Aventura de Chile!: Week 66

Hey hey, USA! ;)

So I think that Heavenly Father wants me to really find out what I'm made of for the last two transfers of my mission. Here's what's going down after the calls on Saturday night:

Hermana Darrington is going to Paine and her companion will be Hermana Dell. Hermana Dell will be sending Hermana off. Maaaaaan! I really would have loved to, but that's not the way things were supposed to be, I guess.

Here's how things are with me and the work in Rengo: Las Nieves:

1. Elders Quintanilla and Johnson are both getting taken out of their sector and it is being closed. Elder Ancajima finished his mission, so now the only two here who actually somewhat know the sectors are Elder Wilson and I. So now what we have to do is get a map of Rengo and divide the dead sector between the two of us.

Guys. My biggest sector I've ever had just got a whole lot bigger.

2. I'm still the coordinadora.

3. I don´t know my way around the center of Rancagua for beans. This place is a labyrinth. And I already have a terrible sense of direction as it is, so this will be an adventure. And my companion won't be able to help me out because she won't know anything about the sector because....

4. da-da-da-daaaaaa! I have no idea who my new companion is or anything about her because... I'm TRAINING!!!!!!! This will be my second time! I don't know whether she's a Latina or a Gringa. If she's a Gringa, I'll be teaching Spanish. ADVENTURE!!!!!

I think Heavenly Father really really wants me good and focused my last two changes. It's funny because I was praying a couple weeks ago and I asked Him to please help me to stay focused and to not get trunky as I entered the last two transfers of my mission.

Ohhhh myyyy goodness.

I think my prayer was good and answered. XD hahahahaha!

So anyways, this week and the last week we did a couple of odd jobs for people. Two weeks ago we had one member family who made wooden things for a living (like artisan stuff), and they had a HUGE order come in to make and paint a bunch of new street signs for like four neighborhoods. They wouldn't be able to get all of the signs painted before the deadline, so they called the Las Nieves missionaries. (That's us! Whee!) So we painted signs. Hashtag, street sign artist.

We did our other odd job for Olga, our investigator. Her dog (named Negrito) got really REALLY sick after getting in a bloody fight with a bunch of other dogs that lived in the street, so the vet gave Olga some medicine that she had to give to him orally. But she's an old lady, so it was hard for her to get his mouth open and put the syringe in his mouth without him pulling away or fidgeting. So we put on gloves, I forced the mouth open and Hermana Darrington gave Negrito his medicine. It was a syringe full of pink stuff.

Uuuuuunfortunately, Negrito died on Sunday. So Olga didn't come to church because they were burying her dog. =( She was sad.

Speaking of Olga, she is our only person with a baptismal date right now. None of the others have come to church and every Sunday it's for a different reason. Olga has a hard time coming to church as well for her health, but we got her to come once. She said that she can be baptized in the first week of April for sure. But we found out that we'll probably have to move her fecha again because we have General Conference coming up.

We're thinking about leaving some of our current investigators right now because they don't want to come to church, and their desire isn't all that strong to keep their committments, either. So now the focus of these next few weeks will definitely be contacting. We found a really cool family on Saturday, though. The dad was outside sweeping and both Hermana Darrington and I really felt like we should go talk to him. Then the mom came out with a baby, and the two other kids came out and they were all there talking to us. We couldn't go in and have a lesson right then, but they invited us to come back this coming Friday. =D

I would love to have an entire family progressing together. Then they can have that group support. The kids are so cool, too.

And where did we find them? BOOM! Villa Esperanza!

I knew the name meant something. hahaha!

And lastly, Sam put out a challenge to find (I think it was 5?) scriptures that correspond in the Book of Mormon and in the Bible, and the funny thing is, I already had to do that for a lesson that I would be going to that night! That was an inspired challenge, bro bro. ;)

Look at 1 Corinthians 1:11-13. "Is Christ divided?" Nope. There's only one path, and that's the way it should be. I explained the Apostasy to somebody using the example of Elvis Presley. When he died, everybody and their brother was doing Elvis impersonations. Sure, some of them are really good, but none of them will ever be the original Elvis. It's the same basic principle with Christ's church. There are a bunch of churches that teach similar doctrines to what Christ taught, but they don't have the fullness of the Gospel that He taught. And we can't simply say that all of the churches are true because they all aim to God. Because Christ didn't teach a bunch of doctrine that contradicts itself. So not all churches are true like we hear from a lot of people here. Christ established one truth. And we can know which is the true doctrine of Christ through prayer. And I testify that our Heavenly Father can and will answer us if we are sincerely asking with the intention to ACT upon the answer that we get.

Based on what Elder Bednar said in a recent missionary broadcast, if you are praying to find out whether the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true, you are more likely to get your answer if you are praying with the intention to join the church if you find out that it's true. Because if God tells you that it's the true church, but you have no intention to join it, then the knowledge is just to your condemnation. Because if we receive a witness of truth from the Spirit and then deny it, that's a huge sin!

When Joseph Smith went to the grove of trees to pray and find out which church was true, he wasn't praying just for the knowledge. His prayer was that God would tell him which was true so that he would know which of them to JOIN. He was praying with the intention to act. =)

Faith with works brings miracles. ;)

So yeah. That's that for this week. I'll send pictures now like I promised. =D

CHAOOOOOO! I love you all so much!

-Hermana Darley

P.S. I've attached a picture of the sign painting project. There's Elders Johnson and Quintanilla.