salvation we taught her and her husband a little more about our purpose as missionaries, and reinvited them to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. I told them both about how the Holy Spirit teaches us truth, how He gives us truth directly to our understanding, and feelings of peace and clarity come as evidence to this process. I told them that if they'd experiment over time upon the word and the gospel and read the Book of Mormon that they'd come to feel the truthfulness of them, then I invited them to read Alma 32 together. I then bore my testimony of the Jesus Christ and of the restauration of His church to them, and said that I knew things undoubtedly through the power of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit was very strong, and I could see in them that my words were having an effect on them. I told them that our church is unique because it was either founded by Jesus Christ himself through Joseph Smith, or it was founded by a deceitful and cunning liar, and the church would then be built on only lies. I told them these were only logical two options, and invited them to find out which one was the truth. I could see a little fear in Carina's eyes, because she really doesn't want to give up on the religion of her parents. I don't know if they'll join, only because of that fear, but I also think that they know that the church is true. I'm very satisfied to know that the Lord can work through me, and I know that the Holy Ghost truly can carry my words to the hearts of the people, and I am very greatful that my call as a missionary allows me to be a set apart witness of Jesus Christ.
The other great experience of the week was our lesson to La'Cote. All four of us Elders where there because it was supposed to be an English class, but we decided not to teach English because both La'Cote and her friend, Karina, had really hard days that day. We instead started to give a spiritual message when Karina essentially told us ''Hey look, I know you're wanting to teach me more about your church, but me and my family are all Catholics so don't go trying to change our religion. It's okay if you just share, but I need to stay in the church of my family.'' It was pretty strong language, especially for her, but we told her that our purpose of missionaries was only to invite others to come closer to Christ, never pressure people into changing their religion. Like D. Todd Christofferson said yesterady (this is very paraphrased) ''We convert people to Christ through authority and ordinances provided to us by the church, we do not convert people to the church.'' Anyway, I digress. Though Karina said this, La'Cote said nothing, which makes me believe that she might actually have genuine curiosity. We never expected Karina to be so hardened, but we were all glad to see that La'Cote may be more teachable. Elder Hadlock then gave a little message on the Plan of Salvation, and was one of the most powerful things I've every experienced. Though I've heard and taught the message many times, the Spirit in the room was as strong as I've ever felt it as Elder Hadlock gave the message, and it nearly drove me to tears. Karina wasn't receptive to it, but I could tell that La'Cote was deeply touched. I left the house feeling amazing, even though I didn't say much, because the Spirit was so strong and it was all around an amazing experience. Experiences like this are why missions are amazing, being able to share the gospel touch hearts through the power of the Spirit, the Spirit which can dwell in us only becuase of the mercy and merits of Jesus Christ, the Son of our spiritual Father in Heaven who sent His Son because He loves us. In this way, in these small, quiet moments you can feel and discern the influence of all three members of the Godhead, as we testify of the perfect plan of our Father. There's nothing quite like it.
So I definitely need to close out this letter unfortunately, because there actually is a lot more that I'd like to say, perhaps I'll write a handwritten letter this week with more of my spiritual thoughts and things I've learned this week, becaue even though it was a little rougher it helped me to grow and learn a lot. Until next week, adios!
Love,
Elder Fox
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