Wow today's been a bit crazy with the emails. I had like 30 people write me randomly, so i've been trying to answer all of them. my hands hurt haha. Sorry to keep you all waiting on the weekly update. This one's going to be hard to write cuz tons of stuff has happened lately. I'll start with the best parts.
On Saturday Evelyn was baptized and on Sunday confirmed with Carlos!!! It was such a spiritual service and everyone ended in tears. This family is super special and it all started with Evelyn's daughter Carola. She joined the church first along with her little sister. She is the one who invited Carlos to get to know thte church and now he's baptized and loving it. Thanks to her example her mother has now been converted having already read the entire book of mormon,and is really happy. We're hoping to get the father into this too, but he'll be a bit harder, but nothing's impossible!! This baptism really was a miracle because her husband, Juan Alberto, about a month ago didn't even allow the missionaries into the home, and now his entire family is baptized and participating strongly in teh church. Carlos is also doing awesome and his in active mother, Orieta, is now coming back as well. She loved the baptism and loves the members here. They've done such a great job working with the new converts and i'm so happy to be able to work in this ward.
On Monday we had a leadership meeting and that's the reason i wasn't able to email before. All the zone leaders met up in Chillan, along with the assistants, and President Humphrey. We discussed what we did well and what we could improve on this upcoming month. Our zone only baptized 9 this last month, but we feel like we could see miracles and baptize 20 in May!!! The zone is really pumped up for that. Also something cool that happened at the leadership council is that Elder May, former assistant and my first zone leader in Curico, came back to Chile...with his fiance, that was awkward for a bunch of girl starved missionaries haahah. Elder May was one of my favorite zone leaders and i love the guy to death. He plays football for BYU so he and I were just talking the whole time about the team and how things are going. They're really pumped for the season and feel they'll do really well.
Afterward we left with the Assistants to go talk to a couple, Francisco and Beatriz, that has been investigating the church for 35 years, yep 35 years. They're formarly Buddhists, but through the work of tons of Elders have obtained a really really strong testimony of Christ and the Restoration of His church. Elder Roberts worked with them for months. The sister recently has gotten really sick and will be going to hospital any day now. they're just waiting for the call and she'll be in the hospital for a month or more. The Bishop and our ward mission leader went over to their house the other night and talked with them about their baptism. they both said that they wanted to wait until after she gets better, but the Bishop (who is freaking inspired and gets the gospel!!) told them that they don't know what will come tomorrow and they need to prepare today. He invited them to be baptized this week, and they accepted!! Miracle. Anyways, the assistants, Elder Pitcher and Keller, went over to do the interview and we thought everything would go perfectly. When we got there they asked us if they had to do it on Sunday or if they could do it on another day. We all stiffened up thinking that they wanted to postpone it again, but they surprised us by saying they wanted to do it on Tuesday. Elder Pitcher and Keller went to work right away and started their interviews. Beatriz passed, but Elder Pitcher talked with Francisco for about 2 hours, and he didn't pass. They've both been drinking coffee, and where Beatriz promised that she'd stop drinking from that day and forever, Francisco said he'd stop but that it would take time. They were both sooo bummed that they couldn't be baptized on that day, and Francisco couldn't understand why he couldn't do it. He had the confusion that baptism is the key to get rid of all bad things in your life, and would help him to stop drinking coffee and doing other things, but didn't understand that one has to be completely repented before their baptism. he was really frustrated and we left their house with a sick feeling in our stomachs cuz the spirit was not there. Elder Roberts and I returned yesterday, and on the way i thought we should stop by a little store and by ECCO, a natural coffee that they drink here made from wheat. We got to the house and immediately Francisco bombarded us with doubts and questions that Satan had been putting in his head all night. The feeling in that house was really weird. We stopped him and asked if we could say a prayer, and immediately the feeing in the room changed. we began to talk calmly and I am certain that we were guided by the spirit to answer all his doubts. The spirit was so strong, and he understood where he was wrong, we could see the spirit humble him. I then remembered the ECCO that we had bought and after reading in D&C 20:37 where Christ says that all those who manifest by their works that they've repented may be received by baptism. I asked him to testify before the Lord that he had repented and make a trade, my coffee for his coffee. He laughed and got right up and gave me his coffee. We called the assistants and explained what had happened and explaining the change that we saw in him, and they approved the baptism. Francisco and Beatriz are going to be baptized today at 7pm!! Talk about a miracle, and it was a testimony to me of the power of the Holy Ghost. We truly feel we were inspired to buy that ECCO and throughout the entire lesson the Lord guided us. it was freaking awesome!!! afterward Elder Roberts left,along with Elder Nelson to go some baptismal interviews, and this week the zone will have more than 7 baptisms!!! We're pumped and feel that May is going to be our month of miracles! The work is awesome, Satan sucks, and 3 vs. 1 will always win (God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost yeah!!)
Pray for our zone, we have good missionaries, but some are struggling. Pray for this sector and that I may know how to put everything in balance to work my sector and guide the zone.
I love you all and love the Lord and His gospel!
Tanner
p.s. i forgot my camera, but i'll send a bunch of pictures of us in white next week!!