Week 27

WOHOOOO ITS ALMOST CHRISTMAS! i cannot wait to skype all of you (sorry sis hartt) It'll be really fun to see all of you! and ill be doing it from the office because the internet is really fast here so there wont be any problems!! 

This week was a super busy one!! we had one day where we had to travel up to a pueblito really close to linares and renegotiate a contract with the dueña of a house that we are renting. that was interesting. she was a super old lady, but it was all worked out in the end! and then we had to help move around some mattress for the big christmas conference that we are going to do this next week and deliver some packages to missionaries. and we did this big trip with a senior couple who are in charge of the money! then after we went to a big market in chillán and i bought a little wooden duck!  ill probably send a pic of it later today! 

Then another thing that was kinda annoying this week was getting the christmas vid ready... i helped out with it a bit because the formatting was really weird and would not burn to a disc... but we got it firgured out and now we just have to burn like 200 copies!!!! wohooo.

We had a big stake activity, that was really just a show this week too. it was pretty cool and we had a part in it singing hark the herald! it took up a lot of time though because they had a rehearsal that was pretty long. 

we have been finding some more people this week during the little pockets of time that we have. my favorite find was when we were going to visit this one ancient and a lady across the street yelled there aren't home! and then i yelled back you want a visit from the missionaries? she said yes! lol and now we are going to teach here, but she is suuuuuuuuuper old and live with her mom who is even older..... so we'll see if we can get them to the church some how some way.

We had a super fun activity with president arrington! we went to his house and wrapped presents for the missionaries that arent getting packages. it was really fun filling the boxes for them and wrapping them. plus they made like a bread pudding kinda thing that was sooooooooooooooo gooooooooooood i kinda felt like i was in the states as i ate it! 

But yea all is well here! hope you guys all get home safely and that you guys have a great christmas adam and eve! 

Week 26

Yea so life is very very different her than in Linares.

So we work in the office as the housing elders. literally if there is anything you need for you or your house you call us. so its pretty interesting some of the request we get. But it is a lot of work. It has been a little more relaxed this week as cambios are over and everyone have a mattress (at least) because there are a lot of trios this cambio as a lot of people are going home before christmas. 

But i thought i would give you guys a little run down of our schedule 

7:30 we get up and do the regular missionary stuff like pray and eat

10 we need to be in the office

5:30 around this time we usually leave to work if we have finished everything that we need to do for that day, which does happen   

and then we can be out until 10:30

I really am starting to feel like a dad as im in the office because all day i have my 'job' and then i have to go take care of my 'kids' aka searching for people to teach. so thats the job and we also do a lot of other random stuff here in the office like we go through lists of membership records looking to see if there are duplicates and ones that dont have addresses... wohooo thats the one job i kinda hate. But there are soooo many perks to the office! we get a car! its a 2015 kia van its soooo nice plus it has AC uh i feel so blessed. and another perk is that we get to go out for lunch everyday! no more eating huge plates of beans!!! its awesome we really get to run around conce trying all the food its awesome. and one day the senior couple here took us out to lunch to the equivalent of mccormicks and schmitts!!! oh man was that nice... man i love the office. and its pretty fun here with the elders its really just four of us office elders and usually the assistants. we dont see pres here much but we do have meeting with him every monday so yea i do get to know him a little more!

Ok and the sector here! so we literally have the mall and centro part of concepcion in our sector... so it is a pretty hard sector to find, because most of the people here dont live here and are just visiting. but there are some ghetto parts where people do live and some really rich parts, but still its kinda tricky to get into houses. But we have one investigator that is super evangelico and really believes in his church, but he really likes the book of mormon, but for some reason it just isnt clicking for him that if the bom is true that means that we have the restored priesthood. So we are trying to get him to understand that. 

But all is well here!! i really love it in the office and im trying to work hard in both here and the field! i hope that you all had a great week!!!!!! love you all! 

Week 25

SURPRISE! pdays are now on Saturdays for me so dont sweat it about not writing. i didnt even know until i got to the office about this. but i thought that i would send a bunch of the goodbye pics that i took.

It was pretty hard saying goodbye to linares as we were having so much success, because this month they are going to get three more baptisms, but it is all OK because i know i am where the lord wants me. but man oh man things are different. we work in the office every day until 5:30, if we are lucky... so there isnt really that much time to be a real missionary. and this week we were really busy as with the cambios there are now a lot of trios in the mission and we had to get all of these people mattresses and bed frames. one day we didn't get home from running these kind of errands until 9:50... we had to do our daily street contacts in a different city lol. but i love being able to help the missionaries.

My new comp is Elder carpenter, he is from Wyoming. he got bumped up to comp mayor this cambio!! so this has been a pretty new experience for him too, so please keep him in your prayers! but he has almost a year in the mission, and he will have 2 more cambios here in the office as we always stay in the office for 4 cambios.

the old man next to me was probs my bestfriend in linares he said he would cry once a week to remember me lol

BENJAMIN

hernancito! he left with us a lot and he was super capo! 

Week 24

ya so today is cambios and....... im leaving! im going to be one of the office elders! so im going to concepcion tomorrow to be comps with elder carpinter and we are in charge of the housing of the mission! talk about a big change... but the best thing is that as an office elder we get a car! so im super pumped about that lol. but also i will still be working in the heart of conce so that will be a huge change from here in linares!

So to start off this week i had a mini cambio with my dl and went to straight campo. it was super nice because a member drove us and visited like 3 families with us. dont remember their names because its not my sector but it was pretty fun being in the real campo. and we found an antique shop and i bought a really old chilean bill it was before they started using pesos!

The next day we were fasting to help an eternal know if she should get married or leave her bf. but we also had a really hard service! we had to use metal poles to do the job of a jackhammer.... omg we were dying towards the end, but after they gave us a huge bbq like huge huge. i couldnt finish huge.

so this week we were able to bring 3 people to church with fecha!! our goal was 4 but the news that we found this week were hit by the flojera (lazy) and didnt want to come even though we had members looking for them... because we had two other news that had fecha but the flojera

first off the elena. her date is the 6th!!!!!! she is ready to be baptized, she passed the practice interview that we had with her because she kept saying i need to learn more, but we were like no you know everything you need to know!! and her son is going to baptize her this next sunday... oops wont be here but still im super pumped for her and si o si she will be baptized now!!

numero dos was yaritza, she is the daught of a recent convert who has 16 years. we have been working with her for a while getting her excited about a baptism and finally this week it clicked! she had a sweet spiritual experience and is now feeling more ready! heck she even bought a dress for church! and her fecha is the 12th!

last but not least, nikolas! he is still looking really good for the 26th! we are really excited for the family as a whole, they keep coming each sunday and are reading and praying, its awesome! and now they have internet so the mom can listen to the LDM!

But yeah it is weird thinking about how today is my last day here... definitely sad but also excited for the future! and elder watts and bianco are both going to satay here so i am not worried about my precious investigors! 

As for thanksgiving we had a short noche de hogar with maria lopez and a fun family. we played pueblo de nefi its kinda like mafia its really fun to play with chileans because they always cheat lol. 

and man oh man it is getting hot here! yesterday during weekly planning we were still kinda dying, but hey the office has AC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but i will be super busy this month because we have to help set up a big thing fopr christmas and have all the beds and stuff so we can have the whole mission together.... so yeah things will be different but still good

it doesnt matter where you work just how- SWK

love you all!!!!! besitos!!

Elder livingston

Week 23

so we had an emergency cambio...... and we received elder bianco!! he is from argentina and is super cool, he didnt do anything bad but just had to change areas.

So this week we walked a lot. like really we spend a good 3ish hours every day just walking from appointments. its starting to kill me. like really we are just so tired here, like right after we finish planning i eat a carrot and go to bed lol.

so this week we really tried to recommit ourselves to find more this week. we were able to find 4 solid people and one even came to church with fecha for the 12! but we think it might be moved back because her house smells like cigarettes but well see.

so with nikolas, the joven that we found. his mom had a problem getting to church but in the end we were able to find a wheel chair! and the whole fam came to church!!! we are really pumped and nikolas is excited for his baptism on the 26th of december!!

really nothing else big happened here... just that now we are in a trio and it is the last week of the cambio... so this next week could very well be my last here in linares :(. hope you all had a great week!!!!

me with elder bianco! he looks like a gringo but does not speak english at all

oh and this week we almost brought 5 people to church with fecha.... but in the end only 2 came... we were kinda bummed because the other three told us that they were on their way.... but now we are going to use the members more for this!

Week 22

ya so it got reaaaaal hot this week. like almost every other contac we do on the street we just talk about how hot it is outside lol. but this week was super busy! E watts and i were so dead this morning that after we got up and said morning prayers we just collapsed back to sleep lol. i really have been so tired... we walk so much and it is stinkin hot, but i still love it here! i keep thinkin about the elder holland talk to missionaries about how we should arrive home to our homecomings on stretcers because we will be dead tired.

So this week martin got dunked1!! we were really excited for him! he was super nervous the day of and kept having this weird twitch thing... but in th end he was just so happy!! but everything went smooth for the baptism! hs grandpa baptized him nd it was super lindo! we still just ned to make sure that his mom will stay active. but we also recently reactivated one of his neighbors that has a kid thats just under 8, so si o si he will still get to church!

As for maxi... first of all maria had to work a big event that friday for her new job so it was a no for this week... but also the boyfriend doesnt really want maxi to get baptized.... he keeps saying that he isn mature enough and that he should wait a year. but I did a mock interview with maxi and he just needs to learn repentance a little better and the law of chastity..... but we are really working on getting the dads permission. right now he has fecha for the 28th so hopefully it will all work out! and it was knda sad this week because maria ended up not going to the temple because of money issues :((((((((( but she is really excited about the temple and keeps asking abou endowments and were like maria you still got a year to wait!

so we found a menos active family that has a son that has not been baptized, he has 12 years and they are so prepared to come back to church!!"!! whn we first bpassed by they didnt want us to come in because mssionaries have said they would come back but never did, so we made sure that we came back! and they started reading and praying and coming back to church and now the son has fecha for the 26th of december!

but yea it was a really busy week and we ended up bringing three people to church with fecha! so we were really pumped and glad that all of our work has been working! i hope that you all had a great week!!!

besitos!

Elder livingston

Week 21

So this week was a bit more relaxed as we were still focusing on getting maxì and martin ready for their baptisms this week. were pretty pumped about it and it is going to be a joint baptism on friday night for the niños!!!

so since we having been teaching mostly kids this week we went to the primary pres and asked her how does she teach kids, because she also has a 3 and 5 year olds. and she really drove home a point that i liked which was to just let it go if the kid doesnt understand the lesson, just drop it and come back later. so we really were trying to do that and keep the lessons short and FUN. so we had a super fun noche de hogar with them and played pueblo de nefi which is like mafia. it was super funny because we had a smaller kid there and he did not understand the game and would keep yelling kill me!!! im the lamanite!! even when he wasnt... lol but it was fun getting the two kids together and trying to get them to become better friends.

so yeah maria was baptized as you guys know and now her life is looking awesome!! seriously the week before her baptism it looked like her life was going to be reaaaaally hard, but the blessings of baptism are so real! she has her job and she is dating her boyfriend (juan) and he is now living in a different house but still spends most of his time there helping out. and really you can just see the spirit helping her in her life!! and now juan is starting to read the BoM more!!! litterally we walked in for lunch yesterday and juan was sitting there reading the Bom listening to 70s music (soooo trunky). and he told us about an interesting experience that he had during one night after reading.... needless to say we were like juan that was a sign from God, KEEP READING! also we learned that he went to culinary school and wants to cook for us more, so yea blessings of missionary work...

We found a family of ancient investigators. they are sooooo awesome. the dad already wants to be baptized! but he can only go to church once a month because of work.. sooo were just still trying to figure out the whole situation before we really put them with fecha. but we took once with them once and started reading 2 nefi 32 and after like 5 verses in everyone was silent listening to the god word. and then the dad was like wow this is just like the bible and we were like yeaaaaaa and explained its origen and everything. but we are really pumped for them!

but yea those were kinda the highlights of the week! we also found a dirt cheap hotdog place thats 500 pesos for a hotdog.... we took our ward mission leader there one day lol. we told him we have a sweet surprise and he got all ready and everything then we took him out! he was pretty surprised lol but the man loves completos! 

we met with a super old man this week that is getting his endowment and at the end of the lesson he shoed us his boxers and said, this is the last week for these!!! lol

we did a service for a menos activo member and after he showed us 1 nefi 11:10, 15. LOL

But all is good here! i love all the people here and its weird to think that we are already half way through this cambio! i sure hope i dont have to leave i love the ward here! hope all of you are having a great fall!!!! drink some hot coco for me! and eat some pumpkin pie!

Week 20

we did it!!! after a long 9 months finally maria got baptized!!! it was such an awesome experience to see her finally get baptized and confirmed a member of the church! after she gave a BOMB testimony about how the week leading up had been really hard but totally worth it! seriously it was soooo awesome! earlier in the week she doubted herself a little but we got her to reconfirm and justo after she said yes im going to go through with the baptism she got a call with a job offer #bediciones!!!!!!!!! 

So yeah really this week we were focusing on getting maria to the font. and open of the days we got to do a mini cambio and i went to the campo again with the brasileño which was a pretty interesting day. mostly because since it is a newish sector so really al they had planned was find.... so we knocked A LOT of doors. and it ws stinkin hot because i was wearing my suit pants from interviews that morning with pres arrington. after like 3ish hours of doors and like 1 lesson we found an icecream shop and i was like we have to go im dying and it just looks sooooo good. so we took a nice icecream break, i had pplatano icecream and man it was soooo rico. probably was the second highlight of the week.

but really not much else happened this week because we were really focused on maria. but now we only have 1 person with fecha because all of our other investigators didnt come to church :(((( this was martin the niño of 9 years old. he has started kicking it into high gear getting ready for his baptism for the 13th! but he really is the only other that is really progressing. but we are finding a lot! which has been awesome, we even found a family of 7 and the parents seem really excited about the church, just got to get them to GO somehow.

For halloween we kinda forgot about it until it was night and we were walking home... so we went over to maria´s and handed out candy to the niños. it was pretty funny seeing peoples reactions as we came out! then she gave us the rest of her baptism cake and we make a smoothie with it! it was pretty good in the end! 

But i hope that all of you are having an awesome week! its weird to think that it is already november!!!! i hope that all of you had an awesome halloween you all probably sent pics of costumes but if you didnt, DO IT! love you all!!!!

ps i think i experienced righteous fury with a menos activo this week when he promised he would go to church and then he didnt and we taught him about this is the time to prepare to meet god. if any of you can imagine me dropping the hammer (con amor)