Well to start this email out I really don’t
know what to say, other than that I still am not quite able to wrap my head
around the fact that I am going home. I feel like I am in a dream or something
and I am going to wake up and be new in the mission again.
Well the mission has been amazing. I am going
to miss Chile so much. I love the people no matter how many times they were
rude to me. I have grown to love these people and their culture. I know that I
am gringo but my heart tells me that I’m chileno.(and a flaite one if you ask
me). I remember thinking that the mission was perfect and that us as
missionaries we don’t suffer and that all we feel is happiness and stuff like
that. I WAS WRONG, very wrong. I have learned how to suffer with joy, as
President Videla always tells us. I have been able to change and see the big
picture and really why things are important. My testimony has grown and even
though I wouldn’t say that it’s huge I know and can say that it’s grown. When I
first got here I thought that I wasn’t going to be able to preach the gospel
because I didn’t feel like my testimony was big enough and actually felt so inadequate
that I asked my MTC Presidente to send me home and I don’t remember how many
times. For some reason he didn’t give into my askings. I am so thankful for the
help that all my leaders have offered me because if they weren’t men of God I wouldn’t
have been able to learn that God makes weak things strong and that he shows
that he is God through us weak missionaries.
To add to this we had a strange contact with
someone. We knocked at this guy’s door and he came out and started attacking
right away. Well he said that he studies the Bible a lot and then started to
attack us and trying to... well I don’t know what he was trying to prove, but
after talking about the teachings in the Bible for like 15 min. He finally asked
how many times we had read the bible. I told him I had never read the Bible
completely before. He seemed very prideful when we said he had read it
completely through 15 times. Then told us that we needed to study it more and
come back to him and tell him what we learned. Little did he know that he
helped me learn that God really makes weak things strong! Knowing little and
being weak in all the knowledge that the Bible has, I was able to talk and answer
the things he was asking us.
I am so thankful for the opportunitdad that God
has given me the chance to serve him. I love him and know that this is the true
church of Christ and that Joseph Smith restored this church and was able to
translate the Book of Mormon through the power and help of God. I am so
thankful for all my companions even the hard times that I passed with them
because I have truly learned from them and been humbled.
Los Amo a todos ustedes
Con harto Amor,
Elder Smith
#salvationain´tcheap
