A Series of Unfortunate Events - Pichidegua Edition

Hey all!  Considering how unfortunate the events of this week were it was a pretty good week!  I have some funny stories to start out though:

Fence scratchers!  So the other week this less-active member was walking on the street when we passed him and said hi and shook his hand, and before he said anything he said:

''Hey, don't feel bad you guys, but I've been getting some complaints from some of my friends in La Torina about you guys.  You see La Torina is a very atheist place... you know what atheist means?''

Me:  ''Uhmm... yeah.''

Member:  ''Yeah it means their super super Catholic.  That's what atheist means.''

Me: ''Uhhh... are you sure?''

Member:  ''Anyway, they're very atheist over there.  So one of them came up to me the other day and told me that after you ''alo''-ed at his house you were scratching the fence while you were waiting for him to come out.''

Me: ''....we were... scratching the fence?''

Member: ''Yeah, apparently while waiting for him to come out you scratched the paint on his fence, so just be careful not to touch people's fences if they don't come out.  If they don't come out, they just don't come ya know?'' 

As we were walking away Elder Kammerman said, ''Oh yeah I totally have a habit of scratching fences while waiting for people to open the door.  Oh wait... no I don't!''

I thought that was pretty funny.  We continued making jokes during the week about ''them dang fence scratchers'' pretending to be livid with those fence-scratching mormons.

Another random quote from my companion:

''When my gravy light gets echoed, man, game over.''

As confused and obscure as this comment may seem, I promise that it actually does mean something.

Anyway, on to the week!  It was a pretty stressful week, but it turned out to be a great week by the end!  We got everything done that we needed to by the end, so it was good!  Also learned some important lessons.

Tuesday was the start of the nightmare.  We had some appointments set up, so we biked to La Torina (ya know, the super atheist place that's way into Catholicism) which is pretty far from our house.  After going to one of our investigators who wasn't there, somehow the wire that controls the back tire gears got loosed from the gear-changer thingy and the chain kept slipping off the gears so we couldn't go anywhere.  With some tinkering around, I figured out what the problem was and how to fix it but I needed an allen-wrench.  We proceeded to go door to door for about an hour just to find the wrench, but our efforts were in vain.  We ended up walking back to Pichidegua and buying an allen-wrench.  After that, we went to a less-active we had an appointment with and he wasn't there.  We contacted a bit more in La Torina but then needed to go to Andrea, who we had an appointment with.  We decided to take the long way back to contact one or two houses more.  We did so, and while talking to this nice man who came out and started talking with us, I suddenly felt something pinch down on my leg hard.  I turned around, and alas!  It was a wild dog with its jaws firmly attached to my leg!  At this point I honestly just laughed because of the kind of luck we were having that day.  The dog gave no warning, nobody saw it come up and it didn't make any noise or bark or anything.  The good thing was that it didn't hurt that bad, but I knew I needed to take care of it so we had to cancel our appointment with Andrea.  Honestly, having to cancel the appointment was the only part of the ordeal that was irritating to me.  We went to the chapel to see if it broke skin, and it did, so we called the nurse and she told us that when we went to Rancagua the next day (we had a meeting) that I'd need to get a rabi shot afterwards.  That night I cleaned it out as best I could and we had to go back to the house to bandage it up and then it was too late to work more.

The next day!  I looked at my clothes and realized that there weren't any visible holes from the teeth so I told the nurse that it didn't seem like the teeth actually directly reached my skin.  So she said we didn't have to worry about it!  Then we had the meeting and the meeting was excellent and I learned a ton.  The sad thing was that the meeting went way late and we were going to go visit Christian, upon discovering that was impossible we set an appointment with Andrea, but we also had to cancel that because the bus took so long and we got back home at 9:30 at night.  That night I looked at my clothes more carefully and realized that there were holes... so I called the nurse and told her that I actually probably did need the vaccination.

Next day!  We were going to go to Menene but in the morning we had to do the district class because the meeting replaced it the previous day so we went to San Fernando that morning and went to the hospital there.  Upon waiting a while, we discovered that my insurance somehow didn't work from them so they would have to charge about $75.00 for the shot.  Nope.  So we went back to Pichidegua and because we were delayed we had to cancel with Menene.  At this point I was pretty dang stressed and really frustrated at the dog.  Luckily that night we got to teach Andrea before going to the hospital in Pichidegua that finally gave me the shot for free without much hassle.  Finally!

And with some crazy time-management skills, we managed to visit Menene and Christian still later in the week.  So it all worked out and was fine and I was silly for worrying.  But that was the craziness of the week!

Saturday morning we also climbed the hill here in Pichidegua with the youth of the branch and the Elders from Peumo.  It was a ton of fun and we were able to get to know Leyper (Christian's girlfriend's son who's a member) a lot better and had a good time.

So the lessons I learned this week!  This week I actually had a good deal of very profound spiritual learning experiences that all came after the three days of extreme stress.  We watched this ''Hope Works'' thing which seems like Mormon ted talks with this guy who talks about not worrying things that won't matter in 1,000 years.  I learned a lot from that and definitely recommend it.  The biggest learning moment, however, came when we were watching another one of those hope works things with this girl that talks about the ''perfect lie.''  She explains how she was approaching life at a me + more = christlike perspective when in reality the truth is me + christ = more.  I LOVED that.  Learned a ton from that, and it went along with a lot of the lessons I've been learning here.  We also watched the face-to-face with Studio C (advantages to having a church computer to download all these things during branch activities) which was actually really inspiring and had a lot of lessons about the atonement and God's love.  Good stuff!

Well that was my week!  I love you all!  The church is true!  Have a great week!

Love

Elder Fox

Them dang fence-scratchers

Hey all!

This week was another good week!  Not a lot of new stuff to report though, but the old stuff is still all progressing and doing good!

Tuesday I did a division in San Vicente, but that was pretty slow.  For whatever reason even though San Vicente is a huge place the work has been pretty slow there.  They do have one good investigator though!  Didn't get to meet him though.  It was a good day though!

Menene (the Haitian) is progressing well still, but he couldn't go to church because it was raining a ton and there wan't transportation.  We went to his house this week though and taught him about the Book of Mormon.  It was a good lesson, he can't read much so the assignments will be small but he's still excited to read!

We also had a lesson with Andrea this week and she's doing good too.  She sincerely wants to be baptized, so that's awesome!  We finished teaching the Plan of Salvation then we went through what needs to happen for her to be baptized just to set the expectations for her and it seems like it's going to happen!  So we're super psyched.  I hope I'm here when it happens, but if it doesn't it won't matter over much because she'll still be baptized!

Christian and the Peruvian family are doing great too, we went to teach them again this week with Iván and taught them about the Book of Mormon too.  They went to a district adult dance (we rented a bus to take all the members to San Fernando and take them back) and they had a great time!  The members love them and they're already great friends so it's been a great success!

We had a less active go to church for the first time in forever this week!  His name is Juan Peña, and he and his wife and kid haven't gone for years, essentially ever since his wife got baptized.  He's been a member since birth, but fell away until the missionaries came and baptized his wife, then fell away again.  But he went to church this week so we're excited!

The branch is doing alright, but there are a lot of hard things going on for a lot of the members right now, and we're not sure on a lot of the details.  So we're keeping everyone in our prayers!

SO that was our week in a nutshell!  Life is good!  I hope you all have a great week, take care!  Love you all!

Love

Elder Fox

I forgot to mention the fence scratching story.  Remind me to tell you next time.

Nunca hay casos perdidos

Hey family!  This week was amazing, probably one of the best of my missions!  But it was crazy busy and I desperately needed the break, but I'm excited for this week to continue and see what happens!

I'll start with a funny quote from when we did practices.  The missionary involved is new and just got here a week ago.  He wanted to say ''Eso fue cuando Jesús vino a la tierra y pagó por nuestros pecados.''  which is ''That's when Jesus came to the world to pay for our sins.''  He ended up saying ''Eso fue cuando Jesús vino a la tienda y pagó por nuestros pescados.'' Which means ''That's when Jesus came to the store and paid for our fish.''

I laughed really hard at that.  Both good things, both good things.

So the week!  Was crazy, but it was great!  Tuesday was a slower day but we saw some big miracles.  At one point during the day my bike broke, so we had to walk it back to the house.  Later, walking on the main road in pichidegua, we started talking to this man who was just standing on the side of the road.  We started to walk with him, and he told us that he went to our church before a lot but was never a member, but really liked what we taught and wanted to go back.  He lives super far away, but he promised that he would come to church that week.  I gave him a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet of the Restoration and I got his phone number.  A few days later, I lost the phone number.  I was pretty sad about that, because I was pretty sure that if I didn't remind him he'd never come to church since we only met him for a few minutes.  But I was wrong!  Oh ye of little faith.  Right at the start of the second hour of church, he came.  He told us in the Sunday School class that he started reading the pamphlet and then he finished it and started reading the Book of Mormon, and next thing he knew it was 5:00 in the morning.  He had read all night.  Cool right?!?!  Those are the kind of stories you see in general conference!  Sadly, I couldn't get his number again because he doesn't have it memorized and he didn't have it written down anywhere, but I gave him my number and I'm pretty sure he'll contact us or keep coming to church.  So we're looking forward to what will happen!  The only obstacle is that he lives so far away.

So I discovered Wednesday morning in leadership counsel that one of the companionships in my district had an investigator with a baptismal date for that Saturday that had the church attendances and lessons necessary for baptism and had the pre-interview done.  I had no idea about this, so I asked the elders after the meeting if he needed the interview done before Saturday and they said that he did.  The only problem is that we live about 3 hours away from each other and I had to go with the other district leaders to a meeting in Rancagua all of Friday, so our only option was to do a division the next day and then stay overnight and coordinate to go to the bus terminal in San Fernando and divide again between about 8 other companionships of Elders and then go to the meeting.  It was a little difficult to coordinate but it worked out alright.  The division was fun, I went with Elder Carrillo who was in my district last change so I already knew him and he's a great guy.  And I did my first baptismal interview!  It was actually kind of fun.  He passed and got baptized on Saturday!  So that's pretty exciting.  

Also, Wednesday we went to the Peruvian family from Pataguas Cerros again and had an awesome lesson with them.  They're so dang prepared!  We put a baptismal date with her partner for next January since they can't get married until next year.  He's for sure going to get baptized though, so we're super excited.  They came to church this Sunday too!  The branch was super welcoming and they're excited to have them.  The attendance continues increasing!

I was a little hesitant to do a division on Thursday because we had set 5 appointments for that day and Elder Carrillo's companion is the new one who just got here a week ago (his name is Elder Musselman and he's awesome) and I didn't know how putting a missionary with 6 weeks and a missionary with 1 week together in a sector with 5 appointments would work out.  But I trusted my comp enough to go forward with it, and they did great!  They put a baptismal date with Andrea, the girl from Peru who we were teaching before then fought with her husband and moved to Peru and then moved back.  So that was exciting!

Then Friday was the meeting which was awesome.  President Harris is going to help us out a lot.  He described to us how he's had this plan on how to help the mission since before he got here, and he talked a lot about the steps we all need to take together in order to get to the point where we'll have baptisms every week.  It was probably one of the best meetings I've been too.  Also, my great friend Elder Young (roommate in Santa Cruz (Paniahue) and probably the best leader and most respectable missionary I've ever met) is an assistant now so I got to talk to him again which was nice.

Saturday we passed by a potential who's name was Barbara who we had met a few days previously and seemed really promising.  She's about 18 but super smart and wanted to know more about our message.  We went there and were able to teach her with her neighbor who just happened to be there.  It's a good thing he was there or else we wouldn't have been able to go in.  We taught her the first lesson and realized just how smart she is.  Some of her insights on things actually taught me some things I didn't know.  It was insane.  So she understood really well and accepted the invitation to pray about it.  So another exciting prospect!

Then yesterday was fantastic.  We had put an appointment with a Haitian family a few days earlier (they were a reference from other elders) but we discovered that they live in another city called Larmahue which was really far from Pichidegua, the only way to get there is by colectivo.  Since it was Sunday, the members told us not to go because there was a chance we wouldn't be able to make it back.  So I almost forgot about the whole thing, when out the blue me and my companion start feeling extremely exhausted out of nowhere.  I was shaking and panting like crazy and it wasn't even hot outside nor where we doing much.  It was a type of exhaustion I had never felt before, and Elder Kammerman felt the same thing at the exact same time.  We decided we needed to head back to the house to get some water and sit down for a bit, and in the house I remembered to call the Haitians to cancel with them.  I called them and they sounded disappointed that we wouldn't be able to go, and literally said in their broken Spanish ''it's really important that you come so we can give you a good welcome and get to know you.  You're foreign, we're foreign, I think we're going to be very good friends.''  They offered to come to Pichidegua and find us, and so at that point I just couldn't say know and told them we'd do everything possible to go there.  We miraculously found a colectivo and found them.  They were probably the nicest people I've ever met in my entire life.  They only had two chairs, but they insisted that we sit down and insisted that they could remain standing.  They kept saying ''it's a happiness for me to talk to you and to get to know you.''  They were just so great.  They were really excited about the prospect of going to church since they hadn't been to a church since they moved to Chile, and they all accepted a baptismal date for the 12 of November.  They wanted to accompany us to try to find a bus to make sure we got home safe, and one of them, upon leaving the house, wanted to return to the house to get money for our bus tickets.

They only have two chairs, in their entire house, and they wanted to pay for our bus tickets.  Touching to see what real Christianity means.

They waited with us for about another hour until a bus finally came and we got to go home.  That's when I realized that if the random exhaustion hadn't come over us, we likely never would have went.  God works in mysterious ways :)

So that was our crazy good week!  More stories to come!  I love you all!  The church is true!  Have a great week!

Love

Elder Fox

The Beginning of Great Things

Hey all!  I made a video that I'm going to upload and send in the church after this, so stay tuned.

In the video I describe that me and Elder Kammerman are staying here this change and I'm district leader again.  It's gunna be a good change!

Things I didn't mention in the video!  General Conference was awesome.  We saw a lot of repeated themes:  The Plan of Salvation and the Atonement, The doctrine of Christ (faith and repentance), prayer, and missionary work.  Cool right?!  We also got a few talks about the Restoration and how to help our faith when it's struggling.  I learned a lot and look forward to studying these talks a lot more in the coming months.  The Spirit was very strong for me this conference, and I felt manifestation after manifestation of God's love for me, when feelings that we need to improve something are accompanied by feeling God's love for us, we know that those feelings truly come from God.  Those are the feelings that truly lead to repentance instead of discouragement, which is what Satan wants.

So I mention in the video that there are a lot of great things coming up here in the branch.  Me and my comp are super excited about all of it, and we're excited for a great change coming up.  God truly has great things in mind for Pichidegua, and we're seeing the start of a process that I'm sure is going to be very long, but very important.  We're seeing many miracles every week, like the miracle I describe in the video with the family we found as a reference that's going to start going to church every week.  Exciting stuff!  Goes to show that faith always holds the power to execute the will of God, whatever that may be, and however slow the growth of the church involved may be.  In a few of my past sectors I saw the same kind of thing.  Growth is slow, but I suppose that God uses some people to start the rock rolling and others to keep it rolling.  Neither is more important than the other.  I haven't baptized anyone in over 8 months, and in 15 months I've only baptized two, but I never really feel like I'm not successful.  God has been using me to start the rocks rolling, and I'm fine with that!  It'll be great to see how Pichidegua is a few years from now, since growth is finally beginning.

Some funny stories!  So my comp has this uncanny ability to permanently remember the name of anyone we meet (while that's a particular weakness of mine.)  So we were walking into a supermarket one day when my companion waves to this guy passing by us and says ''Hey Carlos how's it going?!''  I had no idea who this person was, and I was pretty perplexed at how my companion knew him since I've literally been by his side ever since he got to this part of the country.  I expressed how perplexed I was and asked how he knew his name and he replies, ''He's Carlos!  Ya know, that guy we bought bread from that one time?!''

Oh yeah.  Carlos.  How could I have forgotten?  The bread guy we bought bread from one time about a month ago.

I thought that was pretty funny.  It's pretty handy how he always remembers these people.

Another one, so Chileans almost always try to speak English when they see us.  It bothers some people, but I've just always found it funny.  So between sessions we were outside with two other elders getting money from an atm when these street workers nearby started trying to speak english.  They said the common ''hello'' and ''how are you'' (most chileans don't know more than this) but then started asking between themselves in spanish ''how do you say ____?'' but I didn't pick out exactly what.  I decided to be a little twitful, and in spanish I asked my companion ''¿Cómo se dice... hablamos español?'' which is ''how do you say... we speak spanish?''  I didn't intend for them to hear me, but they did, and they got a huge kick out of it.  They started laughing a ton and said ''we heard that!''  At least the took it well.

So that was my week!  I'll be sending the video!  I love you all!  Have a great week!

Love

Elder Fox