Elder Parker Spanbauer: Week 34 Arica

Nov 2, 2015

So this week was a good one. When I first got here we had hardly anyone to teach and only had one progressing family but now we have a few and several people that have been taught the restoration. It’s truly amazing how much the lord blesses someone who is obedient. Elder Francis and I had some things we wanted to change in the companionship to be more obedient to the missionary schedule and we fixed those things. We saw the results directly after when we had a day of 4 lessons with new people and one with a less active member. So now we know how key obedience is. Even things like not exercising every morning can keep one from having the success one wants in the mission. So just a quick story... one morning we were doing "Rescate" which is a big list of less active members and we found a name to visit. We went to the house and a man answered and basically rejected us right away. Then I asked him if he knew anyone else that would be interested in listening to us and he said he thought a member lived down the street but couldn’t remember which house it was. So we knocked on a random one down the street. An old woman answered the door and we asked her if she knew of anyone near her house that was a member of our church and she replied I "was" a member and then I asked what that meant. She replied saying the same thing... "I was a member but now I’m not". Then I felt the impression to ask her if there was anything we could do for her in that moment and she thought for a minute and then asked "Even though I don’t participate in your church anymore, can you give me a blessing of health?" and I smiled and said of course! She let us in her house and she immediately started telling us all of her problems in life. She expressed how her husband is super ill and her daughter died when she was just a baby and I then asked if we could share a scripture with her. I then read some scriptures in Moroni 8 to her that talks about how young kids don’t need to be baptized and how they are saved in Christ. This impacted her a lot and then we proceeded to give her the blessing. She broke down crying and wants us to come back and teach her nephews. I love how the lord puts people in our paths and as missionaries it’s our job to find them.

As far as a funny story, Halloween night we were talking to a drunk dude in the street and he kept asking us if he was cursed or if someone was performing some type of witchcraft on him because every time he gets into a relationship it always ends at 8 months. He then kept repeating the same exact thing over and over and over. Halfway through the conversation, he asked us "can I go to the bathroom?" and we said yeah that’s fine. He then walked behind us and started peeing in broad daylight with people present and cars and everything! Don’t drink people! Its insane hahaha. Also, Elder Leon (mi papito) or my trainer started his mission here in my sector and baptized a girl named Katalin. We had the opportunity to talk to her a few weeks ago and somehow the topic of missionary work came up. She kept saying that it would be soo hard to be a missionary and stuff and we just told her that it’s hard but not impossible. That if one has the lord, it’s easy. We told her that being a missionary was the best thing in the world. Anyway, yesterday, we saw her in the church and she went in to have an interview with the bishop and she came out crying and bishop hugged her and we were thinking the worst. Then bishop yelled super loud "We have another missionary!!!" She is going on a mission!!! She got baptized literally like a year ago.... its amazing!

I will see all of the missionaries in mission the 21 of this month because Elder Cook is coming! Every missionary will be going to Antofagasta that day! I will see Elder Leon and Elder Malan! I’m so excited! That’s the update, love you all and take care!

Elder Spanbauer