A good week of teaching

23 March 2015

Dear family,

Something I liked from the interview with President Videla this week is that he said that people watch everything the missionaries do. The members, investigators, everyone is watching us. I remember Brother Heaston telling the seminary council, "Welcome to the fishbowl."

It's true. In my exchange with Hermana Diaz we had lunch with a family that had been reactivated recently by the Elders who were in the sector before. The Elders had an emergency transfer and had to leave without saying goodbye to this family. The dad told us that they cried. "Even me," he said. He also spoke fondly of the missionaries who introduced them to the church and said that some of the best moments of his life were spent with them. We smiled and he said, "Seriously!"

We have also seen this with a less active family we visit. The teenage son remembers that the missionaries who taught them came for September 18th, a big holiday in Chile, and when they were cooking the missionaries changed into the dad's clothes and helped them chop mountains of onion. It was a small act of service but every time we see this kid he talks about the missionaries who helped them chop onions. He remembers everything the missionaries taught him and would be such a great missionary himself. We're working on it.

We had a great lesson with this teenage boy, his mom and their neighbors who are investigators. We taught the Restoration and everyone started to comment about something they felt. The mother said that when we taught about the First Vision she felt chills and said that it was the same feeling she had when the Elders taught her before her baptism. The neighbor said she felt it too and that she had felt it when she read the Book of Mormon. It impelled her to read more and she says she started to understand the book after she prayed. 

We've been visiting our newly baptized member just to read the Book of Mormon with her. She has arrived at the Isaiah chapters and is frustrated because she doesn't understand all of it. She thought she couldn't continue until she understood perfectly. We read with her, look up words, and explain what we do understand, but we also help her to know that we don't understand everything yet either. It has been good, productive study for all of us.

I love you! I pray for you every day!

Hermana Eva VanCott