Hi!
This week was probably one of the most stressful weeks of my whole mission, but it was
awesome...as always! I learned a lot! I feel like I’m opening the area for the first time because my
companion is extremely new in the mission and doesn’t know the area. (Usually when you go to a
new area the other companion knows it to be able to lead and guide for a few days). The
Hermana that left the area took with her a lot of things that we need...(she went home so I’ll never
get it back ha-ha-ha). I´ve never prayed so hard in my life. We were working for a few days with
out a ward list but finally after a ton of calls we got one. Don´t worry, its old and hasn’t been
updated in 2 years and its 30 pages long ha-ha-ha. So we started from scratch. We knew that we
would find new investigators (there wasn´t one investigator when I came), through the recent
converts so we made a list and started with them. We stayed happy and faithful.
My second night here, a little stressed about where to even start I opened the 30 page long ward
list to a random page and saw a name, Cristian Chavez. I then looked at his birthday and saw
that he was born in 1996 and only his name was there, no parents. So I instantly thought ´´his
parents aren’t members, he was probably baptized years ago and probably hasn’t been visited in
years´´. So we decided to go for him the next day. His address is at the very edge of our map. So
we went looking the next day and when we got there we realized that his address was on the
other side of the street... out of our area. I thought it had to be a mistake because he is on this
ward list, but then we moved on to our next plan and forgot about Cristian Chavez for the rest of
the day. The next day we had done all of our plans and passed by the homes of almost ALL of
the recent converts and NO ONE was home. I felt lost. My companion said ´´where now? ´´ and
with almost tears in my eyes I said ´´I don´t know. ´´
She, being full of faith said ´´lets pray´´ so we moved over to a quiet corner on the street and said
a prayer asking for where we need to go and what we need to do. Right after the prayer I realized
that I had left my map at home (we were luckily really close to our house). So we ran home to get
the map and right when we walked in at the same time my companion and I said...´´we’re here for
a reason´´. We decided to look at the area book and found a name of some random lady named
Jessica. We wrote down her address and a few others and left.
We went looking for this lady Jessica. We rang the doorbell and some guy (from Peru....OF
COURSE!!! Ha-ha) answered. He said that she’s in the shower but that he’s a member from the
other ward really close to where we are. He’s the brother of Jessica. Right after we met this
member, a teenaged boy about 16 years old came to the door and said, ´´Hi, I’m Cristian¨. Not
thinking anything about it (there are tons of Cristians in this country) we talked for a little bit and
then he said he is a member and then he told us his last name. Chavez!!!!
They had changed the ward boundaries a few years ago and that’s why on the ward list it is out of
the area, but they had moved a few months ago into our area. The address from the ward list was
wrong! I was blown away. We were truly guided to him and to his mom the next day. We have an
appointment with the mom this week and I HOPE AND PRAY that she will be baptized!!
I´ve never been rejected so many times in my life ha-ha but after a long hard week, yesterday we
found a family and a few others that accepted a date to be baptized and confirmed!
Yesterday we had a conference with one of the Quorum of the Seventies, Elder Wilhelm (I think
that’s his name). It was awesome. When we were leaving he shook all of our hands and when he
shook mine, I said ´´Thank you¨. He looked at me and said ´´Hermana, look forward with faith. ´´
Maybe he said it to everyone as they were passing by but it was exactly what I needed.
Thanks to you guys for being an example of faith in hard times!! Well, my companion is
awesome!! She is hilarious!! Were finding people and I know that it will all calm down this week :)
I love you all.
Love,
Hermana Marchant
