Alah, Kolob and Joseph Smith in the same sentence

What a crazy week! Let´s talk about some of the cool lessons we had this week. I´ll start with Cristian, the inspiration for this weeks title. He´s a Mapuche (which are the indigenous people of Chile) and has many interesting beliefs, however his beliefs don´t contradict the gospel, in fact, they support the gospel and there are many similarities, but they just have different names for things. He works in an observatory in Antofagasta and spends most of his time contemplating the stars and outer space which is pretty cool. Our first visit with him he explained that he believes that the beings who created us are extra-terrestrial aliens haha (true because Heavenly Father is not from Earth but dwells on another planet that is not terrestrial) and that they have an energy that can be transfered and gives light and life to all things on Earth (also true, this energy is known as the light of Christ) and that they have created many other worlds and not just ours (also true). As we confirmed the truth of his beliefs and explaiond the correct terms for these principles we taught him the plan of Salvation and left him with a Book of Mormon to read and explained it´s ancient origins and how these people were the ancestors of the indigenous people of the America´s including the Mapuche. A couple days later we visited him to teach the restoration and he read the introduction of the Book of Mormon and the chapter we left him Alma 22 about King Lamoni´s father who believes in a great spirit and learns from Ammon that it is God. He brought up that God has many names, like Alah or this great spirit that was mentioned in the Book of Mormon and then, the most incredible part, he said that he believed in Kolob and that he found it in the Book of Mormon. My jaw hit the floor and my companions and I just stared at eachother. "hold up, hold up, hold up...kolob?!", He said "yes, kolob, the beings that created us live on a planet near this star." We were all so taken back, no one knew what to say. "Where did you hear about that?", He said  "in my studies, and actually I found it in your Book of mormon in the back where there´s a dictionary of words (the topical guide) and it agrees with my beliefs, do you teach this to everyone you visit?" we answered "uhhhhh...no not really, but it´s true!" We then taught him the restoration of the gospel and testified of the truth of these things and invited him to be baptized. He said yes and we´re crossing our fingers it´ll happen!

We also found a golden family, David, Carolina & Benjamin their 9 year old son. Everytime you meet investigators with kids we eagerly ask for their age and once they say 8 or above I think every missionary gives a mental "YESSS!!!!" hahaha They aren´t married but planned on it before but things always came up and it never happened. They came to church last sunday and felt super comfortable there and really want to start going to teach their son the importance of God and to strengthen the spiritual aspect of their lives. A goal of mine since the beginning of the mission and that I set for this new year is to marry a couple who´s investigating the church so they can get married and to baptize a family and they are IT! I just know it! This family is so special, and they want to do everything together as a family. They want to read the Book of Mormon together as a family (and have been), pray as a family together to know the Book of Mormon is true and go to church as a family. It is something so unique, I´ve never seen a family of investigators so united and with so much love for eachother, they are just made for the gospel of Jesus Christ! We have an appointment with them today and are going to extend a baptismal date for march.

Latsly, we have Franco who I might´ve mentioned before. He and his parents are Jehova´s Witnesses, but his parents are sepperated, in fact, his mom got excommunicated from the Jehova´s Witnesses so he lives with his dad. He was listening to missionaries last year and was going to be baptized but couldn´t obtain permission from his parents since he was 17. But now he´s 18 and is dating a member of the church and said he loves the hope this gospel brings for an eternity of happiness after this life (the Jehova´s Witnesses believe in really different doctrine and that only a certain # of chosen ones will live with God and be saved...sad). We taught him at the branch president´s house since his parents don´t want missionaries over and it was such a great lesson! We taught him the plan of salvation as well and testified of the truth that all of Gid´s children have the opportunity in this life or the next to inherit the Celestial Kingdom based on their desires and merits in this life. It was so great!

So evern though everyone´s leaving on vacation and our sector is a bit closed-minded the Lord has been guiding us through His spirit to those ready to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ and change their lives forever. This Church is true and this work is true, and I feel so blessed to be anxiously engaged in so great a cause!

Love you all family & friends...´till next week!

Spiritual cookie "This should be our purpose—to persevere and endure, yes, but also to become more spiritually refined as we make our way through sunshine and sorrow. Were it not for challenges to overcome and problems to solve, we would remain much as we are, with little or no progress toward our goal of eternal life." -Pdt Thomas S. Monson

xoxo,
Hna.Ibarra

I hate summer break

So down in the Southern hemisphere we`re in the middle summer, it`s deathloy hot, but kinda nice that I don`t have to wear 20 layers of close and all the fruits in season, yummm!!! (you can`t find fruit here unless it`s in season, not like the states where they have everything pretty much year round) The past couple weeks have been tough because as we go into summer vacation everyone is going out of town, mainly to the south of Chile where it`s super green and beautiful, for several months to be with their family and we`ve lost literally half of our investigators for one reason or another, so we are again in the process of finding newbies to teach. We we`re able to contact 2 AWESOME referals and I have so much faithi in them! One is Franco, he`s 18 and used to be Jehova Witness. He wanted to be baptized when he was 17 but his parents said no, but now is dating a member and now that he`s not underage he really wants to do it! He knows the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet and we gave him a baptismal date for February. The other referal we got her name was Betty. She lives in an apartment building that`s closed with a gate so unless you have a key you can`t get in, but turns out everytime we walked by it was open! We went twice with no luck, finally yesterday we were gonna go for the last time before considering her as contacted since we could never find her and she was there! She answered the door with her partner and they let us in, not only that, but they have so many qualities we look for in people who are receptive and ready to hear the gospel: they`re newlyweds (rare to find married people in Chile and if they`re not married they can`t be baptized unless they do or move out to different apts), she`s expecting their 1st child, they don`t profess any religion but believe in God, and Alejandro her husband just lost his father a week ago! WOW! It was just so amazing to see all those qualities in one person and they loved our visit and want to learn more. Lastly, we found some investigators saturday, a man we contacted on the street. We taught them the restoration of the gospel and Pedro the father had really good questions. His partner (they`re not married) Carolina said she believes in God but doesn`t really do anything to show her faith so we invited her to pray and for them to join us at church the next day. Sunday came and we called them 15 minutes before sacrament meeting started, they said they were eating breakfast but that they`d get dressed and come!...and they did! They said they felt super comfortable at church and are looking forward to our visit this week! Seriously guys, the Lord will put people in your path who are ready to listen to the truth, who are looking for it, who need that spiritual aspect in their life-the hardest part is finding them, we need to be diligent, suffer with patience, be humble, and the Lord will reward us accordingly and guide us to His chosen vessels.

Another cool thing that happened this week is that IT RAINED! It`s a very rare occurence in Santiago cause they`re in a drought. I`ve actually been in more earthquakes than rain showers, it`s only rained like 4-5 times in the 11 months I`ve been here. Also, we did exchanges and I was able to reunite with my baby girl Hna.Broadhead! We were so happy to be companions aain even if it was for a day! She`s like my twin when she teaches and does contacts in the street, it`s funny to see how many habbits and things you pick up from your trainer. 

Lastly, today we went to Patronato which is where they have all the clothing and shoe stores and I ran into my first convert Manuel Ortiz from Til-Til!!! It was so crazy!!! I was so happy to see him, I almost cried! We took a picture because the picture we took together the day we got baptized got erasewd cause my old camera was on crack and would randomly erase pictures and I was so sad. It was a nice tender mercy from the Lord :)

Love you all!!! 

Spiritual cookie: "Let us have the courage to defy the consensus, the courage to stand for principle. Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God's approval. Courage becomes a living and an attractive virtue when it is regarded not only as a willingness to die manfully, but as the determination to live decently. A moral coward is one who is afraid to do what he thinks is right because others will disapprove or laugh. Remember that all men have their fears, but those who face their fears with dignity have courage as well."

xoxo,

Hna.Ibarra

Another 6 weeks in Nueva Renca!

So Hna.Ireland and Hna.Flores and I are staing another transfer, yay! Every transfer goes by faster and faster I seriously don´t get it! It´s funny cause on the mission you don´t really think of time as months or days but as transfers aka 6 week periods, and I only have 5 more left, eeeeeeekkkk!!!! The world needs to rotate a little slower!

To wrap up the transfer we did our last exchanges with the sisters from Curacavi my foremer sector. It was great cause I got to ask them about the members and my converts and former investigators we had and how they´re doing and give them advice to help them keep progressing in the gospel. Something super crazy and funny that happened this week is that one night while we were walking home at the end of the day we turned a corner to the main road and the houses here have walls and gates all around them and as we turned the corner there was a man (not a teenager, not a child...A MAN) crouching ontop of the wall surrounding this house and he hissed at us! I looked up and totally freaked out and he said something in a language that I don´t think exists and we booked it across the street to the other side. It was sooooo funny but also kinda creepy, a lot of sketchy people around here, haha! This week was Hna.Flores´s birthday so we celebrated by eating a lot of cake and candy thanks to the members and random people on the street who gave us free food cause we´d tell them it was our companions birthday! So my plan is to keep my b-day on the DL and not tell anyone cause that will most certainly ruin all my diet and excerising these past months. Besides that nothing crazy has happenned this week and just pumped to do exchanges with my new group of sisters and to work my head off finding the amazing people the Lord has prepared to accept this gospel. In this area we work a lot with less-actives, it´s totally different than how I´ve had to work in other sectors, but I´m learning so many new things and love rekindling the fire that was once their testimony with my own flame.

I guess today I want to take more time to write not so much about what has happenned this week but about my thoughts. This transfer I´ll have a year in the mission, I know I still have a lot of time left but in retrospect I know I really don´t and that these months are going to fly by. Recently I´ve had to fill out scholarship applications, find housing for this fall, making goals for this new year and having to think about my future after the mission and it is starting to terrify me a little, really it´s a scary thought, to think I´m going to go back to "reality" soon. But I want to speak a little here to those who have already returned from the mission, that this life- the life in the mission, is reality. THIS is real life, that is as real as life gets, a life where you are 100% dedicated to the Lord, apart from the world and it´s many distractions, a life where 24/7 you are talking to real people with real problems and trying to help them by testifying of the reality of this restored gospel and the Savior´s atonement. When you serve a mission you do this forever, you have to serve the Lord forever, you have to love others forever, you have to share the gospel forever, you have to consecrate all that you have and all that you are for this great cause, not just for 18-24 months, but for a life time. The mission is the MTC of life and what you learn here you have to take with you and live the mission always. And really I´m scared to have to go back and live in "the world" and be exposed to wordly things and have temptations and people trying to pressure or influence me to take other paths. Living the gospel is so easy as a missionary, you have a time to pray, a time to study the scriptures, you witness miracles and blessings daily, you have the companionship of the holy ghost constantly to guide you, and you always know what to do and when to do it. You have EVERY 30 minutes of your life planned for 18-24 months WITH back-up plans, goals, and how your going to accomplish them. My greatest fear right now, greater than getting married (some of ya´ll know how much that intimidates me) is that I´ll come home and not be able to keep up with it all, that I´ll slowly revert and slum back to the world I came from, the world I once knew, the world I once felt comfortable in, that I´ll go back to speaking the language and following the customs of the world I was once a part of. My greatest goal this new year is that I can be a Returned Missionary and not an Ex Missionary. Here´s the difference: the ex missionary has forgotten who he once was, what he has learned on the mission, what he expected of his investigators which is exactly what the Lord expects of each one of us, he is no longer the obedient, diligent, honest, virtuous, chaste, miracle-seeking, faith-building man or woman he was, but has once again conformed to the ways of the world. But the return missionary never forgets, never regrets, never justifies, never is the person he was before the time he consecrated his all to the Lord, but continues to lay all things upon the altar of sacrafice and to qualify daily for the companionship of the holy ghost and to receive the promised blessings of the covenants he made in the holy temple. May you never be an ex missionary is my word of advice to all of you who have served. Have a great week :)

"Never look back. Look ahead at what we still have to do." Elder Edward Dube

Hna.Gladys Ibarra 

Prospero año y felicidad!

Man what a hectic week, when is it ever not?! This week now that we finally have our stable companion in our trio who is NOT leaving we`ve had to finish doing our exchanges so we had to do 3 this week and 3 more this last week of the transfer. With all this mayhem the transfer went by super fast and it just keeps freaking me out more and more how time goes by- like 2014?! When did that happen?! Happy New Years to all!!! We had our normal missionary schedule and had to be in at 10 p.m. as usual cause it`s dangerous. So after praying and planning we just sat around talking and looking at the clock waiting for it to be midnight. That`s when I oh-so sneakidly (idk if that`s a real word?) pulled out a can of silly string and attacked  my companions with the spray! They all screamed and went running, ha ha, it was so fun! But compared to last years pitbull concert it`s gonna be a little hard to beat, I have faith next year will be better. 

So 2 miracles that happened this week, First on the day that was prognosticated (probably not real either) to be the hottest this year- 37 degrees celcius there just so happened to be a forest fire a couple of towns over and thousand of acres were burnt and completely covered the sky with smoke and it was raining ash, sounds kinda scary, but really it covered the sun and made it a lot less hot so it was a blessing in disguise and I know many prayers were answered including our mission president who always prays for us after he watches the weather reports, haha, bless his heart. Miracle number 2 was that I contacted a lady on the street, I had talked to her before but she wasn`t interested much but I thought I`d give it a second try, she let us over and turns out her son is an inactive member who is going through a lot of trials right now, he`s sepperated from his wife but she lives across the street so it`s kinda complicated, but he said that earlier he had felt a weird feeling inside, like something pricked his heart, 5 minutes later we arrived. He felt it was a sign from God and wants to start over and become active again so we we`re super excited to have talked to his mom! That`s the thing that`s so great about the mission, you see miracles everyday, and if you`re not seeing the miracles then you need to ask yourself why. Anyways, love you all family and friends! Hope you`ve set some awesome goals for this new year, here are a couple of mine:

-Complete my mission in one piece! haha

-Finish reading the Old Testament

-Marry an investigator so he/she can be baptized

-Teach and baptize a family

-Volunteer at the MTC

-Get accepted to the Nursing program

-Save money so I can buy a car

-Go hang-gliding

it`s weird because I have mission goals mixed with real life goals, I can`t believe I`ll be home this year! Aaaahhhh!!!!

p.s. my birthday is the 28th! Send me dear elders :)