Hey all!
This week was way too relaxed for comfortable missionary life, but it was a pretty good week anyway! I don't know if you remember that in one of the first letters I wrote I told y'all that ''giving juice'' is an expression that the Chileans use to say ''messing around.'' We use this phrase a lot as missionaries to say ''not working.'' We most often say it in spanish however, but when talking English we just conjugate the spanish verb like an english verb (I dar jugo, he dars jugo, I darred jugo, I have darred jugo) but it's a fairly common expression. This week we had a member of the seventy come to the mission and then this weekend was the Chilean independence day and we were actually forbidden from proselyting that day. Definitely the first day of my mission where we couldn't proselyte at all, they told us that we could go to members houses and dar jugo but we can't teach any lessons or do anything like that. The day before we couldn't do much either because the day before the partying already starts so we ended up cleaning the chapel and doing other things that needed doing, and the day before that we had a bunch of service and then our english class at night (that nobody came to.) SO this weekend was pretty relaxed, and it was nice but I'm definitely ready to get back to work. Yesterday was the day that we couldn't proselyte, so after church we went to a recent convert's house to eat a bunch of empanadas and play games with them. It was pretty fun, then at about 5:00 we just went back to the house and watched movies, baked a frozen pizza and some brownies and ate way too much. I ate half the pizza. I can't believe how much I've learned to eat here.
Wednesday was the day the seventy came which was AWESOME. The seventy was Elder Allan F. Packer (son of President Boyd K. Packer) and he ended up talking about faith. It was an awesome talk, and something that I and the mission definitely need, and have always needed. He talked about how faith is a mental exercise, how when we have faith we have a bright vision for the future, but also a specific plan in order to achieve that bright future. The biggest thing though was the importance of having faith that with God nothing is impossible. That's something that I've had to learn here (and am still learning, I definitely realized that I don't have nearly as much faith as I should), and something that the mission has had a lack of (but has been improving) since I got here. When I got to the mission, people told me that we hardly ever baptize here. That is definitely a faith-debilitating belief, and something that corrupted my view for the first few months of the mission. The truth is, God can. He always can, always. Our faith is tried when we're in places that might seem that they have no hope for growth, but if we can have the faith to see the chapel full, that chapel will fill. It might not be while we're here, but it will happen. God has his timing, but I know that Pichidegua has a great potential here. It's starting now, and it's starting slow, but things are finally starting to move forward here. God works according to the faith of His servants, so we better let Him work through us.
I also promised more details about Dagoberto Molina, we found out after having seen him that just a few weeks ago his dad had died. He expected all of his evangelical friends to go to the funeral, but not a single one of them went. For the first time in 10 years, he was brought to question things again. He left the evangelical church, wanted to go back to our church, but couldn't bring himself to walk in the doors. The next week, the mission President showed up at his doorstep and hugged him and told him that everything was going to be okay and that Jesus Christ was there for him.
It's amazing to see how God works in ways like this. From our tiny perspective, we have no idea what kind of preparations have been years in the making that we happened to stumble into because God wanted it to be that way. Many times we act on inspiration without realizing that it's inspiration.
I love you all! I hope you have a great week!
Love
Elder Fox
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