Ahhh, lo siento everyone!! I had this whole thing written out on Saturday, and then the internet shut down and I couldn't send it. So this is the original email that I wrote, I'm too lazy to make changes, but just so you know, Jorge and Lourdes were baptized and it was super awesome chevere bacan champu. Okay, love you all, bye!!!
Jorge and Lourdes are getting baptized in like 2 hours!!!! YAAAAAAY!!!!! After 2 months of working with them and patiently answering all their doubts and fears and seeing them at church every Sunday, they´re finally getting baptized. I´m so excited I could just explode, and what´s even more exciting is that they´re even more excited than I am!!! They´ve invited their whole family, a lot of the ward members are coming and it´s pretty much going to be the best baptism ever. NICE!!!
Anyway, so this week was pretty normal. We´ve been teaching a lot of the family members of Jorge and Lourdes and his mom actually has a date for the 12th, but we don´t know how it´s going to work because in order to go to church someone has to carry her down 5 flights of stairs because she´s in a wheelchair. So she´s only been to church one time and we don´t know what we´re gonna do about that. But we´ll figure it out. We found out that Jorge´s niece, Yoconda, found the BOM that we left them, took it home and read it!! So we started teaching her too. Then remember this lady that we found, that we were an answer to her prayers?? We started teaching her "husband" Fabian too (her name is Arreli). He was very anti the idea of prophets first, until we asked him what moses, abraham, joshua and pretty much everyone who wrote the bible were. He was like . . . oh. They were prophets. But then he got confused because we have this example that we use to show that Jesus established his church on the foundation of apostles. We have plastic cups with the names of the original 12 apostles and we put them on the bottom, and then on top we put all the principles and ordinances of the gospel, faith, baptism, priesthood, etc. and then we put Jesus at the top because he directed his church. Then we take Jesus off because eventually He died and was resurrected and went to live with HF, but wasn´t on the earth anymore, but the church is still okay because it´s got the apostles. Well we know what happened to the apostles, so we tell them to take one of them out (and they ALWAYS look for a way to do it without making the whole thing fall down, it´s hilarious) but as soon as they do, the whole church falls down, showing what happened in the great apostacy. Anyway, the cups have the original 12 on one side and the apostles today on the other, so we can show that the church was restored with apostles as the foundation, so we rebuild it with their names and pictures showing, and then we put the Jesus cup back on top, but with the prophet´s face showing to show that Jesus is still directing His church through the prophet. Well Fabian flipped out a little because he thought that we worship the prophet, but we didn´t figure this out at first so he was arguing and HNA Foster was like you need to pray about it and then the lightbulb went off in my head and I took the cup and said, we do NOT worship the prophet. We worship Heavenly Father. This picture of Thomas S. Monson could be a picture of Moses, of Abraham or of any other of the prophets. They have the same purpose-to teach the gospel, to receive revelation from God for us, to interpret the scriptures and so on. So then Fabian said, so wait, this man is like a messenger??? HNA Foster was like yes!!! exactly!! So I said yes he is, he is a messenger from God. He teaches what God wants us to know and from then on we have the choice to accept or reject what he says. But it always goes better when we do what he says, because he´s receiving revelation from God. But like HNA Foster said, it´s very important that you pray to know for yourself that this is true, because if you don´t you won´t know. I don´t know if you heard me hno, but I didn´t say that I believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet, I said that I KNOW. After that, he calmed down and looked very thoughtful, and then he nodded his head. So then he told us he would read the BOM, and HNA Foster was like, oh, and on Sundays we go to church, and before she could even say anything else he was like, oh we´re going!!! Nine o clock right?? So we´re very interested to see what happens with him. But how grateful I am for the Spirit in this moment!!! Who knows what could have happened without it!!!!
Hmmm, what else this week. Oh, we taught Jorge and Lourdes about temples on Thursday, about vicarious baptisms, because they had heard about it in church and were asking a lot of questions. Well, when we explained why we needed to do them, Jorge listened very intently, and then when we told him that he could be baptized for his father who died a few years ago, he was very very happy. He even told us that, Hermanas, I´m so happy to know that I can be baptized for my father. We told him that maybe his father had already accepted the gospel in the spirit world and had been waiting for someone to baptize him for a long time, and for this reason we were sent to his family. And you know what?? I really believe that it´s true!!! I think that his dad´s been waiting up there for a long time, waiting for someone in his family to accept the gospel and do his work.
Well, that's about it for this week!!! Felicidades a Daniel y Emily this weekend!! I loved the Conner and Jensen stories. Those kids crack me up, they remind me of the bishop's kids in our ward now. Until next time, be good and don't do anything stupid!!!
MUCHO AMOR
Hermana Chamberlain
An excerpt of an email to her dad:
It´s actually cooled off a little bit here, it´s in the high 70s and low 80s, and at night it cools down a lot. It feels very nice, the word they use is "fresco" which means fresh, and I think it´s very appropriate. We all feel much fresher, considering we´re not sweating buckets all day and feeling disgusting!!
Of course I am writing the names of my converts in my journal Dad!! This is probably the most up to date journal I´ve ever kept in my life, I´m ashamed to say. I´ve already figured out a lot of things that I´m going to do better when I get home, like reading my scriptures, writing in my journal, picking my friends and paying attention to the little promptings of the Spirit. I used to think the Spirit didn´t talk to me, but then I realized that He really does have a still small voice-and if you´re not paying attention you can miss things, and if you´re not following the quiet promptings, you´re never going to get the huge revelations. I´ve gotten better, slowly but surely.
An excerpt from an email to her sister, Abby:
Anyway, my week was super!!! Jorge and Lourdes are getting baptized in about 2 hours, after a huge struggle trying to help Jorge see that yes, he really can keep going after his baptism. He was so scared that he was going to sin again, and we were like, of COURSE you´re going to sin again!!! That´s why we take the sacrament every week!!! And moreover, that´s why Jesus Christ came to this world, to take care of us when we mess up!!! It was a long battle but now they are way excited to get baptized, probs even more excited than we are, which, of course, is as it should be.
Well love, got to go write the big email. Love you so much and miss you too, but don´t be too sad. Remember that it´s only a temporary separation, and that our family is already sealed together forever. A lot of people here don´t know that that´s possible, and I have to go find them. I have to!!!
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