Veronica's Story

Whaddup everybody!

This last week was awesome. More so last night. There is always a lot that happens every week and more this week but I'm going to try and pick a story and give more details then just giving a broad view of my week.

So I'll start with last night. Yesterday after visiting a member family we went to go try one of our references that we had tried earlier that week. We were able to talk to the husband and he didn't want anything to do with us at all. His wife wasn't home so we asked if we could come back later and he said he didn't care.  So after hearing that we went and met another lady.  We asked her her name and she was the reference we got from a nice old lady. Haha she was pretty nice! As we started talking to her she tells me "Oh que bonito" haha it just means like...o how beautiful...in english its kinda weird but it's more common in spanish haha. There's a lot of things that sound weird being directly translated into english from spanish.

But anyway we were a little more forward and she let us inside and we got to meet her daughter Veronica. It turns out that 2 years ago almost exactly, Veronica was shot with a revolver in the head at point blank after begging for her life. Two Chimbas beat her and took her ring, necklace and everything and they were telling her not to cry at the same time this was happening. But this poor girl was obviously scared out of her mind. One of the guys was beating her with his gun and she asks not to kill her and he just looks at her...and then shoots her point blank. We couldn't believe the story she was telling us. They showed us the newspaper,photos and told us about her recovery. Veronica has had to re-learn just about everything from walking,talking and eating. I swear it is so insane how much this girl has recovered. She was talking to us normal and understanding us and everything!

I felt prompted that we should teach the plan of salvation and let her know why we're here and that she still has a purpose to fulfill here from God. She's still a little bit locita haha she asked us a couple times if she was actually alive and if she was in the spirit world still because she talked with her grandparents from both sides who are dead and they told her that she needed to go back. Other than that she's perfectly fine just a little slow but wow it's amazing the recovery she's had. It was such a cool experience. We both got to share our testimonies on the atonement and how our savior Jesus Christ has literally felt every pain, and sickness physically and emotionally that we've felt or will ever feel.

Later after the lesson she asked if she could be a missionary like us and if we would show her how to help other people like her so they wouldn't have to suffer. She made us promise her. I almost started to cry when I promised her --I couldn't believe the love this girl had after everything that has happened to her. It could be EXTREMELY EASY to look at the world(God included) and say I don't care anymore. God doesn't love me nor does he care. But yet she would want to serve him by helping other people like her. It was really cool to see for me personally.

Ya I missed you guys a lot this week-- it was kinda hard. But I've had a lot of them so it's ok. It's just hard seeing families be fun and do stuff together and know that at the end of today (Just today tho haha) I get to go back to my little cave haha. But it's going to be soo worth it!  I'm happy for that. I'm just glad my Savior has felt what I've felt and how only He truly knows how hard it can be.

So that was a story that I wanted to share this week. We had some others but not as big as this one. 

Anyway I love and miss you all! Everybody have a great week! Let's try to love others like Veronica!

Much love!

Elder Chamberlain