weekly email

So this week was pretty normal. Elba is just right there still. Not saying no but not saying yes either. Its frustrating. Manuel kind of disappeared a lot like all of our other investigators but we are still pretty sure that if we can get him to commit a little more then he could definitely be baptized. We did have the opportunity a few times during the week to teach groups of teenagers and kids and it was actually pretty awesome because they are way more receptive than any of the people who we teach normally. So yeah we are just hoping that we can find some of them again and leave them a real commitment to find a really good investigator.

The highlight of the week though was definitely Thursday this week when me and my companion got sick from fried fish that we ate and were up all night suffering. My companion asked for blessing and in the middle of the blessing I had to cut it short to run to the bathroom and throw up haha. It was awesome. Friday, we stayed in the house for the majority of the day but we left to go to a ward family night and found one of the groups of teenagers and invited them. We ended up having 8 investigators in that Family night and it was awesome. 

Besides that, we still have a bunch of people that are just alright that still wont commit to be baptized so we are just focused on finding new ones. But that really isnt working to well either haha. But hope that you all have a good week! 

Elder Parker

weekly email... and ugly sweaters

Hows it going everyone? Hope you all had a good week. Here it went well. We had quite a few difficulties with the investigators this week but its all good. Elba tells us now that she forgot her dream and that she still doesnt know if she should be baptized. That was really frustrating. We did do a service for her though and it was actually pretty cool. We moved a wood stove that she has in her house to another room and we had to cut holes in the roof and a bunch of stuff. We werent exactly sure what we were doing but she had no one else to do it so we offered. In the process, the member that was with us hit me in the head with a wood beam and it left a pretty solid bruise that I still have. Later that day, a dog decided to pee on my shoe. That was lovely. So yeah that day was pretty rough for me but in the end it was kind of funny how much garbage had happened to me in one day haha.

Also, Wednesday we had a Zone conference and our President blew our minds once again. He taught us how to be prophets, seers and revelators in our own minds and basically know the future like Christ did. It was nuts. I'

m still working on getting it down. But yeah that was awesome and we were in the chapel all day long. Like 13 hours in total. Hope you all had a good week though! 

Quirihue and Dreams

Whats up everyone? How are you all doing this week? This week was pretty great for me. We went one day to a super small town to work in the morning for what we call a zone attack. The entire Zone of 25 missionaries went there to work to help those missionaries there. Its called Quirihue and its super sweet. We were able to enter in houses by simply knocking which basically never happens. We found two investigators that morning that committed to baptism and church. And this is in the morning. Thats the biggest miracle. We also were able to take a solid nap on a super nice bus for 2 and a half hours.

Second, Elba this week had a dream that her mom was telling her that this was the true church and that she needed to follow what we said. I was totally in her dream. But yeah that was awesome and has never happened to me before. But even with that dream she isnt accepting a baptismal date yet. but yeah we are going to see what happens.

But yeah that was my week. Hope that you are all doing well this week! Love you!

Happy Valentines

Hows it going everyone? This week has been good though! There aren't like any more fires at all basically that I know of so that has been nice. Things are completely back to normal.  Yeah the fires here aren't really a problem anymore. We haven't been affected at least and haven't really heard anything else. But yeah we did do a service where we unloaded a bunch of clothing, water, and food for people that had lost their houses from the fires. It was pretty cool and fun to do. There was so much stuff.

 The investigators are doing well too. This week we were able to find a bunch of people to teach too and some of them are pretty good so we have basically been able to replace the people that weren't that great with people who are a lot better. We now have Elba, Mauricio, Jose and Maria and Marcelo and Sebastian and Luis. So far none of them have baptismal dates but we are hoping to put Elba with a fecha this week when we visit. She is such a funny old lady haha. The highlight of the week was Elba though. She went to church again and liked it again. It was really awesome this week though. She told us after we passed by to visit her that she wanted to learn about baptism more and that if she feels like she should, she will get baptized again. This is huge because she is super evangelical and super old. Usually she doesn't want to do anything but God works miracles so we are gonna see if anything happens with her!

Other than that, not too much happened. We found a guy that has depression. He is like really good and I know that he could be super happy but he refuses to go to church because he is self conscious. Its kind of sad to see but we are just gonna keep praying for a miracle there too. Honestly that is basically all that happened that is worth talking about. Have a good week!

cambios!

Yeah so basically nothing happened with the cambios this time around. Elder Ritchie and I are staying together one more time and at the end of this cambio we are both going to have like 6 months in this sector and we will have to see whats going to happen next time. I'm pretty pleased because it means I don't have to pack a suitcase. Also, Elder Ritchie is super awesome so that will be pretty fun. 

This week was good. We only got evacuated once this week and it was for a lame reason of smoke that really didn't appear to be present. But besides that it was a normal week. There are still quite a few fires yeah but for the most part, with the planes that they have received from other countries, it has been a lot easier for them now. We did do one service this week which was unloading a bunch of supplies from a truck that came from the north of Chile to help people that lost their houses and stuff. It was pretty cool and fun. We were unloading and sorting a bunch of water, clothes, food and just like everyday supplies to help. It was really fun actually. There were a few houses that got burned down in Penco but for the most part all of it was safe and they were able to stop the fires. But we did have other missionaries in our house a few days during the week because they were evacuated. That was fun. Its a lot more fun to have 4 missionaries in a house than just 2.

Marcelo is awesome but its super hard to have lessons with him so we have been struggling to get him to truly progress. We are working with him, a kid named sebastian, and another guy named Cesar, and a lady named Elba. We had Elba at Church yesterday. Shes a super nice old lady and she said she liked it. I'm not sure though if shes gonna keep going though just because she cant really walk super well and I think that the ward would stop going to pick her up in a car as soon as I left. We are gonna have to see though. But that's about it. Have a good week!

This mission is on fire!

This week was actually way different and super fun at the same time. You might already know about it, but here in Chile there are fires going on right now, which put together are the biggest wildfire in World history. It started close to us on Wednesday after we came out of a worldwide training broadcast that was really good. But we came out and there was a huge cloud of smoke pretty close to the stake center but it wasnt too close to our sector so we just went back and started to work but we kind of realized how crazy it was when we saw that there were three fires close by and it was seriously raining ashes. Thursday morning, they called us and said that they were going to evacuate us because the smoke wasnt safe. They told us to go to the office so we packed a few days worth of clothes and left. We were there with our assistants to the president and other missionaries living there for like three whole days almost. We received some statistics Friday night after being there all day. In total, there were 142 wildfires burning, about ten of them were under control. More than half of those fires had been started my humans on purpose as well. They had put parts of the country under marshall law. Our president couldnt come to the office because he was stuck in another city and the freeway was burning and closed. It was a real serious situation. In those three days, I got really good at ping pong again, taught myself a little more of how to play piano, and re learned guitar a little bit. It was fun but kind of boring as well. We had to sleep there both nights and that really sucked. My back hurt so bad each morning. So yeah it was pretty exciting for a while but im glad to be back in my sector working.

Also, on Tuesday, we received and investigator from another sector that is super good. His name is Marcelo and he showed up to church in another sector on his own and has now been going there for like two months without knowing that he lived inside of our ward. We are hoping to be able to put him with a baptismal date this week which would be super awesome. We taught him a super good lesson about a testimony and how can can gain his own. That was a pretty awesome miracle. Hope you all have a good week though!

Elder Parker

Oops...Wrong church

This week was alright. With the summer vacations here it has been super difficult to have constant communication with our investigators and help them to progress. This week we had a lesson with Pedro and he told us that he would only accept a sign from God telling him that he needs to be baptized. He said that he did it for Joseph Smith so why not for him. It was a really frustrating lesson. We also had a lesson with a really strange guy who says he believes in the bible but obviously doesn't understand it because he believes in a whole bunch of weird things that it never mentions in the bible. It was entertaining because we were able to basically prove him wrong with like 5 questions during the entire lesson. He got frustrated and didn't like it. Monday though we found a lady who was super good. She accepted baptism and to go to church super easily and understood everything super well (we thought). We called her Saturday night and her husband answered. He told us that she wasn't there, but she was doing what we told her and she had gone to church. The evangelical church. We reactivated an evangelical lady this week. It was awesome.As far as investigators and stuff go, it was pretty lame actually.

We reached that goal of 20 lessons with member almost every week but its with people who really aren't progressing. And it is a goal that president put. Sebastian couldn't have a lesson either so we haven't been able to really see if he is going to progress though. My comp did call him though and he said that he had read and that he was praying actually every night. So we were pretty pumped to hear that.

We also were showering all week long with cold water because our water heater thing broke and we had no time to get anyone to fix it so we just put up with it for the week. It wasnt very fun but now we got it fixed. hope you have a good week!!

We shaved Pablito's head this week!