Paniahue

Hey guys!!  How're you doin?!  That's good.

Anyway, I'm in Paniahue!  It was a little hard leaving Elder Hadlock and all the people that I know and love in Conti, but now I'm feeling great here and it's great!  

First, my comp!  As you know, his name is Elder Leguizamón and he's from Argentina, and he's awesome!  He knows less English than any Latino I've met so far in the mission, especially with his time, but honestly I actually really enjoy the challenge!  I can't express everything I want to in the exact way that I would do it in English but normally I can say anything I want to and tell any story with ease, so it's been great!  We've been getting to know each other pretty well.  He found the motivation to learn English recently though, because he's going to be living in Utah after his mission, so I've been helping him learn which has been a lot of fun.  He's actually learned super quickly, and has taken a lot of initiative.  He has about 18 months in the mission, and was previously a zone leader in Talca.  He was released from being zone leader in an emergency change a little while back (pretty sure I told you about it) when all 4 Talca zone leaders were taken out and made co-comps.  I've always wondered why that happened, since all four of those zone leaders were amazing missionaries and leaders, and Elder Leguizamón told me the story this week and apparently it was a long complicated mess full of a lot of misunderstandings.  From what I've seen of him so far, he's an absoultely amazing missionary who is exactly obedient and I have a ton to learn from him.  He's famous for being an amazing contacter and teacher, so I'm super excited to be with him.  He has a lot of motivation and he works really hard, I love his attitude.  He told me that it was a little disappointing being emergency changed out of being zone leader, but that what's important is that you work as hard as you can wherever you are placed.  He's a great guy.

We live in a house in Santa Cruz with the Santa Cruz zone leaders, so I'm essentially living with 3 zone leaders!  It's the greatest, I love the constant atmosphere of hard work and obedience.  Our sector includes a little bit of Santa Cruz and all of Paniahue, which is a tiny little city with a tiny little branch of about 20 members.  It takes about 30 minutes to walk to Paniahue, so my days of walking ridiculous distances to get to church and our proselyting areas aren't over!  The only downside is the heat, the heat is easily worse than anything I've experienced in Utah, so those weather scientist people who say that Rancagua is cooler than Utah in the summer are definitely smoking something.  But I'm getting used to it!  The only hard thing is that the heat doesn't improve when we get to the house, nor at night when we sleep.  But I'm quickly getting used to things.

So that's Paniahue and my comp!  Like I said last week, we don't have a lot of people, which is pretty characteristic for this zone.  We do have a family of recent converts who are awesome but definitely need a lot of strengthening right now, so we've been working a lot with them helping them rid their doubts.  They're called the fma. Wyco (I think that's how it's spelled...)  The husband was an Adventist preacher when he was converted, and he's very educated in the bible unlike most people down here.  He probably knows the bible better than I do, admittedly.  He has a wife who seems to me to have a really strong testimony of the gospel, and also two daughters, one who's in primary and the other young womens.  They're an awesome family, but the husband has a lot of doubts still that we're helping him to resolve.  Some of his questions are really hard, so it gives me something good to study for.

I've met another family of potential investigators that I think have a lot of promise, they seem to trust a lot in us right now and the Dad is a less active member.  We haven't taught them yet, but we hope to this week.  The two kids have taken a lot of fascination in English and my piano playing ability, and want me two teach them both!  We're actually thinking of starting an English class and a piano class for investigators and just the population in general to find investigators (classes here in Chile work really well for finding people) so we'll probably start that next week!

So story time!!  This story involves a huge thank-you I owe to Sister Gouls and my wonderful mother.

So this branch has a deep distrust of North Americans.  That's a little bit of a problem for me, seeing I'm North American.  The past President used this sector as a ''punishment'' sector for missionaries who were disobedient or didn't do anything, and as a result the branch has an understandable distrust of missionaries, especially gringos.  Ever since I heard this, I've been thinking about ways to fix this problem so I can help strengthen the branch.  The branch definitely needs to be strengthened right now, but there's nothing I can do to help them until they trust me.  God helped me to fix our relationship with the Constitución Ward, so I had no reason to disbelieve that he wouldn't help me with this branch.  Elder Leguizamón and I have been visiting the members and delivering spiritual messages to all of them and asking what we can do to help them out, and every member that I've met so far has been an amazing person so it hasn't been hard at all to love them very genuinely and show that love.  So that was a good start.  But then they figured out that I play piano, and that really made the difference.

When I told Elder Leguizampón that I play piano he got super excited, saying that this sector really needed someone to play the piano in order to teach our investigators who want to learn and also to play for the branch.  As soon as we got to the house he called the Primary President and told her that I could play for the primary program that Sunday, but that she'd have to give us the songs so that I could practice them beforehand.  We had to go to the church a few mornings because there were 7 songs that I had to learn for the meeting Sunday morning, but I eventually got them all down.

Then Sunday came!  Normally branches and wards give time to new missionaries who come in to share their testimonies and present themselves, and I was really counting on this opportunity to start building trust with the branch, because when someone speaks and testifies with the Spirit it's hard to deny that they're a servant of the Lord.  But they didn't give me that time.  Shoot.  I played the opening song though and the branch seemed surprised that there was real piano music (it's probably been a while.)  I played well for all of the songs of the primary program too, and I hoped that that would build my trust with the members.  Then the primary President got up at the end of the meeting to speak.  She hadn't really said much to me in the way of thanks or appreciation, but I didn't really think anything of it.  But what she said in her talk really surprised me.  She got up and at the end of the talk she said  ''I know that the Mission President is a very inspired man and receives revelation, and I know that it's hard losing Elder Bernard (He's a Mexican from my group that they really loved) right before Christmas, but before we were practicing these primary songs with just the CD's.  Then President sent us this angel right before the program to play the piano for us, and I am so incredibly greatful that God sent us Elder Fox to help us out.''

Wow.  I was stunned.  President, funny enough, was actually there at the sacrament meeting and shortly after her talk he got up and said.  ''I actually forgot that Elder Fox played the piano, to be honest, and I had no idea about your situation.  So that's evidence for you all, that God really does direct this work and that Elder Fox is supposed to be here with you.''

That was better than just about anything I could've hoped to happen ever.  The members warmed up to me immediately.  Every single one of them came up to me after and told me that I play the piano very beautifully and that it's such a different spirit having real piano music in the meeting.

So here's a thanks to my mother!  She understood much better than I how vitally important my piano playing abilities would become in my mission.  It turned out to be my entrance into the hearts of everybody in this little branch.

So skype!  Count on 6:00 Chilean time, not sure what that is over there with daylight savings and all that.  If anything is amiss email me, I´'ll check my email before.

I love you all!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Fox