Dear friends and family,

This has been a very long week and a half. We had 3 really cool experiences though this week!

1) We got a call from Sister R in the ward last Monday telling us that one of her friends ( our new investigator ) wanted to have Christmas dinner with us, and the best part is, is that he is a chef!! What a treaaaaaaaat!! :) but the reason why he invited us over is really funny. So we went to his house 2 weeks ago, and he gave us fruit cake and milo. He was asking us what we were doing for Christmas, and I told him we didn't have anything ( we didn't at the time) then he was like, "Well don't a lot of people just say 'come one over!' to you guys?" haha All I heard was come on over, and I was like, "oh yes!!!!! would you be cooking?" haha then he said that he was talking about other people.. super awkward,  buuuut he said that he wanted us over.. but not in missionary clothes. haha we will see! But it's also cool though because his wife is wanting to quit drinking, so she decided she would cancel her new years plans so she can start the quitting process! pretty neat!

2) We were riding our bikes down this street on Saturday, and to be honest I was kind of zoned out, but then out of nowhere I just slammed on my breaks and pulled up to this house. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I had the STRONGEST impression that we needed to knock on the door. So we knocked on the door, and this old Chilean man comes out! outside his window it said 'bienvenido' so I knew we were in for a treat! I spoke to him in Spanish!! It was soooo so so cool! I asked him what church he went to and why he didn't go to church anymore. ( All in Spanish btw) egh hem. ;) Then he said that he is too perezoso ( which means lazy) jajaja But he committed to read the book of Mormon, and come to church, and we have an appointment with him on Saturday!! I CAN'T wait to teach this man. He said that we can come over ANYTIME and teach him. :))))

3) Last night we went to the himopos ( a recent convert family) for dinner. Sister H's cousin just so happened to be there for dinner, and she wasn't a member. So we had dinner and then we had a lesson. Right before we went to their house Elder Macki and I made a pretty specific lesson plan for them. So we watched the new Mormon message, "a saviour is born. " then I felt prompted to read from 3 Nephi 1. We related how Nephi's praying on behalf of the people can be comparable to us when we are praying on behalf of our struggles. it's really cool that right after he prayed he was assured that the Saviour would be born the next day, and that the sign would be given so he wouldn't be killed. this really touched sister H's cousin. She said that she had the butterflies and that something really just pinched her heart. We helped her recognize that it was the spirit. She said that she really wanted to start coming to the Mormon church. It was soooooo cool! the reason it was so good was because the spirit was soooo strong. like most of the time as missionaries, we have good lessons everyday, every week, but every once in a while we participate in a lesson where the spirit is so UNDENIABLY strong. It is a whole different level when the spirit is truly there, and that's what happened last night! SO GOOOOOOD! :)

one last thing: this week I learned a lot about faith. I found that there are 3 levels to faith. it goes as follows: Grow, Exercise, and Show. Grow being the weakest, and Show being the strongest. We can grow our faith by simply listening to the word of god, and Learning of simple gospel truths. In order for our faith to grow it takes consistent effort to do atleast those two things. Then we begin to Exercise our faith,  we can exercise our faith by doing the commandments and receiving assurances from the Holy Ghost that our works are pleasing before God. The Last is Show. Our faith begins to Show when our assurances become consistent. That is when people will see us, and they will see Christ. We then have "God's image engraven in [our] countenances." Christ will be shown to others through us, and Christ himself will begin to Show himself to us in greater and greater ways. Then our faith can become as great as the brother of Jared's faith. he couldn't be kept within the veil.

My faith in the saviour has grown significantly since being out here, and the more it grows, the more my desire to serve him does.

I hope your faith is growing too! especially around Christmas time.

merry Christmas! :)

Love,

Elder Beeson