September 8, 2015

Summary:
Our two weeks of Trio has come to an end and it turns out that all of the hermanas I live with are leaving except for Hermana Alcantara and I. There were six and now there are two! It's been so great working in both sectors of the ward and getting to know investigators, less-active members, recent converts, and even active members that I didn't really know before. I really do admire so much both of my companions. Hermana Valladares from Honduras and Hermana Alcantara from Peru. They're both so humble, obedient, and hard-working that it hasn't been a problem getting along. Plus they're both fun! I've learned from them that even in a group of very different people, with the same goal, anyone can become great friends.  We've pretty much been running from appointment to appointment, so it might be a little sting this week going back to working only in half again. Especially because we haven't found many new people to teach in the past couple weeks. I'm excited for a new change!

Spiritual Experience:
It never ceases to amaze me that every time we have a meeting, someone always says exactly what I need to hear. This past week we talked about self-sufficiency, and it's something I really want to implement in the work and help people understand it.

Funny:

We visit an hermano that was less-active when we met him. His mom is 87 years old and she always listens to the lessons, but I'm not really sure if she can hear or not. Every once in a while, though, she'll make a comment and it's always, "Asi es la vida po." Like, "Well... that's life." We'd finish reading about something in the scriptures or bear a testimony and she'd just nod and say, "Asi es la vida po." Haha we were laughing about it as we left and ever since then, whenever one of us would say something dumb as we were walking we'd say it in her voice. haha

We helped la familia cofre paint their house. This little girl is probably one of the most hilarious people I´ve ever met

September 1, 2015

Summary: 

I think this past week may have been the busiest one I've had so far in the mission! That's how I like it! It's been awesome working as a trio. I'm actually kind of sad it's only a temporal thing. It's been great getting to know everyone in the ward, not just the half that live in my sector. 

I did exchanges with Hermana Griffin this week. She's from Texas but she went to school at BYU and played soccer there. Her sector is in the mountains and I loved spending the day there. We even had an appointment up in the mountains with a family that has an ostrich farm. I was nervous when she told me that because ostriches are so scary, but the appointment fell through, so I never did quite get to meet them.

Rosita was baptized on Sunday and it was a great experience. She will be a strong member and she's already progressing and working towards making her next covenants. The testimony she bore after the ordinance might have been the sweetest thing I've ever heard.

I was also overwhelmed with all the love and kind words I received on my birthday. Both from the people here in Chile and from my loved ones at home. Thank you for being such special people! I sincerely love you all. 

Spiritual Experience:

We've been visiting a family of less-actives and investigators. Finally, after years, the mom came to sacrament meeting this past Sunday. In the next visit she was so enthusiastic in ways I haven't seen before and said she felt the heavy backpack lift off of her when she entered the chapel. It was another testimony to me that we really do need to be nourished by the word of God every week.

Funny:

It had been a very long day and we had just finished our last appointment of the night with an hermana before going back to the house. I'm not sure if this was so funny to me because I was so tired or what but I laughed so hard. Anyways, her two young boys ran through the door and said they wanted to show us something before we left. One was so cute and chubby and the other really scrawny and tiny. So they turn on some music and the chubby one starts doing these choreographed moves all perfectly while the skinny one just starts jumping around everywhere. He eventually starts doing these very impressive roundhouse kicks all over the place and I'm positive he had no idea which way he was facing and kicks the chubby one a bunch of times, but it didn't even phase him. He just kept on dancing all perfectly. Both of them just totally in their own zone. hahah oh man, it was a good laugh. 

familia lleiva that took us to the snow

My Zone

Happy 20th Birthday Kylee!

This is an email we received from Hector, a wonderful ward mission leader in Kylee's new area. He told us that they love Kylee and her Spanish is perfect. He gave us his email and Facebook info and told us to ask for anything we need. I told him that her birthday was coming on August 31 and asked if he and his wife would give her a special hug...They sent this message to us on her birthday!

Ho ho ho , finally the time came and today was the Kaylee's birthday, we did something special for her and we celebrated at home half 30 minutes ago, it was a very nice mimment with her and the sisters, she was so happy....well that was the idea....

My wife gave two hugs because i can't...

So , i hope you be okay all of you and do not worry, we love her ...

Take care .

August 25, 2015

Summary:

This week has just flown by. We were able to finish the teaching the basic lessons with Rosita and now have her baptism set and scheduled for this coming Sunday. We were happy to see a couple of less-active members show enthusiasm for coming back to church and also see them in the meetings on Sunday for their first time in a long time! We also had the privilege this week of having a meeting to hear Elder Gonzalez, our Area President, speak to us. We learned about the Sabbath day and how vital it is that we teach it very clearly to the people we are teaching.

We also got news the other day that one of our roommates is going home for health reasons. Starting tonight, I'll be in a trio! I{m sad to see Hermana Randall go, but I know it'll be better for her. Also, I'm so excited to be in a trio because my new compnaion is an hermana that I lived with when I first came out into the mission field and I've always looked up to her. Hermana Valladares from Honduras. She was always there for me to give me advice and always listened to my questions and comments even though my Spanish was horrible. After she left my first area I even wrote my dad to tell him how sad I was to see her go and have even prayed for the opportunity to be her companion. 

Today I went to the temple with Hermana Alcantara and it was a beautiful experience after a crazy week. My testimony grew a little more!

Spiritual Experience:

This week, Rosita told us about a dream she had: She was in the church and a door opened up to a glowing passage/staircase type thing. All of the hermanos got up and started entering and dissapearing into the beautiful glow. She looked and my companion and my companion said "Let's go, Rosita!" and Rosita said, "No... not yet." (which is exactly what she said to us when we first invited her to baptism.) My companion didn{t obligate her, just invited her, and then she herself went through the doorway and disappeared. 

Rosita woke up and said the dream just stayed glued in her mind. She then realized that "Not yet" was not the best answer and she now wanted to make this covenant as soon as possible. It wasn't until then that she accepted a baptismal date for the 30th.

Funny:

Some days we run from house to house and at every house they give us something to eat. This one day, we had eaten SO much that I just couldn't anymore, so I started to sneak the bread and stuff into my pockets. The bad news is I forgot to zip up my pockets, and later, when I was in a different house, I took off my coat and all this bread fell out onto their couch. Luckily, the hermano just busted up laughing and said I've been caught. haha

August 18, 2015

Summary:

It's been a great week. We had Zone Conference. I felt the Spirit so strongly. We've been really focusing on the importance of the temple here in the Chile Santiago East Mission. During the conference, President Morgan was explaining some things to us as a zone and it made me think of an experience I had with Grandpa Martin when I received my endowments. The answer to some questions I've been having were made so clear to me. I felt like my whole perspective of life and death and the Plan of Salvation just came out of a tunnel into the light.

After Zone conference, we went straight into exchanges. I thought I'd stay in my sector to give me some motivation to learn the streets. It worked! Haha The good news is we made it to all of our appointments with getting completely lost. Hermana Rodriguez from Guatemala is awesome and it was great to serve with her for a day. 

The rest of the week we found lots of new less-active members to teach. The sad news is our investigator, Rosita, went completely missing-in-action and her baptism is supposed to be in two weeks. Pray for us!

Spiritual:

It's always beautiful to me to hear what some of the people have to say in their prayers. Sometimes they'll tell things to God that they don't tell us during the lessons. The other day a man we found said the last prayer and said, "thank you for sending me the hermanas right as I had been thinking I need some help coming back to church."

Funny:

This one is pretty embarrassing. Here in Chile everyone says "hello" and "goodbye" with a kiss on the cheek. As missionaries, we can do it to women but only shake mens' hands. We went to an investigator's house with the relief society president and as we were leaving out of this skinny little door he got confused and accidentally kissed my cheek instead of the relief society president's. Then I was like "Woah!" and flipped around all fast and ran straight into this electrical box thing on the wall with my head (everything is so short here) and then the investigator was all, "Oh! Sorry! OH! Are you okay?!" And then I was just so embarrassed that I just said "Esta bien!" and fled the scene very quickly... oh man. haha.

August 11, 2015

Summary:

It's been a great week here in La Cordillera! It rained pretty much all week and whew! It is chillllayyyy. Some great news, though, is that President and Hermana Morgan gifted us all a "calienta cama" that you put under your sheets and it warms up your bed at night. I was able to do exchanges on Friday with Hermana Delgado from Peru and I loved serving with her for the day. The rest of the week I loved serving with Hermana Alcantara too. She's the best! Salvador's brother, Juan, came to church for his first time in a long time and it's been such a spiritual experience to work with him. He's humble and has the desire to come back to the iron rod, and that's all that's really necessary to invite the spirit to teach. Rosita, our investigator that has a baptismal date for the 30th is in bedrest for a bad leg that she has. Pray for her that she'll be able to recover and that her testimony will keep getting stronger!

Funny:

I've never seen them in the states, but here they have these metal stove-pot things that the lid locks in like a giant medicine-jar cap. Anyways, we went to lunch with a recent-convert. She made it all in this pot, but somehow the lid locked in really tight. When we walked in she had all her tool kit and hammers out all over the place. haha!  We couldn't get it off! Haha we ended up having to make spaghetti in another pot and eat that instead.

Spiritual Experience:

On exchages, I met a lady that told us she has a really firm testimony of prayer. Recently in a meeting, President Morgan taught us that when we hear whispers from the spirit, instead of just immediately acting we should ask, "is there anything more?" The spirit testified to me that her testimony was true, and then later, I felt that I should ask her if she would share an experience with prayer. She then told us of an experience she had as a younger girl. Basically some hoodlums were heading towards her to jump her and she prayed to not be hurt. She then told us that they jumped out of their car right next to her as she was running and she heard them saying, "Where'd she go?!" and "You idiot! You lost her!" and stuff. She was made invisible to them for a moment. The spirit was so strong when she shared. 

August 4, 2015

Summary:

It's been a big week! I actually can't even believe that a week has passed since the last time I emailed home. I've been moved to a new sector called La Cordillera. God is great because I prayed and asked that if I was going to be moved, to please bless me to go to a sector where you can see the mountains. Now I'm right next to the mountains! It was pretty sad leaving Trinidad. I didn't think it would be so hard to say goodbye to some of the people. I went to one last cita last Monday with Javi, a now-recent convert and I told him that I'll be changing sectors. He immediately just started crying and he made me cry too! It's been a life-changing blessing to meet these people, though. I'm so grateful for the opportunity God gave me to be a little part of their conversion and see their life change as they've let Christ in.

My new companion is also from Peru! Her name is Hermana Alcantara and she is the best! She's really small but that doesn't stop her from being a real hard worker. We started teaching a new investigator this week, Rosita. She came to all three hours of church and loved it. She accepted to prepare for a baptism at the end of this month. In our last cita with her she just kept giving us fruit, cake, and even some plants from her garden and we were leaving. Haha! She's just so loving.

I've also met some other really awesome less-active members and investigators this week. The bishop came out to some lessons with us and he is THE BOMB. He bore his testimony and just nailed it with telling the brothers how much we need them in the ward and now God loves them. The ward is also really supportive and great.

Spiritual Experience:

We were looking through some lists and found some addresses of less-active members. We chose one of them to go try to visit and put it on our agenda. The next day, the bishop called and asked if he could come out to a few lessons with us. Before we even told him where we were going, he suggested to us that we visit the same man! We go to his house, out come THE BROTHER OF SALVADOR RHOR! (Salvador Rhor is a less-active that I was able to be a part of his re-activation process in my old sector). I didn't even realize it when we planned because I know them by different last names. Anyways, so that was a tender mercy to be able to find him. He's really receptive. It sounds like it's been a while since he's had missionary visits or been active but he's got pure desires to return to the iron rod.

Funny:

Yesterday I accidentally stepped on the back of Hermana Alcantara's shoe while we were passing through a gate and it ripped a whole part of it off. We just stopped and were confused about what happened for a second and then just busted up laughing. The best part is this old man passed us and he just started laughing with us too. haha!