Sami's letter of Oct 19

Sami sent a very short letter today. She went on an outing to the mountains with her zone, but she was sick the whole time. She did however, manage to find some blessings in her situation.

Hola Familia

My first 2 weeks have been really great. I have a good story about today, though. Remember how I always made jokes about Montezuma´s Revenge? Well it´s actually not that funny. My body does not like me right now. Or for the past 15 hours or so. We had a zone activity today going to a waterfall in the mountains. It was fun. Expecially when I threw up 3 times. I would feel better for a while and think it was fine but then a couple hours later I would have to throw up again. The first time I threw up honestly was really funny though. I was in Chillán in front of the chapel there. We were waiting for the Elders to arrive and I just started throwing up on the lawn. Right next to the sign ¨La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días¨. I think it was a really great PR opportunity for the church here in Chile, especially Chillán. :)

SO I´m just going to write one email today because I DO NOT feel good. But the church is still true so that´s good. My zone sang something in zone conference so technically I did sing. The other Hermanas have had 2 baptisms since I got here but we haven´t had any. The people we are teaching aren't ready, I think, to make such a big commitment with Heavenly Father. Which is fine with me. It is better that they don´t make it if they don´t understand the significance of the covenant of baptism. I am trying to be better at helping them understand the importance and the blessings that will come but it is still a little hard to communicate the way I want to. I am definitely not fluent in Spanish but I think I get a little better every day, which is good.

I´m glad I could be sick today though. There is always something we can learn from everything if we think about it. I have been wanting to understand my investigators more and their difficulty of making the decision to be baptized or not or come to church or not. It doesn't seem too terribly hard to me because I was raised in the church (thanks, Mom) so there will always be a part of me that doesn't understand them because my challenges and difficulties have been different.  But being sick was not fun. I wanted to enjoy myself. I wanted to not throw up and explore instead of sleeping on the dirt path for a few hours because I felt so tired. My spirit was willing but my body was weak. This life is about overcoming the natural man and giving our lives and our will over to our Heavenly Father, who knows what we need better than we do anyway. It´s hard to try to overcome the natural man and tiring too. I know. I hope I can learn more lessons, maybe a little less grossly. Anyway, I have to go rest it up in my bed.

Love,

Hermana Smith