What a good week. It started out with having a good family home evening
with the branch president and his family and another less active family, which
was really good. We showed the Mormon message about the woman who was in a
plane accident, it was really good about how to overcome trials and
difficulties in our life that we have to confront. On Tuesday we had a district
meeting, which the sisters in my district. It was one of the best ones we've had. We have been having a hard time
to find new people to teach, so we talked about purifying ourselves and taking
out the little things that could distract us from the work, and then we looked
for the miracles that we had. We saw the blessings from that as there were some less active people that we were
able to teach and most of them came to church which was a huge miracle. Our
attendance in church had been falling a lot and on Sunday we had the most that we had had
since August. This was an instant blessing after having only 19 the previous week. We
had 32 and about 15 people who don't come regularly, and we could´ve had more as
about 6 people committed to come but didn't show up. This next week, I think it may drop again as there is only an hour of church with the elections
for the president of Chile which is between two women.
On Saturday, we were walking home at about 9:30 at night and
a guy on a bike stopped us and told us how he wanted to learn more about the
church. He gave us his phone number and on Sunday I called him and asked him to meet us at
the church. He showed up and we taught him. He told us that he had gotten beat up after a soccer
game between the U and Colo Colo (which are the two biggest soccer teams in Chile and he said that everyone
fought after that) well, he realized how much he wanted to change his life and
be baptized into our church. He will have to
quit drinking although he was sober when he met with us but I could still smell
the alcohol. He showed the desire so we will hope that he can progress and do
something to better his life.
We are having another little blessing in the Rama los
Muermos. A couple of adult senior missionaries are going to be living here
to help with the branches of the mission. They have a lot of experience in the
church and will be a big help. We are implementing a Book of Mormon reading
program encouraging the branch to read the book of Mormon in 4 months and then having several
of Book of Mormon themed activities during to help keep everyone motivated. I'm
praying that it goes good and helps to motivate the members and strengthen
the branch.
Well, this next week is cambios so we will be seeing what
will happen with me and my companion.
Have a wonderful week.
Love, Elder Nelson
