'Well, I am putting on Mormon aren't I?'

This week was great!  It was also a bummer.  This is going to show how spoiled I am, but we had a couple of days this week where we did not have a single lesson in a house.  I know that is a normal occurrence in Thailand, but it is not in Chile.  Usually we get into at least on house.   But at the end of the week when I thought I had a right to complain, my companion and I tried to think of the miracles that happened this week and we found that we really can´t complain because the miracles continue.

Let´s start of with this weeks funnies shall we?  He, he, he ... we have good ones this week.  We were contacting in the street and contacted this nice old man who did not understand accents very well. First of all, he thought I told him that we were prisoners sharing a message about Christ.  (misioneras, prisioneras) Once we got him straight on that, I started telling him about Joseph Smith.  I told him that when he went to the grove of trees to pray he saw God.  But naturally, this cute old man got the word orar (to pray) mixed up with orniar, which means go pee. He repeated what he thought I said, and said 'when Joseph went to urinate, he saw God?!!'  I thought he said pray so I said: SI!.... It is a good thing my companion was there to stop me and say "NO, ORAR" (pray)!  It was classic.  So the whole week we had an awkward image in our heads and making us laugh of Joseph going pee instead of praying.  Then yesterday, we were teaching these two brothers who are menos activos.  We teach them during their work.  They are conserjes.  We did this huge lesson on priesthood this last week and we were trying to do a review.  We started by talking about prophets.  We were trying to help them remember that prophets have the priesthood.  So my comp said 'what is the thing that only men have?'  It was so great because both of the brothers just look at each other and started laughing.  Then I totally lost it!  I put my head down on a desk thing and basically laughed for the whole lesson.  My comp tried to make it better by saying 'no I mean what power?'  But that just confused him more and S______ said: "well they have the power to make women pregnant!"  That made it even worse.  But wait...there is more!   A member passed by and told them that they needed to keep listening to us because the church was a fountain of beautiful really awesome women (then pointed at us).... I wanted to kill this member.  I tried to smooth it over by telling them that he said that because we believe families can be together forever and so we have a lot of hope in who we marry.  Then Hermana Maciel finished off her very blonde moment with looking at S_____ and said 'don´t you want a family forever?' It totally sounded like she was asking if he wanted a family forever with her! It was terrible!  But very funny!  We are so awkward!

First, our miracle was Y______! I love her so much!  She is still progressing really well.  She is trying to find a different job so she can go to church and spend at least a little time with her son. S he is so cute but I feel impatient.  I keep thinking that she should have found a job by now but she has not.  I told her about my impatient-ness and she laughed and said 'no, this is good.  I obviously have something more to learn.  It is all about progression right?'  I wanted to take off my name tag and pass it to her.  This is the women who when we first met her was not sure if she believed in God or not.  Now we continue to pray.  But, she did find a better job.  She is not working for the community and so she gets paid more and she does not have to work as much.  It also means that she can be with her son more.  We are still missing Sunday unfortunately.  I am trying to be more patient now because of her example. 

We went to visit this old man in the hospital this week.  It was homework from the bishop.  He had heard of this man that is a member that has been in the hospital for a long time and his family cannot come see him because they live in the south and work all week.  So we went to go see what was up. We found this cute little man who was very skinny, blind and with out both feet in this big dark hospital room.  They recently amputated his feet and he lost his site a long time ago. T o make things worse, he is far from his family and he recently found out that his daughter died of cancer.  If someone were to just look at that picture of his life, it would look so dark and with out hope. But that was this opposite of this cute little man!  He was absolutely full of love and hope for God.  He told us his story.  He told us how he found the church and how he served God and his family for his whole life.  He told us about his children and his grandchildren.  Then he looked at us and with eyes full of a deep love and obvious pain and said but, "I am happy!"  It really hit me because this man was not fake about it.  He knew his life was hard.  He knew that he had to fight all of his life and that things were not looking up, and yet he had an absolute faith in his Savior.  Mom sent me an article about hope that I really liked!  It says that hope is like a woman with her eyes wet with fresh tears but looking steadfastly ahead for the light that she knows is there. (I am quoting the article, Sara, I am not being corny!)   I really liked that because I could see it in this man.  It was a really sweet experience! My comp is worried he is kind of there to die.  I am going to be really bummed if that is what happens!  I have kind of fallen in love with the man.  

P_____´s family are still doing great!  They are so cute!  E_____ has this weird phobia of praying out loud.  He refuses to do it with anyone!  But he did it with his twins this week!  P_____ caught him teaching them how to pray!!  Sometimes I want to calm those crazy kids down because they can make it so hard for them to progress, but then other times, they are totally the key to that progress! Thank you P_____ and R______! 

M_______ also continues to progress! He wants to get baptized but he keeps telling us that he can´t because he is not ready for the covenants in the temple because he does not know what they are. We keep trying to tell him that getting baptized does not mean that he has to go to the temple, but he is not getting it.   He is a very funny man!  I wish I could explain him to you guys.  He is just one you have to meet... But he goes to church every week and we are visiting him twice a week now so he is really progressing.  When I asked him if we could visit him again on Saturday he said:  'Well, I am putting on Mormon aren't I?'  'I need to see you guys more often!'  He also asked me that if he gets baptized if he has to cry during his testimony.  He is classic. 

It was a great week!  I love being here!  I laugh, I get frustrated, I cry, I get super excited, and I find real progression!  I have been praying for a real love and I am finding it!  It grows every day!  God is so good at what He does!  He has a better plan!  It is so much better than just washing us clean!  With the covenants we have made it is more than just not sinning!  God has a plan to make us holy!  He has a plan to make us want only good and seek after it!  This plan is not to bug us or to give us limits, but it is to help us soar!  He really is the perfect teacher.  And, if we use all of the little things he has sent us He will change us!  I thought a lot about the sacrament this week.  We get it every week.  It is made to sanctify us.  Baptism cleansed us but now we have to change!  Thanks for everything family! I love you all so much! 

Thanks for the fun news of my nephew! I am so excited to come home to two! I love him already! 

Hermana Webb