THE TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT 

Hello dearest everyone, 

Another lovely week at the end of the world.  My companion and I sang in sacrament meeting this week for Christmas and our entire zone of missionaries here in Punta Arenas went to one of the big department stores here and sang every single one of the Christmas hymns in the hymnbook for the people there.  It was lovely, all Christmas spirity and all.  

Once again, I have zero time this week to write, but I REALLY promise that next week I will write EVERYTHING.  

Just remember the true spirit of Christmas with one of my favorite scriptures:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  - Romans 8:35,37-39

Also the picture is of me in the world famous Punta Arenas cemetery but I took about 50 pictures because it looks like the maze in the Triwazard Tournament.  YAy!!

Hello dearest everybody!!! Una semana maravillosa!

This week Marina was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The very last lesson we had before her baptism, she told us that before she met us and started learning everything, she was visiting the psychologist almost every week because she had extreme depression and anxiety attacks after her separation with her husband.  She was taking a bunch of pills but she told us she visited the psychologist for the first time in awhile a few weeks ago and her psychologist told her he didn´t know why, but all the symptoms that she had of depression before, were gone, and that she could stop taking the pills he had given her. It reminded me of Emma from La Union. After her confirmation Sunday, we were eating lunch with her in the home of a member (the members are great and have really helped us make her feel welcome here), we were talking about her baptism and she started crying all of a sudden and she just kept saying that she was so happy and she didn´t know why she hadn´t listened to "those Mormon kids" earlier.  One of the members said he always thought the same thing, that before he would always see "those Mormon kids" and think "they´re just wasting their time".  And here he is two years later, a very faithful member of the church. 

Catalina also came to the baptism and then came to church the next day and loved both!  I was praying so hard that she would like church, because what normal 21 year old voluntarily spends three hours in church on a Sunday morning, but she loved it and started crying during one of the talks and later said it was just for her, because the speaker was talking about loving your family as they are, which is exactly what she is trying to do, because her father is alcoholic, and it´s caused many problems in her family.  It was an answer to a prayer.  Also she´s dating a member of the church.  His name is Juan Bautista.  John Baptist.  Can we just revel in how perfect that is.

I didn´t have much time this week, I´ll write more next week love you all!

Hello dearest everybody, 

Another lovely week here at the end of the world.  It´s a different world down here, we´ll knock on a door and ask if we can share a message about Jesus Christ with them and a good amount of the time they´ll invite us in, give us something to eat and listen to our message.  We taught 23 lessons this week.. more than I´ve taught in my entire mission.  I don´t even know... it´s really rather magical.  The challenge with this is that we have so many people to visit that it´s hard to discern sometimes if they are really going to progress or just friendly and curious. I love it.  I meet at least one borderline crazy person every week.  This week I met a possibly drunk, very anti-American man and we tried to teach him the first lesson.  My companion and I decided it was a story for our journals.

Marina also had her baptismal interview this week and after was so incredibly happy.  She says she feels so different and she really has changed in the few weeks that I´ve known her.  It is so wonderful to see people change purely through the knowledge that they have a loving Heavenly Father and that he has a plan for them.  

We are also teaching another investigator, Catalina, who is 21 years old and she´s incredible.  She reads everything we give her and she says she´s praying for an answer that everything we´ve taught her is true, but that she feels like part of her answer has already arrived.  She doesn´t come from a great family home and she says all she wants in life is a happy future family.  Perfect, that´s our specialty.  We explained how the gospel of Jesus Christ can help the family stay together and be happy and she says she loves it.  

My companion are also teaching a free piano class in the church and we´re going to start a free english class this week.  Nobody here teaches piano for a reasonable price, so you have to be pretty rich to afford it, so a lot of people are really interested.  

We also had zone conference this week but of course there is not time to write about that, Also I found trees in my sector!! it turns out since we´re on the outskirts of the city, our sector extends out into the hills off into the ocean.  We did a bit of exploring and left a pass along card at a very remote home way back in the hills.  

I love you all and I love my Savior!! As we lose ourself in service, we will gain so much more than we ever thought possible!!

Fotos

Hello dearest everybody, 

First and foremost, a very Happy Birthday to my beautiful Myriam Delirium this Wednesday.  I just love her so much, everyone should give her lots of hugs and kisses when they see her because she absolutely LOVES that.  

Secondly, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! Obviously this auspicious holiday is not celebrated here, so my companion and I worked as normal, but as soon as we got home and finished planning for the next day, we cooked absolutely all the food that we had in the house, even if it was a bit expired.  We also passed by a panaderia and bought some rather delicious postres.  We tried to find turkey, but all we could find was spam turkey, so we bought a bit of that (to be traditional) and then cooked the chicken that we had in the house.  It was very gourmet.  We had fruit salad, salad (with dressing that I made out of cream, parmesan cheese and green onion, because salad dressing is not very common here), cake and other desserts, spam turkey, chicken, and mashed potatoes and corn.  It was very gourmet.  Then we spoke in English the whole time to celebrate.  I hope you all enjoyed your dinners.

Anyway, my very first day here was a bit difficult because I was a bit depressed that I had left the beautiful greenness and flowers of summer which had been replaced by graffiti and concrete, and three days after I left Omayra was baptized.  So that night I said a very fervent prayer to Heavenly Father that he would help me be happy.  Then the next day and the whole week we taught an unprecedented amount of lessons and our leaders told us that that past week, we were leading the zone, and it´s the biggest zone in the mission.  I am always so much happier when I´m teaching, and it was an answer to a prayer.  We also have so many great investigators.  We have one investigator, Marina, who is preparing for baptism on the 14th and we´re helping her stop smoking right now.  My companion told me that before she was completely depressed and taking so many pills for depression and anxiety and everything, but now she´s not taking anything and she´s changed so much I LOVE IT!! The gospel just makes people happy on their own.  

Also it snowed this week.  What´s up with that.  I just love it here, the members are great, there are so many people to teach, I just love being a missionary!!! Ciao!!

Hello dearest everybody, greetings from the end of the world.  I will have you know, the directors of Pirates of the Carribean - End of the World took great creative liberties... in all aspects of that movie.  Anywho, I have officially been transferred to Punta Arenas - the absolute tip of South America and the southern-most spit of land in the world - besides Antarctica, which is, in fact, a two hour flight away.  In our mission, all but 2 of the areas are in the North part of the mission, and then there´s a whole lot of nobody, then there´s a city called Chiloe, and then there´s a whole lot more of nobody, and then there´s us.  So that´s where I am in case anyone wanted to send me some hot, homemade bread or something.

Anyway, I found out I would be transferred here last Friday so that I could send one of my suitcases by bus because we could only bring one suitcase on board the airplane that we took.  But I was told that I would be leaving Wednesday morning.  HOWEVER, our leaders called me Monday night and told me that I would be leaving Tuesday, so I did a frantic pack of my suitcases and didn´t get any time to say goodbye to anyone. I called Emma to say goodbye and when she heard that I was already on the bus to the bus terminal in Osorno, she left right away and took a bus there too - about an hour away from La Union, and met me there.  I told her to tell everyone back in my beautiful La Union goodbye for me.  

From there, I took a bus to Puerto Montt - about two hours away - to spend the night so that I could wake up early the next morning to catch a bus to the airport.  Anyway, I woke up early and all that jazz, and the hermana that was with me told me she would call a taxi to take us to the airport.  So we called the taxi and then waited on the curb for about twenty minutes until we realized the taxi probably wasn´t coming.  At this point we started getting stressed because we had to be at the bus terminal in about thirty more minutes to catch my bus to the airport.  We called the taxi again and they told us it had gotten lost.  Anyway, long story short, it didn´t show up until five minutes before my bus was about to leave, and the terminal was still fifteen minutes away.  I had said quite a few prayers before that I would get to my bus on time, but when the taxi finally got there, I felt that it was impossible.  But then I remembered a talk I had read by Elder Jean R. Cook that was talking about how we can increase our faith.  He said that when it looks impossible that your prayers are going to be answered, thats when you have to double your faith, not cut it in half.  So I was praying the whole way that I would still make my bus, then the zone leaders that had been waiting for us and all the other missionaries who had to take this bus called and said the bus had left.  At this point, it seemed impossible, but I kept praying.  When the taxi finally left us at the terminal, one of the zone leaders rushed over, grabbed my suitcase and rushed off without saying a word.  So I rushed after him.  We ran and ran and ran through traffic and people and I had no idea where he was going, but he finally stopped at some random intersection, and about two seconds after we got there, the bus that I was supposed to take stopped there too.  They opened the doors, the elder handed them my suitcase, and I got on.  As I sat down with all the other missionaries who were all applauding my victorious entry onto our bus, I thought to myself, I made it.  I really made the bus.  And that´s how I made it to the end of the world. Faith and prayers.  And an elder who knew where he was going.

My companion´s name is Hermana Lethco and she was actually in my district in La Union, so I knew her before.  She´s great and I love working with her.  

Now.  Punta Arenas.  Example: as I am writing this, a piece of roof just flew off someones house and flew past the window.  I had heard before that Punta Arenas is absolutely beautiful and I was looking at pictures of Torres del Paine, which is the famous national park here, so I had an image of myself preaching the gospel next to cascading waterfalls, and apparently there are sectors like that, but my sector looks a bit more like the suburbs of downtown LA or a zombie wasteland (there is not a single tree in the whole sector)... mostly because we are the only ones in the street.  The first day was quite hard, I was missing beautiful La Union with all the fields and flowers and all the people, and I said some very fervent prayers that night.  The next day, I realized NOBODY leaves their house which is absolutely FANTASTIC for missionary work and all the houses are close together and this week my companion and I taught 21 lessons which is INCREDIBLE and the people are GREAT and I was just so happy.  I´ll visit all the beautiful places on P-days, but I´m very happy to be right where I am.  Happiness is the destination but it is also the path - Elder Uchtdorf.

I love you all, I´ll write so much more next time HOW IS THERE NEVER ENOUGH TIME

CAMBIOS

Well dearest everybody, it´s been a lovely almost-five-months here in Caupolican, La Union.  But transfers have arrived once again, and for the first time in my mission, I´ll be changing sectors.  I´ve come to love so many members and people here, and it was especially hard when I told Emma (who is still here by the way and is about to receive a calling), and she began crying and told me that she feels so completely different and so much happier and thanked me about ten times for serving a mission and having patience with her and teaching her about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  That´s a happìness you just can´t find anywhere else.

HOWEVER, I will now be going to a new sector a little bit more South.  IN fact, if you looked at a map and found the absolute very tip of South America, and I mean the very last piece of land attached to this continent, that´s where I´ll be going.  It´s called Punta Arenas and it´s where the penguins are.  Thankfully, it´s almost summer and I´ve heard it´s not as bonechillingingly cold right now.  I´ve also heard it´s light until about midnight or one in the morning and that it´s absolutely beautiful.  My sector is called Patagonia, so you know it´ll be bakan.  

My last Sunday here, the woman in our branch who usually directs the choir of teenagers, for which I play piano, was sick, so she gave me all the music, and I, very expertly, directed the choir.  Mostly I dashed about singing the parts with those who didn´t know their parts or trying to direct while also playing the piano.    One of the members got a picture of it, but of course these computers are not functioning well with my camera.  HOpefully next week in Punta Arenas.  But all I have to say is, thank you mom for making me practice piano.  There, 20 years into my life and I told her over and over and over again that I would never ever say that.  But I can´t tell you the blessings I´ve received through that talent.  All the blood sweat and tears were worth it.  I was the only one who could play the accompaniment to all of the songs for the choir, and I would never have had that experience without all those years of practicing and stress and tears and all that jazz.  So thank you mother dearest for making me practice piano.  There, I said it.

Anyway, I was also able to play piano for stake conference and our mission president talked in stake conference and played the video from the missionary broadcast.  My beautiful shining, singing face appears in that video for about three seconds, and our president pointed me out while I was sitting up front with the piano.  I´m trying to make sure the fame doesn´t go to my head.

Anyway, the gospel is true and I love you all and I wish there was time to write all the amazing experiences that happen here in the mission, but there never is, so I´ll just leave you all with my testimony that the Savior lives.  I love you all!! Ciao!

Pasto, which is Spanish for WEEDS

Well it is warming up quite nicely here, although some days it randomly decides to be a torrential rainstorm, which, if I´ve planned for a nice day of sun and have left the house in the appropriate clothing, is a bit problematic, but no matter! Because we are teaching wonderful people and finding more everyday.

This week we did quite a bit of service for older sisters in the branch.  Every week we help three specific sisters.  One of them, half her house burned down, and so now we´re helping with the repairs.  Another one has a hurt arm and so we go and chop wood every week.  Behind her house she has a chicken coop and quite a few geese, who are very curious about the swinging ax.  So far I have not chopped off a head, which I count as a victory.  Another woman we helped her hoe and plow the land she has to start planting for the summer.  I felt like I had gone back in time.  It was possibly the most picturesque thing I´ve ever done in my life.  I feel like I´m practically ready to have my own farm in the backwoods of wisconsin by now.

This week we fasted with Alejandra and her family (she´s the one who has been reading the Book of Mormon with her family) and she is just so wonderful, as are all her girls.  They draw pictures for me every time we go and write hermana Nielsen on them and always ask to see my tag so they can know how to spell it.

Also, this week my companion and I were offered a ride on the back of a motorcyle of two hooligans.  All I have to say is that Chilean men are more flirty than any other People I´ve met in my life.

Anyway the gospel is true, I love you all and will try to send pictures next time!

¡chi chi chi! ¡le le le! ¡vive chile! That´s a thing here

Hello dearest everyone, I hope you all had a lovely Halloween.  Halloween isn´t as big here in Chile, but the kids still go out knocking doors and ask for dulces o basura.  Treats or trash. We told ourselves we were NOT going to be knocking doors that night.

This week we taught one of my favorite families,  they´re the family that has started reading the book of mormon together and I wish I could explain how incredibly different their home is now.  Everyone is so much happier, both of the parents, Alejandra y Nelsón, have changed so much and are now working towards going to the temple and being sealed as a family there.  I really wish I could describe the lesson that we had, I felt so good about the tiny little part that I played in helping their family progress.  They are so so different, I can´t even explain.  It´s amazing to see the difference in someone when they start to feel good about the person that they are.

We´re also teaching a very young couple, Diego and Edith, and we found out that Diego has a member colleague and in between our first two lessons, he talked with his friend, and by the second lesson, he was telling US what we were going to teach and how, when he goes to church, we have to go with him so that he doesn´t have to sit alone.  We assured him we would.  After we got out of the lesson, it was pretty late, so we started sprinting down the deserted streets with our books in our hands and just laughing and laughing.  

Emma is also doing wonderfully, we had a lesson with her and she said that before, she felt like she constantly had a sword in her heart, but now it´s gone and she feels hopeful and happy, without the terrible depression she had before.  I felt a suddent feeling of gratitude that I had been allowed to be a small part of this change.  

Anyway, I love you all, and I wish I had time to write more, it´s my goal every week to write the masterpiece that is the week in a life of a missionary, but I feel like Moroni every week when he asked the Lord why He had made him so awkward in writing.  Also the part when he said that not a hundredth part could be written.  Anywho, I love you all!  

Being artsy and all that jazz

¡Bakan!

Bakan is a Chilean word which, strictly translated, means super-incredibly-amazingly-awesomely-really-really-cool.  I believe that´s the formal translation.  Trust the Chileans to have a word like that.

This week, we were about to go home, when my companion asked if we could knock on one more door.  Although it was pretty late and normally people aren´t really receptive when we do this, we decided to knock on one more door.  A girl of about twenty years opened the door and we explained, nosotras somos misioneras de la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias, estamos compartiendo sobre el evangelio de Jesucristo y como puede bendecir su vida y fortalecer su familia, our little opening line, and she told us to come right in.  MIRACLE.  Truly.  She and her fiancee were about to leave but they both stayed to listen and we taught them the first lesson and it was really really great, they were asking questions and everything and were very interested and wanted to meet with us a couple days after.  Which is a miracle people.  We have our second lesson with them today, I´ll let you all know how it goes.  

Also, a less active family who I´ve been working with for my entire time here, and who I´m really close with has started reading the Book of Mormon and are now coming to church and are working together as a family to go be sealed in the temple.  I cannot tell you how happy I am about this because when we found them, they told me they didn´t even know if they believed in God and were so bogged down by so many of the bad things in the world.  And now it´s so much different in their home.  

We also went to Lago Ranco again today and it was incredible, the pictures don´t don´t do it justice.  I will have to send more pictures and write about all the ton of other stuff that happened this week next week because I have no time!! I love you all!!!!!!! Ciao!

Fotos

WHOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO

So being the enthusiastic missionaries that we are, my district has started an activity every Saturday called Puertas Abiertas, where we all go to the churchhouse in the more commercial center of La Union to give tours of the church house.  The church is right on the same street where they have the ferria, which is basically an awesome farmer´s market.  There are lots of people walking along the street, so we decided this would be a great way to help me know more about the church, see the salon sacramental, la pila bautismal y estaciones de las organizaciones in the church.  Lo siento that that´s in spanish but I truly cannot remember the words in English and I have very limited time.  ANYWAY, this program has been very successful in other countries with the members and missionaries, and it was written in the Liahona, so we were all very gungho.  Bueno, we´ve actually had some people enter!!!! Although it´s difficult to get members to come help Saturday morning, pero bueno.  The most difficult part is to get the people to enter, this last time we were all outside with a table full of pamphlets, pass along cards and pictures of Jesus.  In the ferria, the people always call out what they´re selling, like LECHUGA or LECHE, so we started calling out EL EVANGELIO DE JESUCRISTO, GRATIS!!!!  Which means, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Free!!! And apparently people anywhere in the world are all about free stuff, and we had a lot of people who came and chose a few things, and even a few who entered the church and got the full tour, YAY!!! Anyway, halfway through, it started to rain a bit and it was quite windy, but we stuck it out like the Spartans we are, and we were all holding down all the pamphlets on the table so they wouldn´t blow away and it was so awesome and fun and freezing and I´m sure the people here think we´re crazy, which we are, YAAAY!!! 

Also, this week was the Primary Program and I played the keyboard for all of them and it was the cutest thing ever and I just cried through the whole thing because the attendance rate here is 17%, but it´s amazing to see all the members here who come faithfully every week.  And it always means we are constantly teaching less active families and it´s great because we are constantly finding new ones.  It´s amazing to see the power of the Book of Mormon when they start reading it.  That book has power.  My suggestion for any area that is not having success in the missionary work is for the members to read the Book of Mormon together in families.  It´s powerful.  I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!

Emma's baptism  

Lago Ranco 

If you're thinking about serving a mission, do it!

This is one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I have never learned so much, so fast.  About myself, about my potential, about my Heavenly Father and about my Savior.  Every day I come back, and barely have the energy to change and drag myself to bed, but it is worth it because I know who I am serving. 

This week was transfers!! I am still in the same sector, but I finished my training (the first three months) and I got a new companion.  Her name is Hermana Bennet, and yes, she´s una gringa (which is actually what they call us here - for some reason I was under the impression only Latino cowboys in old Western movies used this word).  She´s from Utah, and very nice. She´s been in Chile for six months as opposed to my three, so she speaks and understands Spanish very well.  We don´t speak English to each other, which would be weird anyway, I haven´t spoken English in three months.

This week was also my first week leaving in the morning (during training we only proselyte in the afternoon and night) and my very first day leaving in the morning, we found a miracle.  We were trying to find a member to accompany us to one of our appointments, but she wasn´t home, so we decided to knock on the door of her neighbor. A young woman, looking very tired, answered the door, and immediately told us to come in. We were quite surprised because this rarely happens.  We began to teach her the very first point, that God is her loving Heavenly Father, and she began to cry. She told us that she was going through a very rough time, and had been contemplating ending the suffering.  She said the last time she felt this low was several years ago, but she remembered that right after she thought this, two elders knocked on her door.  She let them in, but had to leave her abusive husband before the could finish teaching the lessons.  She says she´s going to take this as a sign that God is still there.  We have an appointment with her this Wednesday :)

We also saw another miracle in one of our other investigators.  She has been wanting to baptized for ten years, and has been through quite a few missionaries, but the father of her three girls (a member), who she is living with, needs a divorce from his first wife so they can get married and she can be baptized, however, his ex-wife has refused to give him a divorce.  We began a program in our branch and in all the branches in our district to read the Book of Mormon together and we will all finish at the end of December, and me and my companion encouraged this family to start this program too, and we promised them blessings.  They have tried to read the Book of Mormon before, but never could start.  This time however, they´ve been reading and the last time we visited them, we learned that his ex-wife contacted him and wants a divorce. After ten years of not relenting, right as they finally are progressing in the Book of Mormon as a family, she wants a divorce.  Blessings people.  Listen to the missionaries!  And read your scriptures. 

The photos attached are of Emma´s baptism (the shawl I¨m wearing her sister crocheted for me) and the other is of Lago Ranco which we went to with my zone.

I love you all!!! The gospel is true!! Do missionary work, read your scriptures, attend church and pray!! WHOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO 

Not even a hundredth part can be written - CHILE!!!

A couple weeks ago, our branch president asked my companion and I if we coudl bring a less-active teenager to seminary.  She lives in the elder´s sector (we share our branch with a companionship of elders), but they can´t walk with her alone, so he asked if we could bring her the next week.  (Seminary is for two hours after school every Friday here.)  So Friday my companion and I went to go try and find her house, which, we were told, was at the end of some road.  So we began walking down this dirt road, but after we had walked rather far out into the country side amidst the cows and horses and fields we realized we were a bit lost.  So we turned back and a llittle ways down the road, we found a wizened old man pushing the things he had bought at the market in a wheel barrow down the road to his farmhouse in the distance.  We asked directions and finally found the house.  When we arrived, we discovered the reason that we needed to bring her was not because she didn´t want to go, but because she is paralyzed and in a wheel chair and her mom doesn´t really want to walk her all the way down for seminary.  So we got her fixed up, and with her mom´s permission, we began pushing her wheelchair down the long dirt road through the countryside to the church house.  It was a very simple thing, but at that moment, as I pushed her wheelchair down the dirt road past the fields, I felt an incredibly strong feeling that I was pushing the Savior along in this wheelchair.  I knew that this was His daughter, and that I was in the exact place that I should be.  In that moment, I gained an incredibly strong testimony that when we are in the service of our fellow men, we are only in the service of our God.

This week also, Emma (the woman who lost her son), was baptized!!! It was absolutely incredible.  This has been a long road to get her here, and we´ve had serious trials along the way, but it was worth it.  So very worth it.  She was baptized in between the sessions of conference in the churchouse in centro because everyone comes for conference there and lots of people stayed to watch!! I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost, and just like my mom did for me, I gave her (and another nine year old who was also being baptized) diaries to write spiritual impressions.  Her nephew (who was the one who started this all by bearing such a powerful testimony to her in the first place) was the one who baptized her and she gave her testimony after the baptism, and it was so incredible!   We´ve had so many incredible spiritual experiences with her, and of course difficult ones too, But as she says, she feels completely transformed and like a new person.  And she is.  The depression and other infirmities that she arrived with, she says, are almost all healed.  Her and her sister and her nephew feel like my family here, with the amount of hours I´ve spent in their house.  One day, when we came for an appointment, we found that she had locked herself out of her house, so I climbed the fence in front (all houses have tall fences with spikes on the top), climbed in the open window and found the keys.  I´m not totally sure if this against the rules, but we needed to teach! Her nephew won´t let me forget it now.

Today was our P-day, and since it´s the end of this transfer, we went to Lago Ranco, and hiked up this mountain.  It was absolutely breathtaking and on the way down, (we went with my zone) we all sang hymns in Spanish. 

I´m trying to send pictures but my camera is not cooperating right now.  If I can´t, I will send lots next week.

But I want to leave you all with a commitment.  I hoped you all watched Saturday Conference, but if you didn´t, go watch it.  Your commitment is this.  If you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, pray every day for an opportunity to share the gospel.  If you are not, I invite you to find out what we believe.  Ask a member or the missionaries, not the Internet.  That has an incredible amount of wrong information.  I promise you that this gospel can answer the questions of the soul.  

It appears that my camera is not cooperating, but I have a lot of AWESOME pictures, so hold your breath until next week and I´ll send a lot!!! 

I love you all, and I´d love to hear if you complete the invitation I´ve extended Ciao!

Another week of miracles people.  So remember that woman whose son was murdered and we had been teaching, but that we knew was going to return to her pueblo that was 5 hours away from a church building? Well she has stayed with her sister this entire time just so that we can teach her!!! AND SHE´S GETTING BAPTIZED THIS SUNDAY in between the sessions of General Conference! 

At first we thought that she wouldn´t be able to be baptized until after the transfers that we will have in a couple weeks, so we were thinking that we weren´t going to be able to be at her baptism, which was really sad for us, but then we realized if she was baptized this Sunday, she would complete her three necessary attendances of church and she could be baptized.  But the baptisms are normally Saturday and we weren´t sure if our mission president would go for this.  My companion told me she didn´t want to ask because she was too nervous and so I thought maybe we shouldn´t, but then I heard my mom´s voice in my head saying that if you never ask, you´ll never know!  So I decided to call and ask even though my companion said she would support me but wouldn´t talk.  Anywho, so I called, talked a lot in Spanish and got permission! yay!! so we can be there!! 

She has an incredible testimony and has changed so much.  I don´t have much time this week and I forgot the connector for my camera so I can´t send pictures.  But I love you all and I know the gospel is true yay!!! 

Fiesta with the rest of the missionaries 

The aftermath of the obstacle course 

FIESTAS PATRIAS

Hola, hola, hola todo!  (Clearly the Spanish is really coming along).  Anywho, this week was Independence Week here in Chile.  The actual day is September 18th, but these Chileans know how to party, so the fiesta is basically all week.  The bad thing is, because of this fiesta business going on, we couldn´t leave the house for three days during the week unless we had fixed appointments (Apparently there is quite a lot of drinking that goes on these days).  Although I´m sure everyone wants to have appointments with the lovely missionaries during their fiesta week, we had essentially none (shocking, I know.)  HOWEVER, we did some partying of our own this week and all I can say is, these Chileans also know how to eat.  En serio.  

Last P-day, our zone got together with the senior missionaries in our zone and had a lovely little fiesta for the 18th.  It was very Chilean.  The senior missionaries (who are from Santiago) bought a cow (to eat, not living), but apparently they sell whole cows that you can buy, roast and eat.  So we roasted a cow at the church and had a serious fiesta with rice, Chile bread, potatoes, torta... the works.  The Elders were in seventh heaven with all the steak they could eat and kept saying that this was the best day of their entire mission.  Elders.  Anywho, it was lovely.  And I ate quite a bit.

THEN a couple days later was the 18th.  My companion and I were coming back from a district meeting and el papito (the father of the family that we live with - also the president of the branch) was carrying a huge leg of some animal in a bucket that he was going to roast.  It was too big to be the leg of a pig and too small to be the leg of a cow, so I asked him what it was.  He told me, but it was NOT a word that I knew, so then he was trying to explain it and finally he said, ´como Pumba!´ Ahhhhh.  Warthog.  So later that day I ate roasted Pumba, humming Hakuna Matata to myself as I did so.  Que triste.  Anywho, I also ate quite a few Chilean empanadas and this cookie like thing called alfajores con chancaca.  Quite delicious.  

THEN the next day was the ward activity which was from 10 in the morning until 12 at night (we left at about 9pm), but they had (of course) quite a bit of food and lots of traditional Chilean games.  One traditional game is an obstacle course in which you have to first blow up a balloon and pop it by sitting on it, eat an alfajora, pick up a coin with your mouth that is in a plate of water, find a candy in a pile of flour with your mouth, and then answer a question about Chile.  Nobody wanted to do this, so my companion and I volunteered, and we went to it with gusto.  What I didn´t realize is that they have the water and flour in that order so that the flour sticks to your face.  Lovely.  Also apparently I went to it with so much gusto that I got a bloody nose, so I arrived at the finish line covered in flour and blood.  But victorious people.  Also I learned that having a bloody nose is not common among latinos, that you only have a bloody nose if you have a serious illness, and no one would believe me when I said it was perfectly normal.  Anywho, clearly I am cutting a reputation around here.  I´ll try and send a picture for your enjoyment because one of the elders took it upon himself to take pictures of this event for me.  So kind.  

Anywho people, the gospel is true, I know that life isn´t worth living if you´re not serving someone else.  the woman that had the incredible experience with us that I talked about last time has stayed this entire time just so we can teach her more!!! and she finally finally finally came to church!!! i promise i´m doing missionary work! i love you all!  

First Baptism - Martín

Hello again! 

This week was my very first baptism!  Martin has 11 years, and is the nephew of our mamita (the primary president and wife of the branch president), but his mother and older brother have been inactive for years.  We´ve been teaching his entire family the lessons for about two months and on Saturday he was baptized!  It was really great because now his mom and brother are attending Sacrament and him and his brother have gotten involved in the young men´s program.  Most of their activities are playing soccer, so it wasn´t hard.  Anyway, his entire family came to the baptism, many of whom have also been inactive for years who we´ve also been working with.  It was really great and I sang Cuando Me Bautice (I Like to Look for Rainbows).  YAAY!!

Anywho, I can´t believe this, but I´m almost done with my training.  For the first three months, you´re in training, which means extra studying in the morning and it also means you stay in one place for the whole time too.  But in three weeks I´ll be done and could be training someone else AHHHH!!! I have rather a lot of Spànish to learn still, but it´s much much better.  One of the members who accompanied us to one of our lessons thought I was finishing my mission.  HA! not even close, but I appreciate the sentiment.  

I haven´t eaten any more pig´s blood, but I did eat some type of fish soaked in pancake batter and fried.  It was absolutely delicious.  Also raspberry and chocolate flan soaked in vanilla milk.  So really I´m quite spoiled.

Here in Chile, it´s the custom to greet someone with a kiss on the cheek, which basically means you bump cheeks and make a kissing sound.  I always try and play the prelude music before church but I think it´s an unspoken rule that you greet every single person in the room, so I´m interrupted about 70 times with kisses on the cheek, it´s wonderful.  However, because we´re missionaries, with the men, we shake hands.  But the concept of a firm handshake doesn´t exist here (probably cause it´s all about the kissing), but apparently I have a very firm handshake, and all the men make exaggerated wincing faces whenever I shake their hands and give me a hard time about it.  But I´m trying to instigate the custom, so now every time I shake their hands, they all do their best to give a really firm handshake.  I´m so proud.  

Anyway, the gospel is true people.  Work hard, love others and trust in the Lord and all will be well.  I love you all! 

Chopping Wood 

Emptying Soot 

GOOD GRAVY

Hello dearest everyone, 

This morning I awoke to an absolute torrent of rain and wind battering the house so fiercely that it sounded like the roof might collapse, though I thought I might be warmer if it did (10 points to Gryffindor to anyone who knows exactly where that´s from).  But seriously, it is a hurricane outside people.  And we are officially out of wood.  Yay! The last time, it turns out, we just ran out of wood small enought to fit in our combustion, and all we had to do was chop it.  Which brings me to my first actual experience of chopping wood.  Before, I was under the rather mistaken impression that you just swung the ax as hard as you could and that you had to slive all the way through the log, and if you didn´t you had to dislodge the axa and swing it again right into the same spot.  I clearly hadn´t given this much thought.  It turns out that you swing the ax down onto the log, lodge it in, then lift the ax, lodged log and all over your head and slam it bac on to the tree stump until you´ve cut all the way through.  I´m practically a natural.  So if you and me ever get stranded in the woods with an ax and reasonable sized logs, I ´ve got us covered.  I´ve also been instructed (with admirable detail) in the exact way to kill a pig (ax through the head.  So if we also have a pig stranded with us in the wilderness, we will not freeze nor starve. 

 It seems like everyone here owns pigs (though they keep them in the countryside and go there every weeken, another reason why it´s hard to get anybody to church). But this Sunday my companion and I went to eat dinner at a member´s home and she kept telling us she had a delicacy for us that was muy muy rico.  yay, so I was excited.  When she brought out the dinner, she asked me if I knew what was on my plate.  I didn´t, but my companion did because apparently this is a normal thing in her country too.  Congealed pig´s blood people.  These people use every part of the pig, including the blood.  They basically collect the blood, add herbs, cook it and wait for it to congeal.  And woila, delicacy.  I gritted my teeth, steeled my stomach, and said I would love to try it.  She told me she would only give me a little.  She brought some for both my companion and me, and then I ate congealed pig´s blood.  It wasn´t too bad if I didn´t think about what it was.  Then my companion said she couldn´t eat it and dumped hers on my plate.  I told he I would love to eat it, so I did.  Lots of blood people but The people there took a great liking to me after that.  Then they brought out the meat, which was actually all fat, which apparently they eat too.  I was strongly reminded of James Herriott´s experience.  I think I was sent to a dirtier, poorer, more Chilean Darrowby.   

Anyway, the woman we taught last week stayed an extra week so we could finish teaching her everything.  It´s been great! Also every sunday i get to practice christmas songs with the six person youth choir, it´s great!

I love you all! Until next week!

The pictures are of me chopping wood, I think trying to dislodge the ax and emptying the soot.  what can i say, i´m a natural.

This is as real as life gets people, it´s truly been a week of miracles.  

So remember that story I told last week of the woman whose son was murdered?  One week ago, she was telling me that she respected the Mormons for what they believed, but that she didn´t believe in Jesus Christ and she believed God was basically just the nature and some strange combination of metaphysics.  Yesterday she told me that she knew God was her father, that He loved her, that Jesus Christ was her Savior and had died for her, and that she knew Joseph Smith was a prophet who restored the gospel and that she wants to be baptized.  And that people is the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It can change someone in one week.  There´s only a tiny snag.  she is visiting her sister and she´s going to return home sometime this week and her home is on a remote archipelago five hours away from a church.  We told her we would talk to our mission president about sending missionaries.

We taught her every day this week, and every lesson was incredible.  She has been depressed and unable to work ever since her son was murdered three years ago, but she told us this has changed everything.  She feels peace and hope and faith that she will see her son again.  She told us that the day before we came, she prayed to God that He would send help because she was feeling incredible pain about her son, and she looked up and saw a light in the middle of her dark room that immediately went off.  The next day, as she was waiting for us and her sisters to arrive, she randomly opened her sister´s Bible and read a passage about the Lord sending angels to those in need.  And 20 minutes later we arrived and her nephew bore his testimony.  She calls us her angels and says that she´s going to take a picture together with us to hang in her home to remember.  This experience has truly humbled me because I know I am no angel and I know I can´t have this effect on people, but the gospel of Jesus Christ can.  I wish I could explain this experience better, but it´s been truly inexplicable.  She has completely changed in one week.  She says she no longer feels the same emotional pain that she did one week prior.  I know this gospel is true and I know there are those who might say this experience is a result of something else.  But I was there.  And I saw that change.  And I know nothing but the Savior of the world and His gospel can do that.

In other news, I´m playing piano for the youth choir that are preparing for christmas.  I think they´re banking on me staying I LOVE YOU ALL GOODBYE!!!

Photos

Woodburning Stove

Her companion, Hermana Navarro

Liesl's childhood friend, Hermana Badal 

BREAKING NEWS PEOPLE!!!!  I now have an hour on the computer each week AND I can send as many emails to whoever I want!!! So por faVOR send me emails!  And i can respond now!  And now, moving on...

When I was in the MTC, one Sunday we watched a talk that Elder Holland gave at the MTC a couple years back, and in his talk he said that he has never understood why people have said that they´ll go back to real life after their mission, because a mission is as real as life is going to get.  And I can´t tell you how true those words are.  

Yesterday my companion and I went to Sunday dinner at the house of the President of the Relief Society and her son, who is the President of the Young Men´s.  He recently returned home from a mission early because he was severely injured and had to return home early to recuperate.  Eating dinner with us was the sister of the President of the Relief Society, who is not a member.  As we were eating dinner, my companion asked her if she had ever read the Book of Mormon and she said no, but that she respected the Mormons for what they believed.  She then went on to describe what she believed, which was a very vague sense of God in everything and metaphysics.  The son then began to talk to her about the things she believed and answer her questions with scriptures from the Bible and Book of Mormon to try and explain the answers to the questions she has.  When he started doing this, I was thinking a bit like, oh brother, why does he bother, she´s never going to change her opinions.  

He then bore his testimony with a very personal story.  He said his mother was in a very serious car accident and when he arrived at the hospital, his mother was in serious condition.  He went home that night alone (his dad had left them both earlier for another woman and his mom divorced him) and he said that he prayed more fervently than he ever has, that if his mom would live, he would preach the gospel to everyone.  When he went back to the hospital the next day, his mother was alive and said to him, thank you for your prayer and then repeated the exact words he had said in his prayer.  He then said, And that is how I know the church is true.  His mother and aunt were both crying by this point.

He then began to talk to his aunt about her son who had been murdered a few years back.  His aunt had said before that she didn´t think God was really more than the nature around us and our souls stopped existing after we died.  He told her that he knew that her son still existed, that she would see him again and that she would be with him forever and have the same happiness forever that she felt when her son was born.  His aunt then said, but why me, why not so many other people, why would God let this happen to me.  The son then said, I asked myself the same questions.  Why me, why did my dad leave and my mom and I were left to ourselves.  Why didn´t I have shoes or notebooks for school, why did I have to come home early from my mission.  Everybody experiences trials in their life, but I know that my Savior lives, and I know that I will see him one day.  I know that your son exists and that you will be with him forever.  Believe me.  Believe me that you can have this happiness.  He continued to bear one of the most powerful testimonies I have ever heard. Then he turned to me and said, I don´t have the honor of wearing a plaque anymore, but Hermana Nielsen does.  She has the power and authority of God to teach you how you can be happy in this life and be with your son forever.  She is an angel walking the earth.

I have never felt such a strong sense of responsibility in my life.  I felt a tangible weight settle upon my shoulders and an incredible sense of why I am here.  The past week had been pretty difficult.  I was laughably optimistic to think that half the branch are inactive members.  It´s so much more.  We ran out of wood this week before we could buy more and early morning study sessions were rather cold.  Almost every appointment we had fell through this week and we walked up and down trying to find people.  But in that moment, my entire perception was changed, truly.  His aunt then said very quietly, I believe you.  I have never felt such an incredible spirit.  

I know this gospel is true, I have to go but I love you all and send me emails!