Treasures

Hola!  It wasn't until now I realized that I only have 25 minutes!  Aaaaaah!  Oh well.  I don't know where the time goes!

Still haven't gotten my card that I'm supposed to use to buy things like food, but they keep putting money on it so when I do finally get it I'll be rich.

This week was great!  Ima start off by talking a little bit more about Chilean culture and Spanish then I'll finally get to talking to you about the people I'm teaching, hooray!!

Entonces I've gotten into a really bad habit in speaking in Spanglish.  Because the only people I talk in English to also speak Spanish I cut a lot corners by using words in Spanish to shorten things or I just use Spanish words because I like them.  Like entonces.  That is the best word on the face of the planet.  So I am trying to supress myself when I write, but some things will slip through the cracks.  And I'll still write entonces because I really like that word.

Chilean Spanish!  So they have a lot of words that they use frequently that aren't in normal Spanish.  One of them is 'mish' to mean wow.  Another is 'bacán' to mean 'cool' or 'sweet'.  They also love to use the words 'no más' meaning 'no more'.  They put those words on the end of nearly every sentence.  Example:

     'Hooola!  Que están haciendopo?!´

     'Dando jugo no más, y ustedpo?´

That's me asking what someone is doing and them replying that they're giving juice, no more.  But above everything, the strangest thing the Chileans do to their spanish is put the syllable 'po' at the end of nearly every single clause.  'Como estapo?'  'Bienpo, ustedpo?' 'mas o menospo'.  Alright that's a little bit of an exageration but they do that a lot.  The thing I hear most is 'sipo' rather that just 'sí' and 'nopo' rather than just 'no'.  It's odd, but it's starting to grow on me.  It's kind funny actually.

Investigators!  Finally right?!  Now that I only have 15 minutes to write.  Woooops.

First we have a man named Cristian, he's about 50 and he works a ton.  He wants us to come and teach him more and he's really interested and committed, the only problem is he works and sleeps constantly so it's extremely difficult to visit him.  He has a baptismal date but it's fallen twice already because he can't attend church because of work, and we can't visit him often enough.  We've only taught him once since I got here.

Next we have Hermana y Hermano Caserez.  Hermano Caserez is a less active who just started attending church again because his mother, Hermana Caserez, is an investigator who is going to be baptized on the 18th of this month.  She's an awesome investigator who has been keeping all of her commitments and going to church, so we should be able to baptize her which I'm excited for.  We taught her lesson two this week which was really cool.  That's easily my favorite lesson to teach, something about testifying of God's plan and the Atonement in Spanish just makes my whole day.  The only problem is she can't read, she's older so the education here wasn't very good when she was younger.  So we need to get her the Book of Mormon on tape or something because so far Hermano Caserez has just been reading to her.

We have a couple named Marcos y Andrea who act like they are totally willing to keep commitments in the lessons but then they never actually do it, we're kind of wondering what to do with them because we can tell that they're not very dedicated.  They had a baptismal date too but it fell through this Sunday when they didn't attend Sacrament meeting.  We're going to try to get the members more involved with them and try to get them to read the Book of Mormon, hoping that they'll feel the Spirit and become more dedicated.

Next we have la Mama de Marcelo.  I don't know her real name because she really likes to be called la Mama de Marcelo.  Her sons name is, of course, Marcelo, and he's a less active.  She was once a catholic but now just belongs to a Christian group, no specific religion.  This is by far our most interesting investigator right now, probably because we can actually visit her multiple times a week because she works in her house making clothes.  She's had a really rough life and has really rough depression, one of my first amazing experiences here in the field was when she, out of nowhere, suddenly opened herself completely to us and told us everything about her life.  I didn't understand a word at the time but the Spirit was very strong and my companion was able to tell me what she said later.  The people here are very humble, a lot of them can feel our Spirit and feel our call of authority and they just open to us.  It's amazing when that happens because it's a wonderful manifestation of how people can sense that we're representatives of Jesus Christ and that we can help them.  She was the first person that I invited to be baptized with a date, but she denied.  We're pretty confident that we'll be able to baptize her though, we're going to have a member family that we love to death try to fellowship her this week and we'll be teaching her a few times this week and keeping offering baptism.  I think once she truly understands the Restoration and starts really reading the Book of Mormon she'll be willing to be baptized.

Quick break from the Investigators!  There's this family in the ward named Familia Alegría and they are so FLIPPING sweet.  I wish every LDS family was like this.  Most Chilenos here don't trust the Elders, especially the gringo Elders, which I have to admit is really difficult to work with.  But this family is easily the exception, they just had a son get home from serving in Mexico and he has already helped us a ton by being with us in lessons with la mama de Marcelo and Cristian.  His parents are awesome too, they love the Elders and just the missionary work in general.  They are the prime example of a perfect member missionary family, they are trying to bring friends to us and to church and they are always extremely willing to fellowship our investigators and be with us in lessons.  Upon figuring out that the Bishop doesn't really trust the Elders I was a little discouraged because of how important the members are in missionary work.  Anybody who has served a mission will know that if you don't have the members helping you, then you can't really do much.  But this family has been a ray of sunshine here, they're fantastic.  Sorry, I digress.

Next we have Elena, who is in by far the most tricky situation.  She knows the church is true, for all certainty.  But a problem for a lot of Chilenos here is that they're not married to their spouses.  Practically none of them are.  They'll have huge, great families but still not be married.  She has a spouse and an adorable son but she's not married to her husband (sounds weird but that's kind of how they consider it.)  The problem is her husband is Catholic, very Catholic.  He wants her to get baptized in the Catholic church and get married in the Catholic church but she doesn't want to because she knows the Church of Jesus Christ is true.  But, of course, she can't be baptized until she is married.  So she's in an unfixable situation unless we can get her husband to soften his heart... which is... unlikely.

Believe it or not I actually have more investigators than that, and we also have a boat load of less actives and recent converts.  Yeah, we're really busy, but I love it!  Much better to be busy than to have nothing to do, for sure.  I'll hopefully be able to tell you more stories about what actually happens during the next week next week!  I spent too long replying to emails and dealing with pictures this week, I promise a good letter next week!  Suffice it to say this week was even better than the last, and the work is really looking up.  My companion and I have started making a lot of changes in the way we're doing things which I think will really make a difference in helping our investigators progress.

Can't leave you without a Spiritual thought!  Remember that scripture that says something to the effect of ''He who findeth himself the same shall lose it, but he that loseth himself for My sake the same shall find it.'' I've thought a lot about this scripture the past few weeks, and it is certainly very true.  It's a little hard at first to completely forget yourself and your concerns for the benefit of other people and for the will of the Lord, but once you jump in lose yourself in the work, you find satisfaction and happiness that is beyond comparison.  I want you to know that I love being here, and I love being a missionary.  I wouldn't trade these experiences and this opportunity for anything in the world.  I know that God lives and that He loves all of His children, and that through Him and His grace we can, despite our imperfections and weaknesses, miraculously find rest and peace.  There is relief, rest, happiness, peace, hope, and joy if only we give our wills, our agency, the only thing that is actually ours to give, to the Lord.  Until next week, love you all!

Love,

Elder Fox