Running In Rancagua: Week 2 in The Hardest/Best Mission EVER!

Hola hola! (I say it twice because people here do that sometimes.)

So this has been an interesting week. I have to laugh because I might cry! ;) It started out with us having special changes, so now we are in a trio. Hna. Mendez, Hna. Hellbusch and I now work in 2 sectores. It is SO hard, but it just means we get more people to love!!!

Also, we put 3 dates for baptism en Lunes!!! Flor, Leslie and Cristoval are the cutest little family ever! Their date WAS Dic. 27 (an early regalo de Navidad), but they didnt come to church this Domingo, entonces la fecha fell through. It is okay though, because we feel they may need a little more time to learn any way, so in a way, it is sad, but happy!!

Javier is our other investigator, and he is the quirkiest 14 year old you have ever seen. Love him to death! We took him to la noche de deportes del barrio and he had tons of fun with us y los elderes jugando hand ball y fútbol y NINJA y ENERYGY BALL (energy ball is the funnest!!). He really wants to be baptized, but his dad won´t let him. We told him he needs to pray and read every day AND talk to his dad about how important this is to him. But Javier hasn´t done it yet, so we might have to do a DO or DIE lession soon.... :/

Our menos activos are so cute tambien! I love the fact that baptisms aren´t everything here! A few years ago (like 15 years pienso) a ton of missionaries just came and baptized cualquier persona en cualquier lugar, just random people sometimes, so yes they had amazing numbers, but no one is active ;) silly people.

So we get to reactivate all of the people and get no baptisms!! Which I am COMPLETELY fine with. I have come to realize that missionary work is about strengthening people in the faith of Jesus Christ, no matter where they are on the path to Eternal Life, whether it be before or after baptism. I LOVE strengthening the less actives because they usually know they have to come to church, and all we have to do is be awesome friends with them and find them friends in the church. That means I have a whole barrio of best friends!! ;) That doesn´t mean I dont miss you guys, but it does mean I dont feel alone, like ever. It also helps that they are my best friends, cuz that means they will criticize my horrible Spanish with love! ;) Also, some of the members know Inglés, so they like to practice it on me tambien.

Okay, I will know switch gears a little bit. Missionary Work is hard. I need you all to realize this because if you don´t accept it, it will be harder! There is DEFINITELY a reason it is called Missionary WORK. Whenever problems arrise (is that a word??) in the mission, it is usually because someone is not working in the Lord´s way, or they arent working to the max. And I don´t just mean working out in the street, but working on focusing on the people always, looking for ways you can help them, for me it actively listening to the super speedy quick Chilean language (I swear they don´t speak real Spanish here ;) ) and ALWAYS looking for people. Contacts are the hardest. However I have a cool story!

We were contacting houses and found a cute lady in one that was kind of hidden from the rest. My two best friend comps decided to make me (the newb) take the lead. The lady came out and I asked her for her name, She said it, but I cant remember it cuz I was freaking out a little bit. She also said she was a little busy, but we gave her an Él es la Dadiva card and she started listening to my horrible Spanish explanation of how we are missionaries of the church......She was way nice and listened to me, then said she was already baptized!! Then she said she had been wanting to come back to church! I was so surprised! No one would have noticed her little house, but for some reason we got there and found her. We have plans to go see her, and hopefully my Spanish will be better by then.

Okay, super quick cuz not much more time. I LOVE all of you! Thank you for writing me happy letters! This week I read all the letters I couldn´t read last week and all your funny stories and things made me laugh and smile really big. This week has been the hardest, so I thank you so much for being my saving angels with the words you write! I read a story in the Dic. Liahona about missionaries singing to people in the hospital and one patient said they were angels. Then one of the sisters said, no they are Latter day Saints. Well you are all Saints to me and I hope you spread that happiness and joy to everyone who may not have that in the moment you see them. I definitely needed your guys´ uplifting words, so gracias gracias gracias!

I love you all! I will try to make my letter next week a little better!

Le amo!

Hna. McCubbins