"I Will Be"

Family and friends and such!!  Hi

The weeks are gradually getting awesomer and also more stressful, but I think those are both good things!  For one part the weeks are awesome and for the other part I get to learn to better manage my stress!

We did have an awesome week though, so awesome I don't even remember all the cool things that happened!  Which is a good sign.  The highlight has been Felipe, he's easily the most prepared investigator I've ever had.  In that temple activity that we had the other week, they gave Felipe a 'My Family' booklet which is basically a bunch of family tree stuff that someone can fill out to prepare to put the data in familysearch.  We came back for the next lesson and he had filled it out!  All of it!  I can't tell you how many of those I've given to investigators, less actives, and the like but nobody has ever done it!  He's the first, so I tip my hat to him.  He's been extremely receptive to everything we teach, he has a smoking habit and he didn't understand why we could never drink tea, but when we taught the word of wisdom he accepted it right away and he's quitting smoking.  Also, he came to church again this week and his friend called him between second and third block asking where he was.  Felipe replied, ''I'm in the Mormon Church.''  His friend responded, ''What are you doing there?'' to which he replied ''I'm learning and having a good time.''  Then his friend asked ''... are you mormon?''  and Felipe responded ''I will be.''

YEAH that's what I'm talking about!!

Ahem.  Yeah I was pretty excited.  So he's doing great!  Then we also had an awesome lesson with Denel and his friend that doesn't speak a lick of Spanish:  Crono.  When we came Denel was teaching Crono the restoration in Creol using the pamphlet in Creol that we have him.  I was so proud.  Then we taught a little more about prayer and invited them both to be baptized on the 30th of July and they both accepted!  Then they both came to church on Sunday, even though Crono doesn't understand anything!  Crono's my favorite though, even though he's clueless about what's going on he smiles and laughs and just loves life always.

Eugenio also came to church this week!  We were super excited about that, and today for our P-day our district and we had a barbeque with Eugenio and María José and played futbol with them and their family!  They are seriously the best.  It was also the best meat I've had in Chile, hands down.

The copa america finals were Sunday!  It's about time, because for every game we've had to go home early and it's getting old hahaha and also Sunday we had to go home at 8:00 instead of 9:30.  But Chile won!  WOOOOOT!  I'm not saying that I have magic powers or anything, but the only two times that Chile has won the copa america in the last 100 years were the two times that I was here.  Just saying.  People went crazy like always, and my Argentian comp took it pretty hard.  He didn't even wake up this morning until 10:00 poor guy.  Don't worry I promise that doesn't happen a lot.

So that was basically my week!  More stuff happened but I don't remember much.  So I put the subject of this email for two reasons, one is because of what Felipe said, and another is something that I've been thinking about a lot this week.  I'm no stranger to feelings of inadequacy and insufficiency, and I'm also no stranger to having my pride make a mess of things.  I thought a lot about how that's possible, and I came to the conclusion that neither of these things is what humility really is, and that my disposition to feel incompetent isn't anywhere near a strength, it's actually a very damaging weakness.  I also realized how basically human the sin of pride is, and that even though I should be always trying to overcome it, I can't let my constant failure get to my head and end up just making things worse.  It goes along with what I learned last week about patience, but that I need to have patience with myself, in absolutely everything.  True humility is thinking less about yourself and more about others, in the end, and I may not be anywhere near sufficient now, indeed ''to my own strength I am nothing,'' but I will be.  And that's the hope that Jesus Christ brings us.

I love you all!  I hope you all have a great week!

Love

Elder Fox