Week 19

Well this last week was awesome. we went HARD. we were able to leave with a member every day last week!! It might have helped that i started giving out the skittles that were sent in the package lol and for one member we even made fudge cookies for accompanying us, so yes the bribery has been in play but hey salvation isn't cheap!

remember maria lopez? the investigator that has basically been active in the church for the past year? yea so her pareja finally left like for good. it was kinda sad when she told us about this but in reality she has been a lot more excited because now she can get baptized!! she is going to be baptized this week on the 31st! spooky stuff right? but she is really excited and is suuuuuuuper lista. we did a mock interview to show her how ready she is and she is so pumped and we have all of the baptism planned except who is going to baptize her... were banking on her picking the second counselor of the branch presidency. but she will be baptized this saturday si o si! and now her son wants to be baptized too! and he has fecha for the week after! we still have to go through all of the commandments with him so he can pass the baptismal interview. but he is starting to like going to church so that really is the most important thing!! oh and he has 8 years old.

after those two baptisms we will have the baptism of martin. the grandson of the branch president who has 9 years. he is a big goof ball. its hard to get him to stay still for an entire lesson but we are really working on getting him ready. we had to kinda drop the hammer on him yesterday because he hasn't been doing any of the tareas that we leave with him. so we gave him a little calendar that says reading and prayer each day and if he cannot do it each day before the baptism we will move the date. mostly to show him that this is a serious matter, but it is nice that we have the support of the grandparents so much.

and then we will have Elena! who had fecha for the 7th but she didn't show up to church yesterday because they went shopping -___- we were pretty bummed. and we are really thinking that she hasn't been reading... so we are thinking about how we really need to get the whole family motivated in the cause because the daughters were less active until like 2-3 weeks ago. but it has been pretty hard teaching her because she is a very timid person and her husband speaks for her a lot(yes he is a member) we even had to tell him during a lesson that its great that you have a testimony but we want to hear your wife's. so with her we are planning on the baptism to be more towards the end of november, we just need to get her to stay for the three hours and i think she will really start progressing.

those are all the people that have fecha to be baptized. and this week have been really lucky in finding you MARRIED couples. which are super rare in chile. we really are feeling like theses young families are answers to our prayers but we just need to start putting them in priority these next few weeks.

and the common theme that we found for contacts this week was that people kept thinking that E watts is like 10 years older than me lol. one person guessed that he has 32 years old lol. but it is so funny contacting people in the street here because there really is like a 1/10 chance they are a member that is inactive... welcome to chile!

But yea this week was a lot of work we literally have been running around every corner of linares trying to help our focus group and find news. I can really see the lords hand in this work and i am so glad that he has put me here in the best city of chile!!! I hope that you all had an awesome week and you all have a fun halloween!!!! eat a snickers for me! besitos!

Preaching to every creature:

ping pong with the ward mission leader:

Week 18

So we just got the cambios this morning and i am.... STAYING! I am pretty happy that i am staying because for  sure it looks like we are going to get 2 baptisms this next month! and i am staying comps with elder watts and yes we are still alone in the house that is out in the boonies.

This week was pretty good. I had another mini cambio but this time i stayed and was showing our DL about our district. it was pretty fun, we got a super small lunch that day because the hermanas family was sick and gave us a tiny pot of pasta, so we had to get some berlines during the afternoon. But it wsa pretty fun hanging out with a brasileno, it sure makes me feel good about my spanish that I could be able to talk with him all day and understand everything! and to end the mini cambio i made chocochip cookies (from a betty crocker mix) oh man those made me trunky!

Earlier this week we got hit hard by the rain and wind. like really it was sooo cold and all of the members kept saying that it is supposed to be stickin hot right now. but like there were a couple of streets where the drainage had failed and it was literally walking through a river lol I had to wear knee high boots that i found in the house.

We currently have 2 people with fecha as of today, we have the boy martin who will be baptized for sure since he is the grandson of the branch president, but his family had to be reactivated first, and the mom that we found ion the other family where the son said he wanted our help reactivating them. needless to say there has been a lot of reactivation effort over here.

Martin is a really goofy kid he has 9 years old. so we are focusing on him passing the baptismal interview and that he is going to church regularly. but we played the game that mom sent where a person has to find the tierra prometida and seriously he was going crazy for the game. He is a really good kid and the hardest thing i think will be is reactivating his dad, but we have gained a lot of confidence with him by inviting him to a bunch of spot nights!

Elena is the mom of the member who asked us for our help. she still keeps saying i need to learn more about the church, but she doesn't do any of the reading... so during the last lesson i kinda dropped the hammer and was like hey if you guys want to relearn and learn about the church you have to read. it must have worked because their less active daughters said that they would help them read through a pamphlet! But we are really pumped for her baptism because we are planning on her son baptizing her!

Ok and for those of two amigas that lived together.. . we had an awesome lesson about same sex relationships and humility. and they told us that they are not in this kind of relationship, but after this lesson we have lost contact with them... idk i hope that they just went to the campo this weekend or something, but it is really hard to reach them because they work from 2pm-2am in a frozen asperagus packing place. 

During this week we found a common theme during contacts on the street of people telling us to go home and go to sleep, a couple of times we were like bueno si quiere, idk why they kept saying that, maybe because it was raining.

and the primera palada!!! they broke the ground for the conce temple!!!! we got to watch a transmission and it was super exciting. ill try to send you guys the video that they played afterwards that was super cool about the city.

But all is well down here in linares! I am so grateful for all of your love and support! hope everyone is having a great fall!!!! besitos!!!

After a rainy day:

Matthew with other missionaries:

Week 17

sorry im a day late but yesterday was a random holiday and all of the cibers were closed so we get an hour today to write!! 

This week was kinda weird, i had a minicambio where i left and we spent one day going to concepcion for my comp with something for the office. so i didnt get as much time in my sector this week. But my first real mini cambio went well! it was me and another newbie who had the same time on the mission as me, hes from brazil but it was a really fun day since we litterally were in farmland and we put someone with fecha who let us in after we knocked her door.

For my sector we really saw progress with the miriam and lydia. we found them about two weeks ago and we finally got them to church and they both have baptismal fecha for the 31st!!! they seemed to really enjoy church and they seem really excited. but like all people they have a desafio.... lets just say that they are two very good amigas that live alone together and work together.... we kept hoping that they are just friends but at the end of church they gave us a sticky note with a question that now makes us think other wise. but we will be having that lesson with them tomorrow and luckily your boi gets to take lead on this lesson... please pray for me. But i really am sure that as we describe gods love and plan for them they will understand because they have felt and recognized the spirit so we just have to be sure that the spirit is felt strong during the lesson.

We recently became really good friends with one member in our ward who was inactive but now is really strong and wants his whole family to basically rejoin the church. its really awesome because he litterally said hey you guys seem like you can help want to swing by sometime¿ YES ! we found out the his mom was never baptized and we put the goal for her to be baptized the 7th of november and his dad is now really interested in becoming active again!! It just has been so awesome having a member want to do something and helping us with it!!! But really you can see how the gospel is starting to re-bless their lives!

Like i said this week was kinda weird so nothing else really happened... i did get the package when we went down to conce for the day!! Thanks mom and dad!! really it was a nice animo booster as this cambio has been a lot of work getting this rama reenergized about missionary work! But i hope that you all are having a great week and are enjoying fall!! for some reason it still is raining here!

Week 16

hola hola familia! this week was crazy. we were working so hard to get people to come uno christ this past week. This morning we were so exhausted tht we took the p day nap right after morning prayers lol. Bu with all of that work we are finally starting to see fruit here in linares!!! We were able to put 4 people with fecha to be baptized! but only one came to church , so the other three are going to be bumped back , but hopefully they willl accept a new fecha. 

The person that has fecha and is really progressing is martin, a niño of 9 years. he is the grandson of our branch president. and we have been working on reactivating his mom and step dad to come to church so that he can be baptized. so far we really have gotten his mom on board, yenny. But we are really excited for him because we might be able to move up his date sooner if we can get his mom a calling. but still his date is for the 15 of november! so hopefully ill still be here for that! but he as of today is the only person that has a date to be baptized.

We were able to get into a house of a little grandma that i contacted on the street and we were able to get here to committ to a fecha, but when we came back the next day to check up on her, because she doesnt have a phone, her granddaughter came out with her and told us they are catholic... it was a big bummer because she seemed like she knew what she had to do, but wll probably swing by her house again to see if she changes her mind.

so yesterday before the 1st session i called bernadita to remind her about conference and to see if she could make it. sadly she told me about how her son who used to be a mormon had told her a lot of stuff and now she was really confused and wanted some time to read the bible to prepare herself more... but i didnt really take no for an answer lol i was on the phone with her for like 10 minutes talking about how why would i be all the way over here in chile trying to teach people something that wasnt true. she still said she needs time but i think we will be passing by later this week. the big thing s that she is scared of not following through with compromisos. 

we got into one house this week where there were two girls that are friends living together. and earlier that week we contacted them while they were painting their fence and we asked if they had any questions about life they would like answered, they asked why do bad things happen to good people. we were then able to teach them an awesome lesson using a piece of string and a dot on it to teach about an eternal perspective and how this life is really short and we need to be tested for everythin within this time. they both accepted to be baptized!! but sadly they did not come to church... so we are going to visit them again today and really teach them the importance of keeping the sabbath day.

And guys wasnt GC awesome, it was so much fun being able to watch it in english. i hope that all of you called mom after the talk holland gave, we were all joking that presidente was gong to give us permission after that talk. I think my favorite talk was from richard j maynes about how we need to keep our lives centered around christ and he used to example of the potter. it is so true that if we pair that with the talk uchtdorf gave and keep our lives simply centered around christ life will be a lot happier. 

But like i said this week was really busy we have been finding a lot of news and we think that november will be a month full of baptisms. It is fun to see the fruit of patience because instead of walking all day now we are really in lessons and it just makes life a lot easier. I hope that all of you enjoyed your GC weekend and were able to hear all of the talks it is so cool to think about those new apostles and to have heard theyre testimonies about how the lord chooses the weak to preach his word, it is so true. now that i love and pray for al of you!!! besitos!!

ps its weird to think that 6 months ago we were all together, but hey im not sick to my stomach!!