I am still trying to catch my breath!

How are you all doing!?!

This week has been good. We finished up another change.  I am still trying to catch my breath. My mommy (Hermana Maciel) went home this week, and I still feel a little weird about it. Time is going by very fast.

This week was a lot of contacting. We are still really trying to find people who are actually interested in our message.  :-)  But we are still working. 

E_ and R_ are really good people with very little faith. It was funny because we went to their house on Tuesday super excited. They are so great - they almost look Mormon, so we were really excited to go and teach them. We showed them the really corny Together Forever movie which gets them everytime, and I was sure that they were going to be hooked! They have two little boys that are crazy and it is easy to tell that they are absolutely in love with the two of them, so my comp and I thought we would focus on the family.  During the movie I heard E_ crying and I was thinking that the spirit was pretty strong and we were going to help this family go all of the way. So at the end of the movie I looked at the dad (thinking I was all really cool with my inspired question) and said "so, R_, do you think that families can be together forever?"  He tilted his head back a little and thought about it, and with a big smile on his face he said, "fíjate que NO!"  If your face just went from really happy to really confused you probably looked like me in the lesson.  He is just very happy to enjoy every minute now and then say goodbye when it is time to say goodbye.  I think the only reason he says that is because he has never had to say good bye.  The wife just kind of agreed with everything the husband said.  They are so great! They always let us in and give us food to eat, but they just don`t seem very interested in living a life of faith.  There are a lot of people like that here. They are good people who want to do good, but they say they don`t need a religion to do that. But like dad said, it is not that people cannot do good if they are not a part of a religion, it is that God gives us religion as a tool to help us progress. Anyway, so we are going to keep working with them. 

Y_ is adorable!  She is the MA that ALWAYS lets us in.  We showed her the Restoration movie, and it was awesome.  Her adorable daughter wanted to watch it with us and she knew the answers to all of my questions at the end. The lesson was great! Y_ was taking the opportunity to teach her daughter about Joseph Smith and how God answers prayers.  They both told us that they would come to church Sunday.  They did not... but we continue to work.  They are really great and I know that Y_ has all of the desire, it is just actually doing it that she lacks. 

The mission teaches one a lot about oneself.  I made another conclusion about me! I love the truth!!  It fills me! I love looking for it!  I love understanding it, and I love getting more of it.  I love that about our message.  I get to look for truth as much as I want!  In fact, that is what God wants; the more I learn, the more free I am and that is what God wants from us.  The hour of studies in the morning FLIES by.  I love to look up and study every word!  This week I studied what the fall means.  I studied what the Garden of Eden was like and what it is like here.  I made a comparison of the two worlds, and what that means for us.  It was SOOOOO interesting. Lehi maps it all out in 2nd Nephi 2.  It is GREAT!  We taught A_ how to study the scriprtures this week and he LOVED it too!  It works every time!!  The whole idea is usually in all of the books!  I love learning on His terms; the only problem is, His idea of learning requires patience, and love.  I have to be willing to wait and change.  He wants something that lasts forever!  I love what mom sent me from C.S. Lewis.  God`s idea of learning means I have to love others which makes me vulnerable.  I am learning more and more how much it hurts to not love, and how much fun it is to love.  Getting to know someone and finding out what led them to their faith in God is really beautiful.  I used to think that I was so wise that there were people that could not teach me, because I just knew more.  I am learning more and more everyday that that is a big lie!  We were all put here together to learn from each other!!  I love living with six other girls, because there is just more to learn.  We all believe differently, we have all chosen to believe for different reasons, we all have different experiences and it is fun. 

I feel bad because I don`t really have any way to express all that is happening.  It is definitely hard, and I am definitely tired but I am so happy.  This p-day we sat out on our roof and looked at the beautiful snow topped mountains, and ate sushi and played uno!  Life does not get much better than that.  It is nice to be able to see the mountains again!  That is a blessing from the rain.  Another fun detail is that we felt the biggest earthquake that I have ever felt this week.  We had awkwardly crashed a family party, and it suddenly started shaking and it did not stop, and it did not stop, and it DID NOT STOP, then it stopped, but it was pretty crazy!!  We were in this house becuase it was raining really really hard (I taught my comp the song its raining men while we were out in it ... it was super funny!!! I will always thinking of that song now with a thick spanish accent!)  We looked really pathetic so they let us in and offered us cake, and while we were enjoying our cake, it started shaking. Chilieans always start out when it starts to shake saying don`t worry it will pass, it will pass.  So when this one did not everyone was a little scared.  But it was fun!!!  No worries no broken bones;) ha ha just kidding no one was even touched.  It was a 6. something in the epicenter which is not too big for Chile so everything is back to normal. 

I think that is about it. I love you all and love all of your letters! Thanks for everything! I pray for you all daily. 

Love,  Hermana Webb

Mision Chile Santiago Este
Cristobal Colon 6824
Las Condes
Santiago, Region Metropolitana
Chile

51

A lot better than "an energy" to me ...

Saying good-bye to Hermana Maciel

Mision Chile Santiago Este
Cristobal Colon 6824
Las Condes
Santiago, Region Metropolitana
Chile

51

I love you all so much!! Did you know that you all make me cry!? There are so many beautiful things going on and it makes me so happy! Evan is HUGE! He is growing so much and it is going to be so fun to meet him I may even 'pull an Ammon'.  (Faint at the sight of people {she} loves.)  I love how happy Sara is! It feels good to see her be such a hypocrit about being in love!  :-)  And mom and dad, you two just have this way of making me a cry-baby!  But, everyone is used to it now!

This week was good.  It was a little slower but I am really happy.  First, we have found an amazing family that I am really excited about!! The dad is R_ and the mom is E_. We have been trying to visit them for a while. To be perfectly honest I did not write much about them because I did not have tons of hope in them. They were on the ANTIGUOS list which means that they were dropped for some reason. They had been investagators for over two years.  So we have been passing by and my hope in them grows everytime.  The dad has a serious illness, but they are super pegada. They are really close as a family.  The parents` lives revolves around their children.  Do you know how many families there are like that?  Now many.  So we are really excited because we have a set-set appointment with them tomorrow and we need lots of prayers.  They believe that there is a God but they don`t really know what to call Him.  They don`t know Him and I can`t wait to introduce the real God to them!  It is one of the most beautiful things of our doctrine. There are so many people that have a warped view of God. They call him an energy, or something more, or a power.  And out of fear of getting it wrong, they don`t usually go deeper.  We have pretty deep doctrine.  We believe in a God that not only loves us but He is our father.  His work and glory is so much so, that He sent His only begotten Son that we can live through Him and be saved by him.  I don`t know about you guys but to me that is a lot better than "an energy" to me! 

I went to the temple this week! I like the temple -- I walk in and feel totally calm.  I enjoyed the session, but had a battle with satan in the middle where he wanted me to listen to my fear instead of my faith.  Thanks to all of you people and your advice, I chose my faith, and asked God to help me.  In choosing faith, I enjoyed a real spirit and learned a lot about what God wants from me.  Afterward, I had a really sweet experience with a temple worker and some things she said to me that must have been inspired -- she just knew exactly what I needed.  God can answer prayers through temple workers too.  We just hugged and cried together.   

The other fun news of this week, is P_.  She is the friend of F_. You guys have to remember that these two do not look like mormons. They are teenagers with gages, and with lip rings. But P_ prayed to God and asked if the things we were teaching were true!!!  And she recived and answer!!  And she got so excited that she called F_! She knows it is true! I am so happy for her! Now we just have to pass her on to the elders..... We have passed on all of the good ones to the Elders!!! I am serious there is one pareja that has recieved three possible baptisms from us!!  That is what we get for working in the rich area and contacting a lot. ;)

Other than that the week was really calm. We continue finding lots of new people. It is a little bit of a fight to find new people who will actually be in their houses when they say they will.  But we are happy!  I have a great companion and I want to be here forever. This week Hermana Maciel goes home!!!! AH!!!!!! Time goes by way too fast!!  It was hard to say goodbye but she is going to have to deal with being stuck to me forever! he he he!!!  I am so grateful for Skype!!!  I learn more and more that God is real!  I learned this week more about giving up your life and finding it. There is a beautful talk about our will being swollowed up in the will of the Father. You should all read it.  I was always afraid of the idea of giving my whole life to God.  But changing my mind set to thinking of others before myself works!!  I become myself.  It is so weird and I love it!  God`s Will is so much better than ours.  The trick is giving up our pride, and really letting Him take over.  The few small moments that I succeded in that this week were glorious.  That is the invitation this week.  Worry about someone else more than yourself this week. It feels good! I am going to TRY to do it too. It is not easy but like all of Gods commandments, it works!!! I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!!! 

Hermana Webb

It is a beautiful journey!!

Missionaries LOVE packages ... 

Mision Chile Santiago Este
Cristobal Colon 6824
Las Condes
Santiago, Region Metropolitana
Chile

51

How are you all!?  This week was absolutely amazing! We are seeing miracles every day.

We are going to the temple with the G_ family tomorrow.  I am super excited.  They are this cute little family that got baptized a little less than two years ago ... but they are inactive.  They tend to avoid us, but we just sat on their porch until they came!! 

A_ and friends/family; she and her two daughters were baptized like four years ago.  Her daughter is kind of menos activa, but a great missionary!!  She invited her friend to have the charlas, and she is great! The friends name is P_.  While we were teaching her, a different man (T_) moved in to the house for a couple weeks.  He makes little kids cry because he has tattoos, and a mohalk and everything.  But then you find out that inside he is this soft awesome Mormon with a testimony and everything.  Both P_ and T_ don`t look like the believing type.  They have gauges in their ears, and it looks like life has treated them hard, but they both come when we have citas and listen attentively.  This week when we were teaching, I looked at T_ and asked him if he believed in the church, and he told me that he did but he knew that he had messed up so much that God could not forgive him because he knew that the things he was doing was wrong.  So I said "who was Alma?" And he told me the entire story of Alma!  Can I tell you how fun it was to listen to this man tell the entire story!?  Family night works, my friends!!!!  His mom seems like one who was good at family night!  He knows his Book of Mormon, and he still thinks about it!  P_ is as cute as she can be!  She really needs God in her life and she knows it. And F_ is just fun! She is helping both of her friends go back or enter the church. 

R_ and E_ are a cute couple with two boys. They are SUPER BUENOS!!!!!  Seriously!  The elders found them forever ago and I can`t believe that they did not get baptized.  The dad is sick with something but we are not sure what. We know something weird happened but we don`t know what because the missionaries did not write in the area book!  So we are finding out the mystery, but in the mean time we really like visiting them when we can.  (Which is not very often because they are both extremely busy.) They both work and have two kids.  The nana today gave us lunch. It was really fun and I am really excited about them. 

Y_ is a menos active.  She was really funny when we contacted her because she told us ... You guys will not be able to convert me because I already got baptized in your church!  She is awesome!  She told us that next week she is going to go to church and everything.  She always lets us in to her house and she listens to what we have to say.  She has two beautiful kids, and a husband that is really nice and really uninterested in our message.  But, we will keep trying there. 

The dad of the M_ family, J_M_. He is a good man, but it is really hard.  But he wants to listen and accepted to get baptized if he finds out that this church is true.  The spirit is always really strong in lessons with him because his sons are AWESOME!!!

P_ is this sweet man who we found looking for menos activos. The wife is a menos activa and we did not know who lived there. The man who opened the door was really sweet and good to us. His story is a hard one, but we'll work with him. 

Anyone know how to get rid of stray dogs?  Kevin is not actually a person, but a new pet who follows us around everywhere!  He makes me feel bad. So if you have any good getting rid of dogs ideas let us know! 

I love the Book of Mormon and the Bible!!!!  I loved studying them this week ... it was awesome!!  I learned so much about why faith is required of us ... 1) to be able to live without seeing, and prepare to one day see for ourselves; 2) to know without obvious proof; 3) to be sent here to be tested; 4) to learn how much we need Christ; 5) And, no wonder we have to wait until we can take the yolk of Christ upon us and learn of him so that when he comes we will see him in all his glory and we won`t have to be fooled like all of the people in the New Testament ... when He came and so many people missed enjoying His healing power!  That type of process takes faith. Actually the first step of that process IS faith ....  Faith that gives us the motivation to CHANGE or repent, which then gives us the motivation to make covenants with him that will bind us to him and help us enjoy his spirit so we can learn of him.  

So that is the invitation this week. Take his yoke upon you! Learn of him! We don`t have big enough brains for his knowledge, we don`t have hearts pure enough to feel love like he feels, we don`t have the ability to have the patience, humility and peace that he has.  But, if we take his yoke upon us we can enjoy those attributes, and just like mom says enjoy it as he replaces all of our weaknesses for his strengths!  And, when we enjoy his strengths, our burden really does become light, and our yoke easy!  It is through him that we become one and it is through him that we can have the power to see him as he is!  I pray for that as Moroni did! (Moroni 7:49 Moroni exorts us to pray with all energy of heart so that when Christ comes we will see him as he is. Because we will be like him!!) It is a beautiful journey! I love you all -- thank you for everything!!!!  Tell me your thoughts next week! I want to know what you all think! 

I love you all so freaking much!!!!!!!!!! 

Hermana Webb

Life is great here!!

Como estan!?

Life is great here!  We are working hard in Violeta Cousiño. This week we tried to follow up on all of the work that we had done in the last weeks. There is not a whole lot more to update. 

First, familia M_. They are doing really great! D_ has officially anounced that he is going to serve the mission and his family is going to get ready for that.  His dad came over last night late, and they called us to let us know.  So we went over and taught another lesson.  It went really well.  He is really open to the message now.  It was really beautiful to see what this last lesson did to him.  The first lesson is really good but it is hard to explain in little time so we did not get much in but he continues to listen and was really excited about the Book of Mormon. Now it is even cooler becuase his own son will be doing the same thing in a couple of months. 

The other family that we work with a lot here is this family from Colombia. They are great! It is a mom, dad, three sons and an uncle. The uncle and one of the sons has already been baptized. They are a great family. Everyone is actually pretty open to the message, except, the mom!  She does not let us talk about religion without fighting with us.  It is frustrating because her family is so cool!  We watched the Father in Heaven movie again with them and they LOVED it!  The dad had a HUGE simle on his face and could not stop! He was holding his youngest son as happy as could be and even accepted the invitation to go to church, but the mother was not so favorable.  So we will see what happens.  We are going to bring over a member to hopefully help us.

I have been studying a lot about our family history lately. That has been fun!  The hermanas came home and said how the entire mission has heard of my awesome book of ancestors, and so they were all looking at it all excited.  (We sent Carlie into the mission field with a little book with history summaries on several of her ancestors, which is what she is referring to.)

This whole week has been one of ups and downs.  satan is unfortunately really good and continues to try to fight.  I don't listen to him as he tries to feed my mind with doubts, but struggle when he tells me I am not enough.  Fortunately, Heavenly Father is really good at what He does, and he patiently helps me sort it out.

This week I had an interview with presidente, and it was really beautiful to see how involved God is! All of the things he had to say to me were exactly what I needed!  I also had a neat experience in discussing trials with my roommates (6 of us cooking in this HUGE kitchen) when one of them told me she had lost a sister too.  I had been really frustrated by the common "everything happens for a reason" and we should be finding the "good" in everything and being grateful ... like there is never anything to be sad about.  I felt physically sick at the idea of being grateful for cancer, because I am not.  But, we began to share more of the things I believe are true about mourning for the loss of those we love.  Then she just gave me this huge hug and told me that she loved me. She would always tell me, I don`t know why but you just fit really well with me! And she would always tell me that she liked talking to me because it was like talking to her sister.  Anyway, it was this really sweet moment of realizing that God really does care.  I don`t know if He planned to put us together at this time and in that way, but I do know that Love is a really cool thing. That loving and losing IS worth it, and that new friends and family makes life so beautiful! It brought me back to my perspective, and it reminded me How good He is! How he puts people in our path to love. I know I say this like every week but It is so fun to love! So here is the invitation this week.  Be like my president and my roommate.  Make people feel good about themselves!  God needs our help! There are so many people to love and so little time!  Find the good and love it!  It is so much fun than letting anger, jealosy or anxiety overcome those kinds of feelings.  I know that this is super corney but I mean it! The world would be so much better if we would all learn the joy that comes from loving and looking for the good and helping others see it. 

Any way I love you I am now off my soap box! I think you are all fantastic! I am so proud to be a member of this family!  I really liked what some of you all had to say about the people who have filled their lives with their own logic and emptied it of God`s love.  You are all right it is an empty life.  This week I am going to study why faith is so important.  If you want to join me I would love that.  Why doesn`t God just show Himself to us and then give us the commandments, and expect us to obey them. I love faith now. I think it is great but this week I am going to look for why it is necessary for our salvation.  Let me know what you all think.  Anyway I love you all so so so much! 

Love,

Hermana Webb

Mision Chile Santiago Este
Cristobal Colon 6824
Las Condes
Santiago, Region Metropolitana
Chile
51

I love his power and his grace!

How are you all!?  I have a great family!! I love to see how happy you all are in your cute little family!

This week was a lot of work! We worked and contacted people in the street, and then we contacted some more. So, I am sorry I don`t have very many stories. This week was a good fight against satan.  he is a bad little dude. There are so many people here who have just completely written God out of their story ... which I find so sad because He is the very creator of their stories.  There is this terrible idea here that says that if you are smart enough, you don`t need God and the ones who do believe in God are just those poor people who do not have a strong enough conscious or mind. That is uaually a bad sign when a people and a country starts to feel that way. But I choose to continue believing. 

We went to the M_`s house again this week! I love this family so so much!  I think they are part of what dad meant when he said that there were good things waiting for me in my next sector even though I did not believe him.  Now I am starting to believe him.  The dad was not there but they are awesome and brought someone else to the house to have a lesson because they are GREAT missionaries.  (hint hint to you guys, Missionaries LOVE it when they can do a FHE in your house with a non member!!!)  J_M_ is this awesome kid who has more love in his heart than anyone else I know.  He has a little brother who is starting to think about serving a mission. We went to their house to talk about how to learn more from the scriptures.  It was a great lesson!  The mom wanted to learn about eternal life, and so we went to the GEE (guide for the scriptures which is sooooo much better in Spanish!) We started reading about how to have eternal life.  The Bible said it well.  We read Christ's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, and we read about how Peter asked Christ where else he would go to have eternal life.  We learned about repentance and faith.  And then to close it all up we read the powerful words of Nephi 32!  He summarized all of the Bible scriptures perfectly!  It was a good kick in the pants to remind us that we need faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, and to do it till the end.  But then he testifies of our Savior who is mighty to save!  Nephi is AWESOME!!!  It was a perfect summary and a perfect example of how those two books support each other.  We did not plan it because we did not know what they wanted to study but the two books support each other so well that you don`t really need prior planning.  I love the Book of Mormon!!  I have shoved it down so many throats this week, but I hope they read it!  Because it is true!  It is powerful! and it connects us to the One who is mighty to save! 

Anyway, continuing with the M_ family, J_M_ started talking about how when he found out that his brother wanted to serve the mission he was super proud and excited.  Then suddenly the entire family started to cry. They are so close all of them!  It is so cute!  They started talking about how long two years will be but how worth it it will be.  It was so cool!  I think it was the first family that I have felt the same kind of love that we have!  It was pretty cool.  By the end of the lesson I was in tears ... again too!  I taught them about the emotional hang over joke. They liked that!  They told us that after we left, the dad was way excited and said that we really could come over when he was over. He was on vacations this week though so that is why we could not be with them. 

Other than that I had a relatively boring week.  I have a great companion and it was definitely my turn to have a hard sector;).  I got it!  But I really am okay.  Life is good!  I have been having a lot of really cool experiences with faith these last couple of weeks!  Taylor wrote me an AWESOME letter that answered a lot of my questions. I also read Mosiah 24:9-15 replacing the word burdens with doubts, task masters with fear, Amulon with satan, and Alma with my name. That is your homework this week.  It is really really interesting!!!  The Book of Mormon really is true! I love drinking deeply from the living water that comes from that book.  It is my door for revelation. I love looking at logical people and saying take it!!!  ... Read it!  Try to prove this book wrong!  Look for the errors, and while you do that, notice how close you feel to God!  I do it with confidence because the power is real and it is real everytime I open it!  Share it with someone this week!  This world needs the Book of Mormon! Mom and dad you will be surrounded with people who need it!  I hope that before you get home someone will have a Book of Mormon that did not before!  Taylor, you live all around people who don`t have a Book of Mormon, and Sara, you can give it to your florist or something!  I testify that God lives!  I know that Christ is mighty to save me!  I know that he is Mighty to save each one of us!  I love his power and his grace!  They are real! We just have to be better at accepting it. 

I love you all so very much! Thank you for being my world!  I really am a happy missionary testifying of eternal families! 

Hermana Webb

Mision Chile Santiago Este
Cristobal Colon 6824
Las Condes
Santiago, Region Metropolitana
Chile
51