Hey family!
October has flown by, just like every month in the missionary. Each day gets hotter and hotter and my companion and I are preparing ourselves for the summer that is coming. The good part about the change in the weather is now that it is warm enough to play basketball or run in the morning for the 30 minutes that are given to us. We take advantage of it as much as possible.
A little update on my investigators. The only set of investigators that we have who have signs of progression is the Cortez Family. They are a family of 4, 2 parents and 2 children, 3 of which are able to be baptized because they are older than 7 years old. We have seriously seen miracles with this family. I know that I have mentioned experiences with them in the past emails, but since I have more time this email I´m going to try to give the whole history of them. Everything started with the Zone Conference we had with President Kähnlein around 5 weeks ago, which happened on aMonday. His main focus during the whole entire conference was on finding the chosen families who are ready to hear and accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ into their lives. Immediately after the conference, my companion and I made a goal to find one of those chosen families. 1 hour later, while looking for a less active family, my companion accidentally knocked on the wrong door, thinking that it was the house of the less actives. Out of embarrassment, he started walking away when I told him the truth, but than I told him that we should wait and see what happened. He happily agreed and we excitedly waited there. 2 seconds later, the dad of the family, Jaime, opened the fence door and excitedly told us to come in. During this first visit we met him and his son, Cristobal. They explained to us that their family had met with missionaries once before but then they never returned to the house and the contact was lost. We quickly explained our purpose and set a follow up appointment for when the entire family would be home.
The next appointment was with the entire family, on the following Saturday. We were able to meet the mom, Silvia, and the daughter, Pia. During the second appointment, we watched the Restoration video and shared about the importance of our message. We could tell that the son, Cristobal, was interested in the message and wanted to know more but the parents didn´t have the same desire to learn but they still wanted us to continue coming over because we were nice and funny. We invited them to church on Sunday but they didn´t have enough time to clear their schedules in order to go. Throughout the next 3 appointments, we began to focus a lot more on Cristobal and the following Sunday he came arrived at church for the last hour. We were very worried because this was the 5th Sunday of the month which meant that all the members were together for the last hour. For the 3rd hour, all the adults in the ward had a little conference about who would clean the chapel for the rest of the year. Instead of settling the matter very peacefully, the members started arguing and contention was there. Cristobal wasn´t too impressed but luckily we had a baptism (for Nico) right after the meetings and he felt the Spirit there.
The following week, we met with the family twice and taught only about the importance of prophets. They accepted our invitation to attend General Conference and the whole family arrived for the session when President Monson talked! They absolutely loved his words and immediately gained a testimony. After conference we had an amazing lesson that was centered on the covenants we can make in the temple in order to be sealed for time and all eternity. They accepted to invitation to be baptized the 20th as a family, and every lesson since than has been pure Spirit. Whenever the family has a doubt or fear of being baptized, they begin reading in the Book of Mormon and then it disappears. Due to lack of teaching, we moved to baptismal date to the 26th and they will for sure be baptized as a family that day. They committed to live each commandment that we taught them and tomorrow they will have their baptismal interviews. Pia turns 8 in December and her dad or brother will baptize her. In one year from now they will all be sealed in the Santiago Temple!!! Due to time, I haven´t been able to include more details but I want you all to know that every aspect of Missionary Work (ex. work with members, videos, commitments, family home evening, prayer, EVERYTHING) has been used to help this family and now I have a strong testimony of the divine power of Missionary Work.
Well I included a few photos so that you can tell how happy I am. I hope everything is going great in your lives!
1. A Primary kid who came with us for a few hours this week.
2. Posing in front of the Reloj de Flores (Clock of Flowers)
Love you all!
Elder Weidman
