The Vineyard

Hey all!  This week was awesome, in summary.  It's starting to get a little hot here and all the kids just got out of school, which makes the fact that Christmas is coming up soon seem verry verry odd.  Picture Christmas in the middle of summer vacation... weird right?  Anyway, moving on.

Quote of the week: ''YOU can't smack my conservative face!!!''

     - Elder Hadlock

 

He was a little upset to discover that I took a conservative/liberal test in school and only fell 2 points on the conservative side.

So Thanksgiving!  Was pretty disappointing.  Not gunna lie.  But it's okay because we're going to celebrate it late next week!  Elder Hadlock and I had this whole thing set up with the other missionaries where we were going to have thanksgiving at our correlation meeting on Thursday, where every companionship would bring something delicious (not necesarilly normal thanksgiving food, but still delicious) to correlation and we'd all feast.  Then Elder Hadlock and I filled out our teaching record for the week... and realized that we had only taught one lesson the whole week.  Which means that it would've been really irresponsible to waste an hour and a half at correlation when we could just give him our teaching record and talk to him about the person for 2 minutes and then go and work to try to find more people.  SO we skipped correlation and went and contacted for the rest of the night.  Then I was planning on buying ice cream on the way home so we could still have something, but the store by our apartment had absolutely no ice cream.  So that was thanksgiving, but just because we worked really well and hard that day it was an amazing day, which I was grateful for.  And Thanksgiving is much more than the food.

So remember Jessica and her son?  Not sure if I ever said her name, but she was the girl I taught when I went on divisions in Talca and had the best lesson I've ever had with anyone.  I ended up sharing my own conversion story and testimony and it brought the Spirit very strong and I could tell that she felt it.  The Elders were teaching her before and she had a fecha but it fell because she didn't go to church, but last Sunday she went to church for the first time, and this Sunday I saw them both at the stake conference in Talca!!  It was awesome.  Also in district class this week Elder Villavicencio came up to me and thanked me for my testimony in the lesson, he said that he felt the Spirit very strong and he thinks that that's what made the difference in their progression.  I think they'll actually be baptized!  And even though they're not my investigators, I think this experience really helped me.  I feel like I haven't really helped many people's conversion to Christ thus far, but with her and her son I know that through me the Lord was able to make a big difference, and that's a really awesome thing to know.  They have fechas again, and I think this time they'll get baptized on that day.

We also had a lesson with La Mamá that went really well.  We showed her and her less-active member son the video of the Restoration and then talked a little more about it and bore our testimonies about it.  Then we were on the subject of baptism and finding the truth through the Holy Ghost for a very long time, and I can tell that she's progressing really well.  When I met her, baptism wasn't even a possibility in her mind, and now she's honestly considering it.  I just hope that she starts to feel her answer soon, because I think that right now she's actually honestly searching for one.  I pray that she will have a strong spiritual experience.  It's cool to see how the Lord softens people's hearts.

We also got to visit Christian and Megan again this week, but not much happened in either visit.  We ended up talking to Megan about conspiracy theories (I have no idea how that topic came up) and we didn't have much time to talk to Christian, but he commited to talk to his boss about getting Sundays off work so we're super excited about that.

With the weather getting hotter service opportunities are picking up.  Last week Elder Hadlock and I spent 4 hours or so painting texturizer on a ceiling of this woman from the fields that just moved into this just-built apartment complex, so before there was nothing but concrete walls.  We were texturizing the ceiling while her and the Hermanas were putting wall-stuff on the walls.  I don't really know what the wall-stuff is called in English.  Elder Hadlock and I only had a normal paint-roller to texturize the ceiling however, so it's really fortunate that Chilean ceilings are closer to the ground.  It was still a high enough reach to be exhausting, however.  This week we painted the bishop's gate and fence, which took a solid 6 hours.  I love service, it's my favorite thing!

I found a cool potential investigator this week by being a dork!  It was pretty hilarious.  Because Conti has tons of extremely steep hills and people decide to build houses and apartment buildings on said hills, they often cover parts of the hill in concrete to prevent things from happening.  Elder Hadlock decided to climb up one of these instead of going around it when we were coming out of an apartment complex and about to go down the hill.  Because Elder Hadlock did it, I of course had to do it, so I started up it but I was actually having a hard time, despite all my climbing experience.  I spent about 5 minutes on the concrete slab because I HAD to do it to prove myself.  After 5 minutes, a man poked his head out of his window in the apartment building and said ''You can do it!!  You're spider-man!!'' I laughed and replied ''sii'po!''  After I finally climbed the concrete thing, he came out of his apartment and we started talking to him.  He's a really cool guy, so I hope that we can be able to teach him some time.  He passed us in his car the other day while we were contacting and he stuck his head out the window and yelled ''HEY SPIDER-MAN!!''  He's cool.

So this week I came to a cool realization by studying Jacob 5 really carefully.  In this mission there are areas that are notorious for not having any success.  At all.  There are also areas that are notorious for having a lot of success (relatively), like Talca and Rancagua.  Conti is notorious for having good success, not a exceptional, but pretty good success.  So with how dry everything has been for the last 3 months or so, it definitely begs the question ''What more could I have done?''  It's a sad question, and one that I kind of got sick of asking.  I realized a few weeks ago that as long as I'm trying my best God accepts my sacrifice, and I'm definitely more at peace with our lack of success, but the question inevitably comes to mind.  Then I read Jacob 5 and found something spectacular.  When the Lord of the vineyard goes to the vineyard and sees that the trees have brought forth corrupt fruit, He weeps, and says ''What more could I have done for my vineyard?''  This happens on three seperate occasions.

That really hit me hard.  The Lord, the one Being who has done everything and will do everything perfectly, the Being who knows the end from the beginning and knows that He has done absolutely everything to bring His children back to Him, weeps when His children reject the gospel.  Even though He knows the answer, He asks ''what more could I have done?''  After the third time He asks that in that chapter, (I think) He even says that He knows that He has done all that He could.  He knows the answer to His own question.

We ask that question a lot.  What more could I have done for my friend, family, sector, branch, ward, district, zone, stake, area, anything.  I think we can find good comfort that God, the one who has done everything He could without infringing our agency has wept over that friend, family, sector, branch, ward, district, zone, stake, or area, and that He has asked Himself the very same question.  Even though He already knows that He has done all He could.  And as long as we accept the will of Christ and do our best with love, we do everything that we possibly can too, and we should also know the answer to our own question.

So those are my thoughts of this week!  I love you all a lot, and I'm very grateful for all of you and all of your sacrifice.  I'm very, very blessed.  Talk to you all soon!

Love,

Elder Fox

Nisperos and Arepas

So sorry, all the Chileans call Constitución Conti for short, I've fallen into the habit and have never told you.  They're the same thing.

Also there is this Spanish word - fechas - that translates to dates, that all the missionaries use to mean ''baptismal dates.''  I've never actually said the word 'dates' or 'baptismal date' my entire mission except for in my emails, and it's long to type so for on I'll just use fechas.

So this week!  Was great!  I'm going to go ahead and launch into investigators first this time.

So we did divisions with the other elders in the district on Tuesday so I went to Talca and spent the night there.  But Elder Hadlock and Elder Lloyd (Elder Lloyd went to Lone Peak too!  Wooooot!) taught Megan the Gringa in the church, but I wasn't there so I don't really know how it went.  Our Mission Leader (who was also there) tells me that they didn't actually get to much of the lesson, which is disappointing, but at least she got her first lesson-ish!  She was in Concepción this weekend though so she wasn't able to make it to church, we haven't really talked to her since.  We're hoping to maaaybe have thanksgiving with her family this week because they're the only family here that might celebrate it.

We also taught La Mamá de Marcelo again last night, which was awesome.  By the way I found out her real name, and it's María Ramós.  We taught the first lesson, and it actually went very well.  Much better than we were expecting.  Her problem right now is that she's in a Christian group that saved her from a very very dark period of her life, and she's been friends with them for years and years.  Luckily, she understands the importance of finding the truth.  I asked her ''If you receive your answer and know that the Church is true, what would you do?''  And she replied that she'd get baptized.  That'd it hurt a lot to leave her Christian group, but that she'd do it.  That kind of conviction is extremely rare here in Chile, usually when I ask that question people reply with much more wishy-washy answers like ''I'd probably read the Book of Mormon more...'' but she gets it, which is really good.  I'm going to pray that she will recieve her answer and that we can have the Spirit more in our lessons.

So that's that!  Now for stories!!

So I had an awesome time in the divisions Tuesday.  I was with an Elder from my group named Elder Villavicencio, who's Ecuadorian and super fun to talk with.  Ecuadorians are a bit tricky to understand (points to Dad) but I didn't do too bad.  I could at least understand absolutely everything he said in the lessons, for some reason I have a much easier time understanding Spanish when we're talking about the gospel.  In that division though we had a lesson with a Mom and her 14 year old son that impacted me really strongly.  It was probably just about the best lesson I've ever been in, so I was extremely grateful for the opportunity to be there.  We taught lesson 1 and showed them the 20 minute Restoration movie, and then Elder Villavicencio invited them to act by reading the Book of Mormon and praying.  And then I shared my conversion experience and my testimony.  Usually when I try to share a personal experience or testify, something always happens.  A phone, a dog, a child, an earthquake, a tsunami, or something distracting enough always happens and it was starting to bug me.  But this time, miraculously, there was nothing.  As soon as I started speaking the room was completely silent, like you could hear a pin drop.  I shared how I gained my testimony, and promised them that they could recieve an answer too, and testified of the thruthfulness of the restored gospel.  The Spirit was stronger almost than I've ever felt it in my life.  And, for one of the first times in my mission, I could tell that they felt it too.  Many times in these lessons I feel the Spirit very strong and I can just see it bounce off the investigators like nothing and it's a little frustrating, like ''How can you not FEEL that it's AMAZING and HUUUUGE.''  But this time it wasn't like that, my words sunk into her heart, and I knew at the moment that she was going to be baptized.  I knew it.  We called the other Elders last night and they told us that the mom went to church, and the kid really wanted to go but couldn't because he was sick.  Even though they aren't my investigators, that was an amazing experience and I really hope that they make that commitment to get baptized.  And I hope that I'm still here when they do.  Cuz Ima go to it.  I think I really needed that, if nothing else than just a confidence booster that I have the capacity to teach and testify with the Spirit.

More stories!  So Chile has helped me develop an apetite.  They feed us waaaaay too much for lunch, so I have the capacity to eat like I've never had before.  It's amazing I'm still skinny, it's probably all the hills we're walking up in Conti.  We had tacos (the only tacos I've had since I got here) last Sunday and I ate 6.  They weren't little hard-shell ones, they were full-sized big pork tacos.  And I ate 6.  Also, I've been making a lot of french toast this week, and one night I ate 8 pieces of french toast, and easily felt like I could've eaten more.  It's like a super power, I don't know where it came from!

So I forgot to tell you about our p-day last week!  We borrowed bikes and helmets from La'Cote and we rode down the coast south to a port a few miles from Conti.  It was a lot of fun, and a super pretty ride.  I took pictures at the port that I'm going to send you all.  Today we played volleyball and tennis at the church with us 6 Conti missionaries.  We never get to go to the activities because they're 2 hours away in Talca, so we decided to do our own thing.  We talked to the bishop about it and he gave us the keys, so we played volleyball!  And it was awesome.  I also have a picture of that.  I also tried a cool new fruit today, they're called 'nisperos' here or something like that, but if you google it I'm not sure what would come up because Mexico has another fruit that they call 'nisperos' but it's different.  It's delicious, and I've never seen one before in my life.  There is a huge nispero tree by the church, and there are a bunch that grow on the church side of the fence, so I climbed the fence and threw down nisperos for the other missionaries to catch in bags (it kind of reminded me of a mario party mini-game.)  Then we washed them and ate them, and they are super delicious.  But I have no way to describe them because they are completely different than anything I've ever had ever.  It's like a perfect mix between a plum, a peach, and a nectarine.

Last night was also fantastic, an awesome family in the ward invited us over to make Columbian food with them because Elder Mendez is Columbian and the couple both served in the same mission in Columbia.  Funny enough they met and got married after both their missions.  They invited the 6 Conti Missionaries and we all made something called arepas.  It's like friend corn bread, and it's delicious.  It was a fun night.

So I heard that there's a movie with Sam and Luke that shows Sam's mission in Concepción much more, because the series on Mormon Channel doesn't show a whole lot of his mission.  So go watch it!  If nothing else at least the parts of Sam's mission because it's also my mission so that's cool.

Well that was my week, and it was great!  I look forward to another one.  Hopefully we'll get more time to contact this week and find a few new investigators.  But we're having a great time down here!  The Church is true!  I'm going to use my remaining time to send some pictures real quick.

Love,

Elder Fox

The Week of Happiness

Howdy all!  If you can guess from the subject of the email, I had a pretty good week.  Not much really happened, in fact most of the things that happened were kind of depressing, BUT I still felt amazing this week.  And it was very nice, and I'll get to why in a bit.  But first I'm going to start by answering a question I got from my Mom in her email.

SO a typical day in the mission.  I wake up every morning at 7:00 and make Elder Hadlock drag me out of bed so I don't skip doing my exercises.  I do exercises for a half an hour and then get ready for the day until 8:30 where personal study starts, which continues until 9:30 where comp study starts, then we go until 10:30 when we study the language until 11:00 and then we leave.  The mornings aren't an amazing time to contact or to teach lessons, so we usually utilize the mornings to put of flyers for our classes or use our records to find less-active or part-member families to teach, which so far hasn't done much.  We have lunch at 1:30 then with a member always, which continues until 3:00 where we have a half an hour of free (study) time in our house before we go out to work for the rest of the day at 3:30.  We then return to the house at 9:30 and plan and relax and go to bed at 11:00.

For the most part, the way we find investigators is using our area book to visit old investigators that stopped investigating, using the records to find part member families, but mostly just contacting (tracting.)  Elder Hadlock and I lately though, because of our large lack of people, have been utilizing a ton of other clever ideas to find people.  For one there's the English class, we're also starting to use a bunch of other ideas we've gotten from members who have served missions, and I'll tell you more about those next week.

I wish we spent more time trying to find people than we do, because we need people, but even though we don't have a lot of people we are still finding ourselves SOOO flippin busy and I don't even know how that happens.  Stuff like English classes, doing divisions, having correlation meeting, going to the ward choir (they need me for piano), passing by recent converts and other members that need some love and support, and a bunch of other things that don't come to mind.  There's also a ton of walking.  

So that's my normal day!  It's always a blast except for when it's not.

(but it usually is.)

So time for stories!!

Elder Hadlock and I dropped an egg off the roof this week.  It was way too much fun.  For the district class Elder Hadlock wanted to do something fun so he decided that we'd do an egg-drop where the people in the district had to prepare something to protect the egg, but Elder Hadlock would also drop one that was completely unprotected.  The egg represented somebody with a baptismal date, and the concrete represented baptism.  If you don't prepare your investigators with dates, when they get baptized they're going to crack, or possibly splatter all over.  But to practice for mine and Elder Hadlock's, we threw an egg with a plastic bag attached to it (to act like a parachute) off the top floor of our apartment building.  It didn't work, but it was a lot of fun.  One of the people in the building saw it drop and poked her head out the window as we were viewing the damage, she thought it was pretty funny.

SO this story needs background.  This change one of the Hermanas in Conti left, Hermana Prien.  So then came another Hermana named Hermana Porter (not the same one that was in my group in the CCM, an older one.)  She hasn't been here for very long, so I haven't talked to her much at all at this point.  NOW the story.  Elder Hadlock and I were playing sports with the young men and potential investigators that we invite to play with us this Wednesday when this adorable little girl from primary walks up to me (I'm just sitting on the side at the time.)  This is how the conversation goes:

Little Girl:  ''Do you like the new hermana?''

Me:  ''.... come again?''

Little Girl:  ''Do you like the new hermana?''

Me:  ''... who told you that I liked the new hermana?''

Little Girl:  (with a sly smile) ''... soooooomebody.''

Me:  ''Tell me!!''

Little Girl: ''Sooooooooomone.''

Me:  ''No, I don't like the new hermana, I don't even know the new hermana, and I kind of have somebody back in the states that I kind of really like yeah?''

At this point the little girl was walking away backwards pointing at her eyes and then at mine repeatedly kind of like ''Iiiiiii'm watching you Elder Fox, aaaaaalways watching.''  It was a really strange conversation, but it was adorable and hilarious so I decided to share it.  I'm pretty sure this is just a primary rumor going on, because I haven't conversed much with the new hermana outisde of English class and correlation meeting, and few members are there for either of those.  At first I was worried because this ward is notorious for rumors, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing to worry about.

Oh by the way, I got the Christmas Package.  I had fun setting up the little tree and the stocking and the nativity on my desk.  I'm keeping all the presents in the original box stored away in a closet for now though because we're stil a good ways off from Christmas, but if I don't get changed this next change I'll put the presents under the mini tree.  So thanks Mom! :D

Another thing, have y'all ever seen that Sam and Luke series that the church did?  It's that story of the two brothers who had a bad relationship, then 5 years later they did another interview with the brothers and it had all turned around.  Well apparently they kept following them throughout the rest of their lives and made a whole series about it, and I LOVE it.  It's so cool!!  Cuz you see their whole flippin lives!!  But the reason I tell you is that Sam served in Concepción Chile on his mission, and it shows what my mission is like very very well.  At that time the Concepción mission included Talca and Constitución, so it's rumored that Sam was actually in Conti at one point.  SO you should all go find it and watch it.  Also Luke's mission story really inspired me, like a lot.  That's actually one of the things that made me feel so great this week.  I won't go into details, but I just loved it.  It really shows the growth you go through in a mission.

NOW for investigators and things that happened there.  We taught Pedro and Rosa again this week, but it didn't turn out so great this time.  They started getting a little frustrated because they couldn't understand the Book of Mormon passage we left them (Moroni 10: 3-5) and were saying that they didn't understand the 'vosotros' and the 'os' and the '-éis' and all that, and were getting frustrated that it was ever written like that in the first place.  Apparently they'd never been exposed to the vosotros form of Spanish before, which I didn't know was something that ever happened.  The problem was that I didn't know how to explain why they translated the Book of Mormon using vosotros form.  I couldn't really come up with a good reason at all.  Then they both seemed to decide that they didn't really like the Book of Mormon and they're pretty sure that the Bible is the only book of scripture.  Woops.  I explained to them what I did last time about the importance of the Book of Mormon, but nothing absorbed.  Elder Hadlock and I are not sure if they're ready anymore, but we're definitely not ready to give up on them yet.

We had a lesson last night with two women that we found contacting that went pretty well.  We taught the first lesson, but the kids couldn't be controlled the entire time so they didn't absorb much of what was taught.  Their names are Karina and Fernanda, who are cousins.  They both have a little son, one is 3 and the other is 1.  So it was a lot of fun, buuuut not the best teaching environment.  The two women both have husbands but they're always working so we had to bring a member by to teach with us.  In the course of the lesson we also ended up giving 3 Priesthood blessings, which is always a great opportunity, but a little odd thing to do in the middle of a lesson.  The member offered them of us, whereas we would've waited for the end of the lesson, but it ended up working out alright in the end.

The real victory of the week was in Megan the Gringa.  Elder Hadlock and I managed to get the only copy of the Book of Mormon in English for her in the entire mission this week when the secretaries came to our district class.  Also, when we talked to her last week we invited her to our english class to help out with it, but she said that her family always travels to Concepción in the weekends.  This Saturday though, she came and helped us out.  Afterward we talked for a bit with her and before we all left we invited her to church.  She said she would as long as her mom didn't have anything else she wanted to do.  That next morning in Sacrament Meeting she came, and it was amazing.  That was the first investigator we've had in church since our baptism back in my first change.  It was a glorious moment.  It was a great meeting too, one of my favorite members got up and talked about the vision of the Tree of Life.  Megan stayed with us the 2nd hour too for the Gospel Principles class, which was luckily taught this week by our wonderful Misison Leader Daniel Mendez.  Because she was there he revized the original lesson topic (signs of the second coming :P) a ton to be able to share a little about Joseph Smith and the First Vision and his testimony about the church.  The Spirit was very strong and I was very very happy with that man.  We gave her the Book of Mormon and she said that she would read it, which we were very happy about.  We have an appointment to teach her Tuesday, so I'm really excited about that.

So I'm sure you're wondering why the week was so good, and to be honest, I'm not sure if I know the answer.  I was very very blessed this week.  The Lord blessed me with a love of Chile and a love of the members and a love of the people that I've never had before here on my mission, and I realized that I really want to enjoy every moment that I have here in this beautiful country.  One thing I think I learned was the importance of enjoying your mission to the fullest, and how to do it.  Another thing was a tremendous peace that I've been blessed with.  I think I've finally internalized the truth that the number of baptisms doesn't measure the success of a missionary, and am finally at peace with the fact that as long as I try my best and love God, that I will do good here that I do not even realize.  And even if not much good is done, God will accept my sacrifice, and be proud of what I'm doing.  It seems like obvious stuff, but it took me a very long time to truly be comfortable with the fact that I'm not going to have a lot of baptisms in this area, and that I won't have many my whole mission either.  It took me a while to be at peace with the fact that other elders are having a lot of success right now, and despite our efforts we're really not.  It's a hard thing to do, and I think that peace I feel is a gift of God.  I understand that I can only do my best, be humble, and constantly try to improve the way I work.  But, more than anything, I need to love God.  I learned that the love a missionary has for God is the true measure of success of a missionary.  Also, taking a step back and looking at how much  I've grown and how far I've come has made me realize how much the mission is changing me, even though the time seems to fly by without much happening.  At the start of this week I became really uncomfortable with the fact that my mission, at the end of this change, is going to be a quarter of the way through, and not much has happened.  I think I realized this week how many lives I've touched, and especially how much I've changed.  I love my mission.  I love it so much.  I am so grateful for every moment that I can be here and I'm especially grateful for my mission call to the Chile Rancagua mission.  Yes, Chile might have some of the lowest numbers on this side of the world.  Yes, the Chile Rancagua mission has the lowest numbers in Chile.  But, that doesn't mean that this mission isn't successful, and that doesn't mean I'm not a successful missionary.  I feel a lot of peace in the face of not much success, and a lot of love for the country, and that has made a lot of difference.  This week was actually a big turning point for me, and has changed the way I do a lot of things.  I've also found much more confidence to talk to people and to step out of my comfort zone, as well as in teaching people and testifying.  I'm feeling the Spirit work through me more and I'm feeling the power of the Spirit more when I testify.  All of these things I'm convinced are gifts of God, and especially gifts of the Spirit.  I'm very grateful for this week and how I've changed.

I sadly don't have any more time, because I was planning on bearing my testimony for the first time in a little bit in this letter, but hopefully I'll be able to next week.  I love you all!  Until next week!

Love

Elder Fox

The Fire of Faith

Hello all!

So I suppose you're wondering why I'm writing so late today.

So this week was actually really good!  It had it's moments of absolute terribleness, particularly one day where I really didn't want to exist, but overall this week was actually a dramatic improvement.  I have a lot of confidence that my mission President is a very very inspired man.  He actually wrote to me and told me that these changes this change will make a big difference, even though nothing changed at all.  And he was absolutely right!

First, some funny stories:

So this week I ran into a road sign.  The chileans here are a little short, so I'm actually taller than most of them.  I was walking down the street distracted talking to Elder Hadlock when before I know it I get a speed limit sign to the face.  It was painful, but also so funny that tears were rolling down our faces.

This is a story of last week but I forgot to write about it.  Elder Schley had this really bad habit of saying the word ''literally'' wrong in almost every single sentence.  In district class last week he said that an investigator was ''literally golden'' which made me laugh in my mind quite a bit.  Let's sure hope he's not teaching anyone that's literally golden.

The show spongebob here is called ''bob de spongo'' (translates to Bob of sponge) I've come to find out.  This Sunday when we went to a member's house after church for lunch their little daughter was watching spongebob and she said she was watching Bob of sponge and she had to say it a few times before I understood what she was saying and I was so confused.  I figured that spongebob was his name so they'd just leave it like spongebob, or at least spongobob, but I guess not!

Also, some more Chilean news made me laugh this week.  I saw one headline that said ''Parejas de roncadores no pueden dormir!'' which is ''Partners (girlfriends) of snorers can't sleep!''  I thought that was downright hilarious.  Not only was it obvious, but it was considered newsworthy?  Really?  Really now?  You need to have more crime in your country.

Kidding, kidding.

Also there was another news story about how street protesters were distracting bus drivers and bus drivers were getting really annoyed because they felt that it wasn't safe for them to drive under such distracting conditions.  That's more or less normal, but the funny thing was that a news anchor was interviewing a bus driver while he was driving the bus!  Yes, a bus driver was complaining about being distracted while driving to a news anchor, while he was driving!!  He was talking to the anchor while occasionally looking over to the window to glance to the road.  I thought it was just about the funniest thing I've ever seen.

BTW the reason I'm seeing so much news is that two families that we have lunch with regularly always have the news on, so I always catch bits and pieces.

Another thing that I forgot to talk about last week was the ward halloween party down here!  It was a lot of fun, because Elder Hadlock is black and I'm white we dressed as ''men in black'' and it worked perfectly.  We dressed in black suits and black ties and bought sun glasses for the occasion.  I'll need to send pictures because it was pretty awesome.  Sadly not many people in the ward had seen men in black so they all thought that we were the mafia, but hey that works too.

A quick note to my parents:  If you ever get a friend request on my facebook account from anyone that has a latino name, it's definitely going to be someone that I gave my facebook to so always go ahead and friend them.  There were a few people that asked for my fb this week that's why I say it.

Now to talk about the people!  This week nothing much happened in the way of teaching lessons, so sadly I don't get to give you much of an update on any of our people that we're teaching.  But there were a few developments.  First we taught another small lesson to La Mamá de Marcelo about prophets.  We really want to teach her all of lesson 1 but we keep finding ourselves with not enough time.  What is a blessing is that she's finally healthy enough to be taught again, after about 3 months of hardly ever seeing her.  Also, Cristian has told us that he has completely stopped smoking and drinking, which is no less than a miracle.  He's the awesome investigator that we can hardly ever ever teach because he's never at home, but he really wants to be baptized.  We keep in touch with him by calling him every day however, and in one of these calls he told us that he isn't smoking anymore.  So that's super happy news, we just need to help him get to church.  In less happy news, the new investigator that Elder Hadlock and the zone leader Elder Trancoso found while we were on divisions a few weeks back dropped us.  Apparently he was really amazing and very readily accepted a baptismal date, so we were really sad about it.  Likely he got into some anti material.  When we passed by his house his Mom answered and told us that they were talking and they both agree that they don't really want anything, then kindly invited us to go away and never come back.  It was definitely a little rough, but those kinds of things happen in the mission, and you just have to come up from it and not let it get you down.

Also!  Remember that gringa that I told you about a few weeks ago that we talked to?  The other day Elder Hadlock and I were contacting in a block of apartments and we accidentally knocked on her door, she answered and surprised us by speaking English.  This time though, after talking for a few minutes she asked us what the core of our beliefs were as Mormons.  I wasn't expecting her to ever ask about our religion, even though we're missionaries, so I was pleasantly surprised.  We were able to give her a quick version of The Restoration in English, which was actually a lot of fun.  I felt like Elder Calhoon in The Best Two Years (''Oh sorry, I don't speak Dutch. - Oh well neither do I!'')  The problem was that I don't have the first vision memorized in English so I had to do that part in Spanish, but she grew up learning Spanish and English at the same time because her Mom is Chilean and her Dad is North American so she could still understand me.  She prefers English however because she's spent all her life in the states with only small few month visits to Chile every now and then, so she really wants a Book of Mormon in English.  The problem is, I don't know how to get her one quickly.  I guess we'll see about that.  It's very different teaching a North American, because they're much more sincere and learn a lot quicker, but they also have a ton more doubts.  Especially in the topic of gay marriage, which isn't much of a thing yet here in Chile.  But I hope that we can continue (is that how it's spelled?) teaching her because she is very sincere in her search for the truth.  She was previously Catholic but doesn't agree with a lot of what they do, especially regarding praying to saints.  So we'll see what happens!

SO the real development of the week was an English class that we started up to try to find new investigators.  We've been teaching La'Cote and her family every week but that's kind of been a private tutor type thing, which missionaries don't really do all that often.  We decided to keep doing that because we're also teaching them the gospel, but we decided to also hold an English class in the chapel every Saturday that would be advertized throughout the city.  So this week Elder Hadlock and I had a good time coming up with the curriculum and making flyers and handouts and putting them all over the city.  Here the only really good English teachers are gringos, because the difficult thing about English is the pronounciation of words and the accent, so gringo teachers are the only ones who can really teach it right.  So on the top of the flyer we put ''Free English Classes'' and then right underneath we have ''Taught by gringos.''  Between those two things we figured we'd see a lot of people, and we actually did!  A lot more than we expected.  Usually when Elders start classes up fresh they get 3 or 4 people for the first lesson, but we had 12!  It was awesome.  Elder Hadlock and I had a great time teaching such an unexpectedly large class size, and we got to know all of them personally.  They're all really cool people, and I hope that they all keep coming.  The first lesson went really well, so I think the size of the classes will increase and not decreased.  At the beginning of the class we asked why people came and a few of them said that they wanted to meet and know the Elders a little better because they've always been curious about them, and so we're hoping that we'll be able to become friends with them and eventually teach them.  So, success!  It felt good, especially after last change when just about everything that we did flopped in our face.

There are a few more stories, but I'll have to save them for next week.  So like I said at the beginning of the email, this week was a ton better.  Elder Hadlock and I don't really know what happened to us last change, but whatever it was it wasn't good.  Now we're both eating healthier, exercising better, and doing just about everything a lot better.  We have the excitement of the missionary work back, finally, which is awesome.  So here's to a great change!  We're both super excited for whatever comes.

So, I should probably tell you why I'm writing so late today.  Today both Talca zones held this awesome activity that was so great that the assistants to the President gave us Conti peeps special permission to wake up at 5:00 and travel at 6:00 to Talca to be able to participate, then end our P-day as late as necessary.  The activity was awesome, from Talca the zones took a bus to an awesome garden type thing in the middle of nowhere (it was gorgeous though, I love the Chilean fields and the hills) where we played American football, futbol, and kickball, then had a big barbecue with everyone.  It was a lot of fun.

So, I know that a big thing happened recently in the church, which I actually didn't find out about until today through all of your emails.  I know that my family is as strong in their faith as it gets, so what I have to say here is more intended for other people who may end up reading this outside of my family, especially people my age.  Please, please remember that the Church of Jesus Christ is not a company.  It is not a business, it is not a nonprofit, it is the Church of Jesus Christ.  The Church never has, and never will respond to protests or to the demands and desires of ''revolutionaries'' who feel it their responsibility to modernize, update, or otherwise revise the Church of our God.  If you believe in the Church, if you believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet, you must acknowledge that these men are inspired and chosen servants of God.  There is no way to profess allegiance or belief of the church and then suggest any kind of change to the policy that the Lord's chosen servants have set forth, it just doesn't make any sense.  You're in or you're out, or else you are water that is ''lukewarm'' as Christ says it in one of his many great discourses, or ''salt that has lost it's savor.''

Now with that said, remember that their are answers to every question, and to every doubt.  When we're knocked back, or something happens that we don't understand, we always need to go back to the roots of our testimony.  Those things that the Spirit has communicated dirrectly to our understanding that can't be shaken, and from that basis of faith, any principle can become testimony.  If those roots aren't there, seek to grow them, or else when the days get hotter your faith will wither as a plant without root.  Stay firm, things aren't going to be getting any easier.  I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Saints is the true church of God upon the earth, and nothing will ever shake that testimony.

I wanna say more but I gotta go, bye!  I love you all!

Love,

Elder Fox

I can't come up with a letter subject!

Changes came!!!  Aaaaaaaaaah!

So we were all pretty sure what would happen this change.  This Mission President rarely keeps anyone in a sector for more than 3 changes (keep in mind a change is 6 weeks,) and practically never keeps a companionship together for more than 2 changes.  In fact, being a companionship for 2 changes is even a little rare.  But when you're training, most of the time you have your trainer for the two changes of your training.  Elder Hadlock has 3 changes here now and we've been together for two, so we were very sure that he was leaving.  Like super sure.  He bought a Chilean flag for all our investigators and members to sign and was about to print off photos for everyone and everything.  Also we were fairly confident that even though Elder Schley was half way through the training of Elder Rodriguez that he was leaving because he broke the door to our apartment down and President didn't like that too much.  I was expecting to stay in Conti and get a Latino companion, because that's normally what happens after training so that our Spanish improves very quickly.  I was a little nervous about that, because Elder Rodriguez would likely be getting a Latino companion too and I was expecting to live in an apartment with three other missionaries who don't speak English.  Although I can speak really well for my time, that would've been really hard.

SO we got the call Saturday night, kind of freaking out naturally.  The zone leaders called Elder Hadlock and told him where everybody in our district was going, which includes the other Conti Elders.  He started with Elder Hadlock, and to all our surprise the zone leader said that he was staying in Conti.  Immediately my mind started to flip out because I thought that naturally meant that I'm leaving, because President hardly ever keeps people together for more than 2 changes.  I was just thinking where I'd be going and why I was leaving when the zone leader said to Elder Hadlock ''You're companion is going to be Elder Fox, who's also staying.''  After the phone call there was much loud celebration on the part of Elder Hadlock and I.  We were right about Elder Schley though, he's going to San Fernando and Elder Rodriguez is getting a new Latino trainer named Elder Mendez.  He's either Brazilian, Colombian, or Chilean, but we don't know which.

So those are our changes!  Elder Hadlock and I are staying together a change!  We're super excited about that, and confident that we have more work to do this change and more potential.  Last change was really hard for both of us, but I hope that things are looking up this change.  One great blessing that we have is our new ward mission leader, because our last mission leader was less active so we never had our correlation meeting and he never went to ward council.  Our new one though is a return missionary, and he's an amazing guy.  We have correlation every week now, and he's just an amazing mission leader and an amazing member.  He accompanies us a lot, which is really nice too.  The best thing though is that he has the ward leadership convinced that we actually are working now, and that's the greatest blessing of all.  I don't know what it is with this ward, but they have some bad trust issues.  They think we don't work and that we're not doing anything because the missionaries 5 years ago had so much ''success'' (and thanks to this ''success'' there are 1,200 less active members in Conti) and now we're not having very much.  They also generally think the missionaries are lazy and disobedient.  Though that definitely doesn't apply to the whole ward, it did apply to the church leadership which has definitely made things difficult.  For those of you who aren't as familiar with missionary work, just know that working hand-in-hand with the ward is absolutely crucial.  You can't get absolutely anything done without the help of the members.  Anyway I digress, for this reason this new ward mission leader is a huge blessing, and our relationship with the ward is improving rapidly.  That is my thought of gratitude this week.

So things that happened this week!  Monday we were finally able to teach Pedro and Rosa, which was probably the highlight of my entire week because they're great investigators.  We're still not having any luck contacting the investigator that Elder Hadlock and the zone leader found last week and put a baptismal date with, which was a little disappointing because his date fell Sunday when he didn't attend church, but I'm confident that we'll be able to teach him again and get things resolved.  We also had a family home evening with Juan and Janet (the couple who are getting married and baptized in December) with the other Elders and also the Sister missionaries.  That was an awesome experience too, Juan opened up to us like I've never seen him before and told us the story of his entire life.  It's amazing how people open up to missionaries so easily, even when they don't really know them very well.  I think that they can sense the mantle we have, and know that we can help them.  He's had a really hard life, and he was talking about how he wants to forget some things and forgive some people so badly and he pleads in prayer that he can forget what happened.  We all testified of the healing power of the atonement and how it can help him feel peace, and Elder Schley shared his experience of being in the orphanage in Kazakhstan where there wasn't any clothes or food or really everything, and how kids who weren't adopted into the States often froze to death.  He talked about his experience being adopted and coming to know God and the peace that it offered him.  It was one of the most powerful lessons I've ever been in.

I forgot to talk about the lesson with Pedro and Rosa!  Silly me.  We taught lesson 1 and it went well.  We realized that they had more doubts than we previously expected though so we weren't able to commit them to baptism, but they're serious about investigating and finding out if it's the truth, which here is rare and very awesome.  So I'm excited for that!

Other than that not much happened.  We found a gringa the other day and talked to her in English for a while, I forgot how much I love talking to strangers in English, it's so much easier!!  Also we played futbol for a while with one of our investigator's little kid and that was a blast.

So that was my week!  I'm going to have to be really lame and not leave much of spiritual thought because I'm low on time, but I do want to say that the Lord is very aware of us, and if we give ourselves to Him, then he will always direct us where we need to be, and everything will work out for the best, and He will make something out of us that we would never dare to dream of.  I love you all!  Have a good week!  I'm praying for you!

Love,

Elder Fox