This week we've been teaching Guillermo, a senior in high school. He is the neighbor and friend of Natalia, the daughter of the 1st counselor in the Bishopric. She had been right there beside him for every one of his steps into the Gospel. Guillermo has been struggling with a lot of problems, but he is full of potential. Yesterday he attended church for the first time with Natalia, and we are excited for his baptism which is planned for the 29th of November. Natalia is not even the most active member, if you go by the numbers (attendance to church, seminary, and mutual), but it is obvious that she is very active in the Gospel. What a stellar youth. Her testimony has been essential in helping Guillermo come closer to Christ.
A few weeks ago, my companion and I read our own patriarchal blessings during personal study, and we were struck by how much our life choices have been influenced by the eternal truths and promises in our patriarchal blessings. It's good to receive a patriarchal blessing even at a more advanced age, but between the ages of 17-25 people make decisions that will affect them for the rest of their life, such as if they will go to school, who they will marry, and if they will serve a mission. A patriarchal blessing can be a light and a guide through those years of difficult choices. Many members in Chile have not received their patriarchal blessings, so Elder Warner and I created a sweet lesson on patriarchal blessings, and began to teach about them to the members. It was an interesting challenge, because we couldn't just read them our blessings to give them an idea of what it was. We used as the basis for our lesson Section 66 of the Doctrine and Covenants, with the idea that a patriarchal blessing is personal scripture to the person who receives it. The members loved it, and we ended up teaching the lesson so much that we got a little bit sick of it, haha. Now President Obeso has nine patriarchal blessing interviews to do in the Rio Bueno branch. Wups.
Our area is a district, not a stake. That means that the mission president does all of the interviews that a stake president would normally do, for things such as temple recommends, youths leaving on a mission, and patriarchal blessings. A stake is usually not more than 3 hours wide by car, but President Obeso presides over 5 districts in our mission, which means he has to give interviews over an area roughly equal to the length of California. He is a busy man who spends a lot of time traveling.
I love planning activities. On Friday we had a great youth activity for Seminary. We only came to the activity because we had invited some youth investigators, but our presence was appreciated because only one of the leaders showed up. In the end, all four missionaries helped out by bearing testimony of seminary, and then we got to make the refreshments, which were completos [Chilean hotdogs with tomato and avocado]. I love working with the youth.
Some of the activities that we have planned for the coming weeks:
- Mutual: Family History - so that the youth can bring names on their annual temple trip on the 29th of November.
- Fireside: Strengthening Marriage - two apostles are going to address the people of South America in a devotional about how to strengthen their marriages. We are putting together a sweet activity with refreshments and babysitting included, so that all of the couples in the branch can participate and enjoy themselves. We are also teaching three families that need to get married in order to be baptized, so we are doing everything we can to help them attend.
- Mutual: "I'm a Mormon" videos - The youth with create their own "I'm a Mormon" videos, and then a member will edit them and put them all together.
- Class: "What To Do When The Missionaries Ask You To Sit By An Investigator In Church" - I'm not really sure how, when, or where we're going to do this one, but I'm excited to figure it out.
- Branch Family Home Evening: "The Priesthood" - An awesome class that Mama sent me which I have been attempting to translate into Spanish. The lesson uses the analogy of a neighborhood bakery to explain what the priesthood is and how it functions, in terms everyone can understand.
- Christmas Devotional - The youth will invite their friends to create a Christmas musical program. The idea is that the program is youth-planned and youth-run, but we'll have to see if this one is possible or not. I'm not sure if I'll even be in Rio Bueno come Christmas, because transfers are the 3rd of December. The other thing is that the youth can be understandably shy when it comes to inviting their friends to participate in a church activity. Also there are not quite as many talented youth in Chile, simply because developing musical talents is economically out-of-reach for some of the youth. Never have I appreciated so much the violin lessons that I was privileged to receive as a child.
Speaking of violin, it was a busy week. Last Sunday I played a music number with Sister Parkinson in District (think Stake) Conference. Then three days later we played again in Zone Conference (think 50 missionaries). This week there is an apostle coming to the mission again, Russel M Nelson, and President invited me to accompany a quartet in their special musical number. So there has been a lot of violin-playing recently.
That's all I have time for! Love you!
-Elder Crotzer
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