Semana 7 en Rivas Vicuña

This week's email is pretty short and sweet, but we did get some more photos!

"Vicente´s parents (Javiera and Christian) have not gotten married yet but we talked to Christian on saturday and he said they are going to go soon in the next few weeks so that she can get baptized before Elder Butterfield or I leave at the end of this change. yay! They are seriously my favorite people here. You will have to meet them someday. We also confirmed Eduardo and Michelle this week. We are still teaching Carlos, Daniela and Marta but they are not really progressing. Carlos still wants to get baptized but we are not going to baptize him without his sister and mom because he wont go to church without them. So we will see what happens this week."

Vicente and Javiera

Elder Cloward getting his shoes shined in Estación Central by an anti-Mormon (Elder Cloward tried giving him a pass along card and he started tearing into the church. It was interesting to say the least. Nice guy though)
Elder Cloward building a shelf out of the card board boxes they get the Books of Mormon in (still a little bit of the engineer in him!)
Invitation to Michelle and Eduardo's baptisms

Fotos of the Baby and the Baptism

This sweet guagua (baby) is Vicente Andrés, Javiera´s baby! He was born on Oct 6 at 5:33 p.m. and weighed 3.5 kilos (about 8 lbs)

Vicente with his parents, Javiera & Christian.
The baptism for Eduardo and Michele. Elder Cloward got to baptize Michele! And Eduardo's baptism went very smoothly as well.

Semana 6 en Rivas Vicuña

"So as you might have noticed it is Tuesday,not Monday. We had pday today because there are cambios (changes) this week. Last night we received a call telling us if we had cambios or not. Thankfully, I am staying here for another 6 weeks, as is Elder Butterfield. We don't want to leave because all of the families we are teaching are so great. I know if I get moved then that is where the Lord needs me, but for now I am glad to still be here.

"The baptism was great! It was amazing how different Eduardo was, he just jumped right in and did it. yay! So yeah that went well and I also got to baptize Michelle! It was really hard though because the water was really low. I kind of threw her down. I think I scared her a little bit. Well at least she always remember her baptism. haha. But yeah I wasnt expecting to do the baptism because the bishop had priests assigned to do it, but by 7:00 when the service was supposed to start one of the priests still wasn't there so the bishop told me to get dressed and do it. The only problem was that I had only brought my pants and white tie to give to the priest to wear since he didn´t have any, but I didn´t bring extra garments or an extra white shirt since I wasnt expecting to do the baptism. So after I baptized Michelle I was in the bathroom for about 20 minutes wringing out my clothes to dry them, and Abraham's dad, Hermano Rossi, was handing me paper towels to dry myself off. haha good times. And Josseline and Michelle started going to seminary this week. It is Tuesday through Thursday from 8 to 9:30. It is really cool to see converts going to seminary and mutual and enjoying it. yay!

"Javiera had the baby last Monday the 6th. He is a stud, and is perfectly healthy, as is his mom. We went over to their house to teach like 3 times this week and we took pictures too. They are all very happy together.

"We are still teaching the Garcia family. Carlos still wants to get baptized but Daniela and Marta still don't. But Daniela and Carlos went to church on Sunday, which was good. And Daniela wants to go to mutual this friday. Marta is kind of losing interest though. She is making up the weirdest excuses to not go to church, such as Camila (her 1 year old daughter) bumping her head and wanting to stay home (we saw Camilla and there was not a bruise on her head and she seemed perfectly fine) and she would not let Carlos or Daniela go to the baptism Sunday night because Carlos ´needed´a haircut. I know those things could have waited and we are sure that there must be another reason why she doesnt want to go to church or read her Book of Mormon. I think she is just afraid of change. She beleives its true though. We watched the restoration video with them and after asked them if they believed that Joseph had really seen the vision and they all said yes, so we told them if that is true than this is the only true church. But I am glad that Carlos is being a good example to his family. I think they just need time.

"Sometimes the people that are ready to accept the gospel are the people that seem the least likely. Like yesterday we had a really good contact with this family that was sitting outside together all smokiing. It turns out that the mom's cousin is a missionary right now and we have an appointment to teach them tomorrow."

Mas Fotos de Rivas Vicuña

Elder Cloward & President Jones, on a hill overlooking Santiago the day Elder Cloward got to Chile

Elder Cloward & Elder Butterfield with their kites (they call them volantines)

The Correa Family (Michelle, Alfredo, Josseline, Eduardo, Angelo & Isabel) and Gabriel (a priest in Elder Cloward's ward)

Semana 5 en Rivas Vicuña

Updates:
"We watched all 4 sessions (of conference) and preisthood too. They were great. I really liked Elder Holland´s talk on angels and all of the missionaries loved Sister Allred´s talk on missionary work and the importance of helping missionaries and giving referrals. We started clapping and cheering when we heard her say that members should give missionaries referrals, it was exciting to hear. I also really enjoyed hearing Bro. Aidukaitus´talk on the converting power of the Book of Mormon. It´s really cool to see the changes that that libro (book) causes in peoples lives. We got to watch it in English in the high counselor room in our chapel, which was nice. Pres. Jones and his wife and daughter and son came to the Saturday morning seession and watched it with us, since there was a baptism between the sessions and someone needed a special interview.

"Our zone leaders told us that our zone is leading the mission in baptisms, which is really exciting. Next Saturday, there will be 7 baptisms throughout the zone and then 2 more on Sunday the 12th. It´s really exciting to have baptisms but also really sobering because I honestly don´t feel like I´m doing any of the work. We just present the material and the lessons and then it´s all up to the Spirit and that´s what really causes the change in people.

"Michelle and Eduardo´s baptisms were moved to Sunday at 7. Eduardo has been practicing in the tub at home. haha sweet boy. I dont think I told you what happened with the font at the baptism. We started filing it with hot water at about 11 then we came back at 2 to see how it was going and it was pretty much empty. Somebody had turned off the hot water. So we started filling it with cold water and it got done just in time, but Josselline and Eduardo had to get baptized in cold water.

"Abraham Rossi and Gabriel Matus are ward missionaries in my ward. (Quick background: these two young men got in touch with Janessa this week and we've been chatting in very broken English about Elder Cloward. They are great kids!) All of the ward missionaries are young men and young women. Poor Gabriel was supposed to baptize Eduardo. I really like him though, he was so patient with Eduardo for about 30 minutes he was with him in the font trying to help him go under. So he's going to try again Sunday. Abraham Rossi is 18 hes getting ready to go on his mission. He has 3 younger brothers and one litter sister who is the youngest. Their family is very active and he and his dad go with us to teach lessons a lot.

"We found a new family last week. They are the Garcia family. The mom is Martha, and the kids are Daniela, 13, Carlos, 10, and Camila, 1. We found them on Sunday and have already taugh them the first 3 lessons. Carlos is going to get baptized on the 25th of October. He came to the morning session of conference yesterday (Sunday) and sat with the Correa family. Apparently he and Eduardo are friends from school. When we taught the plan of salvation, lesson 2, they all said they wanted to go to the celestial kingdom. I thought that was a good idea, too. We explained to them that they had to get baptized to get there and Carlos said he wanted to do it, but Daniela and Martha are more hesitant. So then Daniela asked us, if Carlos gets baptized doesn't that mean he´ll be alone in the celestial kingdom? Wouldnt it just be easier if none of us got baptized, that way we could all be in the terrestrial kingdom together? That was pretty funny I´d never thought of it that way. We explained to them that the only way to be with their family was to all get baptized and go to the celestial kingdom together. Then Carlos turned to Daniela and started shaking her shoulders and told her "¡Bautizate, bautizate!" like, "get baptized, get baptized!" It was really funny.

"Javiera should have the baby this week. She and Christian asked Elder Butterfield and I to bless the baby when he's born, which was really cool. They said that they want us to do it since we are helping Christian come back to church and giving Javiera the lessons. We gave Javiera a blessing of health so that everything will go well with the birth. She started crying as soon as I started the annointing with the oil. She is very sensitive to the Spirit. I think Christian was a little teary eyed too and his mom was definitely crying too. The baby's name will be Vicente Andres, and his due date is today! Wow that's weird. I'll be sure to send pictures when he is born.

Random info about his mission:
"The members cook a lot of different things, a lot of pasta, mashed potatoes, chicken, meat, soup, not too different at all from American food. There's this thing called churipan which is just a piece of bread with a sausage in it. Very creative, right? We had a lot of empenadas for the weekend of Sept. 18th since its their independence day. Salads here are interessting. A salad here is just chopped up lettuce with lemon juice and olive oil, or chopped up tomatoes with some salt. I never liked raw tomatoes before but I'm getting used to them and starting to like the taste. We havent played volleyball or soccer lately since we can only do it on pday and when we do it takes up the whole day. We can't see the ocean from our sector we are about 60 miles from the shore."

Semana 4 en Rivas Vicuña

"The baptism was really... interesting... to say the least. So first the bishop´s son baptized Josseline, nice and easy. One down, one to go, right? Wrong. So Eduardo got in the water and he was about to be baptized, but was too afraid to go underwater! Apparently he´s terrified of going completely underwater. His mom told us that he´s always been that way and he´s never taken a bath or gone swimming in his life. They said that that should be added to the baptismal interview questions: ¿Tiene miedo de agua? (are you afraid of water/going underwater/something like that). Anyway, his parents and Elder Butterfield and I tried talking to him. For about half an hour the poor guy just stood in the water trembling too scared to go under, but he couldnt do it. So just one baptism.

"But there is good news: we talked to the family later that night and Michelle told us that she wants to get baptized now! We asked her if she was sure and she told us yes. So she has her fecha (date) for the 11th of Oct. And Eduardo is going to practice overcoming his fear of water in the bath tub so he can get baptized on the 11th too. I don´t know what caused the change in Michelle, i think she probably felt the Spirit when she saw her sister get baptized. Elder Butterfield and I also got to stand in the circle when she was confirmed on Sunday, so that was cool. My talk went well, I spoke about the baptismal covenent... in Spanish! haha yeah Spanish is crazy.

"Javiera (the pregnant lady we´re teaching) is doing well. The baby is due the 6th of Oct, his name is going to be Elder Butterfield... haha jk it´s Vicente. We've been talking to them about marriage, probably after the baby is delivered.

"The weather is getting warmer. Spring in September/October is very interesting.

"Today we went to an interactive science museum with our zone. It was funny because we were there and the only other people there were 10 year olds on field trips from school. Good times.

"Zone Conferences are once a change. We had ours this past Wednesday. I saw Elder Krainik again so that was cool. I also met Elder Whipple he´s awesome. We talked about Alta and Shayla and Cara but i´m not sure if he knows Cara. I sent a picture of me and him...

"Elder Butterfield has two older sisters and they are the same age as Janessa and Cara, so that was kind of a nice coincidence. He has always lived in Utah, in the same house.

"We will get to watch General Conference in English, in the chapel.

"Ciao ( yeah it´s kinda weird they do say that here... I actually don´t think I´ve heard adios since I got here, all they say is ciao.)"

Fotos!

Elder Cloward with Elder Whipple at Zone Conference.

Elder Cloward and Elder Butterfield at Josselin & Eduardo's baptism. Angelo (their 3-year-old brother) is in the front.

The awesome scripture cases and coin purse Elder Cloward had made.

Semana 3 en Chile

Quick update before the email: If you want to write to Elder Cloward, he asks you to use Dear Elder because that way he has more time to write his weekly email (if he gets too many emails, he spends most of his time reading them instead of responding to them). He gets Dear Elders once a week.

"So yesterday was our stake conference (conferencia de estaca). Our stake is 5 de Abril, literally April 5th. It´s the name of a really big street that cuts our sector in half. I don´t know if anything significant happened on April 5th, but i don´t think so.

"We have a baptism scheduled this Saturday, which makes me happy. Yay! Two of the kids in the Correa family, Jossellin, 16, and Eduardo, 10 are getting baptized. They also asked me to give one of the talks, so that should be interesting. I´ll let you know how it went next Monday. So yeah we´re still trying to find a lawyer that can work with the parents of the Correa family to get the mom divorced and get them married. They are so ready to be baptized, but this needs to be taken care of first, obviously. It was great though when we practiced the baptismal interview questions with the kids and if they didn´t know the parents helped them, and we really didn´t have to say anything. They have a three year old boy too who always listens to the lessons, his name is Angelo. And his dad told us to ask him the questions and he knew the answers! He´s already prepared for his baptism 5 years early! And his dad will get to baptize him that will be great. They told us to ask him about the word of wisdom and he told us the 5 things we can´t use/drink: alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, and drugs. Then they told us to ask him what the law of chastity was (which i thought was kind of weird, since he´s 3, but i trusted the parents) so he said: wait until you´re married to have kids. Nice.

"The English classes are going well. I love walking down the street and hearing people yell stuff at us in English. When they speak nice things in English we always invite them to the class.

"The city we´re in is called Estacion Central. Go to Google and look for the intersection of Rivas Vicuña and 5 de Abril and our chapel is right there. That´d be cool if you could do the street view and see the chapel. " (Note from Janessa: I can't figure this out. If any of you reading this can, please leave me a comment and explain! Thanks!)

Semana 2 en Chile

(Note from Janessa - sorry it's been so long between posts! It won't happen again.)

La familia Correa is doing well (that's Alfredo y Isabel, from last week's letter). The mom and dad and one daughter and one son want to get baptized... but we are still trying to find a lawyer to get the mom, Isabel, divorced and then get married to Alfredo, the dad, and we don´t think that that can happen by the 27 of September, but the two kids, Jocellin and Eduardo, will be ready to be baptized by then. The other daughter, Michelle, still doesn´t want to be baptized, so we are still working with her. The family has already gone to Church 3 weeks in a row, and you have to go 3 times before you can get baptized. (obviously we hope they will keep coming after, but I´m not worried about it because they go go every week).

"Javiera is still taking the lessons, we have a cita with her tonight to teach lesson 2 and have a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening). We also had a NDH with la familia Correa on Saturday and it was way fun. But we found out that Javiera and Christian aren´t married either... so yeah that could also be a problem. But marriage is really easy, it´s just divorce that is really hard. Hopefully they´re not married to anyone else.

As far as meals go, "we don´t really have dinner. We buy a little snack or just eat something in the pension when we get home. It´s not bad though because lunch is so big that we don´t really get hungry. We go shopping once a week (every pday) and buy bread and jam and juice and cereal, otras cosas para desayunar (other things to eat) and it´s really easy to cook breakfast.

"We walk most of the time, our sector´s not too big. We only take buses here to central station to email and to zone meetings. The Andes are pretty and we´ve been able to see them better the last couple of days because the sun has been out. It´s already starting to get warm, which is great. We can´t see the ocean from here, but someday when I get to the coast I will!

"The English class we teach is just whoever wants to come, usually it´s adults.

"This pday we didn´t have very much time because we were playing futbol (soccer) in our chapel for like 2.5 hours. Our chapel is a stake center and it´s really nice. It´s the only one in the mission with an indoor court. It actually looks a lot like a temple. We had our greenie meeting there on Friday, with all of the new missionaries. It was great to see Elder Krainik and Elder Mawhinney again. We also got to eat Pizza Hut pizza, which was awesome. Pizza here is really expensive.

"Last night we were in this apartment complex and as we were leaving there was this crazy demon dog standing in our way. It was really small, too, but it kept barking at us and we were really afraid of it, I don´t know why. So we tried pushing it out of the way with our bags, then we just walked past it. Good times."

Semana 1 en Chile, Parte Dos

"So I have some cool news from our lessons. Things are going really well here. A couple weeks ago, Elder Butterfield and his last comp, Elder Bagley, met this family through simi. Simi is this list of all the members in the area listed by street, so we see a family name, and at least one person in that family is a member, and we go to the house and see if there are other family members that are not baptized. So they went to this man Sergio, who´s like 70 and was baptized a long time ago and is inactive. (There´s only like a 10% activity rate in chile.) So Sergio said he wasn´t interested in the Church anymore, but the elders kept coming back, and they met the rest of his family. Sergio lives with his daughter Isabel, her husband (we assumed he was her husband) Alfredo, and their four kids. They taught them the first lesson and the family was really interested. We went to their house and taught them the third lesson, which is basically the 4th article of faith, but in more detail. We challenged them to be baptized, and Alfredo and his son Edaurdo, who´s ten, said they would be. Their fecha (date) is the 27th of Sept. The rest of the family said they would need more time. They came to church yesterday, and the week before. (You have to come to church 3 times to be baptized.) Last night we taught them the law of chastity, and found out that Isabel and Alfredo aren´t married. Isabel is still married to some other guy, who she had her two daughters with. Then she moved in with Alfredo and they had Eduardo and Angelo (Angelo is only 2 so he can´t get baptized yet, but he´s a cool kid). So she needs to divorce her husband and marry Alfredo before they can get baptized. We are still aiming to get Eduardo and his two sisters, Jocellin and Michelle, baptized on the 27. I just hope this obstacle won´t keep them from being baptized. They seem excited about the gospel. Alfredo reads his LDM (Libro de Mormon) every night and they pray together. We are very excited for them.

"We had another really cool experience yesterday. We were just walking down the street, and this guy was working on a car, and he said, "Hola elders," so we stopped and talked to him. He said that he was baptized, but his wife (fingers crossed that they´re married) was not baptized. He invited us into his house, and his mom who lives with them came in and she is a member too, but she and her son are inactive. The mom is Alejandria, the son is Christian, and the wife was Javiera. Javiera is like 8 months pregnant. So we talked to the three of them (4 if you count the guagua, pronounced like wawa, which means baby) about the Book of Mormon and praying about it, and we taught Javiera how to pray, then her mother in law, Alejandria, said a prayer to finish the lesson. After the prayer, Javiera was crying. We asked her why and she said she just felt really peaceful, so we explained to her that that was the Spirit confirming to her the truth of what we had taught her. We are going back to there house tomorrow to see how their reading and prayer went.

"So yeah we´re doing well. It was actually a much easier adjustment than I thought it would be. Every Saturday we teach English classes in the capilla (chapel) from 330 to 430. The chapel here is really nice. It´s got shiny floor tiles and it´s two stories.

"Anyway...our area is basically in the city, so we´re not really near the coast, but that´s fine cuz I love it here. It´s so easy to love the people and have a desire to help them."