¡Hola mi familia y mis amigos!
For Christmas, I totally vote for attempting the 3 way skype so that I get to see my inspiring sister, Tiffanie, too. We're going to try find a place where we can skype easily so there won't be problems, which is, in fact, one of the very first things my new companion, Elder Sosa, asked me, haha! I'm going to ask the Mossó family, because he has a couple of computers and would be more than willing to lend us some bandwidth to work with.
Elder Sosa is from Uruguay, but has parents who were Europeans, so he knows a lot of English and looks a little bit gringo. He is so excited and we are getting along just peachily. I was super sad to say goodbye to Elder Oberg, because were just so naturally comfortable with each other's personalities, and our teaching styles worked really well together. It's always kind of weird to switch your companion and then have to mold your teaching style into the other's again, but it's the best way to learn as we develop new focuses and learn from experimenting and experience how to teach simply, clearly, and under the direction of the Spirit.
We've been working with Maribiks for a while, and it has been really hard to establish her testimony, because she has always doubted even the validity of the Bible and whatnot, so she really had to learn HOW to recognize the Spirit and learn from him, but the experience made all the difference for her. Since about a month ago when she decided she does want to get baptized, she has been getting prepared and more and more excited for it, and so we were getting her ready for her interview that she would have to see if she was ready for that first step. Elder Oberg and I went through the questions of the baptismal interview with her to see where her testimony was at, but didn't get too far because when asked if she believed if the church and gospel of Jesus Christ had been restored through the prophet Joseph Smith, she took a second and then said, "I'm going to say yes so that you'll let me get baptized." HA, that was a tad of a red light. So we then began to delve into her doubts and teach simply, clearly, and using careful and sincere testimony with personal experiences, but could not get her to quite understand still, but stressed the importance that if she truly, sincerely asks God, wanting to know the answer, if the Book of Mormon is true and if Joseph Smith therefore is a true prophet.
Our leaders and Preach My Gospel focus very heavily on the importance of keeping the small commitments in the process of conversion, because investigators really have no chance of progressing or developing their own testimonies of our message unless they are reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and going to church to receive their own personal answer. We were therefore a little confused and wondering why Maribiks still hadn't had a personal experience with divinity yet since she has always kept every one of her commitments that we have been very diligent to enforce. We prayed about it and wondered when the promise would come through that Maribiks would receive her answer from the Spirit of the truthfulness of our message.
Last, last Sunday, the day after that visit, her sister, Skibiram, asked us if Maribiks would have to go up to share her testimony after she got baptized, so we asked Maribiks, "what would you say in your testimony were you to do it?" Then she took a second and responded, "I would say that...the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints...is...the true church."
It was a rather sincere response, and we were kind of taken aback, so we asked how she knew that, and she proceeded to tell us how she had been reading the Book of Mormon after we left, and she stopped and thought about what Nephi was writing, and she just kind of realized that it was all true, and that the Spirit softly and gently cleaned away the doubts from her heart. At her baptism, the young women gave her a great welcome to the branch and she is doing just wonderful as the newest member of the Coquimbo branch. I love you all!
Love, Elder Kimball
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