Earth Quake!!!

On September 16, there was a major earthquake north of Santiago Chile!

Tell us about the earthquake:

"I felt it. It was pretty strong and long, by far the strongest I have felt, but not strong enough to do any damage.  Just to scare a lot of people, as it was long and pretty strong. We were in the street for the first one and you could just see the power lines moving like crazy and it felt like we were on the boat in the lake on rough waters. Surprisingly, it didn't scare me and I felt really calm just some of the older people outside were freaking out. Then the second one we were in a house and you could see everything move. Since then there has been serveral small ones, but that is normal here. I'm just glad everyone is okay, but in the north a lot of people are struggling, as with the tsunami a lot of people lost everything and a few went missing. Please pray for them."

Traditional Chilean Dresses

Cueca Dresses

18 September *Chile Independance Day

Everywhere is Decorated with lights and flags for the Celebration.

Week #59 *September 14, 2015

Hey everyone,

Wow this week has just gone by so fast.  San Vicente is just full of flags and all sorts of decorations including lights and a whole fair that they are setting up for this coming week. It’s  18 de Septiembre, Chiles Independence.  I am so excited as it seems that San Vicente is the place to be.  I am excited for all the empanadas, bbq and other amazing traditional foods.  I will have to send pics!  The only bummer is that as it is a huge holiday here, it seems that no one wants to receive us until the next week, but we are excited to work hard and enjoy 18 which we will be celebrating with our branch here.

So as for this week it started out with a whole lot of working. Looking for new people to teach with very little success, but my companion and I were able to keep going with a lot of excitement. After a lot of prayer and a lot of hard work we were able to find a a new family and a other new investigator to teach so we are so excited.  

With the new family with found the Contreras family. It was a very special experience as the lesson honestly just started out bad.  They had a two year old child that was being a little difficult and I could tell that they were having a had time focusing and not really listening, but we just kept trying to keep teaching and asking questions. But it just wasn’t going well, so at one point I just felt like we had to take a different route.  I wasn’t sure how, so I finally followed the prompting I felt and we basically just started over trying to get to know them and help them truly see how our message could bless their family and it worked. They started paying attention and they gained interest quickly.  I was able to truly see the importance of following the spirit, even when it doesn’t make sence.  We were truly about to reach their hearts and find what they needed. They began to speak a lot and the lesson turned out very well.  I am excited to see what more happens with them.

We were also able to find another investigator named Ximena, who is an old investigator from the hermanas before us.  She is so awesome and really opened up to us about all the hard things that are passing with her family and children, but she has such an amazing perspective on the life and faith that it will all work out.  We are so excited to start working with her.

I am so grateful that we were able to find these new people to teach as we had been working and praying so hard.  The Lord tested us all week but as we kept at it and didn’t loose our faith. It all paid of in the last minute.  A lot of the most amazing miracles happen in the last minute we just have to continue with faith in the Lord that our prayers will be answered and that He knows better than we do!

I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to be a missionary and be here in San Vicente. I love this branch so much!

Thank you for all you do.  I will have a whole bunch of stories and pictures from 18 next week!

Love ya,

Hermana Stringham

Zone Pictures San Fernando *September 10, 2015

Andrea's Baptism

Week #58 *September 7, 2015

Andrea's Baptism

Hey everyone,

Well this week has been pretty good.  It honestly was a harder week as the majority of our appointments fell and we spent the majority of the week outside contacting, but amazingly we are still doing great. We just have a new wave of energy and we are really excited to get working really hard this week and we have a lot of great plans and appointments with people we met this week. 

This week I got to go to a little branch called Chepica in another zone, Santa Cruz.  It was awesome.  The hermanas are doing such a great job there.  It is a little branch of about 15 people the hermanas are the relief society president, young womens, and primary president and the elders have just about all the other callings other than  president of the rama, as luckily there is a member there who is the president.  It was a cool experience to see all the work the hermanas are doing there and we had a day full of miracles with less actives and new investigators.  I loved getting to go to another sector and seeing the hard work they are doing there.  We also got to ride bikes. Which I surprisingly liked. It was a lot faster and a lot of fun. They have hot pink beach cruzers with ´pink helmets. It is seriously the cutest thing ever.  The hermana is going to send me a pick she took with me on the bike and I will send one next week.  I got to work with Hermana Morales who is so great she is a missionary who is 30 years old and she is just amazing.  I was honestly a little intimidated being there as her coordinator. I thought how in the world am I going to give advice to a 30 year old, but She is awesome and the Lord helped me a lot as I was able to help them and give some advice on how they could help their sector and Hermana Morales is so awesome as she listened to everything I said and was so humble and willing to truly listen and apply the advice I gave her.  It was amazing to see just how much love she has for the people and desires to serve the Lord. It doesn’t even seem to affect her to much that she has to work with a lot of missionaries a lot younger than her.

This Saturday was Andreas baptism, which was also awesome. After so many missionaries working so long teaching her she finally made the decision to be baptized when the elders invited her. So we got to be there.  It is amazing to see just how important this work is and how every single one of the missionaries who had taught her and thought they had failed, as she still didn’t want to be baptized, truly played a part in her conversion.  Sometimes we  don’t  get to see the success of our work as missionaries, but I know that every contact we do and every person we teach we are helping to prepare them and being instruments in the Lords hands, as He knows when the timing is just right.

This week we also had a less active come to church after a very long time, who had basically told us he was never going to return. He came just to sacrament meeting but it was a big step for him and we are so excited to keep working with him and his wife as they are a cute little family. They were sealed in the temple but inactivate after some really hard things passed with some members in the branch. It was another testimony for me that everything we do in this work has an affect, as many missionaries had worked with them. At first I really wasn’t sure that they would return, but it just goes to show that we should never judge who is ready. Everyone has the same potential and the Lord knows their hearts and guides us in His work.

Well that is pretty much it for this week. I love you all so much and I am so grateful for all your love and support until next week!,

Love,

Hermana Stringham