¡Hola mi familia y mis amigos!
Well, this week was incredible. On Tuesday night at 1:00 AM we left for Viña on a bus, but it was definitely the worst of those trips so far. It's very difficult to sleep on those trips, and even harder when you have to sit next to an overly large man who snores and jabs his elbow into your side while he sleeps, hear a phone go off on the seat behind you literally every 20 minutes so the wife could check where he was at, and listen to a baby cry nonstop 3 seats in front of you. The surround sound experience was quite real, and we arrived at Viña no problem at 7:00 to get to the leadership capacitation with Elder Viñas, the area 70. Haha, the assistants kept making fun of me and Elder Oberg from where they were sitting because our heads kept nodding up and down, and they would just laugh. After the capacitation, we worked for a couple of hours in Viña, talking to people and setting baptismal dates with people in the street before we got back on the bus to get home to Coquimbo at 2:30 AM Thursday. I love those trips.
On Saturday, Elder Viñas came to Coquimbo, and we had another special meeting with the missionaries in the morning. In the afternoon, he held a special priesthood meeting with all the priesthood holders in the Coquimbo District to instruct them and measure their maturity as priesthood holders, because he will now go report to President Monson to see if we can become the Coquimbo Stake! Everyone in the district has been pretty stoked about this for a while, and it's looking like we're going to make it.
We're working like crazy. After the meeting with Elder Viñas on Saturday, my mission daddy, good ol' Elder Pilcher, stayed with me and worked in our area while the other assistant worked with my companion. It was so inspiring to spend a few hours with him again, and to see how far we've both come from a year ago. We packed every second of that interchange with teaching moments, talking to people in the street or teaching a few lessons and setting a few more baptismal dates with people. I'm so proud of my daddy and grateful for the great example he is for me on the mission. I'm even more grateful for my real daddy back home and for the entire lifetime of learning I have enjoyed from his example and work ethic.
We had almost 20 people committed to going to church on Sunday, and had contact with all of them on Saturday to confirm that they were still committed. It was looking good until we called them Sunday morning to make sure they were still going, to which only 3 maintained their commitment. We didn't really know what to do, because we had put forth already everything we knew what to do, so we knelt. We somehow knew within ourselves that God would answer. Then, at church, I was shocked to see the way in which He did. Fernando Lozano is a 24 year old recent convert of about a year, and he was receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood yesterday, and his parents and older sister accepted his invitation to accompany him. THAT IS A MIRACLE. In the time I've been here and for every missionary before me, Fernando's family has been so stubborn against the church that they don't even let us see them face to face, and have eluded every one of our creative ideas to get them involved with Fernando. At the end of the sacrament meeting, they couldn't stop smiling, they were so amazed at what they were feeling inside, and so inspired from the talks they heard. After the second hour, the gospel principles class, they came up to us and practically begged us for a Book of Mormon and wanted to know when we could come over to teach them more.
I think God is great. He's wonderful. If we go out and work our hineys off and obey His rules, it's like He says, "ok, good job. Here's a couple of people who are ready." Maybe it has nothing to do with all those other people who decided not to go to church at the last minute -- well, it still has to do with them, all of them still need to come to the wall of faith where they can choose to follow Christ -- but God sees our efforts and true desires and then He pours out blessings until there is not room enough to receive it.
Not only that, but there was a family of 5 in Sindempart that Elder Cordoba and I we're teaching. They were one week away from their baptism and Hector, the 26 year old son, called us and said they had seen some pride within the church among the members, and they didn't want us to come by anymore until they called us. He said they still knew our church is the true one, and they would be baptized, but not until they were ready, and that they would call us to let us know. That basically broke our hearts, to put it lightly, and we saw them from time to time in the street or something, but it was never their time yet. Hector just called the missionaries yesterday to let them know it is time. I love you all!
Love, Elder Kimball
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