Saturday, February 14, 2015

¡la historia familiar!

                                                                                                                 February 2, 2015

¡Hola!

I have forgotten to tell you for about three or four weeks in a row now...I got the sweetest little box from Sister Bowcut and some of the Young Women.  I don't have Sister Bowcut's email.  Will you tell her thank you for me?  It was such a cute little box!  The hand towels were just what we needed for our kitchen, Halls cough drops are pretty much like gold in Chile, and the four of us in our house each ate one of the Slim Jims and really enjoyed them.  It was so sweet of them to think of me!

To answer the questions: Yes, JXXX and GXXX are married, so that is thankfully not an issue.  President Obeso does mean what you think it means.  Obeso is obese in Spanish.  But it is pronounced oh-BEH-soh.  People think we are kidding when we tell them our mission president's name.  Ha.  What I think is worse is Hermana Obeso.  lol.  We finally finished all of the laundry this week, and now all of our clothes are clean!  YAY!  And our house is totally de-bugged!  DOUBLE YAY!!!  We have some really good bug spray that the mission bought for every missionary home in our mission and it kills everything.  I haven't had to deal with flea bites this summer, which is so nice.  I think that those two classes I told you should be good.  When I come home, I want to call the Spanish department and see if there is some way that I can take a test to exempt classes up to the level I'm at after serving a mission.  But for now I just want to make sure that I have a spot in the summer term.  When I get back I will also figure out what I want to do, if I want to major in Physics teaching and minor in Spanish teaching or vice versa, or if I just pick one or the other.  We'll see.

So this week was another interesting one.  Last week we got lice.  This week we got kicked out of our house (not literally, but almost).  We got home from our district meeting, and there was this random car out in front of our house.  But we live on a somewhat crowded street, so we just walked past it and started unlocking the gate to the house.  The lady walked up to us and told us that she was the owner of the house and she wanted to sell it by the end of February.  She told us she needed to come in and take pictures.  We had a different person on file as the owner, and as missionaries we are not allowed to receive anyone inside our house, so we had her talk to Elder Poulsen because he is in charge of missionary housing.  She talked to him and set up another date to come back to take the pictures.  So, we have to be out by the 15th.  We are looking actively for a place to live.  We called all of the members in our phone to help us, we checked every apartment complex in our sector...it's pretty stressful, in all honesty.  And by the time we move, I will probably only live in the new house for 2 weeks or so.  So we are praying and searching.  

This week I also officially finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish!  WOOOOOO!  It is such a great feeling every time I finish reading the Book of Mormon, but more so after having read it in my mission language.  I love the Book of Mormon.  It is a pillar of my testimony and of my life!  I am so thankful that the Lord saw fit in His wisdom to give us this book, so that we could learn to know our Savior and to follow His example.  I just wish that everyone would give the book a chance, sincerely, and ask God is it is true...because if it is, our message is singular and it makes all the difference.  I'm not sure what my next goal will be since I only have three weeks left.  But for now I've just been jumping around and reading different parts of the Book of Mormon.

I really can't believe it's February.  I thought that February 2015 would never come.  Elder Beecroft sent me the information for my trip home...going to the temple in Santiago, how many suitcases I can take, etc.  Wow.  Every day has become gold to me!  Today I was thinking about how it is Uncle Brackin's birthday!  Can you believe he's 50?  It's crazy.  Will you wish him a happy birthday for me?

We have been working with JXXX and GXXX this week.  He has been out working all week, so we have been teaching her alone.  She really opened up to us and we could see what she needs more.  We also brought Elder and Hermana Poulsen to a lesson we had, and she accepted a baptismal date!  They promised to come to church...but didn't come.  So the date we gave her fell through.  But we are going to do what we can to extend another date and prepare her for baptism before I go home.  She is willing to be baptized, so we just want to make sure that we do it in the Lord's time.  Even if she doesn't get baptized before I go home, I know that Heavenly Father has the perfect plan and He blesses His children when they are ready to receive the blessings.

We have also been working with two less active families this week and they both came to church!  We were SO excited!  One of the families is a grandma with her granddaughter, and their goal is to go to the temple in Santiago this year.  They are saving up their money and they want to get going on their family history.  The other family is a young man and his baby daughter, and he is so excited to reactivate himself in the church.  He wants to help our investigators to feel welcome when they come!  Our less actives are rocking it!!!  :D

Our ward is just bursting with energy on family history--la historia familiar.  We have several members who are so excited to get going on it!  Hermana Brown and I are trying to figure out how we can do a family history workshop, because we really think it would be a secret weapon.  The members could invite their friends to come, and they could prepare themselves for the temple.  We are working it in as a part of our ward mission plan!  The elders are excited about it, the members are excited about it, we are excited about it...I LOVE the spirit that comes in the room when we talk about family history.  I know that the spirit of Elijah is real.  I am so excited to be home so that I can start working on our family history!!!  I want to take a family history class at BYU.  It is incredible!




I love you all so so much!  I hope that you really enjoy your week!  Talk to you soon!


Abrazos, Hermana Latham

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