Remember some time ago when I was teaching the Riquelme family, well the daughter got baptized by her now active father and they have the goal to go to the temple to be sealed together forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chilean sky

Well this week we have focused a lot of the Guajardo family and they are progressing well. On Monday night for a family home evening we talked about sacrifice and watched the John Tanner movie. He was a man who truly sacrificed all that he had in order to serve the Lord and bring about his eternal purposes. 

They, as a family, are now reading the scriptures together as a family on a nightly bases (the Book of Mormon) and they love it. They really love the fact that they can read it. Both the help with the spiritual, but at the same time it is a story or rather a history of 1000 years with wars and heroes and bad guys and trials and afflictions but also joys and triumphs. It really is the world's greatest book. 

They, as a family, are working towards living the law of chastity, they are going to get married and will have the date at the end of this week. Also every time that we go there Brother Guajardo, Christian, always tries to feed us. It is a rule in our mission not to eat with the members or others unless it is in a family home evening. So it is like a competition, he tries to give us food and I always try to get out of it. But he is a really good guy and will soon be a leader here in San Carlos.

This week was made a little difficult by the loss of our cell phone. Monday, the other elders we live with lost their phone so on Tuesday morning I gave them my phone to use and when they returned it, the sim card in it was fried and no longer performed its function. So on Saturday we went to the city and got a new phone from the mission, not quite an I-phone, but a step up from the brick we used to have. Hastening the work in simple, but big ways.

In district class the week we learned about consecration and the importance of being consecrated to the Lord's work, opposed to merely interested in it. Being consecrated is a tough thing and involves many different steps, but it is the most important thing the we can do with our lives. I mean, the whole purpose in life is to see if we will do all things that he /God) commands.

We left with Hernan this week (a new convert) and visited some of our investigators. He gave a simple but powerful testimony to them saying, (after one of them asked us to ask for peace in our prayer) "If you really want to find peace, here is the place to find it. I searched for my whole life for peace and I wasn't even close to finding it until I met with the Elders, now my whole life has changed and I am happy, and more importantly I am at peace."

Another important thing that I learned this week is the importance of looking for the one. In every thing that we do every place that we go I am convinced that the Lord sends us there to find the one. Maybe there are many that we can edify, but we always go in search of the one.

My companion and I focused this week on cleaning out the vineyard. We have a giant book full of old investigators and old converts and new converts and less active members of the church. Well in spirit of Jacob 5 (from the book of Mormon, if you haven't read it: read it) we asked the Lord for one last chance to labor together in the vineyard and we have gone to work cleaning and pruning and A LOT OF DUNGING: But it is fun and I couldn't think of something I would rather do.

Love you all

Eder Hutchins HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY TO ISABEL, TREVOR, AND HANNAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the new door of a less active member...?

Another transfer together

8.25.14



Well today were transfers and Elder Gorham and I will be staying together yet another transfer!!!! We were both so excited to hear that! It is the best thing that could have happened, it makes it even better to know t hat the Lord wants us together,

So this week we kept teaching the Guajardo family (the one found through Rescate) and they are super excited to learn (or for the husband relearn) about the restored church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints. It is a little funny, every lesson that we have with them the mom, Elizabeth, ends up balling, Christian (the dad) told us that she NEVER cries, like it is super weird that she cries and he told us that the only reason that she cries is because she feels the truth of the restored gospel for the first time. We asked her yesterday in a lesson if she believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet called of God, her response, yes, he has to be I mean look at his story. We continued the conversation a little bit and asked her, do you desire to be baptized into the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints? Her response: Yes, I know that it is what I need and I want to do it. So they are currently making plans to be married this year (they are aiming for October, the government makes the process long) What makes this experience even more sweet was when my companion and I found out that Christian holds the Melchizedek priesthood. He is working on getting worthy again and they cannot wait to go, as a family, to the temple to be sealed as a family for time and all eternity. That's the goal.

We were teaching a new convert this week who has been slacking off in church attendance and really in just keeping the commandments in general so we went in there and did some work. We were guided by the spirit and learned among other things that she was smoking again, her husband and her were seriously thinking about a divorce and she has been having some depression problems. By Sunday she had stopped smoking again and was a buzzing ball of energy. She came to church and for the first time in about 4 months stayed for the classes, she read and answered all of the questions and will be fasting (the topic of the class) this week to apply what she learned. I love it when a plan comes together.

Sacrament meeting and really just the church meetings in general are getting so much better, so much more spiritual. This week we made a pass out for the sacrament meeting (something not done outside of the United States) and the bishop had the congregation sing an intermediate hymn, standing. Also a first time. Of course I was still conducting it and there was no piano, but we worked with what we had. 

District meeting

We are teaching a young woman named Karen, she is the referral of a young elder preparing for a mission. She is probably the most advanced investigator I have ever taught. We starting teaching her from nothing about two months ago and this past Thursday she came to our weekly meeting (her circumstances only allow her to meet with us once a week) with questions and they were questions that were just super good. About the millennium and the spirit world and we learned that these questions came because about a year ago she lost her father and she has a serious interest in helping him to receive the saving ordinances in the temple. Only problem is she lives and hour and a half by bus from town. And the buses don't run on Sunday. That being said she has already assisted twice and will be assisting in two weeks.

The work is moving forward, we are laboring in the vineyard and cleaning it out as much as we can. 

with much love, 

Elder Hutchins