A Racist and a Meat Stick

Hola familia y amigos!  Entonces this week was definitely a little bit slower, especially when it comes to the spiritual experiences, so I apologize in advance that I don't have any spiritual stories!  Last week can make up for it because that was one of the coolest weeks of my entire life.

BUT I still have a good deal of stories.

Tuesday!!  Tuesday was one of the most interesting days of my life, and in case you were wondering about the subject of this email, it's Tuesday's fault.

Let me explain.

So starting new changes is always kind of a rough and slow experience, even though Elder Hadlock and I are staying together things slow down a little bit because you don't really have planners and other people in your house are kind of adjusting.  Elder Hadlock the other day told me a story about how the firstTuesday of his second change in his training his companion called the mission nurse and asked if they could have a day to relax because they were just so dead.  She let them take it off until 6:00 kind of like a second P-Day to recooperate a little bit so they'd work harder the rest of the week.  At the beginning of this week I felt myself start to burn out a little bit, which isn't good since I only have 3 months in the mission, so when Elder Hadlock told me this story I have to admit that I thought ''You know, that'd actually be really nice right now.  Buut I know that I can work and so I'm a go work hard today anyway and I'll be blessed for it.''  Then, even though we did go out and work Tuesday, I think I had one of the most entertaining days of my entire life.

Let the stories commence.

ENTONCES at the beginning of the change we decided to drop some of our investigators that we just couldn't pas by often enough to help them progress because they were never in their houses.  Really sad reason to drop someone, but you gotta do what you gotta do.  So for the first time in quite a few weeks now we had time to do some contacting.  The amazing thing is, we got three new investigators that day!!  Just so  you know, that never happens.  EVER.  We got three new investigators, and they're great investigators too.  The funny thing is that we dropped three investigators that morning, so now after just one day our plates are completely full again.

Another story, we were contacting when we saw a man through a window painting inside his house.  As we do to contact Chilean houses, we stood outside of his gate and yelled ''Alo!!''  and then he looked at us and opened the window.  Here's the conversation:

Elder Hadlock:  ''Hey can we help you paint?''

Man:  ''No''

Elder Hadlock:  ''Shoota, why not?''

Man:  ''You don't paint.''

Elder Hadlock:  ''...And we can't learn?''

Man:  ''No.''

Elder Hadlock:  ''Shooootaa... what's your name then?''

Man:  ''I'm racist.''

Elder Hadlock:  ''..........Okay... see ya later then''

Then he closed his window without saying anything, I was giving it everything I could not to laugh while the man could still see me, then Elder Hadlock said ''Well that's hard to contest.''  And I started laughing so hard the tears were rolling down my face.  Keep in mind, some people here don't like North Americans.  My companion is half Indian, but he can pass for being either a dark Latino or a just black North American.  I'm not sure if it was me or him that he was refering to when he told us that he was racist, but regardless it was hilarious.

Another story!  Elder Hadlock and I have a ton of fun together.  I'm not gunna lie, at times we have waaaaaaay too much fun together in public.  But it's okay because it laughter is very thereputic (I'm not even going to try to spell that right.)  Anyway sometimes we do this thing where whenever we're acting panicked, frustrated, or angry, we talk in Spanish extremely quickly in extremely high voices.  It's hilarious, remind me to do it with you guys when we Skype.  Anywho, we talk so high and fast that sometimes it sounds less like Spanish and more like gobbling turkeys.  So Tuesday walking back to the apartment we were doing this when two Chileans walking behind us heard us and started imitating us.  The followed us around for like 15 minutes just gobbling like turkeys, to some people that'd be really obnoxious but I just thought it was hilarious, and ironic because we were actually speaking Spanish, their language.  Elder Hadlock started yelling back to them in English too just for fun like ''HA... HA!!  YOu can't understand us cuz we're speaking English!!  HAH!!!!''  It was really funny.

Another story!  This one's the finale.  This is probably one of the strangest things that's every happened to me.  We were still walking to our apartment (it takes about an hour) but this is after the turkey-people.  Two veeeeery drunk people stop us in our tracks and start talking in English to us, which I was a little surprised.  Just the basic hi, how are you, what your name, where you from, that kind of stuff.  Then after that brief exchange he started counting to ten in English, which took him a few tries because he was very drunk.  The guy talking to us wasn't tooooo bad, but his friend was too intoxicated to say anything.  He was swaying back and forth really badly, and started to lean on Elder Hadlock for support.  The guy talking to us had bags full of something that I couldn't see.  I was fighting a smile the entire time because of the friend who was swaying so badly, and because of the turkey-people I was already in a laughy mood.  That's when the guy talking to us reached in his bag and pulled out what looked like an other-worldy sea shell with odd holes in odd places and handed to Elder Hadlock, who took it relunctantly.  I stared at it for a while trying to figure out what it was, and while the man was reaching for another one to give to me I asked Elder Hadlock quietly in English ''...what is that?'' then Elder Hadlock replied ''I don't know.... but I think it's alive.''  That's when I saw weird pincher things start poking out of the random holes and pinch out at the air around it.  I had to turn away from the men and laugh for a little bit, I couldn't help myself.  They were giving us crabs.  Live, inedible crabs.  Then the man offered me one and still surpressing a laugh I turned to him and took my live crab, very carefully making sure all the holes were poking away from my hand.  That's when his friend tipped over into a grassy area on the side of the sidewalk and I, shocked and amused, let out a snort in my attempts to surpress laughter.  Then, we shook their hands, and with live (and probably rather frightened) crabs in hand we started our journey for home again.

We hadn't walked 100 yards when the owner of a little tienda on the street stopped us and asked what we were carrying.  We told them that we were honestly not quite sure, just that they had limbs in weird places and we could feel them moving.  They told us that it was a type of crab that's inedible, and that the shell is actually a part of it's body and that's why all the limbs are in different places with every crab.  I seriously don't know how they move.  Anyway, the owner of the shop kindly offered to take the crabs off our hands and dispose of them somehow.  That's when the shop owners wife took two meat stick things (like cabobs but it's one long thing of meat) of the stove out front and gave them to us with pan and a napkin for each of us.  We were very greatful and told them how kind they were, then told them we'd pass by later and went on our way.  With surprise meat sticks instead of crabs in hand, Elder Hadlock turned to me and said ''I think this might just be the strangest day of my life.''  I laughed, and agreed.

The meat sticks were really good too.

So that's my story of Tuesday!  There were actually two more funny stories in the day but I don't want to spend too much time on just Tuesday.  I knew that I couldn't really take a break that day with a clear conscious, so I worked anyway.  Then, God went ahead and said ''Yeah, I know I can't give you a long break, but what I can give you is 3 new investigators, two drunk people, turkey-people, two live crabs, a racist, and a meat stick.''

Thanks God, I think I actually really needed that.

ENTONCES the next few days were really strange because Elder Hadlock had to go to Rancagua for a training of new District Leaders up there.  So I just returned from Talca on Wednesday with Elder Schley and his new trainee.  The trainee is really cool, his name is Elder Rodriguez and he's from Mexico.  Luckily, he understands English well so when I'm too lazy to speak in Spanish we're still all good.  That night we couldn't do anything because we had to let him unpack, and then the next day as a trio was a little odd, but still fun.  We went to the overlook out of the forrest that Elder Hadlock and I went to that one time to see the sunset over the Piedra de la Iglesia and the beach and it was easily the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen in my life.  Don't worry, I'll send pictures.  That night Elder Hadlock came back with the zone leaders and we all went to a birthday party that Karina (One of the good friends of ours that we're teaching Engtlish to) was throwing in her house.  That night the zone leaders stayed with us which was really fun, then journeyed back to Talca the next morning.

That was my week!  Until next week!

Elder Fox

The Great Multiplier - a Tale of Earthquakes and Baptisms

Whoooooa this week was crazy!  I think I have enough crazy mission stories after just this week to last me a lifetime!  Enserio though!  I'm glad that none of you flipped out as a result of the earthquake, Elder Anuarve's Dad called the assistants and the other Elders got panicked emails from their parents.  When it happened I thought how the phone's were down, there was an 8.3 earthquake, I live on the coast, and President is probably going to send an email that night about what happened and he'd have to say he hadn't gotten ahold of the Conti Elders yet.  But I'm glad you all were faithful and remained calm :)

First the earthquake!  It was an 8.3 up somewhere in Antofaghasta, which is waaaaaaaaaay far from where we are.  But, incredibly enough, we felt it here in Conti as an earthquake higher than a 5.0.  Some people have been telling us that it was a 6.00 here in Conti, which I would actually believe.

Now the story!  The 18 of September (their Independence Day) was this Friday, but the ward decided to hold the activity on Thursday the day before rather than to hold it the day of, because it just makes it easier for everyone.  So we were in the church Wednesday night juuuuust starting to decorate for the huge activity the next day when it hit.  The certains started swaying back and forth, but then it got stronger.  It wasn't just rumbling, you could feel the waves ripple through the earth, and the motions were big.  It was just strong enough that walking and standing were a little weird, but not big enough to cause any real damage.  It was actually one of the coolest things I've ever felt, I took a video.  It passed after about a minute, and because everyone was fine and nothing really happened I assumed that we'd just resume decorating.  But I was very wrong.  All of the smartphones in the room started going off with the emergency alert, and outside the sirens started blaring and people started yelling.  Then I remembered:

Flip, we're on the coast.

I asked a nearby member if there was really a possibility of a tsunami with an earthquake so small, when he told me that it was higher than an 8 somewhere else.  We gathered all of our stuff in a hurry and left the church.  It was absolute chaos.  The last tsunami that completely destroyed the city was only 5 years ago, so fear of these kinds of things still runs strong in these poor people.  City sirens and alarms were blazing everywhere, and the streets were extremely crowded with people going to the hills.  The streets were completely packed, the cars couldn't move anywhere for the amount of the people trying to leave the city.  It was kind of stressful, I'm not gunna lie, and I was a little worried that my sector might be in real jeaprody, since it's right on the coast.  Contemplating the possibility of my mission becoming a service mission real soon, us Elders discussed what to do.  Obviously, we needed to go to a tsunami safety zone, which are always marked with signs.  But, very luckily, our apartment is actually in a safety zone.  So we just went home.  Kind of an anticlimactic ending to such an intense story but that's what happened.  We didn't have any cell service the rest of the night and we didn't have power or water the next morning, but Conti wasn't hit by anything big enough to cause real damage to the city.  The coastal houses were likely hit pretty bad, but we haven't been over there yet so we aren't sure.  We stopped by a store right by our apartment on the way home and bought coke, delicious chilean bread, and bananas, then snacked in our apartment as the world was ending.  It was actually kind of fun, not gunna lie.  Then we actually hiked the huge hill behind our apartment to see everything from above.  We had a gorgeous view of all of Conti, but there wasn't a car or a moving soul in sight because by that point everyone had left.  It was cool, we had a good time.

Tuesday we went on splits and the District Leader came here to Conti to interview María for her baptism.  It was fun leading the day for the first time, since I stayed here and Elder Hadlock went to Talca this time.

Thursday morning we didn't have power for a good long while, but it eventually came back and we were able to finally decorate the church for the activity that evening.  From there, we managed to get La'Cote, her friend, and Carina to the activity.  They're our good friends who teach English, and probably our best friends in the mission to be honest.  We talked to them a lot about the activity before and they decided that they wanted to go, which was awesome.  The ward was very welcoming and got them very involved in the games and such, which was awesome of them.  We played this game where someone is sitting on a chair in the cultural hall and the person sitting in the chair has to answer a question about Chilean history.  If they get it right, they're safe.  If not, they get an egg splat on their heads.  BUT, over half of the eggs are boiled.  Elder Anuarve made me play it, even though of course I don't know anything about Chilean history, he pushed me into the chair so then of course I had to stay.  Of course, I got the answer wrong, then I took my planner out of my pocket and took off my tie and put it in my pocket.  Hna. Alegría, another good friend of mine in the mission, then came with paper towels and started wrapping me with them.  It was hilarious.  Then they took an egg and counted down ''tres... dos... uno...'' when I felt cold egg white all over my head.  Elder Hadlock told me later that the members felt the eggs until they found one that hadn't been boiled for me.  Those sneaky members.  I had egg all over me, my shirt, and my pants.  And I walked home for a mile like that, with my tie off.  It was hilarious, but I hope that not too many people saw me.

Friday!  Friday we actually could go out and work until 8:00 but we ended up spending the whole day in service.  They told us we'd be ''moving some furniture around'' but then it turned out that we were ''moving their entire flipping house.''  Seriously, they were moving, and we helped them pack up everything they owned in boxes and moving it to their new house.  It was fun service though, and the day wouldn't have been very productive anyway because it was the 18th of Septmeber.

Saturday!  Saaaaaturday.  Saturday was the craziest day of my entire life thus far, and I really hope that I have time to tell this story.  Here's where the first part of the subject of this email makes sense.  Saturday was Marías baptism, so we needed to go early to the church to fill the font and prepare and clean everything so that we could have a nice baptismal service.

So, baptismal fonts here take a very long time to fill up.  Like a very long time, just because hot water here is not something that can happen very fast.  It takes about 2 hours to fill your average baptismal font, and some fonts it can take up to 5 hours to fill.   We were pretty sure that this font was a 2 hour font because the Hermanas told us that it should take about that long, so we planned accordingly.  Sadly, however, we were kept a little late at lunch because the Hermana wanted to stuff so full that we'd explode, but we still got there at about 3:30 when the baptism was scheduled for 5:00.  We started the font as soon as we got there, but at 4:30 it was very clear that this wasn't a 2 hour font.  After an hour, the font had about a foot of water in it.  Only a foot.  We had no idea what to do.

So in these churches here in Chile there's always a fire hose that's in a glass case attached to a wall, and they are huge.  There happened to be one of these right next to the font.

So we had no idea what to do, when Elder Schley told us that he had used the firehose to fill a font in his last sector, and that putting only hot water in the font after that it managed to get warm enough.  So, though our minds were screaming ''this is the STUPIDEST thing you could possibly do!!!!'' we felt we had little other choice and decided to go ahead with it.  It was going great at first, until after about 30 seconds filthy brown water started coming out of the hose.

Why, why would we assume the water would be clean?  Just why?  We're in South America.  Anyway, I digress.

So we turned the hose off as fast as we could, but the deed was done, and the font water was brown and filthy.  There's another problem with these fonts, they take as long to drain as they take to fill.  It took another 15 minutes just to get the water out, helping it go faster by running to and from the font with buckets and vacuums.  By the time the font was empty again, we had no time.  The problem was that Marías family was only there for that day and needed to leave right after the service, and everybody was probably already on their way to the service.  So there was nothing we could do to postpone the service.  We needed nothing less than a miracle for this to go alright.

SO we jumped into action.  No other faucet or sink in the church has hot water other than the baptismal font, so we needed to heat water as fast as we could.  We had huge pots full of water on all the stoves and in the oven, and beyond that we were running to and from the sink to the font with giant buckets just filling it with cold water.  We knew the font wasn't going to be very warm or very full, and both of those things are a huge problem given that María is very very very old.  But still, we were doing everything that we possibly could, but it wasn't enough.  There was no way it could be enough, the circumstanes were simply impossible to contend with.  I was stressed out of my mind, I was about to perform a live baptism in a half an hour but I didn't have the Spirit with me at all.  Which was stressing me out even worse.  Flip.

At this point, María and her family came, so I directed them into the chapel and played prelude music for them, forgetting everything that was going wrong on the other side of the church where they were trying to get the font full.  I got to sit and play ''Nearer My God to Thee'' for a good long while, calm down, and just meditate.  I prayed to have the Spirit with me again, and I felt the calming influence and the countenance of Christ return to me.  After some more meditation, I remembered something obvious, but crucial.  Jesus Christ is the Great Multiplier.  I prayed, saying this:

''Jesus Christ turned the water into wine at the wedding feast, and he fed the 5000 with only a few pieces of bread and a few small fishes, and He still lives.  So I know, without a doubt in my mind, that He can fill a baptismal font and make the water warm.  Please Father, we are trying absolutely everything that we can.''

After this I changed into my baptismal clothes and came back to the chapel and played more prelude.  Then the meeting started and I went and took a seat with María, when Elder Hadlock came back to me and told me that he wasn't sure if it was going to work, that the water was still very low and extremely cold.  I continued, though difficultly, thinking in faith that the font can be filled and become warm.  After the few short talks, the time for the realization of the ordinance came.  I walked to the font, and opened the door to find that the font was completely full, almost overflowing.  I stepped in the water, and it was the perfect bathtub temperature, just warmer than my skin.  Then I smiled like an idiot to myself and nearly started crying on the spot, just thinking ''yeah, that's right, God's our friend.''  It was nothing less than a miracle, scientists and sceptics could talk my ear off for hours convincing me of the imposibility of matter appearing from nothing and the imposibility of an existing divinity to intervene but I know that God filled that font.  After every ounce of effort that we could possibly put forth, God simply took care of the rest, according to our faith, and our humility.

Christ said that we must become as little children and be converted unto Him.  This means that in order to become converted, we must first become as little children.  Perfectly humble, true, faithful, but most especially, completely 100% reliant on Him.  We need to need Him.  We can do everything that we can do but in the end it's Him that'll fill the font.  And He always will, if we consecrate our lives to Him and become reliant on Him, having faith, all things are possible.

The actualy baptism was a little rocky because she's very old and we had to try a few different things to get it to work, but after it was done she was so happy it was all worth it.  It was my first baptism in the mission, and I actually got to perform it, and the same day I saw a miracle.  Overall, it was one of the most special experiences of my life, and there likely won't be many like it.

This testimony I have now more than ever, that we have not grown past the age of miracles, and we never will.  As long as there is faith, there are mircales.

Before I end my letter, there's just one more thing.  We found out the changes last night, and Elder Hadlock and I are both staying in Conti.  Elder Anuarve's going somewhere else, but Elder Schley is actually going to train this change so there'll be a brand new trainee in the house!  I'm so excited, it'll be a blast!

Until next week, I love you all and I pray for you every day.  Love you!  Remember how much God loves you.

Elder Fox

Seeing

¡Hola amigos! ¿Como están ustedes?

This week was really weird!  And I know that I left of in the middle of a story last week but I'm actually gunna finish it at the end of this email, but I'm going to finish it!  Promise!  Pinky swear!

So we weren't able to teach Rina again this week, which was pretty disappointing I'm not going to lie.  She also couldn't go to church so her date fell.  She seems to be busy preparing things for the 18 de Septiembre with the city council and such, and if she's not busy she's sick or tired or says she needs rest from working with the city council so much.  It'd be totally fine if all that's true, but what happens here a lot is that people feel good about the church then their family talks them out of it and give them a bunch of anti.  If that happened that would extremely disappointing to say the least, but we're pretty hopeful that that didn't happen because her faith was already so strong just in our first lesson.  I'll keep you posted for next week!

Mauricio!  Mauricio was our other golden investigator who didn't drink or smoke or drink coffee or tea... buuuuut it turns out he's already a member.  Which does explain a lot, granted, but it was still extremely funny and very strange finding out that our investigator with a baptismal date has been baptized for years already.  He must not have his memory completely intact, he's not very old and he seemed very normal to us.  Last time we visited him he told us that his nephew was a member (and he's actually a regularly attending member) so we talked to his nephew at church who told us that he was a already a member.  I laughed, for a very long time.  We found his membership record later just to make certain.  It explains why he doesn't drink coffee or tea, for certain.  Our weekly planning yesterday with regards to him was really entertaining:

Me:  ''So I guess we need to move Mauricio from a f1 to an inactive member                  now...  What should our goal for him be this week?''

Elder Hadlock:  ''Let's put... get him to remember that he's a member''

Then daily planning

Me:  ''So what are we gunna teach Mauricio tomorrow?''

Elder Hadlock: ''We'll teach him 'already being a member', that's a lesson I haven't taught in a while.''

It was hilarious.

Meanwhile, however, María is progressing towards her baptism this Saturday, the only thing more we need to do is get her interview done with the district leader.  I'll be performing the baptism, so I'm really excited!  She's really old though, so I'm a little nervous about being careful enough.  Pray for me that I won't break her!  Kidding.  Just jokes... mostly.

Wednesday we had zone conference which was a awesome, it was all about setting goals and making plans.  It was excellent, I learned a ton.  I'm glad that I can least understand all of the Spanish said in the conferences and meetings and such, even though I definitely don't understand everything that the Chileans say yet.  After zone conference we visited the hospital in Talca for a bit so stop by some members and then we took a bus all the way up to Rancagua (3 hours) because the next day was reunión de los nuevos, or newbie meeting.  We slept in the assistants house that night (had some excellent gospel discussion with the assistants) then went to the meeting the next day.  Seeing most of my CCM district again at the meeting definitely made my week.  It was awesome to see that they were all doing so well and seemed so happy, and their Spanish had all improved immensely too.  It was a lot of fun just talking to them about what's been going on the last 5 weeks since we had seen each other last.  That meeting was really good too, I learned a lot.  We had the opportunity to ask Presidente any questions that we had for about an hour, which was a really good idea, because we all had a lot.

Today's P-day was a lot of fun, but I'm very tired.  We went on a train that runs by the river by Conti all the way to Talca, but we got off the train at the first stop and walked the tracks on the way back.  It's reeeeeally pretty over there, and it was a very fun hike.  My favorite part was a giant bridge across the river where you can see the river winding through the green hills and empty into the ocean, it was fantastic.  We walked about 10 miles though, so we're all extremely pooped.

Beyond that, not much happened this week.  We had a few lessons with Mauricio, buuuuut looking back on them they didn't really accomplish much.  We also had some lessons with less active members.

So now last weeks stories!  We had a really cool service experience that I didn't have time to tell you about last week, so I'm gunna talk about it this week!  We were on the way back from lunch, that day we had lunch with the family we teach English that's asking us about 1000 gospel related questions a day, so they are at least interested about what we believe, but I don't think that they're interested in the way where they want to be converted, just curious.  Anyway, I digress.  On the way back to our apartments we say two ladies who were raking trash out of a big hill by their house that was just all weeds.  There had been trash falling from their chilean trash-can thing for so long that the trash was essentially indistinguishable from the soil.  So we started helping them get the trash, when they told us that they were going to dig out their chilean trash-can-thing that day and put in a new bigger one, and wondering if we could help them start that.  In Chile, the trash cans are more like mailboxes.  They're cemented in the ground as permanent fixtures, and people just come and take the trash out.  Theirs was very small, and they wanted to put a huge one in.  So we ended up taking the service opportunity (which are very rare here, people usually never ask for service even if they really need, which is something I don't really understand) and we spent the next few hours digging their trash can out of the ground, digging a huge hole to put the new one in, borrowing a metal saw and cutting the new big trash can a little shorter, then putting the new one in.  Even though we had to sacrifice some of our plans that day, I really appreciated the opportunity to serve.  As missionaries we're not just here to teach, we're here to love and help the people.  The people we were helping didn't seem interested in hearing our message, but they were extremely appreciative of our service because they were two woman in their 40's who definitely couldn't have done it without us.  They said that they didn't believe in miracles, but that now they do because we came by and helped them without them asking.  It made me feel really good, and we made really good friends with those ladies, to the point where, maybe someday, more missionaries will pass by and they'll invite them in.  You never know!

Time to finish the story I didn't finish last time real quick.  She asked my why I decided to serve a mission, and I told them, again very slowly in English, that I decided to serve a mission because I love God.  She didn't really understand that though.  She then, forgetting English and turning to Spanish, told me that you could love somebody that you couldn't see.  That there was no way that you could love somebody like you can love someone that you can see.  For this reason, she said, she didn't believe in God.  This is when my companion took over and said a few things about faith, before we went on with the English class.  But what she said left me thinking the rest of the day, because at the time I didn't really know how to contest what she said.  But after not much thought, I realized a big flaw in her thinking.  We love our parents, we love our family, we love our friends.  We can see them all.  But what if something happens, and we become blind?  Do we stop loving them?  Absolutely not.  And what if someone is born blind, does that make them love their parents, their family, their friends any less?  Of course not, why would it?  So what is it that brings us to love people then?  When it boils down to it, we come to love people not by seeing them, but by talking to them.  By listening to them.  By feeling them, by feeling their love for us.  And as believers in our loving Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost, we believe that we can do these three things as clearly as with any other man.  We can certainly speak with Him.  We can, if we exercise faith and patience, listen to Him.  And, in those moments of discouragement, despair, and hopelessness, we can feel Him and His love for us as tangible as a hug from a loving Parent.  So why did I serve a mission?  Why do I love God?  Because I know Him.  Because I love Him.  I know that He loves me, I know that He hears me, that He listens to me, and I have listened to His advice and counsel more than that of any other being in my life.  I know that He lives, as reliably as I know that the earth spins.  The sun comes up, the sun goes down, and it is always the same.  So is God's love for us, despite whatever we may do in this life.  He loves us more than we can comprehend.  Even when we feel weak, useless, hopeless, and unworthy, He sees something great in us.  Something so great we can't comprehend it, because He can see our potential, He sees a God.  And He loves us.  This is why I love Him, and this is why I'll sacrifice everything for Him.

So that's my spiritual message for this week and the last week, I feel like it's been a while since I've left you with a spiritual thought, I promise I'll keep em coming!  I'll try to tell you as much of what I learn here on the mission as possible.  For now, let the work roll forth!  I'll talk to ya next week.  Love you all!  Remember, if nothing else, that God loves you.

Elder Fox

Hola hola!  It was another FLIPPING fantastic week here in Constitución!  We found two new investigators which I'll tell you about a little later, so now we're working with 19 people and families (including less actives and recent converts.)  So mish!  We are very busy, and we're having to let those people who are less dedicated fall through the cracks a little in order to give proper attention to those who are going strong, but we're holding up pretty well!  We've managed to get a member to fellowship almost all of those 19 people and families so we're doing alright so far!

First, however, a few more things about Chile!  There's a false conception in the United States that Chile is really high-baptizing, but in fact baptisms here in Chile are actually pretty scarce.  Most missionaries have only a few their whole missions.  For the most part, the people are really hardened and so finding investigators is usually very difficult.  Then, when you do have investigators, nobody here is married and everybody drinks and smokes and does drugs so the chances of being able to bring them to baptism is actually really rare.  It's normal to have several investigators with baptismal dates your whole mission, but actually baptize very few of them.  So this kind of success we're having in Constitución is very unusual, and I'm very blessed to be having a baptism here in my first change.  We're very fortunate to have as many people to teach as we do, and to have as many investigators with baptismal dates as we do.  We'll likely be able to babptize one or more people next change too, which would fantastic!

One more thing, the church here in Chile is not like the church in North America.  It's very new, extremely new, so new that Chile often runs into the same problems that the early Restored church had a few centuries ago.  So when I tell you about crazy things that bishops, stake presidents, branch presidents, and other people do and other crazy stories about things that happen, just know that for the most part that's normal.  In fact, the mission president here actually takes a HUGE role in just keeping the church well organized and intact.  Elder Hadlock my trainer was actually in a branch presidency in his last area, because everybody in the branch was a recent convert and everybody, including the branch president, didn't know what they were doing.  So he actually kept the branch afloat and counceled the branch into health.  How sweet is that?!  Anyway I digress.

This week was amazing!!  SO amazing!  Let me start with what happened just a few hours after I wrote my letter last week.

But first you need a little bit of background

So about two weeks ago my companion and I were studying the section in the Preach My Gospel about finding people to teach, when we came across the section that essentially says ''Don't rush between lessons and appointments while people who might be prepared to receive the gospel are passing you on either side, be careful to listen to the Spirit and talk with everyone.''  We realized we could definitely be better at that, especially because we're so crazy busy every day.  So that day we were walking to an appointment when we passed a lady who was sweeping her front porch.  I was about to walk right past her, but Elder Hadlock tapped my shoulder saying ''Espere'' and went and started talking to her.  Turns out she lives alone in the house, she believes in God and Jesus Christ and is very faithful but doesn't have a religion, and she never drinks or smokes.  For Chile, that never happens.  Ever.  She had nobody to marry, no bad habits to quit, and no religion.  That never happens!  Anyway, I digress.  We talked to her a while and then told her we'd pass by later and teach her.  We set everything up in the coming days to have her come to a member families house who lives right by her so that we can teach her.

Now it's Monday!  This was actually the first lesson I we were going to teach that I would be leading the teaching (as a result of the first 12 weeks program if you're familiar with it) and so I was more than a little nervous, but I was praying hard that the Spirit would be with me.  We teach the lesson to her, and she immediately accepted everything we taught her.  Immediately.  No doubts, no concerns, no questions, just acceptance of the message like she understood it all perfectly (which is also really rare here, the education here hasn't always been the best.)  Towards the end of the lesson when we commited her to pray to know that Joseph Smith is a prophet, she told us that she already felt that the Church of Jesus Christ is the true church, but that she would still pray in order to know for sure for herself.  She later said that she felt the Spirit of God in her heart, which is something that she had been missing in her life and wanting.  It was an amazing experience, the Lord truly prepares people to recieve the message of the Restoration of the Gospel.  We invited her to baptism, to which she accepted.  We set a date for October 3rd.  When we left, she left us with the words ''How beautiful, the word of God.''  Already, I could feel the power of a testimony growing in her.  The Spirit was extremely strong as it confirmed the truth of our message to all of us.  These kinds of experiences in the mission don't happen very often, and I was pretty giddy as we left the house the night.  Elder Hadlock was even happier though, as soon as we were out of earshot he basically screamed and tackled me into the street.  We were really excited, like reeeeally excited.  There are always people who are looking for the truth and don't know where to find it, and the Lord always finds a way to lead His servants to them.  It's no less than a miracle, and sometimes I think that we underestimate that.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I went to Talca and did divisions with Elder Ramirez while the District Leader went to Conti and did divisions with Elder Hadlock.  Nothing much happened on our end but Elder Hadlock and Elder Heinz ended up teaching a man that we contacted the very first day I was here in Conti and they ended up setting a baptismal date with him too, so I was kind of sad that I wasn't there.  His name is Mauricio, and is also increeedibly religious but doesn't actually have a religion.  He has so many spiritualy stories of his life, he told us about 10 of them during the course of the lesson.  Needless to say it was a long lesson.  Anyway, I digress.  Elder Hadlock and Elder Heinz left him the pamplet about the Restoration which his wife also read later, and when we asked Mauricio about it in our second lesson he said that she really liked it, so we hope that we can teach them together and hopefully baptize them both!  They also don't drink or smoke, and they don't even drink coffee or tea, which is about as rare here as finding a 20 foot tall platypus-bear with pink horns and silver wings.  So we have high hopes for them too!

We taught both families that we teach English to this week, but one of the families we ended up only teaching them about our beliefs in the church, which is way better than English anyway!  They have a ton of questions.  Like a ton of them.  So they are at least curious, but I don't think they have any intentions of joining... yet... hehehe.  Our other family we teach English to is awesome though, we've actually become really good friends of theirs.  They invite us to their birthday parties and when they go on vacations they buy us souvenirs, so I have a cool keychain from Easter Island!  They also feed us a lot, that night we taught them they fed us the completos and the herbal tea that we see so much down here.

We visited more people this week but those stories aren't quiiiite as cool and can probably be saved for next week, so I want to digress and tell you about an experience I had a few weeks ago.

A member in church came up to Elder Hadlock and I and started talking in English which kind of caught us off gaurd at first, but then he asked us if we do service every week to which we replied yes, then he said that he teaches an English class in a high school (it's reaally called colegio but it's the equivalent of high school) and wanted native speakers to come in and answer some questions that the students would be asking in English.  I was excited, cuz ya know I can speak English pretty okay.  So that Thursday we went to the colegio and sat down with this member and his class of about 6 students, probably all my age or just a year younger.  I assumed they'd be asking quiestions about our culture, language, and the United States.  But I was really caught off gaurd when the first question, asked to me was ''Do you believe in miracles?''  I was shocked for a little bit, then I turned to the teacher and asked ''...¿Tengo que contestar esta pregunta en Ingles?'', meaning ''... I have to answer this in English?'' to which he replied yes.  I knew that these students didn't know a lot of English, so I was dying to just answer it in Spanish so that they'd understand.  Which is kind of ironic, given that two months ago in the CCM I was wishing the very opposite.  So I tried to answer the question and talk about my experience in the CCM and on my mission in as simple terms as possible, and speaking extremely slowly.  The next question was even harder, ''Why are you serving a mission?'' These students knew we were their age, and they were honestly curious why on earth we'd make this sacrifice.

I'm out of time and the story is not done, I'm extremely sorry but I have to put a 'To be Continued' on this, which stinks because I didn't get to the spiritual message yet!  Shootah.

Love,

Elder Fox