Junio 13, 2011

¡Hola!

This week has been good, interesting but good. Each day has been completely different. We had two opportunities to serve this week which was great! One day we went to a members house and helped her clean. She´s older and her health makes it difficult for her to clean. There was a lot to clean but we jumped right on the opportunity to help. The second time is a longer story but pretty great. It starts off with a blanket that the Elders before us borrowed from an investigator and hadn´t returned. We had an appointment with that investigator before lunch and she cancelled. We thought we´d stop by her house anyways and I wanted to take the blanket to return to her. We didn´t have time before lunch and then afterwards we had another appt. so I took the blanket with me. We then had time to stop by. As we were walking to her house we saw an old lady trying to rake her leaves, we offered to help and she actually let us. We raked and taught her a little bit. She was very receptive to our teachings and really wants us to return. Well we ended up not having time to return the blanket so I carried it around with me all day but it was totally worth it to have that experience and the opportunity to serve.

I am learning more how to feel the spirit and be guided by it. We went to meet an old investigator of the Elders he let us is and we were going to talk about the Book of Mormon. We all opened ours up to the introduction and just started getting to know each other a little bit. He asked our first names, it´s not a rule to not give it out but it´s really not important for people to know. Right know I´m a representative of Christ and my family that´s why I go by Hermana Howe. We explained this to him and I knew he understood but he wouldn´t let it go. I felt it starting to get a little contentious and I felt the spirit leave. I shut my Book of Mormon because I knew that we weren´t going to be able to teach anything without the spirit and it also seemed like he wasn´t willing to receive anything we had to teach him.

We had 3 investigators come with us to church which was great. They all are really interested in the gospel. One of them is an old investigator we found in our area book. She´s kind of in a sad situation she really wants to be baptised, she understands the gospel and its taken a place in her heart but unfortunately her husband won´t allow her to be baptised he has a lot of control in their house and we really don´t want to do anything to make him mad. I think we´re going to keep visiting her and hope that her husband softens his heart. The other two are great too. It´s a grandmother and her grand-daughter they are both really receptive to the gospel and I can see already that the grand-daughter loves it. She´s 12 and has now been to church with us twice. We gave her a Book of Mormon for kids that has a lot of pictures and tells stories briefly. The second we gave it to her I could tell that she really loved it and cherished it.

Yesterday we were knocking (which here really means ringing the bell at the gate every building and house has a gate) Hna. Wojciechowski stopped me and had me do it in English. I said what I normally say in Spanish but she pointed out that I have more feeling behind my words in English. In Spanish I think I focus to much on what to say and not how to say it. In English I really can and do put feelings behind my words but I need to work on that in Spanish. For only being here a month my Spanish is pretty good or at least that´s what I hear. I don´t feel like it is because I can never say what I want to and more than half of the time I don´t understand people. The Chilean accent is a very different kind of Spanish, but I love and I can´t wait until I can actually understand it.

Until next week.

I love you all and miss you so much!!

Hna. Howe14