We got cambios this morning and Im staying for atleast another 6 weeks in Coihueco. Im really excited and happy about that. This past Wednesday a seventy came to our mission. His name is Elder Richards and he is now the second councelor of the area here in Chile. We had a leader capacitation early in the morning and then we had a 5 hour conference. He took thirty minutes at the end to do a question and answer and I took advantage and asked him a question. A missionary asked him what it means to be a ¨special witness of Christ.¨ Elder Richards teared up whenever the Elder asked him and said,¨Thank you for asking me that question.¨ He explained what it really means after.
At the end of conference, our Mission President, President Humphrey, said that Elder Richards wanted to talk to some missionaries. He named off 5 missionaries and the first was ¨Elder Gregory!¨ I was pretty nervous but it ended up to be an amazing experience and one that I will never forget in my life! Here is what happend.
After lunch we got back to the chapel and I was the first to be interviewed by Elder Richards. I walked into the room and he was waiting there with two chairs facing each other and a table with his scriptures. We started by saying a prayer on our knees and he asked me to say it. When we sat down after the prayer, he started asking me a few simple questions. He asked me how much time I had in the mission and about my family. I told him about my family and that my parents had gotten a divorce. He asked me if my testimony had grown and I said that it did and he asked me to share my experience with him. I told him the long version but that basically I had prayed the night that I heard that my parents were divorced, and I felt like arms were wrapped around me as I prayed. He asked me to open up Doctrine and Covenants 6:20 and it applied exactly to what I had felt. He said that all I needed to do to feel the love of the Lord´s arms wrapped around me was to be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments.
He said, ¨This really isnt a very fair question and I shouldnt answer it, but do you remember what I talked about last General Conference?¨ I told him that I didnt but I had my notes right there and I opened it up and read my notes. He spoke about learning and growing through pain. It was an amazing talk and I had it starred.
When we finished talking about that, he asked me if I had any questions. I honestly didn´t but I waited a few seconds to think of one because I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of being one on one with a seventy! I thought of a preocupation that Ive had lately. It was that I am a little afraid to go home in seven months. I love my family so much but the things is that they will be different, I will be different and I will have to adjust myself to a different lifestyle all over again. He told me a story about one of his zone leaders when he was a Mission President in San Antonio ten years ago. He had a zone leader who had been less active up until a year before his mission because his parents were less actives. He went on the mission, completely changed, and came to be an amazing missionary. His parents had gotten divorced while he was in the mission field but they wanted to pick him up with his brother who was also less active and was covered in tattoos. Elder Richards watched as they picked him up in the mission office how this missionary´s jaw quivered as he saw them and how stressed he was to go home to a family like that. A few years later, he ended up marrying in the temple and having a few children. Elder Richards said that he had a beautiful little girl but it was hospitolized and there was brain damage to the baby´s brain. This returned missionary called up his old Mission President, Elder Richards, to go to the hospitol. Elder Richards started to tear up as he told me the end of the story where the baby was given a blessing and she was promised that she would be healed. The baby was healed completely. He told me that story to tell me that everything will be fine and to not worry too much about after my mission for now.
The Spirit was so strong in that interview and after we finished, we stood up and gave each other a hug for a few seconds. It was an experience that I will never forget.
I love yall!
Elder Gregory
(Sorry, I am only going to write this letter. I dont have time to write others this week!)
