Conferencia (June 24, 2019)

We had a meeting a few hours north of here with a seventy. Elder de Hoyos. It was super good. He talked about talking to everyone, working with members, being of good cheer, and some other stuff.

In my last sector, one of my contacts was just baptized and confirmed.  That is super awesome. And here we have a good amount of people that we are teaching. We are also going to start English classes here soon. And who will be the teacher? Yo. I will be.  It will be super awesome and I am really looking forward to it.  

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting this week. We had a good amount of less active members come.  It was really fun. I spoke on Ether 12:27, and how to find people to teach as members.  This week was a very good week. This week should be really good as well.  

We all have weaknesses here and our natural person is an enemy to God. However, we can be changed and strengthened even to the point where we are the friend of Jesus.  

This was a fast one. I don't have much time, lo siento, hasta luego!

Getting Settled (June 10, 2019)

This week was super fun.  We started out with 1 person that we were teaching but we now have 6 people that are all fairly new.  And they all have a baptismal date set.  It is super awesome and hopefully this month we will have a few.  We have one person that is going to be baptized this week but in a different area because his family lives there. But it will still be awesome.  A few of our people have word of wisdom problems.  We are helping one person who has his baptismal date for the 7th of September. I don't know if we will still be here but we have some good plans to help him stop smoking.  This week was also the first time that during a lesson, the person pulled out a rubber glove from their backpack and the glove was full of marijuana.  

We had one of the people I was teaching be baptized the Saturday after I left and I am super excited for that. It is cool to see the other people that you were teaching continue to progress. 

 In Mosiah 26 Alma has to deal with some hoodlums and he is the judge. 13 And now the spirit of Alma was again troubled; and he went and inquired of the Lord what he should do concerning this matter, for he feared that he should do wrong in the sight of God.

14 And it came to pass that after he had poured out his whole soul to God, the ^avoice of the Lord came to him, saying:   

He went to the Lord in his need for inspiration to know what to do.  But his answer didn't come until after pouring out his whole soul to the Lord.  We can receive guidance and answers but most times it requires a lot of effort on our part. But we can always receive the answer.  

our calendar

that says, "don't throw away garbage, don't hunt the ducklings"

The Land of the Witches (June 3, 2019)

I am now in Salamanca. And it has the nickname of the land of the witches.  We'll see why.  But my "child" is Elder Magaña from Mexico.  He is super awesome and it will be fun working here.  We went to Viña to meet there then we took a bus for about 5 hours to here.  We are in a branch here and at 10:00 here we had 7 other people in the chapel.  By the end of the meeting we had 30 but it is super strange to see so little in the church.  

Our house was super dirty when we showed up and we have 1 person to teach but we are going to do a lot to find more people and get everything in order.  Salamanca is small but a lot prettier than Quillota.  I am excited to work here.

In Mosiah 23:21-22 it says, 21 Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to ^achasten his people; yea, he trieth their ^bpatience and their faith.

22 Nevertheless—whosoever putteth his ^atrust in him the same shall be ^blifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus it was with this people.   

I think it is super important to see the cause of our afflictions in our life. If it is from God, satan, or a result of our agency or someone else's.  With that we can use the help of the Lord that he can consecrate or afflictions for our well-being and gain.  

Oh Boy (May 27, 2019)

This week we have two baptisms.  It is going to be awesome and I am super excited.  There is one thing that is a little sad.  I'm going to be in Illapel.  It is a few hours north.  But that's not the best part.  I'm going to be training a new missionary and neither of us is going to know the new area.  It is going to be super awesome, I hope. 

This week we tried a lot harder to talk with everyone that we could.  We did 314 contacts this week and one day we were able to contact 81. It was super cool.  We had 14 of these people give us a number or address and we are going to try to have another lesson.  We don't have many people that we are able to talk to a second time.  But the more people we can talk to the higher chance we can find some people. 

I will be going to Viña Del Mar Wednesday and then meet my new comp. then we will go to our new sector.  We will see how it goes. 

I'm going to take the advice of Alma here when he said 19 And he commanded them that they should teach nothing save it were the things which he had taught, and which had been spoken by the mouth of the holy prophets.
20 Yea, even he commanded them that they should preach nothing save it were repentance and faith on the Lord, who had redeemed his people 
I personally had to evaluate my faith while being here quite a bit.  It is put to the test a lot.  I had to see if I really know that this is the Church of Jesus Christ and if I believe that we have the priesthood and to what extent that can solve any problem.  Obviously, I don't know what you are dealing with but we all have room to grow. Joseph Smith said, "search your hearts, and see if you are like God. I have searched mine, and feel a need to repent of all my sins."

This helped me to grow my faith and draw closer to God. But we have to be willing to change.

My old district



Jonathan

My comp's pin

Last Chance (May 20, 2019)

This morning we had a little earthquake.  We are on the fourth floor so we felt it a little more but I could still hardly feel it.  I have a video of some plates moving but we'll see how well you can tell.

This week we had a baptismal date for Saturday.  But we are leaving on Friday until Monday.  And I leave the next Wednesday (probably). So we are going to see if we can do it this Thursday.  If not then we will have two baptisms the next weekend which would be awesome.

A couple times this week I made the mistake of getting too close with cats and I then continued to metaphorically die.  But a couple Benadryl solved that. But South America doesn't have Benadryl.  What a shame.

We talked to a lot more people this week.  We are talking to basically everyone that we pass in the street.  We contacted 204 people this week and one day we did 70.  It was really fun.  But we can't do that a lot or we don't have many lessons or pass by a second time for the people that we contacted.

The last few days I have been reading in Mosiah about Abinadi and King Noah.  I generally like reading scriptures that metaphorically cut and think they can be quite amusing.  you usually don't use these scriptures to teach but it is good to learn these things for yourself.

Basically, King Noah is a bad dude and is making his people be bad too.  Abinadi is called of the Lord as a prophet and preaches repentance to the people.  And if they don't repent they with become captive to the Lamanites.  Then after two years, the people are still bad. And now, instead of captivity, the punishment is being "utterly destroyed from off the face of the earth"

But I like that even though their abominations are great enough for this.  The Lord says that repentance is still an option and will prevent the destruction.  It is always an option.  But listening to prophets the first time is the better option.

Happy Mother's Day (May 13,2019)

This week we were kidnapped by a member. No, jokes. But she asked us to go with her to do a blessing and she said we had to take one of the busses. She is a bit older so we thought it was just a little far to walk.  Next thing we know is we are passing the church of a different sector.  Then 15 minutes later we finally get out and have to walk to the house for a bit.  We aren't allowed to leave our sector without permission but she didn't care too much. 


But we went to the baptism of the hermanas in our district and when we showed up they asked us to give the baptism and Holy Ghost talks.  It wasn't very much pressure with the 7 people there but it was super awesome. 

We are speaking English in our apartment now. And by we, I mean I.  So my comp can get better.  I was having some gun withdrawals so I bought a Nerf gun.  We also played bubble soccer the other week and my legs we trashed after.  But it was super awesome.

Mosiah 4:27
And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.
Running isn't super easy but we aren't asked to do more than we have strength. Only what we can and what we lack will be made up.

May 16, 2019

We are starting again with fewer people.  We have two people that can be baptized this month but everyone else that wants to listen lives together and isn't married.  So hopefully we can help these two before I leave this sector. 


This week we decided to move around our apartment a bit and organize.  It feels more roomy now which is good. We had a zone conference and we learned about new normas de excelencia.  This is things that if we complete we will have a lot more fruits of our work and we can help these people more.  This week we searched a lot of less active members and contacted a lot.  One day we contacted 58 people in two different sectors(areas of a missionary).  In this ward, we have 1700 members and about 85 active members.  So that is some pretty stark contrast. 

Today we will be going to a zone activity and playing bubble soccer.  that should be really fun. 

I was reading in 2 Nephi 31 this week and several times it says very clearly to follow the example of the Savior.  No matter where we are we can follow the counsels in verse 20 and continue to grow in love and strength.