Hellooooo family!
This week like I always say, was a good one. We´re working hard, finding people, and bringing people to church. We did have a few setbacks with those that were progressing more, such as Danitza, Luis, and Franco. None of them came to church on Sunday, so that was a bit frustrating, but we did get two new girls to church named Paulina and Claudia. They´re sisters and we´ve been teaching them and their mom and oldest sister lately. Their mother, Roxana, was a missionary for the Catholic church, but it makes me laugh the lack of doctrine she knows. I do not laugh at her, but at the organization of that church. Honestly they do do a lot of good, they go to homes and comfort some people with the word of God, but they aren´t accomplishing God´s work, which is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. They just don´t get it. Anyways enough ranting. This family is really great, and we´ve had some spiritual experiences with them. We´ve been focusing a lot on helping our investigators gain a testimony of the Restoration and the Prophet Joseph Smith from the get go. We give away Books of Mormon almost always in the first visit, if it went well, and we´re encouraging and verifying all our investigators and Recent converts to read and pray about that Book. I don´t know why I haven´t realized this before, but my testimony honestly came from reading the pages of the Book of Mormon and tying that doctrine to what is found in the Bible. The spirit has confirmed my testimony and I know that it can with others as well. Anyways Roxana and her oldest daughter, Evelin, are a little more reserved yet receptive, but they didn´t come to church on Sunday. Paulina and Claudia are similiar in the sense that they´re very trusting and excited about what we´re teaching them. Now we need to just kill the thing that everyone has here, laziness to read. I was sick with it before the mission, but now I just LOVE the scriptures. Our President bought us all new Books of Mormon in English and challenged us to read it by the end of the year and marking every reference to Christ that we could find. He promised us that if we did so, we would gain and have a firm testimony of the very personage for which that book was written, Christ. I loved the idea, but sadly left my book in Talca along with my hymn book during the conference haha, but Elder Pitcher found it and is saving them for me. We still need prayers and help from you all for Danitza, who is being a little rebellious and decided to put a lip piercing in (aaahhhh) Luis, and Franco, and now Paulina, Claudia and their family. We´re very optimistic with the work, and we´re having tons of success, but still this work is a process and my goal is to leave Elder Balkman in good hands with confidence, and a good pool of investigators, and of course I want to baptize more before I leave.
Elder Balkman had a funny new missionary experience this week. We did a mini transfer with the Elders from Lontue on Saturday. They had a lesson scheduled with Luis at 3:30pm and one with a guy named Juan at 4:30pm. Anyways, he accidently went to Juan´s first and taught a great lesson, but then remembered that they didn´t visit Luis, so they ran over there. He had left and so they weren´t able to find him or Franco. He calls me up in Lontue, and the first thing he says is ¨ I¨m Sorry! I´m Sorry! I´ve failed you Anakin (famous star wars quote)¨ I was a little worried thinking that somebody had died haha. I just laughed when he told me what he had done, and told him it was okay. He reminds me a lot of how I was when I first got to Talca.
Today we had a really cool activity. We went to a place called las Siete Tazas, or the seven cups. It´s a national park here, and was gorgeous. It´s 7 different waterfalls that empty into each other, and there´s other waterfalls around it. We spent the whole morning there, and we felt that we were walking through the forests in Lord of the Rings. It was honestly one of the coolest places I’ve been to, and we´ll have to go when we come back to visit, you´ll all love it! I have pics of it and i´lll send that!
I love you all tons and hope you have a greeat week! Thanks for all you do, and I know you´ll all be blessed for your love, service, and just for who you all are.
talk to ya next week,
Tanner