Changes

Well, we had changes this past week, and I´m glad to say that I am here to stay in this sector. It was sad when Piñeyro had to leave, but that´s part of the mission. And he is still in my zone, just 2 sectors over, so I´ll still see him every week at least once. 

Now, I am with Elder Tafur, from Colombia. He is super good. I am his Greeny-breaker, so that will be fun! He is a good guy and says he likes to work hard, but I´m just getting to know him, so we´ll see how it goes. From what I know he is a convert from when he was 10 years old, and he seems pretty dedicated to the work, so wish us luck.

This week was a pretty good week, we were able to teach a lot of lessons and get a lot of work done. This has been one of the best weeks on my mission, speaking of lessons at least. 

Other than teaching lessons, we didn't have too much of an exciting week, but   I've got a recommendation and suggestion for everyone. There is a really good video on youtube that we have been using to teach. It´s called "The Atonement and Missionary Work". It´s super good and it has my recommendation. It is a combination of Elder Eyring and Elder Holland talking about the work and stuff. It talks about how the atonement can guide us in missionary work, but I think it explains a lot about just being a person in the church, or a person at all. 

The first picture is me with my new companion. He seems like a good guy, I like him a lot.

This is me and Piñeyro with Oscar and his brother Andres. Oscar (The one in the back) is almost reactivated, and his brother is starting to listen to us a little bit at a time.

The third is Juan and Asuncion, they are two investigators who we have. They are a bit more difficult, and work on Sundays, but we are working with them.

Have a great week!

So hey everybody. Here's my weekly letter... But not too much happened this week, only the fact that I skyped my family, which was great! I miss everybody a lot, but I've also come to love being down here. I do miss everyone though, and skyping made me miss everyone even more. 

But other than that not too much happened this week, but we did have a few really good things happen. After I finished skyping my family, we went and visited Ivet, Sergio and Mateo. It's funny where they moved because they live in a apartment complex where 3 or 4 members with their age live, so we brought a couple with about their same age to go visit them, just to meet them. It went really good! The hope now is that they will see each other around and say hi to each other and greet each other and stuff, to keep building the relationship and stuff.

We also had a really good Family Home Evening this week. We have them at least once a week in this ward, and they are really called Noche de Hermanamientos, which means something weird in English, so I'll just call it FHE. We all planned it together, and we used the idea we had heard of before to give everyone a candy or something like that, but someone has to do 10 push ups for everyone who takes a candy, and 10 push ups for those who don't take a candy. Basically it explains the Atonement of Jesus Christ, that whether or not we accept him, he paid for our sins. It was really good, and a lot of people were crying because it was so powerful! Super good!

Well, next Monday are changes, and I'm hoping I'm not leaving, but we'll see. Next time you hear from me I'll either be in a new sector or have a new comp. Probably, but we'll see.

So it's actually pretty funny, because the Jehovah's Witnesses came around our street, so we hid and pretended like we weren't home hahahaha.

The second picture is of the familia Meza. They are like our family in this ward, and I skyped at their house this week and just realized that I didn't introduce them to the family.

And then the third is my Pool team for today, which is what we did for P Day, so that was pretty fun. And it was a pretty good picture too!

Have a great week!

Not too much happened this week that was too exciting. We had a really slow week, but we still worked really hard and did a lot of walking.

One of the greatest things that happened was we finally got into Ivet's house. We tried last Monday, and they weren't there. We passed by every day at 7 and then finally on Thursday they were home! We got there and it was just Ivet and Mateus, so we sat at the door and talked to her. Their story is really incredible! When I first met them, they had lost everything. But then when they started talking to us in my last sector, their lives started to really turn around! They both found really good jobs, are now back on their feet and living in their own apartment. After a little bit, Sergio got home from his job and we sat down and talked with them for a while. They are really progressing! They are both reading the Book of Mormon together and praying really hard! We are really excited with their progress and we just started to meet with them! 

Another really awesome thing that happened this week was on Sunday. We have been working really hard with a less active member named Oscar. He comes from a really good family, but got mixed up in some stuff he shouldn't and was inactive for a long time. But when I got here, he really started to turn his life around and is now attending church regularly. He is now done with all that, and only lacks giving up the cigarettes. But on Sunday he got up and bore his testimony about how much we helped him and how much God has been there for him. It was pretty awesome!

That was our week, and I only took one picture, so here it is...

Someone lent us a Janga set... It was pretty awesome!

Miracle

Alright, hit 6 months this past week, but I still feel the same. Time's still going by fast and stuff. But it's great! We actually had a really great week!

We weren't able to teach too many people this week, but we did a pretty good job. We did the best we could, but everyone in the zone had a really tough week. We aren't really sure why, it just kinda happened. We did all we could, so there's that.

Thursday we had a Zone Conference in my old chapel! It was really cool to go back there! My whole zone went to my old chapel with my old zone! It was so awesome! My trainer was there and I got to talk to him a bunch! It was fantastic! I got to get the scoop on all the people I used to teach and all the people in the ward! It was pretty great! In the conference President talked a lot and I learned a lot of things. I thought before that I went there that I was learning a lot and kinda knew how to be a missionary. But then we got there and he just killed any thought that I had about that. But that was good. That was good. 

Anyway we had a miracle happen for me and my comp this week. When I had talked to my trainer, he told me that one of my old investigators had moved with her family to another sector, but it could be in my zone! So that was sad but cool because I might be able to see them again, but that was the only thought that I gave it.

But on Saturday, we went to an apartment complex to try and contact a less active member, and they weren't there. So we were pretty bummed out and we started to leave. We left the building and I paused for a second when a taxi pulled up. I looked inside the window and I saw a familiar face! I started to freak out and told my comp to hold up for a second! My old investigator, her names Ivett, and her son Mateo climbed out of the car! That was incredible! We started to talk and they have moved into an apartment there and told us to pass by any day of the week! We are going to go see them today, so wish us luck!

I called Elder Bezerra and told him and he was in awe. That was probably the coolest moment I've had in a long time. I guess her family was really progressing before they left, so now we might be able to teach them and keep them progressing!

So that was my week!

Picture time. This first picture is me in a nice chair. One of Elder McMullin's investigators gave us 2 nice arm chairs and a huge sofa, and so we put them in the apartment and now use them all the time, so that's awesome!

The second one is some graffiti that we found. My comp thought it was hilarious that it says "Monkey," which they spelled wrong, but that was pretty funny when we found it.

Then the last one is the missionaries in Covarrubias (my ward) today. We went and played soccer 11 vs. 11 on a nice turf field! It was pretty awesome!

Easter & a movie!

Well... I did it.... We went to the movies today.... Yeah, the movie theater, to see a movie... BUT we had permission and it was incredible! We got a call this past week from our Zone Leaders that advised us that we had received permission from President to go to the movie theater and see a special presentation called Hijo De Dios (Son of God) which is a really good movie about Christ's life, I don't know if anyone has seen it. It was a really good movie and I think it portrayed the life of Christ very well, even though there were a few things that were kind of weird about it. But it was done really good! So today as a Zone we went to the theater and watched this movie! It was incredible! If it is in the states, I would recommend going to see it! It was incredible!

This week I have something really cool that happens... I hit 6 months of being in Chile on Friday. That's pretty crazy to think about. I can't believe that I have already been down here for 6 months, because it really doesn't feel like that long. It has gone by really fast! Really really fast! A little too fast I think, but it is what it is. It's super crazy to think that I have already One Fourth of my mission under my belt. Wow...

This week was Easter. They celebrate it here too, and it's really cool, but they celebrate it very different here. They celebrate La Semana Santa (or the Holy Week) and some people like to celebrate la Pascua (the Passover). So that was kind of interesting. The whole of Chile doesn't eat meat Friday, Saturday or Sunday. And they do have an Easter bunny, but he's different. This bunny was there at the crucifixion of Christ, and then he was there when Christ was resurrected and talked with Mary Magdalene, and he spreads the message of the Resurrection of Christ to all the world by spreading colored Easter eggs all over and letting the children find it. Different, but more based on Christ, so I like it.

So that was about my week. We worked hard, but with it being a long weekend everybody goes out of town and nobody is in their own house nor wants to let us in, because they are all with their families having a good time. So we had a few days of just walking this week, and it wasn't too fun, but it is what it is, and just need to keep working! 

So last week I only took one picture, and Mom got mad at me so I made sure to take plenty of pictures this week. Well Mom, the first one is for you, it's my bright smiling face!

 The second is me in the movie theater right before we went in to see Hijo de Dios. Again, it was a fantastic movie!

The third is me and one of my best friends Elder Boohre, one of the guys who was with me in the MTC, he happened to be at the same movie theater as me, so that was pretty cool!

We had a really good week this week! It was a pretty backed week, and we worked really hard and so we are all pretty tired. But other than working hard, not too much happened this week. 

So this week on Wednesday, we found out our districts for the next 6 weeks. We found out that Elder Pineyro and I are in the same exact district, because no one else in our district changed last Monday, so I was just sitting there like "Shoot, I am going to have the same exact 6 weeks that I had!" But it's all good. One change that we did get is a new room mate. Elder McMullin is training again, so we have a newbie in the house! He is a really good guy. His name is Elder Torres, and he is from Paraguay. He is a cool guy and excited about the work and so this will be a good new start to a new change!

Other than that, we just had a really normal week, just working. Until Saturday everything was normal. Saturday morning Elder McMullin got up so sick he almost looked dead. So him and his comp had to stay in for the past two days, and then Elder Pineyro has had a really bad cold all week, so our P Day today was just staying in the house so everyone could rest. So getting out of the house and writing on the computer is awesome right now! 

Other than that, nothing really happened, so It was a pretty uneventful week, which meant it was really good because we got to work a lot and teach a lot of lessons. Our sector is still hurting for investigators, but we are making a lot of progress with less active members, so that's really good and something to be really happy about! 

I also found out a nice little tid bit of information this week! I was talking to an elder who has a lot of time on the mission, and we were talking about the when the missions Rancagua and Santiago West split to make the Santiago South mission. He told me that the mission split was a really hard thing for a lot of elders. He told me that it's because out of the missions Rancagua and Santiago West, this was the hardest section of both, and one of the hardest sections in all of Chile, so that was pretty interesting to find out! But just gives us more work to do!

But as for pictures, this was a really boring week for pictures, sorry about that. This is the only picture I have from this week, and it's the cover of my new Agenda. I really like the picture and the was it turned out!

Earthquakes & Conference

So here I am. This past week was a pretty wild one here in Chile. There was a pretty big earthquake up in the north of Chile, and that has hit that area pretty hard. But where I am, we didn't get affected by the big earthquake. BUT, we did feel a pretty big tremor (I think that's what it's called in English but I don't remember. It's was a temblor in Spanish, so there's that.) Thursday we were all sitting talking in the night and my comp started to shush us all and tell us to listen. Then we started to feel the whole second floor just shaking back and forth! It was pretty cool, I'm not going to lie. But that was that. I hope we don't get anything bigger than that where I'm at.

This week was also General Conference. That was really cool! I really enjoyed all of the talks and listening to it all. Luckily, I got to listen to it in English! All the North Americans got to go into a back room in the church and we had our own room to be able to sit and listen to it in English, which I'm really glad about because I think I got more out of it in English than I would have in Spanish! But I really liked it this year. It was super good with a lot of really awesome talks! My favorite was when Elder Eyring talked about childhood heroes! It was pretty awesome!

This week completed week 6 of this change, and today was we had changes meeting. Elder Piñeyro and I are staying together this change, which our whole district actually stayed together so that was kind of weird. But we went to changes meeting to drop off Elder Webb. Elder McMullin is training for the second time in a row so we'll see how that goes.

So not much changed for me this for this coming transfer. Overall this week went really well and I liked it a lot! 

This is the only picture I took this week. It's of all my Agendas, this will be my 4th change out in the field and so for that I will have my 6 months in this change. A little scary but here we are.