June 17, 2013

 Hey there everybody!

So, I´m down to my last 8 weeks here in Chile... today I went to the mission office to see all the missionaries that go home today... it was really weird. It was kinda a smack in the face that gave me a wake up call saying, "HEY!!! YOU¨RE GOING HOME SOON" Don´t remind me!!!! Haha, it is going to be hard to leave Chile.

Well, other than that traumatizing experience, this week was a pretty good week and even though none of our investigators showed up to church because of Father´s Day, we were able to find some new people to teach and the investigators we have are progressing a little bit more everyday! :) So I'm pretty happy about that. 

We found out that one of our investigators who won´t get baptized is really just scared that anything. She even told us that she wants to get baptized! Haha, sometimes I feel like as missionaries we are Psycologists too... One time a general authority told us that missionaries do everything, they can be anything and will do anything if it is what the Lord requires of us. It only makes me think that when there are scriptures that say that they "convinced" the people to change and accept the gospel, I feel like that they had already accepted the gospel in thier hearts, only they were confused in their heads as to take the decision! So that´s what we are doing now, just trying to help our investigators the best we can.

This week was also a really active week when it comes to excersizing! I´ve been help my comp do some pretty intense cardio excersizes because he wants to start losing a bit of weight! I tell him that he shouldn´t eat so many completos and empanadas, even if they are so delicious! :) But his legs are so sore now he tells me, haha! He will get used to it soon!  

Well, just so you know, I´m getting moved to the Chile Concepción Mission in a week or two. I´m going to stay in the same sector and with my comp, I´ll just be in the other mission for the last few weeks of my mission, so it really won´t be a big change at all. But it will be interesting! Well, that was my week! I love you all so much! We went on an adventure to a beach today! It was a lot of fun! Happy Father´s day Dad! I love you so much! You are the best Dad I could ever ask for! I hope you had a good Father´s Day! :)

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrétt

June 10, 2013

Hey there everybody,

Well, sorry I couldn´t write at all last week, we took a trip to the south end of my mission to go say goodbye to everyone in Temuco, in my sector of Llaima. It was an amazing experience and I was able to see my convert Roberto. He is doing so great and is preparing to recieve the Melquesidec Priesthood! ;) And he is preparing to go to the temple!!! Woot!!!! That made me so happy that I cried a little bit with him! Haha, you never know what kind of impact you are going to make in the lives of others.

Well, this last week we were able to get a lot done. We have been working hard to find some new people, and we found a family of about 100 bajillion people... okay, maybe not that much, but there are a lot of people who live in that house. :) So we are excited and ready to find even more people to teach and to help everyone come unto Christ.

This last week I had two meetings with Presidente Martinez. The first meeting was for all the district leaders in the north part of the mission and the second meeting was earlier today and it was for all the trainers and the newbies... kinda like a checkup. Elder Miranda and I are doing fantastic and we were able to make some great goals for these next coming weeks before I finish my mission. We are so excited to work and we want to help so many people.

Can you believe that I only have 2 more months left in the mission here in Chile? Time is going by so quickly, but I know that my mission won´t end here. I´m so excited to keep progressing in my life and to keep growing as a child of God. I´ve been learning a lot from Elder Miranda, he has taught me so much. He just finished reading the book of Mormón for his first time ever in his life. He thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. I was so excited every day to hear what he could learn while reading and it was so much fun to see how excited he got. We should all learn to love the scriptures so much in our life! If you´re not studying the scriptures everyday, do it!! There is so much power in the word of god that we need in this life! The words of our Heavenly Father and of our saviour and of the profets are there for our benifit!

I love you all so much! I hope that you all have a fantastic week! Take care!!!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrétt

 

May 27, 2013

Well, another week past, and this time I´m writing you all soaking wet! A huge storm is passing through Talcahuano and Concepción for a few days.... so I´ll be soaking wet for a few days I suppose! ^_^

So, Elder Miranda and I are still in our long and never ending search for new people to teach... I love it! You get to talk to so many people... I just feel bad that my comp hasn´t had a full day of just teaching people yet.... at least he is learning good skills with contacting so that in the future he will be a machine!

So until now, we really only have 2 investigators that are progressing, and they both are just in a standstill more than anything. One of them is named Sylvia. She is the mom of a recent convert here in the ward and she´s gone to church I don´t know how many times! Haha. She loves the missionaries and she loves learning about the gospel. She just won´t take the decision to get baptized.... she is just scared so we are trying to help her out so that she will be able to grow in her testimony. So really should could decide in any moment and that would be awesome, we´ve been praying so much for her.

Our other investigator is someone that I was teaching when I first arrived in Chile. Now all she wants is to be baptized and progress... she just has to move out of where she is living because she is living with her boyfriend and she doesn´t want to marry him... (I hope I haven´t told you all this before!) So we are trying to help her find a new place to live and to keep her righteous desires growing so that she can move on with her life. We´ve tried teaching her boyfriend, but he doesn´t want a thing with the church.. it´s a tough situation.

All this week we were doing random service projects with the member and helping out with the things in the ward. The key to if we are going to be able to help out the ward is to get the whole ward unified and working with us in the missionary work. This ward has gone through some tough times in the past, so things are a little tough, but Elder Miranda and I want to help so much to be able to help our Lord´s Kingdom grow here in this sector. I know that with the Lord´s help we will be able to do it!

So, aside from that, Elder Miranda and I are enjoying so much every day in the missionary work. We are pretty unified and I´m so happy to have Elder Miranda as my comp. He is so willing to learn and to grow, and we´ve been growing so much together. Just one night Elder Miranda fell on top of me... he broke the bunk bed, so later I tied him to his bed with some string! It was funny in the morning when he tried to get out of bed. Haha.

So, the work moves on. I love you all so much! I hope you are all well!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrétt

(Mom and Dad... P.s. Sorry if I don´t write next week... I might be down in Temuco to go say goodbye to people, so I might not have enough time to write! I love you all so much!)

 

May 20, 2013

So how is everyone doing?

Things are going great here, just getting a little colder now. In our tin house you really feel the cold seeping in, but luckily we have lots of blankets to keep us warm!

This past week was a little difficult, we really have no one to teach.... The other missionaries that were here before us didn´t really leave much to work with, We had to organize the huge list of old investigators and organize a lot of information in the house, but now we have passed that big hurdle and now on to the next one, finding people to teach!

We were able to be guided by the Spirit to find a few new people this week, it was amazing to see the few small miracles that happened when we felt like there was no hope left. We recieved one night a reference from some sister missionaries from a different ward, so we went to find the house.... It didn´t exist and so we felt like we should contact the house right next to where we were. In the end, we found a family that was passing for a hard time in thier lives, so we really feel like for some reason we recieved a bad reference and we found this family!

The whole week we were trying to find new people, contacts, references, etc... anything that we could think of, but it was just one of those weeks that are just a big test! From frigid temperatures, to really cold rain, we passed through it all with smiles and we just love being missionaries. My comp, Elder Miranda, is really excited to work and to help people, even though sometimes he is a little scared to talk to strangers, but he will get over that soon! So, we just need to keep trusting in the spirit and that we will be able to help those we have to get baptized and that all the other people can come unto Christ as well!

So, other than that, life goes on, the mission goes by so quickly, and I´m enjoying every moment of the mission and the cold that I can before I have to go home! I love you all so much! YOu are all so wonderful and I hope you are all doing what you need to be doing in the gospel! Always be praying!!!!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrétt

Today we went to the zoo too!!! :)

 

May 13, 2013

Hey there Everybody!!!

Well, here I am again, another quick week has passed!!!

I´m here again in my first sector and it is really weird to be honest. I love it and I love the people here and it is great to see that everyone was really happy to have me here in the Ward again. A few of my investigators from when I started the mission are still my investigators now, and some of the people who I taught are members now! I´ve been able to catch up with a lot of the members and together we are starting to work well to edify God´s kingdom here in Esmeralda. In the end it was a little hard to have to leave Galvarino after so many months, but I am already used to living here in Esmeralda, so it wasn´t a completely new change.

And here I am with my second son in the mission, Elder Miranda. He is from Peru, my first Peruvian comp. And only my 4th latin american comp. Wow! He questions why I speak with an argentine accent if I´m from the U.S.... it makes me laugh! I just told him that I´m an "Argengringo". That´s the best and simplest way to explain why a gringo in Chile talks like someone from Argentina.

Well, he is a newbie in the mission but has a lot of desires to work and to progress and to help our investigators, I´m so happy for that! He is so willing to learn how to do all of the things we do as missionaries, and I´m so happy to teach him and to help him progress. We don´t have many investigators at all in this moment, so this next week will be a lot of us searching for families to teach. I want to help so many people!!! I love the mission so much.

It´s pretty chilly here in Talcahuano, just how I remember it from last year during this time, but I love it and it isn´t stopping me one bit from working as hard as I can. Yesterday apart from seeing my family and being able to talk with them for mother´s day and for my dad´s birthday, (I love you all so much, it was so great to see you all!!!!) I was also able to see a missionary from this ward who is serving in Peru that my trainer and I reactivated when I first came to Chile. He thanked me for helping him come back to church, and now he is in the Lord´s work too! :) That was an amazing experience, we never know what impact we will have in the lives of others!

Well, today we had interviews with Presidente Martinez, I always love my interviews with him. We talked about how I´ve been in the mission, spiritual experiences, and just how amazing the Lord´s work is. I value every moment I have to talk with him. I cried a lot bearing my testimony to him, I felt the spirit very strongly with him... I´m really close to him in the mission. He thanked me for all that I´m doing as a missionary and that he has been grateful to have known me and to have had me in the mission. He just wants me to be me always and to be the happy me that I am to help others! I agree! I always want to be crazy and happy! :)

So, that´s all that´s been happening! Also, I´m including pictures of the same house where we are, but it had a small upgrade... it is still a little shack, but a lot better from when I arrived! I love you all so much! Until next week!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrétt

May 6, 2013

Hey there everybody!!!

Well, another week gone, and now I´m moving on from this sector to what will be my last sector I´m sure... So the adventure in the mission field continues! As I write, I am filled with emotion and lots of memories of this sector of Galvarino... finaly it is starting to get cold here just as I am leaving... The winter time is finally coming to greet me! ^_^

Well, this past week was a really nice week.... it went by so quickly with our normal district meetings, a Mission Conference, weekly planning, english class, etc. There were so many activities that the only time we weren´t doing a thing was sleeping! It was so fast paced and we were able to get a lot done with our investigators.

We had a lot of success in the ward this past week... aside from my comp going on a "YOU HAVE TO DO THIS OR ELSE" spree with some of the lessons.... he doesn´t have patience with the people we teach....but it is an interesting learning experience. Nothing gets done if you don´t teach with love! ^_^ But we were able to leave a lot with the members to get them excited about sharing the gospel and the things in this ward are finally starting to take root in the hearts of the members. So the work of the Lord in this sector will finally grow into something huge now! ^_^ I´m more than happy to have helped with that! We were also able to put 8 baptizm dates for the near future with our investigators, so hopefully Elder Swensen will be able to do everything well. He is going to recieve a lot of responsability really soon... he´s going to train a newbie, and be district leader for the first time.... He´s really nervous, but I´m sure he will do well!

This past week was also my Birthday! Thanks for all the birthday wishes! ^_^ It poured on my birthday! I was really happy about that! I love the rain!!!!! It was a really nice present. And aside from that, Elder Swensen was able to throw a surprise party for me with a really nice family that I love so much. We reactivated them, and two sisters in the family are doing their mission papers to go on a mission! Woot! It was a wonder birthday and we ate a lot of food, there were presents and such, it was just wonderful. I really wasn´t expecting it at all. I was so happy.

We had some really great lessons too with our investigators and some people came asking to be baptized, so that was pretty awesome. This really is the Lord´s work and he is constantly preparing people to recieve the gospel. Sometimes I just laugh because God does things so much better than we do! ^_^ We are also in the process of helping a family be completed in the gospel. The father in the family is a drunk, the mom is super nice but not a member, and two kids are active members. We were finally able to get the father to listen to us and he really has desires to change his life because the family is going through some hard times. The came to church and stayed for all the hours and they really liked it... so we will see what we can do to help them get to the temple one day! ^_^ The gospel really does change lives!!!

Well, here is my cambio....

First: I´m going to continue as District Leader...

Second: I´m going to be training.... AGAIN....

and Third: I´m going to go back to my very first sector in the mission in Talcahuano, Esmeralda.

I´m filled with lots of thoughts and feelings.... but they are all good. I´m really excited to train and to be able to go to my first sector. I´m going to hit the ground running there this time because I know everyone and I know the sector. It´s going to be great. So, here I am in my last 12 weeks of the mission... how the time flies! I love you all so much! God loves us always!!!! Take care! Happy Mother´s day Mom, and happy birthday Dad on mothers day! I can´t wait to see you all family!!!

Con mucho amor, Elder Garrett