Week 16

A street in Puchacay

Wow! Time is going by soooooo fast. I cannot believe how quickly everything is rushing by. It feels like hours feel like years but days and weeks feel like seconds. It is the craziest thing.

This week has been a ton of fun. Elder Layton and I are getting along like the best of friends and we continue to work hard, as hard as we can push it. This week had its good times, but it’s down times as well. We tried everything we could possibly think of but we didn’t have much success finding anyone this week. Despite the trouble we had with getting members to work with us and actually finding people, amazing things happened as well.

Elder Garcia or Mr. Muscles?

Elder Layton or Stretch Armstrong?

Elder Bluebeard?

Roll-playing Around; Elder "angry" (Garcia) rebukes the old beggar (Elder Haws)

I made some serious progress in Spanish this week. I don’t know when or how but my mind just clicked in a few areas, and now I feel really comfortable in basic conversation and I can pretty much understand almost everyone. It’s a really crazy feeling being able to converse in two languages on and off.

Here's how the week went.

Monday.

Regular p day really. We did everything in the centro like we usually do and headed back to the house. We got back and then Elder Layton started to feel super sick again. He was down and out for another two days. The same flu like symptoms attacked him and he wasn’t doing so hot. He talked with our mission nurse, Hermana Balden, and they talked a few things through. He might have to go to a doctor to get some blood tests done because he really never feels 100% well.

Tuesday.

Sick again. We had to stay home and stay on the down low.

Wednesday.

Elder Layton arose and well enough to work. So that’s what we did. We worked, and hard. We contacted a ton of people but nothing really panned out. We ended the day with a family home evening at the Campos family. They’re a less active family and we were able to watch ´´John Tanner´´ and eat some churri pan's... (like monkey bread)  que rico los churri panes... (how wonderful the monkey bread). We had a good time.

Thursday.

We had a service project in the morning at the Campos family. Because of the forest fire in Nonguen everyone is freaking out that everything is going to burn up. So everyone wants to cut down all the vegetation that their houses are built around. So for the service we climbed this giant steep mountain side and cut down all the vegetation in a specific area. It was good fun swinging an axe around for a while. We had fun with it. After, we had an amazing lunch with the Ferreira’s.

That afternoon we went around in sectors A and B and we tried to visit some familiar, old, and new investigators. We visited less active families and some recent converts as well. We were running around working really hard. Again not much panned out with investigators. But we were able to have a few good visits with some less active families.

Friday.

We had some good lessons with our recent converts Miriam, Lidia, Matias, and Ignacio. Those all went good. We also had a meeting kind of deal with a member family. We got their support for more involvement in mission work, and we are excited for the new opportunities we discussed there. We looked and contacted for nearly the rest of the day. We were able to have some good conversations with people, but no one let us in. To finish off, we visited with the Ojeda family and had a great lesson.

Saturday.

We had a bit of service in the morning with the Aburto family. We dug a couple holes for some fence posts. Good fun.

We hit it hard because we were desperate to find someone that is prepared to receive us and the gospel. We went up into the far end of Nonguen up in Puchacay. We went around the tumbling hills of that area for a long time. Again we had some great conversations and some quick teaching moments but not much came out of it. Everyone rejected us. We headed back to the heart of the sector and looked some more and talked with everyone. We had an awesome visit with the bishop and we brainstormed some great ideas for the ward.

Sunday.

Was super stressful because I had to give my first full sacrament talk in Spanish and teach gospel doctrine class. I didn’t have much time to prepare since the topics were given to me on Saturday. But I spoke on the Book of Mormon and missionary work, and taught about the organizations of the priesthood. My talk didn’t go very well cause the plans I made fell to pieces. But I feel like the class was better. I’m realizing that I have a lot more courage to do things now. I have been to the point where I couldn’t have been more hopeless, so I’ve learned to just give it all I got, learn from it, and do better the next time. Church was good. We were able to get Armando there, but Rosa had to stay behind and watch the family or something. Without being able to visit Andrea and Marcello, they still showed up with the pamphlets and their Book of Mormons. It’s crazy how diligent they are. I am shocked how some people are so diligent and so prepared but others are really lazy and slothful and don’t want to do anything ever. The afternoon was a lot better than any of the days of the week. We were able to actually have a few lessons. We scaled up the hill of Buena Vista and found quite a few people. We felt really content with it and now we finally feel like things are starting to turn up.

This week was hard in some ways but after all that happened it still feels like it wasn’t that bad. I have faith that we will find the people we need to find. We will continue to work really hard.

Watermelon is in season here in Chile. Apparently when something is in season, there are TONS of it. Almost every single place we went to we were served a heaping chunk of watermelon. Not just a bowl of cubes of the watermelon like everyone eats it in the states, but literally just a fourth of the watermelon and you just eat it with a spoon. I’ve had enough watermelon to last me a life time. And I love it, the watermelon here is ridiculously delicious.

I’m really excited that my Spanish is catching on a bit. I’m really excited that since its better I can lift my voice even higher.

This week we have some great service projects planned almost every day, and I will have a mini cambio with the zone leaders. It should be a fun week coming up.

I love all of you and I am so grateful for all of your support. I can’t express my gratitude for all of you. You are all in my thoughts. There really isn’t anything I can say that fits my feelings for you all. I love you all so much. Have a great week! Until the next,

Elder Ethan Haws