Changes

Well we just hit a new change cycle, and I am still here in Covarrubias, which means I have 11 months in the mission and I have been here for 7 and a half months. Which is a loooong time. So I'm still here with Elder Groen and we are doing really good!

Elder Torres left the ward and left the house, and we were living together for 5 months, so that's kind of sad, but it's all right. We got to be good friends. But now we have Elder Mallado. He's Chilean, so that will be interesting. He is a cool guy so we'll probably have an interesting change.

Well this week we had a pretty interesting thing happen. This past week, the 18th to the 21st, Chile celebrates it's Independence from Spain. So there is just a lot of fiestas and a lot of fun stuff that they do. To start, they all have barbecues and make a lot of empanadas, so we ate a lot of both! Then the ward had a party the 19th and it was super fun! Pictures will come, but it was a blast! We played traditional Chilean games, some people danced the Cueca (the traditional dance) and we had the typical Chilean drink which is Mote con Guesillo (which I don't actually know what it is but it was good!)

So first of all, this is a picture of us all in the house. This is me, Elder Groen, Elder Purnell and then Elder Torres.

The second picture is the classic Chilean barbecue,

 un asado is what they call it. Super good!

And then I thought I got a picture of the Cueca, but I only got a video and I don't think I can send it, but when they dance it, all the guys dress up like Guassos (a Chilean cowboy) and it is pretty cool.

Too fast!

I really don't like how fast the time is passing. I almost have 11 months now. But I haven't hit it yet, and I still have a month and a half until I hit a year so I am not quite there yet. I'm trying to think that the time will slow down because I don't want it to go faster, just slow down.

Anyway, last week was pretty interesting. The 11 on Thursday we had to stay inside all day. On the 11, if I didn't say last week, all the Chileans observe a really dark time in their history, but now it has turned into a day when all the hooligans just try to cause trouble. So we had to stay in the house all day and cleaned like crazy. So that was pretty good I guess.

Anyway, we are doing pretty good in the sector. One of the hard things we had recently is finding new investigators and less active members to teach, but that is getting better! We have actually been finding a lot of people! 

Elder Groen is doing really well! We just are about to finish half of his training. He is doing really well, but we still have a lot of time to work together, so that's really exciting!

The pictures that I have today are both of me and the zone. These are all the missionaries in my zone!

We had a pretty tough week this week. We walked around a lot, a lot, and a lot. We had a lot of investigators that weren't progressing and we just had to move on. So we have been contacting a lot, and a lot haha. So we are pretty tired, but we have tomorrow to completely recover. We can't leave the house all day tomorrow because Chile, on the 11 of September, has a bunch of riots and public showings and stuff like that. So we have to stay in because it's dangerous. Especially for us. So we will be able to have a nice little rest and recuperation. 

Anyway we had a really good week this week. We recently had a reactivation. Her name is Nicole and she is super awesome! Her assignment is to be the ward Zumba instructor, so she is super pumped about that! And so are we! Especially because now her husband is getting more and more interested in the church. His name (or nickname rather because that's what everyone calls him) is Pato. So we are excited about that!

We also got a pretty funny noticia this past week. We sang in the ward choir this last week during our ward conference. And I guess us 4 missionaries are just so good at singing that they asked us to sing for stake conference! That'll be interesting!

Well, there we are. Hope everything is good over there! Oh! And one more thing, I took one picture this week! We went on divisions with the Zone Leaders and that's the picture I took of the two of us!

We had a super good week this week, although it wasn't too easy. We didn't have too much time to work but it turned out pretty well! We had ward conference this past week so it was pretty nice because we got a lot of ward involvement in the last little while. 

All Wednesday after P Day we went to practice for the ward choir. It was super good, the only problem was it took all day so were weren't able to work that whole day, but it was all right because we were able to help out the ward in some way which was super good!

Then on Friday there was a Ward Night in the chapel that we were in charge of. So we chose to talk about Unity within the ward. It turned out super good and so it was pretty awesome! We used a lot of examples and just tried to make everyone realize that without unity in the ward, nothing will go right. Which is really the same in everything we do with everyone we do it with. If we aren't united, nothing's going to work out.  And then on Saturday the young men and women put on a show as part of a stake activity which was super good and we were asked to be there, but it was super good, and it helped out the ward a lot.

Then today we had a super fun P Day! We bought what's called a Fardo de Corbatas. A Tie fardo, although I don't know what fardo means. But it is just a huge bag of ties (I'll send a picture to show what it is.) It is basically a bag that weighs 40 Kilograms of just straight ties. The first pic I sent is just a pic of the bag!

The Second one I'll send it me laying in a pile of only the bad ties that nobody wanted. There were a lot!

And the the third is a picture of my clean study desk. I had kind of an OCD panic attack and cleaned everything. So that was the result! But now it's clean!

Well there goes another week just as fast as the last. The time is really flying down here, I don't know how it is going over there, but I hope the time is going for you guys too!

Anyway, training is going great! It's a little bit harder just because I have to do a little bit more of the work and stuff, but Elder Groen is super good and pulls some weight in everything we do together! His spanish is improving more than mine did when I was in my training, plus he just has a huge desire to talk with the people, so that is what a missionary really needs so he is doing awesome!

So we have had a pretty normal week, there isn't too much to talk about because we have had to walk a lot this week, so I thought I would switch it up and talk a little bit about something that President has really been talking about these past few weeks!

So our statement for this year is that "We are consecrated missionaries whose lives and work are centered on the Doctrine of Christ."  But what he has really been focusing on is the work "Consecrated." The best example of a person who is consecrated is Nefi in the book of Helaman 10 when Nephi was praying and meditating about what had happened previously when God answered him and told him in verse 5 that he will all things will be as Nephi says it. But only because "thou wilt not ask for that which is contrary to my will," or the will of God. So Nephi was trying so hard to live the will of God that everything that Nephi wanted was also what God wanted. That's where we want to be, when he are exactly in line with what God wants. It's definately not easy but it'll be worth it.

Anyway, the pictures I snapped this week were pretty awesome! The first one is pretty sick of a sunset we saw. It was pretty cool!

The second one was is when I made american style pancakes. They were super good! This was attempt number 4 or 5, so they finally turned out!

And the last one is one we found today! I am trying to follow Jesus so hard that I even found the street to take me to him haha.

Well here we are, at the end of week 1 training Elder Groen. It's a lot of hard work training a new guy. He's a really good kid, so that makes it a lot easier! He is a super good missionary already, way better than I was when I entered into the field! His Spanish is improving really fast and he is already to understand a little bit and communicate really well! I think once he finishes his training he will be ready to train on his own! He is a super good kid and I am really lucky to be able to work with him.

So this week we had kind of a crazy week. I think the funniest story we made this week was when we made a super weird contact. We don't even know his name haha. We knock his door and he talks to us a little bit and then lets us in. He talked about all kinds of things that don't have anything to see with us and our message. And then we tried to teach him a little bit but then he just kept talking. So after about a half hour we just told him that we were late for an appointment and we just left. We asked him for his name and he wouldn't tell us. Weird, but oh well haha.

We had a super awesome service project this week and I am kind of mad I didn't get a picture before and after it. A family in our ward had had problems with the roof over their patio and they asked us to help them take it off. So we got up there and looked for the source. Turns out they had pretty bad water damage. So we helped them rip apart the whole roof and took it down. It was pretty fun!

Yeah so I snapped two pretty good pics I think, the first is of the Reese's Pieces that I got in the package! They were really goood!

And the second one is just a sick picture I think. Of a huuuuge completo that we made!

Have a great week!

Well, yesterday started a new change, and this change is going to be a little bit different for me. I was assigned as a trainer and now have my newbie sitting next to me. His name is Elder Groen, (like he is "Growin" up) and he is really excited to be out here and learning! He is fresh out of the CCM, and he is a really good kid. He is 18 and he is from Bountiful Utah. He is really excited with a lot of new energy and ready to go! That's great because we are going to work ourselves into the ground! I still haven't changed wards, so I have 4 changes (which is about 6 months) in this sector. And I won't be leaving for a least 2 more changes, so I will end up with 6 changes in this ward (which in total is about 9 months). So I will know the area pretty well.

I finished up with Elder Zazueta which is kind of a bummer because we got to be really good friends walking in between sectors every day. We only got 3 weeks to work together. He is training too, another guy from the US. In all there are 14 Gringos that came in and 2 guys from Colombia, so the mission is growing pretty fast.

I don't have too much to report because I was only actually in my sector four days in the past week, but we do have an awesome investigator I wanted to tell about! His name is Fransisco. He is 18 years old and he is pretty awesome. His dad is a less active member and his mom is catholic. He didn't have a religious background before we started to teach him, so we had to start from just about the bottom and teach really slowly to make sure he understood. But he is growing a lot! He went to church this past week and really like it. He got along really well with a few of the Young Men in the ward, which was fantastic! He is reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish and in English because he just loves to learn! He is a cool kid!

Well, the first picture was sick! A sister in the other ward I was working in decided to treat us to something special when she gave us lunch! She made us Bacon! Real Bacon! I almost cried when I saw it!

The second picture is me with Elder Groen. I thought you would just like to see him to give a face to the name.

There's another one. Elder Groen is eating his first Chilean Completo. They just grow up so fast!