Hola hola

 This week was actually a really huge testimony builder. It is so so important to be worthy, because it is so so important to have the spirit with you.

         We had the opportunity this week to have a mission devotional with Elder Godoy of the 70. It was super powerful, I could only understand like 70% but that 70% was prime cut. The biggest takeaway that I was taught was that as long as we are living worthy to have the spirit with us and trying our best, we don't need to guess if our thoughts are promptings are not. If we are truly looking outward and worthy to have the spirit, our thoughts and Gods are aligned and the same! 

           We had to say ciao to Elder Neiculeo the next day, I'm going to miss that  Elder. He spoke the best English in the apartment. We had a meeting with the stake leadership later that night, and to our surprise Elder Godoy popped in for round two! Another fuego discurso, halfway understood. I learned about the organization of the church. I've now fist bumped him 3x and shook his hand once, and he smacked my comp in the face with his tie so you could say we're tight.

          Wednesday we had practices with the Zone leaders and it was awesome. Later that night we had a lesson with Camilla and Riccardo, and the spirit was palpable. They committed to Baptism! Prayers for them are very appreciated, they also need to get married. 

          After the Lesson, we blessed their house, and their grandmother's house,  (she lived next door). Their Grandmother had been seeing things in her house and feeling bad things. For the sake of keeping the email clean, I will keep the details to a minimum. We entered the house, and the Holy Ghost stayed outside. It was a dark place. We ended up blessing the Grandmother, and then blessed the house. There were at least two bad spirits in the house. We then Cast the spirit that had possessed her other daughter out. Throughout the whole experience, I was never nervous. During the blessings, I could feel God's power, and knew that absolutely nothing could stand against it. All I could feel was love for the family. They gave me a juicebox afterwards.

          Later in the week I went on intercambios with Elder Stanford in llanquihue. It was super fun, we did street contacting and they had a warm shower! Elder Stanford's twin served in Nashville with me so I was mad tripping the whole time. Elder Stanford seriously looks more like Elder Stanford than Elder Stanford.

          Being worthy is so important. I have no idea what would have happened in that house without the priesthood. If anyone out there doesn't feel worthy, read up on Alma 10. Amulek had lost the privilege to the blessings promised by our Heavenly Father, but reclaimed those promises and blessings as he repented and heeded Christ's call. I know that while life gets scary, there is no power on Earth or in Hell that can bring us down if we are built upon Christ. I also know that the Lord's hand is always ready to reach out and help us if we let him. Los amo!!

doing service at a random ranch when a guy off's his cow right in front of us

Caballos!

Elder Neiculeo

cool mural

Que Bacan!

 Hola hola todos! This week was one of the longest of my life, so buckle up. 

Elder Collado: So, my companion is an absolute legend. He's Chilano, from Santiago. He's a hard worker and knows how to work efficiently, which I love. We've been helping each other out because he's trying to learn English. He is the Branch President of Fresia, which is quite interesting to work with. 

The work is definitely different here, but I love it. The people here are super loving, and are patient with my Spanish. One phrase I've used 500 times is "I haven't known you for very long, but I love you" which might have gotten me arrested in the States but here it is more than welcomed. Definitely have felt the Lord help me out this last week.

Puerto Varas: Because we need to take care of branch stuff, we spend half our time in the city with the AP's. It's been super fun, I'm just constantly surrounded by 4 Latinos which has helped me to learn so much about the language and culture.

Fresia: Fresia is pretty much the town you see in any old western. Its dusty, has 2 main roads, not a lot of people. I love it. Because it's so out there we have a house which would be fun, but we have no way to heat the house and so it gets pretty flippin cold. We don't have warm water, which has directly corresponded with 3 of the quickest showers of my life. Every morning for breakfast we walk down the street to a corner store and buy a sleeve of kuky's or dydon's (basically crappy oreos) and some pinguinos and a coke. I'm realllllly going to need to go grocery shopping the next time we're in Puerto Varas if I don't want to gain 50 lbs.

Other than pretty much that, the food here is phenomenal. Pichangas, Completos, and pan demolde are some of the foods I've had a lot of. Also, So much Matè and tarara (matè but with juice) it's ahhhh I'm so happy.

Highlights: 

         Haircut by my companion and the Puerto Varas Elders. Not much scarier than having 4 guys circling you, taking turns going at your hair talking and occasionally laughing in a language you don't understand jaja. 

        Put our friend Celia on date! please pray for her, she needs to get married.

        Played a ton of soccer last p day, and got destroyed by the sun on accident. Afterwards I was told that the ozone here is weak because everyone heats their homes with wood fires??

        Also my hair cutting clippers literally blew up mid cut because of the voltage here in Chile. Was terrified I'd have to try bringing others closer to Christ with a bowl cut for a second there. 

Something I feel like the spirit has really impressed upon me lately was that this work is totally about doing the Lord's will. We can't be selfish with our desires, even if our desire is to baptise (or something else righteous). We need to want to baptize (or do something else righteous) for the right reason, and be patient with the results. I was feeling a little bummed out, because I had made it a goal to baptise while I was in the states, which did not happen. I was wondering if I had done something wrong, forgotten to apply the silver bullet or whatever, when I talked to Elder Neiculeo, the AP here. He explained that while having the desire to baptise is good, having a desire to do the Lord's will is better. I was reminded of a part of the talk "the character of Christ '' by elder Bednar, when he compares someone who wished they had more success to the cookie monster. "I'm not getting the success that I ought to have, and you ought to feel sorry for me" and that sort of idea. That is such a selfish way of looking at the Lord's work! As I've focused on desiring to baptise because it truly will help other people, and have tried to swallow any pride associated with the results, I have seen the effect in people. Even though I can't speak their language very well, the spirit testifies to them that this is sincerely in their best interest. 

Anyways, a bit of a longer email haha. Love yall!

mi companero, Elder Collado

Hermana Meek 

Hola! Estoy en Chile

 ¡Hola todos! I am not sure if I believe it yet, but I'm in Chile! I will miss Tennessee for sure, I literally love that place so much, but I am super excited for the work here down South. I'm surrounded on all sides by Màte, it's heaven. 

      Ok, super quick rundown of the voyage then. Last night in Tennessee, me and the rest of the missionaries leaving for Tennessee slept at the APs. Went to the airport, a 2 hour flight to New York for no reason whatsoever, and ran into some more missionaries and Elder Soares! So random, that was actually super cool. Did an overnight flight of 10 hours to Santiago, where I saw two miracles. The first was that the lady I sat next to was a Spanish teacher, so she was able to teach me a lot. As we got talking, she asked me what I did as a missionary. I explained my purpose, and her eyes kind of widened a bit. She explained that she had been going through a bit of a faith crisis, she knew that she was missing something in life. What proceeded was a lesson about the restoration, which she loved, and some talk about the eternal nature of families. She explained how her mother was going to die soon, and how she was visiting her. She wasn't sure if she should, but her husband encouraged her. She was supposed to fly 2 weeks ago, but some complications had delayed her. She told me that she knew that us sitting next to each other in the plane was an answer to her prayers, and she knew that God was in the details. I gave her my travel Book of Mormon, and she promised that she would read the whole thing. Needless to say, that was a large hand of the Lord moment. 

The other miracle was that the chap in front of me and to the left was watching Batman: the Dark Knight.

Anyways, got to Santiago, got another Covid test and then said ciao to the other missionaries from the TNM and flew with the Osorno bound missionaries to Puerto Montt. Arrived and took a bus ride to Osorno, where we stayed the next few days in a hotel waiting for our assignments. It was weird, I had a room to myself for the first time in a while, and it felt sooooo off. Anyways, those few days were like an extended Zone conference, it was super fun. 

My assignment is In Fresia, in the Puerta Varas zone. Mi compañero es Elder Collado, and he is the Branch President of Fresia. I guess I'm his secretary, which is super funny to me because of the little I know about the area and Spanish and just Chile in general. 

Little bit of a longer email, but love y'all! 

This is in NY airport and meeting Elder Soares

Beautiful Chile

Big group of new missionaries

Presidente and Sister Meek

Last zone conference in the TNM

 Hey y'all! This week was exciting and a little bittersweet, it was the last Zone Conference I will have in the Tennessee Nashville Mission. It was a really powerful Zone conference, the general themes I got out of it was that we need to be urgent in bringing others to Christ. We have been so blessed with knowledge about our Heavenly Father's plan for us, and as we share that to others it will bring us so much joy. It was good to see a lot of the Missionaries that I've served around one last time before my departure, and as always an awesome spiritual boost. After Zone conference we saw a pretty cool el mano del señor momento, as we were calling that night we were a little behind on our finding and contact goal, and as we prayed and applied what we had just learned we found 5 people in an hour from cold calling. For those who haven't done cold calling before, this was huge😂 It definitely wasn't done by our own strength. 

Throughout the week we have seen the Lord direct and guide us, and a part of that has been making the decision to stop teaching a lot of people in our area book. We've cut our area book in half, and while it is always so sad to stop focusing on some people, we have seen the Lord help us find others, and help us to focus on those who can actually progress towards Baptism. One hand of the Lord moments we have seen from this is we were able to finally get in contact with Martha y Miguel again! After committing them to Baptism, they kind of fell off the face of the planet, but now we have two lessons planned in the future so we are super excited for that. Prayers for them are very greatly appreciated:)

We also met this super sweet southern lady named Sonny, for some reason she says "you all" instead of "y'all" and I legit could not process what she was trying to say😂 it's been a solid 6 months since I've heard the words "you all" and I have no idea why on earth anyone would. "Y'all" is clearly the alpha statement.  But anyways, after getting past the language barrier we had a super powerful lesson about the Book of Mormon, she is so prepared for the Gospel and prayers for her are also appreciated!

- random boat we thought was a little funny idk

- field! mountains don't exist here/:

- We have a cowboy hat and have no clue how we ended up with it 

- la ultima foto con mi papi

- quite possibly the most infuriating sign to exist