Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Hermana Iroz's plans

La Familia Morales

Hermana Mercado with Hermana Gabriela y Hermana Carolina

Yum!

Hermana Iroz, Oscar, Hermana Mercado

La Familia Tapia

Making Completos

Making Completos

Un pedazo de sandia

Hermana Mercado's 27th Letter from Chile


Good things things week. We had a lot of menos activos come to church! We were able visit la familia Tapia for the first time this week, and they came! La familia Villalonga has been coming for about a month straight now. Oscar too! And this week, he came with his nietos! 

That's actually a good story. One day, one of our citas fell through, and then our plan de respaldo wasn't home either, so we were trying to think of who else we could go visit. We both thought of one contact we had done a few weeks back, but we both had the same thought; she isn't going to receive us. But, we decided to go anyway. The contact lives right by Oscar, and as we turned the corner, we saw that Oscar, his daughter, and his nietos were all outside. Oscar was happy to see us and immediately invited us in. Once inside, we started talking and during the conversation he said that he might not be able to come to church this week because no one was going to be around to stay with his nietos and he didn't know if they would want to come. So we talked to his nietos to invite them right then and there. They said they would come, and on Sunday they came! And it turns out one of his nietos goes to school and is best friends with the son of one of our members. They had a great time at church. We're going to try to have a noche de hogar with that family and Oscar's family sometime. 

We also found a great nuevo this week. Jessica. She is very receptive and even told us in our first lesson without us even asking that she wants to prepare for baptsim. But she talks a lot, so we didn't get around to putting a fecha with her, but that's the meta for this week.

What else from this week? We helped paint our lider misional's reja this week and we were rewarded with Toblerone. We also had a great lesson with one of our less active familias yesterday. La familia Jerez. Our mission, for this month is focusing on sharing El Cristo Viviente with all our members, helping them to strengthen their testimonies in Christ, and increasing their desires to share their testimonies with other. It was a really good lesson. Nothing can bring the spirit quite as strong as testifying of Jesus Christ. But one of my favorite moments from this week happened after the lesson. Their five year old daughter, Francisca, wanted to sing us a song. Her mother helped her hold up this big guitar, Francisca started strumming, and the song went a little something like this: "Yo quiero ir a la capilla... siempre!" Hahaha! Too cute!

Today, cumplo 7 meses en la mision. We got together as a zone and made big completos. I am full of food. 

--Hermana Mercado

Friday, February 8, 2013

Hermana Mercado's 26th letter from Chile


It has been a good week in Ciudad Satelite, except for the fact that we haven't been able to teach Jael. Every time we went by to teach her she was always busy. We finally caught her the other day, and she told us that her family is going away on vacation till the end of February. Oh well. We'll try and teach her when she gets back. 

Olga continues to progress and came to church again this week! She tells us that now she feels like God is answering her prayers. And this week, the ward found Oscar's membership record and everthing is in good condition! It looks like the last office he held was that of teacher, so we're going to help him prepare to be ordained an elder and prepare him to go to the temple. He was so happy! He says next week he's going to come to church in a white shirt and tie! He's also going to start partaking of the sacrament. 

On Friday, we did divisions with the Hermanas from El Abrazo (a neighboring sector). It was the first time I've done divisions. I was here in Ciudad Satelite with Hermana Bigo from Argentina, and Hermana Iroz was in El Abrazo with Hermana Alcarraz from Peru. It's a chance to learn from other Hermanas, and the Hermanas with more experience evaluate and report on the performance of the Hermana with less experience. Of course, only having 6 months in the mission, I was the Hermana being evaluated. Hermana Bigo is amazing! Very loving, great at teaching, and she can contact anybody. I learned how to do better contacts in the street (I'm more accustomed to knocking doors). 

And we found a new person to teach! Priscila. She doesn't pertain to any religion in particular and is open to listening to our message. We briefly talked about the restoration, shared a prayer with her, and plan on visiting her again on Friday! 

Sorry I haven't taken pictures in a while. I'll try to be better this week.

--Hermana Mercado