18th and Elder Hernandez

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

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

Semana 19 El Veranito de San Juan

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 16 en Rosal II

"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

"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

Service = moving a couch out a window. Naturally.

Elder Cannon drew this. Beautiful.

Mixing brownies for noche de hogar.

Semana 14 en Rosal II

"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

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

Fotos (finally!)

Javier's Baptism - July 18, 2009

The volleyball team Elder Cloward's been coaching

A Chilean sunset

Semana 12 en Rosal II

"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

"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

"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."

Fotos of Old and New Friends

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

"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."

Baby Gasper

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!!!

"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

(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

"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

"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!"