Faith Without Works Is Dead

Hola familia y amigos! Espero que hayan tenido una buena semana!

This week was really good. We had another conference broadcast that was just for the area South America South. It was amazing! Elder Bednar went to Buenos Aires and they broadcasted it from there. He had us read three talks beforehand and we spent three hours just talking about the talks. It was amazing! It was a conversation. The Spirit was so strong! All of the talks talked about faith. Faith, as we know, is a principle of action. O sea, we need to act. If we pray saying, ¨Father, bless the people that didn´t come to church today so that they can come next week¨ and then we don´t do anything to help that prayer come to pass, we aren´t showing our faith, we are showing a belief. We are praying without faith. Faith without works is dead. There was a whole lot more, but it was amazing!

On Tuesday, we went on exchanges in La Falda. I got to go with my daughter, Hermana Jaramillo. It was fun to work with her again. We´ve both grown a lot!

Then, in our area, we´re doing well. Ok, at the beginning of the week it was a bit hard. 

On Thursday, we had a service project. We helped a mom paint parts of a school for her daughter that has Down´s Syndrome. Her daughter can barely see. Her vision is very blurry and the only color she sees is yellow. So we painted the edges of stairs and ledges yellow so that she wouldn´t hurt herself. It was a fun service! I like painting!

During the service, we received a call from Eliana. She told us that five minutes after our last visit with Damian, he started drinking. She told us that maybe it wasn´t worthwile to keep going because he´s just going to keep do the same thing. It was a really sad phone call. She was right. He´s been doing the same thing for a month. He knows what he has to do. He knows everything. He just has to do it. We´re giving them a break for a bit. Maybe in our absence, he´ll understand.

Then, after lunch that same day, we got on the bus to go to our pension, and Yesica got on too. She saw us and sat down in the front without saying hi (that is very, very weird here. You always say hi, with a kiss, to the people you know, even on the bus). That was weird. During the bus ride, she kept glancing back and when she made eye contact with my companion she quickly looked away. Then she got of on the front of the bus. We went to her house the next day to see her. She wasn´t there but we talked to Lautaro. He said that they didn´t go to church because he can´t go alone and Yesica has other commitments. We could see, and feel that for right now, they´re not ready. One day they will be. But it isn´t right now. That was hard for us. 

We have other people though. We went to visit a contact that we´d made with Angel (a member). We taught about the Plan of Salvation because her daughter died recently and she´s been feeling pretty bad. It was a beautiful lesson and the Spirit was strong. She almost went to church, but had to babysit her granddaughter and didn´t have permission to take her to the church. 

Also, we visited the man who´s ex-wife is a member and who started crying when we told him that Christ could help him. His name is Ambrosio. He really wants to stop smoking and drinking. He is very receptive. We invited him to church and he said he´d go. On Sunday, we met up with him two blocks from the church. When he got there, he told us that he couldn´t go to church. His brother was at his house from out of town and couldn´t leave him alone, but that he would for sure go the next week. And he left. We were pretty sad, but it was amazing that he made all that effort just to tell us why he couldn´t go. 

Yesterday we had Consejo de Líderes. I love Consejo! We get to talk with Presidente y Hermana Alliaud and it´s a conversation. We, as leaders, talk about what we can do to help the missionaries. It´s amazing! Afterwards, we play soccer. I´m not very good, but I enjoy it. :)

Anyway, it was a good week all in all. 

I hope you all have a fantastic week!!! I love you!!!!!!!!!

Love from,

Hermana Micaela Wilson

P.S. Sorry, my computer today won´t let me send pictures. Next week, I promise!