New stuff

Hows it going everyone? Im doing fine here now in Libertador with Elder Garcia. The sector is HUGE and I get lost pretty easily but its all good. The people are a little bit more closed even though Im in the same city. Elder Garcia is alright. We get along alright. The ward here is really good and strong but they really dont like to help with the missionary work of the ward so thats kind of lame but we will just have to work on it. Also, we live with two other Elders and one of them is Elder Leiva from my first sector. He is super funny and always boosts the energy. I am also the only one in the house who speaks english so I went a few days straight without speaking english before today.

There are absolutely no investigators here too so we have to find some and thats really tough because I dont know the sector very well. So basically we are starting from scratch. Im grateful for the challenge though and hope that I can just make myself better through the trials and challenges that I am given. 

But thats about it for this week, hope that you are all doing well. Love You all

Jake

Me voy...

Can´t really believe it but I am getting transferred again. They are also shutting our sector which is a really great idea for the other two missionaries that are going to stay in that ward. I actually liked this sector a lot and I am sad to have to leave. The members were great people here and things were just starting to pick up again in our sector. We found 4 people this week. None of them were great but we still found 4. Oh well, hopefully the other misisonaries can work with those people and get them baptized.

I am going to another zone here in Chillan but in the other stake. My new sector is called Libertador and it should be pretty good. I have officially been moved up to senior companion officially after being unofficial for two cambios. My new companion is Elder Garcia from Guatemala. He just barely finished his training and has just about 3 months in the field now. It should be a good experience.

Not a ton happened this week, but it flew by somehow. We had a bunch of really spiritual lessons with people and I found that the best way to be able to feel the spirit consistently here in the mission is to continually bear testimony to the people. When you do that, the people can´t say that it isn´t true because it comes directly from your heart. It was awesome to be able to feel the spirit a lot this week and I should encourage all of you to take any opportunity that you have to bear your testimony of the gospel. 

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Parker

Hola Todos!

¡Hola todos! This week was alright. Had some really good parts and some other not so good parts. Ill start with the good. Yesterday I turned a whole 19 years old and it feels the same as 18, haha. Some of the members of Agronomía (that's the name of the ward) threw me a surprise party last night which was really sweet of them. One of their daughters too had a birthday so we shared the party. Those members, as a present, bought me a storm trooper (everyone here knows I love Star Wars) which is huge and that made me laugh pretty hard. They are really great people.  I enjoyed the Bithday in the mission. It was really simple and different and for that I liked it. But the time is passing so fast that I am sure I will be home before I know it. That makes me a little sad but it is crazy to think that about a year ago I was doing my papers to get ready to leave. Its insane how fast it passes 

Not so good news, Bella and Marilu "died" this week which means that they are no longer investigators. Bella had a change in her work and wont be able to meet with us anymore and also wouldn´t be able to go to church. So we had to let her go. She never really understood the importance of what we were teaching though. I just don´t think it was quite her time to be baptized. We have a few other investigators that are alright but none that are worth writing about... yet.

We did quite a bit of service here this week too. One day, painted a cement fence which didn´t really work very well but they were happy with it. And the other, we re-furnished a couch. Its funny. The people here think that very little things that are very basic are skills. For example, we went and washed the windows of the bishop one day and his wife asked me if I "knew how". I thought that she was talking about some special technique or somehting so I had her show me. It was literally just a normal thing. Soapy water and a rag. It was funny and Im really grateful that I get to serve here in Chile. The people are funny and strange and its a different world but I love it.

That is so cool to hear of the people that are going to leave on their missions. It makes me feel so old in the mission and makes me realize how fast time goes by. But yeah I feel pretty fluent. There are some situations though that are tough. Chileans speak horribly and dont pronounce anything well. They also use a ton of different phrases and things that are hard to understand.

Have a good week!

Love, Elder Parker

(The two gifts I have received in Chile. The other was for Christmas)

Chile is good...

Hows it going everyone? Good to be able to talk with you all again. This week normally would have been the week of cambios but this cambio is 8 weeks so I will be with Elder Calle for another two weeks. This week was pretty good though. The highlight was general conference. There were some great talks that I really enjoyed and I noticed that the majority of them had to do with families in one way or another. We as missionaries are always praying to find a whole family to be able to teach. If you can do that, the goal of going to the temple to be sealed is a little bit closer. But I hope you all felt the spirit and the power of the talks that were given and that you all go out and do something with the information and testimony that you have received. My favorite talk was by D. Todd Christopherson about fathers and their divine roles in the lives of others. With that, I would like to thank my dad and tell him happy birthday this Wednesday haha.  But I think I like Elder Eyring the most. We got to watch in a Stake Center and all of the English missionaries go to another room and watch in English which is really nice.

But Bella and Marilu are doing alright. Marilu actually understands a lot more than her mom and Bella is progressing slowly. She doesn´t understand the importance of the things we teach and that commandments come from God, not from the church. So right now we are focusing on that and are hoping to get them baptized this week but we will have to see.  Money is a big problem for them and she has a hard time understanding tithing and that its a commandment from God, not from the church. They didn't come to church yesterday and are supposed to be getting baptized this Saturday but I don't know about that.

And it has started to cool off a lot. Yesterday, it rained super hard during conference and we had to leave to work after in all of our rain gear which was pretty fun but Im sure it will get old fast. But have a good week and make sure to say your prayers and all that fun stuff.

Love Elder Parker

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter

Jacob Parker

3/28/16

To: bjmoffat@yahoo.com, cliljenquist@me.com, emilydutson@yahoo.com, heidi@chronosnet.com, rjmoffat@yahoo.com, Ben, Bishop Fairholm, Brent Brough, burnetts 123, C Craig Liljenquist, Dani Coletti, Jodi Parker, Josh Liljenquist, Kyle Liljenquist, Liz, London Halls, Madelyn Parker, Megan Liljenquist, Megan Liljenquist, Michael Parker, Terry Parker, Torie, Trisha Liljenquist, Uncle Jerry, Wendi Palmer

Happy Easter everyone! hope you all enjoyed it. Its kind of weird here because they celebrate "Good Friday", which is when Christ died, than Easter. The people here dont understand the importance of the Resurrecion and that it is the part that is more important. But thats why Im here.

Not a ton happened this week that is very noteworthy but Bella and Marilu are doing well but we are going to have to move their fecha one more Saturday to the 9th of April because of General Conference. There literally isn´t time to fit the two things in on the same day. Thats okay though because she doesn´t understand a lot still so she is going to be more prepared.

My Easter was nothing special but we did have an Easter egg hunt as a ward yesterday in the third hour so that was fun. But yeah Bella and Marilu came to church and Osvaldo also got the Priesthood yesterday. It was a good day even though nothing special really happened.

More than that, it was a holiday here so roughly 75% of the population was drunk for some part of the week. Those are always fun days. We talked with a drunk guy that could barely stand and kept shaking our hands. He actually ended up kissing us on the forehand out of nowhere too which made me very uncomfortable. 

I also must have eaten something that I am alergic to because I have broken out in hives which itch really badly and wont go away but its alright. I also finished the book Jesus the Christ today in the morning. Its a great book thats really hard to read but I recommend it to all of you. I want to invite you all to remeber the Savior and his atonement for each of us and to give thanks for it. There is nothing more impactful in our lives than that.

Love Elder Parker

a day at the beach...

How is it going everyone? Good I hope. To start off, I experienced my first day of being sick in the mission and it was pretty terrible. Im pretty sure I bought bad milk and that messed me up. I was throwing up all day long Tuesday and Wednesday just didn´t have the energy to work. I was a little bit weak in the stomach for the next two days but now I am back to normal and working which is a great blessing. It stinks to be sick on the mission. Your companion can´t leave to buy you anything to help so you kind of just have to wait there and pray a lot haha.

But also, Bella and Marilu are doing well. They weren´t able to come to church yesterday so we had to move their baptismal date but also they don´t have very firm testimonies of the Book of Mormon yet so we are working on that first. Besides that, we have no one. We just have to keep looking.

Also, this morning, all of the missionaries in Chillan went to the beach and it was pretty great. It was cloudy and cold but it was a fun time and the fog made things look super cool. Nice activity. But I think thats about it so have a good week! Remember Christ this Easter Week. Easter isn´t really even a holiday here and its strange.

Love Elder Parker

6 months!

I am officially ancient in the mission. Haha not really but 6 months has passed by super fast. Its crazy how fast it really can pass by. It has been some of the most frustrating, most tiring, most fun, and most rewarding 6 months of my life though too. I am grateful for each minute that I have of this experience. I have, up until now, 1- been called gringo about a million times 2- been compared to spider man a million times 3- asked "what?" more than a million times and a bunch of other stats too. It has been a great time though and super rewarding.

But not much happened this week. Bella and Marilu wen tto church again but aren´t really completing their commitments and reading and praying so we might have to move their baptismal date back if they can´t do that. But they are still doing well. Emelinda had to be let go this week. She didn´t really have desires to progress and to be baptized so its kind of a waste of time to keep visiting her. I think we might try one more time a little later on.

Last thing is that this last week we talked with a member that had a lot of trials in and out of the church and asked us why that is. We gave her an answer but it made me think too. I studied that topic and I found that we have trials as part of the plan of Salvation. We were sent here to progress and to have joy. The trials are there to allow us to be humble, to help us learn, and to make us capable of feeling joy. The worse trials that we have in our lives, the greater our capacity to have joy. Each trial has an ending and if we can endure, we will find more joy than we had before. That is a brief summary of what I learned while studying.

But I hope each of you have a good week and Keep enjoying your lives!

Love Elder Parker