Feliz cumpleaños a Lauren this Friday! and thank´s for the emails and the forwarded letters from Maddi Moffat and Michael Whittle! Honestly, changed my week when I got those.
Interesting things this week. First, I made my way through the Chilean "MegaSalud" and got my retainer fixed! I had to go through a secretary, 2 x-ray technicians, and 3 doctors to get it done, but it´s done! you´re not going to believe it. They took out the part that was bad, put in a new one (in a much better position, too), and it took the lady like 15 minutes--- $10 mil CLP! That´s like 20-25 American bucks!!! That´s it!!! In the States, that would have been like $100-150, maybe even $200. And boom, just like that, really cheap, and it feels great, and trust me, it´s a job well done. If it lasts longer than 10 months, it´s still better than my previous retainer. Successs of the week.
Vacations are hard as a missionary, because everyone leaves. Everyone. If we get into a house, it´s soooo hard to come back. Either we can´t come back for 3 weeks because they´ll be at the beach, or we set a return cita and they´re not there, or they just say, chuta, we have vacaciones and tell us that they´ll call us (nope, never do). So that´s frustrating, when every single cita or plan A or plan B or plan C that we set falls through-- every single one in the same day. And when we don´t get to meet with our promising fecha because she worked late every single night because all of her coworkers are on vacation. but hay que seguir, no más.
A member told me a joke in English this week, and it was actually pretty funny: "An Elephant is sitting on an orange in front of a synagogue. what´s he waiting for? Juice!" I thought it was quite clever. me dio risa.
The importance of Obedience was reenforced this week in my life. a few reasons. I committed myself to go to bed, wake up, do exercises, do all my studies, etc. exactly on time, to the minute, and that day was just better. We didn´t teach a lot, but I just felt better, and had a better attitude. Obedience really really helps. Also, from the other side of things. We finally got into a house after contacting them a few days before, and it turns out both the guy and his girlfriend had had experiences with the missionaries before. And it´s really uncomfortable when both their experiences were with missionaries, who played video games with them, kept coming over for 7 months to hang out and eat and watch movies and stuff, never talking about the church or fulfilling their purpose, and other things. So if not for yourself, the principle of obedience for the sake of future missionaries is important, too.
I´d like to include something that was in Michael´s letter that you forwarded to me, mom, in DearElder. It really hit me. "The Invitation we give all people everywhere, to come unto Christ, means nothing if we do not do it with Love. That is how Christ did it. This is his Gospel, and we need to invite people His way. If we don´t, it would be making a mockery of this sacred invitation." I love that, and I really tried to take that to heart this week. And guess what, it helps.
We taught a member family about family prayer last night, and when I was bearing testimony, the Lord really filled my mouth once I opened it. I testified about how our family always did family prayer, and how I can´t remember a time when we started doing family prayer--- because we´ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. And now I see the blessing of it-- that our family is unified. And in response to that, the dad said, holding his 6 month old boy, his first child, "I want my son to be able to say that. I want him to remember us always kneeling down having family prayer. I want to him to remember that his parents always took him to church. I want him to be able to say that." So thank you. Also, thank you for showing love to your kids. This week we were working with this family, and it just made me so sad that there is so little love in the family. So un-unified. Thank you so much, mom, dad, hayden, spencer, and luke, for being willing to go to church and do stuff as a family, for showing love, for supporting each other, and I´m especially grateful for the support you show me, even though you´re miles away. I feel your love.
I miss you. Keep going strong!
Elder Moffat
