January 25, 2016 - Pilar Bautismo

Hola familia y amigos,

This week we are pretty happy because PILAR GOT BAPTIZED!! Whoo!

On Tuesday we got to teach Juliana. She is the mother of the Alberto family. They are the family that came to church last week. We committed her to coming to church again and she said she would. It was a great lesson because it was so simple and she was very willing to obey.

On Wednesday we got to have a worldwide missionary inservice that we had to attend. It was really great! I loved the teachings of Elder Bednar about the Spirit. One of the key things he taught was about how we cannot thrust the Spirit into other people. Instead, by being examples and commitments we need to allow them to invited the Spirit into their own hearts. That's a great teaching.

On Thursday, we found a lot of new people. We contacted into a lady named Roxana. She let us in and when we asked her what she felt like she needed more of in her life she said "I just want peace to come back". We were able to teach the Restoration focusing in that need that she had and she committed to reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. She was a little iffy about baptism, but she´ll figure out how it helps in the future

We also taught a man named Hector. He is a friend of our ward´s first councilor. He was really touched by what we taught him, and he ended up crying during the last prayer he offered. The Spirit was really strong and we were able to explain to him how he was feeling the Spirit.

On Friday, we got to teach an older man that we contacted the other day.H is name is Luis and he has a very similar story to that of Pilar. He recently recovered from a stroke, he lives alone with a daughter who works all day, and he has white hair. We are hoping that Pilar can help us teach him, so he can see how she could make some changes in her life that he also wants.

On Friday, Pilar passed her baptismal interview!

Also, Friday morning something bad happened: we left in the morning to do our exercises outside and we were running around on a soccer field and Elder Barillas slipped and sprained his ankle. We worked like normal that day, but at night it was really hurting him, so we called Sister Videla and she said that we had to rest in the house!

We spent all of Saturday in the house. Lame. We werent able to communicate with a lot of investigators for church on Sunday, so only Pilar and a young man named Christian came.

On Sunday, Pilar got baptized. She actually arrived late. Everyone else was sitting in the chapel waiting for her when she arrived. We just barely had time to take a couple of pictures. I got to baptize her, and the baptismal water was really hot, so it was like a jacuzi. it was a great service. The ward where I serve doesn't have a baptismal font so we combined with another baptism with the ward Renca 2. It was cool because the young lady that got baptized in Renca 2 was a reference that I sent to them. Julia is a friend of Jecksel and we asked her if she would like a visit from the missionaries and she said ok. And sunday she got baptized. also, President Videla came to the baptism. He spoke and took a couple of pictures as well. He wasnt too happy with Elder Barillas´leg, and now Elder Barillas is walking around in a boot.

Elder William's mission president and his wife with Pilar, Elder Williams and Elder Barillas

Well, it was definitely a highlight of my mission to see the baptism of Pílar. She has come a long way, and made a lot of changes. I testify of the Lord´s power to change people and to heal them. I know that the Atonement is real because it is made manifest by those who become saints through the blood of the Lamb of God

Love,

Elder Williams

January 18, 2016 - Hot Hot Hot

Hola familia y amigos,

It is way hot here in Santiago! Love it!

On Tuesday we walked and talked a lot and we taught tithing to Pilar. She accepted it like a champ!

On Wednesday we taught Miguel Angel again. He is a less active man we are working with. We taught him and his girlfriend actually. She was really nice and she said she would like to get baptized. She lives in another sector, but we hope that we can help Miguel so he can help and even baptized her. We taught Pilar again and we also taught Ruben and Magali and Zuli. They are a family of Peruvians we have been teaching. Brother Hugo Gutierrez came with us and we had an awesome lesson about the Book of Mormon and baptism. We just need to help that family go to church.

On Thursday we taught a less active family. The Montero family about 2 months ago was going to church. Their son, Bryan is the sunday school teacher of the youth but he hasn't come in 3 weeks so we were worried. He was doing okay. Now that its getting hot outside the people are becoming a little bit lazier and they don't like getting up and walking when it's hot outside.

On Friday we had a very interesting day. First off, Pilar was going to get baptized this week but there was a problem. In her interview with the zone leaders she confessed that she had drinken tea on Thursday. She was walking around in downtown Santiago on Tuesday when a random group of señor citizens just randomly invited her to a free trip to the beach.  It was all included: lunch, travel, drinks and breakfast. She agreed to go with them and at breakfast the only liquid thing they were serving was tea. She asked if they had herbal tea and they didn't, so she drank it. We found it interesting that it just happened to be the week before her baptism that this mystery beach tour party invited her randomly to go to the beach....smells like Satan.

During the interview, we had another lesson planned with an older investigator: Olga and a less active family: the Diaz family. the lesson didn't go too well because Olga kept interrupting us and the family had a pet ferret that got out of his cage and was bothering everyone during the lesson (for all of you ex missionaries catching a ferret is not one of the steps found in how to begin teaching). It was rough controling the lesson, but that's just what happens sometimes.

On Friday we also had a zone conference.The next one I will give my farewell speech, and I am now the oldest missionary in the zone...the end is somewhat near.

Saturday, we got to teach a Peruvain family (the Alberto family) and we had a ward mision meeting to plan our ward mission plan.

Sunday morning we got to present our ward mission plan in Ward Council. It was a success and we feel happy. Part of it will be teaching the members how to be missionaries. We also had 6 investigators in the church. The alberto family came, Pilar, and a young man named Christian who has a friend who is a member of the church (we still havent taught him). I got to teach the gospel doctrine class. it was about Jesus Christ and I got to bare my testimony at the end to all of the 6 investigators and the Spírit was super strong.

That afternoon we walked a lot. After that we got to teach Pilar one more time, and we taught a new lady named Nancy. She is pretty Catholic but she is really nice. I also got bit by a dog It wasn't too bad. It broke the skin, but the dog had all of his shots for rabies so I am all good.

It was a fun week. I have really enjoyed walking in the heat because that means that every sweaty step is another way to show the Lord that I love Him. Shout out to sister Williams who is in her last week!

Love,

Elder Williams

January 11, 2016 - Sunday Blues

Hola familia y amigos,

This week was eventful,

On Tuesday we had a ton of appointments and almost all of them fell through. We did get to meet with a less active man named Miguel Angel. He is really nice and is trying to get involved in the church again. He was baptized about 4 years ago and joined the military, and now he is back in Santiago and wants to get involved with the church again. He also gifted us popcorn.

We spent the rest of the day contacting and visiting houses of people who weren't there.

On Wednesday we had an awesome lesson with a family. We taught Hugo and Lorena last week and they were really interested in our message. We tuaght them the Plan of Salvation. they loved it and we did it with photos and drawings to help the kids learn. We finished with another kneeling prayer. Lorena gave it and she started crying during it because the Spirit was so strong. As we left Hugo asked "are you going to keep visiting us". Usually when people say that they dont want us to keep on stopping by, but then he said "cause you've got to do it because we really like it when you visit us and we keep on learning" WHO SAYS THAT!!!!!?????

We also taught Pilar that night. she got her answer. She called us last sunday to ask us about how to help in the church and when she hung up she felt something come over her. She started crying and felt really happy and she knew that god was trying to speak with her. She´s doing really great and now she wants to get baptized.

on Thursday we had another training meeting. after that, we visited a less active member named Jonathon. he still hasnt come to church in a while. after that we taught wendy. she is a dominican woman and we taught her in the elders quorum president´s house. the lesson went awesome and she accepted a baptismal date.

On Friday we taught Pilar again and we taught a lot of former investigators to see how they were doing. They still dont want to progress...but Pilar is doing great

On Saturday we helped clean the chapel in a service project. Pilar came to that as well. After that we helped an elderly woman do some yard work with the elders quorom president. We taught Miguel Angel again and we visited the Montero family. The Montero family is a less active family that we are working with. We were teaching the mom when all of a sudden she says, calling to her son "Bryan, can you go and get your dad I don't feel too good". Bryan was laying down in his room. She repeated what she said, and Elder Barillas and I went down the hall to find her husband who had just stepped out of the room. As we called for him we heard a big BOOM! We looked around and there the mom was knocked out cold on the floor. She fainted and face planted. We were freaking out, but her husband came and she regained conciousness and we all ended laughing about it. Turns out that used to happen to her all of the time, so it wasn't too big of a deal. That was the most interesting lesson I had had in a while. 

This week we had heard from Hugo, Lorena and their family, Wendy, Rafael, Pilar, and Julio and Juan Carlos that they all were going to come to church. That was like 10 people. Only pilar came....lame. Hugo and Lorena were in Maipu on Saturday night and their car broke down. Wendy had an interview. The others had other excuses but they weren't as good. Classic sunday here in Chile.

We visited with Hugo one more time. He works in the north of Chile and he works 15 days there and 15 days here he has free, so we have to wait 2 weeks to teach him...lame. But he wants us to visit him and he was reading the Book of Mormon to his daughter everynight before she goes to sleep so I cannot complain too much!

That's pretty much it for this week. This week I started feeling mature as a missionary. Before I struggled with getting frustrated when people don't come to church, but it has happened so much that 'Ive gotten used to it. The other thing is that I know that the Lord´s plans and will never get frustrated. If they dont come this week, they will come next week. The Lord always wins. I know this because Pilar got her answer. She had to wait for it, but she got it. I know this because I have knocked 1000´s of doors and now we found Hugo and his family. The Lord always wins. period.

Love,

Elder Williams

January 4, 2016 - The Power of the Maya

Buenas tardes familia y amigos,

The results are in.....my new companion is Elder Barillas. He comes from a chosen people. He´s from Guatemala! He´s 18 years old. He´s the first missionary in his family and he is a convert of 3 years to the church. He has a very strong testimony and he likes working, so I am more than happy to be training him. All of the members here are really surprised because he looks really young but he is very mature and awesome.

Elder Williams with his new "son" Elder Barillas.

I picked him up on Tuesday and we went to work right away and we taught the son in law of a less active couple in our ward. The son in law was really interested in how the gospel could help his son stop doing drugs.

The next day, we taught so many people!!! We found a new family of 5. The dad of that family has a friend who  is a member of the church and he had an idea of what we did as missionaries, so he let us in right away. We taught he and his wife the Restoration, and they were really interested and they said they would read the Book of Mormon. Recently our mission president has told us to change how we do baptismal commitments. There are so many misinterpretations of the word baptism here. He has asked us to invite people to "join" the church instead of "baptism". He wants us to really explain what baptism is before we invite people to do it. it's different but we are doing it, and we did that invitation with the family we found, and they accepted.

We taught P  and J  with members that same day. It is going to be impossible for J to go to church until she can move out of her dad´s house, but she has plans to be moving out soon.  P is doing okay. She still feels like she hasn't had a confirmation about needing to baptized. We did find out that her nephew is actually a member of the church, and he wants to baptize her, so she has some additional support from that side.

We found a Peruvian couple that night. The sister of the lady from the couple just arrived from Peru, and she is a less active member. It was funny to meet her because it was kind of like "no matter where you go you´ll always find the gospel". 

Not a lot was done on Thursday. We had another training meeting. We visited a lot of members and contacted some people. That night we went to bed at the right hour, but then we woke up when we heard the giant firework show that Renca puts on on the hill right next to our house.

Climbing Renca Hill.

On Friday, we had a great meeting with the Bishop and his family and we made some plans and goals with them so they could invited their friends to church this month. It's awesome to work with the members and use the planning skills we have as missionaries to help the members set goals and then verify with them to help them reach their goals.

On Saturday we and our elders quorum president helped a Dominican lady move into her new house. We got there and she had everything ready and done, so we just taught her the Restoration instead. It was a nice lesson and it looks like she´ll be going to church soon.

District White Elephant party.

On Sunday, we had 3 investigators at church. Esteban, a 13 year old we´ve taught came. We taught him and his older sister on Saturday night. The older sister Yiseña isn't too interested, but Esteban was really interested, so he came to church. P came to church. and the Haitian friend of our elders quorum president came. Elder Barillas introduced himself and his testimony was really powerful. The Haitian investigator, Rafael, also bore his testimony. He bore it for a while and didn't really understand what the purpose was. He testified of Christ and he mentioned he needed a job about 7 times. 

That afternoon we taught another new family. The dad was really interested in the Book of Mormon and eternal families. Every new lesson that we have had this week has ended in a kneeling prayer (excluding the lesson with the Dominican lady because she has a very rocky floor) and the father of the family offered it. It was awesome! We really hope these people progress.

That´s it for this week. There were a lot of things that happened. new companions, new people, same Spirit, same message. I really love being a missionary. Ive grown so close to the Lord this year and my life has been filled with His light. I understand my life more. I understand that what was once "my life" needs to be His. I am dedicating myself to Him every day more and more.

Love,

Elder Williams