29/7/15

This was an interesting week. Nothing to special or crazy happened. Other than we had a cute little puppy that followed us around all day the other day and it was really hard to ditch it so that it could find a real home. 

But other than that nothing crazy or out of the ordinary happened. Which was interesting because while I thought about it, I realized that that's okay, because even though I didn't see any great "miracle," I still feel good because I was able to share a little bit with people. I can't even say that everyone I shared my testimony with wanted to listen or wanted to learn more, or that it caused them to change. But I felt really good working and sharing it. I talked to my comp about it too. He felt the same way. We aren't seeing any success that makes the whole world change, but we personally feel great for serving the Lord.

I think I am finally coming to understand when everyone talks about us "sowing seeds." That we might not see a lot of growth or anything like that. But the few words that I say to the guy on the corner, or even to the guy that leaves his house screaming at us to leave him alone, just might be the thing that causes them to change in 10 or even 20 years down the road. So I'm finally starting to get it. That doesn't mean that I remember it every day that's hard, but that's something new I learned this week. So it was a good week.

But anyway, we had a fun P Day today. We had a ping pong tournament and ate tacos. It was good!

22/7/15

Hey guys, hope everthing has been going good. I tried to start the letter home this week a little bit different, because I realized I probably start every letter off the same way. But anyway,

This week was a good week. We had some good work to do, and it was great! We've been working hard and we're trying to get ahead and do well and stuff, but it does feel like sometimes sowing seeds happens a lot more than the harvesting here. But we're used to that. We've got to just keep going ahead and working hard.

But actually Sister Cook, President's wife, talked about that yesterday in a Zone Conference that we had. I think she gave us all a lot of what we needed to hear. She talked a lot about putting good goals, and how to reach them. She talked about having the desire to reach them, and the effort that we put into it. It actually made me think of a Tim Mcgraw song that says,

"How bad do you want it? How bad do you need it? Are you eating, sleeping, dreaming with that one thing on your mind?"

I liked it. It's a question I asked myself. How bad do I want it? It gave me a lot of drive this last little bit and me think a lot!

And then today was really fun! We went to play soccer, but we were able to bring our Haitian investigator. His name is Jimmy. He's a great guy. Really cool. But he was really excited to come and play soccer with us.

15/7/15

This has been quite the week! A few exciting things to write about.

Well as of Monday started a new change. Time has gone by so fast that I didn't even realize to mention that last week. I stayed in San Bernardo with Elder Corbo. But Elder Curtis left the house. So it's me, Corbo, Elder Zazueta and his new comp Elder Torres, from Argentina. He is actually getting here from my 2nd sector, Covarrubias. So it's going to be a good change!

This last week was really good too! We all got together as a mission to watch the Funeral for Elder L. Tom Perry. That was a really good experience. Elder Perry with be greatly missed as an apostle. He was a great teacher and we could all learn a lot from him.

Then later this week, we were contacting a few houses and we found a family from Haiti. It was really cool! We were able to go back another day and share something with them. It was interesting and really hard. They have only been here for a year, so their spanish isn't that good. They speak a little bit of english, and that isn't that much either. Being from Haiti, they speak best French. So, I talked to the mission office and I got 2 copies of the Book of Mormon in french. "Le Livre de Mormon." One for them, and one for me! I decided to start studying my 3rd language. French. I know I'm not going to be fluent, but I'm going to try to at least familiarize myself with the language to help them out!

And the last crazy thing... A lot of Elders and Sisters went home this past week. Like a lot. For example, Elder Purnell, Elder Mcmullin, and 3 of my old District Leaders. That's nuts! It really makes me sad to think about it. But they all went home. It's kind of a bummer because I only got the chance to see Elder Purnell right before he left. But, still. I hope they all got home well and that it's going well for them.

There is the last picture of me and Elder Purnell as missionaries.

There are the 3 languages I'm hoping to be familiar with when I get home.

And then today for P Day we went to a huge hill in the middle of the city to see it. There is a really cool castle to see on the way up.

Copa America!

This week was AWESOME! We got permission to see the Final of the Copa America! It was a good game and everyone is excited because Chile won! Everyone except my companion haha. But it was a good game! A bummer that it went to penalties, but a good game! We had a good time watching it too! It was great because now everyone in the streets and everyone we contact are all super happy! Helps a little bit with contacts!

But the rest of the week has been good too! We are finding a few people and stuff.

But this last week was special for Chile in another way too! The Area Presidency asked everyone in Chile to dedicate the fast this month to ask for rain for the places like Santiago that haven't had rain all year. And so they did it. Everyone was fasting for that purpose. The Testimony meeting Sunday was very spiritual. Really it was special because everyone who went up expressed their faith and feelings about the fast. And then at lunch we were all talking about it, and then we heard the *tick tick tick* of rain. It had worked! It rained a little bit on Sunday, but not very much. But there is rain in the forecast! So we are hoping for it!

So anyway. I've got 2 pictures this week. One is me and my companion after the game hahaha.

             And the other is our house eating pizza. It was reaaally good!

VAMOS! VAMOS CHILENOS! ESTA NOCHE, VAMOS A GANAR!

Chile is doing great in the American Cup! And we're hearing all about it! It was a blast seeing the game with the zone! It was a pretty good game too. But it was really fun. I'll send a picture of it. But Argentina is Argentina, so we'll see.

The weeks are getting better here. We aren't finding loads of people like we did in my last sector, but those that we have found or those that we were teaching are a little bit more consistent with appointments and progressing a little bit more. So we are pretty pumped about that!

I gave a talk this week and I liked the theme. It was that "The Gospel Blesses the Families."  The bishop explained that that is one of the most important things about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but that a lot of times, we usually tend to forget to touch it during lessons as missionaries. Or I mean when we do touch it, we could spend all day on it, but we usually just give it a little bit of time and move on. But I really enjoyed this talk. I focused it on the Gospel, but also on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And my last point is found in Doctrine and Covenants 130:2 which says

"And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy."

I think that was my favorite point.That the families can be together forever, because thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, he's made it possible!

So it was a good week! So these are the fotos this week...

Everyone watching the game.

 

Me and Corbo after the game. 

And we couldn't see the game on Monday, but we are showing our pride anyway... Just don't tell Corbo's family because they might get mad haha.