Aventura de Chile!: Week 60

Sooooo we just got the calls for transfers on Saturday.

Hermana Chapman is staying in Buin and Hermana Silverman from Brazil will be her new companion. I am going to Las Nieves in the Rancagua zone.

FINALLY!!!!! I thought that I was going to serve in the Chile Rancagua mission without ever actually serving in the city of Rancagua!

And the sector is called...
*puts on cowboy hat*
Rengo...
Everybody and their hermano has told me that it´s the best sector ever, so I´m excited to see what this next cambio will bring. I think I might actually die in Rengo (For those who are not familiar with missionary lingo, to die is to end your mission.) ;)

Yup. My companion is going to be Hermana Darrington. I assume she's from Utah, but we'll see. I'll give you the update on her next week.

We played soccer together for one last time as the Buin zone. It was a bittersweet game. And rather painful. Literally. I got a ball to the face going about 90. But I scored a goal going against like 5 Elders. So that made it all better. Hahaha!

This last week we had a lot of people come out of their houses and tell us that they didn't want to receive us anymore, and it made us really sad. But the rainbow always comes out after the storm. I´ve learned that here in the mission, whenever times of sadness come, it just means that the adversary is trying to discourage us and slow us down because something amazing is going to happen. We had a lot of good lessons! We've been teaching Denise more often. She accepted a solid baptismal date. She says that she knows that the church is true. Though she still doesn't believe in everything 100 percent. But we explained to her that faith is a process. And we always invite her to pray. I don't know who read my brother Sam´s email for this week, but he said something that we always say here as well: "We can teach you about how true something is until we're blue in the face. But we don´t want you to believe in just us. Believe God. Talk with your Heavenly Father and ask Him if these things that we're teaching you are true. And when He does answer, He will tell you the truth."

We did a church tour with Denise on Saturday right before English class. She loved it! She told us that she really feels that her decision to be baptized is a good one. She doesn't feel weird about it at all. Of course, she still has a lot to learn about the doctrine, but she's hungry to learn more! She loves to listen to us and ask questions. The goal is to start teaching her husband, though. Because we want them to progress as a family.

We also went to see Andres again. He's keeping his commitments, but he hasn't come to church since the last transfer. But he seems to have desires to come. We think that he's receiving answers that what we're teaching him is true, but he still hasn't learned to recognize them. But he's also eager to learn. He loves to ask a lot of questions. He actually invited us to have lunch with him and his family so that they can get to know us and realize that we're not the Bogeyman. Hahaha!

So yeah. As for Pilar, we haven't been able to find her because she's been going to the doctor a lot. But that's understandable because she recently had a baby.

We finally found Tito again as well. But his work hours just became complicated, so it's going to be tough for him to come to church, but he's receptive. So our hope is that even if he can't go now, we'll still teach him and help him get a seed of faith growing. That way when the time comes when he's able to attend church in the future, he'll still have that desire to learn.

In other news, my trainee Hermana Alvarez will be training for this next transfer! AAAAAAH! I'm sooooo proud of her! She knows her stuff!

Let´s see... What else...

I don't know if I'm going to be able to send many photos in Rengo because the Internet Cafés are a little sketchy. There are lots of missionaries who have lost all of their photos from their missions because nasty viruses get into their cameras and pendrives.

Sooooo we'll see what happens. If I travel to the center of Rancagua that week, I'll see what happens with the photos.

Anyways, that's about it for this week. I have a lot to pack and a lot of goodbyes to say. It hurts my heart every time I have to leave a sector because I might never see a lot of these amazing families face to face again. At least not in this mortal life. But I´ll never forget about the lessons that they've taught me, the love that they've shared, and the testimonies that they have.

Yesterday I went to see one awesome family - the Maneses family - to say goodbye. And Hermano Maneses told me, "Vive la vida intensamente. Si tienes que llorar, llora con todas tus ganas. Si tienes que reirte, ¡rie no mas! Disfruta cada momento como que fuera tu ultimo." (Live life intensely. If you have to cry, cry your heart out. If you have to laugh, laugh it up! Live every moment like it's your last.)

I plan on it. ;)

I love you all so much. Thank you so much for your support and prayers!

Chaooooo!

-Hermana Darley