December 24, 2012

 

Hey there Everybody!

Merry Christmas! ¡Feliz Navidad! ^_^

May we always remember this time of year and why we really celebrate! We celebrate it to remember our Lord, Jesus Christ and his birth, and all of the things that he has done for us! It is sad to see how so many people in the world get lost in the gifts that stores have to offer, when our Heavenly Father offered his only begotten son as our Saviour, and Christ accepted the will of his father to take upon him the sins of the world and to die for us. What greater blessing for us to remember that we can always repent of our sins so that one day we can return to live with our Heavenly Father and with our families forever! ^_^ Don´t forget why we celebrate Christmas! Don´t take the CHRIST out of CHRISTMAS!

This past week went by so fast! We had our Mission Christmas Devotional and we had it up in the north part of the mission, up in Talcahuano, so I was able to see Elder Hughes again! He´s having it a little rough, his comp isn´t so great and his comp has been making working really hard... and his grandma died, so he was a little sad. But I trained him well and I know he´ll be able to pull through and he´ll be a-okay!

So the work in our sector is slowly growing, line upon line, and precept upon precept. Even though we had less time to be able to work this past week, we were able to do more work that the past 2 weeks. We are seeing a lot of mini miracles and we feel so blessed. We were able to give a couple of blessings to the sick in our ward, and in one ocasion, I was able to bless two little kids... and right after I finished giving the blessings, they fell right asleep. Maybe I just have a soothing voice? :P haha! This week we also came across a couple of challenges. Almost all of the appointments we had with our investigators, they had to cancel it last moment, so we went to our back up plans and they weren´t their either, so we had the privilage to be guided by the spirit to do exactly what we needed to do in that moment. We are slowly aquiring more people to teach, which is a super huge blessing because we don´t have many investigators at all in our sector. But we are getting blessed, what more could we ask for? BAPTIZMS!!! But that will come with time and with all the work we are doing now to prepare the way ^_^

So how was the end of the world? For me it went quite well! It seemed like a normal day to me! Haha, It was funny and kinda sad to see how people were acting, even some of the members, but whatever, one day Christ will come again, so we just need to be prepared! ^_^ So that was my week, I love you all so much, the work is getting better here in the subburb of Los Angeles, Chile. I hope you are all well and that you have a very merry Christmas! My last Christmas in the mission... so weird! Take care everyone!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Scott Garrett

(Do you like my piggy? It´s name is "Ganonito" ^_^)

December 17, 2012

 

Hey there everybody!

We are almost to the end of the world and the time of the year to remember the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Honestly it doesn´t feel like Christmas time at all here in Chile, I´m looking forward to cold weather next year for Christmas. It´s hot here in Chile.... it´s summer time! Jajajaja. Well, to help it seem a little more chilly for christmas, I made some paper snowflakes and put them up in the house. The other Elders gave me a weird look for doing that, but I don´t care! ^_^ Hehe, I´ve got the Christmas Spirit!

Elder Hinckely and I are hitting it hard here despite the many difficulties that we are facing. We are doing our part and even though during the week we weren´t able to see too much progress, at the end of the week we recieved a miracle in our sector! Yesterday at church a member family brought a neice to church, Antonella, and we went and met with them after church at their house to see how she liked church and to visit the family. She had been going to an Evangelico church, but she said that she feels like this is the only true church and that she loved it because she felt something special inside that she has never felt in any other church! ^_^ I´m so grateful that we have been blessed with her and that she just came to us basically. We had our first lesson with her right then and there and she accepted a baptizmal date in January with ease! She wants to be baptized and confirmed a member! She is so excited to learn and willing to follow our saviour. We were also able to put a baptizmal date for another person named Andres for a day in January. So the things are getting a little better for us here and we are being blessed for our diligence despite the difficulty of the work here.

This past week Elder Hughes called me with some interesting news that impacted me pretty hard... well, it made me think and ponder. He said that an Hermano in Talcahauno Centro died from a heart attack. He was a very healthy man, not too old either.... but he has been innactive for about 20 years now. His wife is very active and I love that family so much! But the sad part for me is that my last week in Talcahuano Centro, Elder Hughes and I tried sharing a message with that hermano... but he didn´t want anything to do with the gospel. He always prayed with us, but he just never wanted to hear a message because something in his past in the church happened and he hardened his heart.... and for 20 years he has been innactive. I remember in my last visit with him he said that he still has plenty of time to come back to the church and he´ll come back when he feels ready... and now he´s dead... it was a strong thing to hear and reflect about, and the same goes for Elder Hughes. It just goes to show that no one really knows when their life is going to come to an end. I know there is a big hubub about the "end of the world" this friday... at least here in Chile, but I know it won´t happen on the 21st because it says in the bible that only God knows when it will happen. but also like it says in Alma 34:32-34 today is the day that we need to prepare ourselves to meet God. We need to be prepared temporally for any type of disaster, but we also need to be very prepared spiritually. We never know when our lives in this earth will end.

This past week I also had an opportunity to have an intercambio with Elder Santos. It was strange, but also I can see that I´ve forgiven him for the things he did while we were companions. We got along just great... but he seemed to just snore a lot louder than ever before! Haha. But whatever, the work is progressing here in our sector, so that is all that matters! I´m happy, I love the work of the Lord, and I´m doing my part! I love you all so much! I hope you are all well and that you remember the reason for the season!

con mucho amor,
Elder Garrett

December 10, 2012

Hey there everybody!

So here I am in Los Angeles... Chile! Wow it is hot here! The center of the mission is the hottest area during the summer, so how lucky am I to get sent here so I can feel the burn! :P Luckily it has only been a super hot one day because I somehow managed to drag the rain and clouds with me here to this sector. Today it is very overcast, so I was saved once again! So I´m here with Elder Hinckley. He is from Provo and President Hinckley was his Grandfathers cousin, so he is related to President Hinckley a little bit! He is a very interesting guy, he loves hunting, weight lifting, anything outdoors, he wants to be a fireman/paramedic, and I´m his second comp. He´s really nice!

So, the work needs a new jumpstart here in Galvarino (the name of my sector)... honestly when I got here I was shocked. The Elders that have been here in the past year have done a downright terrible job to take care of this sector. I´m not sure exactly what they have done here in this sector because the Area Book, that we should always fill out after lessons to be able to keep track of the progress of our investigators so that other missionaries could easily see the work that is being done in the area, is in stage: CRITICAL. It is so messy, so unorganized, and no one has written anything. We only have like 3 real investigators, and we can´t find one of them. This past week I feel like I was just doing Home Teaching more than anything.... which isn´t my responsibility as a missionary at all. It looks like I´m going to have to help this sector turn around completely and I need to help Elder Hinckley get a little more trained. It´s really flat here, I miss climbing up hills all day and seeing the ocean. This sector just reminds me of a more ghetto version of La Verkin! Haha! :P I do love the sector though, it´s just going to be a fun process to be able to change the things here. Everyone keeps asking me how much time I have in the mission, and when I tell them 16 months they tell me that I´m old and that I´m almost done... That´s really weird to think about! The time is going by so fast!

Well, I really don´t have much to say for this week and I forgot my little USB adaptor for my SD card, so I can´t send pictures this week either... so you´ll just all have to wait for the next week! I love you all so much! I hope you are enjoying the cold while I take on the heat! There is so much in this sector to change so that the work of the Lord can progress. I know that things will get better and that we´ll baptize, I have no doubt about that. Nothing is going to stop me! I know that the Lord will help us! I love you all! It´s almost Christmas Time!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrett

December 3, 2012

Hey there everybody!

Wow this past week seemed to go by way too fast... and here I am at the end of another cambio, and officially I won´t be with Elder Hughes anymore, neither will I be in this sector! How sad! I´ve loved my time in Talcahuano Centro by the ocean, with the hills, and the great people. I´ve enjoyed my time so much with Elder Hughes too! I´m really going to miss this place, but I know that the Lord needs me somewhere else now!

I´m going to continue to be a District Leader, woot! And I´m being transfered to Los Ángeles, Chile! Jaja, All I know is that it is going to be really hot there... It is one of the hottest areas in the mission during the summer... so I´m going to die! T.T Blah! I´m going to miss the ocean breeze. Well, I´m going to be with an Elder named Elder Hinckley. I have no idea if he has any relation to President Hinckley, so I wouldn´t know how to respond! :P So, it will be a fun adventure!

Speaking of fun adventures, Elder Hughes and I had a fun adventure this past week. At 6 a.m. one day I was woken up to a phone call from the Sister Missionaries in my District. I answered the phone and all I heard was sobbing and yelling and laughing. They were hysterical! I was a little afraid something bad had happened at first, but then they screamed... "SAVE US!!!! THERE ARE RATS!!!!!!" :P It reminded me so much of Britt waking me up in the middle of the night to go kill a bug in her room or something. So Elder Hughes and I went armed with knives and ninja stars to go kill the rats at the hermanas house. We got there after 30 mins of traveling and we searched the house to see if there were rats, but we couldn´t find any... but there was a big hole in the floor where a rat could easily enter and leave from. So we went on a 2 hour adventure to go find a place that sells rat poison, and then we set the rat poison down for the hermanas. During the night we had to go back to thier house to clean up the poison, and the hermanas informed us that they were moving from that house to a different house. So then the next 2 days we came to help the hermanas move all of the stuff that they have! Haha, they were quite grateful for our help, especially since the zone leaders blew them off and only told them to go pray :P it was a fun adventure, but it left us a little exhausted. ^_^

Well, other than that fun adventure, it´s been a pretty fast solid week. We´ve been working hard and now two more people are going to get baptized the 22nd of December in this sector. Elder Hughes and I prepared them well! When I said goodbye to the ward yesterday, there was a big gasp of surprise and a lot of sadness that I have to go to another sector. These past 6 months have gone by so quickly. A lot of the members thanked me for helping the ward and their families out, there were a lot of tears! I really didn´t do much, it was all the Lord though! ^_^ So now my new adventure starts tomorrow in Los Ángeles, wish me luck! I love you all so much! Happy December!

Con amor,

Elder Garrett

My super awesome district and zone! ^_^

November 26, 2012

Hey there everybody!

This past week seemed to go by pretty fast! It didn´t feel like Thanksgiving really happened at all, Elder Hughes and I tried to make it the best that we could though! We cooked up 7 packages of noodles and 10 eggs to have a nice Thanksgiving feast! We didn´t feel to wonderful afterwards, and then when we went to lunch we ended up having spaghetti too! jajajaja, it was really funny and we were all noodled out after that!

This past week we were able to see some more progress in our sector with some of the members we have been working with. Preach my Gospel gave us a hint on how we can recieve more references from the members, so we tried it to see what we could do! In the end we recieved 52 references from members, that is 51 more references than we usually recieve. And not only that, we were able to find a few new investigators thanks to the members! Woot! :) So the things are getting a bit easier for us here in our sector, we need more people to teach! So we are finding more people to teach!

We have also been going around with our list of the members so that we can try to visit all the members, innactive or active... and to see if some of the inactives want to come back to church. It turns out that a lot of people on our 900+ list of members don´t live in our sector anymore.... thanks to that there are a lot of marines that live in our sector and after a few years they move... and a lot of the directions existed... but they don´t now because the houses were destroyed in the earthquake, so this past week we were cleaning up the list of the members to find out who really exists still or not. Quite a fun work!

This past week was a little stressful too because it turns out that maybe we could have had two more baptizms, but the parents of one of our investigators neglected to tell us that the dad returned home so that he could baptize them... but now he works every single weekend, so we need to find a moment to talk to them and set a day during the week to have the baptizm. This is probably the last week Elder Hughes and I will be together... and we don´t think that they will be baptized this week, probably next week. If I´m here in the sector still or not the next cambio, I´ll be happy either way because I was able to teach Ignacio and Francisca the gospel! :) It´s fun to be a missionary and to be able to preach the gospel to the people! I know that this is the true church! I feel it everyday as I teach with my comp and the spirit!

Well, it is almost December too.... weird... I´m still not used to it being hot during this time in the year. All Elder Hughes and I know is that we are getting tired of all the spiders that we are finding in the church, in the house, etc. There are so many spiders! Yuck! We cleaned the church on Saturday and we went on a spider killing adventure. We killed at least 14 of the same poisones spider (El Rincón) in the primary room. That spider is so deadly that it can kill someone in a day! I don´t like spiders one bit... but there is an opposition in all things, right? I would just rather not have spiders though.... yucky!

Well, work work and more work... working in the Lord´s vineyard. I don´t think there is much someone could compare to working as a missionary. It´s amazing, I love it! I miss you all very much, but I´m glad that I still have more time to be a full time missionary to help others come into Christ! I´m looking forward to seeing my fam on Christmas! Take care everyone!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrett