Fiestas Patrias

Well this week was the famous 18th of September.. and needless to say.. a set back in the work of the Lord. The 18th of this month, Chileans celebrate their own 4th of July or Independence day. Here known as "Fiestas Patrias".. Everyone here gets work of for the whole week and spend the majority of their time eating lots of BBQ's and throwing back their classic 12 pack of cheap beer. Our sector was dead, literally felt like we were in a ghost town. But we made it through the week! Thank goodness. It would have been fine in we could have done a ward activity but last minute they said changed their minds. So we found other things to do to have fun and still try and be somewhat productive. We had family home evenings in the church, played some ping pong ect. I'm stoked to be able to start a new week though.

We just got done planning a sick activity. In some of the pictures that I have sent home there is a place called Plaza Prat.. it has some cool buildings and everything. Any who, we talked with the local government and scheduled a time for October 5th (none other than conference day) to watch Saturdays sessions of General conference in public with everyone so they can listen to a prophets voice. Lots of planning! hehe

This week we had a really cool experience. So we went to visit one of the recent converts here in our sector (Jorge) and he just got the M. priesthood like 3 weeks ago. He is the only member of his family and his wife and kids don't really support him in the whole "church thing". So he told us Saturday when we went to visit him, that earlier at work that very day, he was about to commit a sin, very serious sin. He goes on and says the temptation grew so strong that he couldn't think straight, He told us that he had the circumstances present to commit adultery and he was seriously contemplating it. He said in that moment he quickly knelt down to do a prayer. In that instant a power, and an overcoming sensation came over him telling him "DONT DO IT". And with Jorge's new found strength, he fled from the temptation and when quickly to him home to be with his family.

His story reminded me of a Mormon message... http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700151909/Elder-Hollands-powerful-new-Mormon-Message-on-pornography-cautions-men-to-Watch-Your-Step.html?pg=all ... Watch your step... 

I couldn't help but commend him for making the right decision. He is such a great guy, I truly love him. I also reassured him that Satan's temptations never cease.. we just have to keep fighting his evil ways and gain the momentum that we obtain as we dedicate our lives to living the Lords commandments! The thing is, as we see the affects of looking at pornography in the video, I know that we could replace that with many other sins in its place and have very similar destructive results. As Elder Holland requests, "Watch our steps".

I love you all and look forward to your emails next week! 

Love, Elder Buck W. Howard