Traslados y Bautismos!

Dear family,

This week was an exciting one for sure. We had transfers this week and Hermana Espinal and I will be staying together for another transfer, which is okay by me. :) This is Hna Espinal's last transfer, so it means I will be "killing her". I have never killed any of my companions so it will be an adventure. The fun thing is that we have had almost all of the same areas so when we go to visit her areas, we are going to visit Primavera and Navarrete. 

This week we had an exciting change of plans in that Y got baptized this Sunday. The plan was for him to be baptized this next Saturday but his mom had to fly to New York this week so we decided to change the date to this Sunday at 7:00 in the morning so she could come to the baptism. We invited the members and had the baptimsal interview on Saturday and then we got up early yesterday morning to clean and fill the baptism font. We weren't expecting a lot of members to come, but we were pleasantly surprised that about 25 or 30 members were willing to wake up at 5:30 or 6:00 and come to the church to see Y get baptized. We had stake conference, so Y wasn't confirmed this week but that will happen this next Sunday.

We also had a very good stake conference after Y's baptism. At the end of the conference they announced that there were about 850 people who participated in the conference, which is pretty amazing, I have never seen a conference that big here in the mission (just a fun fact, I think there are four stakes in the Santiago mission and three of them are in Santiago and the other in Navarrete). The stake president talked about repentance and made a comparison I really liked. He talked about a mountain with pine trees that he often drove by for work and how one day when he drove past there had been a fire and all the trees were destroyed. A year later he drove past again and saw that all the trees had started to grow again, but that it was more beautiful because even though there had been tall and mature trees before, there had also been fallen and dead trees mixed in; now, every tree was green and alive. He compared that to repentance in that the fire is like sin in our lives that destroys our peace and happiness, but through repentance our lives can be healed completely and made even better than they were before. I don't know if I explained that comparison very well, but I liked the point he made that repentance can heal us completely and that no matter what we have done in the past or how destroyed we might feel, we can repent.

So far I have absolutely loved being here in Santiago, the members here really are amazing and I have loved being with Hermana Espinal and learning new words every day. I feel pretty lucky to get to stay here for at least two more transfers and to get to be with Hna Espinal her last transfer. 

I have loved getting the pictures of Chloe and Elliot every week, the both of them are sure pretty cute. If I remember right, Colby is coming to Boise this week and in two weeks Esme finishes school, I bet that will be a fun start to the summer. I hope that Eli and Shih Ping can get a break in the craziness of school and work and that Sam and Kiana are enjoying Moscow. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Hermana Schriever