Hola! Everything
is going great here in Maipu! It was a
pretty good week this week, pretty crazy though! This week would be like the 4th of July in the
States. The 18th of September is the Chilean
Independence Day, so we had a huge Stake party on Wednesday. It was pretty sweet, there was tons of Chilean
food and we played a bunch of games and watched a bunch of people do dances and
stuff like that. They take the 18th as a huge deal here - it is
pretty sweet! The Chilean people definitely
have a lot of love for their country!! I
have some pictures that I will try to upload so you will be able to see some of
the stuff that goes on here. The whole Stake
here kinda just looked like the Bedford Ward though, haha.. Pretty small for a stake!!. We had twice as many members there for the
party than we did at Stake Conference three days before, haha. Everyone down here likes to say that they are a
member when the parties start and they bring out all the food! But it was good to see everyone out and having
fun. It was kinda weird though because I
really don't know anyone here yet cause we never get out to our sector, but I
was able to meet some more ward members at the party, so that was good. This week we also had the son of our mission
president stay with us and work with us all week. He is a fifteen year old kid named James. It was pretty fun with him - he is a really
cool kid, and already a great missionary! He is gonna be on a mission for 5 years in a
row. That is a long time!! He is gonna be a champ after all of that!! Me and my comp took him out to the coast to go
look at a bunch of new houses we are going to rent. We had a pretty good day out there, and found
some pretty nice houses to get. It is
kinda weird - most missionaries measure
their success by how many baptisms they get or lessons they are teaching, but
right now me and my comp measure it by how many houses we are looking at and
renting, haha. We are going up 15
companionships in two weeks so it has been crazy trying to get everything ready
for that. But we are doing good. We just about have all the houses we need now,
but then it all starts again getting ready for the next change - it just never stops!! But I still have seen a lot of miracles here
in the office, even though we are not out in the field working cool stuff still
happens a lot and the Lord blesses us a lot. I had a pretty cool
experience happen to me a couple weeks ago. Back in my first sector in Rinconada,
we contacted this girl that was about 20 years old. She really did not even seem very interested
at the time or anything. Just thought it
was another contact we did that would not go anywhere. She did not even live in our sector, but she
did give us her address though so we passed it to the office of the mission so
they could send out the reference. By the next day I had forgotten about it, and
it never came across my mind again until I walked into church for the first
time in my ward here in Maipu. I saw
this girl that I thought I recognized from somewhere, but couldn't remember
where. Anyways, it was fast and
testimony meeting that day and she got up to bear her testimony. She told of her experience of getting baptized
a couple months before and how grateful she was the missionaries had stopped
and talked to her outside the grocery store and had sent other missionaries to
her house. When she said that it
clicked, and I realized that I was the missionary that had stopped and talked
to her outside the store. After the
meeting I went and talked to her and she remembered me and was so thankful for
just talking to her that day. That was a pretty sweet experience! Before
I always thought contacting was a big waste a lot of times cause we could talk
to hundreds of people and only see one or maybe even less of those hundred
people accept our message and maybe get baptized. I didn't really realize how much just talking
to someone about the gospel for a couple minutes could help them change their
lives a ton. That experience helped me
realize the importance of talking to everyone. Even though I might not be teaching any
lessons right now I have definitely been talking to a lot of people about the
gospel and stuff. We do talk to a lot of people everyday working in the
office so it has been a good opportunity to talk to everyone about my mission
and about the Church and stuff. Lots of
people just have the wrong idea about the whole thing, and just a little 5
minute conversation can help a ton!
Sounds like you two had a pretty good week this week in
all your travels!! Pretty crazy story
about the buffalo and stuff!! That would
be pretty sketchy especially there in Yellowstone! There definitely are a
lot of critters there! But I am glad you
guys got out alright!!
Today I think we are actually going to be able to get a
little hike in!! We are heading over to
the Andes mountains to go to some snow with the assistants cause they are from Mexico
and have never seen snow before, haha. So
that should be pretty fun! Last week for
p-day was pretty sweet too! We went
golfing!!! Never thought I would do that
on the mission! It was actually pretty
relaxing, and a great p-day activity! Found
out I am not a half bad golfer compared to Chileans, haha. I don't think they get out to golf very much
:) Anyway, I am gonna try to get those
pictures up and then we are gonna head off to the mountains. I will try to get some sweet pics for ya!
Have a great week everyone!
