Hey guys! Thanks so much for sending pics and everything! Looks like you had an amazing, UNFORGETTABLE, and adventurous week! That is so fun! You guys are all rock stars! On my side of the world this week was an awesome one as well, it was a week full of tender mercies and mini-miracles from the Lord.
This week we taught Diana a couple more times, she is progressing well! We also were finally able to set a baptismal date (as a goal) with Tania, the girl who is 17 and has already come to church 3 times. We set it for the 26th of July. It was really cool when we challenged her to it because she was really nervous about it. She told us herself that she sees herself getting baptized in t he future but she wasn´t thinking of it being "SO SOON". She also shared us her testimony of church attendance (with out realizing it herself) because she explained to us how much she likes it and that when she goes she feels at home there; like really a part of a big family and that she feels something special, peace and ... tranquilidad (english ?? lol) and that when she goes her whole week goes better, but when she doesn´t she feels the absence of it in her whole week. YAYYY! :)
Another mini-miracle/cool experience, was with Patricia. This week we went and visited her and taught her a little more in depth about the Book of Mormon and read the introduction with her. After teaching her about it we were leading up to the commitment to pray to ask if the Book of Mormon is true, so I ask her if she would like to have the conviction that it talks about in the second to last paragraph of the intro. - an answer from the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true, and she answers and just tells us, frankly, "No... I already felt that, like I told you guys about a while back when I´d read and found that scripture that I needed at the time and that really touched my heart." So then we were like, "Wow that is awesome Patricia! So do you believe that the Book of Mormon is the word of God?" And she tells us, " Yes! I believe it. I know that it´s true."
Inside we were like YEAH! YEAH ! YEAAAAAH! dance party!!!!! (minus the dancing part lol)
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!!!!
We visited Melissa Campos (the blonde less active girl that I sent a picture of) again this week and we read another chapter with her in the Book of Mormon, chapter 10 in first Nephi. After reading we challenged her to read the next chapter the very same night (because normally it takes 5 million years of reminding her and recommitting her over and over again to read the same chapter for her to actually do it). She committed to do it. The next day we are in the street walking past her house to go to another appointment and we run into her walking out her front door so we stop to talk to her for a second. She tells us that her mom and she had just gotten back from the center and that while she was there, they passed by some clothes stores and went by Lider (read "Chilean Walmart"), and that while they passed by all the clothes, she didn't even bother looking at other stuff, instead, she went straight to where the SKIRTS were, because she wanted to buy a skirt to wear to church (she had been coming in jeans until now).
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!!!!
SO we keep talking with her outside her house and we ask her how it went with her "homework" to read the chapter the night before and she said "good!" So with surprise and curiosity we asked more specifically, "You read the chapter???" And she said "Yep! I READ TWO!" Almost had a heart attack from pure shock and surprise - the good kind!!
BUT THAT¨S NOT ALL!!!!
So, Sunday comes around. Sacrament meeting starts, we finish singing the first hymn, no Melissa :( ... then 2 mins later in walks her sister and her husband, and they close the door behind them, and I´m thinking, shoot! She didn´t come. THEN the door opens again, and in walks Meli in a SKIRT, she looked fabulous! When we got a chance to talk with her after Sacrament mtg she told us how they almost didn't come because her son, Panchito, had had a fever all night and neither of them had slept much and that her mom wasn't going to go either (and her mom is ACTIVE), BUT that she made her mom go (at least that´s her story)! She is rocking it!
I really don´t know how this change happened, I only know that it´s been a huge and amazing miracle! If you only KNEW how many times I had asked myself after having not so successful lessons with her and seeing her lack of progress even her lack of INTEREST for a LONG time, "Should we leave her, or should we keep working with her?" How many times I went back and forth with it in my mind. It seems like for a long time the thought was, Yeah ONE MORE TIME, and if this time isn´t different.... but for one reason or another we always went back, AND NOW LOOK!!!!! :D The only thing I can make sense of that could have caused such a huge a dramatic change is that last week we left a challenge with her to read a short little chapter in the Book of Mormon, and then PRAY and ask if it was true and if Joseph Smith really was a prophet of God, that day she did it! And she told us that she got an answer and that she felt it was true. Maybe in that moment, when she went looking/searching on her OWN account, is when the Spirit was really able to get to her and sprout that seed of faith that she had had in her heart.
Now, that´s still not ALL, but just know that it´s been an awesome week, and that everyday the Lord shows us His hand in mini-miracles and tender mercies. I love my mission and being His servant and representative SOOO much! As He, in His great mercy, allows us to work and be witnesses of these changes and miracles in the lives of others, He works even bigger changes and miracles in OUR lives and in OUR hearts.
with ALL my love,
Hna Davis
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