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Jan 20 (6 days ago)
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WOOOHOOO!!!
I´m still here in Libertad! Well, for at least one more transfer, which
makes me super happy because we are working really hard here to change
the vision of missionary work. Members and missionaries in our ward work
together! Although we aren´t perfect yet we are gradually getting
better and better and animating the members to work with us more.
On Monday
we didn´t do a whole lot, we went to eat lunch with Hermana Jenni. We
then had lessons with Erika and Andrea (a mom and daughter who are
inactive). Then we talked with Sergio, we are helping him a lot to
prepare to receive the priesthood and a calling in the church! Hopefully
all goes well with that.
Tuesday was a good day, we were able to go and do
service in one of the other wards in our zone. We started painting a
little room for one sister. I got to paint a ceiling, and let me tell
you that was not easy.. We did only the base and then had to leave.
After we went to visit Alonso, one of our recent converts, and his mom
Anny. We talked about the importance of the scriptures and obedience and
everything seemed to sink in well, but then they didn´t come to
church.. super sad day. We are also working with one sister who is less
active that lives a little bit up the hill and she has been doing well,
she´s only lacking the Sunday
part.. where they come to church. For some reason that is on of the
hardest thing for less active members is getting up the strength to come
to church on Sunday.
But what I do know, is when the less active members show up I am almost
happier than when our investigators come.. That night we had a lesson
with Jhon, the 24 year old that we found on Sunday and we were able to talk about Joseph Smith. He is super receptive and willing to learn more.
Wednesday we found some new people to teach.
Delfilia is 86 years old, her son is a preacher, but her grandson (son
of the preacher) is a return missionary haha.. We invited her to be
baptized, she accepted, but we´re going to have to work really hard with
her because she has her little sanctuary where she prays with idols and
stuff.. she´s got a lot of faith in the Virgin Mary.. so we´ll be
helping her with that. We also were able to find a new investigator
Manuela. We talked about the Plan of Salvation, but then when we went
back and talked about the restoration she had a lot of ideas in her head
of how it´s impossible to have only one true church on the earth. That
wouldn´t be a huge problem to explain except for that after we explained
she didn´t want to pray. She said that it would be mocking God to ask
him which church was true.. So we hit a rough spot there.. I´m so
thankful that I know that our Heavenly Father not only LISTENS to our
prayers but also ANSWERS our prayers.
Thursday was a slower day but we were able to find a
young man Jose who is really interested in learning more. The only
problem is that we haven´t been able to catch up with him since
Thursday.. but we´re going to try to follow up this week. We also were
able to find a girl Alessandra who had her grandmother recently pass
away.. We were able to answer her questions and give her comfort about
where her grandma is now.
Friday.. our best day for lessons! We had 8.. I
almost can´t believe it! We also found two new investigators. We were
going to visit one sister in our ward and on the way we found a woman
struggling to carry a mountain of things up the stairs on the hill. I
offered to help her and my companion and I helped her up to her house.
There we entered and we able to talk with her. She grew up in Guanaco,
which is a province and she didn´t have very good schooling so we will
have to read with her. We also had another lesson with Jhon and he
accepted a baptismal date for February 8th!
We are really excited because it was pretty much a fluke that we had
our first lesson with him. Then we talked to Jaqueline.. she is the wife
of a less active member and we were able to find her and teach a
lesson. We invited her and her husbad to pray about Joseph Smith.
Saturday was pretty normal during the day and then
at 6 was Henry´s baptismal! His brother baptized him and everything was
super spritirual. He bore his testimony and it was really strong, we
could feel the Spirit so much, which we are really hoping will help his
wife, and we are going to work with her as well. We then had stake
conference evening session. The second counselor in the stake presidency
spoke and then started talking about two sister missionaries who were
in his house for Christmas. He talked about the look on the sister´s
face as she saw her dad for the first time in 6 months as well as her
other family. He told about how she bore her testimony very strongly to
her brothers and other family members. He said although she was speaking
english he could feel the power of her testimony. And of course you all
know me.. I was crying buckets in the back.. because he was talking
about me.. I never thought that he had been watching so closely. I felt
so much fatherly love in that moment.. it was really wonderful. We ended
the night really happy.
Sunday
Jhon came with us to stake conference and we were able to listen to a
member of the Seventy from Bolivia who was awesome! He focused a lot on
the family and how fathers should treat their wives and children. He
shared an experience about how one bishop in his ward invited a five
year old boy to offer the closing prayer in sacrament meeting.
Everything went well until he asked Heavenly Father to let all of the
drunks die. He said this not becaue it was something bad to say, but he
had seen his father who had lots of problems with alcohol and wanted the
problems to stop. We learned that our actions impact the our children
when they are young. We should correct with love and help them to
understand the important principles of the gospel. After conference we
did divisions and Kathleen and I were able to find another new
investigator Victor who was really interested in the Plan of Salvation..
I´ll keep you updated on how that goes. So then we finished off the
week with 36 lessons, 4 more than the goal of the mission.. my companion
and I were super happy.. who am I kidding, we are still happy, and
loving the mission more than I can describe!
Hope you all have a fabulous week and always
remember that you.. yes YOU are a child of God, He loves you, He
literally is your father and wants the best for you. But just like a
good parent He will give blessings when we obey.. He can´t give
blessings to us if we don´t obey, it wouldn´t be just. But.. He will
ALWAYS be waiting with his arms open to receive us in whatever moment...
His love is infinite. I´m so grateful to know that!
Love
Hermana Imbler
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