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

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

Hermana Mercado's 25th Letter from Chile

This past week has been wonderful! The noche de hogar that we had with some members and their vecina/amiga, Jael, went amazing!  We are teaching her now and she has accepted a baptismal date! I love teaching the first lesson, about the restoration, especially saying the first vision. The spirit is always so strong!

We also had an amazing lesson with an inactive member this week, Gabriela, about the gift of the holy ghost and the importance of attending church and partaking of the sacrament so that we might have this gift to be with us always. One of those lessons that pierces your heart. She came to church this week! As well as Hermana Villalonga and her children, Rafael, and Oscar! (Other inactives we've been teaching!) And Ogla made it to church this week! Hermana Munoz was able to pass by and pick her up in the morning, and she stayed for all three hours! 

It was a great sacrament meeting as well. The jovenes had just gotten back from a week at EFY (this is the first time they've had EFY in Chile) and four of the jovenes were asked to bear their testimonies. They shared that many of the jovenes wanted to leave in the beginning because of the strict schedule and no cellphones, but by the end no one wanted to leave. One jovencita shared that she went to EFY believing that the things the church teaches are true, but after EFY, she came back knowing. EFY is awesome. 

Everything this week has been pretty amazing, expect Hermana Iroz and I have taken turns being sick. She had a stomach bug or something, and now I have some sort of illness going on (headache, sore throat). I woke up Sunday morning with a puffy right eye. I have no idea what happened! It was fine when I had gone to bed the night before! But don't worry, I'm recooperating. We took some time yesterday for me to rest, and today is P-day, so I'll be resting some more. The puffy eye has gone down so I should be better in no time!

--Hermana Mercado

Hermana Iroz y Hermana Mercado with their last zone.

Hermana Mercado y Hermana Iroz with their last district.

Hermana Mercado y Hermana Iroz with La Familia Vergara.

Yes!  Be careful of Jovenes jugando futbol!

Hermana Iroz hugging the Vilalonga Christmas tree before "disarming" it!

Hermana Vilalonga's kitten

La Familia Henriquez

Hermana Iroz y Hermana Mercado with La Familia Gonzalez

Hermana Mercado with her first Churrasco!  Delicioso!

Hermana Mercado's 24th Letter from Chile!

This past week has been pretty good. We have picked 3 families from our ward to work with to help us find people to teach. In these past couple of weeks,  we've had a noche de hogar with each of them, taught them the restoration and asked them to think about the blessings they've received in their lives because of the restoration. Then we ask them 10 questions to help them think about family and friends that they can share the gospel with who also deserve those blessings. Then we ask them to pray as a family and pick one of the names/families they wrote down to focus on. We also share a paper with them that the mission put together called "Como Puedo Compartir el Evangelio" to give them ideas about how to get started. They are excited about it, and eager to help. We've actually been invited to a noche de hogar tonight with one of the families. They're inviting one of their friends, a friend who has interest in learning more about the church. 

We also had a great lesson with Olga this past week in which a member from our ward accompanied us. She had already met Olga at a ward activity, so a friendship has already started to form there. And  we had everything set up for the member to pick her up on Sunday to go to church. Olga was going to call her Saturday just to make sure. But the member's cell phone died, and neither of us could get a hold of her to remind her. We'll get her to church this week though. And for our next cita with Olga, her daughter Erica, plans to participate as well! 

And this week, Oscar Nunez came to church! He's an inactive we found knocking doors a couple of weeks back. He's an elderly man, and from what he tells us, he was among the first members in Chile. But he stopped going as a joven. So we've been reteaching him the gospel, helping him to remember, and he promised us he would come to church with us this week. When we went by to pick him up, he was ready and waiting. He's really animado to be coming back to church. We even shared his testimony in Sunday school! I'm so happy for him! 

It's hard to find new people to teach in our sector, especially now that the majority of them are gone on vacation (the streets are literally dead when we go out to work), but we know that the greater miracles will come as we continue to work with the members, help to strengthen their testmionies, and help them to share to gospel. When the members of the church begin to take a more active role in missionary work, that's when the real growth will happen. Missionary work isn't just for missionaries; everyone can participate and share in the blessings! So invite your friends to a church activity, to a family home evening, to listen to the missionaries! Just invite them to come and see. 

Love you all! 

--Hermana Mercado 

Hermana Mercado's 23rd letter from Chile

This week, the sector has mainly been dead. Not only because the majority of the people have left on vacation, but also because it was the hottest it has ever been this past week. Someone told us it reached the highest temperature it has ever been here in the past 4 or 5 years! Needless to say, many people that happened to be home didn't feel a lot of motivation to come to the door when we "knocked".

But all is well. We are starting to focus more on working with our members and less actives; strengthening them and helping them to share the gospel with their family and friends is more effective in finding people to teach than just randomly knocking doors anyway. We've chosen a few families to work with specifically, and so far it has been going well. They are excited to share the gospel with their neighbors and we're excited too! We'll see how things progress!

But, miracle of the week, one of our investigators, Olga, accepted a baptismal date! She says she believes that our messge is true and she understands the need to be baptized. We hope we can get her ready. Her testimony is still young and needs to be strengthened. And it's a little difficult to help her progress at the moment because she hasn't been able to attend church yet and she can't read the Book of Mormon on her own (she lost her glasses). But we've started to read the Book of Mormon with her and this week, a member, Hermana Munoz, is going to visit her with us. Hopefully we can arrange for Hermana Munoz to pass by and pick Olga up for church on Sunday. 

I know this church is true, that it contains the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and living by its principles will bring us immeasurable happiness with our families in this life and in the life to come. 

Love you all!!!

--Hemana Mercado