Christmas week

this week was probably the craziest week of my mission. with that being said, we really didn’t get anything done. we literally had 4 lessons with investigators. that is a record low on my mission. but, it was still a really good week. 

one of the days this week my comp had a fever. i think i might have given it to him. when he came with me i had a cough and a sore throat. anyway i thought it would be nice to stay in the house but it was super boring. there isn’t really anything to do in the house, but whatever. i did take the first nap of my mission. it was only for an hour but it was still nice. all in all it is definitely better to be out in the streets contacting. 

because it was the week of christmas, it was super hard to find people. everyone either had family over or were out of town. it was really frustrating but that is how it goes. we ended up doing a lot of service. we helped a family dig up their yard to plant grass. i ended up getting blisters on my hands from using the pickax. let me tell you that blisters on the hands hurt a lot...just fyi. it was nice to help the people. this week is going to be the same cause the new year is just as big or even bigger than christmas. 

for christmas eve we had a huge dinner and a family home evening with a family in the ward. i literally haven’t eaten so much in my life. i honestly thought i was going to throw up. it was good to relax and laugh with the family. 

and it was good to talk to the family christmas day. the hour flew by. i didn’t think i was going to go that fast. i thought i was going to be more trunky after the call but it didn’t really effect me which i am happy about. 

thanks for all of your love and support. i love you all so much. 

Christmas in Chile

this week was pretty crazy. it is always good when it is crazy.

so this week i got my new comp. his name is elder troncoso from santiago. he goes home this transfer. one thing that is funny is his accent. his accent is supppppper strong. one of the worst i have heard in chile. i can understand him but there are sometimes where it is harder.

we found 3 new people this week which we are really happy about. but only one has real potential. one of the 3 lives outside of our sector and the other one that we found is co-living. it is harder to get these people to progress. there is hope for them but it is just harder.  but the last one that we found is a 14 year old boy. he is really cool. we taught him about the restoration and really wants to learn. we are really excited for him. he lives in the richest part of our sector. in his yard he has a pool. that might not sound very impressive but we are in a 3rd world country and i haven’t met anyone in 7 months with a pool. we have one lesson with him tonight so we will see how it goes.

we had a family home evening with our  investigators and they are doing really well. they are both really excited for their marriage and baptism. we are excited for them.

dad asked some questions so i am going to answer them.

we receive lunch every day from the members. it is usually chicken and rice with a salad. for dinner we are on our own. i usually make hotdogs with eggs and soup. (yes you read correctly. i’m am making eggs now). or we buy something off the street corner. we have to be careful with food form the street because it can be sketch. my last comp learned that the hard way. luckily that day i didn’t have money so i was saved.

for comp study we usually just do practices for the lessons that we have planned.

and Christmas here is weird. a lot of people here have Christmas trees but that is about it. and Christmas isn’t that big of a deal. what is big is Christmas eve and new years eve. we are planning on having on having a huge Christmas eve dinner with a really rich family in the ward so it should be good. i’m excited.

 You can also see the video by clicking here.  

the mission is going good right now. we are working harder and are seeing more success. i am still learning a lot. i know that this church is true. i love you all. thanks for all of your support.

Love those photos!

Laundry time

 After a hard day's work

  

 You've got to love his smile! 

 This is a picture of Sam's dog bite.  I had to censor the picture before posting it onto the blog because it was on his upper thigh.  We need to thank his companion for saving his life by kicking the dog away before he ate Elder Magnusson alive!   

all is well down here in the south. i’m just just drowning in my own sweat. but its all good. i’m surviving.

So nothing really exciting happened this week. but we do have some good news. 2 weeks ago we found a girl that was golden. she was visiting her boyfriend for the weekend because she is from santiago. we had a super good 2 hour lesson with her and all went well. she was really prepared. i didn’t write about her because i thought i would never see her again, but it turns out that she moved into her boyfriends house this weekend. this is really good and bad. We have a chance to teach her but she needs to get married and not co-living right now. but hey, we will work with it.

one of our investigators we are working with  is doing ok. we had 2 lessons with him this week and they went well. he was out of town yesterday so he couldn’t come to church but we are going to keep working with him.

our investigator couple is doing well. we were able to see them this week and still everything is going good for their baptism on the 17th. they didn’t go to church this week though cause they were out of town.

This weekend we had a chance to sing in a missionary-member choir. it was made up of 12 missionaries and 15 members. we have been practicing for about 2 weeks and this sunday we went to a plaza and sang. there were a ton a people watching us and we think that we got a lot of references from it. we will see what happens.

so this week we got transfer calls. so i’m staying in my sector and my comp is going to another part of rancagua. the comp that i am getting is from chile (santiago). i’m going to be his last comp. he goes home in 6 weeks. we will see how this change goes.  he is a good missionary. so this means that i have at least 3 more months in this sector which isn’t a bad thing because things are getting better. we have a lot of potential.

the mission is going well. i’m happy to be here. i am learning more and more everyday. thank you for all of your love.  sorry i don’t have more to write about but that is what happens when you contact all day. the church is true.

It's almost Christmas time.

it's almost christmas time and it doesn’t even feel like it. But every time i tell someone that down here they think i’m crazy cause this is all they know.... super hot, really sunny, with zero snow. being from california, i guess i don’t really know christmas with snow, but still.

big news this week is that we found someone to teach.    we still have a long way to go with him, but he said that he has a desire to change his life. he has a baptismal date for the 2nd of january but he still has to get married so that probably won’t happen. we are happy that we found him but we just need to work with him now. his work is crazy so he isn’t home very much but he is willing to meet with us. we will see what happens with him.

we are still working with our other couple. they have a marriage date for the 15th of jan and a baptismal date for the 17th. we are really trying to focus in them cause it is around this time that people back out of everything. they are doing really good. the testimonies this week in church were perfect for them. we will see them tomorrow so lets see what happens.

crazy story of the week. so, i need to go to the hospital every week for the next 5 weeks for shots for the dog bit. kinda stupid but its what i have to do. on thursday we went to the hospital and when we walked up an ambulance pulled up. when they opened the door we saw a man who had been shot 4 times. once in the head, once in the neck and twice in the stomach. we watched for 2 minutes as they did CPR in the ambulance. blood was running out of the ambulance like a river. i honestly have never seen so much blood in my life. after the 2 minutes i literally thought i was going to throw up. we talked to the diver of the ambulance and he said the man probably wont live... really sad. i had never seen anything like that in my life. my goal as a lifeguard now is never to do CPR. i don’t think i will ever forget that moment. ever.

for the first time in my mission it is a little bit hard to write in english. i have struggled a little bit in this letter with formatting sentences and everything. i guess that is a good sign.

things are going better. i’m changing my attitude about this sector and things are getting better. everything about the mission is about attitude. i know that this Church is true and that the book of mormon is the word of God. i know that we have a living  prophet today and that if we follow his word we will be blessed. where my testimony is really starting to grow is with the Atonement. i know that Jesus died for us and all we have to do is repent and we will be blessed. thank you for all or your prayers. i love you all. Happy holidays.

These two videos talk about the Atonement:

You can also see the video by clicking here.  

You can also see the video by clicking here.  

ps this week we find out about transfers. we will see what happens. i want to stay here for at least one more change but we will see what happens.