Great Week

Date: October 18, 2012
Area: Santiago, Chile
Companion: Elder Barnes

Hey Familia,

It always surprises me how many blessings you are all receiving right now! I love reading about what is going on with everyone, it is so great to hear. I am so greatful to Heavenly Father for everythign that he is doing for our family.

But this week was a great week. There really wasn´t much time this week to work because of the General Conference and also because we had a Zone conference last week that went from 830 in the morning to 5 at night! It was long but very good. I love President Essig, he is such a great man and very inspired. He is very humble and he really reminds me a lot of Brother Walton.

We had a miracle this week with one of our investigators, Cristobal. He is 9 and he committed to baptism this last week and is extremely excited about getting baptized. What I love about our relationship with Cristobal is how we were able to get to know him. I see the influence of the spirit in how we were able to meet him and I like knowing that we were led to him by the spirit. It is like President Monson said in his talk, that if we try to do what is right then the spirit will guide us and we will be able to be instruments in the hands of the Lord. But we met him through a member who gave us the reference. The member is good friends with the family and the Mom of this family is a less active member. But we passed by the house a few weeks ago to contact the reference and the Dad came out. He was nice and seemed receptive but he told us that his wife and kids weren´t home and if we could come back another day. We said ok, we´ll come back another day. We left and were working in another part for like a half hour when the phone rings and the member who originally gave us the reference told us to go back to Cristobal, that they wanted us to come back. We were excited and hurried over and the Mom, Pamela, told us that she has had desires to go back to church for a while and that that same day her kids Cristobal (9) and Valentina (7) had been talking about going to church too and when we had passed by that day when all this talk of the church was going on she took it as a sign that it was time to go back. So she called us over and they committed to go to church and are very excited about everything. It is a great blessing for us and now Cristobal is going to be baptized this coming Sunday!

We have been a little bit low on people we have had to teach recently but these last two weeks we have been really blessed with some good people to teach. Really we have only been able to teach once or twice with most of them so I´ll keep you all posted on how their progress goes. It is really all about that, Progress, and it is so great to see that when it happens in our own lives or in the lives of others. I think that is what I most love about the mission, is that I can see that progress in others and in my own life. And there has certainly been progress in the lives of every one of you at home. Its great to hear and see.

Someone asked about cambios(changes) and I just realized today that changes are next thursday!! Normally they would be on a sunday but it looks like they are going to be a few days early because of the conference we are going to have with Elder Bednar!! That will be in less than 2 weeks! I´m pumped. He is a very gifted speaker. He really teaches when he speaks. I loved his talk on conversion, but I want to read it again, I didn´t get everything.

But I LOVED Conference. It is sad to think about all the conferences that I missed growing up, everything that I let go in one ear and out the other. Sometimes it didn´t enter in at all. Sometimes I was on another planet, dreaming. haha. But I guess that is all part of the experience here on Earth, is to have many different experiences through which we can look back and learn something. Without every one of the experiences that I have had in the past, being good or bad, I wouldn´t be the person that I am today. Without the trials and problems today, I would never grow into the person that I will be tomorrow. Its all part of the experience, as Kathy would say!

Lindy, I will bring you back some Chilean laundry detergent in powder, don´t worry. Just remind me before I come home. I ate some delicious food the other day. It was Peruano though. And Blanca is doing FANTASTIC: She came to all 4 sessions of conference and LOVED it. She is going to be the RS president in like 2 years. I´m calling it right now.

Before I forget, Spencer, You should read Our Search For Happiness by Elder Ballard, it is great. Its on the missionary library list.

Thanks for the letters, Dad! Its great to hear from you. You always make me laugh. I remember the days of the eye rolls =) But we watched confereence in the stake center. Basically to most Chileans, they must think that conference is only good Sunday Morning because almost nobody comes to the other sessions which is really sad. But It was a great conference! I loved the talks and it passed by WAAAY TOO FAST!!!! It was like we sat down for the start of a sesssion and right away we were already standing up to leave, too fast. But We had to listen to it in spanish this time, unfortunately. I like it more in English with the real voices and everything. But Elder Scott is t he man and he does his own voice recording in spanish so it is really his voice=)

I had many talks that I really liked. The one by Elder Bowen was awesome about the plan of salvation. I felt great during that talk, I really felt the spirit. It is so wonderful and perfect the plan that God created for us.

I loved the talk by Elder Holland, there is an MTC address that he gave in January 2011 that is very similar but even more powerful. He is a wonderful speaker and really speaks with power.

I liked the idea from Pres Eyring to become like a child and come unto Christ,

And I loved the talk from President Monson Sunday morning about being servants of christ and tools in his hands. If we just listen and try we can be those instruments in the hands of the Lord. There really aren´t coincedences in this life.

But I don´t have time for more. I love you all and this week is going to fly by, time in general is flying. Love you lots!

Elder Jaromy Holland