Santiago Chile

Santiago Chile

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

May 3, 2016 - This is not the end

Hola familia y amigos,

This will be my last letter to you all as a full time missionary. I would like to tell you all about how last week went.

On Wednesday night, I received a call from President telling me that I had to work harder. He said that he expected me to find more people teach than I was finding and he felt that my effort wasnt typical of what it had previously been during the mission. I will admit that it was becoming more difficult to me to focus on the work, but I was still working, and when he told me that, I felt a flame lit underneath my seat that couldn't keep me still. 

The next day I was on an interchange with Elder Chancay. I was in his sector, and we did contacts all the day long. We did 52 contacts from 11:30 am to 9:30 at night. It was rough, and not one single person let us in.

It was the same in my sector the rest of the week. Lots of contacts and a lot of failed appointments with no one letting us in. I can honestly say I had never seen a week so deceptional in my mission. A lot of work with little results.

We did find a couple of new investigators, Soledad, Suzana, and Karina. We found them knocking doors and talking with people in the street and they are all very nice.  Soledad looks really interested in what we have to teach her. Karina is very interested in helping her two autistic sons know more about Christ through the organization of the Primary in the Church.

We had a lot of appointments that fell through, even on Saturday and Sunday which are our best days to work.

Yesterday we saw the fruits of all of that work from last week when we found 5 new investigators, and we did divisions with members, and we found a less active family that wants to baptized their 9-year-old daughter. We feel more than blessed, because we also found out that there is now an active Haitian family in our ward that can help us teach other Haitians about the gospel, which unlocked a huge potential of future baptisms in this ward. The sector has never been better, and this is my last week.

I bore my testimony on Sunday, and it was normal until I arrived at a statement that made my cry like a child: "I know that this church is true". When I said it, it all just hit me. Every blister, foot pain, slammed door, insult, cold wind, heavy rain, and sunburn stood there with me as the price I had paid for that testimony. I have felt the Spirit so strongly here, I have seen so many lives change and so many miracles happen. I have stepped so many times in faith and knelt so many times in humility and repentance that I cannot return to my home as the same person I was. I am a convert of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am what I helped others become. I am not close to perfection, but I know that the Lord is close to me. I know that He will always sustain me as He has for the past two years. I love Him so much. I will serve Him until the day I die. This is His church and His gospel. I share this testimony with you all along with a feeling of gratitude that I have for your prayers, letters, packages, and examples throughout these past two years and throughout the course of my life. Thank you all and I share this testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Love,

Elder Williams