His atonement and plan work!!

I love all of your faces so much! 

First, for the fun of the week was when Vania came with us to be a missionary for a day!  She is such a cutie.  She was baptized two months ago and already wants to be a missionary!  I am so good with that!  Anyway, so she left with us and her random friend who thinks that this life is all just a dream and we all live in hell.  But it was really fun with Vania.  We walked a little bit and the poor girls were dying.  But it ended up being really great because we went and taught a really cool Evangelico but future general authority.  His name is Ignasio.  He is studying right now to be a minister in his church like his dad.  It is this family of five boys.  They are all super loving and kind to us.  We actually love going there because we feel the spirit so strong.  Ignasio is funny because I gave him a Book of Mormon and promised him he would find power if he read it.  He is not looking for power... he is looking for errors.  Ha ha, good luck my friend!!  I have studied that book inside and out and so have a lot of other people who are a lot smarter than me and you are not going to find anything!!  He read from Alma one to Alma 31 until he read what he thought was an error.  The Zoramite prayer!  If you read that chapter it is easy to tell that Alma was not a fan of their prayers but he did not catch that.  He read the prayer with us and said that 'really caught my attention  - I did not think you guys believed this stuff.'  My comp and I were like.... "WE DON'T!!  Read the chapter!"  In the end the conversation was beautiful.  We answered some of his questions and Vania bore a really sweet testimony.  I love her so much! 

Also on Saturday we ate lunch with Margarita Calderon.  I love her!  I just hurt for her!  We taught her a lesson on Thursday and ate lunch with her on Saturday.  She is such a sweetheart!  She is the one who has the son who was killed.  Super fome!  She told us that it is just too late and she is just too scared.  I just wanted to wrap her in my arms and testify of the Atonement over and over!  I obviously have no idea how she feels.  But I remember the feeling after Lauren died.  I remember thinking.... 'wow then, who the heck is God then?!'  It hurts to wonder and doubt!  I hyperventilate sometimes.  I wrote in my journal that I really actually love this process: having experiences, tripping... a lot!, hyperventilating, persevering, watching my faith grow, crying, watching other people´s faith grow, laughing, enjoying, learning changing, and worshiping!  This process is beautiful but I hate the hyperventilating part!  I feel like that is where sweet Margarita is stuck.  She wants to believe but she does not know how to again.  We had this beautiful conversation after lunch with her and her daughter (also very menos activo) about angels and how we can feel them around us.  We especially talked about when people are close to dying.  I was feeling pretty tender after those conversations and was crying pretty hard as we left.  I looked up and realized that my comp was crying too! I love her! We just stopped in the middle of the street and cried and hugged each other! Yup! I am corny!  Ha ha no, but it was really sweet!  My companion is a sweetheart!  She is really good to me!  I hope some day we will help Margarita understand that the Atonement reaches her too! I am so grateful that the Atonement reaches everyone!  It does not matter your beliefs, your mistakes or how scared you are!  His grace is sufficient!  I love that! 

Well I love you all!  This week has to be short because I don't have enough time!  I know this gospel is true!  It requires faith!  It is not easy but it is so worth it!  satan wants to tear apart families and he uses so many good and terrible things to do it!  I am so grateful to be one that fights against it!  I love my Savior.  His atonement and his plan work!  I love being in the middle of it!  I love watching those I love in the middle of it!  Thank you for the love and prayers they make me very happy!! 

Love Hermana Webb

I am so content with His lesson plan.

 

Hey family!  How goes life!?  Mine is so good!  I love the mission.  I don`t know how God teaches people some of the things that He is teaching me without this time where all I think about and all I do is serve Him.  It really changes a person after a while.  Today is my Cumpli mes.  I now have five months in the mission!  Does that feel fast to anyone else?  I kind of feel like I left last week and then again I feel like I left twenty years ago with how much I feel like I am growing.

 

This week was super great!  First of all we went to a temple tour with one of our investigators.  One of the biggest perks of this perfect mission is we live right next to a temple and so when we need help for our investigators to understand what kind of happiness we are talking about here, we take them to the temple.  We took Erika with a lady in our ward and these other sisters did the tour.  The last part of the tour is when the people get to walk in and sit in the first doors of the temple.  It was so beautiful, because Erika could not stop crying.  She was so sweet.   Then she testified of this new life that she is super excited to have.  Then we watched this movie of when Christ was in the Americas. There was not a dry eye in the room.  She just kept thanking us and thanking us.   It was really beautiful!

 

Next for Paola and her family.  Like always, I love them I love them I love them!!!  Edgardo is this weeks favorite! He is changing so much! Richard and Pablo (the twins) are crazy!  Like I wish I could explain how crazy they really are, and before Edgardo yelled and threatened to hit them if they did not behave.  Now he is kind ... he uses kinder words and better punishment when they need it.  In church, I watch him hold his boys and kiss their heads as he listens to the speaker.  He gets this big smile on his face when one of them prays and is now actually helping his wife with all of the chores of the house!  AHHHHHHH I love the gospel!

 

We have only two weeks left in this cambio.  I am super scared!  I really don`t want to be separated from my companion!  She is super great and we have really become great friends!  In fact, when we do intercambios I freaking miss her.  Hopefully I wont get kicked out of my area either.   I really like this place!

 

Dad, I loved what you had to say about the change!  That is my thing here.  God keeps teaching me that now it is time to give it all up.  I always thought I was just fine.  I always thought that since I read the scriptures every day, prayed, and went to church that that was what God expected of me.  I am learning now that it is not a matter of what he "expects" of me.  It is a matter of if I want to like Him now or want be a God -- I have to start acting like one.  Of course that is going to take a life time, but it is also going to take more than just reading my scriptures; it is going to take a complete change in my heart mind and desires.  It is so beautiful, this plan, because God can do that!  He can make me a God.  He can take imperfect me, add a whole boat load of love and faith, mix it all together with some trials and joys and make a very happy God.  I am not saying I am a God!  I know that I am far from it but I can also see that with Christ's atonement (which is basically made up of love for us and faith in us) I can become that person some day!  God is so good at this 'game'!  I know I say that all of the time but I am so content with His lesson plan! 

 

Yesterday my roommate was sick.  So we did divisions and I stayed in the apartment with my sick friend during church.  This turned out to be beautiful!  I read and learned a ton in the house!  So much so that I could not stop crying!  It was super funny!  My roommates and companions just laugh now when I am crying. When my roommate asked me why I was crying and I told her that I was happy she just laughed and bore her testimony about the Lord, which of course made me cry more!!  It was great!  Some day He is actually going to do it!  After a long process of faith repentance, covenants and the gift of the Holy Ghost, I am going to have the desire to do good and only good!  And what I am discovering more and more is that God has a plan and can do it to everyone of us!  He uses these cute things like twin five year olds to soften our hearts and make us turn to Him because we love them so much!

 

I love you all!  I love this gospel!  It is true!  The small things that work together to change us make it obvious that we have a very loving God in charge!

 

Thanks for your love, letters and prayers.  I like lots of all three!!!

 

Love Hermana Webb

Good news is God does a really good job with His awkward servants

Hi family! I love all of your faces so much!

This week has been great and let´s be honest it just got so much better!  I love my life! I love my companion! I love my area! And I love my God! I hope that is not bad to say because I really really mean it!  We have been so blessed here! 

So we are super super lucky and eat lunch in the casa de presidente cada semana. Which is really fun because we have gotten to know him and his wife pretty well. I really love Wednesdays! One day we were joking around about this one time when a neighbor toilet-papered his tree.  I am still kind of sad that I was such an angel child that I was never stupid enough to toilet paper someones tree ha ha just kidding but I got the bright idea to do it to president.  So, one day when we went to lunch and he was not there we not only toilet-papered his tree, we also used his toilet paper to do it.  Ha ha!  He was pretty proud of us!  He told us bien hecho!  Entonces I was pretty thrilled with my great idea!  (This event with a photo was posted on the Mission President's wife's Facebook page last week.)

 

Okay for this weeks drunkard! My companion is a leader so we go on divisions a lot now.  I was with a very fresh from the states 19 year old gringa this week and we were contacting in the street. A girl walked past us very distressed and so we stopped her and asked her if there was anything we could do to help.  It did not take us very long to discover that this girl was very drunk!  We found out where she lived and decided that we better walk her home because it was on the other side of a very busy street.  By this time we became very good friends! She gave me her jacket to use and my companion for the day was holding her hand pulling her from the street so that she did not get hit by the cars. We finally got her across the street and were just going to leave her there because we were really close to her house and she did not want us to go in, when she asked us to give a blessing.  We explained that we cannot give blessings but we told her if she could give us the address of the house of the girl that needed a blessing the elders could come back another day.  She insisted and led us by the hand to where this girl was.  Suddenly were were in front of a catholic church.  There was this huge line with all of these people crying with flowers.... it was a funeral.  The girl she wanted us to bless?  Yup!  The dead body!  Ha ha wait, wait it gets better!  We told her that it is against the rules to go into other churches because we are missionaries but she kept saying now please!   Give her a blessing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost!  My poor companion was pretty confused!  The lady proceeded to pull on my arm crying and yelling please please come in!!  Finally she stopped and said wait for me!  So we waited (that was dumb!)  She came out with the priest and his wife!  This very nice pareja who told us that this capilla is our house and we are always welcome!  We explained to them who we are and I think they understood but our sweet drunk friend did not get it.  When we finally got our arms away we ran the other direction yelling sorry! and left the poor drunk lady crying in the yard of the church telling us she will never believe in us again... Good thing she probably remembers none of it!  To top off our wonderful night we walked for probably one block and there was a nice man peeing in the middle of a square.  Oh Chile How I love you! 

Okay so I am not done! Remember that family that is selling drugs? Yeah we have still been visiting them. Ha ha so this week we discovered it is a family business.  The sister of this lady is selling drugs too!  We did not know they were sisters and we definitely did not know they were in on it together!  It was pretty funny!  So now they are running away ... I guess they were found out so they have to leave.  But we were told by the mission leader to never go back anyway because it has been confirmed that they have all kinds of drugs in that apartment.  I felt so cool!  I definitely feel flaite!(which is like gangster.)

I love my companion! We laugh so much! And now that we can actually talk we are having even more fun!  Before when one of us cracked a joke the other did not understand so we were not funny for a good two months but now we are funny again!! (at least we think so).  She is pretty funny!  You think she is just perfect all of the time and would never crack a joke but she is pretty good!  And now that she is learning English it is even more fun!  I am going to be bummed this change -- it is almost certain she is going to leave. 

Paola and her family are still my favorites! I was worried about Vania for a little while but she is so wonderful!  You can tell satan wants her because she got hit with a lot of really hard temptations right after she got baptized but she is fighting back and I love her!  Josefa is so great!  She is praying now ever night!  She wants to get baptized!  We now just have to convince her parents that she is ready.  I think she is!  Edgardo´s is being a good daddy!  I watch him kiss the heads of his cute twins during church and want to cry!  I am so proud of them!  They are my favorites!

Also we have a new family!  The same family that I thought I scared away last week let us into their apartment on Friday!  Not only did they let us in but they talked our faces off until like 10:40 at night! (which stressed my poor companion out! It was the closest thing she has ever had to a break down). We were a good 20 min. late!  But they are super cute!  They love the violin and love to travel so we became fast friends! 

I studied passion this week.  And of course to study passion the perfect person to study is Ammon!  I love him so much! I love his story and I love his passion! He faints like three times in his story that he is so happy that he just can´t contain it. My favorite part is the end when he faints yet again when he sees his buddy Alma otra vez.  It says that only a truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness can have that kind of joy.  I love that!  I want to be a truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness!  I want to search for happiness but not like the world looks for it how God wants to look for it!  I want to be penitent or repentant and change every day so that every day my heart can be filled with more love and more power of God.  I want to be humble and remember that it is all in Him and never lose faith that with Him the future can always be bright!  Sometimes I need to harness my passion because I freak out too quickly and too easily, but with that passion I can be a better servant for Him!  That is the goal at least!  I am still awkward but the good news is God does a really good job with his awkward servants! Turns out we all kind of are! 

Sorry I don´t have a lot of words of wisdom this week but I think that is a good thing ... our poor ward is probably really tired of hearing from me. I love you all so much! I love that I just get to go for a year and a half and while I am gone every Monday I get to see how God is carefully shaping each of you!  It is beautiful!  He is involved in our lives!  He loves us so much and has such a fun adventure ahead!  I love that He continues to add more!  Every thing that feels taken away will be returned and He is going to just keep giving! I love you all!

Hermana Webb

I was ready to run!

Misión Chile Santiago Este
Cristobal Colón 6824
Las Condes, Casilla 27.144
Santiago, Región Metropolitana
Chile

We love, (love, love) this beauty in our lives!  (And, her darling companion.)

 Richard and Juan Pablo.  I love them, I love them, I love them!!

 (More "I love them, I love them, I love them!")

Family!

Have I told you all lately that I love you!?  I hope you feel it because basically I talk about you guys almost as much as I talk about Jesus.  Don´t laugh ... it is okay because you guys are a big part of His plan! 

My life is so good!  I love being a missionary!  This stuff is so fun!  So basically this week was a lot like the other weeks .... full of ups and downs. 

First for the family of Paola!  I love them I love them I love them!!!  They are doing so well.  Edgardo went to Priesthood and both sessions of conference on Sunday in Sunday dress!!!!  Paola could only make it to one but she was wearing a dress too!!  I wish I could explain them to you! Edgardo is really quiet so it is really easy to misunderstand him.  I was so worried about his progression because he is so quiet.  But he is doing so well!  He listens and he is progressing with his Perfect Teacher!  I love that God is not just a perfect teacher for me!   It makes my job so much easier!  Paola announced also on Saturday that they are going to get married!!!!!!!!!  Edgardo did not say a word he just kept his arm tight around his sweet wife and played with the zipper of her bag with a big fat smile on his face!  So the wait for the nine months continues.  But now they have made the decision!  I am so happy! 

Also General Conference was amazing!!!!  I love them I love them I love them!  I realized what a job these people have to talk in conference. They have to talk to members for years, recent converts, manos activos, and investigators. They have missionaries, old people, young people, children.  People from all over the world in a million different languages!  How do they do that?  But they do such a beautiful job!  I loved every minute!  I am going to print off President Uchtdorf´s talk and give it to every manos activo that I know (which is a lot).   After conference my companion literally had to calm me down.  You know the story of Hyrum when he was told that the saints needed to build a temple and as soon as he heard, he took of running for his shovel?  I always loved that story and for the first time I think I felt what he was feeling.  I was ready to run!  I wanted to tell everyone that the Prophet of God talked to us!  And, that we have his love prayers and counsel!  I was a little too over- excited and might have scared away an investigator.  My companion was laughing super hard because I basically yelled in his face ¨the prophet of God is going to speak to us tomorrow¨ (this was Saturday night) but it is fine ... I will figure out some way to be a normal missionary.  Hopefully when we go to his house this Friday, they will let us in. :)

Other than that life is still great!  We are working hard!  Dad was right about his email when he wrote about all of the ups and downs.  People seem so convinced but then they don´t do anything about it!! It gets really frustrating.  The longer I am here the more I see how much these people need this stuff. It is just obvious to me but then I realize that I have a lot of experience!  Erika is the one that is still progressing.  She has a baptism date but I am not sure if she will actually make it.  She is so great but she does not want to go to church!   People don´t like leaving their houses here ... and it is frustrating! 

I made a cool discovery that I wanted to tell y'all about.  I was thinking about the two deaths that Christ can save us from, physical and spiritual.  This is an excerpt from my journal:

So, at the end of our lives when we stand at the judgement bar of God, Christ will save us spiritually by forgiving us of our sins and satisfying the demands of justice, just as He will save us from physical death by reuniting our body and spirit perfectly forever!  That final act of love, mercy and power, I am sure will be a beautiful moment.  However also just as He lends us our very breath in every moment of our lives, (Mosiah 4) Christ lends us spiritual breath by slowly changing our very nature so our confidence can wax strong in His presence, and we can enter into His kingdom with a new heart; His heart.  Then, his forgiveness of our sins will not just be beautiful but it will be eternal because we will have been changed!  We can no better change our very nature than we can raise ourselves from the dead. We need Him!

I love you all!  I love you all!  I love you all!  I love to hear all about what you are all learning and doing with your lives! Thank you for the letters .... they make me so happy! 

Love Hermana Webb