Letter #4 plus pictures!

Bueno.. Entonce..

Gracias por todo apoyo! I love each of you for the comfort and encouragement you send me.  I will type as fast as I can to fill you in on all the details. Ill tell you what has happened by the days,

Last Martes (tues.) We caught a remise (private ride) to head to capital to visit Sister Ottoneli. Me and my overly anxious desire to share the gospel with everyone starts bearing my testimony to the driver about Prophets and answering his responses as my trainer helps fill in the blanks and it was so funny what he said. After like an hour of explaining with all the Esañol I can muster up he finally tells us that hes worked for the Church driving missionaries for ten years and he appreciated the effort but he could probably go knock on a door and give the lessons himself because hes heard it all before haha. I ask him, well then... whats stopping you... why dont you test it out and find out for yourself that it is true? haha his response was in a joking manner but her said, well chica, all of my generations have been catholic and even if your church is the true restored church on the earth it wouldnt matter to me because my family would kill me if they found out I changed. haha. He said if God told me your church was true Id have to work something out with him and tell him that we will have to talk about that when I get up there haha. So we tried, but hes happy and has a family and isnt interested in hearing anything or doing anything else about his life. He was a great guy. Muy amable pero no tenia interasado. After speaking with sister Ottoneli we started to head back to our area and it just got to be a very overwhelming day. A lot of things went so wrong and I felt pretty alone out here in this big city with no one speaking my native language, no family, no friends, just me and nothing I could do about it. I tried praying and I didnt recieve peace of mind or anything. It was just all together a rough day. So my loving comps, (also frustrated) put their arms around me and we all brought up examples of the scriptures to help with the situation. My trainer is awesome, she made sure to explain a few of her profound experiences here in the mission where so too felt uncomforted and lost. She reminded me that blessing always come, sometimes soon, a veces late, but they always come and our prayers are always answered, but not always in the way we expect. It seems that the blessings and principles of the gospel are taught to you in life over and over and over again in order to remember that its neccesary to endure til the end. My comps helped me a lot and the only cure for hard times is WORK. So we hoped for some excitement to distract us from our cancelled appointments and suddenly we watched the white clouds turn pitch black and start pouring heavy rain. I asked for excitement and literally within ten minutes thats exactly what we got. We went from being ridiculously hot to absolutely soaked and cold. The lightning made it even more interesting. as we were running house to house to be let in somewhere I burst out in laughter and looked up at the sky and said... THANK YOUUU!!! hahaha he answered my prayer and I was grateful for his way of answering it. Being soaked led us to a sweet hearted little old lady classic behive hair and all in her little tiny old fashioned home. She felt so bad for us and told us to come in. I felt the spirit prompting me to talk about the afterlife and the grand plan that Dios has for us all and I didnt know why. I just followed the spirit. It wasnt until we were about to leave that I found out she lives alone and is terrified of death. She is so paranoid to die because she thought there was nothing left and she had to take medicine and see a doctor for it! She loves us and we love her and we will be visiting here again this week.

last THURSDAY- I woke up and made my comps frenchtoast with vanilla icecream and Dulce De Leche for breakfast. We eat some pretty plain stuff so that was a specialty for once haha. FRIDAY diciembre 3rd- It was yet another tough time for me. I was struggling. I thought to myself okay NOW I see why missions are hard haha. I had to talk with the President and see what he thought I should know and he gave me many words of wisdom. I will paraphrase the things he told me... ¨I want you to understand what you are feeling is normal, you are a missionary far from home. You have been through so many tough things and out here in the mission field you now have to face them. There are some things that only the Savior and time can heal. I need one of your companions to come help me so for now I have to put a cast on a broken leg and ill have you come to my office Tuesday(tomorrow) and we will read some scriptures and you can talk with my wife. She loves you and she will help you with whatever you need. We will get through these rough patches so just put a ray of hope out there until Tuesday okay. What you are going through is painful and frustrating at times but you are growing into who your Father in Heaven wants you to be and you are growing at a rapid rate as a missionary. Its not what you are used to but its neccesary. I have a sacred calling to know the needs of my missionaries and I know that you need to be here and you are called of God. He has given you the power to be here and he will help you continue to carry out this work with your talents. We will see you tuesday.¨ Spoken like a wise father that I have always wanted. What a blessing our Mission President is to us! The Gulbrandsens really have so much love for everyone and its a huge blessing to be a part of this work with their protection and council. We said our goodbyes to Hna. Keele whom we shall be missing but she is headed to capital and will have many great experiences there. Me and Hna. Allen are doing good. Weve become much closer now and ive learned a lot from her. So her and I headed over to the Milla (mee-sha) Familia. I have to tell you how we came to teach them. So when we were sick with fevers in the heat walking around we sat down on this corner with some shade and started checking out the map for what we should do next. I had this prompting to say, ¨I feel like Heavenly Father is saying to us: HELLOOO open your eyes, get up and go talk with the opportunities Im putting in your path, like that 20 year old over there washing his car!¨ so my comps laughed and said ok if thats what you feel, then lets go... Entonce, His name is Lucas and his family is incredible! They all agreed to be baptized on Chirstmas DAY!!!!! The parents, Jorge, Rosa, and the children Vanessa, Lucas, Matias, and the youngest but she is four so she will have to wait a few years haha. We can see the dad being like a bishop one day they are so smart and so loving and prepared for this gospel. When we first met them we asked them to read 3 nefi when Christ visited the americas after he was ressurrected. They all agreed that they would. We werent sure if they really would or not but we had high hopes. So after we said our goodbyes to Hna. Keele, we headed over there and sure enough they read together and Matias recited the whole story back to us with excitement. Our faces lit up! We knew that we needed to now watch the last chapter of the testaments to give them a better visual of what they read. They all were in tears and very emotional over the segment. They expressed their love for the Savior and thanks for what we have taught them. They were yet also ANOTHER answer to my prayers. On SABADO (sat) Hna. Allen and I woke up and excercised and stretched. We headed to our appointments then back home for lunch since nobody was able to make us lunch all week. We are running so low on food i think we have eggs and bread! haha We went to a baptism at the other church for Elder Chanca and E. Leon. They were so excited! We watched a really old lady become brand spankin NEW! haha LUCKY! She was so cute! I led the music and we watched the 1st vision in Español. I love Español! Its still difficult to not know as much as my trainer but that will take a lot of time. she is very patient and helpful. We taught some really stubborn Catholics that said they will never change their beliefs but they admitted to not reading the bible haha they said that they rather watch tv than read and they dont really care about the afterlife! we were like what? haha Its difficult to grasp some peoples priorities especially when they dont make any sense and you care so much about them and their progress. and YESTERDAY Domingo (Sun.) Diciembre 5th, Buen dia! The morning was not as good because It felt like I had food poisioning. I have been so sick on and off from the culture shock and the different water. Im not sure if we remembered to put bleach drops in our last jug or not. Later on in the day we had a lot of progress! We went to church and heard wonderful testimonies. It meant so much to me when Mariana sat by me in all our meetings and she says in English, ¨I want to try English more so I can spek mor wit you¨ I dont know why but I felt so much love in her broken english that she cared so much to communicate with me in my own language. It was awesome. I got to see the other side of the spectrum and it meant a lot to me that she cares. we saw the sacrament meeting much more filled up but still... our two families with bapt. fechas (dates) were no where to be found. we called them and the Milla familia said they were going to a birthday instead. Which means... they can no longer be baptized on Christmas. They have to attend church 3 times first to make sure its what they want and if I knew that at that moment, I would have gone to their house and got them dressed and carried them on my own back to church! haha I was so sad to think dang, that would have been the best Christmas ever! But no matter what happens.. we are going to never give up hope we will keep praying unceasingly and do all that we can so see everyone progress here. The rest of our day consisted of knocking on many doors, ringing bells and clapping outside the gates to speak with all the people we could find. we found many funny people. Many with really hilarious excuses for why they couldnt hear our message and many that just made us laugh and many that set appointments with us. We went to Rocio´s and spoke with her and her mother Maria, (with the kids that we love) and they yelled at the children the whole time and complained about how mad at God they are. These are ppl that KNOW the Book of Mormon is true but no longer want to follow their commitments and get baptized. Its been a long process with them. My trainer explained to them ¨The answer and the peace of mind for all your problems is right in front of your face, you have felt it, you know its true, and yet you wont take the help you are given. Its like you want to be unhappy because you are not willing to do anything about it and you blame God for your brother being sick, but you dont recognize all your many other blessings!¨ we hugged and cried with them and hope that it has made a difference but we will see. On our way home I kicked an orange that rolled into the street and rolled all the way down this hill. I said, ¨watch, it will suddenly stop at our next investigators¨sure enough it stopped at this huge house and very cute soon to be married couple feeding their dogs! Its very rare to find a couple with NO children yet that plan to get married, and very rare to see such big houses in this area. They were very nice and she spoke some english. We are going to teach them this week! This work is amazing, I learn so many things out here in the mission field. I think about my old life back home and how my friends are all doing and whats new and very quickly it all leaves my mind and I am more focused on the welfare of all these people. I cant see how anyone can be so caught up in things of this world when so many people are suffering with hardly any food and clean water. Kids need shoes and socks and even a simple bath while people in the United States are so concerned about getting their children the latest brands of clothing and fancy cars. The superficial vainities that I too used to be caught up in and realize is such a waste of time. Im so grateful for this experience. Im humbled by it all. Im grateful to be out here doing something about it. Showing them the way to lasting peace. The way back home to their Father in Heaven to live with their families for time and all eternity. This is a sacrafice but a small price to pay considering what my Savior has paid for me. I love you all and I pray that this Christmas you take time to focus on the shimmering light of Christ. Count all the tender mercies he sprinkles in your path. You will come to recognize more closely, they are all around you. Until next time, as the Argentines say, Chao mi corazon, mi amor, chao mi vida, haha I love these people!

 

Con Amor, Hermana Gillum!