Luke's Letter Aug 3, 2009

Dear family,

How is everyone? Well first of all I´m super excited to tell everyone that I get to stay in the Simon Bolivar ward for at least another 6 weeks with my companion. I was relieved when we got the call this morning haha. Not that I´m afraid to go anywhere else, its just, we were with the Flores family last night and just the idea that I might not see them again was super sad. I´m really starting to realize what missionaries mean when they say they love the people in their country. Its not just that family I love, but this whole area. Its weird, but also really cool.

I also have some exciting news about an investigator we have, her name is Giordana, I think I wrote a little about her last week, the girl from Brazil. Anyway, she actually does live in our sector, but has been afraid to give us her address because of her dad. She´s 20, but says her dad is super against other religions. So we´ve been sharing with her at the church with a member her age and tonight we`re having an FHE with her at a members house. Its going to be awesome. This girl is unbelievable though. She´s picked a baptism date of Aug 29, and hopefully will continue to progress to that point. Its so great though to have someone who is actually thirsting after the gospel. Very refreshing after this little drought we´ve been in. Anyway, she gave us her address so we could know for sure if she is in our ward, but we can´t ever pass by there to see her she said. So, of course being curious, we happened to walk by there while on our way to an appointment the other day, and we found out why she has this fear. Her house is actually a church too, and her dad is the preacher. Yikes! Poor girl! I can´t imagine what she must be going through in her mind and heart. I pray that everything will work out. She is afraid if her dad finds out he will send her back to Brazil, and she really doesn´t want that. So it’s a super tough situation for her. But she is ¨Gold!¨ for sure.

Another cool thing I figured out this week, or that happened, was kind of a confirmation to me that my calling is from a prophet of God. As you know, we´re having a huge focus on inactives less actives here in Chile. Because it’s a huge problem here. Whenever church leaders are talking about chile they´re talking about the inactives. At first I was like, ok, this will be good, we´re obviously going to find people and help them, but after visiting with many of them, I realize that I can relate insanely well with these less active people. Because I was one of them for 2-3 years. I was called here for this purpose. How cool is that? Really, we were talking with a guy last night, and he was telling us his story and I knew exactly how he was feeling and everything, and I didn´t even have to think about what we needed to share with him I just knew, because of my experiences and stuff. The spirit was strong as we bore testimony, and hopefully it touched his heart and he will put forth the effort to be ¨converted¨ once again. It’s a wonderful feeling at church when we see 3 families walk in the door that haven´t been to church for months. Its also helped me realize the importance of home teaching and all those things like that. The organization of the church really is perfect, and if we just do our parts, the blessings are amazing for ourselves and for others. Its like that talk from conference last fall, I think Elder Holland but could be mistaken, many times, we are the angels in peoples lives.

I hope Sofie has a wonderful Birthday today, I´m excited to see some pictures. I hope you sent some pictures in the birthday package, if not maybe in a letter or something. It feels a little weird that its august already, but its cool. It felt like July lasted forever, but it also felt like this 6 weeks went by super fast, so it’s a weird feeling.

Oh mom, I got the letters from the girls forever ago I just haven´t had time to write them back. I´ll try to write them and send a letter to you and you can pass it back. It was from Naomi Marion and Ashley Scott I think, so I´ll try to do something today with that. I´m glad you´ve been sharing with the missionaries more since i´ve been gone. Members make all the difference in missionary work. We have some great members in our ward who are always willing to help, its fantastic.

Well, I´ve got to get going. No mom, I can´t believe I´m about to be 22, it seems like just last year I turned 19. Wow. Time sure can fly. But a lot of stuff sure does happen in that time. Anyway, I love you all and am super thankful for everything you do. I hope starla and ryan have fun with their new house, it sounds like a challenge a little bit but I´m excited for them . Give Julie a hug and kiss for me. Love you all!
Luke