The Work Continues

This week went pretty well. I was grateful for the pew full of people that came with us last week, but this week was even better! We had 4 investigators present and 4 less actives. Two of the less actives had not come yet since I have been here, so that was great improvement. One less active was a 12 year boy. We visit his family a lot and they love us. They were really active at one point in the church and then just started doing other stuff on Sundays and the older children ran into problems. C is the 12 year old and is the youngest of the family, but has a lot of excitement to start coming back to church. He also remembered some of the members from his active days, so all things are looking great. His dad dropped him off at the building, so maybe next time we can get his dad to stay.

We are continuing to work with L who was our new investigator last week. He cant read or write, but a family said that they are willing to help him learn and are going to start working with him. He came to church again this week and really liked it, but during our lessons we realized that he doesn't have a solid religious background. We were explaining some principles and realized that he had no idea what we were talking about. I started teaching him about Jesús and his life here on earth. It is really fun to teach people for the first time the things that I assume most people know. You really see them start to change as they come to know for themselves the truth. I am hoping we will see this with L. He has made a few friends in the ward, so everything is going well there.

We are having some struggles with our 8 year old F that we wanted to baptize. She is the child of an investigator and they both attend every other Sunday. She was really excited to turn eight, but she cannot be baptized until her mom and dad are. She was super disappointed. Her parents are both married to other people , but have been seperated from their spouses for 20 and 15 years and have been living together for the last 10 years. They both have desires to be baptized but their desires have not yielded action because they havent done anything to start the divorce process. It is really easy here to get a divorce if the people have been seperated more than 3 years and do not have any minor children. They just have to go and fill out the paperwork. Hopefully, we can get them excited to do that soon. However, now F wants to be baptized in another church because "it is easier, she doesnt have to read or learn" and her godfather can baptize her. So we have to keep trying to explain about the restored priesthood authority. We told her that she needs to be baptized in the true church. She is just a Little stubborn and wants to be baptized NOW!!

We are continuing to see miracles here in Arica and hopefully I will be here a while longer to see the fruits of all our labors. We have really got the ward excited for our Tarapacá tiene talentos night and there are tons more members who want to help us with lessons and FHEs. We are super grateful and excited for that. We are seeing great changes which will help everyone, members and non members.

Dad, did you finish King Benjamins talk? I like chapter 5 of Mosiah because it is the response of the people after learning basically all of the missionary lessons. It says that they recieved a great change of heart due to their faith, they had no more desire to do evil, and they praised God. The first several verses talk about the conversión that they had. This is the same conversión that Heavenly Father desires all of us to have. It is the only way that we will be strong enough to arise through the struggles we face. The people were truly converted.I love their willingness and their response to the teachings.

I love you all and hope you have a nice relaxing week. Tell brax happy birthday!! I hope he enjoys his party in the park.Love you

Hermana Biggs