Up and Down Week

Hola a Todos! July 13th, 2009

I wanna Start by saying that I have officially finished my first change and the verdict is……….that i will be staying in Doñihue for 6 more weeks with Elder Abrams. I am so grateful because 1.) We haven´t seen the fruits of our labors yet because we´re close to some baptisms, 2.)This area is GORGEOUS, 3.) I don´t know Spanish or this area long enough to be effective for the Lord, and 4.) Elder Abrams and I were just starting to click. We really are starting to fix out all the small kinks we have had and be a lot more effective. On Tuesday, Elder Abrams and I walked through this back trail of Doñihue to get to another sector that was absolutely gorgeous! We were walking along a country road by all of these vineyards where they grow fruit and vegetables in the summer. It was all dry but beautiful. I am starting to appreciate the natural beauty of God´s creations a lot more because of this area.
The food of Chile is awesome. Any person that said it´s bland was lying! We eat a lot of chicken with rice, potatoes, and salad. But everything is eaten with the fresh bread they have here. The neighborhoods have little negocios (businesses) on every corner because that is how a lot of people live. It´s a tiny market right out of their house where you buy a lot of products and FRESH BREAD every day. Dad would love it here. We always walk by this bakery where the pastries are dirt cheap (like 100 pesos which is like 20 cents). They have something called a Berlin that´s a bread ball with carmel inside or cream inside. I LOVE them. We are eating well in the house as well. Elder Abrams is an awesome cook and I´m happy. Haha!
I am adapting to the Chileno Spanish hear which helps me understand a lot more. Like how the randomly end “-po” at the end of some of the words or how they won´t say the “s” at the end of the some of the words. It is still tough but better. I love the members here. We are trying to be the best obedient missionaries to be the most trustworthy for the members as well.
This week made me understand how important “prayer” is because without the exercising of our faith to know if things are true through prayer, we are not going to get a testimony for ourselves of the Gospel. There were two men that we recently started teaching who would deliberately NOT pray to know if this message was true. They could ask every question in the world for us to convince them but unless they prayed, they would not know. Focus on the principles and PRAY for yourself to know if they are true!!!!!!! It is SO simple but pride impedes everyone. We taught Christian for the last time on Saturday because he still hadn´t prayed about baptism cuz he knew the Lord would say yes. So, during the lesson, I proposed that the 3 of us (Elder Abrams, Christian and I) knelt down and he prayed about it. We did it and as he prayed, I felt the Spirit testify of his baptism stronger than anything in my life. When we got up and asked him to be baptized, he denied...for now. It was one of the saddest experiences of my life but he didn´t listen to the Spirit and there is nothing else we can do.
On the bright side, we put a baptism date on a father of a family (Juan) who wants to baptize his SON!!!!! Also Lorena, who is stopping smoking. Things are looking up. Pray for us. I need some uplifting words from Austin. Take Care!

-Elder Boaz