This keyboard is terrible

Hey all!  I'm typing on probably the worst keyboard I've ever come in contact with in my life, so I have the option of spelling well or writing fast, and I'm probably going to choose to write fast!  So please excuse the terrible spelling!    
 (Note from mother:  As I post this blog for Elder Fox, I am fixing all the spelling errors for poor Jason. Those who are reading this...take my word for it, there were a ton of spelling errors :)

This week was much better. Bastante mejor.  Bastante.  You could prooobably tell from my last letter that I was a little grouchy, but I got better!  And now all is well!

Changes!  They came this Saturday during our English class.  The district leader of the other Elders was a zone leader and knows how to get the changes early, and he's a little dead (going home soon and doesn't care) so he passed us all our changes early hahaha.  Me and Elder Espindola are staying together!  Wooooopt!  We're super excited for this change.  We're going to see a lot of cool success here, and a few baptisms I think!  I'm also going to be district leader, which is a little scary but I'm also excited.  Every companionship in the district is a trainer/trainee relationship so it's a pretty young district.  The cool thing though is that I'm really good friends with every trainer in the district.  One of them I've been friends with since Talca!  So I'm excited!  Inadequate, but excited!

So the mission is going to see a lot of interesting thing in the next few months.  Over half the missionaries in the mission are leaving in the next 3 changes, and in the middle of this change President Warne is going to go home and we're going to get a new president, President Harris.  SO a lot of weird thing are going to happen.  Though slightly concerned how the mission will be without the missionaries who are leaving (among them is my trainer) I'm sure everything will work out!  It'll be an adventure for sure!

Weekly stories!  Things are looking a little up, Claudio #2 is still not doing too hot and the fma. Menares didn't come to church again, but we saw a ton of miracles this week.  The good news is that Dominic assured us that Claudio is doing alright and still wants to get baptized and doesn't feel pressure and isn't running from us, but still feels like he hasn't received an answer and wants to a lot.  Hopefully we'll be able to talk to him this week.

We found awesome potential investigators too!  El Gruingito is proving to be a gold mine.  We went this week and taught a mini discussion to two of the employees and they were super attentive.  We went to the house of one later and had a super interesting conversation with his brother.  Also, while we were talking with employees some customers overheard us and took a lot of interest.  They came and talked to us after and we got their address and went to their house Saturday.  We didn't have time to teach them, but they are amazing.  They are extremely friendly, don't have a religion, but believe in the Godhead (not the trinity, the Godhead) and are really interested in what we have to say.  On the way to their house (asking directions from people) we found two other awesome people who are interested.  It's amazing!!  So many prepared people in just a week, so we're excited for the weeks to come!

So last week I told you about how Juana`s husband isn't doing too hot, and it seems like he's not going to make it.  Of course Juana's extremely distressed about this, but doesn't let it show a lot, and I think for the most part is trying to forget it and block it.  Just yesterday we went to their house and she asked if we could give him a blessing.  Though he was passing in and out of consciousness, my companion asked him who he would like to give the blessing.  I was expecting him to choose my comp because he's Argentinian and naturally speaks better but he surprisingly asked me to do it.  It was a very powerful moment.  One of the most sacred experiences of my mission, I think.  Like with the other 2 blessings of comfort I've given in my life, I felt an extremely clear connection between me and my father.  Also like the other 2, after having given the blessing I feel like I know him much deeper.  He was a very good man, and his Father is very proud of him, and He just wanted to let him know that he did well, that he was done.  Juana dissolved into tears very early on in the blessing, and after it was done she just held him and sobbed and told him that he's the love the of her life and that she was going to miss him.  It's hard to describe how potent an experience like that is, but it definitely broke my heart.  Me and my comp were both in tears.  We talked to him after, and he told us that he isn't afraid.  After the blessing he just had a lot more peace, he stopped trembling, and he even told a few jokes.  After, we gave a blessing to Juana to comfort her.  She told us that she felt much better, ecstatic even.  She told us that every time we come she's very calm afterward and she feels a tremendous peace.  I felt very grateful to be a part of that experience and help them.

I have more thoughts!  But no time!  I love you all!  God loves His children, more than we can imagine.

Love

What the fweak just happened? - Part 3

Hey all!  This week was another super weird one, and sadly I don't have a lot of time to explain it!  So I'll go as fast as I possibly can!  

Claudio #2 was doing super well early this week.  He described to us some times where he was tempted to fall back into his addictions but he thought ''I'm Mormon now'' and didn't do it.  I thought that was awesome, and am super happy for him.  Sadly, this week when we went to pick him for the church he said that he still felt unprepared to go and that he wasn't doing too well anyway because he fell again.  Which is okay, I'm just sad because I know how painful that must be to fall back into temptation again.  I'll definitely be praying for him.

Claudio #1 seems to be avoiding us.  Even though Dominic (his gilrfriend) told us that he doesn't feel pressure with me and Elder Espindola and that he sincerely wants to get baptized in July, it sure seems like he's trying to get out of talking to us.  We haven't been able to meet with him since that fhe over a month ago and this Sunday was the third in a row where he came to church, didn't come to gospel principles class, and then left before Priesthood started.  So something's going on... we're just not sure what.

Juana and Romildo aren't doing too good, Romildo has had this type of cancer ever since we've known him and it's taking a turn for the worse.  He's unconscious most of the time and when he is conscious he doesn't talk much.  So it doesn't look too good.  Of course Juana is extremely distressed because of this, but sadly we haven't been able to come and give a lesson of comfort yet.  Hopefully this week an opportunity will present itself.

We found two new investigators this week!  There names are José and Ana, and they're awesome people.  José works in a field, which is tough work, and Ana just stays at home with their children.  We weren't able to teach their children, but we taught them both and they were very receptive.  They accepted the baptismal invitation and a baptismal date!  It was a weak date though, more of a 'if we receive an answer' type thing.  The sad thing is that two days later we passed by them again and told us that they changed their minds and would never get baptized because they're Catholics... dang it satan why ya have to do that hahahaha the good news is that we talked them through it a bit and told them that we don't want them to get baptized for us, simply for them, and asked them if they believe they can receive an answer from God and they said yes.  Then we asked them if they'd be willing to act according to the answer, and they said yes.  Then we recommitted them to pray about Joseph Smith and they were much more dedicated about doing it.  So we'll see how it goes!

Fma. Menares!  It's been a while since I've talked about them.  They're eternal investigators of the missionaries who have a lot of desires to get baptized, just have some problems getting to church Sundays and one has a bad smoking habit.  It wouldn't be too hard to help them but we're not able to teach them very often because of their busy schedule.  We did teach them once this week however and talked about faith and repentance, how it's a huge opportunity for them and they felt the Spirit strongly and felt a lot more motivation to progress towards baptizm.  They all accepted baptismal dates!  We are super excited for them, the only problem is that they still didn't come to chuch this week... so we're going to have to try a lot of things to help them get there.  They have time though!  So it'll work out.

Aaaaaand then Sunday I got sick.  It's similar to what happened to me in Constitución but not nearly as bad, which is a blessing.  I can keep down clear liquids so I won't go 3 days without eating or drinking like what happened last time.  It should be over in no time though and we'll get to work again!  South America sometimes does this to me.

I love you all!  It was a great week, and a terrible week, all at the same time!  So best just say it was a weird week.  We've seen many tender mercies though!  Especially on one occasion when we went to a completo place really quick cuz my comp was hungry and we got talking with an awesome couple who lived in England for about 10 years.  They're super friendly and want to listen to us!  Then we got talking with the owner and his employee who are also both super friendly and want us to come by and teach them!  All we wanted was a completo but we had several really easy contacts and awesome potential investigators!  So lots of tender mercies!

Have a great week!  Love ya!!

Elder Fox

I can't think of a good subject

Hey family!!  I have to admit that I don't actually remember what happened this week!  Usually I keep a sticky note in my planner where I write down things I want to remember to write you guys but this week... I suppose I didn't do it!  Not really sure why... it wasn't a bad week though!  

Claudio #2 came to a church activity this week!  We discovered that his struggle is getting to church because he's extremely shy and very reclusive, in fact his siblings promised us that we'd never get him to leave the house.  His siblings also said that there's no way he'll ever change and that he shuts himself off from them (when he tells us that they don't let him enter their houses because of how he is), which made me reasonably angry and I decided not to talk too much more with his siblings!  Sufficeth to say, we did get him to leave the house and it was great!  He was very shy but he made friends with an older member of the branch (who's just naturally very good with people) and we left the activity early and Claudio stayed with the member without a problem!  So it's a big step for him!  He didn't come to church however, when we went to pick him up he said he was sick :P  But it's a work in progress!

Even though we haven't seen Claudio #1 he seems to be doing really well!  We talked with his girlfriend about him a lot during a lunch appointment and she tells us that he's understanding the Book of Mormon a lot better, and that he's taken our commitment to figure out a baptismal date very seriously.  He's treating it like it'll be his actual baptismal date which is really exciting because the missionaries have been working with him for years.  He says he wants to do it in July because he wants his girlfriend's dad to baptize him, so we're going to put a date for the 2nd of July next time we get the chance to talk to him!  We're pretty stoked.

So that was about it!  SO I want to talk about P-day today!!  Today was easily the funnest p-day I've had since Conti, and I already sent some pictures of it!  Some more pictures are attached to this email.  We've been wanting to climb some hill in the sector (because there are a ton of huge hills) for a very long time now, and the opportunity finally showed itself and we went and climbed a hill!  I've been eyeing a hill that's a little east of our house for some time now that's pretty large but not too steep or rocky and ridiculously green so we decided to go climb it!

The pictures don't do justice, the hills were incredibly green, like a green you've never seen in your life type green.  I have a ton more photos of the trip but I can't possibly send them all.  It was a ton of fun though, it was a pretty good hike and it was definitely very adventurous.  The view at the top was breathtaking, it was just awesome being up there.

1.) More Andes!

2.) Our nametags on the Chilean flag with Hospital in the background

3.) Us four with the whole Buin zone in the background

So that was my week and short letter!  I hope you all had a great week!  A little spiritual thought and challenge I have for you all this week is just to read the Book of Mormon every day.  I think I realized again this week just how important it is to read it every day, and how big of a difference it makes in everything.  Have a great week!

Love
Elder Fox

More P-day pictures:

1.)  Me with a Chilean flag, not a huge fan of this one because the camera was at a weird angle and it looks like I'm doing a disco pose and the flag is super small, I like the one with the argentian flag much more even if it makes zero sense

2.) Green hill with pretty flowers!

3.) Andes!

4.) Panoramic of the view!

5.) FREEDOM!!  Even though I'm holding an argentian flag and I'm from the states and I'm in Chile...

No eres Elder?

Hey all!  I got to talk to a bunch of you yesterday!  That was a ton of fun, and I want to finish one of the thoughts that I started but didn't have time to finish!

But first, to catch up all the people who I didn't talk to on my week, it was a good week but really busy to do a branch conference that we had on Sunday.  The Branch President needed a ton of help with a ton of things so we found ourselves doing that a lot more than our normal work, but a few cool things did happen!  A part of preparing for the branch conference was practicing for a choir number that I had to play the piano for and sing for.  The song was ''Santos Advanzad'' and sadly I don't remember what the song is called in English....

So this week sadly we had to drop Francisco, it was really sad, but he literally told us that even if God appeared before him and told him that he has to be baptized in the church of Jesus Christ he wouldn't do it... so that's a pretty good indication that his heart isn't ready for the gospel yet.

Other than that we made progress with Claudio, the investigator we found last week!  He has a past but he's very committed to changing his life, which is awesome.  The best thing about him is that he doesn't do much so we can teach him 3 times a week and he always follows through with all the commitments so he's progressing very rapidly.  He agreed to obey the law of chastity and the word of wisdom and understands the restoration pretty well, so we're hoping he'll be baptized early next month!

We also have a new investigator who's from Haiti!  We found him last week when we were trying to find a drug rehabilitation center because we were going to play soccer with the people their.  We needed someone to help us find it and he happened to be entering his house at that exact time and we talked to him for a bit.  He also explained to us that he had been in Chile for only 7 months and that he learned all the Spanish he knows in that time (his native language is French.)  When we passed by later he explained that he was an adventist but that he stopped going to church because he had a girlfriend (in addition to his wife...) and he didn't feel worthy.  He explained to us that in order to walk with Christ one has to keep a certain standard of conduct and he wasn't keeping it, so he stopped.  But he asked us where we meet every week and told us that he'd come to church!  He didn't come, but we'll see about next week!

So near the end of the call I talked a little bit about how I've seen some pretty difficult sectors in my mission, but that I was actually grateful for the experience because of how much I learn from the experiences here and how satisfying it is starting to see the sector that was dry starting to progress.

And that's what I want to talk a little bit more about!  A major theme of my mission has obviously been the lesson that I learned from my first baptism in the mission:  ''God fills the font.''  Time after time, I have seen this same remarkable miracle in the course of my mission, just always in a different way.

But regardless of how many times it happens, it never ceases to surprise me!

I'm a lot like my parents, especially my Dad when he was in his mission, in that I constantly feel painfully unqualified for the service that I'm rendering.  Missionary work is extremely important, and extremely difficult to do it well.  But I have seen, time after time, that regardless of how unqualified I feel or how many mistakes I feel like I'm making, the people start to progress in the gospel anyway.  We find more people to teach anyway, as long as I'm doing my best to do the things that I know I should be doing.  A prime example of this is Claudio.  Honestly, every lesson we've taught his has been awful.  He's very hard to teach and the lessons we've had with have been the worst of my mission.  Yet he tells us every time that we see him that it was the day that he met us that he decided to change is life.

Especially since I started training Elder Espindola, I've felt very unqualified for the times ahead of me.  We have been entrusted with a lot of people with a lot of potential, and though my companion receives revelation and helps a lot, I'm primarily responsible for their progress.  But in the course of my mission I've learned something:

When we are with God, even though we're just people, God is still God, and everything is possible.

That's the message of the atonement, the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and my message and testimony to all of you!  Missionaries aren't the only people who feel unqualified for the type of service to which they've been assigned, we all feel it.  And even if we don't feel particularly unqualified for a calling, we all feel unqualified for the celestial kingdom.  And there are a few truths that we can never forget.  One is that we are children of God and that He loves us, and the second is that God fills the font.

I love you all so much!  Have a great week!

Love

Elder Fox

Claudios

Hey all!  This was a fantastic week, we had some terrible days and some fantastic days and I'm excited to tell you all about it!  But first I need to tell you the fun stories of the week!

So the four of us got to the house of a less active member that we're teaching, and her little nephew was sitting on her porch dipping bread in yogurt and then eating it.  Elder Cook asks:

''Are you.... dipping bread in yogurt?''

Little boy:  ''It's the same!''

''... the same as what?''

Little boy:  ''It's the same thing!''

''The same as what?!''

This conversation continued until the less active came out and explained to us that it's the same as eating bread and then eating yogurt.  I'm not really sure how the logic of all that came about but I thought that it was pretty hilarious.

Burdened with mayonnaise!  So in Spanish ''burdened'' and ''loaded'' are the same word, so sometimes it's hard to tell which one someone wants to say.  So last week we were eating Choripanes (hot dog type things) and I put a good deal of mayo on mine and Elder Cook tells me in Spanish that it's ''loaded with mayonnaise.''  But I was confused and took it to mean ''burdened'' so I replied in English, ''It's... burdened with mayonnaise?''  We laughed about it for a while and I said that that would make a good band name:  Burdened with Mayonnaise.  Then Elder Cook wrote a screamo song on the spot that went like:  ''SHE *drum drum*  left ME *drum drum*..... BURDENED WITH MAYONNAISE''  I thought it was pretty funny.  I then took a picture of Elder Cook and Elder Espindola acting out how being burdened with mayonnaise would look like, which I'll send hopefully in this email.

So a while ago we went pday shopping while fasting (bad idea) and bought a lot of weird food.  One of these was a weird fruit that I'd never seen before in my life, I think it might be a dragon fruit?  I'll send a picture of it.  So this morning we decided to finally make juice out of the weird fruits that we baught, so we cut the top off, gutted the insides to make the juice, then poured the juice back into the shell and drank it with a mate-straw to filter all the seeds and gunk out, and it actually turned out pretty delicious!  Then, just to complete the effect, Elder Cook put his Guaso pancho on and I got the house guaso hat and all four of us sat there drinking juice out of our dragon fruits dressed as guasos.  Realizing how weird the situation was, Elder Cook explained how a few years ago he would never have been able to imagine his life coming to this.  It was hilarious, I'll also send pictures.

So the week!  There were too awesome things that happened this week and the rest of the week was kind of normalish.  Sadly, what progress Francisco made seems to have disappeared and he's back to saying that he will never get baptized regardless of any spiritual confirmation he gets.  So that was definitely disappointing.  We did have an amazing lesson with Juana and Romildo though, where Juana told us of a dream she had when she was doubting in God and asked in prayer if He really existed.  She told us that it's because of the dream that she knows the God is real and that He loves her, and when she started to talk about how her faith has helped her in her life, she started to weep.  She went on to tell us that she doesn't believe in any church because of the experience, that she just knows that there's a God, that there's Jesus, there's the Holy Ghost, and that we shouldn't pray to saints or to anything else.  It was a very powerful experience, and we promised her that just as God answered that prayer with revelation, He can also answer her prayer to know that the things we're teaching her are more than just pretty words, but that they're things that God has specifically in store for her.  She promised us that she would have a conversation with her Father, and that she'd take some time to spiritually prepare herself.  I was pretty stunned through the whole experience, she is really someone who just gets it, and I think it has a lot to do with her dream.

Claudio!  We had an awesome lesson with Claudio this week where he agreed to pray with his girlfriend about a baptismal date!  Woooooooot!  Dominic (the girlfriend) was super happy after the lesson, she's been waiting for this for a long time.  So we'll see how it goes with him!

We found a new investigator this week!  His name is also Claudio, and he's super prepared.  He told us that he wants to change his life and leave everything behind, and he accepted a baptismal date for the 28 of May without hesitation!  It was awesome, we're also super excited about him.  We haven't been able to teach him again so we're not sure if he has anything holding him back from baptism, but knowing Chile it's very likely that he'll have to leave behind a lot of things.  So we'll see how it goes!

I'm out of time!  Hopefully I'll be able to tell more about the two Claudios next week!  I love you all a ton!  Take care!  Excited to skype!

Love

Elder Fox