This cambio has been flying by. It has been a great blessing to serve with Hna Clark. I was praying before this cambio that I would have an opportunity to serve with someone with a lot of experience in the mission to learn from and Dios answered my prayer!
Por fin people are returning to their houses. January and February are their summer vacations and people here know how to take vacations.....literally weeks or months in the country, beach, or a different country. We were blessed TONS this month that we had plenty of people to teach but we are grateful for this next month when people are going to return to their normal schedules.
As a mission our focus is Retention, Reactivacion, and Bautism. Chile is known as a country that had a HUGE wave of baptisms 20 or 30 years back but after that many stoped going to church. I think por lo menos find new menos activos every week. Especially in this sector of Valle Grande. We do not have a chapel here and so people stop going to church when they move here because they do not know where the church is or do not have the motivacion to travel to the chapel (it is in Batuco which is 20-30 minutes away in auto). The members here in Valle Grande want a chapel here tanto! Funny story...so the other week the person who picked us up to drive to the church ended up running really late. We arrived at church super late and when we entered we saw our mission president sitting up front. But it was a blessing in disguise, because it showed to our president that a chapel in Valle Grande might be the right direction in the near future:).
Cool experience from this week...we were riding around and we saw this teenager walking in the street, both Hna C and I felt like we should talk to him. There are always a ton of teenagers walking around but we acted on the prompting. I started talking with him and I found out that he was baptised about 6 years ago but went inactive a year after his baptism. He was only in Valle Grande this week to babysit the house of his family. We set up a visit with him the next day, and it was a really special opportunity to reteach him about the restauraction. I have a lot of faith that he is going to return to the flock.
La Nina who was baptized the last week was not able to be confirmed this last domingo because she became super sick. Keep her in your prayers that she will feel better this next week.
Today we did a birthday celebration for the girls in our group. We baked chocolate chip cookies..the first time in my mission (was your recipe mom) and they turned out tan YUMMY!!!!!!
This week we were teaching a family when a temblor happened (earthquake). I almost feel Chilena ahora because I am really use to feeling earthquakes. But it is interesting because always after a temblor the temperature drops. So we enjoyed a few days with menor calor but quickly the wave of heat came back. You guys NEED to come visit Chile...It is hermoso!!!!!!
This week and this cambio as a compañerismo we have been focusing on service and teaching simply. My comp shared with me this morning about Ammon. The first thing he did was to offer to be the servant/to give service to the King. Through this he was able to open the heart of the King for the spirit to teach him. At times I want to teach things more profundly or cover a lot of material...but we need to teach with love, serve, and teach with clarity and simply.
I love the Book of Mormon. It is the keystone. It is for our day.
Love ya mucho
Hna Duffy
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