This week has been great. We've just been doing our thing this week. And, how come nobody told me about the Super Bowl? I'm on a mission, not dead.
I've felt the Spirit a lot this week. You can always feel the Spirit when you testify. I felt the Spirit especially when I testified of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. We were talking to a lady that didn't believe in the Book of Mormon because she said she didn't need anymore of than the Bible. Elder Villanueva and I testified with all our hearts that the Book of Mormon is true, and that it would bless her life if she read it. I read 2 Nefi 33:10-11 to her and said if she really believed in Christ, then she would believe those words, because they are the words of Chirst. Even though she didn't accept our message, we still felt the Spirit, which means we did our job. I love the Book of Mormon.
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Not much is different. We've just been doing our thing.
There have been a few fires lately. It looks like summer's starting again. I hope it's not as bad as last year. We've had a few people that say they'll come to church, but then at the last minute they cancel. But that's the mission. Just gotta keep going. Shout out to Nate Cornell, who got engaged last week! Congrats. I guess that's all. Miss you all! Officially, President Russell M. Nelson is the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Lord's kingdom on earth. President Dallin H. Oaks is 1st Counselor with Henry B. Eyring as 2nd Counselor.
We watched the transmission where President Nelson addressed the Church as it's President. My favorite part was the press conference afterwards. My favorite part of that was the response of President Nelson to a question about what he was going to do to establish racial equality and to help represent women among the leadership of the Church. President Nelson responded by saying that they were called of the Lord, and that the Lord was in charge, and that the local leaders were really in charge, and they are all from their own countries. I thought that was a really good answer. Then somone shouted, "But what about women?" President Nelson responded, "I love 'em." I thought that was funny. So this week has been pretty great. I have to tell you about one investigator that we have. His name is Maxi, and he is 14. He is by far the weirdest situation for an investigator that I have ever seen in my mission. First of all, he comes to church, by himself. We don't even call him, he just shows up. He comes to all of the activities, even mutual, and most of the time he is the only person there. Now, he's decided to go to the Stake Young Mens' Summer camp, and he is the only boy from our ward that is going. The bishop talked to him about family history, and now he wants to do that. He is our best investigator, except for the fact that he doesn't want to get baptized and doesn't let us teach him. I honestly have no idea what to do with him. We'll just keep working hard this week. I guess that's all. So probably as you know, this week was the week of transfers. I'm pretty sure I said this last week, but on Sunday the zone leaders had called us and said that Elder Villanueva and I were both staying. So we thought nothing of it. Then on Monday, President Diaz called us and told us that there was an emergency transfer, and that Elder Villanueva was going to go to a place called La Ligua. So we spent the rest of our day trying to get him ready to go.
Transfer Day came, and Elder Villanueva went to La Ligua, and I got my new companion, who came from La Ligua, Elder Jimenez, from Guatemala. We spent the rest of that day going around and getting to know all of the people. The next day in daily planning, Elder Jimenez told me that he wanted to talk to President Diaz. The next thing I know we are on our way to Viña because he wanted an interview with President. We get there and President comes out of the interview and said that they were going to send Elder Jimenez back to La Ligua, and that Elder Villanueva was going to be my companion again. So we went to La Ligua to go get him, which is like an 1 hour and a half from Viña. We got Elder Villanueva, and went back to El Retiro. So I had a new companion for like a day, but then he left, and now I'm with Elder Villanueva again. But it's ok, because Julian got baptized this week! We are really excited for him. He's a really great kid. A part from that, this have been normal here. We are really excited for this transfer. So we've gotten past all of the holidays. They were pretty fun. It's definitely not the same as being at home for the holidays, but it's pretty fun because you get to pass them with people you've met.
This week we are pleased to anounce the baptism of Julian, a 9 year old kid that we found. He and his mom walked into chuch one Sunday and his mom said that she was a member for a long time, but that she stopped going to church. Now she wanted to start going to church again, and she wanted her kids to be a part of it. So we started teaching them, and now Julian is ready for baptism. We are really excited. I have a new goal, and that is to learn how to make empanadas. I'll keep you guys updated on how that goes. I'm sure it's easy. I guess that's all for now! ¡Feliz Año Nuevo! (Happy New Year)
We had a great New Year. I can't belive that it's already 2018. How the time flies. We were allowed to stay out until 12:30 on New Year's Eve. We went and celebrate with a few investigators, named Enzo and Javiera, and let's not forget their 1 year old son Javier. They are so great. They celebrate New Year's basically the same we do in the States. Fireworks and stuff. We've been having a lot of success. We were actually going to have a baptism this week, but Julian, our 9 year old investigator, didn't come to church because they had to go pick up his dad from work. But the next week for sure. Well I guess that's it. Love you guys! Well, we had a great Christmas here in the mission. We got to eat dinner with a family in the ward, the Nuñez family. They are so great, and they have 2 kids serving missions right now, so they love to talk to the missionaries. We did that, and we got to see some fire works. We also got to meet Santa Claus. He's not actually named Santa Claus here, he's called el Veijito Pascuero, which literaly means the Little Old Passover. I don't know why, but here they refer to Christmas as Pascua, which is Passover, like what the Jews celebrate, but they also refer to Easter as Pascua. It's just a little confusing.
And on Christmas day I got to talk with my family on video chat! That was great! I got to see them all and talk to them. Everything is good in good ol' American Fork, or at least that's what they told me. It's been pretty hard this week to find new people to teach, with it being Christmas and all, but we're not giving up. We're gonna keep working! A week ago in Chile the sun had a ring around it. It was really weird, and everyone was taking pictures. So that's what I did, and it looks pretty cool. I miss you guys! I cannot believe that it's already Christmas! It seems like just a few weeks ago it was Christmas, and now we are getting ready to celebrate it again. We've had a great time in the mission. We had a Christmas activity as a misson on Wednesday. We played games like Water Balloon Volleyball and stuff like that, and we also had a great lunch. We also had to perform a skit. It was really fun. I got to see a few old friends.
This week we had a miracle that happened at church. A lady walked into the meeting and she said that she was baptized when she was a little girl, but then shortly after she went inactive. She came to church this Sunday and she wants to get back into the church. She also brought here two children, one named Javier who is 9. We are going to start teaching them. I can't wait to call my family for Christmas. It's going to be great. Anyway, I miss you all! It's so weird to think that it's almost Christmas. I can't believe that I'll be having my 2nd and last Christmas in the mission. It seems like just yesterday I got here to Chile. I guess time flies when you're having fun.
So, El Retiro has been great. We've been working really hard, actually, all of us in the zone have been working really hard. In the zone we've got 3 baptisms already, with 3 more baptismal dates, so we're really close of making our goal of 6 baptisms in the month of December. We have a plan to have a small activity everyday, so that the chapel is open everyday, and we hope to that will help get more people to the chapel and to church on Sunday. We're really excited to be on the Lord's work. MIss you all! So I've made it! I'm finally in my new area. It's called El Retiro, in a city called Quilpue. Quilpue is right next to Viña del Mar, so it's not to far away from where I started my mission in Chorrillos.
A little bit about the area, half of it is very hilly and the other half is flat. We live just entering the hilly part, so basically we always have to go up hills to get home. But it's really cool temperature wise. It's been cloudy the past few days, so that's pretty good. My new companion is named Elder Villanueva. He is from Mexico, and has about 4 months in the mission. The ward is a small ward with about 50 active members, but they are very good members. I had to present myself in sacrament meeting, and one lady got up afterwards and said that I looked like an angel walking up to bear my testimony, I was only missing the wings. That made me happy. Even though they aren't that far apart, Villa Alemana and Quilpue are very different. Different people, different weather, different places, its very different. I guess we'll see how I do getting to know this place. I'll tell a little about the people next week. Miss you guys! |
Dates servedSeptember 2016 - September 2018 Archives
September 2018
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