Overjeria/Centro

 Yo! Greetings from Osorno🖖 So much has happened in the last week with a new area, new comp, new asignación and a new matero. My last one broke🥲

Alrighty so after transfer news, Elder Gana and I pretty much visited everyone we had met in San José to explain the situation. San José unfortunately got closed, and will now be covered with an are in Valdivia. Because it's an hour away from Valdivia, it won't receive missionary work as much so it was pretty sad explaining the situation to our friends and members. I actually think it will be good, I think the members will take care of Joaquin for us.

OSORNO

Spark notes of Osorno:

- Small city

- Beautiful 

- Its a ward, the biggest I've seen here with 60 people attending

- The capital of the mission, so the mission home, AP's and the church office for the South of Chile are in our area which is exciting

- Our house has a wood stove😊 first time I've chopped wood for out own use haha

ELDER CALL

Elder Call is super dope. He is my first gringo comp in Chile and my first comp from Utah in the mission. He broke my streak, I almost hit a year without a Utahn companion🥲 He also loves Maté so we're getting along pretty well

I got the news right before I arrived that we are the Zone leaders for Osorno. I have no clue at all what I'm doing so Elder Call is low key carrying hehe. The majority of the zone is new this transfer so we have our work cut out for us. We also received the news that we have Zone conference in less than a week, and that it would be President Gervic's first Zone conference in the mission😅 Because it's basically his introduction to the missionaries, it's pretty high stakes so we will see how this rolls out

FRIENDS

I haven't been here long, but we've been working hard and have been blessed this week! I walked in to a pretty good situation, we have two friends getting baptized this Saturday. Trinidad and Ana, two very elect, very old women. Prayers that they feel supported and the spirit are very appreciated

We found this family this week that is 🔥 it was a very "fourth floor, last door" moment, after a particularly rough street and the last few minutes of the day. We were returning home when I saw this house with a large family eating dinner through the window, so we knocked and the mom answered. She told us that because it was freezing, we could come back another time but Elder Call (literal legend moment,) told her, "We could, but we have prepared this message for families prepared to come to God, and the message is prepared right now." She thought about it for a second, and then let us in. It ends up being a family of 8, and five of them are members. They were active years ago, but fell out of contact when they moved out of Santiago. We talked about the spirit present at their baptisms, and promised that they could feel those feelings again by partaking of the sacrament and continuing the covenant path. The spirit was super strong, and now we are visiting them again.

We had more friends than I've had at church which was a really cool miracle.

THOUGHT 

This week I studied a lot about testifying and declaring Repentance to everyone, but only teaching the elect. I love the phrase "called to be fishers of men, declaring Repentance unto the world," paired with Matthew 13: 47-49. There are people who are very prepared and very elect, and I feel that a lot of times throughout my mission I've spent a lot of time teaching people who aren't yet prepared or elect. Teaching just because they keep letting me back in their house, not because they will get baptized. Something that I've learned a lot about this last week is the importance of sorting the elect from the un-elect, so that we can focus on the work the Lord has prepared for us. We can and should tell people that baptism is our goal, and if that is not something that they are willing to do we should spend time finding and teaching those who are. 

Love y'all!

Elder Call

Cachai? Tu Saipo

 Buenas! 

The last two weeks shot by at light speed, can't believe i'm writing one of these de nuevo hehe. 

Its been pretty nuts here, here's a few highlights from the last lil bit:

- I met a dog older than me 😶 compadre is 20 years young and thriving

- We helped the sisters break into their house after they got locked out

- Last interview with President Meek. We're not going to talk about whether or not tears were shed...

- We got locked out of our house overnight hehe. Getting locked out is proving to be a common theme for me in this mission.

- I found a new favorite Maté flavor

Aguante

RAMON 

A lil bit ago we felt prompted to go to Ramon's house. Ramon is someone that we've been working with for a bit now, without too much progress because he wont read the book of mormon on his own. Well, we arrive at his house and his mother, super distraught, opens the door. Apparently Ramon had returned to using drugs, and had been forced by his dealer at gunpoint to give away the family's savings. Super sad, but it was so cool being able to teach and testify of the power of the atonement to Ramons mom. Its amazing how doing the little stuff, all the little things to keep up our spiritual momentum, can allow Christs power into our lives and protect us; whereas the lack therof opens the door for Satan to bring us misery.

INTERVIEWS

So we had interviews! President gave me exactly what i needed to hear, and then gave me a priesthood blessing. I feel like President Meek is family, i'm gonna miss him tons. Immediately after i gave my first Baptismal interview! One of Angachilla's amigas, Javiera. It was cool.

LOCKED OUT

Funny story hehe. We started doing weekly Pichanga's (soccer games,) with our brancv and investigators. We had a video lesson run a tad late, and so we were in a bit of a rush to leave the house. As the front door closed, i realized i had left the key and our money in the house. 

Because it was late, we decided to worry about it after the game. An hour and a half later we were back at our house, investigating for a way in.

It was 9pm when we started, and for the next two hours we searched for a way in. Credit cards, wires, swiss army knife and all. We tried taking the hinges of of some windows, but after that they were still held shut with some deadbolts. The only way in was through breaking something down, which i wasn't about to do again hehe. 

There aren't any buses operating that late, so we just decided to cut our losses, go to the church and get out of the rain. Luckily we hadn't forgottwn the keys to the church. We had stashed a bag of potato chips there a few days back (inspiration is dope,) and so we had some din din. We crashed on the floor of the Branch President's office, using the window curtains as blankets because is was pretty chilly. 

The next day, there was a member of our branch in Valdivia (where the house-owner lives) so she was able to grab a spare key and get back in our house. It was honestly a pretty good time, we were laughing at how comical it was throughout the night.

JOAQUIN

We're teaching this stud named Joaquin. He's 13, has been to church twice and is participating with the youth activities. He's awesome, we hope to help him get baptised here in the next lil bit. His family is Catholic, so theres a bit of resistance but he believes in and is reading the Book of Mormon! 

TRANSFERS

So this was a bit of a shock, transfer news came and I leave to the Osorno Zone. We lost more missionaries than we recieved, so they had to close some areas including San José🥲 I'm a tad sad because we are finally seeing some progress and because though small, the branch is awesome but i also know that the Lord has a perfect plan and I am excited to serve in a ward here in chile.

Faith and Love is super cool and super connected!! Go read John 13

Rainy beach day

 Hola hola! It's been a bit, last P-day i was sick in bed, vomiting a bit and with fevers. But we're good! Valuable lesson learned, don't eat free Sea-food from the back of some random guy's truck! In my defense, it was for the sake of talking to him. And it was really good. So anyways, lots has happened so lets get into it

Last week: By far the highlight of this week was Zone conference. Close second was the sea food. This Zone conference was the last one with President and Sister Meek. I love them so much, it'll be sad to see em go. President went out with a bang, talking about 3 Nephi 12 and baptism. In the final bit, he started talking about the final interview and the questions included in that, it was brigido.

This week was super good, we focused a lot on helping our friends progress, working on commitments and such. We have had to stop teaching the vast majority of our amigos, which is always sad but also amazing that we can keep focused on the elect. Cool miracle: we have been inviting everyone and their dog to church this week. Every Amigo, lots of formers, we sent a video invitation to our branch for them to send out and we've talked about it with every street contact. Sunday came, and nobody that we contacted showed up. It really was quite humbling, we had worked so hard specifically to help others come to christ through church. I remember thinking something like, "alright Heavenly Father, i know i'm far from perfect, but i really don't know what we could have done more. We need help." A few minutes later, this family of three walk in! They came and watched the testimonies, and after as we talked with them, they told us that they were new in the area, and they really enjoyed the spirit that is present in the meetings. They asked how they could learn more, and committed to coming every week!

Now the crazy part, after we had been talking for a bit, one of them told us that they had received a call, asking them to come to the church and come to Christ. It just so happens that they have REALLY been  humbled by circumstances recently, and are beyond open to finding relief through Christ. They asked us how we had obtained their number, and we explained that it wasn't us. Upon further investigation, we found out it wasn't any of the members at the capilla, and to this time we still don't know who it was. All i do know is that it was guided by God.

Their names are Leonardo, Jocelyn and Aner. Prayers for them are greatly appreciated.

Other things that have happened:

- We told this lady we're missionaries, and she responded with, "Missionaries.... or ROBBERS??" 

- My companion walks like Squidward dancing. I love him.

- We went to the beach as a district and got wrecked by the rain. 

Love yall!