Service with a Smile!! :)

well whats up!

man this transfer is going way good. me and my comp elder glover are doing way good together. yesterday we had 7 investigators in church so that was really good for us. the people we are working with are great and are really seeing the difference in the things we teach and share with them. i am getting very close to the people here i love it. one night we were visiting a less active family to try to get them to come back to church and we were just talking to the mom and daughter and then the dad walked in. you could tell that he had been drinking so i thought that something bad might happen or something but when he saw us he started crying and said that we were a answer to his prayers. he told us that he had been praying for help to stop smoking and drinking but just felt like he just could not do it. and then he said that he walked in his house and saw two angels. it really was one of the best parts of my mission so far. he is a great guy and we talked to them for an hour or so and they made us eat dinner with them haha then at the end we told him that he had been praying praying for help and we had come to his house but he still needed to do more. we told him to give us his cigarrets and that we weregoing to help him stop. for like twenty min he kept resisting and resisting us and would say i will start tomorrow and stuff like that but we kept persisting and he gave us the cigarrets and we ripped them up with him. it was really nice to see how much the people that are open to us as missionaries appreciate what we do and that we can help. they came to church yesterday too for the first time in years!

i almost got my head bit off yesterday by a dog. freakin mutt.

i am so excited for general conference this weekend! seriously i am, my converts and investigators are realy excited too because they can see the prophet of God. i was thinking about it yesterday about how we just take it for granted i think sometimes, we are just so used to seeing him and it is just something totally normal. but in reality it is huge! he really is the prophet of God who is here on the earth for us to guide us and help us return to live with God. that was my thought. In my head.
ok so on saturday i think it was we were just walking to someones house when we got a call from one of the ladies in the ward and she sounded really panicky and asked us if we could do something for her and so i said ya for sure and then they asked me if we could go meet her at the church and get chairs for her and bring them to her house (and these chairs dont fold) so i thought in my head, crap. because i had already said yes so we went to the church which was like 15 min away and waited for her and she didn´t show so we called her and she said she was waiting for us at her house. any way long story short i understood bad and she wanted us to bring the chairs from her house to the church. ( i even double checked with her before with what she wanted so it wasnt my spanish´s fault) so we finally got to her house and she had a wheel barrel and the chairs waiting for us. and her freakin kid with inside playing. he is 16. i was a little mad but didn´t say anything. so we wheel barreled the chairs for about 20 to the church through the middle of town and everyone was laughing at the 2 gringo mormons. it actually was pretty funny to us at the end so it turned out fine. the chilean people seriously love taking advantage of people when they can. but i love them.

Kevin broke his freakin arm!! holy crap dude that sucks. i bet it freakin hurt. i remember when chris always had a cast on his arm in the logan house because he was so accident prone he would always hit me on the head with the stupid cast. get him back for me please. thanks. that is so cool to here that you are to the best on the team. i want to see some pictures of you playing and doing your thing. i played soccer with a bunch on the youth here on friday and i actually scored. it was my first goal in my life im pretty sure.

thats sad to hear that Dasha´s mom went home. she looks like a very nice lady i hope i get to meet her. im glad to hear that everyone is doing good though for sure. Joan, it sounds like you are keeping really busy and entertained with the geneaoligy of how ever you spell it! i really enjoyed your letter thank you. and to answer your question yes it should be fine to send the package now.

thank you all for your letters and encouragement. i hope you all have a great week!

elder elder

This is me and my companion, Elder Glover
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  















Awesome Waterfalls We did some site seeing on our P day.  Elder Glover and I had a great time.  

 

  

 

Kicking back!

well whats up family!!!

well whats up family!!!

this week has been was awesome. im so stoked for this transfer! im with an elder from south jordan, Mark Glover. he is way chill and we are get along super good. its cool cuz we both teach the same way, we´re excited and have fun with my brown people, and love the board sports! so its rad.

i loved that video you all look so good! seriously i loved it so much thank you dad you are so freakin awesome. the baptism of dasha part that was definetly my favorite! oh man i am so still way stoked about that and now that i got to see the actual day that is so cool! you all look so good (chris and dasha family)!!

alright so with this transfer so far its been really good. we had a conference with our president so we got all excited and pumped up so that was good. also we were teaching one of our really good investigators (or however you spell it in english) and they told us about their experience with knowing that this is true and good and gaining a testimony. Judit who is like 30ish got her answer during the closing prayer of the previous visit. she said it hit her really really hard. during the prayer she said she was like surrounded by this amazing feeling and just knew it was true. it was so freakin cool. she explained it a little bit better but i kinda forgot all the main exact details (crap) and im still learning the more descriptive words. but it was good!! and her husband Nelson had a dream the night later and in it he had someone come up to him and just hug him and told him that is was true. I´ve only heard about experiences like that but now i´ve helped someone get it!! im so excited for them to get baptised. Their getting baptised in three weeks. Also the mom of the lady we baptised last week she is getting bapised in few weeks too! we have to wait till after conference because our branch president said that....so ya but its all good.

i am really really happy with this transfer. things are looking super super good. thank you again for the video it was really funny when dad told grandpa elder to say hi to me and he looked around to say hi them remembered im here. your funny grandpa. aaron and laura you two are freakin awesome how is jack? that fetcher was sleeping! grandpa/ma, aunts, uncles russ, michelle, chris, rainy, ashlee, katie, kevin, chris, dasha, daniel, krystal, matt, melinda, mom, dad, emily and all the nieces and nephews you all look so happy so that makes me happy. oh ya and maggie. man what a list. i love you all and hope things are going great.

love elder elder

Dasha! I am so happy for you!!!

A member with his awesome cowboy hat!

wow what a week for me! i am sending you pictures of water in a bucket that i used to wash some of my clothes. hopefully you all appreciate that.

DASHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! holy crap that is seriously so awesome. i was so excited when i read that! i am so happy for you Dasha. and you as well Chris you are the man bro. thats so cool you baptised your woman and bebe! i mean blessed your bebe. its also even more cool for me because saturday aout 1;30 your time we baptised one of our investigators as well!! that would be crazy if they were at the same time.
it sounds like you are all doing way good that makes me way happy. this week has been so busy for me. unfortunately we haven´t been able to teach hardly any lessons because we have been helping people tear down there houses so that they can rebuild them and not have to sleep in tents. its really really sad to see what has happened here. and the crazy part is that where i live there isn´t hardly any damage in comparison to concepcion area. im about anhour away from there. but there is still a lot of damage here. just the freakin crappy houses. so......................not gonna have a freakin crappy house when i grow up! im sending pictures of what i have been doing. but it is really awesome because even though we haven´t been able to teach alot we were still blessed with our baptism and a lot of really good discussions with the people about the gospel that we are helping. starting this week i think we can get back into our normal schedule as proseliting missionaries. im really excited for that to tell you the truth. when we taught our first lesson earlier this week it felf soooooooo good after ward. you have no idea hahahahah it was cool.
well we finally have tranfers tomorrow. they were supposed to be two weeks ago but with the earthquake everything was screwed up. i told you i was going to have elder heiser come but now it is elder glover. i met him the day i arrived here. two months ago!!!!!! holy crap, but he seems super chill. it will be good times with him. me and elder rodriguez have had a lot of fun and success these past 8 weeks.
so saturday we had a baptism session for 3 sectors who each had 1 baptism so we had 3.......obviously. but anyway one of them was this super old man who is about to fall apart. i feel bad for the guy but he is super funny. i think at least. i cant really understand what he says but after he says something to me he laughs and i laugh along with him and he hugs me. how precious right? but during his baptism he didnt know what to do to go under the water so he pretty much just squatted and was shaking on the way down. man it was pretty funny he is a stud! i gave the holy ghost for the first time yesterday as well! it was kinda shaky but i did it! in spanish too fyi.

well i am doing quite superb out here thanks to the lord. we are making really good relations with the people and doing what we think is best. its really really awesome spending your whole day doing stuff that isn´t even for you. i like it alot. the work of the lord is something so amazing. i love being here in chile doing this. thank you all so much for your support. i love you all.

welp see ya later
 
Love Elder Elder

March 13th baptism~All those who were baptized and those who were the baptisers!

Very happy!

I am super buff now!

No one messes with Elder Elder!!!

All that work tearing up our kitchen in Nibley paid off here...but this is a lot more work!!!

elder rodriques, cecilia, me

I am back in in my area helping people however I can!

Well hello family!

I am now back in Cabrero with my companion and the other two missionaries that we live with. Cabrero is a lot better now. The grocery stores still aren´t functioning but we bought a bunch of food in Los Angeles before we left and also the wards in LA brought a bunch of food for the members of the church over here. So we are totally fine with food, water, electricty, everything really.

We got back here Friday night and have been doing service ever since. Yesterday we took off an entire roof off a house that is more than a hundred years old. Their house is going to be torn down tomorrow i think and so they want to salvage what they can. The house belongs to our investigador who we were going to baptise on Saturday but we had an earthquake…so we´re going to baptise her this Saturday finally!! Taking off the roof was freakin fun. Super dirty but cool. I took a lot of pictures.
I told you that we found out that there was a lot of looters stealing from houses, well it turns out we got robbed. They took our stereo speakers, a little cd placer, all my coins that was worth about 2000 pesos (four bucks), our xbox 360, and tv. Just kidding about the last two. But it wasn´t a ton that they store it just kinda makes me mad that they did. All well, oh ya and they took my roomates backpack he uses outside and poured all our milk we had inside as a joke. But other than that the house is great!

Im really glad i got to talk to you guys a little bit this week. It was really cool to hear your voices. I hope you had good birthdays Mom and Dad! What did you do? I think you went to Salt Lake for a little vacation. My mission president said he talked to my sister who i think it was Ashlee and she told him you two were out of town. Well i hope you both had a really really good birthday.

I am doing great here and lovin it. My roomates are freakin funny. And i can now make jokes with them and all the neighbors! Ha the other night we were all chillin out side with our neighbors talking and all the brown kids were asking what does this mean what does this mean? (and if i dont know i just make it up) its pretty freakin cool knowing one and a half languages. I cant wait till i know two completely! I really am being so blessed here. Everyone i talk to is really really surprised with how much spanish i can already speak. So i am very grateful for that.

Oh ya something else i forgot, for the next couple weeks we have a curfew here in chile. We cant leave the house before 8 in the morning and have to be in the house before 8 in the night. This is so they dont have anymore problems with looters while everything is still a little crazy. And also chile had a fund raiser to i think like15,000,000,000 pesos but the raised over 32,000,000,000. i dont know how much that is in dollars but its a butt load.

I hope you all are doing great and i love you all so much. Have a great week.

Elder Elder

Enjoy these pictures!

Elder Squared Was in the house!!!!

Ummmm Goooddddd!!!

I gathered water for the neighbors

This is a house we helped take the roof off of !

I had to start with the walls...I'm buffff!!!!

Great Exercise!

I lifted this one all by myself because I have big muscles!

All the Missionaries that stayed at the Stake Center in Los Angeles Chile right after the earthquake.

My first pictures from the Earthquake here in Chile

well here are a few pics of whats been going on. today the president of our mission is coming to see us. we´re all doing well here still. aside from the fact that we woke up to 3 earthquakes over 6 on the richter scale. honestly i just waited there while everything was shaking like crazy and once it was going for more than about ten seconds i started to leave. there are so many earthquakes every day its crazy. and whats worse is that we´re so accustomed to them. its crazy that the earthquake in haiti was only like a 6 or 7. and we have those all the time and its not even a big deal.

we were talking last night and we´re all really excited for the hopeful results of this experience. i think that the hearts of the people will be more open to us and want to except god and christ into their lives. we all feel really strong about the upcoming weeks and months. all we need now is just to let things get back to normal. all we can do is lend helping hands really right now and be patient. i wanted to go to concepcion where this is a ton of damage and help but they said there is already sufficient help there. so we´re doing what we can here. things are going good and hope you enjoy the pictures!

elder elder

After the 8.8 Earthquake, we needed to get to the Stake Center in Los Angeles Chile

No one was around....

Finally, some local transporation!

These Chilean's are sweet!!!

On the way, we saw a lot of Earthquake damage...

Peoples homes totally distroyed...

Down town Los Angles Chile flooded...

Houses falling on vehicles...

The Chilean Army showed up to restore some order...

People waiting for food....

We arrived at the Stake Center and found it damaged...

Inside the Stake Center a lot of damage. The benches in the chapel were damaged so we made use of them...

Actually the bench padding we sit on, do make good beds...

I will try to send more pictures soon.  I love you all!

The Exciting Earthquake Adventures of Elder Elder

So guess what. i almost died!!!!!!! no i didnt. im fine but we got a lot a freakin damage here. ill tell you about it. here we go.

At 330 in the morning i woke up to my really crappy bed being shaken like crazy and i knew it was an earthquake and so i yelled TERREMOTO!!! CORRE CORRE! haha and we all ran out of the house. well first i was still in my bed for about one minute trying to figure everything out. my comp sleeps really hard so i had to freakin wake hiim up so he left with us. we ran out side and my roomates all ran back in the house because they were only wearing there gs haha. it lasted for serioulsy about three and a half minutes. after like thirty seconds outside i ran back in the house (during the earthquake.......hahha ya i know im an idiot.....) to get my camara. so i have a video of the earthquake i will try to send you. after it finally ended we went inside and got dressed and went to our member friends house to see how they were. there house was pretty thrashed. well just the stuff. the structure was luckily fine. our house is still safe to live in. we spent sat and sunday morning in cabrero helping and we had the sacrament and after that we were walking back to our house and walked past a couple supermarkets and saw that hundreds of people had broken the doors open and were stealing everything. it is seriously really bad where i live. we couldnt stay there becuase everyone is going freakin nuts. we had to leave because everyone thinks we have a lot of money becuase we walk around in church clothes and so we left to los angeles to be with all of our zone. my mission pres also told us 3 weeks ago if we ever had a earthquake go to our stake centers where all us missionaries could be together. well none of the freakin busses were going so we had to hitch hike. hahaha our first nice person that took us was an old guy that had a cart being pulled by a horse. so we were cruising down the highway in a horse drawn cart for about 20 min! it was freakin awesome. and then we had two more people stop and help us. it is 80 kilometers about 50ish miles im not sure from where i live in Cabrero to los angeles. so we finally arrived to the stake center to find that it was very dangerous and a lot had collasped. no missionaries were there. so we didnt know what to do. we wandered around looking in the houses of the missionaries and different churches that we knew of but we couldnt find anyone. after about three hours a car full of 4 members of the church yelled hole elders! so we waved them down and they stopped and they took us to the church. oh man we were so freakin glad we saw those members.

so as of right now we are staying in a different stake center with two zones. so we are about 25 missionaries staying there. we spent the night there last night and all day today. i dont know how long we will be there tho. we have food. water. electricity. and ping pong!!!!!!!!!!!!! i like it a lot. we spent the morning helping people put fallen walls and stuff in piles and various service. thats all we really can do.

concepcion is so freakin thrashed. thats where my mission president lives. he couldnt call us because his phone has been dead so he took a wire from his car engine and connected it somehow to his phone and he had power to call us! all the missionaries are alright. we just dont know what is going on.

oh man i was so glad i got to call this morning. it was amazing to hear your voice mom and dad. i really appreciated your concern for me more than you know. i am doing great just know that and we are all taken care of. i appreciate your prayers so much thank you. now just pray for the people instead! haha

ha i was thinkin, if just in the first month and a half of being in the mission i have dug up three dead people and lived a 8.8 earthquake what more is going to happen to me?

as of right now i think i have all my stuff. but when we return to cabrero (whenever it is) i dont know what will still be there. there is a ton of looting where i live i heard. their jacking all the stuff in houses.......so well see. hopefully they steal my scriptures so they read them and repent!

i found out that my next comp will be a american elder hieser or something. i will live with two more americans and one columbian.

oh ya! haha we a card board sign that said "los angeles" and the radio said that there was two mormon missionaries hitch hicking, one gringo (me!!!) and one latino(my comp!!!) hahaha when we heard about that we laughed way hard.

the news is makin things look really really bad. dont get me wrong things are bad but not as much as they make it look. its their job. to make people think things are worse i swear. but concepcion is actually really bad. missionaries that we leaving this week cant, missionaries that were coming this week cant either. so well see!

wow! so emily went to the house with you all last night. awesome! im excited to hear how that went:)

well i love you all so much. thank you for your prayers and hope everything is going great for you all. have a great week and ill try not to die.



elder elder.