This week was pretty eventful as we approach the last week of the transfer. For our last p-day we went to the stake president´s house with all the sister missionaries in our stake and had lunch and played and had a good time! There´s about 15 of us and it´s so fun that there´s so many sister missionaries now cause we can het together and do more than just play soccer like the elders lol This week there were a few quakes, they always seem to be early in the morning while we´re sleeping, they´re tiny but enough to wake me up. So far in Chile I´ve experiences 7, they´re pretty cool as long as no one gets killed. The other day we were walking with our recent convert Javier who´s now the Deacon´s president and one of the young men´s counselors to visit innactive young men when a kids, literally like 12 years old, was in the street cussing and making a huge show and harassing some other kid on the other side of the street with a knife. Everyone was staring at him and it was pretty crazy, Santa Maria is pretty calm cause we´re not in the city, but the area where Hna.Villota and I work in is "flaite" aka ghetto and there´s a lot of drug abuse. It´s funny because I feel perfectly fine walking around there, even at night, but people are constantly asking us, "Aren´t you guys ever scared?" and try to warn us. But I know we´re lead by the spirit of the Lord and his angels are round about us protecting us wherever we go. (But of course we´re still cautious) Friday we had lunch with an Hermana who lives a bit far, but she´s so nice and recently got endowed and has plans to be sealed to her husband. She made black beans and rice (which doesn´t exist in Chile, well the black beans) oh man!!! I almost cried tears of joy, I had never been so happy eating a plate of food. It´s crazy how something so normal like food can bring so many memories and feelings. I was super happy about that! So here´s a cool story, we´ve had an investigator Delfina and her 14 year old daughter Jeimy who we´ve been teaching for 2 months if not more and they read and pray and everything, but it has been a struggle to get them to church. We were at the point where we were gonna drop her because she wouldn´t be able to progress if she didn´t go to church and this was gonna be the last chance lesson. She had never prayed to know if the Book of Mormon or church was true, and so I asked her if she had prayed like we asked the last time we visited her and she said yes! Not only that, she got an answer and felt that she should continue to meet with us and learn and that she wants to go to church and get more into it. We we´re so happy! She opened up completely and told us her whole life story, which was really sad, but she shared that she´s married to another guy that isn´t the guy she lives with now (which is pretty common in Chile cause divorces are complicated) and that her husband wants her to get divorced so they could get married! Luckily, a few weeks ago in district meeting we learned how to handle divorce cases and told her the church had a lawyer that has helped tons of couples get divorced and that we were gonna helo her out and she was so happy! And we were too because she needs to be married in order to be baptized so it was such good news that her partner actually wants to get married cause usually the Chileans don´t want to commit. It was a tender mercy from the Lord! Lastly, Anabella was confirmed this sunday and bore her testimony all on her own and by her own free will, it was so special. She´s so grateful for the gospel in her life and the family the branch is for her. Next week is transfer´s so next time you hear from me who knows where I´ll be, I´ve been in Santa Maria so long it´s hard to imagine myself anywhere else, but I know that I´ll have to move on eventually and have been mentally preparing myself for that moment for a long time now. Anways, love you all!!! Shout out to all my cougs starting out the new semester, live it up, party hard, hit the books, and go to devotional every tuesday :)
Spiritual Cookie: "A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things
never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and
salvation." -Joseph Smith
xoxo,
Hna. Ibarra
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