Great week this week. Really. I have felt The Spirit a lot of times this week with my companion. As always, there are always so many experiences to share and so little time to share them (and a limited memory under pressure haha). But this week we have seen the hand of The Lord very prominently in Los Robles! Where to begin, where to begin. Here´s 2 experiences:
1) On Thursday, we were walking to check on a couple that we are teaching, named Mario and Johanna. As we were heading over, this homeless guy (lugging a giant thing of metal) came up to us and asked if we had any money. Nothing unusual, really, so many homeless people ask us for money every single day. But both my comp and I weren´t walking with any money on hand, so we told him we had nothing. I felt like we should help him carry the giant metal thing to wherever he was headed, so we offered to help him and he readily accepted. After a few minutes of conversation, we found out that his name was Andrés, 24 years old, homeless as of 15 days. (lesson learned here repeatedly here in Chile: everybody´s story is way more interesting, and normally a lot more complicated (and depressing) than I´d think at first glance. It´s so important that we get to know people before we start assuming).
We walked with Andrés to the limit of our sector, and as we walked, we talked about how God is our Father, and that He loves us, and that He is willing (and wanting) to help us if we are willing to receive help. Andrés admitted that he wanted help, and so we sat down in a little grass patch at a street corner and taught Andrés how to pray, and the power that prayer will have in our lives. We then invited him to pray, and he did! We then had to leave, seeing that we were at our sector´s limit and it seemed like we had accomplished what it was that The Lord wanted us to do.
This might sound weird, but I felt the Spirit so strongly as we walked away from Andrés. A scripture came to my mind, something that says something to the effect of bringing lost sheep to the fold covers a multitude of sin. I can sincerely testify that I felt that remission of sins as we walked away from Andrés. Not that there are any grievous sins that I speak of, just the day to day cleansing that I desperatley stand in need of. I know there´s a good chance that The Lord put him in our path to help me, and that the visit itself had little to do with Andrés. Whatever The Lord´s plan may be, I am grateful for the experience I had to be a part of it, and grateful that we were able to follow The Spirit in the right moment.
2) Monday night, we were with a Peruvian Family of investigators. Well, the mom is less-active and the rest of the family are investigators. We taught The Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Spirit was present as we testified of The Atonement of Christ, and the opportunity He gives us to repent of our sins and be baptized. We also talked about the blessing of the temple, a place where we can receive all of The Lord´s blessings for us and be sealed to our families. (a cousnsel we received from Elder Packer (of the Area Presidency) was to craete an inspired date for our investigators to not only be baptized for themselves, but also for their deceased family members in the temple. We have been counseled to include that invitation to the temple in our same baptismal invitation...in other words, set 2 baptismal dates with our investigators.) I could feel the Spirit strongly as we invited them to be baptized and prepare themselves to go to the temple, and I felt The Spirit witness to me of the blessings that come as we follow the cousel of our Priesthood Leaders.
And yessir they said yes!
I´ve seen many blessings this week in the work. Remember Pamela´s family? The family we found that showed up to church the next day? They´re getting married on April 1st, and 3 of their kids are getting baptized this Saturday!! I have the chance to baptize Gerald and Victor, two of her sons. Gerald is 16 and Victor is 11. Antonella, their 10 year-old daughter, asked Elder Araujo to baptize her. Among the millions of miracles in this sector, Pamela and her family are a progressing miracle for which I am extremely grateful.
All good things folks, all good things!
Love,
Elder Hixon
(Pictures of a Pastry place we visited. I got to visit the North mission to assist in a special musical number (piano perks) and the mission couple took us to get some treats.)
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