Week 10

After a rain storm

Hola querida familia!! this week was a a really fast one for some reason.

to start off it was kinda weird because we lost contact with dangela. she said that all this week she was doing a charity event and would be busy for the most part and would call if she was free. sounded pretty normal right? but later on in the week we started to think ya we really need to make contact with here to make sure she is still on the right path. so we tried calling each day but now whenever it calls it just goes straight to voicemail. and on sunday she did not come to church. so we were super bummed when we didnt see her. we hope that she was just really really busy with the charity zumba stuff but we dont know. so please keep her inj your prayers because she knew so clearly what she had to do and we are getting worried about her and are going to have to push back the baptism one week so she can get the proper attendance. but yea kinda a bummer.

We had an awesome lesson this week with benjamin and his older brothers about the plan of salvation. it was so much fun teaching an 8 yearold this because we got to keep it very simple and he understood it all. at the end his oldest brother who is like 12, esteban, asked us a bunch of questions about the plan and it was so good because it really showed how much he understood about the plan and how much he belived in it. so benjammin will be baptized this next saturday and we are so excited for it and we are really hoping that his mom's pareja comes to the baptism and maybe we can make a cita with him to learn morea about what happened. but i cant wait to send more pics of benjamin because he is super lindo.

so since this week we didnt have as many people to teach we started working a lot on menos activos. its realy funny trying to find them as i have told you most of the people registered dont even live there so it makes for interesting door approaches as we ask how long have the new people been living there and they reply something like 8 years. we have a couple of futures from these wrong house experiences so we are really hoping that they will let us pass by and teach. but with some of the menos activos we did find it really is interesting why some of these people dont go to church. like there was this one lady who wont come because x number of years ago someone, who was mormon, posted something not so great on facebook. but this lady still has a testimony of everything, and there are other people where it kinda is just because it is rainy during the winter so they skip out. so we have been teaching a lot about the sacrament and enduring to the end.

our house has become kinda ghetto rigged this past week. last p day i was washing the dishes while e wolfe was upstairs cleaning when suddenly the sink spout shot off. water was shooting out of the faucet and i just yelled "chuuuuta"and then e wolfe ran downstairs to fin me wet and holding the spout with a super confused face. so now whenever we use that sink we cannot make the water pressure too high otherwise the sink shoots off. and the toilet lever broke too, so now we just use a thin metal rod to lift the plug to flush the toilet. yes we did talk to the office but there really isnt much they can do because literally we are the farthest house in the mission. but all is well.

oh yea one really cool thing that happened at the end of saturday was that we found a family of 7 that will let us teach them. we talked to the dad and he said they would have the missionaries over and then they moved and lost contact with them. it was a complete miracle that we saw him at that time and asked him if he knew his neighbors, because they were registered members, and he said no but that we should come by in the afternoon!!! a real miracle that we were there right then.

But really all is well here. if youre ever wondering what im doing it is probably walking or being stuffed with food at a members house, luckily they balance each other out. But i am so glad to be out here trying to bring these people closer to christ and if you guys have any free time this week help out the missionaries becuase members make the work a lot easier!

Les Amo

Elder Livingston

Week 9

The oreo game:

digging up a huge tree stump for service:

lunch with the senior couple missionaries

Can you believe i've been gone for two months? i cant time flies by, we are already half way through this cambio. we think we might buy a cake or ties to celebrate the grand day.

This week was a big one for dangela. I think i told you all about her and how she asks really deep and profound questions and can speak english, so the lessons are very interesting and sometimes last over 2 hours. but she accepted a date to be baptized!!! it was super awesome we were talking about prayer and revelation and we showed the models of light videos from elder bednar. and it really clicked with her. literally after the videos she knew that she has to be baptized, and because she knew that she asked what were all the commandments so we got to also teach all of them right then because she was so motivated. She fell in love with all of the mormon messages because she was struggling with the idea of only reading from ancient text so it was a big win to show her the mormon channel. and it was awesome because this sunday she came to church! so we are really pumped for her and she really is progressing. her date is going to be on the 5th of september.

Our other investigator with a baptism date is benjamin. his mom is an eternal investigator because her partner doesn't really want to get married, but all of her other boys are baptized and active. we had a super fun noche de hogar with her and her boys where we played the cookie game. for this game we put a cookie at the top of the forehead and have to try to move it to your mouth without your hands. the kids can never do it for the first couple of tries, and then E. wolfe says something like my comp can do it super fast and then i say yea i have super strong eyebrows. and then with the cookie on my head i just ask E. wolfe to feed me the cookie. essentially its a lesson on prayer where we just need to ask, but the families that we have done it with love the game. we have another noche de hogar with them tonight so we are really pumped about that and really benjamin is probably thee cutest 8 year old. 

So as you all know we kinda lost our investigator elizabeth as she asked for time and space, so we wrote a card trying to boost her spirits. so we took one language study time to write this nice card that used moroni 7:33, we thought that it would be super helpful for her just telling her that she can do anything with faith in jesus. so we had to search out for her house because we always taught her at her parents house and we didn't want to leave the card there. so we finally find her house and she doesn't have a mail box, so e. wolfe tells me just toss it into the covered area of the patio. i tossed the card like a frisbee and for some reason it just flew up and landed on the roof... we started to die of laughter. we figured that it just was not meant to be. but who knows maybe shell look out her window and see a card with her name on it.

This past week to try and find new people we have been using this really old list of menos activos, but this list is so old that half of the houses are literally vacant and the others that have people are the wrong people and they day that they have been living there for 4-8 years. so we think we might just focus more on futures and menos activos we know this week.

We had an event called capilla abierta which ended up being funny because the only person to bring nonmembers was another eternal investigator. there ended up being about a total of 5 nonmembers, and a handful of members.

I gave my first talk this week! i was really surprised when during branch counsel that Presidente Alegria asked me to speak. it went really well, i talked about the sabbath day. It seemed that dangela really liked the talk so i would consider that a big success. but it still was funny because later that day we still saw some members out buying bread for that day.

But really all is well here! i bought a puffer from a home depot like store and it has been a pretty clear week! I am so grateful for all of the love and support you all give me!

les amo,

Elder Livingston

Week 8

View from his window:

Huge hotdog for lunch!

after a big meal

backyard

His home!

And then God commanded elder wolfe and livingston to build a boat and collect two of each kind of dog. man oh man was it a rainy week. i still have yet to buy rain pants.... oops. but my comp has got the conections and got the office elders to get me an electric blanket for free so it has been a lot more pleasant here at night. we did also ask them for rain pants but they said that they were all out. and so far my jackets have been good, i might buy another fleece just because i've been wearing to same one for the past week. 

So this week we were supposed to have had a baptism on the 8th. but we got a very sad text from elizabeth saying that she wasn't feeling ready and that her parents have been giving her a hard time about joining the church. she says she might need a little space and doesn't want to feel pressured into being baptized. we tried to visit her a couple of times but she has been dodging us. so we are hoping to give her an animo booster later this week with some brownies and letters of encouragement. so please keep her and her daughter adriana in your prayers. 

Remember that my comp gave a baby blessing last week? the family is called poblete casanova and we have started to become good friends with them. they asked us to bless there house because weird things were happening. like the tv would turn on and off and random appliances would turn on without being plugged in... kinda scary, but i had the opportunity of doing the blessing. After our quick message and blessingyou could really feel a change of spirit in the house. were planning on going back and doing a noche de hogar with them because they need some help working on unity. But i really belive that with thime they will be strong in the church again.

We had another lesson with Dangela that went really well. Also it was 2 and a half hours long. the lesson was on the plan of salvation and this brought up tons of questions about kinda random stuff. but we were able to answer all of the questions, it did help a lot that she is fluent in english so we could explain harder things in english. but at the end when we were closing we asked is there anything you want us to pray for and she just said you will know... kinda intimidating but i guess i said the right things as after she said thank you thats what i needed to hear, so i was pretty relieved. 

The food here has been awesome! since we live near the campo all of the food is pretty fresh. the tomatoes here are sooooo good. a lot of members make a salad that is just tomatoes and onions, its so good. there was one house where we got served soooo much food. we both thought we were going to die. we were first given 'sushi' and bread and salad, then we both got a huge, i mean huge, plate of mashed potatoes with two fried eggs on top. it was a struggle to eat it all. i had to take it like a pill towards the end with my juice and poor elder wolfe wasn't able to finish his plate. needless to say language study did not happen after that lunch. but also this past week i got my first asado and ohhhhh was it good. but all is well here we are working hard and trying to find some new people to teach this week! i am so grateful for all of the prayers and support you all give me!

Love,

Elder Livingston

Week 7

So i finally finished up my mtc experience!! really the best way to describe it is with the part of nacho libre where he describes what he does everyday and keeps saying it is the beeest. but ya all finished up there and we got on an early flight to conce!! we arrived in conce and were given some instructions about our money and living space. then we were given lunch. I almost cried because it was papa johns! man it was nice to have a change from rice and 'carne'. then after that we had the assigning of new companions and i got assigned elder wolfe! he's a really cool guy who is a year and a half into the mission and is from tennessee! after that we had to immediately hop into a car and drive to linares. it was about a 3 1/2 hour drive through the countryside of chile. then we arrived to our house! we are the only two people living there. and for this house just imagine a perfect box and triangle house and cut it in half. its great! the only thing is that it does not have any heating in it so yeah it gets pretty cold at night and the morning. we have little heater fans that we use in the study room so thats always nice. and the mission office gave me 3 wool blankets for at night because at night we cannot use the heaters since they use up so much energy. so i might buy a sleeping bag or electric blanket after writing you guys. and yes it rains so much here. i think the phrase its raining cats and dogs comes from conce. because it has a plentitude of each of those. so also today i'm stocking up on more rain gear. but to combat the cold we drink so much hot chocolate in our house. we just about have the perfect ratio of powder milk to cocoa down. 

The branch here usually gets about 100 members each week. but a lot more could be there. we have a couple of investigators. 1 has a baptism this weekend on dad's birthday with her daughter and their names are elizabeth and adriana. we have one investigator that is really new and has a ton of deep doctrine questions. but luckily she also speaks english. so during the second lesson with her i was able to explain to her why only me hold the priesthood. it was awesome because after that we then shared how faith is not a perfect knowledge and she looked like she was startingto understand more. so keep her in your prayers, her name is dangela and she didnt come to church yesterday so we were super bummed. yesterday at church igot the opportunity to introduce myself. i was so nervous that when i took the sacrament cup i spilled most of it, but i was able to laugh it off and it went well. Also a big surprise for us was when some random less actives asked us to bless their baby!!! so elder wolfe got to bless his first baby. we practiced a lot the night before jajaja. but we didn't even find out the name of the baby until 10 minutes before sacrament meeting. 

The spanish here is completely different from the mtc so for the most part i am really quiet during lessons. but i feel like i already am getting better. sometimes i just have to guess what they said and respond and hope i am saying something relevant. but i know that this will just take time. but seriously chileans speak soooooooooo fast and add random things to words and cut off parts. hope all of you are having a great week!!!!

chao,

E. Livingston

Week 6

Elder Livingston with the Mission President and wife, President and Hermana Arrington.

With his trainer, Elder Wolfe!

His Mission map.  He has been assigned to serve in the Linares district for his first area (it's in the north east part of the map).

Elder Livingston made it to his Mission in Concepcion! His quick note to us:

im am currently at the mission office in concepcion! it looks awesome here and they are taking really good care of me. i cant write much, but i am really excited to be here and to get my area! love all of you!

Letter from his Mission President:

31 July 2015

Dear Brother and Sister Livingston,

Sister Arrington and I had the great pleasure of welcoming Elder Matthew Grant Livingston to the Chile Concepción Mission.  After we met him at the airport when he arrived, we enjoyed lunch together with the other missionaries.  We held an orientation and testimony meeting and Elder Livingston met his new companion, Elder Adam Wolfe, who will train him to be a missionary. They will be laboring in the District of Linares 1 and located in the Zone of Linares .

A mission is a wonderful experience filled with challenge and success that strengthens the testimony and spirituality of each missionary. The greatest support you as a family can give your missionary during his service as a missionary is that of uplifting letters.  Missionaries look forward with great anticipation to each letter from home.  In addition to using email, you can send packages and letters to our address.  The U.S. Postal Service and the Correos de Chile do a good job of delivering packages.

Elder Matthew Livingston

Misión Chile Concepción

Castellon 1063 Oficina Norte

Casilla 2210

Concepción, Chile

You may also send letters (and only letters taped shut, no envelopes via the ¨Pouch¨):

Elder Matthew Livingston

Misión Chile Concepción

POB 30150

Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150

We encourage each of our missionaries to write to their parents each week.  Please let me know if a reminder to him is needed. You may contact us using e-mail at2015528@ldschurch.org.

We invite you to look at our blog: sirviendoenconcepcion.com

It will be our privilege to work closely with Elder Livingston as he serves here in Chile.  We are blessed to have him join us in this mission and know that he will have many life changing experiences as he proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Thank you for your support and for sharing your son with us.

Photos and a map of the mission are attached to this email.

Sincerely,

President and Hermana Arrington

Week 5

last week in the ccm! i am kinda ready to get out of here everyone is starting to go crazy. entonces this week was pretty much all in spanish so it was pretty exciting. and since it is the last week on sunday i had to pack my big suitcase to send to concepcion. with all of the other things that i packed i packed all of my english scriptures. pretty scary stuff. but it is all fine i can almost comprehend everything that is being said in the scriptures, granted i am still in 1st nefi and pmg is really easy to read in spanish. But by study all of the doctrine and gospel in spanish i feel like i am learning so much because i have to keep reading and re-reading scriptures and quotes. 

So i would like to give a big shout out to Mark for the advice he gave right before the mission. which was to buy earplugs. we got new roommates and one of them is from Colombia and man oh man can he snore. like seriously make the loudest snore you can and that is what i hear every night if i dont get to bed fast enough. but they are really nice guys and it is making me excited with the idea of having a latino companion as my training. but at the same time im ok with a gringo too, time will tell. one week to be exact. 

Since this is our last week we get to do contacts and splits with real missionaries. i am really excited for this because i really get a chance to practice my spanish and get a chance to learn and love the people. but it will definitely be interesting since they really do talk soooo fast and drop alot of syllables. it will for sure be a humbling experience because it is really easy to understand the teachers since they talk so slow and properly. 

So as i said last week i was really excited about the scriptures i bought because of their perfect size. it turns out they are english scriputres and i finally gave in and bought the nice leather scriptures becasue they are the smallest and lightest ones. so im super pumped about having the nice ones in SPANISH now.

All is well here at the ccm and i am so glad for all of the prayers that are offered for me, i really can feel the lord in my life with all of the small miracles!

Chao,

Elder Livingston

Week 4

This week was a lot better! I decided that the best way to overcome any kind of doubt of frustration with work. this past week we started to transition everything to spanish, EVERYTHING. now during personal study i read out of the libro de mormon. its pretty fun tryingn to determine what is actually being said but it has been easy so far becasue im still in 1 nefi. so now in the mtc my group is the oldest group and we only have two more weeks in the ccm. crazy right! next email will be the last one from santiago so it is starting to get more intense. 

So durind this past week elder cowley and i wanted to clean our suits but the dry cleaners near the ccm doesnt do a very good job and it is kinda expensive so we took matters into our own hands. we tried steaming the jackets with a scalding shower turned on and leaving the door closed. the condesnsding water just dripped onto the jackets and didnt really clean them. the jackets are still fine but the still smell like the cafeteria.

Also during this week the older group of missionaries that just left today complained so much about the food that they actually changed some of the meals. it was funny becasue we all had to fill out a survey and the last question was basically aree you a gringo? but hopefully they follow the surveys soon and strat serving breakfast for dinner.

We had one lesson this past week where it was a really tricky investigator who knew a lot about the church but didnt want to do anything. we got her to pray and in the next lesson she said she felt a lot of peace that she couldnt explain. we totally dropped the ball and just continued with our lesson. iot was funny because right after we realized that she would have said yes to be baptized on the spot but we didnt ask right then.

We had to say goodbye to our teachers today-yesterday as we will be getting teachers that dont know how to speak english tomorrow. i am pretty excited because i am ready to be totally surounded by spanish.

So I have recently discovered i made a grave mistake on the 1st p day when i bought hard back scriptures so today i bought smaller hard back scriptures because they were just sooo heavy. i also baught the military scriptures because i think they would be awesome to have for back home at byu. 

Really not much has changed here. just learning more and more spanish. I alsmot feel like i could go into the field really soon because it is pretty easyt at times here. I hope everyone is having a nice summer and enjoying the heat as it is a little CHILLY here because the heaters dont really work but all is well. also it is feeling more and more strange to talk about the gospel in english because my mind is now wired to only talk about it in very simple spanish, its awesome because it keeps me talking about only very simple aspects of the gospel which are some of the most powerful ones.

chao,

E. Livingston