Dear Family Week of Tuesday May 24 to Monday May 30, 2016) Winter here!
This has been a very busy past week (semana) for us with lots of evening (tardes) dinners (cena) in our apartment (dormitorio). We feel like we are filling two missions at the same time, 1) our work at the office and our 2) evening and weekend work with investigators. We do keep a very busy schedule with lots of work, but we have had some very interesting experiences. We also appreciate your prayers in our behalf and in behalf of our investigator families to have their hearts softened so they will not only want to actually read the Book of Mormon but to also to have the desire to really want to know if it is true.
PHOTOS George sent for this week.
- Photo of Andre (we call him our grandson)
-The public school by our apartment "children's performance"
-Piano solo by an age 13 Chilean boy Sergio "an utterly fantastic performance"
-Meeting the school children and the school administrators
-Wednesday Maria over again for dinner and a lesson
-Thursday Dinner for Claudio and Hugo
-Friday Lesson over at Martaa and Rodolfo's home
-Saturday Baptism at Quito Ward (George is in this photo)
-Saturday Wilson and Idedie and two children Daniel 10 and Pascal 6
-Sunday Dinner for Marta and Rodolfo, and son Googa (Gustabo) almost 4
STORY 133 (Andre from Columbia at the apartment front desk came for supper) Monday May 24 Andre, not married, only speaks Spanish but we worked through the language OK. He and all of the desk clerks people live in the same apartment in our building. They are all from Columbia. We also played Yayhtezz with Andrew and had a page teaching English Words to do with the game. We had a nice evening with him, but did not share the gospel at this time.
Andres is from Columbia and works as an employee in our apt. Building. I tell him he is my Nieto in chile. He calls me his Abuelo. Nieto is grandson and Abuelo is grandfather.
Stories to do with Marie's Visit for Dinner and a Home Evening Lesson (134-135-136)
STORY 134 Maria - (More On the Three Degrees of Glory) Wednesday pm May 25 To our dismay, we had Maria in tears (crying actually) last night saying she cannot believe that only the Mormons are going to Heaven, and quoted just 5% of the population (wrong on this statistic), and that there is only ONE true church. But she believes is that she loves Jesus Christ and he loves her and she feels his love in her heart and his help daily, and believes that what is in your heart is what matters and it doesn't matter which church you belong to, and that all good people will go to heaven to be with Christ, and that she knows she is going to heaven and will be with him after she dies. She does not feel we have a (corner on the market) so to speak. These very good good good people have been so deceived and it is SO hard for them to change their beliefs. We felt so bad to see her in tears, and finally calmed her down, but gradually George again challenged her to READ the Book of Mormon, and asked her to really want to know if it is true. We will just stay on this theme as we only have six more months here. We were thrilled that she pulled her book (Book of Mormon) out of her purse, and said she was reading it. We told her since she is out of work now she could probably read the whole book in 2 weeks. We will be meeting with her again in 2 weeks. She is one of our MOST special people that we have met here. We have been here a YEAR and so far none of the people we have met or worked with have read the Book of Mormon clear through and prayed about it to get a testimony that it is true. Not very good statistics!
STORY 135 Maria - (The HE Lesson was the Home Evening - Teaching Part) Wednesday May We had Maria say the prayer, and then we gave her a Liahona and showed her the children's section and told her to have her older grand daughter read and give one of the stories, then we had Maria read a scripture from a Spanish Bible, then George did the lesson on (reading the book of mormon). We then had the games and did all of the above three, then we had a discussion and a treat, and a closing prayer before she left to go home. We have FOUR more times this week when we can try out this new approach to TEACH (1) About Family Home Evenings, and (2) Teach a lesson of some sort.
STORY 136 Maria - (How Chilean's Pray and Hearing Maria's Prayer) This was a real spiritual experience. Her prayer was so beautiful. Here in their tradition all of the members of the family hold hands around the table when they pray, forming a circle of hands clasp one to another. Then Maria said the prayer. That prayer was so wonderful that I can hardly express it in words. They do not end prayers in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen, but just say Amen. But we say Amen and they say Amen with an A like in Father.
We had Maria Antioneta over to our apartment for dinner again. She is a lovely person but pretty tied to the evangelical church.
STORY 137 (Attending a Public School Program by our apartment) Thursday May 26 On our way walking to the office Monday morning at 9:50 am we saw several children walking to a school that we pass right by with their parents and they were all dressed up in Chilean costumes.
After arriving at the office we left and went back to the school to see if we could go to the program. We arrived and knocked at the front entrance and were met by one of the administrators who invited us in. This lady spoke fluent English and we had a nice conversation. She made us very welcome and invited us to sit on the seats (actually behind the dignitaries who were coming to give out computers to some of the students). Camera people came too so we were probably on TV that night. This is a PUBLIC school, not a private, and the public schools are required by law to teach the Chilean (the Quaka). This is why some the children were dressed up in costumes. One of the Chilean students age 13 (Sergio) played a piano solos - a long long rendition of a spanish composition that was utterly fantastic. We loved seeing the children dance the "Quaka." and we loved their singing the National Chilean song. After the program several of our own church children plus many of the other young school children made us feel like we were the dignitaries as they all hovered around us. School children all wear the same style of clothes. (see photos) We also made several contacts for future missionary discussions with the school people -those who speak English.
There are many photos from this event for you to view to get a real idea of a Chilean public school. Also we picked up TWO new contacts for dinners in future for Alanda and Raquel.
This the Ecuador public school that we went and visited. We now have one of the administrators coming to apartment for dinner tomorrow. We will see how that goes. You can see on the very left part of the building where we live. The school is about one half block away.
We went to the Ecuador School for a program and were treated well as guests by the administration. The children also loved having us there and liked us taking their pictures.
Pretty young Chilean girl by the name of Tihare. She dance the Quaka, the national dance in Chile.
These are the administrators at the school who treated us as guests. We have invited the person in the center for dinner with her husband.
STORY 138 (Dinner with Hugo and Claudio) Thursday PM May 26 These two men have come to our place man other times, Hugo stopped the lessons 3 to 4 months ago, and Claudio is now separated from Monica. It was good to have them together. We had a home evening lessons and gave them the Plan of Salvation lesson and afterwards played Yatzee. It went well and the two of them will return in 2 weeks. It was good to have the two of them at the same time. I did the clean up from the meal and dishes, while George gave them a lesson.
STORY 140 (Goal - to have a Family Home Evening with our Investigators) This pas week at the office we made two different lists one in English and one in Spanish (see Spanish and English photos) and wanted to have these with our people who come to dinner. We then purchased some little colored (cubes) at the store and made up some short games to play with them. Monopoly is just TOO long - we have done that one, Chilean CLUE was long too, and ROOK is an adult game. We wanted something for the young children. We think this will be a hit. We have SIX colors and 30 cubes for each. We then made up three new home evening games for families using the colored cubes:
(1) GAME 1 shake the dice and you can put in a jar the number of cubes on the dice. If you roll a five you have to put five back. This was fun too. Takes about 10 minutes per game. The little blocks could represent the good choices choices you need to make daily.
(2) GAME 2 take your 30 cubes and made four letters of the alphabet, we have six colors and it almost goes to the end. We did this and it was fun.
(3) GAME 3 take the cubes and have TEN on the bottom for the ten commandments and then build something. We then started to recite the commandments before playing this game. Maria said she liked this as it was relaxing to do it, even though hers fell down. She thought her grandchildren would like this game. (see Photo of the cubes)
STORY 139 (Showing the Restoration Video) Sunday May 29 We had Marta and Rodolfo over for dinner. It was really strange as we had another family coming for dinner at 4 and they didn't show up, so decided to use that dinner for Marta and Rodolfo (see photo) tacos spread, alot of work but they loved it. George showed the restoration video and they were very attentive, but during the afterwards conversation Marta told him what a hard time she was having even thinking about changing churches. She even said she even didn't want to know if the book was true. After more discussion we finally were able to commit them to reading JUST the book of First Nephi and then next sunday they will return for dinner (cena in spanish), and we will discuss what they read (leer). That book of 1st Nephi is loaded, so they will have lots and lots of questions (preguntas in spanish). Missionary work surely needs the help of the spirit and the softening of hearts, plus all of your prayers.
Much Love to all of You Mom and Dad
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