¡Hola mi familia y mis amigos!
Happy Happy Birthday Birthday to my incredibly amazing nephews, Andy and Rydin!! I'm so excited for you and can't wait to see how big you're growing and how good at soccer you're getting!! I love you tons!
Halloween here is a good bit unexciting, so it was nearly almost just a normal day, but it got us thinking that it would have been a great opportunity to have put on a branch activity or something for the members since we gringos know how to really make Halloween rock. That revelation came way too late, but we might run with it and start planning a branch activity for the 22nd, Thanksgiving, since it seems to be a pretty unknown holiday here that could be pretty fun to put on. We're thinking of having a little fireside kind of thing about being grateful, and then having a big dinner or something. It would be a fun opportunity to teach the Chilean members a good ol' American tradition just for fun, so we'll run it past them.
One of the investigators we are teaching is Maribiks. She is a 16 year old girl, who's younger sister, Skibiram, got baptized 2 years ago when she was 9, but the rest of the family aren't members or anything. We reactivated Skibiram and have been teaching Maribiks for about a month, but she never accepted a baptismal date, and has a hard time accepting if we're the true church or not, because she believes that all chruches just go to the same God. We've just focused on her keeping the little commitments like reading, praying, and going to church, and it has done wonders. It's almost funny to see how her little doubts just seem to solve themselves between visits because she keeps her commitments, and she has progressed steadily since our first encounter. The trick has been getting her to see her own progress, but when she realized how much her faith in Christ has increased in this last month, the decision became a lot easier for her. Last week, after a quick lesson with her, she stopped us at the door and said, "I think I'm finally ready. I want to get baptized." Nice words to hear. However, when she told her dad, his reply was of course, "so soon? you ought to just wait for another few months for no real reason" (not a direct quote.) So we'll just have to press forward and explain what "step of faith" and "enter by the door" mean.
A 15-year-old recent convert, Shlomit, had gone pretty inactive for the last few months, but last week Elder Oberg and I just passed by her for 5-10 minutes every day to get her in the habit of reading 2 verses of the Book of Mormon daily along with other goals she put, and she came to church on Sunday and even went up to share her testimony! It was so cool, because she said she had gone inactive, but at some point during last week, she felt the strong impression to never again leave the church, and she felt so happy when she was there on Sunday, with a joy she didn't even realize she was missing or had missed until she arrived. We've never been able to share much with her dad, Mario, who isn't a member, but he kind of hides himself whenever we come over, but when he came to pick her up from church on Sunday, she was so happy and he started talking with one of the members, and the member invited him to come to church with his daughter next Sunday, and he decided he would, and then came over to tell us that. That was way cool, because many times we missionaries can be pretty intimidating to many people, but the effect the actual members of the church can have in the missionary work is priceless if they are not afraid to share their testimony and love. I'm grateful for the great example my own family has shown me of that while I was growing up. I love you all!
Love, Elder Kimball
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