Week 18

Wow! This week has flown by again. Time is always so interesting.

I can’t believe I’ve been away for 4 months! It’s a crazy thought to me. In some ways it doesn’t really seem like anything at all, and in others it feels like it’s been a good while.

I’ll start off by saying this week was pretty average even for Elder Layton and I. I forgot to bring my planner to the cyber to give a recount of what happened during each of the days, so I’ll try and give as good of an explanation that I possibly can

We are excited for all of our investigators. Armando and Rosa are doing well. They are still enjoying our visits, but still have the fear to really commit to the church. We are helping them get a clearer understanding of the simple principles of the gospel. Their fear is that after they commit, they think that they are going to fall and become in-active. They want to 100% commit.

Andrea and Marcelo were really busy this week and we were only able to talk Andrea for about 5 minutes on Saturday about how the week has gone. We asked her about her feelings and said that after she prayed about going to church she felt a deep sense of peace and felt the spirit. We are so excited that she got an answer to go to church. We just need her now to pray about baptism, and to get married!

We have been having quite the hard time finding the people who are really prepared to receive us. We are pushing to find the people who let us in and hear what we say. Most of the time people just make us random excuses and persistently ignore us. We are working a ton with members to progress the work in the ward. We are pushing for the members to give us references so that we have an instant connection with our investigators with those members.

We have earned the support of a lot of families and have really befriended them. We have visited the Cabezas Aburto family a lot and they are really fun to work with along with, the Ruminot family, Adrian, Rosas, and Chaves family. We have gotten quite a few good references and we are now going around contacting those.

We also had another miracle this week with the Cofré family (Miriam y Lidia). We have always worked with them and always have tried to teach Nelson, Miriam’s husband. Every time we have tried to teach him he has run away into another room and refused to listen to us. This week, miraculously it changed. We went to visit them and he actually stayed to listen. I couldn’t believe what was happening. The Lord is softening his heart for sure. After talking to him for a while, he told us that he knows he needs to get baptized he just wants to take it slow and at his own pace. We are trusting that through feeling the spirit of the Lord he will get baptized in due time.

We had a few visits with the doctors this week to try and find out why Elder Layton hasn’t been feeling good. We did all sorts of tests through the week and on Friday we got the results. Again, we got the same answer, there is nothing apparently wrong with him. The doctor told us that his body is just exhausted after a lot of work and needs to recover a little more. She wrote us out a diet to follow and gave him some vitamins and sent us off. We are sticking to what she told us, and I hope and pray that Elder Layton can continue and serve with buen animo. (Good energy)

We had some good service projects this week. Especially cleaning around the church. We made the place look great.

On Wednesday, we had a mini cambio with Collao. Elder Montaña worked here in Nonguen with me for the day, and Elder Layton spent the day in Collao with Elder Garcia. I woke up that morning with a bad stomach ache and it lasted the whole day. We still worked really hard and even found a ton of new people, but when the day was done I was completely drained and wiped out. A cool experience that happened that night was while we were visiting the less active Nancy Campos and her family. She had a ton of friends over too but she let us share a message anyway. Elder Montaña and I just decided to share a Mormon message about the Book of Mormon (The bishop in England and his testimony about the Book). When it was over we shared our testimonies and one of the other ladies there was touched and asked us about it. We explained what the book is about and testified again about it. We gave her a copy, and wrote down her direction. She actually lives in Collao so in our mini cambio Elder Montaña got a new investigator out of our sector.

I was kind of down and depressed at some parts of the week. Unanimated.  I was feeling upset about language and all that I could be doing better. I let it out and talked to Elder Layton about it on Saturday. He gave me some brilliant advice on deep meanings of Humility. He helped me recognize that even though I want to, I cannot possibly be perfect 100% of the time. There is always going to be ups and downs. I just need to be teachable, and have patience with the timing of our Heavenly Father. I put all my trust in him because when it comes down to it, He is truly the only one who can guide me. The savior is the one who knows me perfectly. And with their help, I can overcome any challenge and any obstacle. I was so grateful to get that advice and it really flipped my attitude around.

This week marks the start of my 3rd cambio. BIG changes with this one. Elder Montaña is staying and Elder Garcia is heading over to Chillan. In his place Elder Duncan from my district in the CCM is coming to Collao! Should be a great time. We are going from having 2 elders in Nonguen to 2 Hermanas and 3 Elders. Yep, were gonna be a trio for this cambio. Elder Sanchez is coming here and 2 hermanas are going to be working here as well. I’m excited for this cambio! We are going to have great success in our ward!

Thank you all for all of your support! I love hearing from you all so much! I love you all so much more than you know! I hope you have an amazing week!

Elder Ethan Haws