Hermana Ball: Kissing frogs

¨And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.¨ -Jeremiah 29:13

I love being a missionary. And you know what I love the most right now- I DON´T HAVE CAMBIOS. This means I will have at least 6 weeks more in paradise. (And there is a very good chance that I will be here for the next 3 months- because Hermana C finishes her mission this cambio.)

Hopefully, I love Puerto Cisnes. I think I am so happy and so in love with Puerto Cisnes because it’s so hard. But it makes missionary work worth it. For example, this week we only had 12 lessons in total. And it’s hard to not have people progressing, or really have people. But we have been working a lot with the branch and had a couple really cool experiences.

On Monday we had a fhe with familia Ancamil (the branch presidents family.) And S and M. (I sent home a couple photos of us with them) it was a rock star family home evening. We read about the standard of liberty then we handed out white papers that I’d cut to look like flags things and we all drew our ¨standard of liberty" with the things that were most important to us. Then we went around sharing ours and it was cool to see the things that were most important to everyone. (Family we looked really good in AF canyon with my kayak n´ the temple in the background...) but then we talked about what is really important and about eternal families and stuff. So good. One of the best noche de hogares (family home evenings) I´ve had.

Then get this. So we were walking down the street and this girl comes running towards us yelling ´Hermanas! ¨ Ok. Love. Her name is Nicole and she is 25 years old and a member from Viña del mar. She is a convert of 2 years and a rock star. She is visiting her non-member dad and his girlfriend for these two weeks and was walking around looking for a church when she saw us. She then came that night to our ward activity (more to come) and then on Sunday to church, then she left with us all afternoon on Sunday. She is awesome. We had a cool little miracle yesterday.

So we had already stopped by 1000 people and taught 2 lessons but only had 30 minutes left of the day and were thinking about the last person we would teach- we had a couple we could visit but we really wanted to teach, so seriously, Heavenly Father just popped this name of an old reference in our heads and we thought we´d try it out.

Show up and knock and the lady comes out (ok first of all, we have tried contacting her for a very, very long time and never could find her.) So she comes out, we teach about the plan of salvation and Nicole’s testimony was perfect of her conversion story. We have an appointment with her this week and are waaaay excited to see what comes of it. We have been looking for someone to teach for so long. But it was such a happy little tender mercy.

Ok, but back to the ward family home evening. So cool. We had the craaaaziest turn out. Did you see that semi circle filled up?! Ha-ha, at one point we had a couple people in the doorway because we had so many people before we could make room. It was awesome. Seriously, so good. We taught about personal revelation and how we can understand revelation from God. And honestly it just rocked no mas. Then we played games and ate. So good.

Ok, this week we have done a bunch of service. We had three mornings of an hour or more each of hacking away a less actives ¨garden¨. It’s been nice to get out and work.

Also a gem, a cute little frog. (There are only dogs and fleas in Chile. seriously we never see animals or anything.)

Kissed it.... but it didn't turn into a baptism. But it’s all-good. But it was cool because after each service we had a lesson with her and then that week she came to the ward activity and brought an investigator friend! Service rocks.

Ok update on O. She has a bed and breakfast and the last 2 weeks has been crazy busy. But we were able to teach her this week and she is doing sooooo well. She is so cute. This week the branch presidente gave her the calling to make bread for the sacrament. Ok let me tell you. First, she loves it. Because she feels so important because duuh the sacrament is why we are at church. Then also she makes the best bread- it was the gossip at church yesterday. It was funny because the sacrament pieces were really big and delicious and everyone was very happy. We heard about her bread at the end of sacrament, in our bible class, and in relief society. Then we had correlation with our mission lider and we talked about it- haha theeeeen in consejo de rama (branch council) it was a whole topic with all the branch liders (leaders) about how good the bread was. A whole topic! Ha-ha the branch sure loves O and now they love her even more ;) And I just love seeing how stinking happy she is.

Speaking of bread. I think this place is trying to kill me. Let me just give you a statistic. This week we had one day where we were offered 11.5 pieces of bread. I kept a count. 7.5 of which we had to eat and the others we took to the house. Crazy. But I’m doing well with the whole allergy thing. Heavenly Father loves me.

Oh, and we have found a way to work of the bread. Ha-ha little service projects in the day. Like wood chucking and hauling for people. Love.

So cool thing this week- on Friday I finished updating a map we have in the house as now I am officially knocked every single house here in good old Puerto Cisnes. Crazy. We have 3000 people who live her and I about know them all!