The view from here

Elder Cloward's last day!

2010-06-24T07:11:00.000-07:00

Brad & Rebecca arrived in Santiago a few hours ago and will be meeting up with Elder Cloward this afternoon. They will be back in the states next weekend. Thank you for your support of my brother and family during his mission. May the Lord bless you and your families!

Janessa

Trunky Papers But I'm Not!!!!

2010-06-10T23:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
So in pouch this week I got a paper from President Jones asking me for a stewardship report. I can´t believe how old I am! I remember when Elder Noguera got his. Then Elder Jergins. Now me.
Oh sad story: Elder Jergins got to the airport and his family wasn't there! They thought he was getting home the next day. Very sad. Also he went to the doctor for a check up and realized that he had a broken rib for the last two years. Elder Jergins he´s a great guy.
Here´s a quick investigator update:
1. Karen and David: We had a frank talk with them and said that we can´t keep visiting them if they don´t want to come to church. They both said they wouldn´t come. But then... Pedro, the 16 year old son of Karen, said (without us even asking him) "I will commit to come to church on Sunday" and he came! Awesome! He stayed fore all three hours and got along really well with all the young men.
2. Antonio: had his baptismal interview yesterday. he´s still only "70% sure that Joseph Smith is a Prophet". Turns out he´s been reading some anti-mormon material online. Not the best way to get a testimony. So we´ll keep working with him.
3. Daniela: came to church and institute and is very well integrated into the young single adult group of the district. But.... aparently some Peruvian guy that served his mission in chile 11 years ago is going to come visit and Daniela wants him to baptize her, and he´s not getting here for two months. The whole situation seems a little scetch to me.
4. Andres: still adicted to video games, but hey he came to church without us having to go wake him up and drag him out of bed. He needs to be fellowshipped by the young men but dosn´t like to be away from his mom so he hasn´`t gone there yet.
We have an iniciative in the zone where every companionship starts the day with ten matches in their pocket. Every time we do a contact, we move one match to the other pocket. We really feel that that will help us to find new investigators.
Well I love you all!! I am so grateful for this opportunity that I have had to serve my Heavenly Father, Savior and the people of Chile. I have been so blessed to have given a tenth of my life back to the Lord. The church is true.
We´re gonna go play some volleyball and soccer. Should be fun!!!
Love,
Elder Cloward

Last Concilio

2010-05-31T11:58:00.000-07:00

Elder Cloward with Elder Finter and his family

House that we helped build for service

Pictures of all of the missionaries in the Chile Santiago West Mission mission.

I took a picture when I first left the office. This is the way it will look

for the next 4 weeks. Can you find Elder Cloward?????

Dear Family,

Well on Wednesday night we had a pleasant surprise around 10:30 at night Just as we were finishing our plans for the next day, when Elder Finter showed up to our pension with his parents and his little brother! It was so funny because Elder Finter`s parents knew who I was right when they saw me without asking my name. They said "Oh you must be Elder Cloward! We´ve seen your blog and your pictures and read your emails!" "We found your blog right after the earthquake. I thought that was really funny. Thanks to all of you for keeping that blog updated for the last two years. I have yet to see it but everyone that has loves it! It was funny because Sister Finter was giving "Landon" (Elder Finter) a guilt trip for not sending pictures home while he was on the mission. She kept saying things like, "I really loved seeing your pictures and reading your emails, Elder Cloward. It was so nice to see my sons mission, since he never sent me pictures." Haha, we all just laughed about it. They are a really sweet family. They brought american candy with them to give to the missionaries which I thought was a really great idea. They said that they are having an awesome experience meeting the people Elder Finter taught.

So about our miracle family from last week... they are being kind of stubborn! But we will keep working with them. We visited them Saturday night again with my new companion who I just realized that you don´t know who he is yet. But that´s another story. Anyway we were there and Karen and David both told us: "We love it when you Elders come by! We have such a special feeling of peace and tranquility and our whole family just seems better and more united and loving." So we explained that that is because they are feeling the Holy Spirit. I asked them if they wanted to always have that feeling in their home and they said of course. So we told them that they need to come to church on Sunday! They said "no we don´t want to go to church". WHAT??? That was kinda weird. We think that their plan is just to have us come to their house a couple times during the week and feel the Spirit that way. So our plan is to visit them this Wednesday and have a "charla franca" (frank talk?) with them and tell them that we can`t keep coming by if they´re not willing to fulfill the commitments and keep the commandments, starting with coming to church. We truly believe that that is the best way to help them.

We are teaching another family too that lives in Silva Chavez, a different branch in our district. A couple of weeks ago, Victoria, the mom of Trinidad a recent convert and Manuel, an investigator, went to the hospital in Santiago. While she was there, her other son, Victor, has been in her house here to take care of Trinity and Manuel. We have been teaching Victor´s family: his wife Paola, and his daughters Aderlina, Carla, Francisca, and Yasna. They asked us, "so, according to your religion, what does one have to do to be saved?" my comp and I said "great question!" Then we taught them about baptism. Then they asked, "what does on have to do to be baptized in your church?" And I thought, "Even better question!!!" So we are going to teach them as much as we can and send the missionaries from Silva Chavez to teach them once they get home.

Antonio is still truckin´ along. He didn´t come to church yesterday and we don´t really know why. so we´ll find out about that.

Well my new companion is...................................................

Elder Alex Robinson from South Jordan, Utah. Yep, that´s the Elder that´s going to kill me. Then he has to finish off this change with some other companion, then he only has one change left in the mish. He´s my 6th gringo companion and the 4th from Utah!

He´s a cool guy.

He started his mission in Talagante and he was Elder Whipple´s last companion.

Alright I gotta bounce. We´re gonna go play "baby futbol". for our zone activity. This change we want to play soccer against Talgante so we are going to train today for the big game!

Love you family!!!

I know this church is true. Iknow that this is the Lord´s work and He is directing it. I know that this work will advance, not becuase of our abilities but rather becuase it is the Lord´s work and not ours. So He´ll make sure we won´t fail as long as we follow the Spirit and keep the commandments.

Love,

Elder Cloward

21 de Mayo

2010-05-27T22:46:00.000-07:00

Elder Cloward and Elder Jergins with all the desserts

Elder Cloward's 21st birthday cake

(turned out just like Mom's!!!)

Elder Cloward's birthday tie

Dear Family,

Well my birthday week went pretty well. Last year I didn`t really tell anyone that it was my birthday. So in my first couple weeks in Melipilla when people asked me about my birthday I told them it was May 21st. They thought it was cool that my birthday is a national holiday. It's not my style to go around and tell everyone that it is my birthday. The wonderful people of Chile have done so much for me already. Elder Jergins, Elder Bybee and Elder Prado made me breakfast and we made the lemon cake (it turned out just like mom's) and Elder Bybee made me a cheesecake. After we ate lunch at Hermana Meza`s house (the hermana that washes our clothes) we went to the chapel real quick to see how the activity was going. One of the hermanas eating lunch at the activity, Marisol Cabezas, asked me really quietly " Elder Cloward is it your birthday?" and I quietly said, "yes" and she told me Happy Birthday and said "it might be a different birthday for you since you are far from your family and friends and without all the comforts of home but it will be your best birthday ever, because you are in the mission doing the Lord`s work and there is no greater blessing than that!" So that really made me feel good.

I honestly love the whole Cabezas family. The dad is the first counselor in the district presidency (and he just walked into our internet cafe haha), the mom is the district family history director, their oldest son Gustavo is a returned missionary (he got back from Ecuador about a year ago) and they have another son serving in Argentina. They also have two daughters, Belen and Coni that have helped out a ton with fellowshipping the investigators and new converts. We went out and worked as hard as we could on my birthday and we had a great day. I opened my tie in the morning and wore it all day! Thanks for buying it for me I love green ties!

Here`s my informe to President Jones about how it went with our goal to do 100 contacts and find a family to teach:

President Jones,

"Well Elder Jergins and I had a great last week together. He truly was a great example to me of dedicated missionary service and enduring to the end. We set a goal to do 100 contacts in our last week together. We did 76, so we didn`t quite reach our goal but I think we did a lot more than we would have if we hadn`t set the goal! We found more investigators this week than any other week we were together, and all of them were thanks to the contacts and doors knocked. We also set a goal to find a family of 4 or 5 people to teach and baptize, and we found a couple that have great potential. We contacted a man in the street named David. He said that he`d have no problem receiving us in his house. We got a cita and went back, and his pareja, Karin opened the door. Elder Jergins knew her because she is a less active member that he had visited with Elder Krainik a couple times. She had told the missionaries that her husband David was very "malgenio" and wouldn`t want to listen to the missionaries, but he was more than happy to recieve a visit from us, and it turns out that he is also a member of the church! Upon returning for another visit we found that they have 5 children, and three of them are old enough to be taught and baptized. So needless to say we are very excited about the opportunity to teach them.

We also wanted to share with you some things that we learned about contacts this week:

1. An effective contact really doesn`t have to be too long. Most people that will accept a visit from the missionaries in their home will accept after about 2 minutes, and those who truly have no desire to recieve us won`t accept, even if we talk to them for 20 minutes about why they should listen to us. Of course there are always those on-the-fence people that can feel the spirit and be convinced to receive us.

2. Láminas are great to use too, but they´re not always necessary. Sometimes people say they are really in a hurry and then if we offer them a picture of Christ they stop in their tracks and accept it, then they´ll listen for a little while and many accept a visit.

3. It´s a great idea to set a cita with the person right when you contact them. That way you set aside the time that is necessary to go and visit them. I learned from Elder Marin that it`s good to say things like, "On Tuesday and Thursday we have citas that are close to your house, we could pass by tuesday in the afternoon or Thursday night" and they usually accept. If not it can be difficult to find the time to go by.

4. The necessity of following the Spirit. The Spirit knows so much more than we do! That`s one of the things I learned from the beginning of my mission and from Elder Noguera. I might be right on time on the way to an appt but if the spirit tells me to contact someone I should do it (easier said than done but we´re working on improving in that aspect.) On a few occasions early in the mission I have felt the impression to contact someone but I have thought, "no, there`s not time right now we have to get to the appointment" and then we get to the appointment and the person isn´t even there waiting for us. Now when the Spirit tells me to stop and teach I listen. The Holy Ghost is much more intelligent than I am, so I am doing my best to put my trust in Him and not in my own understanding.

"Well I hope you have a great afternoon with all of the returning champions. I´m looking forward to one more change of spiritual experiences in the Lord´s work. I will let you know how the week goes visiting all the missionaries.Have a great week and thanks for al that you do.

"Elder Cloward"

Sorry that was a little long. I went with Elder Jergins, Elder Rosas, and his companion Elder Terán to the mission office in Maipú today we had to be there at 9:30. Elder Rosas and Elder Jergins had their closing interviews with President Jones. I saw Elder Finter there and asked him, "Hey Elder Finter, when do your parents get here to Santiago?" and he said "two hours ago!" Haha so that was kinda funny. He looks so excited to see his family again. I will continue to do my best and do all that the Lord expects of me here in Melipilla.

Elder Terán and I are together right now, we will go to changes together tomorrow and get our new companions. My companion will have to be a zone leader, since I will be finishing in the middle of the change. He`ll have to keep doing the work there for a little while without a comp unless President Jones does a bunch of special changes.

In other news, I´m a little worried right now about the progress of the zone. When looking at the key indicators that we have to send to the assistents, I realized that in this change the zone has gone down in every key indicator. There was also a sector closed in the zone. I know that numbers are not my motivation to do the work, but I do know that we need to do better. There are only 10 elders in the zone now, and we will be working very hard this change to help more people come unto Christ and work our their Salvation. I know that the Lord will bless us when we work hard, it´s a promise! (see D & C 82:10) but I know that He blesses us in His own time and in His own way. But the blessings are worth working for. Well I love you all and I will send some pictures now.

Love always,

Elder Cloward

Elder Jergin's last week

2010-05-20T00:33:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
It`s me, Elder Cloward!
Sorry we weren´t able to do internet on Monday. Elder Jergins and I went to Santiago so he could see his converts one more time before he heads out. We got lost on the micro and didn`t have time to do internet, but they gave us time to do it today. So here I am!
This last week was pretty eventful for us. We went to the temple on Thursday with the zone of the Coast and 5 de Abril. I asked the elders in El Rosal about Pedro Muñoz and they said that he is still super active and coming to church every Sunday that he can. I asked the Elders in Rivas Vicuña about the Correa family and they said that they aren´t coming to church and don`t want to receive the visits of the Elders in their house. I gave the elders fotos to give to Pedro and the Correa family with a note on the back telling them that I`ll be back near the end of June to visit them again with my parents. I hope the Correa family will receive us. I`m not sure what happened to them but hopefully we`ll be able to share some scriptures with them and they`ll feel the spirit again and feel the desire to come back to church.
Antonio is still doing well, he has his baptismal date now for the 12th of June, we`re hoping that that will be the day for him. He and his wife, Leticia, come to church every Sunday. He is worried about buying some sort of special cane to be able to get down the stairs in the baptismal font. I don`t know if I told you but he had an explosion accident when he was younger.
Manuel Guajardo we haven`t seen this whole week. His mom Victoria apparently got really sick and they had to go to the hospital in Santiago the whole week. We saw a light on in their house last night, but there wasn`t time to visit them, so we will pass by today in the afternoon. I don`t think Elder Butterfield knows him, since he is the older brother of Trinidad, a recent convert that Elder Krainik and Elder Jergins found about 4 months ago. Benjamin´s last name is Oviedo. Tell "Wesley" that he is Joselo`s little brother maybe he`ll know who he is.
We visited him last night and talked about the importance of baptism. He still hasn`t read the Book of Mormon we gave him last week or come to church, so we taught him that he needs to do all of these things so that he can be baptized, and he needs to be baptized to enter into the kingdom of God. So he committed again to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, and also come to church. He`s only 10 years old so he`s trying to understand the importance of a few things still. We`re still doing the best we can to follow the spirit and find new people to teach. Elder Jergins and I set a goal to do 100 contacts during his last week, and we`re at 20 right now. About half of them have given us their addresses to go and visit them this week.
We also have the goal to find a "cool" family of 4 or 5 people that can be baptized in the church. Actually it really doesn`t matter if they are cool. But if they want to get baptized I think that`s cool enough!
We don`t have too many special plans for my birthday but it`s all good. Several of the hermana's want to make dinner for me but we have several appointments that day. So we will try to make it to all the homes because Elder Jergin's needs to say good bye, too. Maybe we´ll find our family on that day! That would be a pretty great birthday day gift. There`s a branch activity in the chapel to celebrate the holiday, but I`m not sure if we have permission to go. We are thinking of planning a noche de hogar with Viviana, one of the recent converts. Their family is way cool and we are teaching the youngest son, Andrès. So we can teach him, and I`ll be able to enjoy my birthday without wasting time. It`s a good deal.
After the district meeting today I got a letter from Grandma Sharon and a birthday card from her, Grandpa, and Priscilla and Cliff Nielsen. Please thank them for me. I`m sure your cards will get here in pouch next Wednesday. Thanks for sending them!
Well I hope you all have a great day and week, talk to you all again on Monday!
Love,
Elder Cloward
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Happy Mother's Day Mom!!!!

2010-05-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

Elder Cloward and Elder Bybee
playing beach volleyball (without a net)
at a zone conference.
Elder Cloward with his companion Elder Jergins
at a zone conference on the coast

Elder Cloward and Elder Jergins

at Leticia's baptism with her

husband and grandson.

Dear Familia,

It was wonderful talking to all of you on Saturday. I can`t wait to see all of you again. But for now there`s still work to be done here in Melipilla, and as I always say, somebody`s gotta do it. Elder Butròn always said when he was my companion, "Si nosotros no lo hacemos, ¿quién lo va a hacer?" in other words, "if we don`t do it, who will?" Good question Elder Butrón, good question. This last week as I was reflecting upon life and other details, I remembered a quote from President Jones. He said, "the windows of heaven open and we start to see miracles when we stop counting time and start making time count." That is the quote I have written in front of my desk: "Stop counting time and start making time count." So we`re doing our very best in that department.

I forgot to tell you about a cool experience I had when I went to Bollenar on divisions this past week. I went there with Elder Terán, a Peruvian Elder who has about 6 months in the mission and has an insane amount of ánimo (energy). Bollenar is a campo sector, and is one of the biggest sectors in the mission. The missionaries use bikes there. When I got there Wednesday afternoon we had to go pick up the bikes from one of the hermano`s houses. He patched up one of the bike tires that had a leak in the tire. Very nice of him. So then we took the bikes out on the freeway (freeways here only have two lanes.) we were on our way to a cita with Alejandra, a 15 year old girl that I interviewed on Sunday (she should be getting baptized on May 23rd, which is awesome since there has only been one convert baptism in Bollenar in the last 2 years. There are only about 40 active members in the branch but we have faith that someday it will be its own stake!). So anyway we were on our way to her house. our appointment was at 5:00 and it was about 5 `til five. When suddenly... I heard a pooffff sound coming out of my back tire and realized that it had popped. So that was a bummer. Elder Teran informed me that we were still very far from Alejandra`s house, that we`d have to go back walking without bikes and leave them in a member`s house and then take a bus to Alejandra`s house. So that was a bummer. But then I thought, hey, if our bike tire popped in this exact place, it must be for a reason. We are always praying for the Lord to put is in the right place in the right time, aren`t we? I had a very strong impression that we were there for a reason. So we decided to knock a couple doors in the area and see what would happen. We knocked the first door and didn`t get in. Then we walked to the next door, and there was a Señora who had just walked into her front gate. She turned around and said , "Hola elderes" then she told us that she was a member, but inactive. She had been in Bollenar for about 2 months but didn`t know where the chapel was. So Elder Teran gave her the Chapel address and directions. Then we asked her if we could come in and offer a blessing in her home. She agreed!!! It turns out that she and her husband are sealed in the temple. Her husband has served as branch president and she has been relief society president. Now in Bollenar that is a big deal! More active members that can have callings and serve in the church is exactly what that branch (and all of melipilla) need! We are convinced that the Lord sent us to that house.

She also gave us two references for Silva Chavez, another sector in our zone. One was her sister, who she called on the phone while we were there and asked her if she wanted the elders to come visit her, and she said yes! The other referal was her dad, who was at her house while we were visiting. That was awesome.

Here`s our investigator update:1. Antonio: doing awesome, has his date for June 5th (but he still thinks it`s the 29th of May, we`re gonna tell him that tomorrow). He`s excited for his baptism, and also excited to receive the priesthood and bless his family. He´ll be a great member of the church.

2. Manuel: He`s 20, the older brother of Trinidad, a recent convert. He is also progressing well, we taught him the word of wisdom and the law of chastity on Saturday with hermano Pizarro, one of the counselors in the branch presidency. Manuel says he`s still thinking about his decision to be baptized, he doesn`t want to rush. He said he would tell us his answer on May 22nd.

3. Andres: He`s 12, the younger brother of Francisca, the son of Viviana, two other recent converts. He`s a video game addict and hasn`t come to church yet, but yesterday we taught him the plan of salvation with his whole family there to help teach. He understood it very well since he told us that to get to the celestial kindgom he has to "come to church on Sunday instead of staying home to play video games" (his exact words). He understands it well, but he`s still deciding if he wants to get baptized and keep the commandments. I think it would be a good idea!!

4. Daniela and Melina: They commited to come to church yesterday but then didn`t. They went to the campo to visit Melina`s mom for Mother`s day, which is understandable. They want to get baptized but need to show a little more commitnment.

5. Benjamin and Manuel: two of Elder Butterfield's old investigators. Manuel thinks that the Book of Mormon is satanic and refuses to read it. But then we taught him using scriptures from the Bible and the Book of Mormon that it is necessary to have two witnesses that Jesus is the Christ. So he is considering the idea of reading it.

Other than that we are looking for investigators and remembering that you are praying for us to

find people and following the promptings of the Spirit. We have faith that the Lord will bless us. This is His work and His church.

I love you all!! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Cloward

A Renewed Sense of Urgency

2010-05-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
That is Elder Jergin`s and my theme for the next four weeks. Because at the end of this change he goes home. (I don`t remember if I`m going home soon or not ;-)Too much work left for me here to be thinking of that and we want to do as much as we can before he finishes his mission. Some elders get trunky because they think that they`ll be home soon so there`s no need to work hard. but I see it exactly the other way around. I`m not trying to say I`m perfect, cuz that`s far from true, but I just think we should finish the things we start and finish them 100%.
The sector is doing pretty well, the only problem at this moment is that all of the investigators that attended church haven`t accepted a baptismal date yet, and all of the investigators that have accepted the baptismal date didn`t come to church, and therefore their baptismal date will have to be postponed. So our focus for this week will to get the investigators that are attending church (Antonio and Manuel) to accept a baptismal date and to get the investators who have already accepted a baptismal date (Daniela and Melina) to attend church next week. But I have faith that everything will come together and work out the way Heavenly Father has planned. This is the Lord`s work. He`ll do His part if i do mine.
I have written a note for Jonah's baptism.
I hope that Jonah will feel the spirit on the day of his baptism. I remember when I was baptized by dad in the font in the Whittier stake center. I felt to so clean and pure after. It was a very special day. This will be the beginning of many more special and important dates in Jonah's life. Well I`ve g2g now and meet with our investigators. I hope ya`ll have a great week! I love you all and I know the church is TRUE!!! I am so thankful that the Lord has given me this oppurtunity to serve the people of Chile. They are near and dear to my heart. Love you!
Talk to you soon for mothers day!
Love,
Elder Cloward
P.S. Sorry there are no pictures again this week. This interenet cafe is not compatable with my camera. We will try another one next week. Janessa hope your having a great time! Cara have fun on your buisness trip! Love you both.

From Campo to Campo-ier

2010-04-20T22:33:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
I´m not sure if that subject line makes any sense at all. What I´m trying to say is that I went from a campo zone (Talagante) to an even more campo-like zone, named Melipilla. It´s northeast of Talagante. It´s a pretty cool place. It is so beautiful in the country.
I really like it a lot. Also, interesting fact-Talagante means "town of witches" in Mapuche, Melipilla means "4 diablos". Isn´t that interesting? So just when I thought I could stop worrying about witches, now I've got devils on my tail!!! Oh well, what can ya do.
I was goning to try to send you some fotos today, but this bootleg computer isn´t compatible with my camera. That´s a sad story.
Well, my new compi is Elder Jergins from Saint George UT. He was a district leader in La Islita, one of the sectors in Talgante. so we´ve worked together before and gone on divisions and had meetings together. He finishes his mission this change (in 5 weeks) so he will be the second companion that I´ll kill. And when he dies I`m assuming I´ll stay here for my 4 weeks until mom and dad get here. So that means that this is most likely going to be my last sector. So I want to work harder than ever and make it my best sector. When Elder Jergins left Talagante two changes ago he got here, and Elder Krainik was his companion. They passed two changes together, then I got here and took Elder Krainik´s place. This is the first time I´ve been in one of his sectors, so that´s cool.
Melipilla, like Talagante, is a district. but, unlike Talagante, it only has 4 branches (Talagante has 6). The 4 branches are: Melipilla, Silva Chavez, Merced, and Bollenar. Melipilla and Silva Chavez are both divided into two sectors each. Our sector is Melipilla 2. We live with Elder Bybee from Utah and Elder Prado from Ecuador. There is a big field of grass and trees that you can see from our backyard. There are lots of cows there, too. The 2ndd set of missionaries are in Melipilla 1. So there are a total of 6 companionships in the zone, and there are no Sister Missionaries. Elder Butterfield was in this sector when he died. so that´s also cool. Hermano. Cabello, the guy that makes the leather scripture cases, is in our branch. He used to be the branch president but he was recently released. Now our branch president is Presidente Toro. he`s a really great leader (he`s already served as a Stake President). It will be good working with him, and we should learn a lot.
In other news, there was a baptism in our sector on Saturday. Her name is Leticia, she`s about 58-ish years old. Elder Jergins and Elder Krainik were teaching her and her husband Antonio for a couple months and she was finally able to be baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday. We`re working with Antonio now. He`s pretty much ready to get baptized too. He`s waiting on a couple of things concerning forgiving others and letting go of some hard feelings that he has towards his daughter`s ex who left her and her son.
Other people we are teaching are:Daniela and Melina: Melina is Daniela`s mom, Daniela is a 19 year college student. They both came to church yesterday for the first time and they seem to be pretty interested. Actually that`s about it for now... we need to work on building up a better base of investigators. The other investigators that we`re teaching are all relatives of recent converts I´ll give you more info about them once we know more.
Here`s a cool story form the concilio meeting we had on Friday. Elder Hrabar and Elder Anfuso (the Elder that took my place in Talagante) were taking their turn to give their report of the work in the Talagante Zone this past change. President commented that the Talgante district has a higher attendence in church than most of the stakes in the mission. Somebody asked when Talgante is going to be a stake. President Jones told us a few cool things about that. He said that there hasn`t been a new stake in all Chile in 8 or 9 years. As far as I know, Talagante is actually already meeting the requirements to become a stake, but the First Presidency wants to wait a little while and make sure that it is truly ready to be a stake. President Jones said that over the past 6-7 months Talagante has really grown and there has been many that have been reactivated and serve who have recently been baptized. Then President Jones told us that Elder Amado (the Chile area president) was giving a report to Elder Scott (from the quorum of the 12) about the progress that Talagante has been having over the past few months, and when Elder Scott heard he jumped out of his chair and threw his arms up in the air because he was so excited. So that was cool to know, that one of the Lord`s Apostles is that concerned about that district and its progress. President Jones said that Talagante is progressing thanks to the faith of all of the missionaries in the mission and our prayers, as well as the prayers of our families. Thank you for all your love, support and prayers on my behalf as well as the saints of Talagante. My companions and I felt the Lord's strength many times as we taught in Talagante.
Well that`s about all I have for this week.
Take care and I´ll talk to you soon!
Love,
Elder Cloward
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Leaving Talagante April 12, 2010

2010-04-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

Well family,
The time has come. The assistents (yes, my 2 excompañeros) called last night around midnight and told me that I will be going to another sector. I´m kinda sad but I´m just really used to it by now. I´m going to miss a lot of people but the most important thing is not their relationship with me, it´s their relationship with the Savior and Heavenly Father that matters. I don´t EVER want anyone to go inactive becuase they liked me and I left the sector and they didn´t have a strong testimony. That´s would be very sad . I just want them all to endure to the end then we can all hang out in the Celestial kingdom. Every new member (baptism) that we have had in this sector are very strong and they have deep testimonies and love for our Savior. They have waited a long time to be baptized and I know that they will continue to grow.
The assistents also told me that they are taking the sister missionaries out of the branch, so their sector has now become our sector (well I should say Elder Hrabar´s sector) so he has to go learn their sector and our sector. But he already is pretty familiarzed with our half of Talagante. It´ll be a lot of ground for one companionship of elders to cover, especially without bikes. But I know they can do it. I´m sure President Jones has a genius plan so it´ll all work out. He always does.
Here´s some investigator updates:
1. Fernando: the carabinero, he´s doing really well. we went to teach him with Hno Torres, one of the members of the ward who we thought would be a good fellowship-er for him. Fernando and his wife Margarita (member of the church) came to the chapel yesterday and Fernando still has his baptismal date for May 8th. I am really excited for that family they have a lot of potential.
2. Nephi, Veronica, Ignacia, Raul, and Susana: they are all neighbors that live together and we have been teaching them for a few weeks. They didn´t come to church this week, but Nephi and his mom Veronica want to be baptized.
3. Miriam and Benjamin: we had an FHE with them at Bernardita´s house. We did this cool objest lesson using plastic dixie cups to teach the restoration. 12 cups that represent the Apostles form the base, with a picture of the Savior that goes on top (we haven´t found a good way to put the prophet on their yet) and then you build a big tower of plastic cups, and each cup represents a doctrine of the church. Then in the apostasy, after they kill the Savior and the apostles, the whole tower falls over, and you form a bunch of "tiny churches" that all contain a part of the truth, but none of them has a prophet or apostles or the fulness of the gospel. Then you tell the story of the first vision and rebuild the original tower. Benjamin loved it and he told us that he wants to get baptized. We have another lesosn with them to night I´m excited for it.
4.Máximo: well, he´s not an investigator, but this guy´s having a really hard time. He hasn´t come to church for 3 weeks and wants to move out of his house and live with his friends. He also told us straight out that he won´t continue coming to church for the rest of his life because enduring to the end is just too hard for him. He´s been hanging out with his "best friend" Christian for the last month or so and he´s a really bad influence on him. We are really worried about him, but we´re teaching him the best we can, then all we can do is let him make his own decisios. It´s sad, but that´s just how the plan goes.
5. Andrew: we met this jamaican guy named Andrew knocking doors on Thursday. He´s so cool and speaks English but with a REALLY strong Bob Marley accent. I´m not sure how much he´ll progress but it´s just a pretty cool story.
Well I want to share with you that I know the church is true and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true. I know that we are happier when we live the gospel, and I know that our Heavenly Father will fulfill all of his promises to us. He´s done it many times in my life up to this point, and we really have no reason to doubt. I really like this scripture in D&C 58:31
that says, "Who am I, sayeth the Lord, to promise and not fulfil?" It´s really straightforward. If we can just keep enduring to the end we will be blessed in ALL things, both temporally and spiritually, and in the end we will be received in the Celestial Kingdom in a never ending state of happiness (see Mosiah 2:41).
That sounds pretty good to me and I think it´s something worth fighting for, and it is a great comfort to know that I am not in this fight alone. I have a loving Heavenly Father and Elder Brother Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost to guide me, and I have 2 earthly parents and 2 great sisters that are great examples to me. If there is only one constant in our life it should be our testimony of Jesus Christ and His church.
Well I love you all very much and hope that the Lord coninues to bless you.
Love,
Elder Cloward

Apacienta mis ovejas

2010-04-07T23:24:00.000-07:00

Part of our zone wearing Indiana Jones hats in Pomaire.
It's a small tourist site. Where they sell Chilean items.

Daniela's family

Elder Cloward, Daniela, Rafael (Her brother), & Elder Hrabar

Dear Family,

Apacienta mis ovejas-that´s feed my sheep in Spanish. The language that the Lord helped me to learn here on my mission.

These past few weeks our focus in the zone (one of the focuses) has been to motivate local leaders to do their callings. That´s not really part of missionary work if you think about it, but we´re here to help, and a ward that fulfills its callings will also have the Spirit to help them in missionary work. Elder Hrabar and I go to the chapel every Thursday at 8 p.m. to go on divisions with the Elders Quorum and help in home teaching. But there hadn´t been any elders showing up for 3 weeks to do visits. we were kind of frustrated. So we asked for time to speak in the Elder´s Quorum last Sunday and we gave a class. I read "if ye love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15) and then we asked the brethren: what are some of the commandments of God? They all said: don´t kill, don´t rob, obeying the word of wisdom, law of chastity, Sabbath day, tithing etc. and then we said: good answers; now lets read in John 21:15-17 where Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him 3 times and repeats to him three times the commandment: FEED MY SHEEP. We then lovingly explained to the brethren that if we love the Savior we will feed His sheep. Because if nobody feeds the sheep, the sheep will die. aka there will be no active members left in the Quorum.

So this last Thursday, 4 out of the 20 members of the EQ came to do visits. Hey, it´s a start.

We just have to be more patient with them and teach them with love. We need to show them WHY they should do the things they need to do, not just tell them they need to do it.

1. I think I'm good on all my supplies for the next few months.

2. Yes, there are fleas in the apartment, but they don´t biteme. They only bite Elder Urbina. But then when Elder Hrabar came to our apartment they started to bite him too. I guess I´m just not delicious to the fleas so that´s good.

3. I think I´ll really enjoy Brother Marsh´s New Testament class. He was my Book of Mormon teacher before my mission and his class was great!

Happy Birthday Grandma! I hope you have a wonderful day. Thanks for all the letters, and cards and packages.

I am so thankful for this opportunity that I have to serve my Heavenly Father and my Savior and the wonderful people of Chile. Serving a mission has been the greatest experience of my life. Thank you for all your support, encouragement but most of all your love.

Love you all and have a great week.

Love,

Elder Cloward

2010-04-04T20:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

This last week was a little crazy. Elder Hrabar and I had to do a class in the zone conference on Thursday. The conference was in Melipilla (a zone that is to the northeast of Talagante which is even more campo-ish than Talagante). We had to give a class about the importance about asking questions when we teach. We did an example based on an analogy between opening peoples hearts, an opening up a door. So we had 3 keys that each had a question on them like "What is the purpose of life?" and other questions. Then the missionaries had to ask my companion and I those questions (like in a street contact) to see which one was the right question for us that would call our interest and make us want to listen to the missionaries. The conference was really good. I learned two important things that I had kind of already learned before but had kind of forgotten.1. If we are not happy it is because we are thinking about ourselves, aka we are being selfish. The secret to being happy is actually really simple: we just have to do something to serve others. I tried putting that in practice after the conference, and it worked! 2. Our greatest motivation to do missionary work (or any work at all) should be love. Love towards Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and towards the people we are serving. Elder Hrabar and I have been a little frustrated lately trying to motivate the members in the Talagante Branch to do the work that they need to do, and we think that if we can motivate them to have the pure love of Christ they will start to fulfil their callings like they should. We´ll see what happens with that. In other news,Saturday Daniela was baptized!! The baptism wasn´t very well organized (the only local leader there was President Arancibia, the branch president) but it was very spiritual. Rafael baptized Daniela and they both looked so happy! It was so great to see him baptizing his little sister. Their whole family came to the baptism, too! Daniela and Rafael have 3 other siblings: the oldest is Margarita (a member of the Esmeralda branch), then comes Ariela (she´s not a member and lives in Santiago north mission) then Francisco (he´s not a member either he lives in the Esmeralda branch but we have taught him a few times in Rafa´s house) then comes Rafael and then Daniela. Ariela came with her husband, Raul, and their daughter, Vivian. They said they loved the baptism and they came to church yesterday for the confirmation too. We went to Rafa´s house to teach them the first lesson after church and they seem really interested. They gave us their adress in Santiago and want the missionaries to come teach them there! The Lord is working miracles in that family.here´s some investigator updates:1. Veronica y Nefi (that´s Nephi in spanish): yes, we are teaching a 9 year old boy named Nefi. His dad is a less active member (also named Nefi). Nefi the younger and his mom Veronica and his little sister Brenda (5 years old) came to church yesterday! They have a baptismal date for May 1st so we will keep working with them and preparing them for baptism. 2. Miriam y Benjamin: Miriam was a reference from the Esmeralda Branch, she went to church their with her aunt who´s a member. She is a 20something year old physics teacher and is a single mom. Benjamin, her son, is 9 years old and he is awesome. He knows all the right answers when we teach him. After the first lesson with him, he took out a little notepad and wrote down "me sentí bien cuando estuvieron los carabineros" that is, "I feel good when the cops were at my house" and his mom´s like "no son, they aren´t cops, they´re missionaries" then Elder Hrabar said "That´s okay, we´re kinda like cops. We´re like God´s cops" It was pretty funny.Don´t worry about the package. It doesn´t matter when I get it we´ll still do the egg fights and have great fun with that. I can buy lemons here they are way cheap. Well I love you all very much and hope you enjoy general conference this weekend,

Love,

Elder Cloward

Mini CCM and Franco's Baptism

2010-03-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

Elder Cloward, Franco and Elder Hrabar.
Franco does martial arts and he is a body builder-
thus the fighting pose.

Franco's baptism

Photo of all of the youth and missionaries at the end of the mini ccm

Dear Family,

This week was pretty crazy but it went really well. During the week we talked to Rafael and he told us that he wanted to wait another week to baptize Daniela because he didn´t feel ready yet. He was ordained an Eder a week before Maximo, so we figured that he was worthy to baptize. But he told us that he wanted to talk to President Arancibia (the branch president) before doing the baptism. Elder Hrabar and I were both very impressed by his understanding of the Priesthood and the importance of using it worthily. Rafael talked to President yesterday and he said that everything´s cool now and the baptism will be this Saturday, the 27th of March.

On Saturday there was a mini MTC (CCM in Spanish) for the whole Talagante District. All of the young men, young women, and young single adults received a call letter (similar to the mission call letter that all full time missionaries receive) explaining that they would serve for a period of 12 hours and they had to report to the mini MTC (which was just the chapel in Talagante) at 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning. There were over 50 youth that came (that´s a really good attendance). They all had assigned companions and had to stay with them all day. In the morning they studied preach my gospel and practiced teaching Lesson 1 (the message of the restoration). At 1 o´clock the full time missionaries (there are 16 in the zone) came to the chapel. We ate lunch with the youth that were there, then we practiced teaching with them. At 3:00 the missionaries from the MTC in Santiago got to the chapel. Then from 3:00 to 6:00 we all went out proselyting here in Talagante.

The assistants (aka my old companions, Elder Butron and Elder Marin) also came to the activity. I went with Elder Butron and Elder Hrabar went with Elder Marin, and each companionship of missionaries went with a companionship of young men. It was way cool and a lot of the youth are excited to go on missions. I was really impressed by their testimonies and how valient they were sharing the gospel.

Then, at 6:00 we came back to the chapel and there was a devotional/testimony meeting and some of the youth shared the experiences they had while proselyting. Then, at 8:00 was Franco´s baptism. It was really special and very spiritual. He and his mom shared their testimonies after Franco was baptized. He said that he was never a very religious person, but then he felt the Spirit the first time he prayed and knew the church was true and that he had to be baptized. Then he said "if any of you here are investigators, and you´ve felt the Spirit, you all need to get baptized, like I did" it was awesome.

Here´s some other investigator updates:

1. Fernando- We saw him for the first time 2 weeks ago yesterday. We went with Fernando to an FHE with the young single adults yesterday. He felt really uncomfortable and left right after the closing prayer without saying bye to anyone. He´s going through a hard time right now, we are praying for him a lot so that he will feel the Spirit again like he did at the beginning.

2. Fernando the carabinero ( carabinero= a police officer here in Chile)- this guy is way cool. his wife, Margarita, is a less active member (but she came to church yesterday!) The family was a reference that Margarita´s mom (an active member) gave us 2 months ago when we ate lunch at her house, and now we are teaching them. Fernando and Margarita have three kids: Cristina, 6, Emilia, 2, and Benjamin, 6 months. It is really fun watching the kids run around and seeing the little girls take turns holding their little brother. It reminded me of growing up with 2 older sisters. I told them that my family was the same way! They are very receptive and have felt the Spirit a lot recently. The only complication is Fernando´s work schedule, since he´s a police officer. But we´ll worry about that later.

3. Francisca- she is twelve years old. Her mom, Isabel, is a less active member (but both of them came to church yesterday and last week!) and they live almost right in front of the church. The only problem is that Isabel´s husband, Francisco, won´t let his daughter be baptized until she is 18 so that she can "choose for herself" We´ll keep teaching her and pray that the Lord can soften the Dad´s heart.

4. Familia Rios- This family is awesome. We found them when Eder Marin and I were together about 4 weeks ago. They have come to church once, but they feel a lot of pressure to be baptized and are reacting badly to that. The mom still hasn´t prayed to know if the church is true, but she knows she has to. We think she´s a little scared to get a testimony, because once she does she knows she needs to be baptized. Elder Hrabar and Elder Marin visited them on Saturday.

That´s all for now, hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Cloward

P.S. We haven´t felt any aftershocks this week. I think everythings going back to normal!

Note to La Mirada Ward

2010-03-21T21:27:00.001-07:00

Dear La Mirada Ward Family,
Well, I want all of you to know that we are doing fine here in the Chile Santiago West Mission. I want to thank all of you for your cards and letters, and most of all for your prayers on our behalf. I was happy to hear that both of the Elder Mayberry´s are okay too. The earthquake on February 27th shook us up a little bit, but we´re all fine now and everything is mostly back to normal. There have been some pretty strong aftershocks, but most of us are just ignoring them now and continue life as usual teaching the Gospel. A lot of people are now convinced that God exists and respect the power that He has over all of His creations. It is sad how tragedies like this are necessary for people to Remember Heavenly Father and what He and His Son have done for us. The Lord is blessing Chile abundantly and there are many people that are being converted and coming to the waters of Baptism. The number doesn´t matter, because the worth of Every Soul is great to the sight of God. I am grateful for the opportunity that I have to share the gospel with the people of Chile and also for the love and support that I have always received from the Saints of the La Mirada Ward. I know that the Church is true and that the Lord will bless us and protect us as we keep His commandmants and strive to do His will.
Con cariño,
Elder Cloward

Barbara's Baptism

2010-03-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

Part of our zone after a service project in El Monte. this hermano´s house was made of adobe, and it was not safe to live their anymore. We took it apart and threw all the adobe bricks outside.

This is a "Chile helps Chile" poster that I´m saving. Apparently this guy wasn´t in his house in Concepcion when the earthquake hit. The next day he went to see how his house was and found it... on the ground. He was looking through his stuff and found his Chilean flag and was shaking it off, and a photographer that was close by told him to hold the flag out and took this picture. This picture is all over Chile.

Barbara's Baptism

So here I go again-I'm late posting Elder Cloward's email from March 15, 2010. Hopefully I will be able to keep up for the next 3 weeks.

Dear family,

This week was crazy busy but it was also way cool at the same time. So Elder Marín left last Monday around 6:00 p.m., and they didn´t give me a replacement companion. I just walked around in a trio with the other elders in the zone for the day. We visited with all of our investigators. Tuesday we went to changes and I met my new companion, Elder Hrabar. He has about a year and a half in the mission and he´s a great Elder. He´s from South Dakota, and he loves ska music just like me.

We had our concilio meeting with the zone leaders and the assistants (aka my two former companions, Elder Marin and Elder Butron) in the mission home. It was a really inspiring meeting. Elder Marin and Elder Butron are gonna be great together, this is the first time in my mission when we have two latin assistants. The only problem is that Elder Butron just got his drivers license like 3 weeks ago, and Elder Marin doesn´t have his license. So they are having a good time with that.

Barbara´s baptism on Friday!!!! She was a little nervous when we got there, but the baptism turned out really well, and she was so happy after! President Arancibia (the branch president) did the baptism. It was great and the spirit was so strong and it was wonderful to see her enter the waters of baptism. Her whole family came (including grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins) and they enjoyed seeing Barbara get baptized. They really felt the Spirit and are asking a lot of questions.

She was confirmed yesterday in Sacrament meeting and now we are going to start teaching her aunt, uncle, and cousins that live on the same property as Barbara´s family. (Here in Chile it´s common for one lot of land to have two or three houses on it).

So an Elder who finished his mission here 6 months ago came back to Chile with his parents and they visited Talagante yesterday. It was really cool because Elder Reese had started teaching Barbara 10 months ago and he saw her get confirmed yesterday!

On Saturday we had the zone meeting and talked to the missionaries in Talagante about what we learned in concilio on Wednesday.

Franco had his interview on Saturday, and Daniela had hers on Sunday, and they both passed and are preparing for their baptisms this Saturday. The missionaries in the MTC in Santiago are coming here on Saturday to work in Talagante. We have to prepare for that and pair them with our exsisting companionships!

Also, yesterday Máximo was ordained an Elder! He has come so far and is doing great in the Gospel. His testimony is so strong. We haven´t seen Fernando this week, but I have faith that we will talk to him soon. He will have to have a different date for his baptism.

Cris is doing well, I talked to him on the phone Saturday night, but he didn´t come to church yesterday and we don´t know why. I´m sure everything´s fine though.

Well, fam I gotta go do some missionary work! I know the church is true and I am so thankful that I have this opportunity to serve my Heavenly Father, Savior and the people of Chile. I am so thankful for everyone of you and all you have done for me!!!

Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Cloward

8.8 Terremoto

2010-03-18T21:42:00.000-07:00

I want to apologize for not posting Elder Cloward's email sooner. Life has been a bit crazy. This is his email from March 8, 2010 and it was very brief because he had to get back to the pension to meet with the assistants.
Dear Familia,
That´s how you say earthquake in Spanish. Anyway, everything´s fine here in the zone. All of the missionaries and pensions are okay. When we felt the earthquake we decided it would be better to get out of the building. We thought that staying in the door frame wouldn't help us too much if 5 stories of apartment building came crashing down on us. So Elder Marin and I woke up the other Elders, and then we ran outside. The earth shook for over one and a half minutes and then it ended. Elder Marin and I went to the sister missionaries apartments to make sure they were okay and they were just a bit scared. Then we went to visit Maritza and her family and they were fine. Our branch president was next and his family was also fine. We went with him to check on members near our apartment. Then we went back to our apartment and tried to sleep a little. But we are all okay.
But here´s some news from the week:
1. President Jones called Elder Marín today at 12:30 to be the assistent with Elder Butron, and in 30 minutes we have to be in the pension waiting for Elder Butrón to come and pick him up. Therefore I have very very little time to write a nice long email like I would like to. Sorry but I´ll write as much as I can in the time we have.
2. Barbara had her interview yesterday and passed!!! She is getting baptized this Friday (the original date was on Saturday but her Dad works that day and he wants to be their obviously so now it´s on Friday)
3. Daniela has her baptismal date for March 20th
4. Franco also has a baptismal date for March 20th
5. Fernando has a baptismal date for April 3rd.
All of the investigators are doing really well. I´m anxious to know who my new companion will be. there are 5 weeks left in this change.
I´ll send some fotos but I´ve gotto go the assistants are coming for my companion!!!
Love,
Elder Cloward

Hello Family

2010-02-28T13:06:00.000-08:00

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

Earthquake in Chile

2010-02-27T21:54:00.000-08:00

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

Hello Everyone

2010-02-24T08:01:00.000-08:00

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

Cristopher's Baptism

2010-02-17T23:41:00.000-08:00

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!

una angelita

2010-02-08T12:19:00.000-08:00

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

Very busy week-but a very good week!!!

2010-02-03T21:15:00.000-08:00

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

Elder Cloward and Elder Marin shearing Dolly. They are helping Barbara one of their investigators out.

2010-02-03T21:11:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Elder Cloward-Love Your Family and Friends

2010-02-03T21:08:00.000-08:00

Chile Santiago West Mission Christmas Party

2010-02-03T21:04:00.000-08:00

Sheep Shearing!

2010-01-31T18:40:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,
Thanks for all the emails and the motivation. This week has been kind of stressful, but not in a bad way. It can just be a little overwhelming sometimes all the things that we have to do. But I am just trying to do the best I can and I know that the Lord will help me to do His work. That's just part of the life of a missionary. If we don't have challenges in life we wouldn't progress and grow closer to our Heavenly Father and Savior.
So this week was good. On Tuesday there were changes, but Elder Marín and I didn´t have changes so we stayed here.
We had the opportunity to shear sheep this past week! That was definitely a first. Her name is Dolly and she lives at Barbara's house. I will send pictures!
On Friday we had a karaoke activity. Barbara came with the whole family, but none of the young women from our branch were there. It turned out well though. We visited barbara with Magdalena, the young women´s president, a recently returned missionary. If Barbara can go to girls camp (next week) it will help her a lot to form friendships with the girls and be baptized later on. But Barbara told Magdalena that she doesn`t want to go. She´s just a difficult little girl. But she did come to church yesterday. So that´s good.
The person that´s not being difficult is Cristofer. He went to the young men´s camp last week! There were only four boys from our branch that went, and Cris was one of them and he´s not a member! But he´s very excited and should be baptized in 2 weeks. He couldn´t come to church yesterday because he had to go visit his Mom in Santiago.
On Saturday we had an activity with the Elders Quorum. We weren´t planning on going, since they were going to play soccer and have a barbecue and there´s no point in us being there. But one of the investigators called us at 7:30 (the activity was supposed to start at 6:00) and said that he had been waiting and hour and a half and nobody was there to play, and he was going to leave. So Elder Marin and I ran to the Chapel and organized a soccer match. We played for about 15 minutes (in white shirt and tie) until the rest of the quorum members got there, then we left and continued working. good times. Yesterday we went to visit Familia Meneses. They are all members and the Dad was the Branch Mission leader when I got to Talagante. The only problem is that they live in a vineyard as grounds keepers and haven´t been able to come to church for 2 months because the owners of the vineyard don´t let them leave. So we went to their vineyard. The Hermana has a huge garden in front of the house and gave us bags of tomatoes, chili peppers, bell peppers, peaches, and corn. So that will be nice to have in the house. Tell Cara I said hi too and way to go on not using the company´s money. That´s a good idea and they´ll see that you are an honest employee.
Let me know if I forgot something in the email.
Well I hope you all have a great week.
I love you all very much and you are in my prayers always.
I am so thankful for this opportunity to serve my Heavenly Father, my Savior and the people of Chile. The church is true!
Love,
Elder Cloward

The New Chilean President Is....

2010-01-31T18:23:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,
So the name of the new Chilean President is ... President Sebastian Pinera. He was elected yesterday. Good for him. He will be in office for the next six years.
We went and visited Margarita and Daniela Saturday and one of the sisters, Miriam, came to accompany us. We read the family the proclomation to the world. It was good because Margarita was able to open up a bit more and the two talked a lot. Margarita and Daniela came to church yesterday. Daniela is supposed to leave to Santiago next Saturday. We`re pretty sure that she won`t turn Jehovah`s Witness in a month. We`ll see. Barbara came to church yesterday with her whole family! That was good. What wasn`t good was when she asked to talk to us and told us that she doesn`t want to get baptized because she feels more comfortable in the Catholic church than in the Mormon church. But that`s actually only because the young women here have practically ignored her. So we will have to talk to the young women and tell them that if they are members of the Church of Jesus Christ then they should start acting like Jesus Christ did. And we will have to talk to Barbara and explain to her that just because a group of teenage girls didn`t accept her doesn`t mean that she shouldn`t be baptized.
So that`s what`s gonna happen this week. Teenage drama. I thought I was done with that. Then there`s Chris (16 years old). He`s come to church four times. He has a baptismal date for January 30th and we`re pretty sure that he`ll get there. He`s a funny little guy. We just have to teach him a few more things so he can be ready for a baptismal interview this Saturday or Sunday.
Are there really 88 stakes in Southern California? That`s a lot. There`s like 7 in our mission, and two districts. we`re still working on that. But hey congrats to dad!
I`m not gonna lie, I totally forgot to take a picture with the tree this week. But we`re gonna take it down this week for sure and I told the elders we can`t take it down without taking a picture. So that`s gonna happen. Also, family, there is no need to worry about where we are in life and what not or whatever we might be waiting to happen and hasn`t happened yet. If we are keeping the commandments, then we`re good. We can trust 100% in the Lord because we are doing our part. Also, reading the Book of Mormon and Preach my Gospel is good. I'm glad President Marco has given the Stake that challenge. It is always good to read the Book of Mormon over and over. We learn something new each time we read it, because each time we are in a different point in our lives and our lives are touched in a new way by the teachings in the Book of Mormon.
Well, hope you all have a great week.
Let me know if I am missing anything important.
Love,
Elder Cloward

New Address!

2010-01-25T08:41:00.001-08:00

Dear family & friends,

Elder Cloward has a new address:

Elder Michael Bradley Cloward

Misión Chile Santiago Oeste
Correos, Casilla 149
Chacabuco 166
Maipú
Chile

You can send letters, packages, cards, postcards, etc., to this address. You can continue to send letters to pouch as well.

He would love to hear from you so please write to him if you can!

Thanks!

It's 2010!!!

2010-01-04T21:01:00.000-08:00

Dear family,
Yesterday we had three investigators come to church!!
1. Daniela, Rafael`s little sister. She has come to church 5 times now, but she has to come 7 more times before she can be baptized. She is really excited for her baptism. Rafael is progressing a lot too. He had a mullet (those are very popular here I don`t know why) but he got his hair cut last Wednesday.
2. Titi (pronounced tee-tee) Bernardita`s daughter. she`s taken the discussions a few times already. She will probably get baptized later on.
3. Josè Tomàs is Ana`s boyfriend`s little brother. He`s in the Chilean army national guard. He`s only going to be here until January 13 then he has to go back to the army, but he finishes his military service in April and then he will bet baptized.
4. Pablo, Rafael`s nephew. Notice that he is number 4 out of 3. He doesn`t count as an investigator attending the chapel because he technically lives in the Esmeralda branch. We will have to work with the missionaries from Esmeralda so that he can start attending there. I`ll get a pic of the christmas tree before I take it down.
Yesterday morning before church we went to Barbara`s house so they could go to church with us. They were all asleep when we got there. We`ll see what happens with that. They have to make a little more of an effort. But all is well.
Yesterday Maximos blessed the sacrament, and shared his testimony in the young single adults sunday school class. That guy is tearin it up.
Have a great week y'all and a happy new year!
Love,
Elder Cloward

2010-01-03T22:09:00.000-08:00

Hermana's and Elders Cloward and Marin decorating

for ward Christmas activity
President Jones crowd surfing once again at the
Chile Santiago West Mission Christmas party
(see Elder Cloward right by President Jones' head).

Ana Karina's baptism

Happy New Year!!!

2010-01-03T17:18:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,
It was so great to talk to all of you on mom`s birthday! I hope you had a wonderful birthday Mom-thanks for everything and I love you!! Sorry I didn`t call on Christmas but it was just really complicated for us. But next year I can call you on Christmas if you want! We`ll give it a try. I loved the ties and my comp loved his too! Grandma and Grandpa thanks for all the gifts. Elder Marìn was also very happy to receive our matching ties. We wore them to the branch Christmas activity on Saturday. Thank you so much for all of the gifts! We forgot to give the pencils and CTR rings to the primary but we will do it next Sunday.
Christmas dinner was nice and delicious. One of the sister (Hermana Perez, also colombian) made colombian food so Elder Marìn was very happy and it was very good. On Christmas day we went back to the same members house and ate again because there was a lot of food leftover.
I decided today that I`m thinner but not because of a lack of food (we`ve been eating a lot lately). I`m pretty sure it`s because we play soccer for 2 hours every Monday. That along with all the walking is keeping me in pretty good shape. We walk a lot; all the time.
About the memory card: I was talking to Hermana Maples and she said that her family sent her a 4 GB memory card, but she can`t send or print fotos because the memory card is too big. Can you please send me 2 - 2GB memory cards instead? Thanks!
I would really like gingersnap cookies and bottlecaps and any of your homemade candies and my companion was asking for a white hat that says "California" on it. Just if you see one.
We took a Christmas pic of the whole mission, but they haven`t sent it to us yet.
The familia Gaete came to the Christmas activity, but not to church, so Barbara lost her baptismal date. We have to explain her that if she wants to be baptized she`ll have to make more of an effort.
That`s good that Mitch still wants to room with me. I would prefer Liberty Square. We`ll have to see what he thinks. I was talking to my homeboy Elder Finter (from Mesa, he knows the Giles and Gulbrandson families) and we want to room together too. How many people can live in the Liberty apartments? I`d like to live with Kevin and Nick too but I don`t know if we`ll be able to. Plus it`s likely that Mitch has found someone in his mission that he wants to room with too. We`ll just see what happens. Well hope you all had a Merry Christmas and enjoy new years eve!
Happy New Year and love you all,
Elder Cloward

Thank you to my family, friends and ward family who sent me ornaments, cards and letters. It is wonderful to have family and friends who love and support me as I serve our Heavenly Father and His children here in Chile. I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas and I wish you a very Happy New Year. May the Lord continue to bless each of you!
Love,
Elder Cloward

Ana Karina's Baptism

2009-12-25T18:41:00.000-08:00

Dear Family of mine-
Hope you are enjoying the sights out there in New York!!! Hope you are enjoying shopping!!!! HaHa! Sorry Dad we`ll go do a bunch of manly guy activities when I get home (remember I still haven`t even seen the second batman movie!). I`m glad you are all having fun!! I remember when we were there in 200.....7? visiting with Melia and Josè. Remember when we went to ground zero and they said that they were going to build another, bigger building on that spot? how`s that going? Just a thought.
So Ana`s baptism on Saturday was GREAT. Honestly in my life I have never been in a baptism that was so spiritual. Ever. There were only about 15 people there (because that day there were 5 activities going on in the chapel AT THE SAME TIME!!!) But it was honestly incredible. One of the sisters in the ward (the district choir director, and one of Ana`s co workers and best friends) sang a special number from a Y.W. disc called " You are a daughter of God" and it was such a good song. Half way through the sister that was singing started to cry and so did Ana and so did I (almost). In a part of the song it said something about how before we were born our Heavenly Father had us in His arms right before we left His presence, hoping that some day we would be able to come back to Him. I could honestly see that happening with Ana right before she came to earth, and I could feel (in a very small degree) how happy and pleased Heavenly Father was because He knew that as she took the step of baptism it was making it possible her return to Him. It was great!!!!
Also, we had another really really good experience this week with a family called Familia Gaete. When I got to this sector 2 months ago, there was a letter in the apartment for that family from one of the missionaries that used to be in this sector. But Elder Butròn didn`t know who they were. Every once in a while when I saw the letter sitting there I felt that we had to find them. But every member we asked didn`t know who they were. Until.......last Thursday we were teaching Carla (she`s a whole different story) with Maritza (a member of the church who`s preparing for a mission, and Carla`s sister in law) and after the lesson with Carla we were going to go visit Max (a recent convert who`s 90 and says he used to be a Mason. He`s really inteligent but a little crazy) and we asked Maritza if she knew who Familia Gaete was. She was "heck yes I do, why haven`t you guys been visiting them?" I said "cuz we don`t know where they live!!" So Maritza brought us to their house! The mom, Wilma, is a member, but inactive. Her daughter, Barbara, is 13 and is not a member. The missionaries were teaching her about 3 months ago but they stopped coming by. We sang some christmas hymns with them and then shared "Permanaced", the lesson to invite inactive members back to the church. They said they would come, but they didn`t come to the chapel yesterday, but we had a cita with them at 5:00 and we went. They said they didn`t come to church because they couldn`t wake up on time, but next week for sure! Then we started teaching lesson 1, the restoration. After the lesson, Barbara asked her mom if she could please go outside for a moment and talk with us privately, so her mom went outside. Then Barbara started to tell us why they missionaries stopped coming. She was preparing to be baptized, but started to have some doubts and insecurities, The missionaries thought she didn`t want to get baptized so they stopped visiting her. But she said that during those 3 months that the missionaries stopped visiting she felt like something was missing in her life, and she couldn`t stop thinking about the church. She said that she knows that this is the path that she wants to follow and has January 16th as her baptismal date!!!!!! So that was way cool. This year for our christmas gift to President Jones, each companionship has to think of a miracle that they have had in the last two weeks, then do a 1 minute recording describing the miracle. Today we recorded all of the miracles in the zone before we played soccer, and we have to burn them onto a dvd tomorrow. So there will be 90 minutes of miracles for President Jones! Elder Marìn and I decided that Barbara should be our miracle. I gave a talk yesterday about the "family mission plan" That was a wonderful experience.
Yesterday Maximo received the Aaronic priesthood, and was ordained as a priest. and I did the ordenation!!!! Màximo asked me to do it for him. This was the first time I have ever done a priesthood ordenation. Màximo is incredible. He will be going on a mission some day. We talked to President Jones about Daniela, since she is so young and her parents aren`t members she will have to attend church for 3 months before she can be baptized. Sad bears. We need to focus on Rafael, her brother, so that he can be worthy of his priesthood. If he stays active, so will she. But without him it will be very difficult. There is much more to tell, but i`ll save it for the phone call!! I sure do hope that you`re flight doesn`t get canceled so that you can be at home when I call! Because answering machines don`t replace families! Everything will be fine. No worries. Suave, porque sauve es todo, as Elder Marìn always said. And by the way I love Elder Marìn. quite possibly more than any other companion. Although I also really love Elder Butterfield and my boy Elder Cannon. We are having a great time now. I`ll send another email with details about the phone call. Happy Birthday Mom!!! Thanks for all you have done for me. I love you so much!
Much love!

Elder Cloward

Tiempode de elecciones

2009-12-16T21:14:00.000-08:00

Dear Family:
So yesterday was the day of the Chilean Presidential elections. Here politics is a lot differente. Instead of just two big parties they have seven. And there were 4 presidential candidates. But in order for one of them to win, one person had to get over 50% of the vote. No one did, so they took the top two candidates and there will be a second election in January. Sadly there were 3 investigators that commited to come to church but then didn`t because they went to vote instead. But they will come next week! I`ve learned to be patient with things like this. All that matters is that people accept the gospel. If they do it after I leave the sector, it doesn`t matter. So I decided that this week, due to a time scarcity, I will share my funny stories with the whole family. So there are two new missionaries that we live with, Elder Johnston (from new york, he has two weeks left in the mission), Elder Urbina (from Honduras, he has about 8 months in the mission), and my new companion is Elder Marìn from Colombia. We are both staying here in Talagante. He got to the mission the same time as Elder Krainik, Elder Mawhinney and I. He lived with Elder Mawhinney on the coast for our first 6 months in Chile. He is a great missionary and works very hard. I think we will get along just fine. So yesterday, due to the elections, there is a law about public buildings not being in use for more than one hour, so that everyone can vote. So we had a big combined Sacrament meeting with our branch (Talagante) and the other branch that uses our chapel (Cordillera). So the two new elders, my new companion, and the two sister missionaries that just got here (5 missionaries in total) were asked to introduce themselves in the Sacrament meeting. So the two new elders went first, and after they finished, this little old man walked up to the stand, and stood up to go share his testimony. It was really sweet because he thought we were just doing a testimony meeting and wanted to share his testimony! So he stood up but the branch president explained that it wasn't a testimony meeting. So the other three missionaries introduced themselves, and they let the little old man share his testimony with us. Later on in the sacrament meeting, one of the sisters was giving her talk. There were 3 people that had been assigned talks, but due to the 5 missionary introductions, plus the little old man`s testimony, time was pretty short. And the hermana talked for a long time! So the branch president passed her a little paper, which we all know said something like "your time is up, please finish your talk." but the hermana just kept talking and said "the little paper they just passed me said "your doing a great job with your talk!
keep it up!"" We all laughed pretty hard. When she finished her talk, the sacrament meeting ended and the other two people that had prepared talks didn`t give them. Next week! Also, after the sacrament meeting Ana had her baptismal interview. and passed! So that`s good news. Màximo now comes to church in a suit that one of the members gave to him. Yesterday he was sustained to receive the Aaronic priesthood in the office of a priest, but he will have to be set apart next week. We found out that his grandma was a member. Rafael came to church too, the third time in a row. but his mom went to vote and Daniela was sick.
So being a zone leader is a lot different from being a district leader. In some ways it is easier, but in other ways it is harder. The good side is that my companion and I are both zone leaders, and we both have almost a year and a half in the mission, so any challenges we have we can face them together. In our zone there are two districts, one has 4 companionships and the other has 5. The district leaders do the interviews for the investigators of the companionships in their district, and we interview the investigators of the district leaders, since they can`t interview their own investigators. Instead of doing district meetings every week, we only have to plan one zone meeting every 6 weeks. We also have to plan with the district leaders, the iniciatives of every change. There are usually three iniciatives each change, which are all like fun little plans to help the missionaries improve and learn how to do the work better. On the first Friday of every change we have a meeting called "concilio" where all of the zone leaders (about 18 in total) go to the mission home and we talk with President Jones and he tells us about the vision that he has for the next change and what we wants the missionaries to focus on the next 6 weeks, and he asks for ideas from all of us. We had the meeting this past Thursday in Santiago. It is from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. and we eat breakfast and lunch in the mission home. The weird thing about the meeting this Thursday was that President Jones never took time to just talk to all of us. He made most of us talk about how to make the mission better. He usually takes the last half hour of zone conferences and concilio to give one last super spiritual class and then finish with his testimony, but he did it differently this time. He stood up and said "I want all of you to think about who Jesus Christ is and pick the scripture that the spirit indicates to you." and so we all picked a scripture and read them one by one. here is a list of the scriptures that we read:
Alma 7:11-12
Mosìah 3:7-81
Nephi 9:19
Mark 15:24
Alma 34:14-15
Moroni 7:47
D&C 6:363
Nephi 11:10-14
Ether 3:13-14
Mosiah 3:172
Nephi 2:26
Isaiah 40:29-313
Nephi 27:13-14
Mosiah 14:2-7
D&C 45:3-5
D&C 50:41-45
D&C 19:16-19
Luke 22:40-443
Nephi 15:9
Alma 42:23
Mosiah 15:8-91
Nephi 21:14, 16 (my favorite scripture in the Book of Mormon, but nobody read it during the concilio, I put it in after). It was a very spiritual meeting. I have come to realize early in my mission, that the only reason that this work even exists is because of Jesus Christ. And the only thing that can truly motivate us to participate in His work is Love. Nothing else is a strong enough motivation to keep working as a missionary for 2 years. I know that He is sustaining me in every step that I take. President said in his closing testimony that day: "I am here so that I can use every last bit of energy that I have in the service of my Saviour Jesus Christ. Every time I think that I can`t go any farther, that my energy has all run out, He gives me more energy, He makes me stronger and helps me keep going." I know that this is true. I hope you all have a great Christmas and can feel the love of the Saviour and help bring that love to other people, as you have already done to me. I love you!!!
Elder Cloward

Good News

2009-12-08T18:47:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,
Well,there are many eventful things that have happened this last week. Most eventful starting with yesterday. We were eating lunch and we got a call from President Jones. He talked to Elder Butròn and called him as assistant! Haha Elder Butròn was definitely not expecting that. President always calls the assistants the Sunday before changes so that they can be there Tuesday morning and help with changes. So Elder Butròn had about 3 hours to say bye to a few people and then pack up. Elder Finter and Elder Williams (the assistants) came to the pension and picked him up. Elder Williams is going home in three weeks, and he will be a traveling assistant until he goes home, which means that he goes to a different sector every day and does divisions with a different companion every day. Elder Butròn will be with Elder Finter. Right now my companion is Elder Delong, but he is just a temporary companion. On Tuesday we will go to changes together, and we will take his new companion back to his sector, and I will come back here with my new companion. Also, in order for you to understand a little better the sitiuation, there is something I have to tell you that happened 6 weeks ago when I got to Talagante. On the day of changes President called me and asked me if I would accept the calling to be a zone leader, and of course I accepted even though I was really nervous. At first I didn`t want to tell the family because I really want to avoid the whole "look at me I`m a zone leader" attitude, cuz that`s just stupid. I`ve met a lot of moms in the mission who have missionary sons and they only talk about the leadership positions that their sons have "my son`s a district leader and he only has 7 months in the mission blablabla". Although I know that they are just proud of their sons. But if I had a son that was a missionary I wouldn`t be proud of him for that, I would just be proud of him for working as hard as he can, whether he has a leadership position or not. It`s really not that big of a deal anyway. But as I thought about it more, I realized that it was selfish of me to not tell you about my experiences in the mission. So then I decided to tell you about it, and then I just kinda forgot. So now I am telling you. the end. So the zone leaders are usually a companionship. Last change, Elder Butròn and I were the zone leaders, and now that he is gone, a new companion will come to help me with the zone. I will let you know who he is next week.
In other news, President jones is going to send 4 new missionaries to the zone to help in two of the branches that need more support: Esmeralda and Cordillera. They will only be here for 3 weeks. The two missionaries that will be working in Cordillera will live with us, since they obviously can`t live with the sister missionaries that are currently working in Cordillera. And the Elders in Esmeralda will live in Esmeralda.
In other news, Daniela the nine year old, is very excited to get baptized. She made a deal with her brother Rafael that he has to get reactviated so that he can baptize her. When we were in a lesson with her on Friday she said "I`m already ready to get baptized, I`m just waiting for Rafael to come back to church" Every time that she prays in the lessons she prays that Rafael can try harder to become active in church again. Rafael came the last two weeks, but he is struggling with the word of wisdom. The Branch President said that if he works hard he should be ready to baptize her by the end of the month. Also, yesterday as Elder Butròn was saying his goodbyes, we talked to Ana and told her: "Ana, you could get baptized two weeks from now. You are ready. Will you prepare yourself for an interview next weekend?" And she said yes! So Elder Delong and I went by last night to teach a lesson and she has a fecha for December 19.
To answer your questions: 1. i got the package from grandma and grandpa. Thank you very much 2. No, we did not get to watch the Christmas Devotional - so thank you for taping it. I think that's all for this week.
Love,
Elder Cloward

Cuenta tus bendiciones

2009-12-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

Dear family,
Thanks so much for the list of blessings that you sent me, that was a really great idea. I feel like my greatest blessing is having a family that loves me and supports me and lives the gospel. There are so many Elders here who are the only members in their family (like my companion, well his little brother is a member too, but they are pretty much alone) I am also grateful for the blessing of being on a mission and having the opportunity to dedicate this time to the salvation of my brothers and sisters here in Chile. It`s pretty great. It makes me so happy to know that my small sacrifice during these last...17? months has blessed our family so much and also my many new friends here in Chile that have accepted the Gospel as well as those we have taught. Although, I also know that you are all being blessed through your individual efforts to live the Gospel.
As I have study the Book of Mormon throughout my life, I have realized that one of the phrases that is most repeated is when the Lord says “inasmuch as ye keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land”. I know that this promise is true.
This past weekend we had district conference (like stake conference, but with the district) and the person that presides over the district is the mission president, so President Jones was there and he spoke. He said that life is really just easy, but we are the ones that make it complicated. If we just do what the Lord asks of us, our lives will be easy. I can see that in his family (and also in ours) that we have truly been blessed with happiness because we just keep the commandments. Sometimes we are stubborn and think that our way is better than the Lord`s way, and that`s when we start to have problems. To Mom and Dad, thank you so much for raising us kids and teaching us correct gospel principals. I know that none of us are perfect, but as I grew up I could see that both of you had the desire to keep the Spirit of the Lord in our home, and I thank you so much for your efforts. Your love for others has been a wonderful example to me. To Janessa and Cara, thank you for being my big sisters and being my example. I have seen how both of you have fought with different trials and challenges, but have never put aside your values. Your faith and perseverance are truly examples to me. You have both shown me, in two different ways, how it is possible for us to live the gospel every day. I know that the Lord will bless you for your obedience because you truly seek to do His will before your own. This Thursday I barely realized that it was Thanksgiving, but I did open the tie, and wore it all day. Thank you so much-I love it! Elder Butròn and I both enjoyed the fudge. I got all of the packages and letters, thank you so much for sending me everything.
President Jones always says that if we are unhappy it is because we are only thinking about ourselves. When we think about others and count our blessings we are happy. Therefore, in this moment I am happy, and hope that all of you are too! I love you all and can`t wait for next Thanksgiving when we can all count our blessings together.
Love,
Elder cloward

2009-12-01T15:36:00.000-08:00

Elder Cloward standing by a train bridge on the outskirts of his sector.

A gringo cow (Elder Cloward) and a peruvian cow (Elder Butron).

Elder Cloward milking a cow.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-29T15:15:00.000-08:00

Elder Cloward eating mashed potatoes

Feliz Dia de Gracias!

2009-11-29T14:55:00.000-08:00

Dear family,
So here`s a cool story: I went to the coast! We had zone conference on Wednesday. one of the hermano`s from Isla de Maipo (one of the sectors in our zone) took all 14 of the missionaries in his van to San Antonio (the sector where Elder Butterfield was born). The sad part is that we didn`t get to see the coast. The chapel wasn`t on the coast like I thought it was. San Antonio is really pretty though, it`s like a city built on a bunch of hills.
The investigators have progressed a lot this week, despite some challenges that they have had. For example, Nicolas broke up with Ana on Friday. Elder Butròn was really mad at him, because it is really hard for Ana to feel the spirit when they keeping breaking up and getting back together. The good news is that Ana came to church anyway yesterday, even though she broke up with Nico.
Margarita and Daniela had to go to San Antonio this weekend for Margarita`s mom`s birthday, but next Sunday they should come.
We also had a good experience with permaneced this past week. Our branch president gave us a list of 20 names of inactive members to visit, and we were able to visit 18 of the 20 addresses, but sadly of those 18 we were not able to teach permaneced a single time. (due to addresses that don`t exist, peolpe moving 10 years ago, etc.). But yesterday Elder Butròn and I went to do a follow up visit with Dania, an hermana that we had taught Permanaced to a couple weeks back. We went by her house and her younger brother Màximo answered the door and said that Dania wasn`t home, but invited us to come in anyway. He then told us that he was also baptized about 10 years ago (he`s 19 now) with his sister, so we taught him permaneced. What`s funny is that we had already visited Dania 3 times and we had never seen Màximo before, we didn`t even know she had a brother. After the lesson, Màximo commited to come to church yesterday. We went to pick him up and he stayed for all 3 hours. He has an interview with the branch president on Tuesday! we are excited to see his progress. we really need more priesthood holders here so that the church can grow.

1. I got the package on Wednesday. Elder Butròn got excited when he saw the tree and wanted to put it up, but I told him it is better to wait until after we have changes (changes are december 8). We are hoping that we will stay together for another change, but we`ll see what happens with that. I just don`t want to tape everything up and then get changed to another sector.
2. I haven`t seen any protestors. The only thing I can tell you are that the Chilean presidential elections are coming up in December, and they only have elections every 6 years so it`s kind of a big deal. But everybody`s calm about it. They are just campaigning a lot.
4. I have two bags because the other one is my bag I take on divisions. when I got to Talagante Elder Butròn and I had a meeting in Santiago early Friday morning, so Thursday night we traveled to Temple Square and slept in the MTC and mission home.
5. In our chapel there are two different branches, Talagante and Cordillera. the sister missionaries from Cordillera teach the english class Saturday mornings. so that way Elder Butron and I have time for service and other things. Although we were considering starting a piano lesson class. I`m not exactly professional, (very far from it) but I can teach some basic steps. The only problem is that there is only one piano and it would be kind of hard to teach a group.
6. There are a few sectors that use bikes (3 in our zone, a couple sectors in the coast too) because the sectors are so big that it takes literally hours to walk from one end to the other.

Well I hope you all have a great week!
Love you and enjoy Thanksgiving dinner!
Love,
Elder Cloward

Karaoke night in Talagante

2009-11-17T22:58:00.000-08:00

Dear family,

This Friday we had a ward activity: branch karaoke night! We have been planning it since I got to this sector. The only problem is that we share our chapel with another branch (the Cordillera branch, Cordillera meaning "mountain range") and they had a ward talent show planned on the same night. So we said why don`t we just combine the two activities into a super 2 branch extravaganza? They were like "nah, I`m good". We decided that our branch would do our activity from 7:00 to 8:30 and they would start their activity at 8:30. Then of course we know that complications would come. Chileans are never punctual. Elder Butròn and I got to the activity late too because we were doing a service project. The guy with the sound system didn`t get there til 8:00, and he got to the chapel slightly drunk (my companion tells me). Luckily Elder Butròn worked in sound equipment before his mission and he knows how to set up sound equipment. So we didn`t really start our activity until 8:00, and then Cordillera started getting to the chapel at 8:30. Once again we offered to just combine the two activities, and they said they didn`t want to because the young women didn`t want to dance in front of so many people. So we kept our activity going until 9:15 then told our branch they had to leave because Cordillera had to use the chapel. The activity turned out really well, despite all of the complications. There were almost 60 people there, which is pretty good considering that the attendance on Sunday is around 115. Everybody had a great time. I`m not sure if I told you, but our branch here is divided in two sectors, just like El Rosal. We share the branch with sister missionaries, Hermana Miguel from Argentina and Hermana Maples from Norcal. The sister missionaries and i sang karaoke too. We sang "I heard him come" (I think that`s what it`s called). Elder Butròn couldn`t sing with us because he was working the sound equipment.

In other news, the investigators are progressing pretty well. There was a problem on Wednesday. Margarita and Daniela came to the chapel because the soc soc had an enrichment activity and they made fruitcake. Daniela was playing with the other kids in the chapel while her mom was baking. Apparently Daniela fell off of the stage in the cultural hall and hurt herself. That`s a pretty considerable fall, but she is fine now. Her wrist is just a little bruised. Margarita didn`t want to come on church on Sunday because she said that there`s no point in coming to church if she can`t get baptized. We need to explain to her that she will still receive blessings in by going to church even if she can`t get baptized yet. Ana is doing well. She came to church for the second time this week. We invited her to be baptized, and she said she wants too! But she doesn`t have a baptismal date yet because, as she told us, she wants to make sure that she gets baptized for the right reasons, not just for her boyfriend. Elder Butròn should be able to help her, since he had the same experience in his conversion. Also, I got a letter from Andrew on Wednesday. He seems to be doing well. It`s ironic how we can contact a complete stranger on the street and talk to them about the church without any problem but with our own friends and family we are much more hesitant.

This past Thursday I did divisions with Elder Jergins. I went to another sector called La Islita (the little island). They had bikes there! I have not had bikes in any of my other areas and it was nice riding. We stopped by a retirement home and visited people in the home.

Well family, thanks for your prayers, love and your support. I love all of you so much and of course I miss you all, but I am working as hard as I can every day so that the Lord can bless all of you. You are in my prayers always. The church is true and I love seeing how the Gospel of Jesus Christ can change peoples lives.

Love,
Elder Cloward

Elder Cloward in front of the Santiago Temple

Elder Cloward and Presidente Aransibia

Elder Cloward & Elder Butron resting after a service project

Goin to the country -Gonna eat a lot of peaches

2009-11-14T21:26:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,
That`s what Elder Cannon always said when we were together. He really wanted to go to the campo. I love that kid. Anyway, this week was pretty good. I haven`t continued taking the medications (since they ran out) and I feel a lot better. The members here told me when I arrived that the fresh air of the campo would heal me. I had been in Santiago pollution for 14 months, but now we have wide open spaces. (not in our sector, but just outside of it.) I wanted to go take a pic next to the campo and send it to you for the christmas card but we haven`t been able to yet. If we have time I`ll take it today and try to send it to you later, but if not i`ll have it for you si o si next Monday. Also, just a heads up, the new balance shoes I had were all torn up. Therefore, today my compi and I went to buy some sick fùtbol shoes so that I can dominate when we play soccer. I bought them with the wells fargo debit card and they cost $22,000 pesos, which should be around $38 màs o menos. So that`s that. So here`s that low-down on some investigators: Ana- she is the (ex)girlfriend of a member in our ward. There is a family here by the name of Pineda, the first Pineda family that I have met in my mission! Pretty cool, huh? So Nicolas, the son, is about 24 years old. He got baptized 4 years ago. His parents got baptized about 2 months ago. His girlfriend Ana came to church yesterday, but we think they broke up, but we are not sure. We want to teach her, but away from her boyfriend. Elder Butròn was introduced to the church thanks to his girlfriend (who is now serving as a missionary in Perù, isn`t that sweet?) but when he took the discussions he didn`t want his girlfriend to be there, it was just him and the missionaries, so that he would get baptized because he wanted to do it, not for his girlfriend. Margarita and Daniela- Margarita is the mother of Rafael, a recent convert who is about my age. Daniela is his little sister. They are both really good investigators, but Margarita has the famous “I`m married to my ex still and now I live with another man” problem, that great stumbling block to the progress of all golden investigators in Chile. Hugo- the friend of Bernardita, another recent convert. He`s a cool guy, and he is passing through some hard times economically. He lives with his daughter and with his grandson (a little baby boy) we went to his house on Saturday morning with a group of members to cut his grass and clean up his lawn a little bit. Hector and Josefina- An married couple, about 60 years old each. They are really catholic, and have been investigating for a long time and aren`t really progressing. They just like to listen. Elder Butròn and I are considering the possibility of not teaching them anymore. So that`s who we`re teaching! Good times. We`re doing great here, I`ll let you know as soon as I get the package from Mario. Thanks so much for sending it to me! I love all and hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Cloward

Talagante!! Ever heard of it?

2009-11-14T14:30:00.000-08:00

Dear family,As you can see from the subject line, I am in Talagante. Now I am sure you are all wondering where it is. Let me explain: Talagante is an itsybitsy little city about 35 kilometers to the west of Santiago. I am outside of Santiago for the first time in my mission!!! So that`s cool. We are not in the city of Santiago or on the coast. We are right in the middle, the part of the mission that is called "El Campo", which means countryside. Our sector is mostly city, but when we are near the boarder we can see these huge green beautiful fields of grapes and other assorted produce. It is so beautiful. Also, another funny story: Elder Mawhinney is in my district! So that`ll be fun. My companion is...........................Elder Butròn from Perù!!!! Hurray! Elder Butròn is amazing. He has about 13 months in the mission (the time I had after I finished my first change with Elder Cannon). He has been a member of the church for two (count em, two) years. He got baptized when he was 23 and one year later he left on his mission. He is honestly one of the hardest working companions I`ve ever had. He started his mission in El Rosal. He got there right before I got special changes out of Rivas Vicuña, so I knew him for about a week, and all my mission I`ve heard great things about him. Also, Talagante is not a stake, it`s a district!!! There are no wards here, they are all branches!!!! So the church is still growing here, and the local leaders have missionary work as one of their top priorities. We also heard from the district presidency that by the end of the year President Jones will send in the papers to make this district a stake. So we need to focus a lot on the branches. More than anything we need priesthood holders. In order to be a ward, a branch needs to have 25 active, worthy, tithe paying priesthood holders. So we will definitely be looking for them, both inactive members to bring back to the church and future priesthood holders that still haven`t been baptized. We definitely have our work cut out for us but I am so excited. I love the Lord and I know this is His church and I am so thankful for the opportunity to serve Him. Well there are tons of things I still want to tell you but we have to go because every Monday at 12:30 we play soccer in our chapel with the zone. Have a great week. Love you all, and thanks for the package!!!

Love,

Elder Cloward

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes out of Rosal 2

2009-11-09T22:40:00.000-08:00

Dear family,
So I have changes this week. We have a ton to do today between packing and saying chaito to the members of Barrio El Rosal. I had a great 6 months here but now it is time to move on. I have seen the lives of many change while in this ward and I will always have a great love from this ward and the people that have touched my life. The Lord knows what is best for me and it is time to move to a new area. With each day of service my love for our Savior, His gospel and my testimony have grown.

Primary children: El Rosal

Sad to hear that BYU got owned. Oh well it`s been known to happen. I`m also sure that Mom is not happy with the Yankees being in the world series... again.... The appointments went well last week. On Tuesday and Wednesday we had to stay in a few hours so that I could rest, and then we went out to the appointments that we had. On Saturday we had a really good lesson with Pedro and his family. We were finishing the lesson with Pedro, talking about the importance of service. As we were finishing the lesson, Cristina and Ariel church for the first two hours. She said that the problem she has is with Relief Society. Firgot home, and sat with us. We were there talking with them for another 45 minutes. Cristina opened up a lot to us and explained the REAL reason why she doesn`t want to go to church. She told us that she actually has no problem with going tost of all she doesn`t like being separated from her husband because she doesn`t know any of the hermanas (Elder Hernandez and his new comp will work on that by bringing the sisters to her house to meet her) and second she said that the hermanas are cry babies and kind of fake. I thought it was really funny. So we told her no problem, she can start by coming to church for just the first two hours. We`ll see. We are also teaching this lady named Mirka, a reference from one of the families in the ward. She is a physics teacher and she is very catholic. She said she is afraid that everything she has believed all her life could be wrong. So she is a little scared of changing religions. Also last Wednesday we went to teach Maicol (in spanish it is pronounced the same as Michael) and his girlfriend Susana. Maicol is a member, but inactive and wants to come back to the church, little by little. He and Susana are in their early 20`s and they have a one year old daughter named Isidora. Darling`s baptism was great. The sister missionaries did a great job teaching her. I had to interview her twice, cuz the first time I felt that she needed more time to prepare. But she was very happy to be baptized. She originally asked me to baptize her, but we are trying to have the members do the baptisms so that the new members can establish friendships with the members, not with the missionaries, because obviously we missionaries won`t stay here forever.

Darling's Baptism

Our plans for halloween are the same plans we have every day. We have the same schedule as always. It`s basically a normal day for us, it`s just that people walk around in costumes asking for candy. Some companionships exchange name tags for the day. That is the most extreme we can go on the costumes! So I have a funny story for you this week. We are teaching this guy named Osvaldo. His wife is a member of the church, but he is not very religious. At all. He believes in God but he hasn`t prayed to know if the church is true, mostly just because he doesn`t care whether or not it is. But he`s a really funny guy. Anyway, we were teaching him yesterday. On Saturday his wife went to get her Patriarcal Blessing. And she told us the in her patriarcal blessing it is says that she will go hand in hand with her husband to to be sealed in the temple. So she told Osvaldo, "Well osvaldo, looks like it`s already been decided! Looks like you`ll just have to be baptized after all" his wife told him that she would laugh so hard the day that he gets baptized. It was pretty funny. Well that`s the lowdown for this week. I will be looking for your package in the district meeting this Wednesday! Although I`m not sure which district I`ll be in! Haha- aren`t changes fun? Well I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Cloward Backyard Mowing Finished !!

Noches de Hogar

2009-11-09T08:02:00.000-08:00

Dear family
So i have very little time to write today, sorry I didn`t write to Janessa or Cara either. We had our zone activity in Rivas Vicuña and we played soccer and ate pizza, and we were there way too long. Then I got home and I was/am feeling a little sick and fell asleep for about an hour. After getting showered and dressed we only had a half hour left to do internet, and we have an appointment right now. Well here`s a quick review of the weeks activities: we did two family home evenings with members where they invited their friends, we have another appointment with one of them tomorrow, and the other family said they would talk to their member friends to say when we can come by. Yesterday I interviewed Darling again, and now that she has permission from her parents to be baptized I felt the spirit confirm that she is ready for baptism. She and the sister missionaries were both very excited. Well that is sadly all that I have time for today. Sorry. next week I`ll write more! Thanks for all of your emails and fotos!
Love,
Elder Cloward

actividad de servicio

2009-11-09T07:51:00.000-08:00

Dear family,
Well first of all Ithought I should explain why I am writing on Tuesday and not Monday. Yesterday was a holiday for South America called "day of the races" meaning all the races of the world. So the area presidency of Chile decided it was a good opportunity for a service activity. Every stake in Chile picked a different activity to do. We went to an elementary school in our zone. We painted the walls in the staircases and pulled weeds, cut the grass and many other things. It was like doing an Eagle project. Very fun and it was nice to help the community! There were about 130 members and missionaries there. Speaking of yard work, we have to cut the grass in our front and back yard. it is getting to be very very long. When I got here in May there was no grass in the front or back yard. Then it rained a lot and a bunch of stuff started to grow. I am actually pretty sure that it`s just weeds. idk. Here is some good news: Pedro was ordained a priest on Sunday! We weren`t able to visit him all of last week because of his work schedule but we have a visit with him tonight. He is doing great. Maybe he'll be able to soften Cristina`s heart a little bit. Liliana came to church yesterday, but she is just as stubborn as ever. We are starting a new iniciative with the members in our ward. We want to go to as many member families as we can and challenge/invite them to invite a friend or neighbor to an fhe with us. We think it will be a good way to find new investigators since it has been so hard for us lately. Thank you for sending the package I can`t wait to get it! Elder Holland`s talk was so good! He always takes out the trash in general conference. He studied law at yale apparently. I don`t know what that has to do with anything, but it`s interesting. Tell Alta and Thomas congratulations! How has Thomas`s health been? We got to watch the conference in english with all of the gringo missionaries. of the 14 elders and sisters in our zone, only 3 of them are latin and there are 11 gringos. It was a pretty normal weekend. We just watched conference and between the sessions we ate lunch with our ward in the stake center. I hope all of you have a great week. The church is true and I am so thankful for the opportunity to serve. I love you all!
Love,
Elder Cloward

Semena 23 - Another Temple in Chile!!

2009-10-12T08:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Family:
This past March we had a special conference for the entire Southern half of Chile. We had several area authorities here and there was some discussion about different locations in Chile. So we figured they were planning on building a temple in the South, but we weren't sure of the exact location. And it HAPPENED!!! That is so exciting. The only sad part is that for the Saturday morning session there were only about 55 members of our stake in the stake center to hear the news. Although there were many people watching it on the internet at home. We got to watch conference in English with all the Gringo missionaries. Of the 14 Elders and Hermana's in our zone, only 3 are Latin. We watched conference and in between sessions we ate lunch with our Ward in the Stake Center. Elder Holland`s talk was so good! He always gives the best talks in general conference. He studied law at Yale, apparently. Tell Alta and Thomas congratulations! How has Thomas`s health been?
I am actually pretty sure that I`ve gotten a little chubbier while on the mission, but not much, maybe about 5 pounds. But if I look thin that`s great. Maybe I grew.
At the conference center i saw Eduardo Oneto Correa. He is super active in the church and comes every Sunday. He is twelve now and will soon receive the Aaronic Priesthood. It is hard for him though because he is the only one in the family that comes to church every week. Joselyn and Michelle come to seminary and mutual during the week, but not to church because it is too early Sunday morning and they like to sleep in. That is what the elders in that sector told me.
We are having a hard time finding new investigators. But little by little we are finding more people. Last night we taught Fan Fan (the Haitian) for the first time in 5 months. He is doing well but is working Sundays. We have another appointment with him tonight. We are also teaching another Haitian that lives with him named Joab. Joab was going to come to the conference with us this weekend but he got sick yesterday. We went to the conference with Pedro, who came to the morning sessions on Saturday and Sunday. He really enjoyed the conference.
Next Sunday he should receive the Aaronic Priesthood and be ordained as a Priest. Cristina is being a little stubborn, but that`s okay. she is progressing, but very slowly. She came to the FHE at the Bishop`s house last Monday. The Bishop gave the lesson and talked about testimonies and how to get a testimony. She told us on Saturday that we will not get her to come to church. I told her that is fine; we will just bring the congregation to her house and do the church services there. She laughed but didn`t think it was the best idea.
We are also working with a physics teacher named Mirk. She was a reference from Familia Campos, some members in the ward. She used to live under their apartment building but recently moved away. She told us she would come to conference, but didn`t so we will have to go by and see what`s up.
I`ll let you know next week. Hope everything is well! Have a great week.
Love,
Elder Cloward

Semena 22 Elder Rossi-Herrera's Farewell

2009-10-12T07:31:00.000-07:00

Dear family:
So I thought that Elder Butterfield looked kinda different in the photo, then I realized that it is because he didn`t have his namebadge on! haha. Thanks for the foto - I'm so glad you finally met Elder Butterfield and his family. That is neat that there were 3 Hermana's from our mission there as well. I saved the picture on my usb drive so I won`t lose it. I always have to delete the emails with the pics due to the mailbox size.
Cool story-last night we had a genealogy activity for recent converts in the Stake Center. They just so happened to be doing Abraham Rossi`s farewell at the same time. He was so excited to see me. I took a couple of pictures with him. I told him that my family wanted to write him and send him cookies in the MTC and in California. His parents were thrilled with the idea. They will send me his mtc and mission adresses in a letter. His Mom and Dad said that I can`t lose contact with them throughout the years.
That ward still remembers me, which is great. I think they will always be my favorite ward here. The young men wanted me to take a picture next to Ariel Ortega, the Bishop`s Son, bc they say we look like brothers.
So this sector needs a bit of a jump start. We are working hard trying to find new investigators, since pretty much all of the investigators, for one reason or another, aren`t progressing. Although tonight Cristina agreed to come with Pedro and us to a FHE at the Bishops house. Tomorrow Pedro will have his interview with the Bishop so he can receive the Aaronic Priesthood. Lilana still comes to church and wants to get baptized (in a river). We are hoping she changes her mind soon. I sent a letter home today. It should get there between 15 to 20 days from now.
We are going to fly kites right now with Felipe and family.
Sorry I ddin`t write much but there`s really not much to write about.
We are working really hard- trying to find people to teach. Hopefuly next week we will have more new people to tell you about!
I am so thankful for this opportunity I have to serve my Heavenly Father. The church is true and I am looking forward to watching conference this weekend!
I love you all and you are always in my prayers. Have a great week.
Love,
Elder Cloward

18th and Elder Hernandez

2009-09-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

Some members of El Rosal dancing the cueca on the 18th

Elder Mawhinney and I the day of changes. He is in Talagante, which is in the campo just outside of Santiago. Elder Hernandez was his companion last change.

Elder Hernandez and I the day of changes

Semana 21 18 de Septiembre

2009-09-27T19:13:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
This Friday Chile had their national Independence Day holiday party extravaganza. It was kind of a hard day to find people. The sister missionaries gave us some brownies, so I naturally put them on a paper plate and went out with Elder (not telling you his name yet), my new companion, to go knock some doors with brownies. We said something like this "oh, well I hope your having a great day and enjoying the Chilean Independence fiestas. I wanted to offer you a dessert from my country. They are called brownies. now I also know that you don`t know me, so I will also eat a little bit to show you that it is okay to eat. (I take a piece of brownie and eat it) would you like to try some?" So that almost worked. haha. Some people took the brownies, but everybody was busy with guests and family members partying it up, so nobody let us in. In the morning we went to the ward activity and watched the Chileans dance cueca, the national dance of Chile (I`ll send fotos). We also ate mote con huesillo (a dried out peach in a glass of preserve juice with wheat, weird, but strangely delicious) and lots of empanadas. I tried to fly a kite, but the wind was very inconsistent. So I just gave a bunch of kites to small Chilean children, and they broke them. haha. oh well they were cheap (20 cents each). So about the investigators:
Flia Casas: Victor started drinking and smoking again! and said he won`t come back to church! Irene said she doesn`t really see the point in us going back to teach her, she`s not willing to do anything until Victor steps up. Fabiàn said he "thinks" he`s an atheist. We`ll just have more time to dedicate to other investigators. My new companion says that Fabiàn might have a chance of progressing. We`ll see, its already been 3 months.
Pedro is doing well. We did an fhe in his house with Cristina. We watched finding faith in Christ. it was cool. We invited Cristina to stay with us and Pedro when we teach him. She said she would do it, but that we can`t ask her questions or make her read.
Liliana still wants to get baptized in a river.
The eight new people we found last week, none of them have been able to receive us and teach them again. nice.
So it`s been a long week and kind of difficult, but we are just going to focus on finding new investigators. and when I say we I mean my new companion, Elder Hernandez from El Salvador who has 7 months in the mission and is the 5th of 8 sons in his family and who is kind of short, and I. Yes family, that`s right. my new companion is Jaime Adonài Hernandez Hernandez. He no speaka english. Haha but we`re working on that. He`s pretty cool. I`ll send a pic.
so yesterday I interviewed a 16 year old girl named Darling who the sister missionaries are teaching. I felt that it would be best for her to wait 2 more weeks to be baptized instead of this saturday. She was alright with it, but it was kind of hard for the Sister missionaries at first, but they said that they trust my judgment and know that i am doing my best to listen to the spirit. The problem is that Darling`s mom is a super inactive member of the church. she started coming to church when her Aunt, from Viña del Mar, came to visit her, every week she comes with her Aunt. the problem is though that soon her Aunt will go back to Viña, and I am worried that without her support it will be harder for Darling to keep coming to church. So we are going to give her a couple weeks more to have a firmer foundation.
Elder Cannon went to las naciones, olimpo stake, still in maipù, so he`s not too far from me. It is weird when the kids grow up and move away, isnt it?I honestly felt sad when he left, I`ve never felt that way about any other companion. I was sad when Elder Butterfield and I got changed, but when Elder Cannon left it was different, I was worried if I taught him well enough, how he`ll turn out as a missionary, etc. but I know he`ll turn out right, he`s a good Elder.
well that`s about it for now, I`m gonna bounce and send some fotos!
Love,
Elder Cloward

Work left to do in El Rosal ll

2009-09-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

SURPRISE!!
Elder Cannon has changes and I don`t. So that`s cool. There is still a lot of work for me to do here in this sector, since I am still here. I really thought that I was getting changed, but I trust that this is the Lord`s will for me at this point in my mission. I know that Elder Cannon will do well wherever he is sent. So I will continue as district leader, and have a new companion to train. A gringo or latino I don`t know, we`ll find out tomorrow! I`ve been with gringos since February, my last latin companion was Elder Noguera. That was.... 7 months ago, WOW. It's been a while. So this last week we worked really hard looking for new investigators. I didn`t want to leave Elder Cannon in this sector without investigators. We found 8 new people to teach this week, so we were pretty excited. 4 of them we found doing a brownie activity with an hermana, 2 from visiting inactive members (part of the permaneced program) and 2 from a door that we knocked. I will be sure to inform you more about these people next week. We prepared a lesson plan for familia Casas to teach them tonight based on Moses and the ¿brass? serpent. All they have to do is look in order to be healed. It was Elder Cannon`s idea. I thought it was an excellent idea. Maybe we can help them to start living the gospel as a family again. Last night we had a cita with pedro. We left him with a goal to start reading scriptures to Cristina and Ariel everyday to help them learn more. Liliana is still coming to church for Sacrament meeting, then she leaves to go to work. We will see what happens with that. Well, i`m excited to be here for another change, hoping to see lots of miracles and be guided by the spirit to those who are waiting for the gospel. I love you all so much and you are always in my prayers!

love,
Elder Cloward

Only a two generation picture Elder Butterfield and I after a zone meeting District Bowling Party

2009-09-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

Semana 19 El Veranito de San Juan

2009-09-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Family:
So I thought spring was coming, because last week there were two days that were super hot. but apparently there is something called the "veranito de San Juan" (the little summer of Saint John) which is just a tiny summer that happens in the middle of winter, but then winter comes again. So it has rained a lot the last couple of days. We are working very hard. Fabian and Irene aren`t progressing anymore. They are so busy with their negicio. We might have to stop going by them, which I believe is pretty much the worst thing that happens to us as missionaries. I told Irene that they have to start keeping the comandments and God will bless them. She said that God won`t just come to their house and give them money. I told her that obviously it won`t happen like that but God will not let her family go hungry if she keeps the commandments. She said "Elder, you are wrong" and I told her "no hermana, I`m not wrong. God is not wrong, and this is a promise from Him, not from me" so we left it at that. I just don`t know what else to do with them. We need to focus our time on the people that are progressing and making an effort. We just haven`t found many other good people to teach. We are going to focus on that this week so that I can leave Elder Cannon with some good work. I am pretty sure that I am leaving this change, but nothing is set in stone. Yesterday we ate lunch with the stake president. he`s 38. Friday night we had a big FHE in the chapel. We watched this movie about missionary work and had all of the members write down the name of someone they know that needs the Gospel. Pedro is doing well, he paid his tithing on Friday! He couldn`t come to church yesterday because of his work schedule, and he can`t come next week either. After that i think he`ll be able to come for a month straight. That`s good that Mitch got my tape. I hope we can get that around to a lot of people before we finish our missions. So that`s about all for this week. I hope all is well at home!
Love, Elder Cloward

Semana 18 Almost Primavera in Santiago

2009-08-31T20:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
So Friday night we went by Familia Casas home. We wanted to teach Irene and Fabiàn about faith, repentance, baptism, confirmation ETTE. So when we were talking about faith we asked both of them if they have faith in Jesus Christ. They both said no, or that they weren`t sure. Irene said that she has had a terrible week. The lesson was just really sad and there was a strong lack of the spirit. I told them "you haven`t been reading the scriptures or praying as a family, have you?" They were shocked and asked me how I knew. I told them that we could feel the difference in their house. There is so much importance in doing the basic things of the gospel, read the scriptures, family prayer, FHE, etc. They said that they could feel a difference too, so we commited them to start reading and praying as a family again. They still haven`t come to church because someone always has to be in the negocio to open it on Sunday mornings, and they have to come three weeks in a row before they can get baptized. So that was a low point in the week, but we will keep working with them and helping them all we can. Yesterday there was a special fireside about "permaneced", a special message from the Area Presidency in Chile about the importance of staying active in the church. We went to the stake center. I saw Abraham Rossi and his parents and brother Andrès there. Abraham is so excited to go to California. He was asking me a lot of questions about California and the area he will be serving. They told me to make sure I stay in contact with them. I talked to Alejandrina, Cristians mom (of Cristian and Javiera from my first sector). Abraham`s Dad said that Javiera keeps coming to church on a fairly regular basis. They said for me not to feel bad that she didn`t get baptized while I was there. Sometimes we reap and other times we sow, but he said that there was definitely a seed planted and that someday Javiera will be baptized, hopefully soon! Mom, that was just me assuming that I will leave on the 15th. I`ve been here a long time. but we`ll see what happens. I would love to stay. We went by Noelia's home on Tuesday with the Sister missionaries. They visited her yesterday by themselves and she told them she hasn`t had a drink since Tuesday. She is so different when she is sober, and much much happier. Cristina and Pedro will be coming to the chapel on Wednesday because they are doing a cueca class (the national dance of chile). Apparently Cristina loves to dance. Pedro wants to get her involved in the church, so we are going to focus on fellowshipping her and meeting the sisters in the ward. I feel this will really help her and the sisters in the ward are great. Pedro was confirmed yesterday, and Felipe blessed the sacrament (for the second time). Liliana`s son Eric had his birthday party yesterday. We came by after it was over and she gave us some cake. Her and Eric were arguing because she hid his beer from him (he just turned 18) and he was mad at her and wanted to know where it was. It was awkward. I feel bad for her because she just wants to help him. We told her to pray for guidance to know what to do to help her son.

We had a cool experience yesterday. On Saturday we went to amengual (another ward in our stake). The whole zone worked in that sector for the day. They have 1000 members registered and 90 come to church every week. Wow. Anyway, we were supposed to write our testimony in two Book of Mormons to give out while working there. I wrote my testimony in the books while driving the bus on the way there. I felt the spirit very strongly as I wrote my testimony in the second book. I didn`t end up giving the 2nd book out on Saturday. Yesterday we went with a Hermana to meet her neighbor, Ines. Ines is 80 years old and has had a very hard life. When she was 6 years old her parents left her in a nun convent against her will. She said she was not sure if God exists. I then remembered the Book of Mormon I had written the dedicatory in. I had it with me and I read to her what I wrote on Saturday. I told her that I believed that I had written those words especially for her, before we had ever met her. She was very grateful for the book and said she would read it. So that was a really neat experience. We are visiting her again this week. Well , we`ve gotta go we have a cita with Javiera (the girl that got baptized in a different ward) pray for us! I`ll keep praying for all of you, of course. Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Cloward

Pedro's Baptism

2009-08-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

The food pyramid, painted by Elder Cannon and Elder Cloward. I painted the dairy products, the fats and sweets, and the carrots.

2009-08-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

A lovely rainbow coming out of the chapel.

2009-08-25T21:24:00.000-07:00

Pedro's Bautismo Semana 17 Rosal ll

2009-08-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

Dear Familia:
So Pedro`s bautismo was very good. Everything went smoothly and the spirit was so strong. Plus Fabiàn Casas came to see the baptism too. After Elder`s quórum Victor went back home and brought Fabiàn to the Chapel for the baptism. Cristina is still not coming too church. I think she is just scared still. We are going to focus on helping her make friends in the church so that she will feel confident enough to go to church again. Ivàn is member of the church here. He got baptized the week before I got here. He investigated the church for almost a year before he got baptized, but while he was still an investigator he gave the missionaries 5 references that all got baptized before him, which include his parents, a guy he works with, and two other people. So we met Pedro through him when I was with Elder McBee. Familia Casas is doing well but they still haven`t been able to come to church. We want to talk to them about that this next weekend. I know that they won`t get baptized while I am here (I'm pretty sure I will be leaving September 15th, unless there are special changes, which I doubt). So I just want them to get baptized whether I am here or not. We need to focus on fellowshipping them too, because they might be too close with Elder Cannon and I which could cause problems when we leave. We want to teach them to trust in the Lord, and close their negocio on Sunday so that they can keep the Sabbath day Holy and come to church etc. We`ll see. Liliana is still in the same boat. She came to church yesterday but she hasn`t changed her mind about her baptism. Elder Cannon is more optimistic about the situation than I. So we`ll see. Friday night we were leaving our pension after dropping our clothes off and this lady walked by our house crying. So we caught up with her and talked to her. She was just crying for like 5 minutes and we couldn`t understand anything that she said. I could smell alcohol on her breath too (I find it funny that I never knew what alcohol smelled like before I got to Chile. The things I`ve learned on my mission...) so we told her to tell us about her problems and she wouldn`t but she gave us her address to pass by and visit her. Her name is Noelia. Saturday we ran into her again, (this time she was walking around with a bottle in her hand) and after talking to her we found out that her husband had cheated on her (I`m pretty sure that`s what she said but it was really hard to understand her). We told her that we would go to her house the next day. We went by yesterday and met her husband, Luis. He said that she has been an alcoholic for 4 years. He is sorry for what he did, but he just wants her to get better and stop drinking, but she still can`t forgive him. Luis also explained to us that Noelia has had a very difficult childhood becuase her Dad left the family... we talked about the importance of the atonement, repentance, and forgiving others. We told her that she won`t find the answer to her problems with alcohol. she has to turn to God and trust in Him and Christ. We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her to read and pray the next time she is tempted. She lives on the other side of El Rosal, the street that divides our sector from the Sister missionaries. So Tuesday we will pass by with the three of them and then we will let them continue teaching Noelia and Luis. So that is the news from this week. Hope all is well and that you are having a great week! Happy anniversary Mom and Dad!!!
Love,
Elder Cloward

Semana 16 en Rosal II

2009-08-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

"So Saturday morning Pedro had his interview with Elder Finter, one of the zone leaders. when they came down, Elder Finter said, "well, we talked about it and we decided that Pedro needs to set some goals and work towards them and then after a couple months he can get baptized, if he does get baptized" and then Pedro asked "I don`t get it, I thought I was prepared. Did the elders just do a bad job teaching me?" and then they were like "just kidding Pedro will get baptized next Sunday!" It was pretty funny/mean. I am just glad that he is getting baptized. He is a great man and truly wants to change his life, and he is setting the example for his family. I did divisions on Friday with Elder Finter. he is really cool. He is from Mesa Arizona, and grew up with Amy Giles. Brad Gulbrandsen was his roommate at BYU and is one of his best friends. weird, huh? He was in stover hall at BYU, and all of the girls from my freshman academy classes were in his ward. So we had a lot to talk about.

"Liliana is having a hard time. She said that she doesn`t want to talk about baptism anymore because she won`t change her mind. President Jones has been really concerned about her, but he said that there is nothing else we can do. It is just so sad that she is ready to be baptized and is letting something so trivial keep her from getting into the celestial kingdom. We are just praying that she will have a change of heart.

"So tonight we are having a noche de hogar at Pedro`s house and I am going to teach Cristina how to make brownies. Pedro is confident that she will get more involved in the church, but slowly, step by step. Ivan is going to come to the NDH with us, since Pedro asked Ivan to baptize him. Familia Casas is also doing well. they have set the goal to close their negocio on Sundays, since they have no time to be together as a family anymore. so Pedro just called me to confirm for the noche de hogar haha he wanted to know what exactly we would be doing. So anyways yeah the Casas family is doing well, Victor keeps pressuring Fabian to get baptized but Fabiàn still doesn`t feel ready, but I know that he will be baptized some day, and that is all that really matters. and Irene will too, she will just take some more time. so on Saturday Victor asked Elder Cannon to do him a favor, he asked him to paint the food pyramid and the solar system for Javiera`s colegio. So we had to do that this morning during p-day time which was cool. I will try sending pics of our paintings next week. I want to know if you can tell the difference between the parts that I painted and the parts that he painted.

"So that`s pretty much it for this week. Everything is going well. I am having a great time from Elder Cannon. He is doing wonderful. I am so happy to have the blessing of being a member of the church. I know that it is true. I am so thankful for that knowledge. People just need to soften their hearts and they will realize that this is Christ`s church. As Nephi says, sometimes people harden their hearts to such a level that the spirit has no place in them. We can just do our part and give them the opportunity to accept the gospel and there will always be people that will receive it and that makes it all worth it. Thank you for all your love and support. The end.
Love,
Elder Cloward"

Semana 15 en Rosal II

2009-08-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

"This week went really well for us. We have seen a lot of progress with Pedro Muñoz and his family, and other investigators are passing through some challenges but that is what this life is all about, right? So on Monday Elder Mcbee came here because he had to go home due to his back problems. He won`t be coming back as a missionary, so he is finishing his mission with 20 months. He went to Liliana`s house and we did an FHE there with her and a few members, Felipe came too.

"On Tuesday I called President Jones to ask him about Liliana`s baptism and he said that he felt she had to do it in the font and not in a river. So last night we went by and explained the situation to her. We told her basically that the only thing that she has to decide is if God is commanding her to be baptized in the chapel or if it is just some man. She said that she felt that it was just a man telling her to do it, so we told her that if that is the case than she is not ready to be baptized. She needs to understand that the Lord`s house is a house of order and he speaks to us through his authorized servants. So she will pray about it and see how she feels, but the answer is no... so that was fun.

"Familia Casas is having some challenges too, mostly due to the family business that has to be open 7 days a week. Victor just started a new job this week and now Irene has to stay in the negocio, and Fabiàn stays with her so that she doesn`t feel lonely. So we are going to talk to them about faith and help them to take the next step, which would be closing the negocio at least for a couple of hours on Sunday morning to come to church. We will see.

"Pedro is doing really well. He has his baptismal interview this Saturday morning, so we are helping him to prepare for that. Yesterday morning we went to his house before church and I made some scrambled eggs (with cheese, turkey, and sauteed bell pepper) so we all ate breakfast together, then Pedro came to church with us. His wife Cristina hasn`t been participating in the classes for the last few weeks, but now we know why. It is very hard for her to read, so she gets embarrassed when we ask her to or when we ask her questions and she doesn`t know the answer. She said that she will accompany Pedro to the church again, but with the condition that we don`t make her read or answer questions. So we said that is not a problem, and asked Pedro to read to her. Tomorrow we are going to have a noche de hogar with them at Familia Gallardo`s house. Hermano Gallardo is the new ward mission leader. Thanks for your efforts to help the missionaries you will be blessed through your service!"

Fotitos

2009-08-03T15:03:00.001-07:00

Service = moving a couch out a window. Naturally.

Elder Cannon drew this. Beautiful.

Mixing brownies for noche de hogar.

Semana 14 en Rosal II

2009-08-03T11:47:00.000-07:00

"This week went well. On Monday we took Liliana to a noche de hogar with Hna. Lili, and the two are just great friends now. We talked about tithing and how when we have faith and trust in the Lord the windows of heaven are opened. We then had to go to an appointment with Pedro, and Liliana wanted to go with us and participate/help in the lesson/meet other investigators. We ended up talking about tithing in that lesson too, and Liliana helped out a lot. Pedro is a really good person, but it is hard for him to trust in other people when it comes to money. He has just seen so many other churches that take their members' money and buy sports cars. So Liliana told him that in our church the tithing funds are only used to build chapels, to help missionary work, and for church activities and the bishop's storehouse. So that helped out a lot.

"On Wednesday we went to see Pedro again, this time to talk about the Word of Wisdom. We went with our homeboy Victor Casas, since he quit smoking a month or so ago, and he did it in one day. Victor told him about the importance of prayer in overcoming addictions, since one day in the morning Victor knelt down in his negocio (little tiny stores that are scattered around the sector where they sell food and stuff) and asked Heavenly Father to help him quit smoking, and after that he hasn`t smoked again. So now Pedro is making changes in his life to follow the Word of Wisdom. Instead of club tea, herbal tea, and instead of coffee, there is this thing called "cafè de ecco" which is made out of toasted wheat and is awesome. I drink it all the time. It isn`t addictive or against the Word of Wisdom, don't worry.

"The Familia Casas is doing well, but the biggest challenge with them is their attendance to the chapel. They can't go because someone always has to be in the negocio to open it on Sunday mornings. And now Victor has a new job so he leaves Irene and Fabiàn in the store. So we will have to find a solution to that problem, but I have faith that we can. So those are the investigators.

"In other news, Elder Cannon and I will be staying together for another change! We are both pretty psyched about it. I just hope that Elder Butterfield can come meet his grandson before he dies (in missionary terms, a trainer is a father and the trainee is a son. So Elder Butterfield was Elder Cloward's father, and Elder Cannon is Elder Cloward's son. That would make Elder Butterfield Elder Cannon's grandfather. Hope that makes sense). We'll see, cuz this is Elder Butterfield`s last change starting tomorrow."

Semana 13 en Rosal II

2009-07-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

Things are going well down here in good old Santiago. We had a good/bad week. But I have decided to focus on the good things and forget about the bad things. And plus the bad things weren`t really that bad. Here are the good things:

1. On Tuesday we ate lunch with Flia. Casas (Irene cooks really well, almost as good as mom!) and then all 6 of us (Victor, Irene, Fabian, Javiera, Elder Cannon and I) crammed into Victor`s tiny little two door pinto and drove to the temple. We had a tour there and Fabian and Irene felt the spirit a lot.

2. Liliana is progressing well, but she couldn`t come to church yesterday due to a conflict in her work schedule. We did a review of the baptismal interview questions with her and she knew all of the right answers. we are still waiting on Pres. Jones' answer though.

3. Pedro is also doing well. He got back from vacations yesterday and we have an appointment with him tonight.

4. We are working with some really good inactive families helping them to come back to the church.

5. We have good plans coming up this week to find some new investigators.

6. Yesterday Javier was confirmed and Felipe received the aaronic priesthood and was ordained a priest.

7. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday Fabian Casas went to play soccer with the young men in the ward. On Saturday they had a match against another ward in the stake center and they won. Fabian is getting along well with the youth in the church. He is reading the Book of Mormon and has prayed to know that it is true so that is good news.

So yeah everything is cool here. Elder Cannon`s Spanish is getting a lot better and we are teaching better as a companionship. It is not that cold and it really hasn`t rained that much.

Fotos

2009-07-27T12:17:00.000-07:00

Fotos (finally!)

2009-07-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

Javier's Baptism - July 18, 2009

The volleyball team Elder Cloward's been coaching

A Chilean sunset

Semana 12 en Rosal II

2009-07-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

"This week went really well for us. Yesterday President Jones came to our sacrament meeting! After the sacrament meeting was finished he spent the whole second hour talking to Liliana about her baptism in a river. He told her that he will pray about it and let her know. Yesterday Javier, Felipe`s nephew, was baptized. Hno. Costa, the ex ward misión leader, did the baptism and I was one of the witnesses. Felipe gave a talk during the service about baptism. It was one of the best baptismal services I`ve been to.

"We have been working a lot with Victor Casas and his family. So yeah he was an inactive member when he got married, and after that he kept yoyo-ing back and forth between activity and inactivity, but this time he says that he is sure that the change he is making will be permanent. We talked to Irene about the Word of Wisdom this weekend. We made her a sheet entitled “plan to overcome addiction” and had her write all of the reasons why she wants to quite smoking. Elder Cannon drew a picture of Christ on the sheet and it looked really good. We should be going with Victor, Fabian, Irene, and Javiera (their five year old daughter) tomorrow to a temple tour. Fabian has progressed a lot too, he said that he`s not an atheist anymore. Now he just has to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and he will know that the church is true.

"Saturday while we were playing volleyball with the hermanas a member came to talk to us. He said he is inactive but wanted us to come visit someone at his house that afternoon. We went over there and met Pablo (20 years old) who was a friend of the member`s daughter. We had a really great lesson with him. He said he is not sure if God exists and just wants to find a place where he belongs. We left him Enos to read in the Book of Mormon and he loved it. He is only here the weekends so I will let you know more about him next Monday.

"Also we taught this inactive family, Familia Campos. They came to church yesterday and we did a noche de hogar with them last night (I taught them how to make brownies of course).

"And in the primary all of the kids drew pictures of us missionaries. Victor`s daughter Javiera gave her drawing to us, so did the little girl from the Campos family. (Danissa, also 5 years old) we have them on the fridge. Well that is all for this week I hope you enjoy the fotos!"

Semana 11 en Rosal II

2009-07-16T08:53:00.000-07:00

"This week went really well. We have been working a lot with Familia Casas (the ones we had the noche de hogar with last Sunday). On Thursday we taught Irene and Fabiàn the Restoration, and Cristobal Matamala (one of the young men of the ward) accompanied us to fellowship Fabiàn. Fabiàn was atheist a month ago, but on Thursday he said the prayer to finish the lesson. He seems very similar to me, he loves math and science and wants to be a mechanical engineer, and since he could never see God he never believed in God. But he said that he is now opening up his mind to the possibility that God does exist. Irene told us that she smokes like a chimney haha but we told her that with God all things are possible and change and conversion are possible. They are progressing really well. This week Fabian is in El Quisco (the coast of Chile) with his aunt. Yesterday we had a lesson with just Irene and her husband Victor and talked about eternal marriage. Irene doesn`t want to make too much of an effort with the church until she sees that Victor has stayed active for a long time. Elder Cannon and I explained to her that she should make her choice about the church independent of the actions of her husband. We told her that if the church is true, and her husband goes inactive again, the church is still the right place for her, and if her husband stays active and she doesn`t feel the church is true, then she shouldn`t join the church. It is as simple as that.

"We have also been working with Pedro and Cristina, but Cristina doesn`t want to participate anymore. Pedro has a baptismal date set for August 22.

"This week I have learned a lot more about patience. I have realized that a lot of times the work has not gone as I have wanted but now I am starting to accept that things happen at the Lord`s pace and that we always must respect people`s agency. As long as we are doing what we need to we can be calm and wait patiently for the Lord`s blessings. For example I was really upset at first when Cristina said she didn`t want to take the discussions anymore, but now I feel okay about it. I am still sad for her of course, but I am confident that if we help Pedro to be a faithful member then Cristina will someday have a desire to join the church. It could be years from now but I know it will happen.

"Also Liliana is about the same, still coming to church every week. President Jones has`t talked to her yet. She wants to wait until Septemer still when it`s warmer and she can get baptized in a river... yeah...

"Last I`ve heard of Elder Mcbee, he was being sent home to have his surgery there because Salt Lake doesn`t want him to have the surgery here. We don`t have as many meetings anymore, it was just for that one week. Although this week we will be having 3 meetings... so maybe that is just the way it`s gonna be from now on? We`ll see."

Semana 10 in Rosal II

2009-07-09T22:17:00.001-07:00

"So on the fourth of July I didn´t really realize it was the fourth of July. But the hermana we ate lunch with remembered. She had steak and mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy sauce and brocoli with ceasar dressing. I haven´t had ceaser dressing in like... a year so that was cool. The hermana is the secretary for the area presidency in Chile. So I took advantage of the situation to ask some probing questions about the church's history in Chile. She told me that there are 32 closed chapels in Chile, all because of a lack of good planning. She said in one part there are two chapels NEXT DOOR TO EACH OTHER!!! Nice. And one is closed. Good call. She also said that the missionary who baptized her husband (who is still active unlike many others in his situation) told him: "Well if you want to you can just get baptized, and if you don´t like the church you don´t have to go back" so that was pretty interesting. She also said that a bunch of people got baptized in exchange for free appliances, and also because they lost ping pong matches, and that there was a mission president who told his missionaries that all that a person needs to know to be baptized can be learned in 5 minutes. So they would invite people to be baptized in contacts. Also she said that because of the language barrier, they did baptisms for the dead by going to cemetaries and writing down their names from gravestones then baptizing vicariously in the chapel and counting it as a convert baptism. The adress written down to contact the new member was the cemetary. haha Chile.

"So yeah. Lots of meetings this week. So I didn´t tell you last week but along with becoming a senior companion and training, President Jones also called me to be a district leader. He told me in our interview that this is the most responsibility that any missionary can have at one time, especially cuz they are both new assignments for me. He said that either one of the assignments by themselves would be a lot to handle, but I have both at once. I told him that I feel pretty overwhelmed and stuff but he said that he trusts me and the Lord trusts me so I don´t have to worry. I just have to learn how to prioritize and organize bien mi tiempo (my time better) and work as hard as I can and the Lord will take care of the rest. I am doing my best to trust in that promise and keep working hard. So this week was pretty hectic. Tuesday I had a leadership meeting with Elder Williams (our zone leader) and Elder Ballard (the other district leader in our zone, he goes home next month) where we talked about our districts and how to be better leaders. Wednesday we had our zone meeting. Thursday we had interviews with President Jones, and Friday we had the greenie meeting for greenies and trainers to help us out. I learned a lot. I am just feeling like I have so much I need to do (teach my comp Spanish and how to be a missionary, and how to teach and everything) plus I need to be studying the leadership manual I got from the office and prepare classes for district meetings and also worry about the missionaries in my district. It´s just pretty crazy. I think sometimes the Lord just gives us assignments like this so that we know right away that we can´t do it on our own. I know that I am not capo (able or capable) enough to handle all of this, but that is the first step that is necessary to receive the Lord's help. So that is good.

"This week we went to an inactive sister´s house to talk about that permaneced iniciative (reactivation efforts) and bring her back to church. She had a Lladro in her house. I was like "¿is that a Lladro?" and she was like "Yes." I thought that was cool I haven´t seen those in a while, since we left home for the airport. Also yesterday Liliana came to church. She is progressing really well. She is ready to get baptized, it´s just this whole wanting to do it in a river thing that is holding her back. I explained the situation to President Jones and he said he would call her and talk to her. Also I think Elder Mcbee had his back operated on here in Chile and he is resting in the office, but i´m not sure. Also last night we had an awesome family home evening with Familia Casas. I think I told you about them. Victor (the dad) is a member and his wife Irene and son Fabián aren´t, but we are teaching them now. Fabián is the man. He is kinda atheist but he is a great kid, he doesn´t smoke or drink or even dance inappropriately. And he likes ska music. What else could one ask for. So we had a FHE with them and Familia Costa (the ex ward mission leader´s fam). I taught them how to make brownies using Elder Mcbee´s recipe and they were SO GOOD!!! And Hermano Costa gave a class about the atonement and we watched "To this end was I born" (por esto he nacido). It was good. I have a lot of hope for that family. They want to be an eternal family so I am pretty psyched about that.

"Elder Cannon is doing well. His Spanish is improving more and more every day. He always has really creative ideas of how to help the investigators and stuff. I am really grateful to have him as a companion. Other than that we are doing well. We are trying to visit 10 inactive families cada semana (this week) to help them out, and we are working hard."

Happy Hump Day!

2009-07-02T07:30:00.001-07:00

Elder Cloward has been on his mission for exactly one year! The halfway mark is jokingly called "hump day" and to celebrate Elder Cloward's hump day, here is a review of his mission in fotos!

Companions:

Elder Cannon (Rosal II)
June 24, 2009 - present

Elder McBee (Rosal II)
April 30, 2009 - June 23, 2009

Elder Carpenter (Parque Subercaseaux)
February 23, 2009 - April 30, 2009

Elder Noguera (Parque Subercaseaux)
January 5, 2009 - February 23, 2009

Elder Bacerra (Los Arcos)
October 30, 2008 - January 5, 2009

Elder Butterfield (Rivas Vicuna)
September 2, 2008 - October 30, 2008

MTC District
July 2, 2008 - September 2, 2008

Elder Lowe (MTC)
July 2, 2008 - September 2, 2008

Baptisms:

Felipe, May 23, 2009

Maria, January 17, 2009

Lidia, November 29, 2008

Michelle and Eduardo, October 12, 2008

Josselin, September 27, 2008

We love you, Elder Cloward! Keep up the good work and we'll see you in a year!

Fotos of Old and New Friends

2009-07-01T20:25:00.001-07:00

Elder Cloward, Elder Cannon, President and Sister Jones
Elder Cannon is the first missionary Elder Cloward trained (or the missionary he is training now would be more accurate)

Elder Cloward, Elder Krainik, Elder Mahwinney
These three were in the MTC together

Semana 9 en Rosal II

2009-07-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

"So this week has been rather eventful. On Tuesday we went to
changes and Elder Mcbee left. I came back to my sector with Elder
Hamm (another elder that is training this change) and we worked
here. Then Wednesday morning we went to the temple, then we went
to the mission home and ate lunch with our greenies. My comp is
Elder Cannon. He is from Logan, Utah, and he`s like a professional
painter and plays soccer really well. He`s a really cool guy.

"So Wednesday we came back to the sector and worked. Rafael has
been sick but Gaspar is getting better. The only problem is that now
Emilio doesn't want to get baptized. He was really excited to do it,
but then he told his dad and grandma he was going to get baptized in
the mormon church and they got mad at him. So now he is afraid to. We
are trying to help him do what is right. His mom Yoala and Rafael are
helping us too.

"Liliana is doing well. She came to church again yesterday and wants
to get baptized. Yesterday the traveling assitants came to our sector
to do divisions with Elder Cannon and I. We went to Liliana (all four
of us together) and tried to convince her to not get baptized in a river,
that she will feel just as spiritual in a baptismal font. It was fun
teaching with those two guys. I`ve never taught a lesson with four
missionaries together before. I think we convinced her though. She wants
to get baptized, but really wants to do it in a river. She might have to
talk to President Jones. We`ll see.

"Pedro and Cristina are doing well. They didn`t come to church yesterday
and I don`t really know why. We`ll see though. Pedro still wants to be
baptized so that`s good news. We still haven`t seen Susana Mella in forever.
I don`t know what`s going on with her. Every time we go by her house she
isn`t there. And when I call she says she can't meet with us today and
she`ll call us tomorrow and then she never calls. The end.

"Pamela is doing well. She just has to change her yoga class so she can come
to church. Fan Fan is still there. we haven`t seen him since Elder Mcbee
left though. That is about all."

Fun Fotos

2009-06-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

A girl in Chile who knows Elder Cloward posted some pictures on Facebook! Check them out!

Thanks to Claudia Valentina Montero Marin for the fun fotos!

Baby Gasper

2009-06-23T07:42:00.001-07:00

Elder Cloward and Elder Mcbee

This is the baby Elder Cloward and Elder Mcbee blessed, and his dad Rafael

Semana 8 en Rosal II - and very exciting news!!!

2009-06-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

"On Thursday we got a call from President Jones, telling us that Elder Mcbee has a herniated disc in his back, so he is getting changed out of here. He will leave tomorrow. President called again last night and told me that Wednesday morning I will go to the temple and then go eat lunch at President Jones` house and meet my greenie! I am going to start training this change. I am pretty sure that I now have the same amount of time that Elder Butterfield did when he started training me. President told me that he considers training to be the most important calling a missionary can have, since how a missionary is trained will determine what kind of missionary he will be, and what kind of missionary he is will determine how the rest of his life will be. That seems like a lot of pressure. I am nervous but I have faith that the Lord will help me in my calling.

"Funny thing that happened though: ever since we got the call from President on Thursday informing us about Elder Mcbee`s back, we haven`t had a single appointment go through correctly. Interesting. Elder McBee sees it as a sign that his work here in this sector is over, and he is convinced that conditions in the sector will improve as soon as he leaves. I think he is right, it doesn`t make any sense for the work to die.

"So here is a little run down of what is happening to our investigators, and why none of them came to church tomorrow.
1. Liliana VIllegas (the hair stylest and our neighbor): got very sick and had a high fever, still recovering today.
2. Rafael (the inactive man whose family we are teaching): his three month old baby Gaspar is sick and can`t leave the house. We visited them this morning and gave Gaspar a blessing and I have faith that he will be better soon. The other son, Emilio, who has a baptismal date, had to go visit his dad in a different part of Santiago.
3. Pamela (Liliana`s friend): has a yoga class Sunday mornings, and hasn`t been able to change her schedule yet.
4. Fan-Fan (the Haitian): continues with his Spanish classes Saturday and Sunday morning until the end of august.
5. Susana Mella and the girls: we haven`t seen them in awhile, seems that Susana has gotten a little cold with us and never has time for us to visit her.
6. Daniel (a reference from the ward mission leader Hermano Costa): has work on Sundays.
8. Diego (some guy that randomly came to church two weeks ago): had to go to another part of Santiago for Father's Day
9. Pedro and Cristina: Pedro`s work schedule continues complicating his church attendance.

"I`m pretty sure that is it. so as you can see, the powers of fate have aligned to fight against the progress of the investigators of El Rosal 2, but through our faith and hard work i am confident that they will continue progressing.

"The weather has been colder, but my missionary mall coat keeps me incredible warm. The rain hasn`t been too strong either. Plus one of the hermanos tells me that it won`t be raining today, since he can feel in his joints when it will rain or not. So that`s good news. Also there sadly was not a baptism on Saturday, since Susana Mella hasn`t come to church in two weeks. We`ll have to work with that. We also visited Felipe, Javier and Cristian, since they moved to the hermana`s sector. They are doing well, and the missionaries are teaching Cristian and he have a baptismal date. So that is good.

"Well that`s about all of the news for this week, I`ll be sure to let you know more about my greenie next week! Love you!"

Semana 7 en Rosal II

2009-06-23T07:18:00.001-07:00

(Sorry for the late post, life got the better of me, but now you get two weeks at once! Isn't that fun? -Janessa)

First, a funny tidbit from his email to Janessa:

"It rained. I knew it would have to rain someday, but I still did not want it to. But it did rain.
There is a street in my sector called La Sinfonìa which somehow changed from a normal street into a river of dirty dirty water within hours. I forged the river Sinfonìa in my Ecco shoes by executing an acrobatic series of leaps and bounds and my efforts were aided thanks to the help of wooden planks placed by local negocio owners. It was a terrible experience. The worst part is that someday soon, it will rain again.

"That is what happened on Sunday after stake conference. It was crazy and stuff. Other than that all is well, we found 9 new people to teach last week thanks to the Lord`s guidance. It was good times. I will inform you more in the email to the family, including why I am writing on Wednesday, and not on Monday. It`s a good story."

And here is the email to the family:

"So this week was cool. Sunday Elder Oaks came to our stake conference and yesterday we had a conference with him that included our mission and Chile Rancagua Mission. Elder Mcbee didn`t get to translate because the area presidency provided other translaters and wanted Elder Mcbee to be sitting with the rest of the missionaries taking notes. I have good news from Sunday though. The conference was in Rivas Vicuña (since that is the stake center) and I saw almost everyone from my first sector! I also saw the Correa family (just the kids though) Jocelyn, Michelle, and Eduardo. They are doing well I assume, since they came to stake conference! I was so excited to see them in the church. I thought they were inactive. I also saw Christian’s mom. I don’t know if you remember Javiera and Christian? We were teaching them when I was with Elder Butterfield but they stopped taking the lessons when I left. Christian’s mom explained to me on Sunday that it was very hard for them when I left because we were really close. I am going to write them and try to get them to listen to the missionaries again. I took pictures with Abraham and his family, which they said they would put on facebook so that you could see them. He said that when he leaves on his mission he will have an empty room in his house for me to stay in if I want to someday. They are such a cool family. I was just excited to see that so many people recognized me, since I was there for such a short time and I left in special changes."Things are going really well in this sector. I am hoping that neither Elder Mcbee nor I will have changes. We can do a lot of good work here together. Susana Mella is having a hard time progressing though. She is very inconstant and doesn’t show a high level of commitment. Pedro and Cristina are also having some little problems with attending church because of Pedro’s work schedule. But we have started teaching two new families this past week that are really good."One is Rafael, who we met by doing something that Elder Mcbee calls the brownie activity. We go to a members house and make brownies with them, then take the brownies with them to go meet their neighbors and talk to them about the church. It works really well. We went to Ivan, a recent convert who gives tons of references to the missionaries (about ten of the recent converts in this ward are his referrals) and we made brownies with him and met his neighbor, Rafael, who just so happened to be an inactive member of the church. We went into his house and met his pareja (neighbor?), Yoala, and his sons Emilio, Cristofer and baby Gaspar. Rafael is now very excited to return to the church and says that his whole family wants to be baptized. We still have to explain to him that he can`t be baptized again... haha."The other is Pamela. She is Liliana`s friend (Liliana our hair cutter lady who is also progressing well and came to conference on Sunday) that we met at Liliana`s birthday party. We have a cita (lesson) with Pamela in about 20 minutes so I will have to go soon."Also: why I didn`t email on Monday: Elder Mcbee was having problems with his leg and we had to go to the office so that he could have an MRI for his leg. So we went all the way over there and then they told us that we would have to come a different day because they were busy. So we spent our whole pday doing that. Good times. That is why we are emailing today, with Pres. Jone`s permiso of course.”

Semana 6 in Rosal II

2009-06-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

"The weather is getting a little colder, but it still hasn´t been as cold as the first night when I got here. Winter is arriving extremely late this year and it seems like it won´t be that cold after all. I am happy. I feel fine too.

"I had my interview with President Jones and he said that Felipe doesn´t need to be baptized again, so he was confirmed yesterday. But this weekend he moved to the sister´s sector. He is still in our ward but not in our sector. Susana and her daughter Fernanda and Pedro and Cristina all came to church yesterday. They are doing well. Pedro and Cristina have a baptismal date June 27th. Liliana is also doing well. She just doesn´t see a problem with drinking a little bit at parties and she wants to be baptized in a river. So paso a paso she is progressing. She found a new job so she no longer works on Sundays and can come to church.

"Today we played soccer and volleyball, but I am kind of mad at our zone because we only played volleyball for about 30 minutes, then they took down the net and started playing soccer again. It is the only thing that they do. Oh well.

"On Saturday we had a practice workshop with the zone. President Jones is really focused on helping the missionaries be better teachers. Anyway members could come to the workshop to learn and to help us out, and the Rossi family came. I don´t know if you remember them, they are a family of members from my first sector. I taught with Abraham Rossi (Janessa should remember him, they are facebook friends) and he said that he sent his mission papers in this past week. He was really excited to see me and I was just surprised that they remembered who I was, since it has been 8 months since I was there.

"Also, some exciting news: Elder Oaks is coming to our stake conference! That is cool. And my companion could possibly be assigned to translate for him, since he is fluent in English and Spanish. I am very excited, since we should be able to meet him. I will be sure to let you all know how that goes."

Semana 5 en Rosal II

2009-06-02T13:46:00.001-07:00

"This week has been really good for us. We are still teaching Susana and her
daughters, Fernanda and Catalina, and they have a baptismal date for June 20th.
We did not get to see Liliana´s neighbor, but Liliana is progressing very well.
Yesterday we did divisions, I went with turtle-neck-guy (a new hermano in the
ward, recently married about 27 years old returned missionary, his name is Jaime
Gonzales, but Elder McBee and I call him turtle-neck-guy because when we first
met him he had a turtle neck on) to visit Susana, and Elder McBee went with
Ivan (a 40 year old recent convert) to visit Liliana. We also started to teach a
new family this week, Pedro and Cristina Muñoz. They are friends of Ivan and
they are really cool. They committed to come to church next week. Elder McBee is
convinced that they will be baptized, and I believe they will too. The best
thing about them is that they are humble and teachable, so they are accepting of
the gospel. We also are teaching Bernardita, a 50-something neighbor of a recent
convert. basically everything is going really well. Except...

"Yesterday Felipe was not confirmed because Saturday night he started vomiting
and convulsing so needless to say he did not come to church. Elder McBee says he
will have to be baptized again because too much time has passed between his
baptism and confirmation. Interesting.

"On Saturday we went to the temple and did a tour there with Felipe and Yasna,
his sister in law. It went really well. There were sister missionaries there
from the east mission that are assigned to work in the temple and do tours.
Elder McBee´s uncle lives in one of the wards in our stake, and he is inactive
so president gives Elder McBee permission to see him every once in a while to
try to reactivate him. That is about all for now!"

Fotos of Felipe's Baptism

2009-06-01T12:47:00.001-07:00

Felipe, Yasna, Elder McBee, and Elder Cloward at temple square Saturday May 30th

Felipe, family, and other investigators and members that came to the baptism.

Felipe and family, Elder McBee, and Elder Cloward

Cumpleanos y Semana 4 en Rosal II

2009-05-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

"I had a great birthday! This whole week has been great, in fact. I am not sure if I told you, but in the stake we are in the hermanas have an annual volleyball tournament. I mentioned to the bishop that I had played for four years in high school, so he asked me if I could help out the hermanas and train them in volleyball. So we have a weekly service activity with the hermanas where I teach them how to pass, serve, hit, etc. We usually do it on Saturday, but this week they did it on my birthday since it was a holiday and nobody worked.

"The activity at the temple was also great. The temple president, Pres. Lyon, gave us a tour of the temple. It was great to go there again. It`s almost been 9 months since I`ve been.

"Felipe`s baptism on Saturday was great. He had the ward mission leader, Hermano Costa, do the baptism. Our ward mission leader is a really great guy and he helps us a lot with the work here. The only problem is that Felipe wasn`t confirmed yesterday because he got there after the sacrament and apparently the bishop wants him to be confirmed before the sacrament is passed. Oh well next week they will do it. The baptism was great though, especially because 5 investigators came to watch Felipe be baptized, one of them is the woman that cuts our hair, Liliana. She is progressing really well, trying to find a different job so she doesn`t have to work on Sunday. She came to church yesterday. She told us though that she wants to be baptized in a river. So we will see about that. Last night when we went by her house, her neighbor was there and we talked to her. She said that her 27 year old son passed away 9 months ago and she is still angry with God. We tried to help her and teach her about the plan of salvation, but she couldn`t really accept it. She said she wished that she had the faith that we have. We are going to try to visit her next Sunday if she lets us."

Feliz Cumpleaños!

2009-05-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

Hoy es el cumpleaños de Elder Cloward!

Today is Elder Cloward's birthday!

Happy Birthday, Elder Cloward! We hope it's filled with yummy treats, balloon popping (see email from this week), good teaching appointments and general good times! We love you!

Fotos de Elder Cloward y Elder Mcbee

2009-05-18T15:24:00.000-07:00

Elder Cloward y Elder Mcbee

Zone playing soccer (aka futbol)

Cutting off Filipe's hair!

Semana 3 en Rosal II

2009-05-18T15:11:00.000-07:00

"I am excited for my bday (even though it will just be a normal day for us) but it`ll be fun. I will enjoy blowing up the balloons and then popping them after haha. I am not sure if I ever told you, but my birthday is a national holiday here in Chile. It is called "Dìa de la batalla naval de iquique" apparently 100-and-something years ago on May 21st there was a "battle" between Chile and Peru, but there were only two boats involved. And the Chileans lost... but somehow Chile celebrates it as a holiday, even though they lost. So no one will be working on my b-day or going to school, so that`s kinda cool.

"Elder Mcbee and I are having a good time together. We are teaching a lot of good people. Fan-Fan (the Haitian) wasn`t able to come to church these last two weeks, since his work is requiring to take a two month Spanish course (which of course meets only Saturdays and Sundays in the morning) so he will not be baptized for a while. Another really good investigator that we are teaching is named Felipe. He is 19 years old, and he is going to be baptized this Saturday. He used to have really long hair but we took him to get it cut a few days back. He also stopped smoking so that he could be baptized. He has a good chance of being a future missionary, so after his baptism we are going to have him come out and teach with us to feel the mission spirit and what not. I will be sure to send you pics from his baptism this Saturday. Please pray with me that everything will go well with his baptism, the adversary always works really hard on people right before they get baptized. We are also teaching Susana and her two daughters, Fernanda (13) and Catalina (10). The missionaries started teaching her a while ago, because her sister Claudia is a recent convert to the church and sent the reference. Susana is passing through a hard time right now because she found out about three months ago that her husband (the father of her daughters) was cheating on her. So she kicked him out of the house and they are working on the divorce papers. She said that she feels peaceful and calm when we teach her and a special feeling always seems to stay in her house after we leave, which was really cool to hear. The biggest challenge with her will be leaving alcohol, and also coming to church. She got really sick with the flu or something and hasn`t been able to come lately. The good thing is that she is accepting everything that we teach her, which can be hard for people. Her sister Claudia helps her a ton, since she is usually there in the lessons with us."

Special Transfer to 5 de Abril

2009-05-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

"So I`ve got some pretty interesting news...I had special changes again! Long story short, the assistants called me Wednesday night and said that Thursday at 4 I would have to be read to leave. So I packed everything up, had enough time to say bye to Flia Guerrero, Flia Araya, and Flia Marìn, then Elder Carpenter and I got in the van with the assistants and we arrived to my new sector. Which is...........(drumroll, please)...........Rosal II! So I am back in 5 de Abril, which was the same stake that I started the mission in, but I am in a different ward. It is so cool to be back in this part of Chile, I like it better here than La Cisterna and San Miguel. We are in Maipù (my-poo haha) and the computer that I am sitting at right now is the same one that I used to email you about 8 months ago. Weird huh. p.s. it is also super really really cold now. It changed in like a week. It might also be the sector that is colder. But now we go out to the sector we go with gloves and scarves. And when I say we I mean me and my new companion........(drumroll please)............Elder Michael Bryant McBee. We are getting along really well. He is from Florida, but his mom is Peruvian, so he speaks Spanish and English perfectly. He also speaks French, since he learned it in school. He went to Harvard and U Penn. so he is way smart and stuff, which is cool. We have a few guys that we are teaching from Haiti, in the Carribean Islands, and they are black and speak French and only a little bit of Spanish and English. So Elder McBee teaches them in French and I just sit there trying to understand. It is actually very similar to English and Spanish, but the accent is hard to do. The Haitian`s names are Fan-Fan, Billy, and Reuben. Billy is a member of the church. Fan-Fan and Reuben are investigators, and Fan-Fan has a baptismal date coming up. This ward is huge. There are about 240 people that come to church each week, and there are two companionships of missionaries in the ward, Elder McBee and I, and Sister Ortega (from Argentina) and Sister Supelano (from Colombia). I just like it here a lot though because it reminds me so much of my first sector in Rivas Vicuña.

"I don`t really know too much about how things are in Parque Subercaseuax, since I am not there anymore...we talked to Liliana on Wednesday about baptism, but she said she didn`t feel comfortable about it, so we explained it a lot and it was apparent that we would have to re-teach the restoration. So hopefully Elder Carpenter and Elder Stevensen will do a good job of explaining that. Elder Carpenter and I also found a new family last Tuesday, and they invited us to their house for a bbq Friday (labor day) and since we didn`t have a lunch planned we said it was okay. I wonder how that went... hopefully well."

Fotos de Pasqua

2009-04-20T13:56:00.000-07:00

egg, avacado and turkey sandwich (Easter lunch)

Eggs + Inca Kola = yum? to Elder Cloward, yes

The ill-fated egg fight (next year those Utes are going down!!!!)

Semana 16 en Parque Subercaseaux

2009-04-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

"The egg fight went well, but left me devestated. I made an egg that had bYu on it, and elder fuller made one from U of U, and wrote 13-0 underneath. And his egg destroyed mine. I am still trying to recover from the defeat.

"I got the easter card last week. thanks! The box was good and I liked everything. We have already used the egg lesson 3 times and everyone loves it. Thank you for taking the time to put that together for me I truly appreciate it. Tell Melia and Jose felicitaciones on the baby.

"The lesson went well with Eduardo and Paula, we have to call them today to set another cita. Liliana came to church yesterday! She has two daughters: Natalia (13) and Paulina (4). Paulina came to church, but Natalia didn´t. They are also redoing the bathrooms and baptismal font and putting in a parking lot (out of cement instead of dirt, seems like a good improvement) in our chapel. It is one of the oldest chapels in Chile. So they will be constructing until June 5 and in the meantime we have to go to church in the stake center, San Miguel. We haven´t seen Maria or Seba in a while but we are going to visit this week.

"So pretty much the worst day of my mission happened on Saturday. Nothing drastic, it was just a super lame day. We had appointments at 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 o´clock, and all five of them fell through, which was a rather large trial of our patience. We then spent some time searching for an apartment building to find a reference that Elder Fuller and Elder Arango (the elders we live with) gave us, her name is Cherti and her sister is a member of their ward. The only problem was that her sister wasn´t sure of the exact address, so she just gave us the intersection of two streets and said that she lived in number 22B. There are literally 8 apartment buildings in that area, and I was getting pretty frustrated, but we didn´t give up and finally found the building, but Cherti wasn´t home. End of Saturday. On Sunday at 8 we went by again, and the receptionist let us go knock her door because the intercom was broken. We introduced ourselves to her and asked her if she was Cherti. She looked kind of surprised that we knew her name, and we explained that her sister was a member of the church and told us we could pass by her house. She thought about if for a second and then said "pasen" (come in), so we did. She talked to us for about 30 minutes about her family, she has three sons, 16, 13, and 12 years old (I can´t remember their names right now). Apparently the doctors told her that she was infertile and would never be able to have kids, but she and her husband spent all of the money they had doing the petri dish insemination thing, and she finally got pregnant, and had the oldest son. Then three years later she just randomly felt sick one day, and went to the doctor. He told her that she needed to take a pill to get her period started again, but she felt that she shouldn´t take it, and went back two weeks later to find out that she was pregnant, this time naturally. If she would have taken the pill she would have killed the baby. After she told the story, we explained a little about the eternal families, we said something to the effect of "it seems like a miracle how God has blessed with such a great family, but an even greater miracle is that your family can be eternal, if you do some certain things" and right about at this point her husband got home. The look on his face was classic. I honestly thought of our family history story of Robert Harris when he found Wilford Woodruff in his home talking with his wife. He sat down in front of us and was kind of just staring at us then asked Cherti who we were. She said "oh these are the missionaries, he is from California and he is from Arizona" but he didn´t seem too happy. Then she asked him what was wrong. He said "nothing, I´m just surprised to see two missionaries sitting in my house" then he asked us what we were doing there, what our goal was as missionaries, what we wanted with his family, etc. I knew at that point that what we said in the next few moments was crucial, and I felt the spirit so strongly as we taught. We explained to them the message of the restoration and how it is a blessing for their family. At one point of the lesson Cherti stopped and turned to Jorge her husband and said "they are very focused on the families. I like that." Honestly the spirit was so strong there I felt like I knew every word that I had to say. I have never felt so confident as I have testified about the restoration and the Church. I didn´t feel like I was defending or arguing a point. I was just saying the truth how it was and the spirit bore testimony of it. It has honestly been a long time since I have felt so happy, it is so hard to find people to teach in this sector. I am very excited to teach this family. We still don´t have another appointment with them, since Cherti said that the two of them were going to converse as a couple to see when we could come by again, and she will call us. I asked her for her telephone number to call her just in case she forgets and she said that would be fine. We will hopefully be with them again this coming weekend.

"It is so strange how strong the ups and downs are on the mission. The sadness we feel when someone rejects us or doesn´t progress, and the pure joy of finding new people to teach and then helping them to receive the gospel in their lives. I just have to not get discouraged when times are bad, because I know that the blessings are right around the corner. I know without a doubt that this is the Lord´s church, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church on the face of the Earth. It is the only one that has the Authority of God to seal families for time and all Eternity, and the only one that can perform ordenances that will have effect here in the earth as well as in the heavens. I am so grateful for this time to serve and grow and for all of the blessings that our family has. I love all of you so much and thank you for always supporting me. "

Fotitos

2009-04-13T12:26:00.000-07:00

Gaby modeling

Elder Cloward modeling

Gaby's little sister Valentina

Pascua (Easter) en Parque Subercaseaux

2009-04-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

"We haven´t done the egg fight yet, but I bought eggs this morning and we shall boil them and dye them and fight. I will send pics next week.

"That is so cool about Aaron and Ryan, tell them I said congratulations and they are coming to a great country. I don´t know much about Concepción, just that it´s a little bit to the south of Santiago and is basically just a smaller version of Santiago. The east mission is supercuico (really rich or upperclass) especially the sector Las Condes. I have heard that there are a ton of members there and all of there chapels are huge and actually have more than 50 to 60 people there every week. I will also have the chance of seeing Aaron if we just so happen to be in the office at the same time. I will at least be able to see his foto there, since they show all of missionaries from the east and west mission in the office. I think the north mission uses a different building. (P.S. tell Aaron and Ryan that I can still tell them apart! I opened the pic that Cara sent me before reading the email and knew immediately that Aaron was the one reading the call, then I zoomed in and could read his name on the envelope. I know they will both make great missionaries, and they will love Chile.)

"We have a noche de hogar with the Araya family tonight and we are going to use the Easter egg game with them. (ask Rebecca if you want to see this game) They are all members, the mom and two daughters are active but the dad is not. They were at the point of being sealed as a family but the dad fought with someone in the church and they then went inactive. Now the wife and daughters are attending church but he still isn´t. I am hoping that we can help him reacitivate and get sealed to his family.

"Eduardo and Paula canceled the lesson again because they had more meetings, we have another appt with them tomorrow but I don´t know if that will go through either. We are having more progress with Liliana (the woman from the elevator) and her daughter Natalia. This Wednesday I went on divisions with Elder Walker in Departamental and Elder Mawhinney came here with Elder Carpenter. They taught Liliana the first lesson, and one of the young married couples in our ward went with them to the lesson, since they live in the same apartment building.

"Well I think that is all for now, we have to get back to the pension so we can have our egg fights! Thanks for the package, I already gave the one bag of m&m´s to Flia. Guerrero and they were so excited. April 10th was the birthday of Isabel, gaby´s mom, and Carol, gaby´s aunt. Apparently they were born the same day, 3 years apart. They were very excited to get the candy and said thank you and they can´t wait to meet you when you come here."

¡Felicitaciones!

2009-04-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

A big felicitaciones (congratulations) to Aaron and Ryan Mayberry, good friends of Elder Cloward's who were called to serve in the Chile Santiago East mission and Chile Concepción mission, respectively!

PS. 1 year ago yesterday Elder Cloward opened his call. Cool that Aaron & Ryan got theirs exactly a year later, and they are going to the same country.

Semana 14 en Parque Subercaseaux

2009-04-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

"This week went pretty well. We are starting to find new people again, which is always fun. We weren`t able to teach Eduardo and Paula again last Tuesday because they had a parent teacher meeting with their son but we have another appointment with them tomorrow. I am starting to realize that a lot of times the Lord will bless us in missionary opportunities when we least likely expect it. For example, about two weeks ago we contacted a man in the street with the family, and he was rushed but gave us his address (in another apartment building, our sector has tons) and told us to come by. So we went by a few days later, and the receptionist told us that the number was wrong, but was friendly with us and said she would look for the man`s name in the list of renters. While she was looking, a woman came out of the elevator and started asking us questions about the church, then later told us that her grandpa used to be a bishop, but she is not a member. She told we could come teach her family and gave us her address. We went by her house Thursday and taught her and her daughter. So it turns out that the address of the contact was incorrect, but through it the Lord led us to another person that was waiting for us. Pretty interesting how He works.

"Please tell Grandma happy 25th birthday for me! I love you grandma and thanks for all of the letters and packages, they truly make me feel loved.

"There were sadly no investigators that came to the conference but we have high hopes that some will come to church next Sunday. We gringos got to watch it in English in the high priest room. I got to sit by Elder Butterfield and Elder Mawhinney while we watched it, which was good times (and spiritual times, too) all around.

"There are a ton of tiny parks in our sector, on one side of the Gran Avenida (the grand avenue, of course) and on the other side of that street there is only one. It is like a division between the rich and not so rich part of our sector. It is kinda weird how drastic the change is just from crossing the street. We do divisions about 2 to 3 times a change and they are always for 24 hours, sometimes I go to the other sector and sometimes I stay where I am.

"Today for our district activity we met in the stake center (Barrio San Miguel, Saint Michael haha) and made guacamole and ate chips and guacamole for lunch. It was pretty fun.

"General Conference was amazing, but I must say that my favorite session was the priesthood session. President Eyring and President Uchtdorf`s talks about priesthood service were incredible. They inspired me to serve with all my strength in my mission and also throughout my life. I thought about how in the pre existence I probably begged to be foreordained to serve a mission, probably in this exact place so that I could serve my brothers and sisters and I am very grateful for the opportunities that I have to serve every day in this work. I also know that I will be able to continue to serve in various callings in the church throughout my life, but nothing compares to these two years. I think that the mission is not so much about "getting" baptisms or the numbers that we achieve. It is more about becoming a missionary (as Elder Bednar said in a talk a few years ago). I think the point of the mission is to teach us self discipline and how to listen to the spirit so that we can be better fathers, husbands, and leaders in the future. I was reading a little story that Elder Carpenter had, about a man that lived in the mountains and one day while he was praying received a revelation from God telling him to get up and go push a giant boulder outside of his house. The man was obedient and spent months from sun up to sun down pushing against the rock, but it wouldn`t budge. One day Satan arrived to tempt him, telling him that he was wasting his time and efforts with a task that was impossible, and that he should just give up. The man became discouraged, but decided to consult the Lord in prayer before quitting. In his prayer, the Lord explained him that he had never commanded him to move the rock, just to push against it, and then told the man to look at himself and see how much he had grown in strenth by pushing against the rock as hard as he could every day. The man realized that it was not moving the rock that was important, but rather the experience that he had gained by being obedient to the Lord`s will for him. Interesting.

"Well that is all for today, thank you for your emails, dear elders, etc. I love you all very much."

Semana 13 en Parque Subercaseaux

2009-04-06T07:55:00.000-07:00

"Yesterday our district leader called and said that Elder Carpenter and I won`t be transfered, so we will have 6 more weeks to stay together and work here. Yesterday was the fifth Sunday and Elder Carpenter and I had the last hour with everyone in the ward combined to do a lesson. It was pretty intense. We talked about unity in the ward since the ward mission plan should be ready in two weeks, then we will be needing the cooperation of everyone to make it work. The attendance at church is a little better. We have about an average of 50, and our goal to have by the end of the year is 70 and I think we can get there with everyone`s help.

"It is still pretty hot, but the days are getting shorter. We will be watching conference this weekend, all 5 sessions. It should be good times had by all. It will also be a good opportunity to bring people to church, since there are at least 4 opportuinities on different days. We shall see.

"So I have two funny stories for you this week:
1. Last Sunday we contacted a family sitting on a park bench and they told us we could come by Tuesday at seven and that they live in the apartment building next to the church. So on Tuesday at 7 we went by and pressed the intercom and asked for Paula and Eduardo from apt. no. 308 and the receptionist told me that I had the wrong address because that was not the right name. I repeated it again and he said I was wrong. So we thought maybe we went to the wrong apt building and started walking towards another, when we crossed paths with Eduardo, the husband. He asked us where we were going, since it was already seven and we had the appointment with him. I told him what the receptionist had told me, but Eduardo said that the address that I had was correct. So we went with him into the building and Eduardo got mad at the receptionist for telling us we had a bad address. The receptionist told him that he couldn`t understand the names I said, but Eduardo told him to double check next time before saying it is wrong. Then we went up to his apartment and taught him and his wife about the restoration. It was a good experience. We have another appointment with them tomorrow.
2. Elder Mawhinney and I had divisions again on Wednesday and this time I went to his sector. The next day we had to meet our companions in a certain metro station at 11:00 a.m. to change back. We got in a taxi and started driving but the driver went the wrong way. Elder Mawhinney no longer knew where we were, then we realized that we had arrived in La Florida, which is part of the east mission. haha so then we went to the closest metro station and took the subway for an hour trying to get back. good times."

Semana 12 en Parque Subercaseaux

2009-03-24T07:34:00.000-07:00

"This week not too many crazy exciting things happened, but that is okay we are working hard. On Saturday we had a ward counsel to start putting together our ward mission plan. p.s. mission looks so weird in English, it is misiòn in spanish. Anyway we are working a lot with the members, not getting too many references (or actually any at all) but I feel like the blessings are coming soon. I was studying today esperanza (hope) because tonight we are going to have a family home evening with Familia Marìn and each person had to pick a Christlike atribute, study it, and prepare a talk of about 5 minutes to share tonight. Preach My Gospel says that if we have hope we trust that God will fulfill all of the promises that he has made to us. I know that the success doesn`t happen instantaneaously (wow I have no idea how to spell that word) and through our steady, constant efforts we receive blessings. I am hoping that we will start having more success with the Familia Mendez from Colombia. We invited them to church on Saturday night but they told us they couldn`t come because they had to go to mass the next day, but we have another appointment with them on Wednesday and we are going to come with members so that they start making friends in the church and have the desire to go. Maria couldn`t come again because of her mom, but I am okay with it. I know that she will come to church when she can, it is just not her time yet."

Fotos de los animales

2009-03-18T07:11:00.001-07:00

Elder Cloward says this bear reminds him of the California flag
Chilean police at the zoo

Semana 11 en Parque Subercaseaux

2009-03-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

"Surprise!
"So we changed pday today because we went to the Chilean national zoo in the San
Cristóval hill. We saw a lot of animals, except for penguins and sea lions,
which slightly dissapointed me :( but it was still fun. Apparently the zoo is
not open on Monday so that is why we changed pday.
"Anyway, the talk went pretty well. President Jones called me up to give it when
I was not expecting. During the zone conference we had a little break and he
asked me if I had prepared the talk like he'd asked and I told him yes. Usually
when missionaries give talks in zone conferences they announce it before, like
when the bishop or counselors do in sacrament meetings (one of the a.p.´s always
does it) but they didn´t announce anything. Then, while President Jones was
giving his talk (he never has anything written down, he just talks i am sure he
prepares it before but his talks are always great) he just said "I´m going to
ask an elder to come up and give a talk he has prepared about the importance of
obedience and listening the spirit" than he laughed a little bit and said "I
don´t want anyone to think that just because this elder is giving a talk on
obedience means that he is chueco (crooked, disobedient)" and everybody
laughed... so anyway then I got up and gave my talk and when I finished he kept
talking again. I talked about how sometimes the spirit can lead us to do things
that are "against the rules" for example in 1 Nephi 4 when Nephi is commanded to
cut off Laban´s head. but then I explained that these occasions are exceptions to
the rules that only happen very rarely. For example, Nephi never used that
experience with Laban as an excuse to kill someone else, thinking that it would
be okay to do it again if the spirit had commanded him to do it once. I think it
went pretty well, I was kind of nervous talking, since it wasn´t just sacrament
meeting, it was 100 other missionaries, most of which have a lot more experience
than me. But a good experience.
"Not too much news on the investigator front, seems that Maria Eugenia is going
to be able to come to church this next Sunday because her sister will be able to
take care of their mom. So we´ll see how that goes.
"So yeah that´s about it for this week, I don´t have much time to write due to
the whole trip to the zoo thing."

Fotitos

2009-03-11T11:20:00.001-07:00

Elder Cloward & Elder Mawhinney
Ghost effect on the camera (and a view of the pension)

The refrigerator magnet that Janessa sent me, plus the sticky notes that Elder Fuller (who lives in the pension with us and went to the U of U... disgusting) put on there. They are basically girly comments that the players are making to each other, such as, "hey John do you like my nails?" "yeah Tom i think they are beautiful." etc. It made me laugh so I told him he could keep the sticky notes on there if he lets me keep the magnet up.

Semana 9 en Parque Subercaseaux

2009-03-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

"We don`t have daylight savings until next week, and we gain an hour of sleep instead of losing one. Awesome. I think after my mission I`ll come to Chile for the weekend every time we have to spring forward in the U.S. because we are falling back here. Next week we will be 5 hours apart!

"Pabla is doing well I think, but we are no longer teaching her because she doesn`t live in our sector. We sent the reference to the missionaries in the east mission last week. Maria Eugenia still wants to get baptized, but her mom is very sick and she has to take care of her every day from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., which is when her sister gets home from work and then they switch. So she won`t be getting baptized March 28th as we had hoped I think it`s just not her time yet.but we are working a lot with Seba to help him get the priesthood so we`ll see how that goes.

"We meet with President Jones once every six weeks and we have interviews for about 30 minutes, and we kind of just talk about how we are doing.

"For my birthday I would really just like a tie or two. I kind of need another yellow one, I like the one I have but it is getting old and wrinkly. I know there is something else that I need, but I can`t think of it. If you could send peanut butter and m&ms in my next package that would be great.

"With the new comp I would say that being the exact opposite of Elder Noguera can be a good thing and a bad thing. Elder Noguera was very focused on following the Spirit, and not so much the rules. Elder Carpenter seems to me to be the opposite of that. I am just trying my best to keep all of the rules and follow the Spirit. Sometimes we are so focused on the letter of the law that we turn into Pharisees and forget about the Spirit, and other times we focus so much on the spirit of the law that we end up breaking all of the rules. It is quite the dilemna... President Jones actually asked me to give a talk on that in the next zone conference, which will be this Wednesday. I will let you know how it goes."

Fotos

2009-03-03T10:15:00.001-08:00

Elder Carpenter & Elder Cloward
Part of our district/zone in our district activity today (eating pizza at Telepizza, the local pizza place) hurray for Chileanized Americanized Italian food!

A giant abandoned hospital in the sector next to ours. Apparently they built the whole thing, then a few years later realized that the ground they built it on was unlevel. Way to go structural engineers of Chile.
(he would notice that haha)

Semanas 7 y 8 en Parque Subercaseaux

2009-03-03T09:58:00.000-08:00

"After changes this last week, Elder Butterfield is now my zone leader, which is great. He finally left Rivas Vicuña after being there for 5 changes. And Elder Mawhinney is in my district now and it is great to see him every Wednesday for district meetings.

"This week was good. On Monday I left Elder Noguera with the assistants and came back to my new sector with Elder Carpenter. He is from Mesa Arizona (no, he doesn´t know the Giles or anyone else we know from Mesa). He has one little brother that is thirteen, and everyone in his family is a member of the church. He likes photography. He has been in the mission a year and a month and has stayed in the city the whole time. He is shorter and a slight bit stockier than me. I will send a pic. So as far as companions go Elder Carpenter is the complete opposite of Elder Noguera. The polar opposite. I talked to president about that in my interview. He said that is true, there are probably not any two elders in this mission who are more different than they are. So I told president I figure that if I can get along well with the both of them then I can get along with anyone in the mission. He agreed.

(background-Janessa sent Michael a BYU Men's Volleyball magnet with the game schedule on it...) "One of the elders that lives with Elder Carpenter and me is a Ute... ughhh.... so he didn´t really like the magnet we put on the fridge. He accepted it with the condition that he could put sticky note dialogues on the magnet, which consist of the BYU volleyball players saying girly things to each other, such as 'let´s go paint our nails together after the volleyball match,' etc. I will take a pic and send it next week. I thought it was actually pretty funny. We get along really well despite our blood-color differences. (mine is blue)

"The discussions are going well with Maria Eugenia and Sebastian. We went there on Wednesday and told her that we have already set tons of dates with her for her baptism and it never works, so we want her to pick a date. She said she wants to do it March 28th. So we are hoping and praying that this time it will go through. Also, Sebastian put his earring back in, and now the hole in his ear is growing, but we are working with him on that. I don´t think he will get the priesthood in time to baptize his mom, but she is willing to do it without him. The important thing is just that he does it.

"I just hope that Maria Eugenia gets baptized this time but I know that Lord´s will be done in all things. Maria´s mom has been really sick apparently and she lives in another part of our zone, and the missionaries gave her mom a blessing of health and apparently she wants to get baptized now too, which is great, but she is still really sick, and Maria needs to take care of her, which made it impossible for her to come church yesterday, but she still has her date for the 28th of March. Maria is very worried about her mom´s health, so we did a lesson of "comfort scriptures" that we shared with her, such as: 1 nephi 11:17, 2 nephi 2 :24, mosiah 4:9, which are pretty good to remember in the times when we don´t really understand why things go the way the do. Just something to have saved up for a rainy day :)

"There is also another investigator, Pabla, that wants to get baptized. Her cousin and two aunts are recent converts, and she always comes to visit them on the weekends, but during the week she lives and works in the east mission (funny story she is actually one of the p.e. teachers at the school where President Jones´ kids attend) but of course wants to get baptized here. So we are not exactly sure what we are going to do about that. I will keep everyone updated of course.

"Elder Krainik is no longer in this zone, he is in Maipú (pronounced my poo hahaha) it is still in the city but on the outskirts, almost the countryside.

"Alright maybe a little something for the bishop to read:
Dear La Mirada ward,
Hola ¿como han estado? Things are going great down here in Chile. I am now with my fourth companion in Chile, another gringo, which has been really strange after 18 weeks of being with companions from South America. I am forgetting English little by little... the members in our ward are doing well (all fifty of them). We started a new program called "the tie of responsibility" to get the members excited about missionary work (I actually stole the idea from the elder´s quorum in Mar Vista). So we bought a really ugle tie from the street flee market (the feria) for a dollar and then gave it to one of the brothers, and he has to wear it every week until he has a missionary experience, then he can share his experience with the other elders and pass the tie to someone else. We are doing the same thing in relief society but with bright red ugly sunglasses. The ward here is small but they are very excited and help us a lot with the work. Thank you for all of the letters of support I truly appreciate it, especially the poems from Brother Bodell. I am praying for you always!
Love, Elder Cloward

500 days!

2009-02-17T09:21:00.000-08:00

According to this fancy little counter thing, Elder C gets home in 500 days. (not that we're keeping track or anything)

Volleyball, Christmas and a crowd surfing Mission President

2009-02-17T09:16:00.000-08:00

The Zone
Teaching Gaby how to play volleyball

President Jones is crowd surfing whether he likes it or not!

The Chile Santiago West Mission Christmas Party

Semana 6 en Parque Subercaseaux

2009-02-17T09:10:00.000-08:00

"So this week was long and tiring but hey that is life. On Monday we went to talk to Maria and Sebastian again about her baptism and basically told her that she knows enough to be baptized and she is prepared, now she just needs to take the step and do it. She is trying hard to stop drinking tea but still seems to have a lot of doubts. She didn`t come to church yesterday so now she can`t be baptized the 21st and will have to wait almost a month more to be baptized. There really isn`t anything else we can do for her we just have to let her make the decision that she knows is right.

"We are teaching a few other people, and all of them are relatives of recent converts to the church. The niece of Maria (the other Maria, the one that was baptized the week after I got here) is listening to us now and has a baptismal date for the 7 of March and we are also teaching the mom, aunt, and grandma of Felipe, another recent convert. I will keep you updated on what goes down with them.

"In other news, this Friday Elder Noguera and all of the other elders that are going home this transfer went to temple to do an endownment session with President and Sister Jones, then take some time in the celestial room to meditate about their mission and ask if the Lord accepts their service and pray about their plans for when they get home. There were five of us who came who are the companions of the ones going home. We usually just sit in the office and study while the others do the session, but they let us go in the temple and do initiatories, which was really cool. President Jones` parents came to the temple too because they are visiting the family in Chile for about a month. His dad impressed me very much he seems like a very humble man and I could tell that he really loves the missionaries and his son.

"Let`s see...what else...I have a ton of pictures from this week I will try to send as many as i can. sometimes there are weeks with nothing to take a picture of and other times there are a lot of pictures. asì es la vida.so we have a couple of initiatives we are working on with the ward. I stole the idea from the Mar Vista singles ward. In the elders quorum we had an ugly tie that we passed form person to person, and he had to wear it until he had a missionary experience, then the next Sunday he shared the experience he had and passed the tie to the next person of hischoice. We are doing the same thing in this ward, but instead of calling it the "ugly tie" we call it the "tie of responsibility" haha so the second counselor in the ward is wearing it now. We are doing the same thing in the relief society, except we are using the "sunglasses of responsibility" that is the great thing about Chilean ferias, we bought some bright red sunglasses and an ugly tie on the street for $2 USD. Good times.

"And this is to give you an idea of how the church works here down south: yesterday morning we had the executive commitee at 8:30 in the morning. At quarter to ten (the sacrament meeting starts at ten) one of the speakers still hadn`t shown up to give their talk, so the bishop kindly asked if Elder Cloward could prepare a little talk (10 minutes) about responsibility, since we are starting the new program with the tie and the sunglasses of responsability. So at quarter to ten they told me, then Elder Noguera and I prepared the sacrament, since there are no active priests in the ward, and at 5 to 10 I had a little time to pick 3 or 4 scriptures for my talk. Then, after passing the sacrament, (there were no deacons either) I went and gave my talk. I was really nervous since it is the first time that I have ever given a talk like that with so little preparation. It went pretty well though it was a good experience, I could really feel the spirit guiding my words since at times I honestly had no idea what to say. I think He understood that I had prepared as best as I could so He made up for the rest."

Scripture Study

2009-02-10T08:45:00.001-08:00

Semana 5 en Parque Subercaseaux

2009-02-10T08:40:00.000-08:00

"I have given two talks since I have been in Chile, one in Los Arcos and the other my first Sunday here in Parque Subercaseaux. Maria Eugenia will not be getting baptized this week, since she has still not stopped drinking tea. We are praying for her and working as hard as we can to help her. Her new baptismal date is the twenty first. Sebastian still doesn`t have the priesthood, but we are working with him to get ready. I talked with Elder Becerra today in our zone activity and he said that Katy couldn`t get baptized yesterday because one of her relatives passed away. She will get baptized this Saturday, and another investigator, Camilo, from Lo Ovalle will get baptized on Sunday. I am not sure if I told you about him, he is nine and his mom is a returned missionary that recently reactivated in the church. Elder Becerra and I started teaching him a couple of months ago and it looks like now he is ready to be baptized, I am very excited for him.

"Our ward has about 65 active members and our chapel is super old and tiny. The sacrament room is the cultural hall, we don`t have pews, just chairs that get stacked up.

"So Elder Noguera will be finishing the mission two weeks from today. His story is fairly complicated, but I will do my best to explain it. To finish the full two years of his mission, he would have to finish this change (which ends next Monday) and stay for another change, six more weeks. However, President Jones talked with him and told him that he doesn`t feel that it is the right thing for him to do the full two years, because Elder Noguera has a scholarship in a flight school in Argentina, and if he isn`t home by March 9th to take some test he will lose his scholarship. Elder Noguera was pretty bummed to hear that he had to go home 6 weeks early, it doesn`t really matter to him if he loses his scholarship. Anyway, a few days after that President Jones called again and said that after talking to an apostle (he didn`t tell us which one) he decided to let Elder Noguera finish this change and have an extra week. So, Elder Noguera goes home two weeks from today, one week into the next change, and someone will have special changes to come to this sector and take his place. I am not exactly sure about how that will all work out, but we`ll see."

Fotos de Parque Subercaseaux

2009-01-28T08:55:00.000-08:00

The ceremonial tie burning. This is a big moment, folks. Elders burn ties at the six month mark, shirts at the year mark, and something else at the year and a half mark (shoes? I don't remember)

Also please note the Omniture Rock/Paper/Scissors shirt from BYU haha

Service for the week - sanding down some chairs

Just a little pool playing

Zone conference foto from last week