Week 103 - Thoughts On My Mission

I bore my testimony Sunday and said goodbye.  I will be returning home in a little over a week.

I heard from my friend and fellow missionary, Ammon.  He asked me what it feels like to be going home.  I want to address all of my friends and fellow missionaries with my answer. To be honest, it hurts. Honestly thinking about it makes me cry.  To think that in a week my stake president will release me and take my name tag off and that I will never be able to put it back on is terrible to me.  I love this name tag and everything it represents.  I can't imagine not serving as a full-time missionary, daily inviting people to repentance, and inviting people to be cleansed of their sins through baptism.  I know I will still work in the WORK, but to not be able to be there on the front line all day, every day -- that hurts.

Love the mission because before you know it, it will end. Savor every moment, every contact, every new investigator, every baptism,  every confirmation!!!

This is the most important work in existence. My brother, Dallen, once told me something I want yall to know. "A lot of missionaries say they're excited to get back to the real world -- referring to going home, but what they don't realize is they are in the real world. The mission is in the real world." Serving our Heavenly Father and Savior is done in the real world. Nothing is more real than the gospel of Jesus Christ:  Faith,  Repentance, Baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end!!! All the things this world offers are illusions that distract us from reality.
So savor your time in the real world!!!

D&C 31:3 Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission is come; and your tongue shall be loosed, and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this generation.

LOVE EVERY MOMENT YOU CAN!!!

I know that Jesus Christ lives. I know that He is my Redeemer and Savior. I know that his Gospel and his Church are perfect.  I know that Joseph Smith was and still is a prophet of God. I know that families can be eternal.  I know this is his work -- that he is on the front line with us, that he will guide yall as he has guided me!

I KNOW IT!!!

-=-

My week was pretty good. The exciting thing that happened was New Years. We went to "M"'s house again. He grilled a ton of meat.  We ate a lot and Elder Soliz and I made Chocolate chip cookies for them. Then we saw fireworks that shot over the La Calera hill.  It was pretty cool.  They do fireworks way better over here.

This week I will be going to Salamanca.  Monday I'll visit Viña.  I'm going to try to plan it so that I can go to Valpraiso to get some things to bring home.  They have some good things to buy.   I would really like to get some copper items sold there.

Week 102 - Christmas Week

This week was good.  We had two baptisms.

The baptism with "A" was really hard.  We needed two priesthood holders to act as witnesses in addition to the person who baptizes, so we needed another member.  We looked for a member at his work.  This member was having his best day of the year and really needed the money.  He told us that he didn't want to help us but a memory of us passing by came to his mind. He said the night before he had a dream that we were going to pass by his stand and ask his help. It helps me a lot to know that God is looking out for me and the people I teach and that He is going to make his work move forward.  The baptism went forward and "A" is now a member of the Lord's church.

On Christmas, we went to a house in the middle of nowhere.  We left the house at about 7:00 pm.  We waited for a bus for 30 minutes and I felt we needed to go down to another place were more buses would pass by.  We walked for 30 minutes and found the place where the bus passed by.  When the bus arrived the driver said he was the last bus that was going by there that day and that he wasn't going to go where we had been waiting. If I hadn't felt prompted to walk down we would have been stranded.

Christmas Eve Dinner

Week 101 - Old Friends

This week was alright.

One AWESOME thin that happened this week was that a new member I helped teach was SEALED in the TEMPLE!!!  My last Saturday in the mission will be in Salamanca with Elder Cheney.   This is something most missionaries don't get to do -- return to their first area -- but I will have this great opportunity and will get to see my former investigator!!!

One of our investigators had some setbacks.  There is much going on in their family.  We hope all will go well going forward. 

I saw Elder Cheney, Elder Palilla, and Elder McCallister this week.  It was really fun.  I had an exchange with Elder Larson.  We bought two pizzas that evening.  It was pretty fun.  The day didn't go well for the missionary work, but he's pretty fun and it was awesome to be with him.

The activity today was fun.  We played water balloon volleyball and some other games.

Week 100 - Rejection.

This week has been good.  I get along well with Elder Soliz.  He's a good guy and has a strong testimony.  I'm a little worried he's sad due to all the bad contacts we had this week.  We literally were kicked out of one house.  We started talking with a woman and then her boyfriend got mad and began yelling at us.   He didn't want us there so we tried to set another appointment and he just flipped out.  I don't think Elder Soliz is used to rejection.

We have a baptism towards the end of this week.  "A" is ready for her baptism and we are still teaching a family we hope to help!

Last night we had an activity in a place called La Ligua.  After we finished the activity there wasn't time to return home so we went to the La Ligua missionary home.  We threw the mattresses on the floor and slept there.  It was pretty fun.  I brought the toys you sent for Christmas and we played with the sumo wrestlers.  It was pretty funny.

Today we played soccer in the morning but it was pretty boring.  Then we ran around La Calera trying to find a place to write.  Also, I got to see Elder Ormond and Elder Navarro on Tuesday and will see Elder Padilla this week!

Week 99 - Elder Soliz

This week has been busy.  I said goodbye to Elder Brown which was really hard.  I noticed some of my favorite companions resemble and remind me of good friends from home.

Elder Eyre - Ammon
Elder Palilla - Ethan
Elder Brown - Brenden

It was weird when I realized it.  Then I went down to Viña and picked up my new companion Elder Soliz.  He's from Argentina and he's 24.  He has four siblings and they're all members of the church but his parents are not.

I'm still grateful we are teaching a family.  We are also teaching a girl named "A".  She should be baptized on the 17th.  Her stepdad is a member and his wife is listening to us too.  She is progressing.  Other than that we need to find some more people to teach.

This week I've been trying to write essays for an application to BYU.  Since the only time that I have is about 30 minutes in the morning, I think it will be nearly impossible to finish them anytime soon.  I'll ask my mission president if I can write during language study and try to make some progress.

I'll be traveling to Viña again tomorrow.  I'm going to Viña for a conference with the district leaders. It should be pretty fun.  I should be able to see friends.  Next week we should have an activity where I will see Elder Palilla!  I'm really excited.  It's been along time since I've seen him.  I'm going to see Elder Navarro too.

A random thing that I saw was a wild sea lion from really far away.  It was just a wobbling lump on a rock but I saw some while in Viña.

Week 98 - A New Companion

So a lot has happened this week!  One highlight is we have a baptismal date for a young ten-year-old girl who's step-dad is a member.  The father's wife is also receptive to our message.

We were also able to help "M".  He's super humble and he even brought his wife with him to church. They both seemed to like it.  This week was the primary program.  Primary is the name of the program for the young children in our church.  The children give very short talks and sing during the program.  It helped a lot because they talked about parent's responsibilities to their children -- something they were interested in.  The mother even said she wants to bring her two daughters to church.  When she found out that Elder Brown was being transferred to another sector she jokingly said she wasn't going to come anymore.  At least we hope it was a joke.

This brings me to my next announcement.  My last six weeks of my mission will be spent training.  Woo Hooooo!  I'm kind of nervous about training again but we have a lot of people coming into the mission now.  Hopefully, we will continue to have a lot of success together.  My companion's name is Elder Soliz.

Avocado tree

Week 97 - The Family: A Proclamation To The World

We taught one of our investigators The Family: A Proclamation To The World.   He and his spouse are not married.  He asked us when he could be baptized.  He didn't understand when we taught him about the Law of Chastity that he would need to resolve that first.  It was kind of awkward.  I hope the proclamation helped.

We also found another family where the mom and dad are not married.  The dad is a member and the daughter wants to be baptized.  The mom wants to get married so that's pretty cool!

Elder Brown fell off his bike this week.  There was a bottle on the ground and when he went to ride over it his bike slipped on the bottle.  He hit the ground hard and probably should have at least been cut up or had a broken bone or something.  But, he got up without a scratch.

I spent a lot of the week trying different combinations with my shoe's souls because the shoes I have are really good but I stretched them out until there was enough space to have my feet shift a little bit. It ended up destroying my soles and giving me two blisters but I think I've got it figured out now.

There's a woman in our ward that likes the missionaries and has us over for lunch every Tuesday.  She doesn't ever want to come to church. She finally went this week because her husband was speaking.  It was a little uncomfortable because he just cried through his talk about how grateful he was that his family was there.  I hope his family will come with him in the future.

That's my week.  We played soccer today and we are about to go to an all you can eat pizza place.  It has good Chilean pizza.  They do pizza a little different here.  It's not like the Dominos or Pizza Hut I grew up on.  I look forward to going when I finish writing everyone.