Adela... we'll start with Adela. She’s pretty amazing. I have to tell you a little about last week because you never got an email last week. So last week she showed up at church crying because of the things that are going on with her husband. He told her the closer she gets to the church the further she is from him and he basically said me or the church but she chose the church and to make an extremely long story short, she is pushing forward. Her husband, Oscar, is the guy that we taught the good lesson with, but 2 weeks ago something happened when he was working, he works out of town. Adela told us for the whole week he was excited to go to church, but on Friday something happened. So when he came home from work he said, “No, I’m not going blah, blah, blah.” To make matters even tougher for her, when some of Oscars family found out she is going to be baptized they went crazy. One uncle flew in from Argentina to try and stop her and now this next week comes her mother-in-law. But she’s like I don’t care, I’m going through with it. Yesterday for example at church I asked her when we are going to her house or if we should come at all. I asked if her husband had arrived from work and she said no because he called her and asked if she was going to church, when she said yes he said, “Ok, well I’ve been invited to a party and I’m going to go to it because if you and the kids go to church tomorrow I’ll be at home all day alone, so I’m just going to stay here.” When we asked if we should go to her house she was like, “heck yea, come over, I don’t care if my husband listens or not.” That sounds bad, but its not. Its because she honestly knows that if she goes through with her baptism he will follow because he WANTS to change, we’ve decided, but he’s just too scared. Yesterday, for example, we were arriving at her house with Patricio, Marjori, Hans, Philip... in this moment he was arriving from work and he was walking up with his family, but when he saw us he gave his son his bag and went off to an internet salon because he wasn’t going to share with us but its cause he had the smell of Alcohol on him and he was ashamed and all that and so Adela came and met us and she was just as happy as could be (don’t know how) and then we shared in her house with Pato y marjori. Their testimonies are incredible. By the way, yesterday we assigned the talks in church and we had Solage, Marisol, Marjori, and Patricio give talks. They were all incredible... Patricio’s blew me away. But anywho... this is the plan... today at 8 (4 in Utah :)) we are going to show up at Adela’s house with Patricio, Victor, Marjori, Millare, Hans, Darlin, Philip, Vanessa and we are just going to surprise him. Adlea and the kids know we are coming. We aren’t sure what his reaction will be but we think good. Then we’re going to teach a lesson -- and bam... he’ll change. 30 minutes of lesson thirty minutes of talking... 60 minutes to change the eternities. (Where’s Larry King) Pray that it goes well :)
Friday was Elder Poma’s birthday... he turned 25. He’s actually the 2nd oldest in the mission.
I’m doing very well... I’m happy and learning a lot. It is very exciting to be here right now because all of the active members in Chile are working on activating the less-actives. We are honestly changing everything and for the better. We have helped a couple (Juan and Iris) returning to church. De Hecho (in fact), Iris is the sister of Adela and for the longest time we had to do everything separate but now they are supporting each other. Oh, this guy... Hno Poblete. He’s old. He’s been a member of the church for thirty years and has served in the stake presidency. He’s awesome, but for one reason or another he hasn’t been to church in about 2 years. We’ve got him back to church. He reminds me a lot of grandpa. This guy has a grand testimony. Its amazing and sad how many people have been through the temple, and still fall away here. A couple other families we’re re-activating too... we visited have visited 21 in-actives in the last three weeks. Now we are asked to visit 10 in-actives every week; new in-actives that we haven’t visited before. Its not that many because really its not our job... like its not our rebaño... what does rebaño mean... like flock or heard... they aren’t our people, we don’t have authority... wow! I don’t know how to say it in English. I know you probably don’t understand this letter. I’m sorry. My English is bad and my Spanish is bad too. :)
Its amazing to feel the love that these people have... especially for the missionaries. It’s amazing to see what they’ll do for us and how they treat us. Just little things like my companion was cold when we visited Juan and Iris one day and so Iris ran up stairs to get Juan’s suit jacket for him. Since we have to be dressed the same when we walk in the street, she ran back upstairs to get his other suit jacket for me. Then Juan shows up Sunday without a jacket because I have his... lots of little things.
What else... Mom I’m getting pretty doggone good at whipping up fresh guacamole, which is funny because they don’t eat it here. That’s Mexican. Last night I made some and when the district leader called for our numbers and he found out we were eating Mexican, he freaked! Everyone here loves Mexican food.
Until next week-
Elder Pitcher
