San Jose: La tierra prometado

 Howdy todos! Things in San Jose are golden. My new comp is Elder Gana, he's got one month in the mission and hes a baller. He just absolutely radiates energy and i love it. He doesn't know English, but we've been working on the basics like "groovy" and "radical." Theres something super refreshing about being with a new missionary, there is so much faith and hope present. Sometimes we'll be walking and he'll start skipping or humming hehe i love him.

As for San Jose, i'm back in a Sistrict! (Only hermanas in my district,) Tennessee prepared me well for this moment. #beastdistrictTN

Theres a lot to do in San Jose, i'm not white washing or anything but my companion, being so new, doesnt know the area, Branch or amigos any better than i do. I also haven't trained or had a leadership assignment before, so we're doing a lot of flying in the dark. Good thing this is Christs church and he's in charge, or we would have crashed by now😅

The Lord has helped us out a ton though. In the three and a half days i've been here, we've recieved four references😶 I can't really be sure, but i think i had recieved 4 references in all my mission up to San Jose. One of the references was absolutely nuts, the note attached said, "i want to be baptised by a pastor in the church of Joseph Smith." I hadn't seen anything like that before, me and my comp were ecstatic. We celebrated with some good ol ecco (W.o.W. approved coffee) We went to jose (the guy)'s house later, and he took us on a nature walk and we talked about Joseph Smith and rocks.

Other milagro: our Branch had 34 people attend🥳🥳 

Other things that happened: 

- Mission conference with President Christensen of the 70

- there is a dunkin donuts in this zone

- we were walking, and this one dude sees me and started freaking out. He starts fumbling with his phone, and then shows me a picture of Paul Walker.

Something that has been a huge lesson for me this last week has been to not overcomplicate the work. Theres lots of little things to do, lots of little talents to develop, and all these things add to our burden. Elder Uchtdorf teaches in his latest talk that we are physically unable to do all that we want to do. What we can do, and what our only focus should be, is loving and serving Christ and others. He tells us that we should not look at everything that we have to do as separate tasks, but that we should love and serve. If we look at everything we need to do, and look at it as though its a bunch of little ways to love and serve, we will feel less overwhelmed amd have more joy.

Love yall!!

Leaving Fresia

Hola hola yall! This week has been a wild one with intercambios,  vaccines and transfer news

We had a lesson with Claudia, Mirta y Catalina at the beginning of the week, which kind of turned into an English/ Math class. Side note: learning Spanish has made me realize how complicated English is. I literally have the hardest time trying to explain the grammatical intricacies of English😅 they gave us this postre, the best i can explain it is that it was the Meat of a Pumpkin (not the seeds or pulp) marinating in cinnamon syrup. It was actually bomb

Later in the week we went to Puerto Varas to receive the flu shot and have our district council. Anyone who has seen me after i've had some vaccination probably knows how the next day and a half went hehe. Anyways, great District Council about giving your all. Afterwards we went to celebrate our last consejo with some burritos. Aguanta comida de México🤘

Later we had intercambios, i went with Elder Boysen en Alerce. Love that Elder. 

Maximo is doing great, ready for the bautismal interview. We told him that i'd ve leaving and probably wouldn't be able to do the baptism and he got pretty sad 🥺 he asked why and we told him that there are other people who need help and Jesús and then he got all happy and said that he was excited for those other people to learn about Christ. I'll miss that lil guy

Sunday we had a reunion for the commemoration of the Restauration of the Aaronic Priesthood. They do this meeting every year, and i didn't even know this was a thing hehe. Later we went to the Mamita in Puerto Varas and watched the devotional for young adults with the prophet. It was so good!! The whole time, the spirit just confirmed that the prophet receives revelation for us. I loved how he talked about how titles can be destructive, and how our first and foremost title is "Child of God"

Last night, we also had transfer news!! We were listening to the news as we were traveling home from the Mamita, i will be training an Elder Gana in San Jose!! San Jose is in Valdivia, the far North of my mission, and is almost as small as Fresia. In the North, it rains even more so im just bracing myself.

Love y'all!! Go listen to the Prophets message to young adults if you haven't already, i promise you'll feel the spirit testify that he is a Prophet of God and you'll receive a message that you need.

Our Papito made a Sophia the 1st cake. Enjoy Marli!

Gutter Cat

 Hola hola yall! Muchísimo ha pasado, so lets get into it🤠

PUERTO MONTT

I think i might've mentioned this in my last email, but last week we went up to Puerto Montt for a reunion with all of the bishops and branch presidents. Puerto Montt is probably the biggest City in the mission, and I love it. All the buildings are colorful and its all on a huge hill that overlooks the sea. There was a McDonald and a Subway🤯 Subway smelled literally the exact same jeje. 

We stayed in Puerto Montt for P day, and playas soccer and spikeball. 

MAXIMO

Max is doing better than ever! He prayed in the name of Jesucristo without us reminding him. We've taught him everything, now we just gotta help him understand why we don't use the cross or prayer beads 

RAMON

We found Ramon! He's cool, has a lot of experience in religión and is looking for something that has been missing. He also has an absolutely massive pig. 

FAMILIA AÑAZCO

We recieved a referencia! The second reference I've recieved here, by the Elders of Llanquihue who found Juan Añazco on the micro. He had met with the missionaries before the pandemic, and when the pandemic hit they just kind of disappeared. We set up a time to meet, and taught him, his wife, and his daughter the Restauración. They loved it! It was super powerful, the father was in tears. They committed to reading, praying, and coming to church. They also told us they'd bring us up to their field to  do service. They didn't end up being able to go to church, but still hype.

Otras cosas: 

- our Papito gave me a haircut. It might be the goofiest haircut i've had hehe. I've got no right to complain, i keep putting myself in these situations...

- There's a gutter cat on our street now

- we had an invasion in Llanquihue, where we were able to find 8 people wanting to hear more in an hour and a half! 

Love y'all! The April 2020 General Conference is so awesome for learning about the Restauración. 

"You missionaries are dogs" -President Meek

     

5/2/22

Hola hola! A few weeks late, but a year ago I opened my mission call and discovered that I'd be heading to the Chile, Osorno mission. I didn't realize how much my mission would impact me or all that it would entail, but it has been the best experience of my life. 

          Anyways, this week was awesome! Started out with a day of volleyball with the zone. We used two chalk boards and a rope as the net, worked surprisingly well. We spent the night in Puerto Varas and had an amazing lesson with Camila over the phone. She committed to praying and asking if she should get baptized (: we had some Pichanga that night, I'm actually scared of the idea of returning home to a country without Pichanga🥲

          The next day we had ZC, my first here in Chile and it was awesome. I'll come back to this later.

         We returned to Fresia, only to return to Puerto Varas the next day for interviews. President told me that I wouldn't be in Fresia by the time he leaves, in about 2 months😶

         Un milagro: we were street contacting and knocking doors, but we had an appointment we had to get to. We felt that we should continue knocking, and go to our appointment on a different day. Así pasa con el Espíritu y nuestras planes jaja. So we keep going, and eventually come to this long dirt road leading to an old house. We follow it, and find Felipe doing carpentry in his garage. When he saw us, he invited us in and we started talking about his job and God and aliens and such. He then started showing us his fishing gear and crossbows and Guns and stuff, and then he asked us for our number, and gave us his. Me and my companion were blown away, he is super golden. He told us he'd contact us when he hunted something so that we could come eat it🤘

         We had an awesome Sacrament meeting, with 20 people! Maximo, who's getting baptized here in just a bit, went up to the pulpit, looked at everyone, and then returned to his seat 😅 after a bit longer he got back up and had Elder Quezada write him a little script he could use to bear his testimony. It's been a bit since I've heard the testimony of a child, it was so precious 

          During ZC, President talked about how separa dogs guard sheep with their lives, 24/7 every day until they die. They do so because in their eyes, the sheep and the dogs are the same. Their family, and so the dogs give everything in their responsibility. We should have that same sense of urgency and responsibility in bringing people to Christ, as we are all brothers and sisters and the only way to eternal Salvation is through Christ. Its such a privilege to bring others to Christ, and a life-or-death responsibility.

     Love y'all!