Sorry for not having time to write last week. I wrote a pretty lengthy email to President and wasnt able to write anyone else! My birthday was fun. We just went with our zone to Versalles and played indoor futból with everyone. The elders had their pirates of the carribean soundtrack going and it just made me laugh because they get so serious when they play. It was fun! I baked two big cakes for Elder Leavitt and Davis because it was also their birthday. Elder Davis´s was a vanilla cake with whip cream that I made and peaches on top and in the middle. And a delicious chocolate three layer cake with dulce de leche and chocolate on top. I was pretty proud of my little inventions they came out really good! IM 22 YEARS OLD! wish all of the family could have been there but its ok, the mission is a good place to be. Made my birthday wish short and simple but its a good one! This week the weather has been hot and then cold and rainy so we are still having a bipolar climate here. My companion really started to open up to me this week. It was a pleasant surprise and I was so glad that we were able to finally speak a little more. Our district meeting went a little rough, we are supposed to get to a store and fax the baptism registers to the offices the next morning and everywhere that we went to didnt have their fax working properly and the only one that worked didnt have ink. We had to travel all over our area to find a way to send it and once it went through we were thirty minutes late for our district meeting! I was so frustrated getting there because we accidently got off the wrong stop and ended up having to walk another 10 quadras to the church. Ofcourse President and his wife were there waiting for our meeting to start and I felt so bad for all of our bad luck. I was glad President came because he helped us with our paperwork and checklists that we have filed and told us how to organize everything better. He cleared alot of my questions up and we all wanted to do better afterwards. We ate lunch that was cooked for us by this guy in the church who knew Elder Hansen and Griffeth were leaving so he spent his time making pizzas all day for us to have lunch. we said our goodbyes and wished Elder Griffeth good luck heading back home to Georgia and went to work. I was really getting the feel for Caballito this week. Things were just evolving beautifully and the work was rolling. We were finding people everyday that had sincere desire to learn and progress. We ended up praying for a baptism for the end of the week but then when we met him, (esteban 13 yrs.) and he wanted to be baptized that sunday but I felt the spirit tell me that we should take our time for one more week and teach him patiently and get to know him better. Im glad that we decided that because our lessons with him and his family have been extremely spiritual. and we have really upped our numbers of lessons with members present to insure our investigators with more than our two testimonies. Members make such a difference! Esteban will be baptized this saturday at 3:30 pm. Im so happy for him and so is the Bishop, he was a reference from the bishop and they are good friends that family and him. Also we have seen success in many other people so greatly prepared to hear our message. The sister of esteban wants to be baptized by the time she turns 8 in november, a couple that have been assisting the church long enough now have decided to get married next month to be baptized. and when we were waiting for collectivo this sweet older woman asked if I could change her for coins. I said that im sorry but I only have three coins but as I kept speaking with her she looked at my tag with my name above Jesucristo, and she smiled. I handed her the three coins for her and two grandkids and we had a very great conversation about our beliefs. ironically shes been looking for truth and a church that brings her family peace. We rode on the collectivo and taught her lesson 1 about the restauration of the gospel. Then we got off at the wrong stop with her and since we had an appt. soon I offered to pay for our taxi and explained... " our church is not just a good group to bring peace for the end of the week or like any other church. Our church is distinct. Its beautiful and the doctrine is very clear. We believe in revelation, we believe in our prophet Thomas S. Monson and support him and his 12 apostles and we contain the priesthood power to perform sacred ordinances in the way of the Lord. Our focus is that families can be eternal forever and live with our savior and heavenly father in pure happiness. We are all a family and take good care of eachother. We are missionaries of jesuschrist who have come here to share this wonderful message and to be examples of him in good works." I explained, " if you really sincerely want to know that this is true then you can personally know for yourself and pray to God, your father that will tell you in your heart that it is true. I have also recieved this answer countless times in my life and I know he wants you to feel the truth of it too. And when he answers you and you really feel this message is true, will you follow the example of jesuschrist and be baptized by someone who holds the priesthood authority of God?" the three of them pondered and replied yes we would. Sunday morning we had a meeting early with the ward counselors and the bishop and it went so well. The feeling of love that I felt this Sunday for Caballito was unexplainable. We met with the bishop and He explained how he is very happy with us and with all of our hard work and success. He humbly bore his testimonio of how he is striving to be better in all things, as a father, a bishop, a friend, and that started a flame in my heart that was beating like crazy until I couldnt resist sharing my testimony with our ward either. I walked up with Melani who we baptized when I first got here and wanted to share her testimony too. I let the spirit guide me, it wasnt my words that I spoke. I felt tears well up in my eyes as I expressed how much ive struggled, how much Ive learned and how far ive come in life and in my mission. I expressed how grateful I am for my family, my friends, those that love and support me and the ward of Caballito who has become family to us! I felt their approval and some of them also cried. I know they felt the spirit touch them personally and thats all I desired. Talking with everyone we decided not to go to the despedida because we had people to teach and so we went to work. In the end of our lesson one of the assistants to president called me... "hola hermana eso es Elder Bond, como esta hermana?" I let him know that we were in a lesson and we would call after. I had NO CLUE he would say... "we are going to have some changes in your companionship, President has recieved revelation through much thoughtful prayer that you are needed in the south at this time. and you will be companions with hermana gonzales. so you need to get home and pack to be at the offices at 11:00 in the morning." Walking our member home that was with us, he explained how the Lord calls us where he needs us most and how change is forever constant in the mission and in life but we will be fine when we trust in him. We said goodbye to our mission leader and some other friends from our ward and they wished me luck. In the morning they dropped off a scarf and a hat to take to the south because they know I didnt bring warm clothes for the south and that was so sweet!
Packing until 5 a.m. and then sleeping two hours to get up and pack some more and leave half of my stuff behind in boxes to be prepared for the plane south. Ofcourse the taxi driver wanted to take his own route and not listen to my directions and he got us lost this morning for almost two hours. I was so frustrated but remained calm and told the Elders waiting we were on our way. Every possible route that he could have taken that was no where near our destination he took. Finally arriving we unloaded our bags and we traded companions and loaded all of the ppl going south in the van with our bags. My comp headed out with hna Keele, and I met Hna. malhue who was all smiles and happy as can be which is fresh new in the mission of 6 weeks. Shes finishing her training with me and hna. gonzalez in the south and she is one of the happiest and sweetest people ive ever met. im very excited to work with her. They are both from chile and understand a little english so we are going to do awesome together. Packages and letters will not be getting to me for like four months now just so you know. well our flight leaves at 6 tonight and its a 4 hr flight, im resposible for guiding these two missionaries with me as we travel and they are "starving" poor things so im going to sign off and say WHOOOO the south! its an adventure! lots of mountains, lots of wind, cold and close to antartica, im going to freeze! ill let you know next week how it is! I LOVE YOUUUUUU all!!! pray for our success!
love hermana gillum
hermana ashley gillum
No comments:
Post a Comment