Reflections of a True Millennial

Buenas! Another week, another letter. Things are going well here. This week included a few goodbyes. On Monday the Christiansens finished their mission and returned home to Utah. It was sad to see them go! Plus we have more responsibilities now in their absence, but thats okay. Also this week Carina and Camilo, the recent converts here, moved to San Fernando. I think it will be a good change for them, and I hope they maintain strong in the Gospel. The extranjeria here has been suuuper busy lately because there are a lot of immigrants that have come to Chile recently from Haiti, Venezuela, and Colombia. So the extranjeria doubled the amount of people they attend to. Plus two out of the four workers are on vacation, so we spent a good amount of time waiting in lines there.. It has been a bit difficult to get things done with all of that, but we will figure it out. This week I read a good talk called "Becoming a Consecrated Missionary" by Tad R Callister. I liked th...

Hola hola, It has been another very fast week. Usually I sit down to write every week and have to think pretty deeply about what we actually did.. We have had a lot of work to do in the office this week. Nothing too exciting, mostly lots of paperwork, but I am used to it and enjoy our job. Next week we will be doing lots of visa work, and doing a bit of traveling. On Monday, the Christiansens (a senior couple) will be going home, which will be a sad farewell.  In our sector, we have a good investigator named Maria. She met with the missionaries about four years ago and is receptive to hear us again. Something really cool that happened is that we had an appointment with her and when we went there she had a friend over visiting. When most people have visits over they kindly tell the missionaries to come back another day. But, she invited us in and we taught her and her friend, who was also very interested! We invited them to church and both of them were kind of iffy, but the...

Buenas tardes! I hope you all had a great week. This week we had transfers, so we were busy busy busy. On Monday night my companion and I drove three sister missionaries to the airport to send them home. Two of them actually had twins serving in Santiago West going home on the same flight, and it was really cool to see them all meet up for the first time in 18 months. From there we went back down to Rancagua and then left Tuesday morning at 4 am to drop off 4 more missionaries at the airport. We always stick around until they get through customs to load and pay their luggage and make sure that they have no visa problems to leave the country. From there we went to the MTC to get a new batch of missionaries. Behind the scenes other office missionaries were running back and forth from Santiago for a few missionaries with odd arrival or departure times. In the end everything went according to plan. Since Tuesday we have been busy getting all the new missionaries into our systems a...

Hola hola, Time really flies between P-days, wow. It was a good week here. We are preparing everything for transfers this week. Of course I am sticking around in Recreo for my 7th transfer here. BUT, this will be my last six weeks here for sure. Even though it has been a long time in the same sector, I am happy to be here and in the office. We are really working hard to change the culture in the office so that we are working as missionaries even with our different assignments. It has been a struggle, but I am excited for the next transfer. The new assistant is Elder Vasquez, who I lived with in San Clemente and we have been in close sectors for most of the mission. He will be a great addition here. As for me, I am sticking with Elder Villegas for this change. This week will be a busy one. We will be going up to the airport on Monday night and Tuesday morning. My companion cant drive, so I will be making the round trip on Monday night. Should be fun. On Tuesday we have a bu...

Estimados, Hello again. This week really flew by, it is hard to believe that it is Saturday again! It was a pretty good week with highs and lows, but I guess that is how most every week in the mission is. On Wednesday we watched a worldwide broadcast for all of the missionaries, and it was really great. They talked a lot about the doctrine of Christ: faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. That is what we have to do in our lives, over and over. Sometimes in life we complicate things, when it really does not have to be so complicated. Have faith, correct yourself, and keep moving forward with guidance from God. In the broadcast they also made a big announcement of a change in the missionary schedule. Instead of our time being so strictly structured, they is now a lot more freedom to choose when and where we do the things we need to. Honestly it doesnt affect us too much in the office, because we already pretty much make our own schedule...

Hola, Well it has been a very busy week here. Last Sunday we traveled to San Fernando to present the Open Chapel program to the mission presidency. The senior missionary in charge of that is going home, so the presidency will take over the program. We had zone conference in Rancagua on Tuesday. On Wednesday we traveled to San Fernando to eat lunch at their conference and then to Santa Cruz to present the Open Chapels to their district presidency. They are excited to start the program there. On Thursday we went to Santiago to apply for a replacement ID at the Argentinian Consulate for a sister missionary that lost hers. And yesterday we were able to stick around here in the office. Its been a busy week, and it went by very quickly. Lately I have been thinking about my mission and what it means to be a successful missionary. There really isnt much time left for me in Chile, and I think one of my biggest fears is that I will finish and feel like I didnt do everything I possibly c...

Hola, Wow this week went by fast, it is hard to remember what actually happened.. It was a pretty good week though. Everything is going well in the office and we are actually finding ourselves with some extra free time so we are trying to innovate and make our job easier and simpler. Nothing too exciting, but it should help us out a lot in the long run. I am starting to get a bit tired of being in the same sector for such a long time. I really do like the ward, but I think I am just too used to how things have been here. But I am really thankful for my companion Elder Villegas. He is a really good missionary and is very excited to work with members and find people to teach. We are working hard and trying different methods to find people. We have been revisiting old investigators and are trying to working more with members and less actives, and the results have been promising so far. One of the things I have always seemed to focus on during my mission is finding people ...