Hey momma and dad!!! I am so glad to here about all
you guys! Especially the girls and how they are all getting along! I am glad to hear some new people moving
into the ward! Fresh testimonies are great! I am sorry to hear about your leg
and will be praying that you and dad can continue to run and exercise and do
the things you love! You have to if were going to do mother/son marathons when
I get back! My companion and me are doing really good but I really hate being
in training. The language barrier
with him was really tough this week because he just basically does whatever he
thinks is right. It’s frustrating because at times he treats me like a 4 year
old and starts speaking Spanish in this really slow condescending tone and I
have to restrain myself from shouting at him in English. He is a good
missionary but is terrible at listening. Teaching lessons is really the only
thing that helps me cool off after days like this. We haven’t had many days like this and it has only happened a
couple times. Oh well! I just accepted the fact that he does
have more experience then me and can speak Spanish so I am trying to be humble
and roll with the punches. Ha.
This week was so crazy I can’t even describe
it! But to put it into short terms we taught 19 lessons this week and have now
5 progressing investigators and 3 people who would like to get baptized but
first they need to get married! Juan Aguirre is the first and I have been
talking about him for a while now. He is officially engaged starting this
morning and will be married November 14th, baptized 15th and
confirmed the 16th! This week with him was pretty wild because on
Monday he was totally fine and then they starting talking about wedding
plans and everything went to heck in a handcart, when we wanted his family to
be their and they don’t really like him that much, from what I understood. So
he didn’t want to get married without his family and he was starting to get really
emotional and so was Maria José his girlfriend. So we took him to the church
and talked with him in one of the classrooms and he kept saying he felt alone and
lost. I seriously have never been guided more in my life then in this moment. I
started to talk to him about the Savior and His experience in the Garden of Gethsemane.
I told him about how He was alone through it all and then went through more
afterwards in His trials and then on the cross and then to finish He died for
us. I got to watch the Atonement and death of the Savior save this man’s hope
for the future. I will treasure this experience for the rest of my life. This
morning at 8 am we went down to the civil office and got the date for his
marriage. So he is officially ready to be baptized, he just needs his
interview!
Your prayers are helping a lot so please don’t
stop!! I also learned the importance of a real fast here in Chile! We have been
taught to fast all our life but it wasn’t till here that I learned what it
means to really fast for a purpose. So please help Hannah, Britt and dad remember
that fasting is for a purpose and if you don’t start with a prayer and skip 2
meals or 24 hours and have a purpose for your fast and then end with a prayer
it is just starving ourselves.
I also gave a talk this
Sunday about faith and what things will strength our faith or destroy our
faith. It was a talk by one of the seventies, not in this conference. It talked
about the six steps to losing our faith and how faith requires action everyday!
It was really good. We got it during our inter-zone conference with the
president! Tomorrow I have my second interview with the president so
I am pretty pumped for that and Excited to baptize way more people then any of
the missionaries in our ward so don’t worry you’ll destroy that bet with Scott!
De su favorito Hijo Obviamente
Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow
Here are some cool photos for the blog of wall art from Chile!
No comments:
Post a Comment