Hey all! I'm glad to hear that life is good! Life is fantastic here too! But at the start of the week it was a little rough. I was feeling incompetent, which lead to a decrease in performance, which lead to feeling even more incompetent. Which is a pretty nasty cycle! But I read my patriarchal blessing and prayed a lot and now I'm back and feeling better than ever! Which is great :)
Funny story time! Some background. About a month ago, President sent us all a letter informing us that we as missionaries shouldn't use some of the words that are super common here in Chile. Some of the words on the list were 'chuta' (equivalent of 'shoot' in English), 'pucha' (the same), 'bakán' (cool), and, most distressingly, 'po'. We as missionaries had these words so ingrained in our vocabulary that it was nearly impossible to stop using them at first. We are getting more accustomed, but for me it's still hard to not say 'chuta' because there's nothing else to say in Spanish that could mean 'shoot'! So one day I was walking down the street with Elder Barbosa (native Spanish speaker but knows a lot of English) when I, for whatever reason, wanted to say 'chuta'. Instead of 'chuta' I decided to go with ''bahumbug'', though I have no idea why. After I said it, my comp paused for a moment and asked me, ''... bahumbug.... what type of bug is that?''
That tickled my funny bone.
SO! The family of Alan is going strong but couldn't come to church this week. It means we have to reset their baptismal date, but that's okay because we know that one day they'll all be baptized, even if it's after one of us leaves. So they're doing great!
Sadly, we're on the verge of dropping Isabel and Blas. Neither of them are willing to live the law of chastity by getting married or getting separated, so we'll pass by one more time and talk of faith and living the commandments and if things don't look up we'll have to stop going by. Really sad, but if people aren't willing to progress it's what you have to do.
Janet is doing well! She's reading the Book of Mormon more, but she still hasn't gone to church. Her progress is slow, but at least it's progress! She's another one who I'm sure will be a very strong member one day.
And now the miracle story! So a week ago I was on divisions with Elder Santini, the day we put the baptismal date with the family of Alan. Later that day we went to the house of a daughter of a family of really active members, who gave her to us as a reference. When we went by, the daughter that she gave to us as a reference wasn't there, but another daughter who lives in another house in Santa Cruz was there with a bunch of other members of the family. Elder Santini and I talked with them, invited them to church, and set an appointment to come back and teach everybody that was there. They were a super awesome family, so I was super excited to go by again. When we invited them to church, the son of the daughter that we met said ''See?! I told you we should go to church again!!'' Which I thought was pretty awesome, since he's just 11. Sadly, we couldn't go by them the day we said we would, but it was alright because they forgot anyway! But yesterday we went to the house of the family of really active members to talk to their less-active grandson, and the same sister with all her kids were in their house! What are the chances? We then got talking a lot, and discovered that none of her 3 kids (age 11, age 14, and age 16) are baptized, and that the church has always been something extremely important to her but she's failed in going. She also told us that she's in contact with the missionary that baptized her a very very long time, and that recently she was telling him that she was having a really hard time. Apparently he told her to have faith, and that the missionaries would be coming by. We asked her when that happened, and she told us that is was the exact day that Elder Santini and I came and found her at her sister's house. The same day! Aint that awesome?! Anyway, she said that she understands that it's time to end her personal apostasy, and get back to church and bring her family to the gospel. She has a ton of faith in Christ, and understands that His love is never far from her, and that He's always watching over her. She said that she would go to church, and that night we also commited her 3 children to baptism. The Spirit was very strong for the whole lesson as we talked about eternal families and about convenants. It was an incredible moment, and a miracle that I definitely won't forget.
So that was my week! Sorry I don't have a ton to write about this week. The church is true! And it's amazing. It's a little ironic that I struggled with feelings of incompetence the same week that I shared with you all my feelings of the atonement and of grace, but hopefully I learned my lesson from it and won't fall into that trap again. With Christ in our lives, there really never is a reason to feel like we're less than anything.
Oh I almost forgot! I gave a talk in church on Sunday for 20 minutes about consecration using the story of Jesus telling Peter to 'feed my lambs' and the story of the feeding of the 4,000 with 7 loaves. Which was fun! I learned a lot about consecration this week and applied it and as a result I felt even more satisfied with my work and happy :) So all is well!
I love you all! Take care!
Love
Elder Fox
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