Week 40 (Buin w Hmna Arias)

HEY FAMILY! HAPPY BELATED THANKSGIVING!

Thanks for all the Thanksgiving wishes! To answer some of your questions and to be completely honest, I'd totally forgotten that it was Thanksgiving, but I'm counting that as a blessing! haha   The majority of people here don't even know Thanksgiving exists, so it was easy to forget.  Thursday was just a normal day. lol. But it's ALMOST better that way because then there aren't so many people huffing and puffing about how you can't start decorating or celebrating Christmas early because of Thanksgiving.  Tottus (Chile's equivalent to Kmart) has been decked out with Christmas stuff since Halloween ended.  ¡ME ENCANTA!  [I LOVE IT!].

Yesterday we had our district Christmas Devotional (aka Archuleta Christmas concert) ... that's right, en persona y GRATIS ...No codiciarás ;) [in person and FREE...don't covet!]. It wasn't supposed to be an Elder Archuleta concert, but the people who put it on organized it in a way that every other musical number was him.  It was super good though and everything sounded great.

ANA GOT BAPTIZED!!!! yahooooo!!!  It was super awesome!  Hermano [Brother] Luis baptized her and that was awesome because he and his wife are one of my favorite couples in the branch and the people we work with most.  They have been members for 4 years, but Hno Luis had never baptized anyone before so it was his first time!  SO cool!  But it was perfect because they were the family who had fellowshipped Ana and her husband.  THEN, Hna Paty (the wife of Hno Luis) gave her VERY FIRST talk at the baptism, on the Holy Ghost and did a great job!  Before now she had always refused when the Branch President called and asked her to give a talk.   We are crossing all kinds of borders now!  YAY! haha!  I love these people so much!  They are like my family here.  What else happened this week?  AH! We set a baptismal date with (mother) and (dtr.)!  IT was SO cool! Especially the lesson with the mom because we decided to teach her the law of chastity because she's got a boyfriend and we needed to know if she was willing to live it and progress or not.  As we are teaching, she kind of sits there just agreeing with everything we say like, "yeah, that's right", "that's true" but with kind of a sad attitude.  So we ask her, _____ is this something that you feel like you could live or fulfill today? ... or do you feel like it's something that's already gone and passed? And she expressed that she felt that for her it was already gone ad past but that she wished she had've known because she had her daughter when she was only thirteen years old because she had no idea what she was doing.  Her mom had just given her permission to date but had never explained anything to her, so her moment had already passed and she was already "impure" as she said. So we invited her to read in the last page of the pamphlet we were using to help us teach.  On the last page it talks about how if any one has broken the law of chastity that through true repentance and the power of the atonement they can be made clean and pure again and when she read that she started bouncing up and down in her seat and she asked us if it were true and if she could really be pure again and we told her yes and she started squealing and expressed to us that she is going to get marred to her boyfriend or end up single!  But no matter what happened, she wanted to be pure again and that if her bf wanted to marry her he would have to do the same so he has to start listening to us too! haha it was so cool!  So then we explained the importance of baptism in the process of being made clean again and starting a new life and she was just overly excited! It was such a beautiful miracle! probably the coolest experience I've had on my mission! so now she just needs to come to church and do her part (which she WANTS to; she is like 110 percent involved now) the only stinky thing is that she got emergency call into work this Sunday, but NEXT Sunday será!  [It will be!]. Who'd have thought that the law of chastity would hook someone's interest in accepting the gospel? lol  Her daughter came to church for the first time yesterday! She's doing great too!

Anyway, everything is good here on this side of the world.  I'm working hard and learning new things everyday!  Miss you all! Love you TOO much! 22 days till christmas! :D