3-20-11

Monday: I`m done with Tirùa! I got to baptize Diego and got to find some really good people this last week. We got up this morning and turned on the gas heater, and just laid in bed for a while. It made me realize that we should have done it more often while we had the church buying the gas. haha. It was wonderful, though. I got up and packed my bags. It was really hard. I swear my high score on Tetris would go up by at least 500, if I ever played it. Eventually, I got past the snaggled zippers and finding things I was sure were alrewady packed, and escaped to lunch. We had a really rich vegetable soup that warme dm up despite the rain. On the way back from lunch, a young man asked if it was true that we had a ping pong table and if he coul dplay. We said yes, thinking to give him a lesson after. He said, "Great! I`m just gonna get a beer and come back." We waited for an hour, but he never came back. Then we went to teach Javier, the adventist boy. Turns out that he doesn`t want to hear us anymore, but thinks that we`re still awesome. But his mom may be interested. We went to cañete to use internet and sleep. Fernanda Millahual had written me, asking if I was okay after the Tsunami on behalf of her family. Daddy wrote me, telling me a few stories of his mission. He sounded like a really good missionary. I found out Elder heiser took my letters to the CAssies with him when he went home!

Tuesday: We woke up at 6 because of our trip up to Concepciòn. It was raining and it was cold, and all of my coats and sweaters had already been packed up. We went up to the terminal, and I was just so happy to have left my sector. It had been really hard for me there, but I also learned a lot from my comps. and my personal trials too. Because of those, I`m growing to be a different person that I was. It`s exciting. We got to the terminal and I got to meet Elder Pemberton and Elder Glover. They`ve got less time than me, and it was really good to have some friends that respected me again. I met up with Elder Bernal. He has skinny arms and sinny legs, with a wide torso. He looked like a little brown spongebob. He`s super happy and likes to help others. I think I`ll get along with him well.. We did contacts for a while. It`s so cool to be in a big city again! There`s technology! Our sector is a little mall and everyone`s so tired of missionaries. But I`m excited to show them what I`ve got for them! We met a kid that asked us a lot of interesting questions, but it was just to fight. things like, "Shouldn`t women always wear skirts so they`re not just being saints on Sunday?" ¡Nada que ver! We don`t have hardly any investigators. The members are really great though. When we left the terminal, I realized I`d left my Spanish scriptures at the terminal. Nobody found it. Someone had taken it! And my english ones are in Cañete. I live with my comp. and two gringos. One was a friend of Elder Mcconnell, my first comp. before the mission. The house is poopy. It`s about 5 1/2 feet tall. boo! And the front of the toilet is 6 in. from the wall which makes for an...acrobatic time when nature calls.

Wednesday: I felt really good this morning as I got up and wasn`t the only one doing exercises. Elders Hickman, Gomez (gringo), and Bernal all were up and going. We had a great comp. study and left to go work. I felt like I was back in the mission again. Tirùa was so separated. But I realized that we kind of determine our own worthiness. When we sin, we fail in our own eyes and won`t have that confidence that we would have otherwise. But if we know our stuff and work to earn the company of the spirit, we can promise things, knowing that they`ll be true, because we`re authorized to make those declarations. elder Bernal and I talk in equal amounts and he tries to learn from me as I try to do from him. It`s really a pleasure to work with him. I met Hna. Marìa Cruz today. She`s the Sunday School teache rof the 12-13 year-olds. She`d been excommunicated for 10 yrs. before . She`d lost her job and her husband and her daughter was prenant. Some members offered her work. She`d work all day for 1/2 kg. of bread and a little sugar for her family .One day she was so tired she fell. But because she couldn`t provide for her daughter well enough, th eBishop exommunicated her. She started crying from the memory. I cried too and thought, "Heavenly Father`s so happy. I don`t think she should feel sad." Then I realized how strong the thought was. I told her my impression, as a rep. of Christ. Her grandson has cancer. He retured 20 months early from his mission. I found a rock (big) in a hole in my shoe. In order to remove it, I had to tear at the shoe a little, but got it out. It`s like repentance. It may hurt sometimes, but we always feel lighter afterward. A scrip. I read in my study was just what Hna. Marìa needed for comfort.

Thursday: Itps interesting to feel homesick and miss people but at the same time feel so happy and at peace with what I`m doing. I feel the power of the Holy Ghost helping me along. I`m feeling better in my new sector of Hualpencillo. the shower`s funky. If I turn on more than a little cold water it stops and I get burned--which burns me anyway. Still experimenting. We had weekly planning today. It`s the fun part of going to a new sector: having to memorize all the people, where they live, and all of the streets. Armed with my map, I`m locating addresses better than my comp. I`ve almost memorized it all. We had lunch with the Bishop`s wife. There was a lizard in the dining room. Someone picked it up by the tail and it detached! It was so cool! We looked through the area book for ancient investigators and went to the "Emergency" neighborhood (emergency is the name of the neighborhood). That`s where all the gangs and drug dealers are--more than in any other part in the mission. That`s why we went in the day. We actually set up a good amount of appts. for later. We`ll have two people in the church this Sunday. I hope they get baptized, for their sake. I just want to help them return to their Heavenly Father. President Swenson said if we taught the doctrine correctly, people would rush to be baptized. There`s always room to improve.

Friday: Today we had a special conference with a seventy, Elder Corbridge. He gave a reallyl special talk about the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Spirit was so strong. He was like, "What was the only thing Joseph Smith had ever known or gotten in return for saying the things he said? He said it was persecution and affliction. Even the most optimistic man in the world woul ddoubt something of his own invention. Either Joseph Smith was crazy, or he was right. Because he always affirmed his certainty with an unconquerable confidence. He spoke about Chiasmas and other evidences of the Book of mormon. He spoke of the achievements and works of Joseph Smith. Any one of which would be impresssive in the life of anyone. He did hundreds. It was really special. I found out that Elder Heiser had left my letter sto the Cassies in the mission office and they`ll send them off for me. I got to know Bro. Cruz. He`s a really cool guy. we found a few of the ancient investigators. One of them had her husband die a year ago and she didn`t know wh at had happened to him. I bore her a powerful testimony of the Plan of Salvation and how it`s blessed my life. She just has to do what God has asked of her, and she`ll live FOREVER with her husband! It`s so easy! I kep texpecting Talcahuano to be really good and it feels just as hard as any other sector. I think that every place that we go to, it`s up to us to make it into what we want it to be. It`s up to us to help the people understand the Gospel. I got a letter from Alan. He said I`m still his best friend. I love him so much!

Saturday: So in the conference esterday, Elder Corbridge said that intelligence is related to our level of spirituality. So I`ll have to look at myself to see if I`m smart....or "special." But my whole life, things have always come easily to me. So that`s a good sign. We played soccer with our investigator, Pablo. While we were there, a rooster crowed. It was about 10:00, going to testify how "laid back" this country is. They`re so laid back that if they were on a bed, they`d be at 270 degrees. The daughter of another investigator said she`d pass on the invitation to attend church tomorrow. She said, "It shouldn`t be a problem. My dad wakes up early on Sundays." When we asked a what time, she said, "11." We had a reference from the Elders in Bio Bio. But when we found the house, it was actually in their sector. We taught her anyway. She was really, really, REALLY good. She`s gonna get baptized. We pretty much did a butt-load of contacts. We share a sector with the assisstants. When we were out giving pass-a-longs and lessons, a drunk guy was like, "Your compatriots just gave me this." And he pulled out a picture of christ. We looked to the left and saw the assisstants 40 feet away. Soccer totally killed my legs. I`m dead.

Sunday: I still really like having Elder Bernal as a comp. Hes such a little ball of energy. Whenever he talks, he bounces up anddown and doesn`t hold still. I found out today that he also is 25 years old. It`s amazing to see the difference between him and Elder Montoya. We went to the church. Our investigator, Pablo, didn`t come. He was still asleep. But I got to meet a lot of the members. They are so strong here. I`d forgotten what it was like to not have to beg the members to help. The class in priesthood wa son hometeaching. But they also said that they had a responsibility to bring investigators for us to teach and baptize. It was so neat to see. We had lunch with tthe family Nubolla. The son had every single one of the cool video games that have come out furing my mission. We spent the rest of the whole day doing contacts. We`ve spent the whole week of Sanctification tracking down ancient investigators and that took up a lot of time. We have 14 new investigators and the standard is 8! But we had 90 contacts this morning out of the 200 we needed. After being in little Tirùa for so long, my legs aren`t used to so much walking. I get home exhausted every night. It feels wonderful to know that I`m working for th eLord and my Heavenly Family.