From Campo to Campo-ier

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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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

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!

Cristopher's Baptism

Dear Family,
So Cris got baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. He is so excited to be baptized and after the baptism he gave his testimony in front of about 30 people that attended the service.
On Thursday we had our first zone conference of 2010. Elder Amado (the President of the Chile Area) came to speak to the missionaries. He basically told us that we are doing good as a mission but we need to do a LOT better. So that will be fun. We´re doing the best we can and things are improving a lot.
Today we had our zone activity. we went to Bernardita´s country house. We brought a volleyball net and tied it to a tree and a pole and played. We had an awesome BBQ. I´ll send pics of that and the baptism next week.
Happy Birthday Janessa!! Love you -Have a wonderful day.
Hope everyone is well!
Love you all
Elder Cloward.
P.S. I need President Marco´s phone numbers: home phone and cell phone. Please send them as soon as possible.
Thank You!

Ana Karina's Baptism

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

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"

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 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!" 

Fotos of Felipe's Baptism

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

"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."

Semana 3 en Rosal II

"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."

Semanas 7 y 8 en Parque Subercaseaux

"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

Semana 6 en Parque Subercaseaux

"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."

Semana 3 en Parque Subercaseaux

"This Friday Katy and Erick are getting married and Saturday Katy will get baptized, but I don´t think I will be able to go. I will ask Elder Becerra to take pics for me.

"And a nice short story of how our week went: One of our investigators, Maria Eugenia, has a baptism date set for February 14th. Her son, Sebastian, is 19 years old and was baptized about a year and a half ago. Seba never got the priesthood because he has one of those expanding earrings in his ear, and we have talked to him countless times about the importance of taking it out to be able to have the priesthood, but he never wanted to. Yesterday after sacrament meeting, he told Elder Noguera and I to go outside with him, and he took off his earing and threw it over the fence! He told us "I need to receive the priesthood, I want to be a missionary." He said that while he was sitting in the sacrament meeting, he saw a vision of himself serving a mission, and he didn´t have his earing, and in that moment he knew how dumb he was being letting his earing stop him from all of the blessings he can receive. We are going to work with him these next few weeks and try to prepare him to be ordained a priest and he might be able to baptize his mom on the 14th!

"One of the lessons elder noguera and I have been sharing this week is about being a true disciple of Jesus Christ. We talked about the young rich man who asks Jesus what he needs to do to be saved, and he says keep the commandments, and the rich man says he has done that since his youth, then Jesus tells him to sell all he has, give it to the poor, and follow him, and the young man leaves because he doesn´t want to do that. This man was a disciple of Jesus Christ, but only up to a certain point. If we are true followers of Christ, there are no "buts" and he can never ask too much of us. (See mark 19:16 i think that is where it is)."

Fotos of Bowling & Baptisms

Elder Cloward bowling with his district

Elder Cloward & 3 of his 4 companions: Elder Low, Elder Bacerra & Elder Noguera

Elder Noguera, Maria & Elder Cloward at Maria's baptism

Semana 2 en Parque Subercaseaux

"This Saturday we had a zone conference with Elder Zeballos of the Seventy, who talked to us about the importance of `raising the bar`and doing our best in the mission, etc. His son (also named Elder Zeballos... what a coincidence) is serving in this mission so when we ate lunch he ate with his parents. The conference was in the chapel in Los Arcos, and Fernando came to give me a letter since I didn't get to say bye to him. It was slightly awkward though because he came while Elder Zevallos was speaking and was waving to me from the doors to the chapel and then from the windows from outside, but I couldn`t leave because there was a general authority speaking. good times.

"After the conference we left in a rush to get to the baptism for Maria at 5:00. The power failed in the subway right before we got to our last stop, which was pretty entertaining, but it came back in about 5 minutes. The baptism turned out very well and Maria was confirmed yesterday.

"The other elders don`t speak English, but that is cool I have gotten used to the lack of English speaking. Elder Krainik is still in the same sector so we are still in the same zone. I see Elder Butterfield every once in a while in zone conferences, and see Elder Becerra a lot since he is in my zone. He says everyone is doing well and Katy is still on track for her baptism on the 31st.

"Today we went bowling for a zone activity and Elder Low was there! It was great to see him again. He is already senior companion and his junior comp is Elder Leathem (you don`t know him, but he was in our zone in the mtc!) They are doing great and are right next to the airport. I will send pictures.

"There is another family that we are starting to teach. Their names are Luis and Rosario, and they have two sons, Antonio (5) and Fernando (2). They just got married about two months ago and Rosario told us they are having a lot of problems. She said everyone told her that when she got married her problems would go away, but now she has more. We haven`t talked to the two of them together, just once we talked to Rosario and yesterday we went by and her husband Luis was there. He said he has never accepted Jesus in his life before but thinks that now might be the time. They are both really good people and i know they can work out their problems if they both accept the gospel, but we will see what happens."

Semana 1 en Parque Subercaseaux

"Yes, that is the name of my new sector. Very French.

"So I got transfered, but I am only about four metro-stops farther north from where I was, and I am still in the same zone, La Gran Avenida. Our sector is pretty cuico (rich/classy) and there are a ton of apartment buildings, which makes it hard to make contacts/knock doors, but I really like the sector.

"My new companion is Elder Luis Angel Noguera. He is from northern Argentina, only four blocks from Brazil, so he is fluent in both Portugues and Spanish, and is also studying English because he wants to be a pilot (he also secretly wants to be a gringo). He is a black belt in martial arts and has had some problems in the past with fighting with missionaries and/or contacts in the street. He is honestly a great missionary and works very hard and he is helping me to learn how to listen to the spirit more, since I tend to rely on myself too much. He will finish his mission in March (he was going to finish in February but extended). He is the oldest of six boys, and the only member in his whole family.

"We have a baptism coming up this next Saturday. Her name is Maria Marìn. She starting taking the discussions because first her niece, Valentina, then her sister, Claudia, got baptized. She is 63 years old and has been single her whole life. We are also teaching Maria Eugenia, about 50 years old. She starting taking the discussions because her son, Sebastian, was baptized about two years ago. The date for her baptism is the same day as Katy's (the 31st of January) but we are kind of worried because she left this Saturday on vacation and won't come back until next Saturday. We are hoping and praying that she will still have the desire to be baptized when she gets back, because a lot of times people get back from vacations and lose interest.

"There is a family in our ward that had missionaries living in their house for ten years and they are really cool. The dad is the ward mission leader, the mom is the Relief Society president, one of their daughters is the primary president and her husband is the first counselor in the ward, and their other daughter is one of the counselors for relief society. The daughter that is married has two daughters, and one is 3 and the other 4 months. The 3 year old, Gabriela, likes to tickle me a lot and she also likes to try talking very expressively (using her hands, making gestures, etc) but no one can understand her because she doesn't make any sense when she talks haha. I told them you were sending me a package and I asked if they wanted anything. They said they want Twizzlers, m & m`s, and Mint flavored orbit gum, the kind that comes in sticks, not the kind that you pop out of foil wrapper. Oddly specific I know, but if you could find it I would appreciate it because this family does a ton for us. The mom reminds me of Mom very much, especially in the way that she talks to her 4 month old granddaughter. She is exactly the same as mom is when she is talking to a baby.

"We live in a pension that is just outside of our sector. Every day we have to cross the freeway on one of those walking bridges. We can see Cerro San Cristobal, it is in the foto I sent. We live with two other elders, Elder Fuentes from Honduras and Elder Jambo from Peru. So there is some basic info about my new sector I will let you know more next week. Love you all!"

Last Semana en Los Arcos

"I have changes tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!! ah!!! so I am going to hacer como un àrbol y hoja. (make like a tree and leaf hahaha...) which really just is not funny in Spanish. So tomorrow I will go to the chapel at 9 in the morning and they will tell me where in the world I will be going. could be a fun experience. Elder Becerra is going to stay here with a new companion. However, I won`t know where I am going, who will be my companion, or any other of the details of my life for the next 6 weeks until tomorrow morning. I will let you know where I am next week in my email.

"Last week we set a date for Katy`s baptism, for the 31st of January. She and Erick are getting married the 30th and she will be baptized the next day, and confirmed the day after (assuming that everything goes well). For new years eve we ate dinner with Familia Cancino. The mom is separated and lives with her daughter, Maria Jose (19) and her son Ignacio (10) they are all really active and a great family. Her oldest son is about to finish his mission in Argentina Buenos Aires North in 9 more days and she is really nervous haha. but for new years eve we got home the same time as always, 10:30 and got to stay up until 12:00. At midnight they cut our power and set off fireworks outside, which we could not see because they were behind our apartment.

"We are still teaching Fernando, Angel, and Angela (kind of). Fernando already read the entire Book of Mormon, and he and his dad are coming to church every week. The only problem is that we can never get into their house to teach. We need to teach them about baptism and set a date but it is kind of hard if we can`t enter their house. But that is Elder Becerra`s responsability now. We have a cita with Katy and Erick tonight so I will have to say goodbye. There will be tears. haha probably not but I just hope everything goes well with them."