So basically I love what amazing examples the youth are here. I am constantly amazed, they are by far the strongest part of the church and an amazing influence on me. Yesterday in testimony meeting, Cata, the seminary teacher (she´s only 20 and is also a sunday school teacher, and the district family history coordinator) started crying when she talked about how faithfully all of her students show up looking so tired but so excited to learn and study the gospel. So what happens is that Ramon will walk to her house in the morning, and then they´ll walk from house to house to get all of the students and then take taxi´s down to where the church is (it´s way too far to walk.) She said that just in the first month she and Ramon had spent something like $80 each in taxis getting everyone there, but they are so willing to make so many sacrifices to help others grow in their testimonies. It´s amazing. It´s difficult to see families that can´t get to church because they don´t have the money to pay for the bus ride, and how faithfully the youth save their money so at least they can get there once a week. We´re trying to organize some sort of carwash or bakesale to raise money for them. We´re even considering buying a sheep to have a BBQ from one of the families that has a farm. I´ll let you know how that goes... Apparently some of the Elders think they are skilled sheep killers.
Hermana Kelley and I are now in charge of girls camp ideas because we are the only people in the branch who have actually been to girls camp before. I´m excited. We´re organizing a few different young women´s activities to really strengthen their sights to be set on the Temple. One of the hardest things we deal with here are women that got baptized, have testimonies, but never really understood how important temple marriage is, so they marry non-members who discourage them from going to church and living the Gospel and they end up being less active. I never realized just how much of a blessing it was to have a temple so close, even when we were in the San Diego district, going to the temple was never something too out of reach. Just having a temple close by helps so much to remember what your goals are and where you want to end up. I will be SO excited when the Concepción temple is finished! ... in 3 years...
(Speaking of temples, did you see how awesome the Rome temple looks!? We saw it on the report in between sessions of conference. I am so excited! After you told me what the representative from the Vatican said about Prop 8, I feel like, in some small way, I helped. Like it´s my temple too.)
So as I´m sure you´ve realized, the job of a missionary can take many different forms. English teacher, music teacher, activities coordinator, and now we can add map maker to the list. The new sector that we just took over is fairly new, so there´s no map of it, ANYWHERE. We searched the municipal building, fire department, tourism office, it just doesn´t exist. One of our committments was to draw on our maps where all of the church leaders live so that we can focus our efforts on those areas and so that when the new mission president comes in June he will have maps of every sector. So what did we do? We made one. It took FOREVER, but we finally finished it! We even sub sectioned, color coded and wrote down the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the members who live there. I feel very accomplished. Just keep in mind that there is never anything that a leader will ask you to do that you can´t do, you just may have to work a few late nights and early mornings to get it done! We´re considering selling it to the city...
So we had two people, Alejandro and Tabitha, that we were really focusing on and excited about. They both have a baptismal date and were progressing really well. So of course, they both moved this week. One to the Concepción South mission, and the other to Santiago. Those missionaries must have really been praying for a miracle, haha.
Anyway, things are still going great here in Villarrica. Love and miss you!
-Jamie
