Picking plums in a plum tree.

There are a lot of plums at the supermarket right now. Tis the season!

 

Hola

Remember when I said it was hot last week? Well everything just got cold in a day and now it´s just really cold. It´s sure a lot like Utah weather here. My clothes still serve me well. I think another t-shirt would be good, but I´ve got all the jeans I need or want. I didn´t buy any socks here yet, but the ones I´ve seen look like they´ll function. I just need to count how many socks I still have so I know how many to buy.

Ah! I got the keyboard with an obnoxiously sensitive s pace bar.

The new logo looks nice! How did you get the sheep image? Did you need to ask special rights to use it?

The girl we’ve been teaching is gonna get baptized :D :D :D :D :D Her mom has been an investigator for over 2 years but hasn´t been able to be baptized because she´s not married (law of chastity very important). Her less active “husband” (who she´s not married too) has already been through a divorce and is a bit scared to commit again, especially since marriage is very very unpopular in Chile right now.

The girl we’ve been teaching is 15 years old. She didn´t pay much attention to the missionaries before... or at least to the lessons. She´s nice and friendly and offers us juice, but she wasn´t really interested until her mom got more concerned about her friends, who haven’t been making the best decisions. She says she wants to have good friends, but you just don´t find them. We invited her to church and guess what—she liked it :D :D :D She´s become good friends with some of the jovenes (youth) at church.

I´m sad I wasn´t there when Elder Holt invited her to be baptized (intercambios--companion exchanges). Elder Holt said she was really excited. She first started with, "So... you mean to say that my other baptism was invalid? Okay. Wait! Does that mean I´ll get to be a Mormon?" I wasn´t there, but I think that´s what she said. In church the next day she went to me and whispered in my ear, "You´re going to give me the Spirit!" Yay! I get to confirm the Gift of the Holy Spirit on someone :D She´s so excited :D We just need to teach her the commandments and commit her to live them. She´ll be such a good example for her parents :D

Our other investigator who wants to be baptized on the same day (a single mom who´s trying to quit smoking and has a young son who can´t move or speak, who reminds me of Kelsi). She isn’t very educated (she can´t read), but she´s learning so much and is so happy to listen and act. We´ve already seen changes in her life (she told us she used to be scared at night but now she feels protected). She´s only been to church one time thus far, but we´re working on teaching her the choices that will lead her to baptism.

A mission is full of crazy experiences. This last Sunday, I was asked to direct the music, and just as the service started,  I was asked to give a talk, so I was pretty busy the whole meeting preparing and singing and speaking. I was pretty nervous and would have liked more time to prepare, but many people commented that they liked what I said. It´s funny how the Lord works; the night before I had been praying for more opportunities to teach the branch members. God answers prayers.

I love you all so much :D I love the examples that each one of you is for me. You each have more influence than you think.

I want to share a quick example. Every week, I print all the emails I get so I can read them later when I have more time. Recently, Sister Smith has been sending me Sister Kenzie Smith´s emails and I thought, "Wow these things are long... " However, I´ve found lots of bits I´ve been able to apply, especially today. She wrote about companionship study where she didn´t follow the Spirit as she might have and wasn´t prepared for a lesson in Chinese. That hit me hard because in my own personal study today I had been reading in the Liahona, even though I kept thinking that I needed to be reading Preach My Gospel at that moment. I did end up recognizing it and swapped to PMG, but I definitely could have done it earlier in the hour. Thanks :)

I chose to write about Sis. Kenzie Smith because I don´t really know her that well. If someone I don´t know very well can be such an influence to me without really intending to, you can do so too. You each have been powerful influences and I want you to keep at it! Live the Gospel and follow the Spirit! When something in the back of your head is nagging at you to do something you never thought you were going to do, and it´s something that edifies, DO IT WITHOUT DELAY! Watch what happens and tell me that wasn´t the Spirit. You won´t be able to. You´ll know it and your faith will become knowledge. Follow the Spirit.

Love you all :D

Elder Christopherson