Week 14

Another week just flown by! The perception of time here is so much different than it used to be. I'm sure it's just because I'm on a mission, which oddly enough is still mind boggling that I'm actually out here. A lot of it still seems surreal, but it's a lot of fun and a great experience!

This week I had a really big wake up call, and it was great! Not really a wake up call, but let me explain..

This week we went on divisions with one of my Leaders in a different sector. In his companionship there is my District Leader and then there is another Elder who was in the MTC at the same time as me. The only problem was they stuck me and the other new missionary together, and he is also American and we have about the same level of Spanish.... Great, thanks guys...

But the other elder and I just went to work and did the best we could. I think I had a lot of help that day because I understood and was able to talk more than I knew that I could before! I actually surprised myself by how well I could communicate. I had to do all the talking that day, because the other elder told me that he wasn't that confident in his Spanish, and so he didn't say much. So that was fun. 

But really the whole day I was able to get by with the Spanish that I have right now, and for me I guess that was an awakening because I am able to talk more than I had thought previously. I was able to teach and talk normally with the people, and it was really hard and I want to be better, but for now I think for me that was good progress!

That was the coolest experience of this week. We are still trying as hard as we can, and things are still continuing to look up, so the progress is great! I hope everything at home is going good!

This one is me straight chillin during study time! (Straight Chillin is only a manner of speaking! I was actually studying really hard at breakfast and my comp snapped a picture of me before Personal Study started! hahah)

The second is a kid in our ward who wants more than ANYTHING to go out with us! We are setting up for him to go because he needs an adult to go with us, so hopefully soon we'll be able to go out with him! 

This is me and Elder Bezerra eating lunch on P Day!

Happy Birthday Brynn!

Happy Birthday Brynn! I can't believe you are getting so big! How was your birthday?! I know I am a day late, but I drew you a picture while I was eating dinner in my agenda! Happy Birthday! I can't believe you are 9 years old! That is so crazy! How does it feel to be 9 years old?! How is Elder Teddy?! How is school? That's so cool you didn't have to go to school on your birthday!

Have a good time Brynnie Bop!

I love you!

Elder Braden Burt!

This week!

So, we have 2 brand new Elders in our house which is pretty cramped, but reaally fun! They are also in our area, doing another white wash, so we tried to help them out a lot, and for this we had kind of a slow week.

BUT! We had a really cool experience. We contacted into a non-active member of our ward a few weeks back, and we have been working with her to try and get her to come back to church. She is super nice and really want to work with her, the only problem is that she will only let us talk about the Bible and Jesus. She said if we try to talk to her about our church, she is going to stop letting us come. Well, we decided that if she won't listen to our messages about our church and stuff, we can't keep going back there. So we decided to bring out the big guns.

We had an appointment with her this week, and we asked a brother in our ward if he would come with us. We shared a few scriptures and thoughts with her, and then this brother started to ask questions and talk to her. I'll be completely honest and say that, I didn't understand a thing that he said, because he talks really really fast! So I didn't understand much that he said, but it obviously worked! Because the next time that we went there, she let us teach her the first lesson, and just listened. And we made an appointment to go back!

That's the difference that happens when there is a member of the ward present at lessons. A lesson is easier for everyone when there is a member present. I really think that if we hadn't asked this brother to come with us, she wouldn't have really listened to what we had to say. I want to challenge everyone that reads this to choose a day, call the missionaries and ask to go them to a lesson and help them out. I guarantee that the difference you make will change that person's perspective on the church!

Other than that, we had a slow week. But I did have a really cool experience at church the other week. One of the young men's president's asked me to come and talk to some of them about the missionary work in the area, and what it meant to be a missionary. I agreed, and I went and just kind of did it. My spanish was good enough to teach, and I was able to understand everything that was said! So that was really cool!

(Also mom, I found out for sure what my mailing address is. So if you want to put that that would great! It's:

Elder Burt

Chile Santiago Sur

Apartado Postal, Casilla 544

Fransisco Aranda 530

San Bernardo

Also, I can look at websites as long as they are church related. So I can look at them if you send them to me.(He is looking for ways to mark his scriptures). And I looked at the blog you made and I look pretty fantastic! I mean, IT looks pretty fantastic! Hahaha that one was a joke! I'm funny... But seriously it looks soooooo cool! I love how you set it up! I will make sure to send pictures. Me and my comp have made it a goal to take more pictures, so there should be more pictures to come.

Also, thanks for sending the package, I'm pretty sure it will come soon! But I'll let you know!

BRANDON GOT BRACES?!  Wow.... How weird to think of him with those in.. But tell him he probably looks super hipster now, and that his mouth will get used to them!

We get to stay up later (11:30) because the people in Santiago stay up later too. We will go into houses and see that their kids are still up at 10p.m at night. Everyone in Santiago gets up and goes to sleep later, and so President changed our schedule. We still have the same amount of sleep and proselyting hours and stuff because we get up at 7:30. Really we have the same schedule as the elders in the states, just set back one hour.

Love you all!

This is me in my street clothes right before we went to play soccer as a zone! 

This is a joke with me and my comp! It's the Mail Center near our house and we thought it would be funny to take pictures like that because getting letters in the mail is really cool!

This one is the mountains while i'm standing over the highway right near our house! The mountains are HUGE here! It's crazy!

So, I am now done with my first change in the field! That means 12 weeks down, which is really crazy to  think about! It seems like yesterday I was in the Training Center, and only 2 days ago I was at home, so it is pretty crazy how fast the time is going by!

So, an update.  My Spanish is really improving! I can almost understand everyone who is not natively from Chile! Which I am pretty excited about, but it also kind of stinks because I need to talk to the people in Chile! But it´s okay, it will come! If I try really hard and think about it, I can think in Spanish. It´s really hard and reaaally slow, but I can do it if I think about it! And when I just think to myself, from what I can tell, it´s half English half Spanish. So that´s pretty cool!

We are getting 2 other missionaries in our house, so that´s going to be pretty cramped! I´ll send a picture of that, but we´re pretty excited about that! We are getting 26ish new missionaries this Tuesday fresh out of the CCM, and another 24 six weeks after tomorrow! Our mission is growing really fast!

Our ward is growing really fast too! Or rather the work in our ward! It has been really rough finding people to teach and help, but this past week we finally built it up to the point where we met the mission standards for the week! We get a little bit of slack because we were in a new area, but we are really working hard and the work in our area is progressing for us a lot! So we are really excited!

The wildfires aren´t really affecting us. We can see them burning in some of the mountains around us at night, and some days the smoke in the air is pretty bad, but we haven´t had any problems with them. I didn´t even know there was a very big problem with it until today when I read it in emails! So that´s good I guess!

Well, we are working hard, staying safe and being blessed! Wish me luck this week!

 Braden and Elder Bezerra's room(Braden's is the top bunk)

He says Chileans are wicked short!

The other bedroom for the new missionaries

New Years!

Tuesday! The day before New Years! PARTY! 

But not for Missionaries ahaha. No for us it was kind of a bummer. Chileans love to party! A lot! For real... So Tuesday we needed to be in the apartment by 6 p.m. to be safe. Yeeaaaah, that was interesting! So we worked until 6 and we were in our apartment and needing to do something until 11:30. So we read, and we read, and we read and watched Finding Faith in Christ and cleaned a lot.. haha.

That night we didn't sleep much. There were some people partying until 8:30 in the morning! WOW, that is a lot time.. So we slept as well as we could.

Friday was my first Bible Bash. That was terrible. The guy we tried to teach was a reference. We tried to teach him but he wouldn't listen to us and kept trying to fight with us, so we heard him out and just calmly tried to teach him. After a while we just ended and left. There was a really bad spirit there, and we felt really bad. Like a gross feeling, so we left. But I did have a really cool experience in there! We tried to teach, but he wouldn't listen about the Book of Mormon, so I decided to try and read a bit of it. I opened exactly to 3rd Nephi, the part when Christ visited the Americas and taught the people there. And in almost perfect Spanish I taught him about it and explained to him that we can only tell him what we believe, no more. And he listened for a minute and then continued to argue with us. But it was really cool for me! 

The next day we found out it wasn't even the right guy.. Haha, oh well!

To be honest we are still having a hard time here, with not a lot of people to teach, but we keep working! And we are seeing the blessings that come with it! We are really excited for the work!

3rd Nephi 11 is the chapter I used for my Bible bash!  You should read it!

Elder Bezerra, Braden and another set of Elders in his area