Hello all! This week was amazing! Easily one of the best of my mission. But I am so dang tired. So if this email comes out a little odd, it's likely because of that. But to answer your question, yes, the subject does make sense. But it does require some explanation.
Tuesday I got my comp! I was almost as nervous as I was when I got here and I was about to get my trainer! Which is kinda weird... not sure why. Anyway, my comp is Elder Espindola from Buenos Aires, Argentina! And he is awesome. We became immediate friends, and conversation flows super naturally between us all the time. We have very similar senses of humor and we laugh a lot together, which is definitely therapeutic because of the stress that we're both under! He was the Elders Quorum President back home and worked a lot with the missionaries, so when it comes to working with the members he definitely knows his stuff. He is extremely friendly, has a ton of energy, and is super excited! Right after I got him the assistants sent us out in different parts of Rancagua to do contacts for 2 hours for references and then come back to finish up the meeting, which I thought was a great idea! We had a ton of fun doing it, and it was a good confidence boost for me.
So my comp is doing fantastic! The only thing that he needs to work on is learning and practicing the mission lessons and inviting people to baptism and other commitments, but of course that comes with practice and time.
A cool thing about training is that it puts a lot of pressure on you to be the best example that you can, which is actually something I've enjoyed! I've been taking courage more often in stopping the bikes to talk to someone walking on the street, or turning around and heading back to be able to talk to them. And it's done a lot! The only problem to this is what Breanna in her email to me accurately called trainer-brain: The pressure to be perfect and the resulting effect of constantly being scattered and a little stressed. I have felt the trainer-brain for sure! For the first few weeks I'll have to do most everything (besides teaching and contacting) on my own until Elder Espindola gets a hold of the ropes and can start taking on more responsibility, but until then there is certainly a ton of stuff to do! I've also been a little scattered, as I usually am, but for the most part we've been super productive this week together!
The week! We had an awesome week. We taught a lot more lessons than is normal here, my trainee got to invite 4 people to baptism, and we have a new investigator!
We made progress with Francisco this week! When we met him he told us that there was no possibility that he would change his religion, and now he's saying that it's probable, and that if he receives an answer from God he'd be baptized! He's listening all the parts of the Book of Mormon that we leave for him, he's praying, and he's willing to come to church if we can come by him to pick him up. He's confined to a wheel-chair because of some physical disabilities, so we'll have to have a member come help us to pick him up.
We taught our new investigators again, Juana and Romildo. Romildo also can't walk, but he can't even endure sitting in a wheel-chair because of his health, so he's constantly confined to his bed and Juana takes care of him. We were teaching the first lesson, when I asked Romildo what he would ask a prophet if a real prophet were here with us. He replied that he would ask him what the next life is like, because he wants to walk again. The room was silent for a while, and of course we sensed the need to switch gears on the lesson, so we talked about the atonement of Jesus Christ and the resurrection. Romildo told us that all he wants is a new start, and we promised him that it was possible. The Spirit was very strong in the room as we testified of the Saviors atonement, and at the end of the lesson I tied the theme of the Resurrection into baptism and my comp invited them to be baptized, but Juana replied that because of Romildo's condition she can never leave the house because she has to care for him. Definitely a problem. But we're talking with the members to see what we can do.
New investigator! His name is Javier, he's been Catholic all his life but he has some doubts about the church and about God is general, but he told us in the initial contact that he wants to listen to us and know more about us. He's definitely one of the most prepared people I've met, so we're super excited. We taught him the restoration and it went super well, when we got to Joseph Smith he stopped us and asked us: ''Joseph Smith... was a prophet?'' and we replied ''yes.'' and he said ''And through him the original power and authority of God was restored to the earth?'' and again replied affirmatively. Then he said ''wait for me here'' and he quickly went into another room. We were pretty perplexed, but when he came back out he said ''this is going to surprise you'' and he showed us a book of the Teachings of Joseph Smith and the Teachings of Brigham Young. He told us that he had a cousin who had passed away who was of our faith. He said he never read the books, but now he wants to. So that was pretty surprising! He's an awesome guy though. I think he would've invited a baptismal date but my comp ended the lesson a little prematurely, woops hahaha it's all good. We'll be seeing him again today.
The branch is doing great! The Branch President told us this week that he wants us to give them more work, which of course we were excited about. We started doing a lot of things to get the members more involved and have a lot of plans, so we'll also see how that goes!
Funny stories! So Chilean cowboys here are called ''Guaso(s)'' (basically pronounced WAH-soh.) And this week Elder Cook really wanted to buy a classic Guaso pancho (the guasos wear panchos here, not sure why but they're kinda cool.) So he was looking for a pancho all week and in the market one morning he finally found one and bought it. We had lunch with a member shortly after, and we were talking to the Hermana about her husband because he was going to come to lunch a little late and we'd never met him before. Because we were on the topic of Guasos as well, she also told us that he tends to be a little guaso at times. So when he came and joined us for lunch, Elder Cook decided to invent a verb and ask ''so where do you guaso, hermano?'' He was naturally pretty confused, because in Spanish it doesn't work so well (donde guasea, hermano?) and then Elder Cook explained that he invented the word 'guasear' (to guaso) but that he wasn't exactly sure what it meant. We all thought that was pretty hilarious, so the word has stuck. Now, every night Elder Cook wears his pancho and talks about how much he loves guaseando (guasoing).
Burdened with mayonnaise will have to wait till next week! It's a funny story too, so remind me to tell you! We had an awesome week, hope to have another! Take care all! I love you all! Have a great week!
Loev
Elder Fox
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