Moving...

This week was pretty fun. We had a ton of lessons with a bunch of different people but up until now they haven't really shown signs of progress so we are going to see what happens with them. For now our best investigator is Pedro. He didn't go to church though so we are going to see what happened there. I'm gonna be honest it was a great week but I'm not really sure why.  New year's was really fun.  New years is bigger than christmas! It was fun and we shot off confetti canons in our house and that was about the only thing that we did at midnight. Besides that, we ate dinner with a member family and it was super fun. 

Another thing is that we moved houses this week because the landlady asked for our house so we switched with her. Now we are in a house that is actually pretty nice. We still don't have any way to be able to cook our food but those are only details and we only really eat cereal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches anyways. The life of a missionary is super pathetic but its actually way fun. We did borrow a pan from a member this week though and we made rice crispy treats that were super good actually. But other than that I cant think of too many things that were special. Hope you all had a good new year!

Blanca and Pedro are alright. After that super good lesson that I had with Blanca, we followed it up with a really lame lesson and so she fell back a little bit which was really lame. But Pedro is still good. He just wants to be more sure about his baptism before he actually does it so for now we are helping with that. He didn't go to church though so we aren't super sure whats going on. And yeah elder Ritchie is super awesome and we have lived together for a while but we get along super well and now just live the two of us but still its super fun.  Hope you all had a good New Year!

Happy New Year!

Hey Happy new year a few hours early everyone! We had our P Day changed to Saturday this week because there will basically nothing open on Monday because of the New Year. Here, they take new year very seriously. Like basically the entire country is gonna be shut down for a few days so it should be interesting. We always find plenty of people that are super drunk for the next few days as well so that should be pretty interesting. Its for that, that our mission President has given us permission to watch movies all day tomorrow basically. But these are Disney movies which is going to be super weird, but at the same time is should be a nice break and should be something fun. Haha it surprised me a ton when we found that out but I'm not complaining too much haha.

This week was super good. I am now with my new companion elder Ritchie. He's from Missouri and just finished his training. We get along super well and laugh together a ton. I'm super excited for the cambio. We had a super good week too with the investigators. We were able to have second citas with a few people and those lessons were super good. One was with that Pedro that I mentioned a few weeks back. We had a super spiritual lesson with him yesterday and committed him to baptism if he gets his answer. He also committed himself to church tomorrow which will be super awesome. So now we will just have to pray that he gets that answer. The other lesson that was super good was with a lady named Blanca. We also committed her to baptism if she gets her answer. It was so awesome in the lesson because we were explaining to her how the holy ghost works to be able to get her answer and I asked her, "How have you felt while we have shared today?" and she said that she felt peace and a calmness and a happiness and it was super awesome because we explained to her that is how the spirit testifies to us that these things are true that we have taught her. It was so awesome. So for now they are our best investigators that we have. We finally had to tell Julio that we couldn't pass by him anymore because he just isn't willing to progress. That was kind of sad but I think that it will open up the door so that we can find more people.

Hope that you all have a good New Year and that you can put a whole but of resolutions and reach all of them(: Have a good Year!

Elder Ritchie and I

Our zone at the Christmas conference

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Heyyy merry Christmas everyone! Hope that you all had a good one this year. It was a pretty good one for us at least. Christmas here isnt as big as it is there but its still super fun. We celebrated doing a few things. First, we on Friday went to the local hospital and sang christmas carols and stuff to all of the people there and it was super fun. Everyone was listening to us throughout the hospital and we even got a few "Haleluyah" shouts from the Evangelicals there. It was sick. Uhh we also had a really long conference of the mission in which we learned about how the apostasy went down and it was pretty fun. But the best part of the whole thing was eating on the night of the 24th. We went with the member who lives right next to us and we seriously tried to eat so much food but we couldnt even eat close to half of it. I feel sick for how much food people have given us recently. Its great but awful. 

I will be staying in Penco. They are actually shutting one of the sectors in our sector so there will only be two missionaries instead of four. I am going to be with Elder Ritchie. He was one of the other two missionaries who was already there so It will be good because we both already know the sector and have investigators. I'm pretty excited too because he is super funny and a really good missionary. My comp is going to Linares and I am kind of sad about it because we got along super well together and it was super fun to be with him. I think he was probably my favorite companion. Hes a really good missionary too. 

Hope that you all had a Good Christmas. This year lets try and remember the life of Christ and try to follow that example that he left us. I know that he is our Savior and redeemer and that by following him we find happiness and peace in this life. Have a good Christmas!

 Our Christmas Skype!

 We found out how to be Jedi's with my scripture marking pen

Our Christmas feast for 3 people!

Elder Parker

Merry Christmas!

Hey Merry Christmas everyone since its the last time that I will be able to talk to You all before Christmas. Hope it goes well for all of you! I will be eating with members and sitting through a bunch of conferences I think and besides that it will be a pretty normal week. I guess though that the dinner we are going to eat with a member on Christmas Eve is huge though so I will start to fast tomorrow probably.

This week was average. WE were able to find a few people that want to change their lives. Julio though, does not. He is super addicted to alcohol and just doesn't want to admit that its a problem so I think that we might have to stop visiting him.  We have a few more people that are doing well and should progress. They have needs, which is key because the gospel can satisfy those needs that they have, so we will see. There names are Pedro and Margot and Nicole. We are gonna hope for the best with them.  Funny experience of the week is that my companion and I were helping to set up for a kids activity in the chapel this week, he bent down to pick up a stack of chairs and ripped his pants super bad hahah in front of a bunch of little kids. It was so awesome. I was dying. I believe that was the highlight of the week though that I can remember.

I hope that you all can try to remember the reason that we celebrate Christmas this year though. Christ is the only way that we can truly have happiness in this life. I love the opportunity that I have to serve him every day! Love you all and have a good week!

weekly email

Whats up everyone? This week was pretty average. There wasn't a whole lot that went on. We had a zone conference wednesday and our President reminded us again that he is super sick. Hes super funny too. But we found a few people and they at least invited us back to their house so we are progressing with the investigators too. I dont have a lot of time though so I just wanted to tell you all that the mission and especially the mission during Christmas time is one of the best times of your life. I really enjoy this so much. To be able to represent Christ every day and to be able to act in his name is something that cannot be replaced by anything better. Im super grateful that I have been given this oportunity. I know that Christ lives and loves us. Have a good week though! 

But with the investigators, we are doing a little better. None of the people are super great but they are willing to have us come back so thats a blessing. We havent been able to meet with Christian again yet. We are going Tuesday to visit.  Julio is just consumed in his addiction. And yeah Ill share a spiritual experience. I usually dont though simply because they dont come out spiritual when I write them and especially in an email. But the experience is that we always try to visit Julio and he usually isnt there but we always share with his 88 year old blind mom, Marta. She wont progress but she loves to have someone to simply talk to because if we dont pass by she has no one to talk to. She expressed to us this past week that she is with us more than with her son and it really gave me the feeling that she has really found strength in the simple act of us passing by and making her day a little better. It was really special because I feel like I have done something just as important as convert her to the gospel. It was a very special feeling.

Love you!

Elder Parker

weekly email

Hey everyone how are you doing? This week was pretty good. We had a conference with one of the area 70, Elder Packer. Who is actually Boyd K Packers son. It was pretty cool. He is a super serious man who looks exactly like his dad. It was almost scary to see how much he looked like him. But yeah we learned about some cool mission stuff and how to work better with members and a lot of fun stuff like that.

This week was actually super difficult though. We had a few problems with our health this week and that made it super hard to have any success at all. I had a cold like all week. My companion on Tuesday stepped on a nail and it went through his shoe into his foot and we were inside that day. But more than anything this week was hard because we had to basically rely on knocking doors to try and find people to teach and it didn't work super well. We had a few days where we were walking for quite a few hours each day. But I could learn again, Patience. I am getting a little sick of learning patience but that just means I need to learn more I guess. Its been great to see that small miracles have happened with us every single day when we need it most and that is what keeps us motivated to keep going. We have like two decent investigators, one is named Christian and we found him last night. Please pray so that he receives an answer about the book of Mormon. And the other is Julio. Hes just okay because he has problems with alcohol and it makes it super hard to work with him. But besides that we are just looking super hard.

Hope you all enjoy Christmas and have a good week!

Bautismo!

Hey whats up everyone? This week was actually pretty good. First off, Mario was baptized this past Saturday and everything went well without too many surprises. He is a super cool guy who knows a ton. But after like 2 years of sharing with missionaries, he got baptized this week. Also, in our ward we got a new bishop which is something that we needed. Our old bishop had been bishop for 10 years in a ward that has a solid amount of problems. So hopefully this helps to give the ward a little bit of life.

For thanksgiving this year, I think I gave my companion a high five. So you can say that it was one of the best ones ever. Last year we made pizza in our apartment but this year we don't have an oven so we couldn't even do that. I was asked by a member this week why we celebrate Thanksgiving too and it was super hard to explain to her. I think I have been out of elementary school for too long.

Now though, we are on the countdown to Christmas. Sharing the #Lighttheworld thing with everyone and inviting them to serve someone. So that's the same thing that I want to invite all of you to do serve someone who needs it.

Have a good week!