Dear Mother, Father, and Sisters,
Well I am happy to be able to tell you that I am ok! The earthquake woke us up at 3:34 in the morning on Saturday, but we were all able to get out of the building safely. All of the missionaries in the mission are fine, and all of the members too, as far as I know. I´m mostly worried about Elder Mayberry (Ryan) down there in Concepcion, which was the epicenter of the earthquake. Aaron´s here in Santiago with me and I´m assuming he´s fine. Please let me know how both of them are doing. We will try writing more tomorrow if the Internet is still up. Thank you for all of your prayers on behalf of the Chilean people,
Love,
Elder Cloward
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Earthquake in Chile
Thank you to our family and friends for your continued love, support and prayers. We have received word that the missionaries in the Santiago West mission are safe and accounted for. Salt Lake City has confirmed that all missionaries in Chile are safe. Thank you to everyone for your prayers today and your continued support.
About 7 pm we got this email from a sister in Elder Cloward's ward in Talagante. I am grateful for modern technology and for this loving sister for letting me know about Elder Cloward. Here is what she said-(thanks Luis for translating)
Hello,
I hope you are all doing well. Well, your son, Elder Cloward is Super Good. We are members of the Church and the ward where he is serving. He has been with us most of the day today and he is super good.
Take Care,
Maritiza
Please continue to keep the people of Chile in your prayers. I am thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who is watching over our son. I have a scripture that has given me comfort throughout Michael's service and it has helped me today. It is Doctrine and Covenants 109:22-23. I look forward to receiving Elder Cloward's email on Monday. I'm sure he will be able to let us know about the happenings in Chile. I have no doubt that the missionaries will be helping and serving where needed.
Love
Rebecca
About 7 pm we got this email from a sister in Elder Cloward's ward in Talagante. I am grateful for modern technology and for this loving sister for letting me know about Elder Cloward. Here is what she said-(thanks Luis for translating)
Hello,
I hope you are all doing well. Well, your son, Elder Cloward is Super Good. We are members of the Church and the ward where he is serving. He has been with us most of the day today and he is super good.
Take Care,
Maritiza
Please continue to keep the people of Chile in your prayers. I am thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who is watching over our son. I have a scripture that has given me comfort throughout Michael's service and it has helped me today. It is Doctrine and Covenants 109:22-23. I look forward to receiving Elder Cloward's email on Monday. I'm sure he will be able to let us know about the happenings in Chile. I have no doubt that the missionaries will be helping and serving where needed.
Love
Rebecca
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Hello Everyone
Conferencia with Elder Amado
Zone BBQ
Cristofer's baptism
Dear Family
So President Jones has asked us to read parts of Preach My Gospel with members when we visit them for lunch or in other opportunities. But carrying around a big PMG is a bit of a struggle, as Cara would say. So Elder Marín and I thought of asking you for the mini PMG that you told me about (obviously we need it in spanish, Predicad mi Evangelio). I wanted to ask if you could send us 2 copies, 1 for me and 1 for him so that he can have one, since we have changes next week and we most likely won´t stay together. The other 2 elders we live with also asked for one, and said they´d pay me for it. So please let me know what we can do with that. I´m not asking for another package, all we need is the mini predicad mi evangelio.
This week was cool. Today we played soccer for two hours, and then we played volleyball for an hour in the chapel. It was so much fun. A lot of people just don´t know how to play volleyball and are really impressed when they see me play. It has been fun teaching my zone and helping with the Chile team in the wards and stakes I have been in.
Yesterday Cristofer was ordained a Priest. He´s just super excited about everything, which is great. Barbara and Daniela both have baptismal dates for March 13th!! Daniela´s brother, Rafael will baptize her and we think that Maximo will baptize Barbara.
There´s a couple new investigators that I want you to know about.
1. Franco. He is Bernardita´s son (Tity´s brother) and when I got to the sector 4 months ago he was like "hard core rebel I listen to heave metal music and I don´t believe in God..." And out of nowhere he had this miraculous change of heart. He came to Cris´s baptism last Saturday and he came to church Sunday the 14 and yesterday. He wants to get baptized but he doesn´t have a specific date yet. Elder Marin and I are praying to know what day his baptism should be, and he will pray to confirm it.
2. Fernando: Tuesday I was doing divisions with Elder Cummings (of the 16 elders and sister missionaries in the zone, we are the only 2 male gringos, and Elder Cummings has 4 weeks in the mission). As we were walking to the Chapel for a meeting, some guy on a bike (Fernando) called us over to talk to him. I thought he just wanted to make fun of us (people do that a lot, shouting stuff in poorly spoken English) but such was not the case; he told us "hey, I have your Bible, the one that Moroni wrote! I want you guys to teach me about your church!" So we got his address, and on Thursday we went to his house and taught him about our Church and shared our testimonies with him. The spirit was so strong. He has a baptismal date for March 20th, providing he meets the attendance to church requirement. We have a cita with him today at 8.
Other than that everything is cool here in Talagante. We`re all having a good time, just sad for changes next week. I`ll be sure to let you know who has changes in the next email. But until then have a great week everyone and keep doing the best you can at all you do!
Cloward Power! Haha I remember when Dave Williamson used to say that to me!! Good times.
Thank you for your prayers, love and support. The church is true and I love serving my Heavenly Father and Savior.
Love,
Elder Cloward
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Cristopher's Baptism
Dear Family,
So Cris got baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. He is so excited to be baptized and after the baptism he gave his testimony in front of about 30 people that attended the service.
On Thursday we had our first zone conference of 2010. Elder Amado (the President of the Chile Area) came to speak to the missionaries. He basically told us that we are doing good as a mission but we need to do a LOT better. So that will be fun. We´re doing the best we can and things are improving a lot.
Today we had our zone activity. we went to Bernardita´s country house. We brought a volleyball net and tied it to a tree and a pole and played. We had an awesome BBQ. I´ll send pics of that and the baptism next week.
Happy Birthday Janessa!! Love you -Have a wonderful day.
Hope everyone is well!
Love you all
Elder Cloward.
P.S. I need President Marco´s phone numbers: home phone and cell phone. Please send them as soon as possible.
Thank You!
So Cris got baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. He is so excited to be baptized and after the baptism he gave his testimony in front of about 30 people that attended the service.
On Thursday we had our first zone conference of 2010. Elder Amado (the President of the Chile Area) came to speak to the missionaries. He basically told us that we are doing good as a mission but we need to do a LOT better. So that will be fun. We´re doing the best we can and things are improving a lot.
Today we had our zone activity. we went to Bernardita´s country house. We brought a volleyball net and tied it to a tree and a pole and played. We had an awesome BBQ. I´ll send pics of that and the baptism next week.
Happy Birthday Janessa!! Love you -Have a wonderful day.
Hope everyone is well!
Love you all
Elder Cloward.
P.S. I need President Marco´s phone numbers: home phone and cell phone. Please send them as soon as possible.
Thank You!
Monday, February 8, 2010
una angelita
Dear Family,
Yes our visa only lasts for one year so I had to get it renewed last week because without it I can´t leave Chile.
The weather has gotten a little cooler over the past few weeks and I am not too happy about it. We´re supposed to be in the middle of summer right now. Elder Marín and I both love the heat. He is from Cali, Columbia, and I´m from Cali too! Isn´t that cool??? But we are both used to hot weather and even though the sun beats down on us we just love it. But it is still hot during the day right now and in the morning and and night it´s a little windy and it's a little cooler. Winter doesn´t start until May. So we´ll just see what happens with that.
Investigator update!!!!!
Cristofer: He had his baptismal interview this past Saturday and we are preparing the baptismal service for next Saturday, February 13th at 7:00 p.m. He´s a pretty funny kid. He got excited when we told him that a couple of weeks after being baptized that he can receive the authority to baptize too (he just turned 17). We are going to try teaching his younger brother Matias, but he is way flaite (ghetto/gangsta)
Daniela: Came back from Santiago. President Jones said that if she comes to church 3 more times she can be baptized and she came to church yesterday. If she doesn´t go back to Santiago she could be baptized Saturay the 27 and confirmed the 28. But she might have to go back to Santiago. The only thing that matters is that she is ready and she wants to make her first covenent with Heavenly Father - so she is going to be baptized.
Barbara: came to church yesterday with the family for the 4th strait week. She´s not going to girls camp though because she went to the beach on a family vacation. So we´ll see how she´s doing when she gets home.
Tity: Bernardita´s daughter. She has a fecha bautismal for March 7. She needs to come to church though!
Carla: girlfriend of an inactive member, Freddy. They have a little boy named Renato, who has some problems. He is two years old and just learned how to walk. He always seems so happy everytime we see him. But it has been hard for Carla and Freddy. We will keep teaching her though. Freddy´s parents and sisters are active (his sister Maritza is leaving on the mission to Argentina in April) and they have supported him during all this time.
We had a really cool experience on Tuesday the 26th of January that I forgot to tell you about. After we got back from Concilio, Elder Marín and I were on our way to an appointment with a family. They live at the end of a dirt rode that leads to a rodeo stadium where they work. As we started walking on the dirt rode, there was a little girl there (she looked about 3 years old but she was really 5, we later learned). We were a little late for the appointment, since we had just gotten back from Santiago. The little girls asked us as we walked by, " are you going to visit Mrs. Rosa? She lives in that light blue house over there." We were in fact not going to visit the Señora Rosa, since we didn´t know who she was, but we felt very impressed to go to the house that the little girl had pointed to, even though we were already 10 minutes late for our appointment. We called at the door (HALO!) and asked to speak with Señora Rosa. We gave her a picture of the Savior and told her that someone had sent us to meet her. She asked us who and we said we would tell her, but first we wanted to offer a prayer in the house with the family. She accepted, and we met the whole family. We did the blessing for their home, then told them that a little girl had sent us to the house. They all knew who she was. They had been wanting to find a church and they were very happy we came. We visited them a couple of times last week, and yesterday, 3 of the kids in the family came to church! Marjory, Juan, and Janira. It was really inspiring to see how a little 5 year old girl lead us to that family. I know without a doubt that the Lord's hand was there as well.
I got the package on Wednesday. Thank you so much!!! I just want to make sure you only sent one tie, right? I love the tie it is pretty cool!
I found the memory card inside of the bottlecap box. Very clever Mom
Yes I have two Santiago West DVDs, one from 2008 and one from 2009. I didn´t want to send them home for fear of losing them, but we will watch them together soon!
I got an email today telling me to change my email address. I´ll let you know if I have to change it, and what the new adress will be.
I got the pic of the little cousins from Dad. They are all so big!
Sad news, I got my go home papers this week (popularly known as trunky papers). I had no idea they would come this soon. My official release date is June 29, one week early (it was supposed to be July 6). It´s one week early because President Jones goes home on July 6. I´m assuming that he´ll be so busy get the new President settled in during his last week that he won´t be able to spend any time with us (the go-homers, as they call us) So he will spend time with us in our last week then have one more week to do what he needs to do before heading back north. I need some info though to be able to send to the office. I need the Bishop´s name, adress and possibly telephone number.
If there is anything else I need I´ll let you know next week.
Happy Birthday Cara!! I hope you have a great day! I love you and thanks for being a great sister!
Well that is all for this week. Hope you all are well. Thanks for your love and support. You are in my prayers always.
Love,
Elder Cloward
Yes our visa only lasts for one year so I had to get it renewed last week because without it I can´t leave Chile.
The weather has gotten a little cooler over the past few weeks and I am not too happy about it. We´re supposed to be in the middle of summer right now. Elder Marín and I both love the heat. He is from Cali, Columbia, and I´m from Cali too! Isn´t that cool??? But we are both used to hot weather and even though the sun beats down on us we just love it. But it is still hot during the day right now and in the morning and and night it´s a little windy and it's a little cooler. Winter doesn´t start until May. So we´ll just see what happens with that.
Investigator update!!!!!
Cristofer: He had his baptismal interview this past Saturday and we are preparing the baptismal service for next Saturday, February 13th at 7:00 p.m. He´s a pretty funny kid. He got excited when we told him that a couple of weeks after being baptized that he can receive the authority to baptize too (he just turned 17). We are going to try teaching his younger brother Matias, but he is way flaite (ghetto/gangsta)
Daniela: Came back from Santiago. President Jones said that if she comes to church 3 more times she can be baptized and she came to church yesterday. If she doesn´t go back to Santiago she could be baptized Saturay the 27 and confirmed the 28. But she might have to go back to Santiago. The only thing that matters is that she is ready and she wants to make her first covenent with Heavenly Father - so she is going to be baptized.
Barbara: came to church yesterday with the family for the 4th strait week. She´s not going to girls camp though because she went to the beach on a family vacation. So we´ll see how she´s doing when she gets home.
Tity: Bernardita´s daughter. She has a fecha bautismal for March 7. She needs to come to church though!
Carla: girlfriend of an inactive member, Freddy. They have a little boy named Renato, who has some problems. He is two years old and just learned how to walk. He always seems so happy everytime we see him. But it has been hard for Carla and Freddy. We will keep teaching her though. Freddy´s parents and sisters are active (his sister Maritza is leaving on the mission to Argentina in April) and they have supported him during all this time.
We had a really cool experience on Tuesday the 26th of January that I forgot to tell you about. After we got back from Concilio, Elder Marín and I were on our way to an appointment with a family. They live at the end of a dirt rode that leads to a rodeo stadium where they work. As we started walking on the dirt rode, there was a little girl there (she looked about 3 years old but she was really 5, we later learned). We were a little late for the appointment, since we had just gotten back from Santiago. The little girls asked us as we walked by, " are you going to visit Mrs. Rosa? She lives in that light blue house over there." We were in fact not going to visit the Señora Rosa, since we didn´t know who she was, but we felt very impressed to go to the house that the little girl had pointed to, even though we were already 10 minutes late for our appointment. We called at the door (HALO!) and asked to speak with Señora Rosa. We gave her a picture of the Savior and told her that someone had sent us to meet her. She asked us who and we said we would tell her, but first we wanted to offer a prayer in the house with the family. She accepted, and we met the whole family. We did the blessing for their home, then told them that a little girl had sent us to the house. They all knew who she was. They had been wanting to find a church and they were very happy we came. We visited them a couple of times last week, and yesterday, 3 of the kids in the family came to church! Marjory, Juan, and Janira. It was really inspiring to see how a little 5 year old girl lead us to that family. I know without a doubt that the Lord's hand was there as well.
I got the package on Wednesday. Thank you so much!!! I just want to make sure you only sent one tie, right? I love the tie it is pretty cool!
I found the memory card inside of the bottlecap box. Very clever Mom
Yes I have two Santiago West DVDs, one from 2008 and one from 2009. I didn´t want to send them home for fear of losing them, but we will watch them together soon!
I got an email today telling me to change my email address. I´ll let you know if I have to change it, and what the new adress will be.
I got the pic of the little cousins from Dad. They are all so big!
Sad news, I got my go home papers this week (popularly known as trunky papers). I had no idea they would come this soon. My official release date is June 29, one week early (it was supposed to be July 6). It´s one week early because President Jones goes home on July 6. I´m assuming that he´ll be so busy get the new President settled in during his last week that he won´t be able to spend any time with us (the go-homers, as they call us) So he will spend time with us in our last week then have one more week to do what he needs to do before heading back north. I need some info though to be able to send to the office. I need the Bishop´s name, adress and possibly telephone number.
If there is anything else I need I´ll let you know next week.
Happy Birthday Cara!! I hope you have a great day! I love you and thanks for being a great sister!
Well that is all for this week. Hope you all are well. Thanks for your love and support. You are in my prayers always.
Love,
Elder Cloward
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Very busy week-but a very good week!!!
Dear Family-
I'm glad you had a busy week Mom. Same thing happened here!!!
Let me give you a quick lo-down of what´s happened since last Monday morning when I last emailed you.
Lunes-Monday night after p-day Elder Marín and I traveled to Maipú. We spent the night in the assistant´s pension with 2 other missionaries.
Martes-Tuesday morning we went in the assistant´s car to the mission home to have the Concilio meeting with all of the zone leader's and President Jones so that he can explain to us his vision for the new change. We then traveled back to Talagante, getting back around 6 p.m. Then left to go work in the sector.
Miercoles-Wednesday morning we had cleaning inspections in the pension, then we had to go do the leadership meeting (a meeting we do every two weeks, which is only with the zone leaders and district leaders in our zone, where we explain to the district leaders the things we learned in Concilio), then, Wednesday night, I went with Elder Burgos ( a Peruvian Elder in our zone) to Maipú, where we spent the night in the assisstant´s pension again (this time with 10 elders in one pension, we slept very little) to go get our visas in Santiago the next day.
Jueves-Elder Burgos and I went to Santiago to get the visa and waited in lines FOREVER but hey it was cool we contacted a Venezualan lady. They have really strong accents, just like the Colombians. We then got back to our sector at 5 pm, bought a completo for lunch, then left to work in the sector.
Viernes-met back up with Elder Marin and Elder Burgos went back to his sector.
Sabado-Zone meeting in the morning.
Domingo-divisions with Pato and Fabian, two of the future missionaries in the branch. It has been a busy week, but awesome. I am so excited for this change. It might be my last one here in Talagante. Who knows. But time is running out very fast and we have to get back to the pension at 3 to eat lunch. It´s a long story and I have no time to tell it...sorry! I will try to fill you in next week if I can.
Have a great week. Thank you for support and love. I am so thankful for my Heavenly Father and Saviors love. I love you all.
Love,
Elder Cloward
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