Hey Everyone! This week was so great and we had a
BAPTISM!!!!!
Daniela was baptized this week and it was so great. She is
the happiest person and with the gospel in her life is even happier! It is such
a good feeling at church to see her marking her scriptures and manuals at
church and she is just another evidence to me that the gospel makes us
happy.
This week we also had a mini MTC activity with all of
copiapo and all the missionaries from the 2 zones here which was so fun. We
were able to work with the youth and teach them more about the restoration and
the gospel of Jesus Christ. The activity was meant for them but in the long run
as I was teaching two 16 year old girls I think I received more personal
revelation than they did.
We had one investigator at church yesterday. Her name is
Arolinda and she is 87. She seemed to like it and has been progressing during
our lessons which we are super excited about. We are hoping to set a baptismal
date with her this coming week!
During intercambios Hermana Alarcon and I found a new
investigator named Beatriz. She is the most loving person I have ever met and
stopped us in the street to ask us what church we are from. We were able to set
an appointment and Hermana Caballero and I went the next day to visit her. She
lives with her boyfriend and their 2 daughters who are 17 and 12. We have only
been able to meet with Beatriz but had 2 lessons this past week and she is
reading the Book or mormon and saying her prayers. The only road block (other
than the fact she isn't married) is that she suffers from panic attacks and can't
leave her house to come to church unless someone from her family is with her so
we need to have a lesson with the whole family.
This week Hna. Caballero started teaching me (or
trying to teach me) Guarani, the native language in Paraguay. I'm definitely
happy I was called to teach the gospel in Spanish! It is much easier. It has been fun
and we always end up laughing lots together. The only phrase I've managed to get
down is che ha e mormon (I'm mormon). But its a start.
Going along with the theme of the restoration from last week
I have 2 more experiences I want to share with you all!
The first is from intercambios with Hermana Alarcon. We went
to visit an old investigator that I had never met before but Hermana Caballero
had always pointed our her house. She let us in and there were tons of
distractions, mainly the TV that her mom was watching. Her mom refused to turn
it off so we decided to try our best to invite the spirit. We shared The
Restoration and we could tell that Soledad wasn't all that interested, but...she
definitely couldn't deny the spirit of the first vision. After the lesson she
wouldn't commit to do anything so we decided to make the best of it and started
asking for referrals. We ended up receiving about 15 referrals! That never
happens!!!! I know it was because she had felt the spirit of the restoration,
and now we have 15 future investigators!
The second was easily one of the most spiritual experiences
I've had since being out on my mission. On Saturday night Hermana Caballero and
I were a little bummed. We had been at the chapel since 8 in the morning with
the Mini MTC activity which was fantastic but went until 8 at night (with all
the baptisms included). And I cant say that it wasn't incredible having a
baptism either but Hna. C and I were a little bummed that we only had 1 hour to
work the whole day, and we wanted to meet our goal for new investigators!
During the Mini MTC activity I was really impressed to work on having more
faith. We left to work and we decided to offer a prayer together. After the
prayer we went straight to work. We decided to only visit future investigators
and tried 3 houses with no luck. As we walked past one house I felt impressed
to stop and knock the door. I had seen the woman that lived there in the street
with her granddaughter before but we had never managed to set up an appointment
or anything. We knocked the door and the woman told us she didn't have time. We
felt the need to keep talking to her and with a little convincing ended up
teaching her and her daughter! We taught the Restoration in 5 minutes
(something president has encouraged us to practice lots) and the spirit flooded
the room. She accepted the invitation to read the Book of Mormon and also the
baptismal invitation. We left spiritually recharged and immediately offered a
prayer of gratitude to our Heavenly Father. It may not be an experience that is
out of the ordinary, but these kinds of spiritual experiences are those that
most mark my mission. Experiencias muy sencillas y muy poderosas (very simple and powerful experiences).
Also I loved studying Joseph Smith history this week and was
really impacted by how much Joseph Smith pondered and questioned. The key to
our spiritual progressing is questioning and pondering! If we never do that we
will never recieve revelations that help us progress!
I love you all so much! And in case you are wondering yes I'm
ok after the earthquake in Ecuador. We have had a few big temblores here but
nothing out of the ordinary.
Love,
Hermana Freedman
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