Baptized by the Stake President

Dear People of the Outside World,

     I´m trying to be creative with your title, but today this was all I could come up with. Sorry. But conference! WOW! That pretty much sums it up! Haha, okay a little more would be good, right?

     I really liked the talk that told us to let our faith show. We have something very special, our faith in Christ. This faith is very powerful and we need to stand strong as representatives of Him who is our Redeemer, even in the face of adversity.

     There was a talk on communication. No, I didn´t plan this in accordance with my last message. This was completely out of my hands. It talked about how we should first think of others and ask how they are doing before we blow up in their faces. We don´t know what their thinking was in doing or saying something and we should respond with love. We know very well the language of hate, anger, and jealousy, but let´s try to learn better how to communicate with compassion. There would be more marriages saved, more friendships preserved, and less feelings hurt if we would just think of others first. Have a little humility.

     Sorry I don´t have the exact information to tell you who said these amazing things (forgot my study journal in the apartment), but you can find it all on lds.org soon!

     Lysandra got baptized! And the stake president came to baptize her, because she was so touched by the talk he gave in ward conference!

 

The Boss Man sent me a list of questions about the missionary work here, which I thought some other people might be interested to hear about too:

Have either of your feet bothered you?

Nope! They´re blessed for their service. Pretty much that´s the only explanation.

How is English class?

Getting better every time. We were blessed with a Chilean (Sister Vergara) who speaks english and knows how to teach it! Also, I am getting better at recognizing grammatical patterns in my own language and teaching the nit picky things that I notice people are saying wrong.

There are lots of pictures of large groups of sisters. Do you still only work in groups of two?

Absolutely. There are two companionships (of two) serving in my area. My companion (still Sister Farias) and I are sharing an apartment with Sister Gonzaga and Sister Vergara. This is all likely to change in the transfer, which will happen next week, so I´ll let you know how it works out.

Do you do much door tracting (knocking on doors)?

YES! Too much in our opinion, but we´re always looking for new ways to meet people. The funny thing here is that everyone has a giant wall in front of their house, so knocking on the door does absolutely nothing. We clap really loud. If we know their name, we also yell their name.

Do you do any displays in the park?

We drew the Plan of Salvation on the sidewalk  in chalk and taught people who were walking by, but we have to do it again, because we chose a horrible place...next to a stinky black river. Noone wanted to stop there to talk to us. We didn´t even want to stop there. Haha. We are working on it!

I WISH I COULD SHOW YOU PICTURES! I´m sure it would make your reading experience more enjoyable, but the computers here are completely untrustworthy.

I hope everyone is well and smiling! Don´t worry be happy! You are loved more than you could ever imagine.

Love,

Sister Arthur