Week 5 - Fiestas Patrias!

September 20, 2017

Hola Familia y Amigos!

Last Wed: Got to go to the temple (with a family name! it was really special) and it was amazing. Seriously the best temple experience yet. I know if you go to the temple with a specific question in mind he will answer you! We went back into the city that night because we felt like we were supposed to give out a  Book of Mormon, or LdM (Libro de Mormon) to someone. So we walked to a nearby park and we all felt like we should talk to a lady sitting on the bench feeding her mom. So we did. She´s Christian and told us she doesn't talk to people much because she's always taking care of her mom. I told her about the Plan of Salvation and she was super interested and said she would be happy to meet with us! So we got her address and number and gave it to the missionaries serving in this area. It was really neat to see how God can use us as His instruments!!

Thurs: Met my mission president to be! He was dropping by the CCM (Missionary Training Center) for a meeting and came and talked to our district after (because my whole district is going to the same mission, East) and he's super nice and awesome! He told us he's assigning our trainers and oh, man, I´m so stoked!! I can't wait for the field! I hear he's an amazing mission president and I can tell already how inspired he is. 

Friday:  I started getting a little sick, and we played futbal (soccer) again with the latinos. Pretty sure we lost...like always, ha ha.

Satuday: Pretty normal day. I have better stuff to write about in the other days so hold on..

Sunday: BEST Sunday I've ever had, wow! I learned so much. In the morning we had a devotional where we watched a talk given by Elder Bednar on Christmas day 2011, and if you guys can find it, WATCH IT. It changed my life and whole perspective. I'm gonna quote from my journal and tell you a little of what I learned: Elder Bednar quoted Elder Maxwell saying, ´´There would have been no atoning sacrifice without the character of Christ.¨´ Think about that for a sec. Christ always, always turned outward with love, service, and compassion when we, the natural man, would turn in and be self absorbed, self centered, and self observed. My mission isn't about me. It's not about what I want or if I want to be changed or how many baptisms I have (see how many I's was in that?) It's about serving the Lord. Also, there's a large difference between a testimony and being converted. A testimony is what you know to be true. Conversion is consistently being true to what you know. and what do I know to be true? Christ. Christ who always turns out. So to be true to what I know I need to turn out away from myself through the atonement and strength of the Lord, because we can't do it by ourselves. Repentance was the topic this Sunday (I also gave a talk in Spanish during sacrament meeting!) and I learned that repentance is more that being forgiven of our sins. It's changing and turning ourselves to become more Christlike. Repentance, along with being a tool to be cleansed from sin, can be used to help us become better and develop Christlike attributes. I am striving to exemplify these.  All of us lack perfection, but repentance and the atonement can help and allow us to turn out, overcoming our self absorbed interests. We can't become Christlike without Christ's help. It's not possible. Repentance should always be active in our lives, not just when we sin. That's when we we begin to be truly converted, or consistently true to what we know. (2 Nephi 33:10, Mosiah 3:19, Alma 23:6)

Enjoying Independence Day in Chile!

Monday: BEST DAY EVER. Dieciocho is a HUGE holiday in Chile. It's like their 4th of July, or Independence day and they go crazy. So this day we got to wear normal clothes and we had tons of food and meat and played games with teams and cheers and more food and meat and relays and tug-o-wars and seeing traditional dances all day. It was amazing. Don´t have much time left to write about it but you can see the pics!:)

Tuesday: The second day of the big holiday! It´s the day to honor the military and armed forces, so there was a military parade down the street in front of the CCM with a band and each section of their armed forces. It was really cool and I have so much Chilean pride now, ha ha, like I think I'm half Chilean :) Also, I really encourage you all to take a fresh Book of Bormon, think of a question and read it, marking it up and looking for an answer as you go along. Elder Bednar suggested this in his talk to and I've been doing it and it's amazing!

Sorry I don't have much time, but this week has been amazing and next week I'll be writing from the FIELD in SANTIAGO!! I pray for you all and hope you're doing well! Go do some good in the world!

Much love,

Hermana Briggs