The One Where the Blind Led the Blind

Splits with Hermana Barreiro

We had an amazing lesson with Soledad and Armando. They are so incredible! They told us that it’s hard to read the Book of Mormon, but they are trying to read it every day. We asked them why. Why are you trying to read the Book of Mormon even though it’s hard? Soledad smile and looked at Armando and looked back at us and said, “Actually we have something to confess.” She then told us all about how ever since the first day we started visiting them she has seen miracle after miracle. She told us that she has never been so patient with her daughter and seen so many good things happen. Then her spouse started telling us about how he hasn’t spoken to his mom in 25 years and right when they started investigating the church, his mom reached out and they started talking again and now they are going to live with his mom and his sister he has never met. They started to tear up as they explained how incredible this timing is in their life as they are having financial issues and problems in their neighborhood.

                My heart was burning so deeply to see right in front of my eyes God blessing His children as they found His gospel and the recognized that it is God’s hand.

                Unfortunately this means that they are leaving and moving. It is still our sector, but super far away and we haven’t been working over there. But we got their new direction so we can visit them still. Who knows, maybe there is a reason we are going to start working in this area. Maybe there are more people in this city who are ready to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ!

                 I’ve always wondered about the doorbell system here in Chile and if just yelling at someone’s house is the best way to get their attention. Today I realized that no, it is not the best way because the same thing happened seven times today and it made me laugh every time.

We were contacting this neighborhood where all of the houses are basically touching. We yelled at a house and waited for someone to answer. But these poor neighbors can’t tell if you’re yelling at their house or the house next door. Not even exaggerating this happened 7 times– we waited at a house and the neighbor next door opened their door because they thought we were at their house. But when they opened their door and saw us at their neighbor’s house and not theirs I can imagine the slight amount of embarrassment they must have felt to have answered their door to no one. But not even joking they ALL pretended to have something important to do outside of their house really quick like check the mail, or the paint on their fence, or pick up a leaf off the ground, and then ran inside without making second eye-contact with us. 7 times! Ah these poor confused and embarrassed Chileans that could solve so many of their misunderstanding interruptions with the simple technology advancement of a doorbell.

  Also my companion’s bag broke. The zipper came off so it doesn’t close. But while I was helping Eileen’s daughter (Thyare) with English her grandma offered to fix my companion’s bag and sew the zipper back on. She was the SWEETEST old lady with the most fragile and delicate hands. All she wanted to do was serve. So she takes a solid 15 minutes just trying to set up a little sewing station with her ancient sewing machine. Then she took another 15 minutes fixing the threading that kept breaking. Finally she started fixing the bag. I promise I didn’t know a sewing machine could work so slowly. Like I think it was moving at 1 stitch per hour. She was being so careful and it was so cute.

 Finally she finished and made this big deal to present this “new” bag to my companion. We thanked her and left but I noticed my companion was holding her stuff in her hands. I asked her if she needed help putting everything back into her bag. She just looked down and showed me her bag. IT WAS SEWN SHUT! This poor lady took literally 45 minutes to “fix” her bag and now it is useless until we can take the time to unstitch every pocket! My poor companion didn’t have the heart to tell her so she had just thanked her and rushed out before this old lady realized. We laughed the whole way to the next appointment carrying her scriptures and pamphlets. And right now she is sitting on the ground carefully cutting away the messed up stitches all over her bag. Hahaha poor Hermana Flores and her forever broken bag.

                Oh my goodness, the biggest struggle happened Monday evening. So we have been putting together family home evening with families in the ward to find new people to teach. The idea is the family invites a neighbor or family that aren’t members. So my companion and I decided to do something dynamic with the lesson to involve the kids and have a little fun while learning. So in this member’s house we set up this obstacle course to represent our life on earth and then the finish line is the Celestial Kingdom.

We got everything set up and right as we finished, the other family showed up. I thought it was going to be parents with a few kids. But…NO…It was just one old lady. And it wasn’t just any old lady. She was BLIND. Oh my goodness what are the chances that the one time we set up an activity where sight is very important and she just so happens to be blind! I looked at this blind woman and then looked at this massive obstacle course and then looked at my companion and she lost it. She could not hold in the laughter. She made me laugh and we had to take a few seconds to compose ourselves. And then the thought came to me. Thanks to the hundreds THOUSANDS of family home evenings I have had in my life, a different activity came to my mind. I asked the member for a few ties and a rope. We ended up blindfolding everyone (well almost everyone) so no one could see and turned the rope into an Iron Rod and the Celestial Kingdom to the tree of life. It ended up working out so everyone could participate and the FHE was saved! But not going to lie- me and Hermana Flores laughed the whole way home at the irony. And finally the day of struggling came to an end.

                Today was SO amazing! We felt like we should go visit a future investigator. So we went all the way up to her house. We knocked and no one answered. So we contacted her neighbors but no one wanted anything. We were trying to figure out why we were in this neighborhood. Finally we decided to stop by an investigator who wasn’t there for her appointment yesterday. She answered and let us in. We taught about the Atonement. The Spirit was so strong and we both were able to bare our testimonies on the unconditional love Jesus Christ has for each one of us. We started to make our way to the baptismal invitation. We were careful with our words trying to do everything right. We didn’t want to catch her off guard and honestly I think I was afraid of what she’d say. Finally after we had completely beaten around the bush, we invited her to be baptized. And I swear we couldn’t even finish the question before she said yes, yes, yes! It was like she was just waiting this whole time for us to invite her to be baptized. Today I learned that it doesn’t matter what I think the people will say, if the Spirit says so I am going to invite them to be baptized. Because I’m not afraid of people, I’m afraid of what God would think if I didn’t fulfill my purpose as a missionary.

                Also we had a surprise lesson that we hadn’t planned for. This lady saw us walking and invited us in. We started to get to know her and she didn’t seem interested in going to any church but she was open to listening to our message. So my companion started asking about why she thinks there are so many different churches. She pulled out a Restoration pamphlet and I was totally with her. I even had a question ready that I wanted to ask her about the purpose of religion or something. But right as my companion looked at me to talk I realized that the question in my mind was MY question and not God’s. So my mind was trying to spit out these words but something was stopping them from coming out.

Instead there was just a silence as my companion waited for me to catch the clue that it was my turn to talk. But there was this silent battle inside of me. So I decided to do what I did that one day in the MTC and just say a quick prayer to know what to say. And literally right as I opened that connection line and addressed Heavenly Father, I knew what question to ask and the words just fell out of my mouth.

It had nothing to do with where we were in the lesson, but randomly I asked her, “Where do you see yourself in exactly 10 years from now?” She just looked at me. Then she said, “Do you really want to know the truth?” And I said of course. She said, “Today is my 30^th birthday and ever since I was little I’ve had the same dream several times that on my 40^th birthday I am going to be driving that car (and she pointed out the window at her silver van) and I will be driving next to a canal and my car will go out of control and I will crash and die in that canal. So in exactly 10 years from now I think it will be the exact day I am going to die.”

Wow both my companion and I were in shock. No wonder why she didn’t really care to be part of a church. No wonder why she spends every single moment with her kids trying to teach them all she can. She has on her belief window that she is only going to live for 10 more years. We were able to testify of God’s divine plan for us. She said how she’s lost so much sleep for years just with anxiety being so scared, literally for her life.

                The Spirit was so strong as we testified of Jesus Christ and the love He has for her. That only through His atonement can we truly feel peace in this life. She was so excited to learn how to use the Atonement in her life to truly feel peace. It was honestly such an incredible spiritual experience for all of us.

                Hermana Flores and I sang “Grande Eres Tu” for this old bed-ridden man and his sweet daughter. We arranged parts so the song was more dynamic and special. It was incredibly special to sing this hymn watching this sweet daughter lovingly watch her father fall asleep. It was such a wonderful precious moment.

She calls us her angels because we always seem to show up at her house on her hardest days and comfort her in a way that nothing else can. I truly know that God’s love is completely unconditional. No matter how quick or slow they are to accept His gospel, He loves them just as much.

                We had a wonderful lesson today with Olga, a recent convert, about faith and obedience. I love this topic because I feel like it’s exactly what life is about. We aren’t here to understand every commandment. We are here to prepare to meet God (Alma 34:32) and He has showed us how. Not through doing what we want, but doing what He has asked of us. We should always obey whether or not we understand the reason or not.

                I loved this lesson because instead of just leaving a chapter in the scriptures to read, we simply asked her what she thought she could do to fully show her faith and love for our Savior. She waited for a minute, and then began to talk about how she knows she needs to stay for all 3 hours of church. So she came up with her own commitment that is personal that we couldn’t have planned.

                At our lunch appointment, Hermana Andrea told us she had a surprise for us. She led me and my companion to a back room in her house. She opened the door and the room was full- COMPLETELY FILLED- with clothes. She told us she used to sell clothes but doesn’t have time anymore. She literally opened the door and said, “Shopping time! You can take whatever you want.” I LITERALLY pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. We didn’t have a ton of time but we just quickly dug through the clothes and picked out a few things we like. She let us try stuff on and take whatever we wanted. It was like heaven. It was like a birthday present from God. She doesn’t know my birthday is this week but God prepared a way to make me feel so special. So I got a jacket, 2 shirts, a cardigan, and a BEAUTIFUL skirt so my birthday is more than taken care of. Ah the things these people are willing to give/do for us will never cease to amaze me.

                P.S. I held a turtle today so there’s thatJ.