Branch Missionaries
Branch Members
Illapel Zone
Hola familia
Another week has passed in life and I am still happy and loving it. It is so great how many experiences we are blessed with in each one of our lives. If I look back on the week to be honest it just looks normal and like nother big happened but as I look at each individual experience I realize the hand of god in our lives each minute. It is the same for all of you in your lives. You can look at the small marks of divine help in your lives each day and it makes life great. Mom you talked about running my marathon and that process that I went through and the help I got from so many people. It is interesting because I have thought a ton about that during my mission. I have thought about the hardest parts of the marathon and what I did to keep going, knowing that the reward at the end was great. I had great help from family and friends who supported me, even running the last part with me. I realize that life and the mission are just like that. We have to keep running going through each experience and seeing the blessings each day waiting and working towards the great reward at the end.
Yesterday I was really happy because some of the less actives we have been working with over the last few weeks went to church. There is a young man who hadnt gone to church the 5 weeks that I have been here. When I got here he had just gotten back from EFY and he had had such a great spiritual experience and then he just dropped and stopped going to church. His mom is also a member but his father and siblings arent. We had been sharing with them a lot but he always had an excuse. In the end yesterday he went to church and I could tell that he was happy with all the members telling him how much they had missed him. We also had a lot of people commited to coming who didnt come, as it happens often, and that is always sad to see. I really understand more and more how important our choices are in our personal progress in life.
We taught a new investigator this week named Luisa. She is like 70 and is "catholic". She told us that she had never ever let religious people enter her house to talk about religion but that she had decided to let us in this time. We taught her the restoration and the next time we passed by I was suprised and happy to see that she understood it very well and was really taking seriously what we were teaching. There are a lot of people that you can find that are "willing" to listen to the message but really arent willing to apply it in their lives. She said that she has asked herself and god more questions in these few days than in her whole life. She is reading and praying about the book of mormon and Joseph Smith. I love having a message that is so clear and so perfect for answering peoples questions. I have learned the importance of questions. it is the only way we learn. If we already know everything then there is no point of anything. Each day as I read and study I realize how little I know. I love learning and look forward to be able to do it more during my whole life. There are so many great books out there, the best being the book of mormon. I have realized that as we have been reading the book of mormon as a mission this last year (almost 4 times now) i have come to understand something in my patriarchal blessing. It says that I must rely on the scriptures for strength and guidance. I never really felt that before and wondered how I would find that in my life. I never was really that great at reading in my scriptures everyday, I read for seminary and then in the summer I struggled. As I prepared for my mission and started it I read the scriptures more. Now as I have grown acostombed to reading every single day in the book of mormon I have really come to rely on it for this help. It was a cool realization that I had this week.
I love you all so much
Les quiero
Elder Hamilton
