Hola!
First of all, best of luck with the wedding this week! I suppose everyone will be there for it except me? PLEASE take a picture for me with the whole family and send it to me! Paulette, I am so proud of you! Levi, welcome to the family! I am so grateful my sister is marrying such a kind, smart, great guy. I know you take good care of her. Thanks. :)
I love love love your emails. Dad, you describing the kids camping made me laugh, and mom describing them with their kitchen towel exericise mats. So cute. and Carrie, the pictures of your boys in their suits! AHH so cute! I love you all so much. And Neal, Tom, Sabrina, and Paulette and Hope. I think of you more on my mission than I did before and pray for you often. I would love to hear about what´s going on in your lives.
Mom and dad, I love you so much. Letters are on their way (via Hermana Springer) for you.
Tonight I will get a call about my new companion. I am hoping it is a Latina, because I really need to speak Spanish more. Although, that would be super hard if she couldn´t speak English. Anyway, it´s a mountain I want to climb. I am going to miss Hermana Springer lots. She is not just my trainer or companion, but my friend. When she goes I will not just miss her as my companion, but as the good friend and example who is always by my side. I hope I can be the kind of companion to others as she has been to me--she even made me a little Guarani phrase book to help me learn Guarani. It´s been a sad week watching her pack and say good bye to everyone. They say it´s hard to "kill" missionaries, or watch them go home. But while I do miss a lot of things about home, you couldn´t pay me to get on a plane and go home right now. No way.
Watching her say goodbye to lots of members and investigators has made me think a lot about the kind of missionary I want to be though, how I want people to view me when they say goodbye to me. It´s a motivator to give every ounce of my energy and will to help the people here. I want to develop relationships within the branch, be one who is always cheerful, who prepares powerful and creative lessons. I don´t want one person to have one doubt of whether I know the church is true or not. Although it really isn´t as important to me what other people think of me at the end of my mission as what Christ thinks of me. I love the talk from last conference by Elder Wilson about having the vision to do, and coming to realize what Christ´s vision of us is. Christ has a higher vision of what we can become than we have for ourselves. I hope I can come to learn what it is He expects of me and arise to THAT vision. I know He has a profound vision for each of us. Goals higher than our goals, potential beyond what we think our potential is.
So much has happened since I wrote you last Monday. At that time, the Meza family was going to get baptized on Saturday. Well, that Monday night we went to go visit them and we caught Juan Angel smoking. Oh my heart sunk to my toes when I saw that. So the next night we went with a member and together we set a date for this next Friday, July 20--giving him nearly two weeks to quit. But he is still smoking. So we talked to Gladys (his wife) and the daughter about perhaps getting baptized without him. It is not ideal, but they are so ready and excited and it isn´t fair that they should have to wait so long to have the blessings of baptism. But they didn´t want to do it without their dad/husband. I had the idea of going to visit them with Hermana Echague in our branch, who was baptized and then waited 20 years for her husband to be baptized. He is now super strong through and was recently the branch president. It was a great visit and the next day, after thinking and praying about it, Gladys decided she and her daughter Selene are going to be baptized without Juan Angel. So this Friday....we should really have a baptism! They even got hair cuts to get ready. I have to say, their kitchen floor has become practically holy ground to me. Each lesson we end by kneeling in prayer together and one of their precious little girls offers the prayer and it is SO sincere, so faithful, so heartfelt. I love that family so much.
We have a lot of investigators with children and so each Sunday I pack my bag with suckers and coloring books and crayons to keep them occupied during the meeting so their moms can listen and feel the spirit, and all during sacrament meeting I am telling them to be quiet, to share, and thanking them for the pictures they color for me. Between that and preparing lots of kid-friendly FHE´s, I feel like such a mom. And I love it.
And mom, I have a Liahona in Spanish with all the conference talks, so I didn´t have to figure out how to tell President Monson´s boat story on my own. I just quoted him from the Liahona in Spanish, ha. I wish I were as good at Spanish as you all think I am. But mom and Carrie, buena suerte con sus finales orales y todo este semana!
Today as a district we went to an Indian tower thing that is at the edge of our area. We wanted to climb it but couldn´t. It is supposedly one of the tallest towers in South America, even though it isn´t very tall. We did, however, get to climb the Monumento de Maria Auxiladora, the huge Mary monument in the center of Concepcion. The pictures I´m sending are of that.
My dear friends Jamie Claridge and Kristy Hoover are heading for the MTC this Wednesday, heading for Russia and Albania, respectively. They are on my mind and I am so excited they are on the brink of the best experience of their lives thus far, and we are fellow sisters in it!
I have begun memorizing the Living Christ in Spanish. I love that document. Just reading it and practicing it brings the Spirit. We are so blessed to know who He really is, and to know He is our Savior, not Mary, or Saints or anything else. We know who to look for for redemption of sins. We have His true gospel. We know how to find happiness because of Him.
Love,
Your Sister Missionary who ate nearly half a papaya for lunch,
Hermana Faith Goimarac
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