Week 72

Awesome ice cream today!  "My flavors are chocolate jungle and fruits of the forest"

This week went by way too fast.

So we have been up to the same old same old. Walking, talking, sharing, serving, and trying to find. It has been a bit of a struggle trying to find people to teach lately. We haven’t been able to find anyone else. Elder Flores and I have set a goal that this week we will do everything possible to find new people. We will be praying and fasting and trying everything possible. So if you want to you could include this in your prayers to find someone new.

It’s just a push to get through summer vacations and the summer heat. It gets pretty depressing working with absent people and people that are even more lost and distracted than ever. But we keep pushing and we won’t give up.

Estefano is doing alright we were able to visit him for the first time in 2 weeks. The lessons are more serious now that we have more confidence. It was time to start teaching about commandments. For obvious reasons we shared about the law of chastity. Sadly his situation is as we had hoped it wouldn’t be. He is receiving a weird bonus that Chileans get when they are single. He is spending that bonus on his rent for the house that they are living in and he can’t give that up all at once. He says that he is planning on getting married within a year….. Sigh….. Well we are going to pray and fast for this one too. Seems like Estefano getting baptized has become a very long term project. We are going to start moving on and changing our focus.

 

Sunday lunch at the Castillos

On Monday we had an AWESOME FHE… We went over to the Castillo’s to have a fun activity because they have been going through some tough times. So I thought we thought we would put together a little cultural activity. I spent the evening doing a good old Breakfast for dinner feast cooking up a mountain of pancakes, French toast, sausage, and bacon. It was awesome. None of them had ever had anything like that and they enjoyed it very much. Elder Flores cooked up a Chilean classic as well. Bread slices spread with palta and onions. We had a good time cooking while they watched the church movie we brought, ‘’The Mountain of the Lord.’’

Breakfast time

Cooking it up!

We are enjoying this time being in Centro, yeah things get tough every once and a while but we are getting closer with the members and we can see little results despite what the numbers say. So we just go onward. We keep working and that’s how the week went!

Had to keep working on painting the house this week

Thank you all so much for all of your love, support, and prayers. I feel it all!! I love you all so much!

Until next time,

Elder Ethan Haws

"Oh yeah, you know what that is...I'm making mexi mac...yeah!"

Cool sunset

Week 71

Woa, time is really flying now! We’re now done with January. It felt like the weeks were all terribly long and the month was ridiculously short. Time is really picking up since I hit my year mark. I’m just scrambling to hold my ground and enjoy my time.

What can I say, this week was really…… Uneventful.

What else can I do but apply a classic primary song to my life at the moment.

From the classic words of ‘’Pioneer Children Sang as They Walked’’ (modified slightly)

‘’[Missionaries] sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked.

[Missionaries] sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked.

They washed at streams and worked and played.

Sundays they camped and read and prayed.

Week after week, they sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked and walked.’’

And there you have it... The week.

But in all seriousness we did enjoy the week. It was just continuing on with the fight against summer vacations. Almost all of our focus group left out of town so we didn’t have too many visits to less actives, converts, or investigators. So we got to focus in on members. We visited the Castillo’s, Maria Ortega, Yolanda, Fanny and Alex, and many others. It was a week of just inspiring people in the best way we could. We searched and searched for new investigators but no one would listen to us. It was a bit frustrating but I am determined to not give up. I know there are people out there that are waiting. It’s hard to keep believing that at times but I still search.

Estefano has been working double shifts during the week and I wasn’t able to contact him. He also didn’t show up to church. I imagine everything is alright but I just hope that he is still doing everything that he needs to. I hope that everything calms down for him so that we can really get down and busy and start working hard with him.

We missionaries are all a bit excited because we have our new ward mission leader, Nicolas Iturrieta, and he is great! I haven’t had such a good ward mission leader in my mission. It is awesome having a really young RM who knows what he is doing, is willing to back us up, and is willing to coordinate and work with us. We believe that the ward will progress a lot if they only just start to listen to and work with us.

Being in a house with all Latinos has been pretty crazy. Sometimes they go over the line and just get annoying trying to bug me but it turns out to be all good fun.

So that is about all that I can think of that has been going on. Other than just fighting to get everything organized and trying to unify the members and fellowship them, we are just running around in the streets working away.

Thank you all for all that you do for me. I appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers and I can feel them helping me.  I love you all and I hope that you have a fantastic week!

Elder Ethan Haws

AAAAAAAAalso!

Phew, I almost forgot

We had an awesome zone conference this week on Thursday. It was awesome just because the mission gave us a nice surprise. The church sent the mission ''Meet the Mormons'' and we got to watch it in Spanish!!!!

I loved the movie. It really got me inspired. I think after being here for so long where the culture of the church is pretty different, it made me reflect on how the gospel really can change lives when the members live faithfully. This gospel is happiness and I know that it changes lives. It has changed mine and it can change any one's. I have seen it. It is so glorious to know that we have a loving Heavenly Father and a Savior. I am grateful for them and all that they do to strengthen me in everything I do.

I can’t wait to see it again someday!