Week 29

View of Volcano from Retiro

Wow! climbing up on almost 30 weeks in the mission!

This was a week of hard work. Elder Price and I worked really diligently and we had a ton of experiences. More than I can possibly describe. 

Things are slowly coming along here in Retiro. We are climbing slowly, but surely. We are starting to see some long awaited miracles and a little fruit from our work. Slowly... but surely they are coming! People who have been very closed to the missionaries, especially some of the less actives and the recent converts, are now starting to let us in again.  

Monday. 

Basically we had an average P day. Other than that, we had a cool visit with an active member. Her name is Miriam. She’s always got a big smile on her face and is about the nicest Chilean I’ve ever met. Her daughter, Estefania is the complete opposite. She has been really cold to the missionaries after she had a bad experience in the church. She is categorized as a less active and she hasn’t let the missionaries in- in a long time. We passed by that night and she invited us in. It was really cool. We had a good conversation and talked about conference a bit. We shared a message, and headed home. 

Tuesday. 

We had an amazing district class. We went over how our contacts are going and we did some amazing practices. Elder Hancock and I had some really awesome role play moments where the spirit was really strong. I was really animated for the week. The only house that we got into was with hermana Pilar, our investigator. We sat down and discussed things a bit and we got her to open up a bit. She has a TON of doubts. Mostly because her family is all catholic. It’s a very interesting situation, but we believe that if she completes with the commitments, she will gain an answer that what we share is true.  We were able to get a lot of contacts and eventually finished out the day. 

Wednesday. 

It was a pretty regular day. We did have a cool lesson with the famila Retamal Bravo. The daughter's boyfriend isn’t a member so when we were there he asked us a bunch of questions about the plan of salvation. We had a really cool discussion and explained a lot of things. We were able to find a lot of future investigators and continue contacting. 

Thursday. 

We contacted like mad men and were again able to find some good people out on the streets. We were able to find some former investigators that were close to getting baptized. Their names are Armandina and Daniela. The husband is Evangelical so he was a bit resistant to them getting baptized. So that’s our main obstacle with them. 

Friday.

We ventured out to a little area 10 minutes away from Retiro called Copihue. It’s a tiny little suburb and the country folk live out there. There are a few members there so we went to look for them. We had to ride our bikes for a good 20 minutes and we finally arrived there. It was a nice little bike ride, the sun was shining and the clouds were in the distance. Turns out we couldn’t find any of them because there aren’t any directions or addresses. We did find some old investigators who let us in and we shared a brief message with them. We were talking and it became dark outside and surely enough, the rain started pouring. I had only packed my gortex jacket with me without the pants. We finished the lesson and bagged up our stuff in our backpack and went out for the treacherous, cold, and wet ride back to Retiro. We got SOAKED. It was so cold. We eventually got back, I changed my clothes and we went back and contacted the rest of the night. 

Soaked!!!

Saturday. 

We pretty much went around contacting like crazy cause we were short on contacts. Most of our plans fell and we were rejected by almost everyone so it was a tough day. 

Sunday. 

We went to church just praying for a miracle. We invited many people to church but they just wouldn’t accept or make a commitment. No matter how hard we pushed, we couldn’t get them to come with us. As the minutes went by it seemed like we would have very low attendance. But suddenly 7 of the less actives that we had been teaching showed up! The WHOLE Saldaña family came!! That is so much more significant than you guys understand. They haven’t been to church for forever. Elder Price hasn’t seen them in church ever. We were so excited. It made our day. We contacted for the rest of the day, and had a great branch council. We discussed many of the troubles we're having here in the branch. The people go inactive at the drop of a hat here in Retiro. It’s not even a joke. So many people don’t come to church because they just haven’t been greeted properly by the members and sometimes they don’t get seen by the members in the street and make that their excuse. It is quite ridiculous. Over the past few weeks I have been overwhelmed with the problems of the people here. It has been quite the challenge. 

I feel like I came here and it’s like someone walked up to me in the street and just handed me octuplets and somehow now they are mine. It’s kind of an unexpected and overwhelming task that the Lord has given me. It’s like this branch is a bunch of needy babies. Elder Price and I are definitely learning how to become better missionaries here. I feel more pressed every day to become more of a leader here. This branch needs someone to step up and guide everyone here. I just struggle with the vision and the direction of where to go and how to do it. I hope and trust in the Lord that he can guide me through these times. I feel so privileged to be a missionary at this time. 

I am so blessed to be here among the Chilean people. It is truly a blessing to be a representative of our Savior Jesus Christ. I love him and I know that through faith in Him, we can do all things. Not by faith in our own part but by faith in him great works are done. It is the direction we all have to take in this life. He invites us to simply, follow him. Let us always have him as our guide.

I love you all more than words may describe. I miss you all so much. I hope this week goes great for you all. Until next week! 

Elder Ethan Haws

Paintballing with the Zone

Elder Haws