Final Sprint

Hey all!  This has been a good week, a weird week, but a good one.  I've got news from both of my previous sectors though!  I'll start with Pichidegua

So, last night we were walking home and a car passes and I hear a girl scream "FOX" in a car driving by.  I whipped around and I barely made out a recent convert from Pichidegua (her name is Ignacia) with nearly her entire torso sticking out of the back window as the car pulled the corner and drove off.  She made them stop the car and apparently they just kept going after dropping her off because they just disappeared but she came back to talk to us.  She's doing good, she's about to start her mission papers so that's real exciting.  There's good and bad news about Pichidegua though.  The good news is that the family of 3 we found in Larmahue at the end of my time there that gave us pie that we helped reactivate are still active.  Also, the Peruvian family of 3 that we found in Pataguas is also still active and the Dad is still planning on getting baptized once he can get divorced and married to his current wife.  That was awesome to hear.  The bad news is that the other 2 baptisms that were going to happen fell through, and the Peña family went inactive again, along with Luis and Jessica (the eternal investigators of 4 years that just needed to get married), and worst of all, Iván.  Iván was the member that was reactivated when Porter was there and accompanied us to almost all our lessons.  Looks like he found something in the Book of Mormon that made him doubt.  The good thing though is that I'm in the zone again and I'll find a way to talk to all of them.  Also, Elder Villavicencio just went over there and he's amazing, so there's high hopes for the place.

Calle Larga!  It nearly killed me leaving, and the emotions were more potent than any other place previous.  And, along with that, of course the withdrawals have also been pretty sharp.  That's definitely a part of what made the week weird.  I know that there's an important work here to be done, but I'd give a lot to be there.  The good thing is, though, that I'm in more regular contact with Calle Larga than I've been with any other previous sector.  I've talked to Elder Sawyer a few times on the phone, I talked to Alejandro once, Alejandro and I are writing each other, and it seems like Hermana Evelyn (one of my favorite members on the planet) might come up here this week to eat lunch with us and her mom.  So, I've been keeping in touch.  The best news is that everybody's doing well, Alejandro's doing well, that Nashani and Maricarmen got baptized this weekend right on schedule, and René is right on track to get baptized this Friday.  YUUUS!!  Made me very happy knowing all that.

Here!  Here is great.  It's a larger branch than I thought, with an attendance anywhere between 20 and 50, and a lot of older members.  It's bee great getting to know the members so far though, and the best was meeting Evelyn's mom (same Evelyn mentioned above) when we went to lunch with them on Wednesday.  The branch President is awesome, and they have branch counsel every week which is incredible.  We have some investigators that are going to be baptized sometime soon, but other than them we don't have much else going on.  We're going to be working a lot with less actives, most likely.  There's a good portion of city but also a good portion of gorgeous fields.  Everything about the fields reminds me of Hospital, including the smell, so that definitely lifted my spirits every time we went there.  There's another village in our sector called Puente Negra which is right up close to the Andes and it's incredible.  The Andes are incredible and I had never been that close. 

My comp is also great!  He's from Uruguay, and he was in my zone a few changes ago so we already knew each other pretty well.  He's easy to get along with and we've had a fun time so far.  I'll send a picture of us and a few of our sector in another email!

I had more thoughts but I'm out of time, more details of everything next week!  I love you all!  Have a great week!

Love

Elder Fo

Like a comet thrown from orbit

Hey all!  The changes came this Saturday, and as we had imagined, it's time for me to leave Calle Larga to go to my last sector in the mission.  Just for a warning, this letter is probably going to be ridiculously sentimental because saying goodbye has honestly gotten exponentially worse every time I leave a place haha you'll probably laugh because I always say that sectors I leave have more impact on me than any other past one, but that's just because my sectors keep impacting me more and more!

Anywho, I'm going back to San Fernando, the zone that Pichidegua's in.  I'm going to be in the branch San Fernando 2, another branch that has a weekly attendance of around 16.  So, a pesar de todo, I'm pretty dang pumped!  It's only right that I finish off in another tiny branch, I've come to like that kind of missionary work a lot.  I'll be a district leader, which I'm also really excited for because with what I've learned as a zone leader I'll be able to do a much better job as a leader of less missionaries.  In my district is Elder Musselman, who was in my district my last change of Pichidegua before I came here and is still there in the same sector.  He is one of my favorite people ever, so I'm pretty excited.  My comp is going to be Elder Figueroa from Uraguay, he was in our zone last change.  So it should be good!  I'm going to live in a house with 6 elders, which is a little nuts, but I hope it'll all be good.  I'll live with Elder Monja, which is another good friend from the Pichidegua days and is now one of the zone leaders.

The morning before the changes, Elder Covey and Elder Sawyer randomly started singing the song from Wicked that the subject of the email is based on, and I realized that I had heard the song hundreds of times but had never really paid attention to the words.  The song has been running through my mind a lot while saying goodbye, because there have been a lot of people here who have completely changed my life course.  Elder Mendez, my first comp here, has helped me to change like probably no other comp.  Elder Covey is probably my best friend in the mission, and has helped me a ton through his example.  Elder Sawyer has been an awesome comp, and we'll be studying in BYU together so we'll be seeing each other.  There are members here unlike any member I've met in Chile, including Hna. Evelyn and her husband, which I'm not sure I've mentioned.  They're a married couple (about 60 years old) who just got sealed while I was here, and they're the most consecrated members I've ever met.  They're the kind of people who really just ''get it'' and there aren't a lot of people like that here.  We made really good friends, and saying goodbye to them was especially rough.  By working together we'd become really close.  And then, of course, there's Alejandro.  He's taught me more than any other single person on my mission, and I will always be amazed at the transformation that he went through while I was here.  He bore his testimony last night to us, telling us about how when I got here he was still saying that he didn't believe in God.  He talked about the experience that he had when he figured out that Jesus Christ was real, and that He lived, and bore his testimony that He knows that He lives.  Alejandro told me in one of our early lessons that reading the scriptures didn't do anything for him and he never felt anything, and recently, in the last 7 weeks he's read the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price with the entire institute manual of each one while underlining and writing side notes.  He has taught me about being a leader and teacher like no one except my parents have before.  I've definitely changed a lot for having known him.

We were able to build confidence with this ward in a way that I've never seen with any other of my wards.  It was hard to bear my last testimony to them on Sunday, but I hope that I'll see them all again.

I've been privileged to see so many miracles here they're hard to count.  I've watched Kati, Roberto, the Suarez-Ramos family, the Echevería family, Lorena and Dixi, Alejandro, Jaime Benvenuto, Jaime Rojas, Edita and her kid, and the Ibarra family start coming back to church.  Rosa Machuca came to church for the first time in years yesterday along with her soon-to-be-husband and kid that are going to be baptized next Saturday.  Nashani, the kid of Lorena and Dixi, is going to be baptized this Friday.  Maricarmen is also going to be baptized this Saturday.  A family of 5 that's friends with Alejandro are extremely interested in the church and should get baptized in the coming months, and Rut Ibarra's 4 sons should be getting baptized in the coming months as well.  

And the most miraculous thing is that Elder Sawyer and I don't feel like we've done anything different this change than any of the other changes of our mission, other than working with Alejandro all day every day (which actually is responsible for a lot of the success) but we didn't have to kill ourselves working or do anything outside of the normal.  We've made so many mistakes that we couldn't count them, and the only real explanation behind everything is just that God filled the font.  I've had many, many examples in my mission of God giving us miracles in our weakness, and my testimony is constantly reaffirmed that God fills the font.  Between the sickness, and the fires, and the fainting, and all the other garbage that continually happened, God gave us a ton of miracles.  So, it's been an awesome few months, and I'll definitely always look back on this time as some of the most incredible months of my life.

So, I'll be back here to visit!  But for now, I'm out of time.  I love you all a ton!  Have a great week!

Love

Elder Fox

All is well

Hey all!  Sadly, I'm really pressed for time right now, but we had a great week!  Everything is progressing pretty well, and we found 10 new investigators!  That's definitely a personal record for my mission so far.  5 of them were a family that Alejandro has known for a long time from work.  The Dad had recently died, so we taught the plan of salvation and repentance and it was an incredible lesson.  They're very receptive, and they're probably going to progress really well.

All the people who are going to be baptized soon are progressing really well.  I don't think I've met anyone who's had as sincere of a change of heart as Maricarman has had (did that make any sense at all?) but I'm really grateful I was able to see her pass through this entire process.  The people who have helped her the most are the members she's living with, bless their hearts, but she truly is a real convert.  So, we're excited :)  René is also doing extremely well, he went to church again and is still just as excited as ever to get baptized.  He's one of those people who just ''gets'' it, without us teaching him a lot he already understands things that some members never understand in their lifetime.  He'll get married next week and then baptized on the first of April.  Nashani is also doing well, but she's 9, so it's obviously a little different.  She's excited though!

The sad news is, that's probably all I have time to write today.  Sorry all!  I'll write about this week in my journal to maybe try to fit in a longer email next week since typing is way faster than trying to think about what I'm going to say and make it sound good and understandable.  Anywho, life is good!  I hope you all have a great week!  I love you all!

Love

Elder Fox

D&C 4

Hey everybody!

This week was pretty good, not a lot of news but everything keeps on keeping on!  Patricia's not doing too well though so we definitely need lots of prayers for her.  It was a really busy week though, and an ultra-busy weekend, so I'm left feeling really beat and it kind of hurts to keep my eyes open haha but I'll try my best to give you all an update!

So, starting with Patricia, we went to her house on Tuesday and the good news is that she still has her son!  So that's the good news.  However, when we went, she started fighting a lot with her mom right there, and this time it got pretty bad.  It's not the first time this has happened, but they have a pretty up and down relationship and her mom is actually mentally ill which definitely doesn't help things.  At the end of the lesson though, everything was a lot better.  We were pretty clear with both of them and we talked about how the gospel is supposed to change people and families, and if it's not making a change, then you need to commit yourself.  Lately the problem there is that she tells us that she wants to be baptized a lot but then doesn't show much of the desire later in the week, and we think she says different things to everyone.  So we're hoping for a miracle and that we can help her to be really dedicated.  Her baptismal date fell through because she didn't go to church this week, because she still hasn't gone to church all 3 hours and now investigators need to go all 3 hours at least twice and have gone to sacrament meeting at least 3 times, which is a good rule.  But anyway, lots of prayers for her and her family!

Rosa and René are doing really well, we talked about repentance and baptism with René the other day and put a date for April 1st so we're super excited!  He went to church yesterday with his son, but Rosa didn't go.  We think she was nervous about seeing the stake President again because of all the garbage that went down a few years ago, and the stake President comes to our ward every fast Sunday because it's his home ward.

Maricarmen is doing pretty well too, we went there the other day and we were going to teach the Restoration, but we ended up having to fix something that was said during church that worried her a bit.  But now, all is well!

We also found a lot of new investigators this week!  One of the stories is actually pretty miraculous, we had done this contact a few days earlier in a park where we talked to a young couple with their baby daughter.  They seemed to have a lot of faith, but no religion in particular, which is really surprising to see here.  They were interested and we set an appointment with them.  But when the day came, we had a hard time finding their house.  We ended up knocking on this one door, and an older lady came out who didn't know the people we were looking for at all, but we asked her if she would like to hear our message and she let us in.  We went in and taught her and 3 of her grandchildren a quick lesson (we still wanted to find the original people we were looking for) and set another appointment to come back.  When we came back, it turns out that the daughter of the woman we talked to and the mother of the 3 kids is already a member, but none of her kids are.  She told us the story of how she got baptized, but didn't want to tell us at first why she left.  She talked about how she was constantly suffering from panic attacks and changes in her blood pressure, and we offered her a blessing.  Sadly, right when we did, she was too weak to do anything and had to lie down, so we came back a few hours later to give her a blessing.  When we got there she was literally trembling, and then I had the chance to give her a blessing of health.  I felt the unique impression to tell her that it was God's will that she recover fully and completely, and promised her that she would as she exercised her faith.  After the blessing she stopped trembling and was a lot calmer, and then started to tell us everything that had been going on.  It turns out that the only reason she stopped going to church is because of a mentally and emotionally abusive partner that she's been with for years now.  And he is also the reason for her constant anxiety and nervous breakdowns.  We helped her know, fairly directly, that what he was doing to her wasn't good, and promised her that as she started reading the Book of Mormon again and praying that God would help her make any decision she has to make.

Also, we ended up finding the two people we were originally looking for, and they were great!  But then we went back for a return appointment and the girl told us that her partner had been partying a few nights ago has been drunk since then and she got made at him and hadn't seen him for a few days.  We then went to go find him at his Dad's house to talk to him directly, but he was sleeping.  So more details on that story later.

We also had zone conference on Friday!  It was an amazing conference, probably one of the best I've ever been to.  The focus was on Repentance, the Plan of Salvation, and becoming a consecrated missionary.  It was soo good!  I had never thought exactly about what heart, might, mind, and strength meant individually, but understanding exactly what God is asking us to give in that verse opened my eyes a lot as to how to really become consecrated.  So good stuff!

Alright so that was my week!  I love you all!  Hope you have a good one!

Love

Elder Fox