I passed two months in Chile a few days ago. Time pretty much zips by here, it´s crazy!
So, nicely busy week to write about today. I´ll try to fit it all in in the 15 minutes I have left on the computer! (anyone want to time my wpm?)
Some news for Guillermo, who is basically amazing and one of my favorite people. He (and Luis) got callings last week. When we went by to watch a video with him this week, he asked us how he could learn to work in his new calling (Biblioteca=Library). Then he said, ¨You have to understand, I want to fulfill my calling well because it is for God, not for you.¨ Wow! That just awes me, that someone who three months ago didn´t know that Mormon and Latter-day Saint were the same thing now has a sense of duty towards God. And I got to be a part of that!
Recently, we have decided to start working more with inactive members. There are quite a few recent converts on the list that I have never met (meaning they have never come to church). There are a lot of reasons for this, including that many of them are youth or kids and aren´t coming because their caretaker stopped coming, but I believe we can help them all in different ways. And helping someone get stable and solid in the church is just as important in baptizing them in the first place, I believe!
Lucía, whose life is so different and difficult (I think I wrote a bit about her last week, right?) has been reading in the Book of Mormon. She struggles to read and can only do a few verses at a time, but she says that she reads it in the morning, then ¨leaves the house saying hi to everyone and their dog.¨ The change that is going to take place in her life is going to be incredible. When she receives the Holy Ghost... Oh, I love this job!
Another reason I love this job so much is because of how much I am growing personally. For example, I had kind of an epiphany on faith this week. I´ve always known= that through faith miracles were possible, and more faith means more miracles. But I had the mistaken idea that because of that, my faith--or my willpower--influenced what God did. I´ve realized that faith isn´t really willpower, rather absolute trust that God (1) can do something and (2) will do it (because it is right, and because it will help one of His children, etc). I feel like this epiphany has changed the way I view my mission and, really, my whole life.
This last weekend we had two Christmas activities, one in the ward and one in the stake. They were both amazing. The ward activity was a play type presentation where a grandmother explains Christmas to two grand kids, with the events being acted out behind them (the missionaries explained the colors of Christmas. I was green). The stake activity had three different choirs. Me being me, I was basically on cloud nine all during the stake activity. Choirs rock :D I also learned how to be a missionary during an activity, talking with members and their friends, sharing the spirit and the spirit of Christmas. I love my job.
Closing note for today--Saturday´s baptism. This last Saturday Victor, an eternal investigator whose entire family are members, finally decided he wanted to be baptized. He has gone to church for about 20 years, and most of the ward came to his service. His wife and one of his daughters sang a song before he was baptized--families can be together forever. Halfway through his wife started crying. It was such an amazing experience, to see this family move closer to becoming eternal.
Viviendo el sueño. Living the dream.
Con amor,
Elder Jason Ray
