The One Where My New Companion Understands My Friends Show Reference

Hermana Garcia is from Bogota Colombia and she is 21.  She has been a member her whole life.  Her dad is a convert and her mom is a returned missionary.  We were talking on the bus ride home and I found out 3 golden things about her.  1) Her name is Laura.  2) She speaks English! I asked her how she knows English and that’s when she told me that she knows English because 3) she watched FRIENDS!!!  So basically we became best friends in an instant!               

           Also, she has 1 more transfer than I do so we are both pretty new but we have enough time to know how to get to work.  I LOVE that we are at similar points in the mission and she’s not the sister training leader so we are “co-companions”.  I love it because we are equals and she’s not training me and she doesn’t feel higher than me and so it finally feels equal and balanced for the 1^st time for me. She really is so great and I’m back to loving the way Columbiana’s talk.  Heavenly Father truly loves me.

                Sunday is ward conference so every night this week, the ward is doing an activity.  Like tonight we had this activity where everyone gathered at the church and then we all split up for 1 hour in mini groups and went out and visited less actives and invited them to church.  Tomorrow is a giant family night.  Thursday is Sports night.  Friday is a movie.  And Saturday is the final activity.

                Today was so good! For the ward activity, the primary presidency put together a great activity! Everyone got fake money and were told they have an hour to spend it on whatever they want. And every classroom in the church was an activity. In one room you could pay to get your nails done, in one room you could buy 5 minutes playing the PlayStation. The Primary President knew I am studying to be a nurse, so she asked me to be in charge of one room to teach CPR. So in my room it cost money, but because it was a room of learning, we paid them back in the end so it ended up being free. It was so fun to teach and good news – now I know a lot more medical terms in Spanish!

                Then after this hour, everyone gathered in a room. They asked everyone who had 50% of their original amount of money to go into a certain room. And then 25-50% in a different room, and then <25% in another room. Since we were teachers, we went with the first group who had only spent half of their money. They had us stand up and turn around. Then they opened those sliding folding door separator things that every church has in between the sacrament room (chapel – duh) and the cultural hall. There was the room (a little darker) with the people who spent 25-50% of their money. And then they opened up another set of room dividers to a room super dark with chairs and garbage unorganized with the group of people who spent most of their money. As the Primary President explained that these rooms represented the 3 kingdoms of glory, I felt the Spirit touch my heart so deeply. It was emotional to see half of the family in one room and the other half in another room. It broke my heart to see a husband in one room and his wife separated in another room. Their message was that sometimes we waste our time, talents, and blessings on this earth doing things that aren’t important. Sometimes we get distracted from the things that are important by other less important things. It hit me so hard to see families separated in different rooms knowing that they were there to stay for eternity. In a dark room with chaos away from their loved ones FOREVER.

                In that moment I realized that I want to stop getting distracted with things that aren’t important. I stopped caring about the things that aren’t going to be important after this life. And then I wanted to fill my life doing important things. I want to do what God wants me to do. And then I realized here I am. I’m in Chile looking for people to bring to Christ, trying to help people prepare to make covenants with God so that they don’t have to be separated for eternity.

This is the little dummy we used in the CPR class. His name is Jose, and this is the manliest hug I've gotten in 5 months...

Yesterday, Bishop asked us missionaries to invite everyone we could. A small idea popped into my head to make little flyers/cards to hand out to people with every activity we are going to have this week. My companion was putting some clothes away real quick so I took literally 5 minutes and made this small little invitation. Then today as we were out working, our lunch appointment was short and so we had 10 minutes left of lunch break and it just so happens that we were at a member’s house that is right next to the place where we can make copies for free. We quickly made copies of the little flyers.

                Then in the evening when everyone gathered, split into groups, and were about to head out, Bishop reminded everyone to invite the people we were visiting to the activities this week. Right then, my companion looked at me and I hurried and grabbed the papers out of my bag and told the Bishop to wait because I had made flyers. I gave them to everyone and he was so surprised and he just stopped and looked at me and jokingly said, “You are the best missionary that has ever come to Rengo.” Everyone laughed and went out the door but as Bishop was leaving he came up to me and sincerely thanked me for doing that for the ward.

                I am so grateful for that small idea to quickly take 5 minutes to help the ward in such an easy way. Because now I feel like Bishop trusts me, and I have the biggest desire to work with the leaders of the ward to help involve all of the members in the missionary work.

                We had a few really good lessons! Especially with Grimanesa. We had planned to teach about the blessings of reading the scriptures so we started teaching and talking about the Book of Mormon. But then we both felt the need to talk about her son. So we started asking questions about him trying to get to know a little bit about him. Then we learned that 2 years ago, he wanted to get baptized. Just the timing wasn’t right because Grimanesa was pregnant and couldn’t leave her bed, so she decided that it wasn’t time. She said that now she thinks he is ready to attend church and start investigating again. She told us that she would start reading the Book of Mormon with him and do everything she can to attend church with him! Such goodness!

                We had a family home evening with some less actives and they were talking about obedience. And the mom started to talk about how obedience is not just about doing the actions, but having a good attitude. It’s about doing what you’re supposed to do WITH A SMILE! Then she said to her sons, “Boys tell me the truth – have you ever seen Hermana Gardanier not smiling?” And of course in that moment there was no chance of losing my smile. Everyone laughed and inside my heart was going to explode because this gospel is the only thing in this world that has brought me true happiness and apparently it is showing!

             They say this is my Chile TWIN. I don't see it...

            For Pday we went to this giant fair and it was so fun. I LOVE these little Farmer's Markets.

 DAD LOOK! We have white boards in every house to write down the names of our investigators and their levels of progression. We decided to arrange it as a FUNNEL because long live the funnel theory!

        This is the night before Hermana Flores left, and this is Marisol and Eduardo.

This is a group of guys chilling around the church building and we realized they are playing POKEMON Go at the church because it's like a gold mine!