Santiago, Chile Temple

Santiago, Chile Temple
Santiago, Chile Temple

Monday, November 28, 2016

"Thanks for the love and support"


wow it was weird to read all of the happenings of the week. i’m glad that all worked out with kristine’s wedding and everything.
Elder Magnusson's sister, Kristine, and new brother-in-law, Bryce
They were married on Nov. 23

So this week was a pretty good week. it started out great. i thought at the beginning of the week it was going to be one of the best weeks of my mission but then it kinda fizzled out. in the beginning we found  4 new investigators and on wednesday we gave 3 of them baptismal dates. it was sweet and then towards the end lessons started to fall and we only had 4 investigators came to church.... (we were expecting 9) but it was all good. the cool thing to me was thrusday was a harder day. all of our lessons fell and we ended up contacting for most of the day. at about 8 o’clock we were both super tired and really hungry so we went and bought some meat off of a lady that was selling bbq in the street. it was really good meat and i asked her what type of meat it was. she told me it was turkey meat. now you have to understand that turkey isn’t common here. like i think in 18 months i have eaten turkey 3 times and i have NEVER seen it being sold in the street. it was a tender mercy for me because after a hard day i was blessed to have turkey on thanksgiving. it made me think about how much God really does love me.

we have quite a few people progressing but they each have their challenges. i just want to talk about 3 that are really cool. our first one is a 9 year old kid that is doing great. he is part of a part member family and they want to come back to attending church. well at least the member dad and brother. the nonmember mom doesn’t really want much with us but she is willing to listen. so they are progressing really well. they came with us to play soccer at the church this week and then they stayed for all 3 hours of church.

Our other one is an old investigator that we found because we went to teach a lesson to someone but the lesson fell through. we were with a member and we asked him if he knew anyone that was meeting with the missionaries and he brought us to his house. we went in and got to know him a little and one of the first things that he told us is that he wants to get baptized. he said that now is his time. the only problem is he smokes a lot but we can fix that. we are excited for him.

the next  is the kid from haiti. he is doing pretty good. so we figured out he super good but the only problem with him is that he doesn’t believe in the priesthood. so we are going to have to study so that we know how to help him progress. but he too went  too soccer with us on saturday and he also went to church on sunday. he is so good. he told us a little bit of his life story and it is a sad one. he has had a lot of sad things happen to him.

on saturday we had an open house of the church building in san vicente. it is a sector in the zone. the mission hosts it and we as ZLs were in charge of half of it. it was pretty crazy. basically the whole zone got together with all of the members of san vicente, the hermanas and the members took all of the people on a tour of the building while the elders contacted people in the streets inviting them to come. i felt like i was in the movie the best two years cause that is how we were contacting. literally anyone that past us we talked to them. they were some pretty funny contacts. we had some success and we are going to be doing the same thing this week in our chapel of centinela.

The zone is doing good things are moving along. we are trying to help the missionaries learn that they have to progress the investigators.  for example we think that they are scared to teach them the law of chastity and word of wisdom. but over all we are doing better.

thanks for the love and support. the church is true.

elder mag
You can also see the video by clicking here

Monday, November 21, 2016

"I know that This Church is true and that Jesus Christ is at the head of it."

it was a crazy/weird week. i don’t think that we had a full day in our sector this week.

so changes was the most stressful day of my life. literally the whole mission that was traveling had to pass through san fernando. we probably had to receive and send off 100 missionaries. it was nuts... i think the craziest part was when i told some missionary to go buy his bus ticket like 3 times. and when i saw the bus taking off he still wasn’t on it. another zone leader and i literally had to sprint down town san fernando with the missionary behind us to chase down the bus. it finally stopped at a stop light and we had to beg the bus driver to let him on. it looked liked he wanted to kill me. all in a days work. we also magically found a bag that was left on a bus. the bus went to santiago. we had to talk to 50,000 people to track it down and after a few hours of waiting and with God’s help we finally found it. i honestly don’t know how, but we did. 

on wendsday we had a training with all of the zone leaders in Rancagua. we talked about a lot of random things that president wants us to improve on. it was good. then on saturday we had interviews with president and while everyone was getting their interviews done we had to teach the same thing. it went really good. the zone seems really solid. i’m excited for what is going to happen this change. we have some solid times ahead of us. 

so my comp is pretty cool. he is super calm and quiet but he likes to do the things the right way. it should be a good change for us. i’m glad that i am with a companion from the states. i’ve had a lot of latino comps and i’m grateful for each one of them but i’m glad that i’m going to have christmas with a gringo. 

so we are working with a less active family. they have a 9 year old son who was never baptized and the dad wants us to teach his son. the family is setting goals to come back they are progressing really well. 

so a cool thing that happened this week was yesterday we were walking in the streets and i felt super strongly that i had to talk to a super old grandma lady. i normally don’t talk to old grandma ladies cause they are usually super catholic and they are hard of hearing so its hard to talk to them. so i pushed it out of my mind. as we got closer to me i felt my legs walking towards her. so we started talking to her and she made it pretty obvious that she didn’t want to talk to us. after talking awkwardly with her for 2 mins she got up to leave. as she was walking away i was asking myself why i talked to her. as i was thinking i felt a tap on my shoulder and as i turned around a guy from haiti is standing in front of me. he told us that he moved to san fernando from santiago a week ago and was listening to the missionaries in santiago. we went to his house and talked to him for about 20 min. he told us that he looked out his window and saw us talking to the old lady and he ran out of his house to catch up to us. he had the number of the missionaries in santiago so i called them at night and they gave us his story. he seems like a solid investigator. we will see what happens with him this week. all i know is that God moves in mysterious ways. 

i know that this church is true and that Jesus Christ is at the head of it. i’m sad that i’m not going to be home for Kristine’s wedding or thanksgiving but i know that i’m in the right place doing the right thing. love you all.

elder mag

You can also see the video by clicking here.  

Monday, November 14, 2016

"The Book of Mormon has changed my life so I know it can change yours."

Elder Magnusson sends no commentary with his photos, 
but his face says it all about the bike with no tire, only the rim.  

Happy late B-day dad. i cant believe that i forgot to wish you a happy birthday. thanks for your love and support. 
first off our investigators  got baptized  (A 16 and 11 year old brother and sister).  we spent the week finishing up the last lessons and getting them ready for their interview. the day of their baptism came and it was a super special moment for everyone. they invited their whole family and i know that everyone felt the spirit. plus the branch helped us out a lot and we had a great turnout of about 40 people. i had the chance to baptize the brother which was special for me. when we were changing he was really quiet. i asked him how he felt and he told me that he felt something that he had never felt before. he told me that he felt super super clean. i think it was the strongest impression of the spirit he has had. 

so right now we are going to have to find a lot more people to teach. every time there is a baptism this always happens. but we have been blessed. yesterday we went by a less active’s house because he went to church for the first time in a while and as we were talking to him he told us that he has had the impression that he needs to baptize his 9 year old son. he set goals with him and he told us that he is willing to sacrifice and repent in order to baptize his son on the 17 of december. we couldn’t be happier. 

so the zone is doing ok. we are doing really good as far as the work goes. we have a ton of people that are progressing and we have seen the hand of the Lord this change. 

so we got transfers and i’m going to be staying in my sector but my comp in going to go up to rancagua. i’m going to be training a new zone leader named elder hinton from saint george utah. i have heard good things about elder hinton so we will see what happens. its been an excellent change with my comp and i’m really going to miss him. 

i know that this gospel is true and that we are God’s children. i know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that any person who reads it can know that it is true by praying to God and asking him. It has changed my life so i know that it can change yours. 

elder mag
You can also see the video by clicking here.  

Monday, November 7, 2016

Earthquake!

thanks for your letters and love this week. its good to hear that everyone is doing good.

so this week was a good solid week. but first everyone is asking about the earthquake so ill start with that.

so we were walking in the street in the morning and all of a sudden we saw a bunch of people running out of the houses. we asked what was going on and some guy told us that their was just a huge earthquake. we didn't feel anything though. he was surprised when we told him that. anyway nothing happened to the houses so it wasn't really that big of a deal. but everyone was talking about it during the day. it was kinda funny to talk to the people about it. i'm about an hour from where the epicenter was (my old sector is about 5 min from the epicenter.... kinda crazy )and it was a 6.4 earthquake so i still don't know how i didn't feel it but whatever. my phone was turned off and when i checked it about about 3 hours later i had a missed call from the mission pres. wife. i called her back and she told us that we had to call all the missionaries in the zone to see if everyone was ok. when we started calling, all of the elders where laughing because  most of them didn't feel it either cause they were all walking in the streets. so thats the story with the earthquake.... sorry its not to exciting.

this week was a super good week for us. but it also had its sad moments.  so we are going to have 2 baptisms this weekend. a 16 year old and his 11 year old sister are preparing for saturday. we finished all of the lessons on saturday and they are just lacking their interview. i have seen a huge change in them since i have gotten here to the sector especially the brother. he is a 16 year old kid who was addicted to drugs. my first day in the sector the dude was higher than a kite on weed. he is now going on 3 weeks without smoking. his sister is 11 years old and is an angel. yesterday she paid her tithing and fast offerings. we are pretty excited. i hope all goes well this week with them. pray for them please because  i know that satan is going to work overtime on them..... he always does.

we were also planning on another baptism of our investigator was also going to get baptized on saturday but on thrusday when we taught her tithing we where finishing up the lesson and we asked her how she was doing with the word of wisdom. she told us that she drank tea that morning and it was the first time in a month. she felt really bad. we have a rule in the mission that the people have to live the word of wisdom  for 2 weeks before their baptism. we told her that we had to push the date back one week. she felt really bad. and since then we haven't been able to find her. i think that she got kinda offended but there isn't anything else that we could have done. i don't know. i hope that we can find her this week.

so the house that i live in is the nicest house in the mission for the elders. it is huge and we are 6 elders in the house.  everyone in the house is pretty close and it has been a super fun change with everyone. this week we have changes and everyone is pretty sad that we are going to get split apart.

the zone is doing as good as ever. we should be having 8 baptisms this week so after we are really going to have to focus on finding because we wont have very many solid investigators. its one thing that my comp and i are really going to focus on wed when we give our training.

thanks for everything. i know this gospel is true and that i am really doing the Lord's work. i'm loving my time in chile and i couldn't be happier. i love you all.

elder mag