Chile!

Dear Family,

¡Vamos Chilenos! Chi-chi-chi le-le-le…¡viva Chile! Ole,ole,ole,ole, Chile, Chile. World cup is so exciting! We just barely won our second match and face Spain Friday! Downtown they are partying hard. The streets are full of cars honking and people dancing. Everything shuts down for the games and it is all that people talk about now.

So last week I told you I would tell you how to not be mad or how to get over being mad. Let me tell you a story. A couple weeks ago, we had an argument in our companionship. We were really tired and I think that is really what caused it. Well it happened during our nightly planning and we ended up going to bed without talking. Then we went the whole morning without talking. We left the house, met up with Bernardo and went to teach a lesson with him, and during all of this we didn´t talk. In my journal entry from that night I wrote about how I didn´t want to be mad, but that pride kept me from just giving my companion a hug. I really thought it was going to take days to get over my mad feelings, but then something magical happened. We taught Fransoese with Bernardo and we felt the Spirit. When we left the appointment and dropped off Bernardo, I stopped and said, “I´m sorry.” H Dinsdale said the same and we talked things over. What seemed like something impossible turned possible because I felt the Spirit. So when you are mad, do something to feel the Spirit, the Spirit changes everything, it changes pride, hearts, desires, minds, everything.

This week was so great! We are teaching a young family, in which the wife is a member. Ariela is 25, Gonzalo her husband is 27 and their daughter Emilia is 2. When we first started to teach Gonzalo I was pretty intimidated. He is a mechanical engineer and thinks more profoundly than other investigators. He has really made me question things and look at things differently. For example we talked about the nature of God, he questions that God has a body of flesh and bone and that is why we have bodies like we do. We arrived at the conclusion, with the help of Ariela, that our bodies are important because without them we can´t experience what we need to in the earth. That it is more important than the “state” we are in than the body. And with that he understood his purpose here on earth, that we need to go through this “state” to progress. So the lessons are pretty deep.

This week we had another good lesson, Gonzalo read 2 Nephi 9, which he really enjoyed. We talked more about the plan of salvation and how we shouldn´t take all stories in the scriptures as literal but more than anything apply the principle from the stories. At the end of the lesson I bore a powerful and emotional testimony about how the church brings me happiness. It was interesting that I got really choked up when I started to testify about Christ, I could literally feel the Spirit leaving my lips. By the end of my testimony, Ariela and Gonzalo had tears in their eyes and Gonzalo sincerely thanked me. The Book of Mormon and our testimonies are making all the difference in teaching Gonzalo.

Real quick I have to tell you about the family we found yesterday. I haven´t been this excited in a while! Luis and Erica Campos are in their forties and have two girls, Javiera 12 and Amaral 4. When we entered their home yesterday, Erica said, “Our home is your home.” We taught them about the restoration and they just accepted everything really fast, like it was what they were waiting for. Erica expressed how she had been frustrated with her church and really wants to find the true church. They are all really excited to read the Book of Mormon and have a baptismal date for July 25. After just one visit it feels like we are family. We have an appointment for tomorrow and Luis said that he is going to try to get off work early so that he can be there. Luis works for a Spanish tennis club! Guess who practices at the club? Fernando Gonzales and Nicolas Massu! Yep Luis knows them! How cool is that? He said he is going to lend a court to play, but I bet it is outside of the mission, we´ll see. I have wanted to baptize a family my whole mission and here is the opportunity! Please pray for them!

Isn´t life beautiful? Heavenly Father has done such a good job creating everything.
I love you,
Hermana Arnold