Earthquakes & Political Unrest

Well there´s been a lot of quakes these past coule days, everyone´s freaking out that there´s gonna be another big earthquake like the one in 2010, but I got my emergency backpack and not too worried about it. Whenever it shakes it´s kinda fun actually, I enjoy them! haha!

So we had out dear Chapina Hna.Pascual this week, but such is the mission that in seconds everything can change completely! There´s been some political problems in Venezuela and they had to take out ALL foreign missionaries and close the country to outsiders, so 7 missionaries from Bolivia came to our mission, 2 of which were sisters, 1 of which is with us in a trio- Hna.Quispe! We had to take Hna.Pascual to the office this morning and she´ll be with other sisters in our group so we´ll still see her when we do exchanges, yay! So yet again, another new companion, I officially ran out of space on my Preach My Gospel cover to put more names, the mission is so crazy, and even more when you have some kind of leadership position!

This week we saw many tender mercies. We were teaching Jenny, a contact who we found watering her lawn and just had a baby and wants her daughter to be raised with a certain faith in God. She´s been reading the Book of Mormon and feels really comfortable with us, she says we have something different, and this sunday she came to church with her husband and liked it! While we were teaching her this week she shared a special experience with us. Her dad died when she was young, and she said that one day she was coming back from the cementary and visiting her dad´s grave when she was at the bus stop and saw a man that looked just like her dad but older. She said this man was talking to her and mentioned he couldn´t read and handed her a mormon pamphlet and said it would be of better use to her. She said she never looked into it further until the day she met us and that she feels it was a sign from her deceased father. It is so amazing how the Lord prepares people to learn and accept the Gospel in small ways. SOmetimes as missionaries we hand out cards and pamphlets with little hope of it going anywhere else besides the trash (sometimes I see my cards on the sidewalks on the ground, it´s a lil heart breaking), but you never know how or where the seed will grow once you plant it, and it really doesn´t matter, our job is just to plant it.

We also taught a less-active this week, we´ll call him Julio. We were walking home one night when Hna.Ireland had the impresion to look behind us, when she did, she saw Julio walking and contacted him. Turns out he was a member and we set an appointment to visit him. On our first visit he mentioned he´s been inactive for over 7 years, he´s an RM and served as a stake counselor even. He mentioned he got divorced and now lives in Renca and has a polola (girlfriend). I knew something terrible must of happened but it´s not my business to pry on peoples personal lives and in the right time they will pour out their hearts so we can better teach them according to their needs. Well our second visit with him that´s exactly what happened. He gave us his whole sad life story of how he was so busy as a counselor and in stake meetings and committees and taking people to church and visiting other wards he saw his children grow up from the stand. He had little time for his family and this caused great damadge to his marital life which ended in his wife becoming inactive and them getting divorced and with time he became inactive as well. He expressed with such sorrow how he pleaded for the members to help his family, to visit his wife, to visit him, and no one went. He mentioned how he moved and lived a solitary life full of saddness. He´d see his friends from church with their families and weep bitterly daily as he reflected upon his circumstances. He said the night he saw us walking he begged in his head "talk to me!" and that was when Hna.Ireland turned around. He said he didn´t know when he was gonna go back to church, he has to fix a lot of things in his life, but "don´t feel like you´re wasting your time with me" he pleaded. The spirit was so strong in this lesson, my heart was full of compassion and I let a couple tears slip as I heard his story. I was filled with that perfect and pure love of Christ and was able to testify to him of that love, that God´s love is always there for us even when we turn the other way, and that I could literally feel how much the Lord loved him, and I did feel it, and it was incredible to be an instrument in the Lord´s hand to transmit that love to one of his wayward children.

Another special lesson we had this week was with Pedro and Andrea. I contacted her on the street on her way home and she let us in. Her husband Pedro wasn´t really at all interested since he had studied to be a catholic priest. The second time we visited he was more involved in the lesson but still had his ideas and they just weren´t listening and didn´t get it and there were so many distractions. We went a 3rd time but his wife wasn´t home so he told us to come over next thursday. Upon that visit they had forgotten we were copming but let us in. They said they were very stressed and down and had forgotten we were coming, but this time the Lord had prepared them, they were humble and teachable and finally they listened. We taught the Restoration for the 3rd time, but this time it was different, the spirit was felt, they understood the message and had the desire to learn if it was true. They said God sent us in a critical time because they weren´t feeling so great and that our visit had left a special spirit in their home and they felt better! We left them with a Book of Mormon and have an appointment this week to see how it went.

There are so many other stories, so many miracles that occur daily, if only I had time to write them all down!!! But I am just so grateful to be able to witness these blessings and to just serve the Lord and His chidren in Chile. I also want to give a shout out to my 2 best friends Katie Bell who got her mission call to Paris, France and Nathaly Calevoso who is starting her mission papers! WOW! I never EVER imagined that they would decide to serve a mission!!! There are so many amazing people waiting to meet and hear the gospel from YOU girls! You are going to do such incredible things wherever you serve and I´m so excited for you girls although sad I´ll be home once you go and won´t be serving full time I´m determined to be a member missionary afterwards!!!

Spiritual cookie: "All that is not eternal is too short, and all that is not infinite too small."

xoxo,
Hna.Ibarra