Hermana Catie Freedman Antofogasta Chile Mission 2015 - 2016: January 25th

Hey Everyone! Another great week here in the MCA!!!

This week we headed to Antofagasta on Wednesday for the worldwide missionary training! It was such a cool experience and was so great to receive counsel from the leaders of the church!

As far as people go:

-Manuel is leaving today which I'm sad about but also super excited because he will really be able to change his life one he is out of Tocopilla.

-Alex and Leslie are progressing slowly but surely. The hardest thing is getting them to church because they always travel on the weekends. But getting people to church is always the struggle here. I think the people here in Chile use magnetic pillows and it's impossible for them to get up in the mornings.

-We also have an investigator Margarita that is so close to having her testimony but we just can't seem to help her get up the courage to pray. It was crazy the other day we had an FHE in a members house with her and right as we finished and were in the street leaving a car started rolling down the hill and crashed into Margaritas house. But nobody was hurt which was good. Poor margarita but she was really calm about it and we are just trying to keep giving her animo (excitement)!

-We also found 2 new investigators Carlos and Catalina. They are siblings and were a contact we made asking for an address. Carlos is atheist and Catalina is just confused. There are both young 24 and 14. We have had a few good lessons with them talking about God and I have so much faith that with time they will progress. Hopefully we can get them to church this Sunday if not the next. The only thing we can't get them to commit to is pray. They read everything we leave for them but they won't pray!!! Sometimes agency gets the best of us. We have another appointment with them on Wednesday and we will see their progress. After the first lesson with Carlos we promised him that he would find work if he kept meeting with us and sincerely took interest in the gospel. Yesterday he told us he found work!!! That was a miracle. I love how as missionaries we can promise blessings and Heavenly Father always comes through.

-We also are finally teaching Diana and her son Juan! On Saturday we had it planned out to teach them the plan of salvation but when we went we asked them where they were in the BOM and they were in 2 Nephi 31. Definitely the spirit guiding the lesson. We were able to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and they both expressed their desires to be baptized and accepted baptismal dates for the 6th of February. They didn't come to church yesterday so we will probably end up moving their dates back a bit. We are excited and just need to start working the members to get them excited to come to church!

This week I was thinking a lot about Ether 12:27 and how the Lord will help our weaknesses become strengths if we humble ourselves and allow for the lord to help us. I want to share that I know that principle is true! I have seen it in my life, especially here on the mission.

Love you all so much and enjoy the snow!

Hermana Freedman