-Camille
I love this branch so much. I am now the branch pianist, which is interesting since I don´t really play piano, but we´re also starting a piano class that I will be teaching...
Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting. I really just have to tell you this amazing story of the jovenes in this branch. They all come from less active families, but a few years ago one of the girls in the young womens got a list of names and walked right up to one of the kids at school, Pato, and said: "You´re a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints... we need you to come to seminary." So he came, and he came back super strong, and brought all of his friends with him. He left on his mission about a month ago (He´s in the same mission as Allie Yost!), but before that he was serving as both young men´s president and branch secretary, and I´m pretty sure we here a story from one of the members about something great he did every day. So anyway, in Sacrament meeting yesterday 4 of these other jovenes were all lined up to bear their testimonies about how excited they are to serve missions and how grateful they were for their friend´s example and for the Gospel, and right before one of them walks up to start speaking, his mom and his sister walk in. To top it off, the next kid goes up to bear his testimony, saying that he had always been really shy and had never had the courage to get up to bear his testimony before, but his friends talked him into it and he was grateful that his mom was there to see him do it for the first time. Pretty much everyone was crying the entire meeting.
I was thinking about this yesterday, so here´s a story... About 3 or 4 months ago, after reading the talk that I told you about, the one about the 4th missionary, I remember making a dedicated effort to not only work hard with my time, but to focus my thoughts more on the work as well (I´ll admit, I was still really missing singing). As I made the effort to do so through starting to memorize the scripture mastery scriptures in Spanish while we were between appointments so that my mind wouldn´t have time to wander, I remember one day walking down the street Cervantes in Osorno feeling so unbelivably happy, so unbelivably dedicated to serving the Lord and His kingdom just completely out of love and desire to do it, not just because of the blessings I would get in return. I have made it a goal to try to regain and retain those feelings for the rest of my mission and the rest of my life. Part of my fast on Saturday was to help me to refocus and re-find that desire, and as I was sitting in Sacrament meeting, I couldn´t help but be filled with a desire to serve the Lord with everything I am and in whatever way I can for the rest of my life. I was eccstatic. I was and am thrilled for the opportunity I have to be here in Chile helping to strengthen the faith of the members of the Lord´s kingdom. I´m trying my best not to waste a minute of it. I know now I´m just babbling and my grammer has probably stopped making sense and I sound kinda crazy, so I´ll just leave it at that and send some pictures!
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