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!"

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.

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."

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."

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!" 

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."

Special Transfer to 5 de Abril

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

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

Semana 16 en Parque Subercaseaux

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

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

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

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

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

Pascua (Easter) en Parque Subercaseaux

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

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

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

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

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

Semana 14 en Parque Subercaseaux

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Semana 13 en Parque Subercaseaux

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

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

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

Semana 12 en Parque Subercaseaux

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

Semana 11 en Parque Subercaseaux

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