05/29/23 Earthquake, miracles, ya know, the usual

 This week was a lot of things both good and bad. But mostly good!!! 

Random puntos again (it's easier this way haha) 

Mental health situation: one of our friends who we're teaching had planned to commit suicide on Thursday, and so we spent a couple of days facebook stalking her to try and get into contact with her children because legally they're the only ones who can do anything about it, but they didn't know. So overall super emotionally draining and we talked to our president about it... sometimes I'm shocked that they let 18-21 year olds do this work 

Miracle family: this is literally the best part of this week. So. We have this member friend who is really awesome, she's always willing to help us and she's from Venezuela. And somehow, like all of the people from Venezuela know each other here. So this she introduced us to one of her friends who's also from Venezuela! And we started teaching her and her family. It's a mom with 3 daughters, ages 6, 13, and 18, and the teenagers came to a ward activity, and to the young women's activity, and the whole family (apart from the dad who had to work) came to church on Sunday!! Theyre really interested and really open, and I've loved being around the girls and getting to know them! 

The 18 year old, Esthefany, was home alone one night (we had planned to go visit the whole family but the mom never ended up arriving before we had to go home), and she told us how earlier this week she had cried out what was going to be her last prayer because she felt that so many things were happening and it was so unfair to her and her family, because they had always stayed faithful. And she told us she felt God had heard her prayer and answered it because the next day is when we arrived and started sharing all these beautiful things with her. It was a precious moment as we cried together and then knelt in prayer together, the three of us. We talked about the plan of salvation and we talked about the love God has for his children. Moments like these are why I love serving the Lord. 

And then as we were praying together, we were asking to feel the spirit and feel the Lord's presence, and suddenly... 

EARTHQUAKE 

It was a pretty big one too, but don't worry nothing broke because we're in chile and everything is built to withstand earthquakes. 

Walking a tooonnn: we ran out of cash (we had money on our cards but they don't accept cards on the buses) so we walked literally everywhere (and our sector is HUGE) for like 2 days. And then I caved a went to the ATM that's outside of our sector. 

Fancy birthday lunch party: we have lunch with members every day, and one day we showed up to lunch and the dude at the gate was like, oh yeah, you guys are on the invited list, is it a birthday party or something? And we were like...  uh, not that we know of.... 

But yes it was a birthday party. And a bbq. Good stuff hahahaha. 

Volley: we had a ward activity and we played volleyball... and I had a really good day w volleyball so now they all think I'm really good at volleyball but it's just that I had a really good day. It was the same day we walked everywhere so needless to say, I was super sore the next morning. 

Luis: we have this inactive friend who hasn't gone to church in years, and we had a long conversation about the way numbers are sometimes pushed in education and in the church, and the importance of emphasizing people, individuals, etc. And not numbers, and it was a really productive conversation, and then, HE CAME TO CHURH!!!! And committed to come next week as well!!! 

Zone conference: Same soup, just reheated (haha), no but actually we talked about the difference between doing and being. And the importance of being someone different at the end of our missions, instead of just doing the Lord's work for a couple years, and becoming disciples. I loved that part of it! We also talked about the importance of members. 

I made an apple pie last monday. 

I think that's everything!! 

Love you all so much! 

xo-hna griffin