Well, after four weeks without having a single investigator soul attend church...we had an investigator go to church!!! It was so awesome. Her name is Veronica. Veronica was a reference from the office. It turns out her boyfriend is an inactive member and he had an appointment with the missionaries; Veronica begged that she could come along. She received 2 lessons in the house of her boyfriend and then they passed the reference to us with the comment "Sure Baptism". When we passed by on Thursday she was so excited to have us in her house and to learn. She had already started to read the Book of Mormon and really really wanted to go to church. She even had plans to go to general conference last week, but her boyfriend forgot to make her a map to make her way to the stake center so she wasn´t able to go. We passed by on Saturday to make sure everything was good for Sunday and she had already looked up the address in mormon.org and lds.org. We had a member pass by to walk with her to the church at 9:30 and when the member arrived Veronica was already outside waiting. But guess what, it gets even better. So the classes yesterday were on Diezmo (tithing) in Gospel Principles and The word of Wisdom in Relief Society, but it didn´t even phase her, she was so excited and she even asked questions in Relief Society if a wheat substitute for coffee, Ecco, is okay (which it is). She is super excited. The other missionaries had a baptism yesterday and she even stayed for an extra hour and half to see the baptism. After the baptism she had a light in her eyes, she said "How awesome, it´s like how Jesus got baptized. My baptism wasn´t anything like that they just put a little bit of water on my forehead. But that was the real thing." I am so excited for her, just a little bit sad that I won´t be her for her baptism, but that´s okay.
Another milagro (miracle) that we had this week, we have had great success in reactivating an inactive member. His name is Guillermo Olivares, his whole family are members but they have been inactive for a long time. We passed by three weeks ago because one of the members told us to pass by because a few of the grand kids haven´t been baptized even though they are 9 or 10. When we got there Guillermo came to the gate, we asked if he was a member he said, "Yes, but inactive" We passed by in their house and taught him and his mom who is pretty old and withered. I asked Guillermo if he had any fond memories of when he went to church and he couldn´t think of any. We invited him to go to church and he told us that that week he couldn´t but the next week he would. We thought to ourselves, well okay, that pretty much means no, but nope, he really went to church. When we passed by again to talk to him he told us that when he was in the church he felt something, he also told us about how the night before he went to church he woke and he couldn´t breathe and so he woke up and started to pray, something that he hadn´t done in a long time and the feeling went away. He was really anxious to ask us about these two experiences, he was looking for reassurance that he wasn´t crazy and also he wanted to know what these feelings meant. I felt a little bit like Joseph in Egypt interpreting dreams, but it was so natural. We helped Guillermo recognize that the good feeling was the Spirit and the bad feeling was Satan trying to keep him from being happy. We also found out that since we had passed by he had quit smoking--we didn´t even know he smoked! He said that that simple visit that we made and that simple question about having fond memories made him realize that he didn´t have any and that that was something that he wanted to change. He went to church again this week and he also fasted for the first time in his whole life. He is really excited to continue as well. It is really cool to see the change in him in just a few short weeks, with very little effort on our part. The Spirit did it all! The church is true!
Well, I am excited to see you all soon! I have started to have panic attacks lately, like the ones that I used to have when I was in high school. I think it is just because I am starting to realize that my life is going to have an abrupt change very soon and I really have no idea what I am going to do next. You said it well mom, regroup. I have dedicated my whole self to the mission for so long that it really scares me to think that soon I will not be a servant of the Christ and that I will have to do things for myself again instead of relying completely on the Lord. But I until that point gets here, I am just going to have to rely on the Lord a little bit longer. I know that he will take care of me and take care of everything.
Love you all!
Hermana Evans
PS. Elder Bednar is coming to Chile this Saturday! Woot Woot!
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