Week 68: Adventures of the girl from Santiago

Dear Family,

What a crazy week its been here in chile. I am learning a lot about my self and my savior. I have encounterd a few people this week that have tried to bring down my spirit in this great work and also my work ethic, but I guess that my testimony of this church, the book of mormon and the love of my savior and father in heaven have blocked my view of these people.

As life progresses we will see a lot more damaging events hit our lives. We may have heart breaks, trials, addictions, etc. That cause us to look around and panic for a second but I feel like im learning through trial and error that as problems become visible we must look at it with eyes faith and a hopeful heart. Any trial can be overcome through the faith and hope in our savior Jesus Christ.


Service On A Saturday:

This week we had planned to do a service for the inactive member. Sister luz. She is that nicest lady ever. She was baptized 10 years ago but never went to church. We found her and now are helping her son learn of the truth. His name is nicolas.

Anyways..... We showed up to her house saturday morning at about 10 am and were ready to clean up a part of her backyard for a garden. When we showed up there was a girl visiting luz whos name is Annais from santiago. She is 17 years old and was super interested in the work that we do. She started asking us a bunch of questions about the church and even spent her vacation time to help us clean up and put up a fence to keep the chickens out of the garden.

When we finished we had lunch with the family and invited Annais to go to church with us the following day. She accepted the invitation to go to church and even wanted to read the book of mormon so we gave her that also.

She went to church wish us sunday and absolutely loved it! She has never been baptized in a church before and accepted to listen to missionarys over there in santiago. We got all of her contact information and then we parted our ways. When we said good bye I kinda felt deep down that she is going to get baptized. Thats my hope at least. What would had happened if we never would had planned that service with sister luz?


Our Trip To Country:

We have a bunch of country land on the out skirts of pitrufquen... well do you remember that family we found when we entered the gate of the mansion? Well we finally went out to  the yard keepers house in the country. They live in a beautiful area. ( Ill get photos next week) We shared about the book of mormon in 3 nefi 11 and read together as a family. The cool thing was the electricity went out so we read under a candle. The spirit was so strong in their home and the mother even started to cry because of our visit.

When we left we had to hitch hike back home. A friendly chileno picked us up in his truck and we drove all the way into town. What an awesome experience. Never thought I would hitch hike really in my mission.


Miss you all so much and think and pray about you all. Thanks grandma for your wonderful package. Just got it the other day. You are the best! Thanks everybody for your prayers. I really feel them.


May god bless you is my prayer.



love,

Elder Van Pelt