Santiago, Part 2!

¡Hola!
  I don´t have much time today either, so I´ll make it as brief as possible. Thank you all for your prayers and support! I need it.

One piece of important, spiritual-nature type news before we continue: We have our first Baptism on Sunday!

We encountered a Hermana Lorena Ortíz one evening about 3 weeks ago as we were knocking doors. We received feelings to remain on a road at the very outside edge of our sector, and after being rejected (not just the nice Chilean rejection that we normally get, but actual rejections) 5 or 6 times and a series of empty houses, we were invited in even before we said who we were to the house of this Hermana.

She began to regale us with a story about her Father, who had gotten severely sick and had to go to the hospital. He asked for the prayers of many people from many religions, and she promised God that she would "get closer" to the next church that came by. Three months later, we knock on her door (not literally mind you, the system here is different, but we´ll explain that later) and she instantly felt that we were of God.

We began teaching her and she was already familiar with our church, because her parents had been members for a number of years when she was young. They had left the church for various reasons, but the basic standards that the church has were already a key part of her life. Although she fought (and occasionally still fights) us every step of the way, it is only because she wants to know for herself, and after she knew that she wanted to be baptized her first sentiment that she expressed was fear to lose the church like her parents had.

We have been teaching her for 3 weeks now, and on Sunday she will be baptized. What a blessing! God knows us personally, and our struggles. He knows what we need. I can testify, like she can too, that the blessings we receive from the Gospel of Christ are of greater value than anything else we could receive or do in this life.

I don´t have much time, so I´ll have to explain more in little tidbits each email from here out. The two pictures i´ve attached are of the four of us here in Chile at the Stake Activity for the 18th (Dia de Independencia para Chile), and of the Coins (without the 500 peso piece, unfortunately).

Prepare for General Conference! I´m so excited to hear 10 hours of English, and hopefully some jokes that I can understand without asking my companion a half hour later!

The Gospel is True!

I love you all.

A Dios, Con Dios

-Elder Wheelhouse