Hey family! This week was amazing, probably one of the best of my missions! But it was crazy busy and I desperately needed the break, but I'm excited for this week to continue and see what happens!
I'll start with a funny quote from when we did practices. The missionary involved is new and just got here a week ago. He wanted to say ''Eso fue cuando Jesús vino a la tierra y pagó por nuestros pecados.'' which is ''That's when Jesus came to the world to pay for our sins.'' He ended up saying ''Eso fue cuando Jesús vino a la tienda y pagó por nuestros pescados.'' Which means ''That's when Jesus came to the store and paid for our fish.''
I laughed really hard at that. Both good things, both good things.
So the week! Was crazy, but it was great! Tuesday was a slower day but we saw some big miracles. At one point during the day my bike broke, so we had to walk it back to the house. Later, walking on the main road in pichidegua, we started talking to this man who was just standing on the side of the road. We started to walk with him, and he told us that he went to our church before a lot but was never a member, but really liked what we taught and wanted to go back. He lives super far away, but he promised that he would come to church that week. I gave him a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet of the Restoration and I got his phone number. A few days later, I lost the phone number. I was pretty sad about that, because I was pretty sure that if I didn't remind him he'd never come to church since we only met him for a few minutes. But I was wrong! Oh ye of little faith. Right at the start of the second hour of church, he came. He told us in the Sunday School class that he started reading the pamphlet and then he finished it and started reading the Book of Mormon, and next thing he knew it was 5:00 in the morning. He had read all night. Cool right?!?! Those are the kind of stories you see in general conference! Sadly, I couldn't get his number again because he doesn't have it memorized and he didn't have it written down anywhere, but I gave him my number and I'm pretty sure he'll contact us or keep coming to church. So we're looking forward to what will happen! The only obstacle is that he lives so far away.
So I discovered Wednesday morning in leadership counsel that one of the companionships in my district had an investigator with a baptismal date for that Saturday that had the church attendances and lessons necessary for baptism and had the pre-interview done. I had no idea about this, so I asked the elders after the meeting if he needed the interview done before Saturday and they said that he did. The only problem is that we live about 3 hours away from each other and I had to go with the other district leaders to a meeting in Rancagua all of Friday, so our only option was to do a division the next day and then stay overnight and coordinate to go to the bus terminal in San Fernando and divide again between about 8 other companionships of Elders and then go to the meeting. It was a little difficult to coordinate but it worked out alright. The division was fun, I went with Elder Carrillo who was in my district last change so I already knew him and he's a great guy. And I did my first baptismal interview! It was actually kind of fun. He passed and got baptized on Saturday! So that's pretty exciting.
Also, Wednesday we went to the Peruvian family from Pataguas Cerros again and had an awesome lesson with them. They're so dang prepared! We put a baptismal date with her partner for next January since they can't get married until next year. He's for sure going to get baptized though, so we're super excited. They came to church this Sunday too! The branch was super welcoming and they're excited to have them. The attendance continues increasing!
I was a little hesitant to do a division on Thursday because we had set 5 appointments for that day and Elder Carrillo's companion is the new one who just got here a week ago (his name is Elder Musselman and he's awesome) and I didn't know how putting a missionary with 6 weeks and a missionary with 1 week together in a sector with 5 appointments would work out. But I trusted my comp enough to go forward with it, and they did great! They put a baptismal date with Andrea, the girl from Peru who we were teaching before then fought with her husband and moved to Peru and then moved back. So that was exciting!
Then Friday was the meeting which was awesome. President Harris is going to help us out a lot. He described to us how he's had this plan on how to help the mission since before he got here, and he talked a lot about the steps we all need to take together in order to get to the point where we'll have baptisms every week. It was probably one of the best meetings I've been too. Also, my great friend Elder Young (roommate in Santa Cruz (Paniahue) and probably the best leader and most respectable missionary I've ever met) is an assistant now so I got to talk to him again which was nice.
Saturday we passed by a potential who's name was Barbara who we had met a few days previously and seemed really promising. She's about 18 but super smart and wanted to know more about our message. We went there and were able to teach her with her neighbor who just happened to be there. It's a good thing he was there or else we wouldn't have been able to go in. We taught her the first lesson and realized just how smart she is. Some of her insights on things actually taught me some things I didn't know. It was insane. So she understood really well and accepted the invitation to pray about it. So another exciting prospect!
Then yesterday was fantastic. We had put an appointment with a Haitian family a few days earlier (they were a reference from other elders) but we discovered that they live in another city called Larmahue which was really far from Pichidegua, the only way to get there is by colectivo. Since it was Sunday, the members told us not to go because there was a chance we wouldn't be able to make it back. So I almost forgot about the whole thing, when out the blue me and my companion start feeling extremely exhausted out of nowhere. I was shaking and panting like crazy and it wasn't even hot outside nor where we doing much. It was a type of exhaustion I had never felt before, and Elder Kammerman felt the same thing at the exact same time. We decided we needed to head back to the house to get some water and sit down for a bit, and in the house I remembered to call the Haitians to cancel with them. I called them and they sounded disappointed that we wouldn't be able to go, and literally said in their broken Spanish ''it's really important that you come so we can give you a good welcome and get to know you. You're foreign, we're foreign, I think we're going to be very good friends.'' They offered to come to Pichidegua and find us, and so at that point I just couldn't say know and told them we'd do everything possible to go there. We miraculously found a colectivo and found them. They were probably the nicest people I've ever met in my entire life. They only had two chairs, but they insisted that we sit down and insisted that they could remain standing. They kept saying ''it's a happiness for me to talk to you and to get to know you.'' They were just so great. They were really excited about the prospect of going to church since they hadn't been to a church since they moved to Chile, and they all accepted a baptismal date for the 12 of November. They wanted to accompany us to try to find a bus to make sure we got home safe, and one of them, upon leaving the house, wanted to return to the house to get money for our bus tickets.
They only have two chairs, in their entire house, and they wanted to pay for our bus tickets. Touching to see what real Christianity means.
They waited with us for about another hour until a bus finally came and we got to go home. That's when I realized that if the random exhaustion hadn't come over us, we likely never would have went. God works in mysterious ways :)
So that was our crazy good week! More stories to come! I love you all! The church is true! Have a great week!
Love
Elder Fox
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