Santiago - October 6, 2014

Hey Fam!
So I'm very pressed on time right now. I'm sorry. I skimmed your letters. We're going to see how much I can write in fifteen minutes before my bus leaves for Salta for leadership council.

This week was incredible! I'll try to hit the best highlights.
I cried this week. Mario and Martina, the older couple waiting for Martina's divorce to go through so that they can get married, walked to the Saturday afternoon session of conference. We also got started on constructing their bathroom on Thursday. It was so cool to see the members get on that. We have a few recently reactivated members that just happen to work in construction. They had a lot of expertise in that little bathroom. They started re-doing the whole room - leveling out the floor, making a small bathing space, etc. Amazing. It was so cool to just kinda watch, since I felt a little useless. They're going to try to finish it this week.
Mario and Martina loved conference. Mario came out and said, "Wow, they focused a lot on the family." We were able to talk to Martina a little. She took home a different message, more about forgiveness, helping the poor, etc. She's very closed off to religion - she listens, but has made it clear that in order for her to join, it would take a lot of time. Her sister joined the JWs and died for lack of a blood transfusion, so her closed off-ness isn't so unjustified. She said that in the conference, she just felt her heart open up during Elder Holland's talk. She said that she just felt desires to get on her knees and repent. Then she picked up the Book of Mormon and told us, "And this book? I'm going to take it to work and read it in every moment that I can. I can't wait until my papers come through so I can get married to this man and baptized with him!" Wow. And we just asked how it went in conference. Miracles.

Another miracle. In all the bustle of conference, I kinda forgot to ask the sisters in the branch for food. The problem is that I felt bad asking them last minute and the people I would think to ask had recently covered us when lunches fell through... so I kinda was just thinking about trying to find time in the crazy conference weekend to cook. Then, on the way to the first session, a sister who lives next door said, "Elders, you want some pizza? It's fresh!" In between sessions, when we ran to go remind people to repent and get to the next session, another sister said, "Have you eaten lunch?" We replied that not really, and in less than 15 minutes she whipped up a type of parmesan chicken with tomato salad and noodles. Incredible. On Saturday night, a sister came up and said, "Do you have lunch tomorrow? I was thinking about making up some big sandwiches and thought you might like some." God knows our needs. It was amazing how he inspired three different people to help us.

I loved Elder Scott's talk. It was my most favorite, even though there were many that compete. I love the part where he said, "Doing these things may require that you reorganize your priorities. If that's the case, do it." The way he said, "Do it," was just so firm and great. I loved it. Other favorites included Klebingat, Cook, and Esplin.

Anyway, That's my time. Sorry! I hope you all have a great one!

Elder Willey