Señor Fox

Hey everybody!  This week was great!  And the best thing about it is that we're going to have a baptism this Saturday!!  First one in a very long time.  It's been 4 months since my last one at the end of my first change in Conti.  We're super stoked.  And so is President.  We had a special training this week and the first thing that President told me and Elder Leguizamón is that he's happy that Paniahue is finally seeing success.  And we are too!  We visited Alan every day this week and taught him, and conducted the pre-interview on Saturday and he passed really well.  His third church attendance was this Sunday so now he just needs to do the real interview Wednesday and he's ready!

I also gave a talk in church!  But I'll probably talk about that later in the email.  I find it funny though, that a 10 minute talk in English used to intimidate me, and now I'm perfectly comfortable giving a 25 minute talk in Spanish without writing it out first!  My Spanish wasn't perfect but it was good enough!  I feel like my Spanish has improved a ton with having Elder Leguizamón as a companion.  Both my comprehension and speaking ability have improved, but mostly my comprehension.

We also got a killer reference this week!  Apparently he's attended the church in Santa Cruz a few times (more than 3, which is awesome) and he went the other Sunday and the zone leaders talked to him, put a baptismal date with him, and since he lives in our sector they gave us the reference!  So we have an investigator with a baptismal date that we haven't even met!  So that's also super exciting.

I feel like the lessons I've learned about faith have been really paying off.  I learned a lot about not blaming the circumstances for anything.  It's easy to blame the circumstances, but in a work like this, the circumstances really don't matter.  I think I may have been sent to a less-successful mission specifically to learn about faith.  God has the power to prepare people and put them in your path, regardless of where you are, how the members are, or anything.  That was a big lesson I had to learn.  And I'm really glad I learned it.

Also!  The mom of a convert named Yanina came to church Sunday!  Which I was excited about.  We've been trying to get her to go for a while, and this week we were able to teach her a 15 minute version of lesson 1, and she came to church!  She said that she was bored, but that's okay!  We can still work with that!

We spent Wednesday and Thursday in Pichilemu this week, which was fun.  We helped the other elders move houses and I got to enjoy the lovely coastal climate which I miss from Conti.  And I got to see the beach again, nice because it's been a while.  Also in Pichi there's a disco (kind of like a club) called 'Señor Fox.' that's big and super popular there, which I thought was pretty funny.  The logo looks almost exactly like the little fox drawings that Bri does for our birthday cards.

We did a deep clean of the house today!  It was sorely needed.  The past elders were very irresponsible with the place and we've been cleaning it trying to get the weeds and plants out of the small yard out back essentially since we got here.  And now it's finally finished!  Now if it were in the States we probably wouldn't even be kicked out of the house!  Probably.

SO my talk!  I wanted to talk about the atonement and missionary work, so I ended up telling the story of the filling of the font in Conti as an intro for my talk.  I liked reflecting back on that event and thinking of the symbolism behind it.  I realized when I looked back on that story that since that baptism Elder Hadlock and I have filled the font two other times (for the baptisms of the hermanas) and the font filled much more normally, without problems.  The font filled in 2 hours, just like it should've that day of our baptism.  Also, we've used the firehose of the church since then to clean the church (don't ask how) and the water that came out of the hose was perfectly clean.  I realized that both of the things that caused the emergency that day were both very exceptional circumstances, and realized that God had likely caused both in order to teach us a lesson.

Aaaaaaand I have to end the letter there.  Which is really sad because I started that whole thought with the font-filling and the atonement but I can't finish.  Woops.  Sorry!  Remind me to finish next week!  I love you all!  Have a great week!  Be good!  Stay safe!  The church is true!

Love

Elder Fox

Alan! Alan! Alan! Alan! Alan!

If you don't understand the subject, go watch that youtube video that was popular for a while with animals speaking in British accents.

Hello all!  This week was wonderful, but at the same time not much happened.  But there are some awesome stories that I want to share!

First is about a girl that my comp and district leader met last week doing divisions named Karla.  She accepted a Book of Mormon and said that she would read it in a few days (she's really intelligent.)  We went back to visit her this week after we went to Rancagua again to get my carnet, and it was a super interesting conversation.  She was a lot of fun to talk to because of her knowledge of history and of everything, but the part that really made me smile was when she said that right before Elder Leguizamón and Elder Holley came to the door she was just about ready to give up belief that there was a God at all, but that they left and now she was starting to believe in God more and more.  They didn't teach her a lesson, or do anything really, but just the presence and the conversation with the missionaries led this change.  It's awesome how such short contact with people who are willing to share the gospel can change people like that.  She also said that she had a really interesting experience reading the Book of Mormon that made her cry.  Even though she loves reading, she's dyslexic, which surprised me.  She says that she can read really well but when she tries to read out loud she has a really hard time.  But she told us that when she read the Book of Mormon out loud, she could easily without any problem, and this is the first time anything like that has happened in her life, which moved her to tears.  My first reaction was ''Well that's your answer come to church dang it!!!''  But I didn't say that.  A cool miracle of this week.

Second, we did divisions again this week (my current district leader likes to do them every week) and I was with Elder Holley the district leader.  For divisions, both members of the companionship choose a focus that they're going to study and try to put into practice in the division, and the other companion studies it as well and offers advice.  My focus for the division was a pauta (don't know how to say that in English sorry) that lead to an augmentation in baptisms, which was ´pray for miracles and expect them.´ I decided that that was the best focus ever.  That whole day we kept finding amazing people in the street, just being there in the exact right place and the exact right time.  Early on the day Elder Holley had to stop to stretch his leg because his knee was hurting, and a little later on we passed a woman just as she collapsed in an emotional breakdown.  We calmed her down and she told us what had happened, her husband had hit her and she fled the house.  We asked her if she had called the police and she said that she had and they were on their way.  After talking through the story and after she had calmed down, we told her that we couldn't help with anything legal, but that we do have one thing that we think could help her, which is our faith in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for us.  We asked her if she wanted to hear what we had to say and she said yes, and gave us her address and her phone number.  Had Elder Holley not had to stop and stretch, we wouldn't have been there at the right time to help her.  Just 10 minutes later I started a conversation with a woman standing on the street waiting for a colectivo.  She was super nice, and actually brought up the topic of religion herself, saying ''you know, I've never been baptized.''  We shared a little and gave her a lesson one pamphlet, and she said that she'd be interested in us coming by and teaching her too.  There were more that day, but those were the highlights.

So Alan!  Alan was by far the best part of the week, and the inspiration behind the email subject (everytime we say his name in the house we yell it like in the video, like ''how's ALAN'', ''ALAN is great.'').  He's our 17 year old investigator with the baptismal date, and right now he's showing a lot of promise of reaching his date.  He's attended church twice now, and has liked it both times, and after our English class Saturday he started asking questions about baptism and what's required to be baptized.  Right there we taught him the law of chastity and the work of wisdom and he accepted both on the spot.  Which is awesome!  I haven't seen anyone get as far as him since our convert my first change in the field.  So I'm super excited!  I think that the Spirit has really touched him with the desire to unite with the church, which is a really cool thing to see.  He's become good friends with all the youth in the Santa Cruz branch, and saw one receive his mission call recently.  I think he was pretty inspired by it.  If he gets baptized and ends up going on a mission I think I'd die of happiness.  So that's the hope!

So that was my week!  The other highlights have been our English class Saturday, which more people went too, and the fact that a branch member in Santa Cruz thought that I was Mexican due to my accent, which I thought was awesome because I think the Mexican accent is easily the cleanest and most attractive Spanish there is.  If you don't count Spain, that is.  So that's my week!  My thoughts this week have been on miracles.  I realized how little I expected miracles or believed that they could happen before my mission.  I almost believed that they were things of the past, or things that I would never really be associated with.  In the Book of Mormon it says that if miracles cease among men it is only because faith has ceased also, and I think that's true.  I've gained a very strong testimony through experience on my mission of the availability of miracles, to everybody.  The biggest example was when God filled the font, but there have been miracles every week, and every day.  God really is among us, and miracles really exist.  They can be available to all of us, we just need the faith sufficient to ask for them, and then the gratitude and vision to be able to notice them.  And the amazing thing is that we can pray for both.  With God, we truly will never lack anything, as long as we ask.

I love you all!  Do good!  Make good choices!

Love

Elder Fox

New Years!

Hola everyone!  This letter is going to be short again because not much really happened this week, but there are some stories to share!  Life is just a little slower here in Paniahue, but that's okay!

First good news about Alan!  He's the son of the family of investigators that I talked about in the other letter, named the fma. Yua or something like that.  We've been inviting him to sports and things every week to get to know him and gain confidence, and this week we taught his family for the first time and they weren't extremely receptive, but he was.  We put a baptismal date with him (but none of the rest) in that lesson which was awesome, but he still has to feel like he receives an answer before he'll get baptized, so there's a lot of work to do!  The really exciting thing is that he came to church with us on Sunday, so he's already made it farther than about 90% of the investigators I've had thus far in my mission!  I hope to be able to see him progress and change in my coming months here, the only problem is that there aren't any youth in the branch, so it would be very difficult to keep him active without his family being members or other youth in the church.

BUT we found some youth this week too!  We found this one girl (forgot her name sorry) who's super intelligent.  We gave her a Book of Mormon in our contact and she told us that she'd have it read before Sunday, which would've been incredible, but alas she didn't finish it.  She started it though, and has a lot of questions, which is awesome.  We also have a few other families and people that I think can start progressing here soon, so I'm excited to see that things are picking up!  There's an awesome convert in the branch named Yanina who lives with her mom and cousin, and we've started going by them gaining confidence with their family while giving lessons to our convert.  So good things!

Other stories!  New Years Eve was a blast, it involved a pointless trip to Rancagua and gringo desserts!  I needed to go to Rancagua to get my carnet (Chilean citizenship card thing) which is at a civil register (a building that essentially does everything related to the government) there, so we decided to go on Thursday to get it.  It's about a 3 hour trip in total.  When we got there at 1:00, we walked to the civil register to discover that it had closed.... at 11:00 that morning.  I found out that the civil register normally closes at 2:00 in the afternoon (2:00... on a normal day), but because it was New Years Eve it closed at 11:00 in the morning.

I know you like complaining about the U.S. government... but really... just be grateful for it.  There are more advanced forms of stupidity in this world.

So we took the trip for nothing!  Which was pretty sad because we wasted a lot of time, but also fun because we got to eat at a sandwich place that sells .5 kilogram sandwiches (about a pound) which I enjoyed greatly.  And ate the whole thing.  Easily.  It really is amazing I'm not fat.

We got back to Santa Cruz at about 6:00 and had to enter the house early because of New Years Eve at 7:00... so we didn't really get a lot done that day.  Oh well.  That night I studied the New Testament for a few hours and then us four Elders in the house made oreo shakes and also a delicious brownie\chocolate chip cookie dessert with ice cream that was absolutely delicious.  It was a little too North-American for my Argentine companion, however, and he got so sick that we stayed in the house the whole day the next day.  It was fun studying and watching church movies and mormon messages, but I started getting pretty restless, since our house has the square footage of our family room and I couldn't leave it.  I just felt bad for my comp though, he plans on moving to the states after the mission so I hope he doesn't suffer the same problems with the food when he goes.

We also had our first English class here but we didn't advertise very much at all so only Alan and his family came.  Some of the English that went around the room was pretty hilarious though, since they got some of the practice sentences mixed up.  Here are some examples:

Alan to Elder Leguizamón: ''Where..are... your people?''

(I think he mixed up 'where are you from' with 'how many people are in your family' somehow.)

Elder Leguizamón in response:  ''They are in your house.''

Our people.  They always be in your house.

Also Elder Leguizamón also accidently asked for marijuana in the closing prayer, saying specifically ''we ask thee for... weed.''

I think he was trying to say 'please bless us', but got a little mixed up and wanted to say 'we ask thee for we' but added a 'd' on the end.  I thought it pretty hilarious.

So that was my week!  It was a great week with all said and done, though a slow one since we went two days without doing much.  And we're going to back to Rancagua tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes!

Quick thought on faith: over these three weeks I think this is the biggest lesson I've learned here.  In Conti I kind of gave up faith as a result of our lack of success, which certainly didn't help the fact that we didn't have a lot of success.  We can have faith despite the circumstances, always, and if we create our circumstances (rather than letting our circumstances create us) with faith, we can achieve miracles.  Always.  Our Heavenly Father is a God of miracles, but he works on the principle of faith.  We can have faith that He can do anything, but even better is having faith that he will do it.  But of course, in order to know that He will do it, we also have to know that it's in accordance with His will, which is knowledge that we have to seek through Him in prayer.

Love you guys!  The Church is true!

Love

Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!!  Again!!

I told most of you Merry Christmas over Skype but for those who weren't there Merry Christmas!

This week was great!  And the obvious highlight was Christmas!  So I'm going to mostly talk about what we did for Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Christmas Eve!  We worked normally that day until about 8:00 when we went to an awesome recent convert )her name is Llanina) to have Christmas dinner.  The only problem was that there were only two grown women in the house so we couldn't enter without another man or another woman, and they were planning on having a friend over but the friend canceled at the last minute.  So we couldn't go inside, but they were awesome and brought the table and chairs outside and we ate Christmas dinner in the street!  It was actually really cool, I thought it was awesome that they cared that much about getting us dinner.  Then we got back the house and celebrated by making oreo shakes!  They were delicious, and the first shakes I've had since I've gotten to the mission since they don't really exist here.  My Argentian comp was a huge fan, and has since told everyone we've met about this weird delicious gringo drink that has ice cream and cookies in it.  We're actually going to make it tonight in a FHE with the Wyco family.  Anyway, I digress.  We made shakes, drank coke, ate potato chips, told stories in Spanish, it was a great night.

Christmas!  Our district meeting was moved from Wednesday to Friday in order to have it on Christmas morning, so our whole zone got together in the chapel in Santa Cruz and made pancakes before the meeting.  That was probably my second favorite part of the whole day, because the zone here is awesome and we had a lot of fun.  After the meeting I got to sing songs from Les Miserables with Elder Anuarve (one of our favorite pass-times while we were in Conti) while we were cleaning dishes, which was also a ton of fun.  The meeting was great too, the zone leaders talked about faith and in our district class we read the christmas story from Luke.  Then Presidente Warne and Hermana Warne came and gave us a little spiritual Christmas thought too, which was great.  After that we went to the house that we skyped at to have lunch and email you guys about the time we would be skyping.  After lunch we ran over to visit Janet real quick before skyping, and I haven't told you her story yet!  So I will now.

So Janet is an investigator of ours who owns a little store in a neighborhood in our sector.  Her son was baptized about a year ago, and recently left on a mission in Bolivia.  She's not married to her husband (husband? partner? not sure what to say in this case) still, and she hasn't ever listened to the missionaries or attended church.  We've been passing by her every now and then to talk and try and start teaching her, and she invited us to come when her son skyped for Christmas (Elder Leguizamón knew him before he left.)  So we went to skype with her son right after lunch, and the son was awesome and frank with his mother and told her that she needed to get married and get baptized, that she needed to listen to the missionaries and do what they say.  Then Elder Leguizamón asked him to bear his testimony of the gospel and baptism, and he bore an incredible testimony of the gospel and again testified of the importance of her getting baptized.  I could tell it made a huge difference in her.  At the end he challenged her to pray about the church and ask God if it's true.  What he said was perfect, and I was really excited that it might have made a change.

After that we skyped!  Easily made my month, or even my year.  It was amazing, thanks for being awesome, family!

After skyping we passed by the Wyco family to say Merry Christmas and then we headed for the house.  So it was a great day!

THEN the next day we passed by Janet again, and she said that she prayed like her son told her to and felt something really strong.  She told us that she wasn't expecting to feel anything, but she did, and that she knows the church is true.  I was blown away!  Best Christmas ever!  I didn't even know what to say because nothing like that has happened in my mission yet, then Elder Leguizamón said ''So what are you willing to do now?''  To which she replied, ''Wait for my son to get home to be baptized.''  Another good example that having a baptism is never easy, you've really gotta fight for it!  We talked to her about the blessings of baptism and also told her that it'd be cooler if she could get sealed to her son when he got home and that her son would be really happy to find out that she was baptized but she still felt like she wanted to wait for him.  She did, however, commit to being taught and to go to church this Sunday.  So that was an amazing miracle of the week!  Even though she's a little stubborn and doesn't want to get baptized now, she will one day, and that's amazing!  I think that when she has the lessons and goes to church she'll start feeling the desire to get baptized as soon as possible, but if not I know she'll get baptized so I'm very greatful I got to witness the first stages of her conversion.

So that was my week!  The rest of the week we spent finding past investigators from the area book trying to find more people to teach and also a lot of contacting.  As well as visiting our recent converts and strengthening them.  So it was a great week!  I love you all!  Sorry this letter was a little shorter, I spent a lot of time reading letters today.  But have a great week!  The Church is True!  And great!

Love

Elder Fox

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

What the Fweak Just Happened -- Part 2

Hey all!

This week was incredible and unbelievably wonderful and emotional and just overall nuts!  So I decided to make it a continuation of the last letter, hence the subject.  It was a great week though, easily one of the best I've ever had.  Then it got a little sad on me towards the end.

We found a lot of new investigators this week.  That's what made it such a great week.  The first family we found, we found when we were walking up some stairs to a part of Conti we walk to a lot.  I noticed this dirt path off the stairs that I had never noticed before, and we decided to follow it to this little town kinda thing that was on the side of the mountain and didn't have any roads or anything, just a bunch of little chilean houses in the field.  We decided to contact there, and the first house that we went to let us in right away.  It was an awesome young little family that's god-fearing but they don't have a religion.  They were a super nice family, and even though they didn't have much they gave us juice and olives to snack on.

Then I ate an octopus!

2 actually.

They had this bucket chuck full of octopi, which I found rather odd at first, then the man (his name is Marcelo) put a bunch of the octopi in a strainer and started frying them.  I had never heard of anyone eating octopi before, and I was hoping he wouldn't offer us any because I was a little concerned about how they would taste.  But sure enough, he did, and so after taking pictures of us holding the little octopi (they shrink a lot when you fry them) we ate them, and they weren't too bad!  They were actually pretty good, so I took another!  The only weird thing for me was sticking something with eight legs in my mouth period, especially all in one bite.  We left them with a pamphlet that day and came back to discover that they had actually read the pamphlet, as a family!  And really thought about it and understood it!  Eso nunca pasa!!  They are an amazing family.  We taught them lesson 1 that night and it went really well.  They have a lot of potencial and would progress easily.  Which I was excited for.

We also found a guy named Luís, who is super friendly and wants to listen to our message.  When he let us in he told us how much he respects us and what we do and wants to hear what we have to teach him, and sadly that night we weren't able to get more than a little spiritual thought in, but we were still super excited about it because he's a great guy!  He lives up on the hill and has a very nice house for Chile, I forgot what he does for work unfortunately.

We found Jesús again!!  I know that sounds weird, but that's true.  We found Jesús about 3 months ago (I was in my first change still) and he was absolutely golden.  He let us right in and we taught the first lesson and put a fecha with him, all in the first time that we met him!  It was amazing and he was super promising, then he moved to Santiago.  And that was depressing.  But when we were on our way back from the octopus family we found him again!  Apparently he had returned and he's going to be here for a while!  We didn't get to teach him again which was sad, but we were hopeful that I'd at least be able to with my new comp next change.

And then the changes came, and the changes were weird.

We got the call on Saturday night, and our zone leader told us that Elder Hadlock would be going to Panamericana in Talca (he's staying in Talca lucky sucker) and that he would be companions with Elder Castro, a Mexicano who came in my group who I get along with really well, so I was excited for him, and obviously knew that he'd be going.  He's been in Conti for a super long time, at least for this mission.  Then they told me that I'd be going to a branch in Paniahue in the Santa Cruz zone, and that I'd be companions with Elder Leguizamón from Argentina.  Then they said that they'd be closing our sector.  For those of you who don't know what that means, it means that nobody is going to replace Elder Hadlock and I when we leave, so there'll be only 4 missionaries here instead of 6.  I was told that there wasn't much of a possibility that they'd close our sector, and because we were having good success lately I didn't think there'd be a whitewash either, so I was a little shocked.  Apparently, two missionaries had to go home due to injury lately so there weren't sufficient to keep 6 missionaries in Conti.

But there is good news!  We figured out things really quick and we're going to have the Hermanas in Conti take over these great people that we found recently, so with luck they will all still continue to progress!  Just a little sad I won't be here to see it.

And more good news!  I've always wanted to be in the more rural parts of the mission and participate in the tiny little branches and that's exactly what Santa Cruz is!  It'll be all large fields of delicious fruit and I'll get to take more responsibility being in a tiny little branch in Santa Cruz.  That's where Elder Hadlock was when he nourished the branch in perelillo back to health after the branch president was excommunicated.  Apparently the fruit is absolutely amazing there and really cheap and a lot of people give you free fruit.  So I'm excited for that!  The only downside is that it'll be very very hot and there aren't a whole lot of people there to teach.  It'll be a lot more service and a lot less teaching, but I love service so that's okay!

Yesterday and today are full of sad goodbyes, we're leaving for Talca at 6:00 this afternoon.  I'm going to miss Conti a ton too, there is very little chance that I'll ever get to see it again in my mission.  Conti sent us off with a bang though, with the 3 most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen in my life, 3 nights in a row.  Pictures to follow.  When the second one happened Elder Hadlock and I were on the side of a mountain watching the waves roll in to the beach and viewing the giant Piedra de la Iglesia and the other giant ocean cliffs from above, so that also added to the amazingness of that moment.  It was the most beautiful place I've ever been in my life.  Pictures to follow.

The saddest goodbye's for sure were that of Megan the Gringa, La'Cote and her family, and, surprisingly, the bishop.  Last night we went to the house of La'Cote and her family to say goodbye, and it was a really special experience.  Usually when elders leave that family likes to send us off with a huge party that's a liiiiiittle too much for missionaries, but last night we just ate once while the whole family went around and told us about how much of a difference we've made in their lives.  I almost cried.  It just goes to show you that baptisms aren't any indication of success.  They said that they'd miss us a lot, and they want us to invite them to our weddings, which I found a little odd but hey it works.

So the bishop.  I told you guys eariler that our relationship with the bishop was really rocky, and I really shouldn't of told you that.  I really regret it, that was really stupid.  I should never complain about members in my group emails, that week was just particularly frustrating.  Since then, our relationship has been getting better and better.  I've been noticing little things all the time that have been indicating to me that he trusts us more, but I've never really thought that he actually really liked us until last night.  We passed by his house to say goodbye and take some pictures, and he and his wife took at least 2 dozen pictures of Elder Hadlock and I.  At the end, he told us that it was a huge privilege knowing us, and that he would miss us a lot.  He thanked us a lot for everything we'd done for him, his family, and the ward.  His openness and sincerity really threw me off, and I nearly started crying.  I told him that I'd be back, that one day I'd come back with my wife.  He told me that that's what he wants to hear, and that when I come back I'll have a place to stay in his house.  He said he really looks forward to when we'll be able to see each other again.  At the very end before we left he told us that he knew why we had to go, but that he really didn't want us to.  It was very touching, and I'm really greatful for my friendship with him.

Well, it was a long crazy ride here in Conti.  I will miss these people and this place like crazy.  I love everybody in this ward and all our friends here more than I can possibly express, and that's what's so great about serving a mission.  I really love them, and it hurts leaving them, but I know that I'm going to love everybody in my next little branch just as much, and that's the great thing.  Conti was a little bit of a baptism of fire for me, but I have always loved the little city, and I know that one day I'll be back.  I will never forget my experiences here and how this place and these people have forever changed my life.  I like to think that the 3 of us have made a difference here in Conti, as well.

I love you all, have a great week!  The church is true!

Love

Elder Fox

What the fweak just happened?

I hope you all understand the Kid History reference.

This is the subject of the email because this week was just... really... weird.  It was amazing, and awesome, and weird, and hard, all at the same time!!  So it does beg the question:  ¿Qué pasó?

But overall, it was actually one of the best weeks of my mission thus far, so I'm not gunna complain!

Monday we found someone and put a fecha!  It was a great triumph after over a month of our area being completely dry.  I had passed by him a very long time ago accidentely when I was looking for a past investigator and went to the wrong house.  He said that he wanted to know about our church and to come back, so we passed by Monday and we taught him the first lesson and put a fecha!  His name is Eduardo, and he's 86 years old.  For the U.S. that's normal, but for Chile that's absolutely incredible.  He has an awesome little house on the edge of a seaside cliff.  He's been Catholic all of his life, so that's his doubt, but he seemed to like the lesson and he said that he'd read the Book of Mormon and go to church!

Tuesday I went to Talca to go on divisions with the Elders in our district there again.  This time I was with Elder Lloyd, who went to Lone Peak but graduated the year ahead of me.  We had a good day, but not much happened.  Meanwhile in Conti Elder Hadlock and Elder Villavicencio found a family!  A flippin family!!  And he put two fechas right there, but there are some more kids in the family and the mom is a less active member.  It's really hard to find good families to teach here, so when I got the call I was really happy.  After over 3 months of not much at all we suddenly got a lot in a matter of days, I was stunned!  Also, Megan the gringa had read Alma 32 and absolutely loved it.  She loves the Book of Mormon apparently, but she doesn't believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet yet.  I'm not really sure how that works, but she's progressing really well!  She went to church again as well.

Fun statistic time:  In this mission about 20% or one fifth of the people who accept a baptismal fecha end up actually getting baptized.  Just thought you might like to know.

I stayed overnight in Talca because Wednesday was the Christmas activity for our half of the mission!  We combined 4 zones so I got to see Elder Waters and the other Hermana Porter again!  The activity was a lot of fun, we had a devotional, played sports, ate a huge lunch and then watched a slideshow of all the missionaries' best photos from the year.  That night Elder Hadlock and I stayed in Talca and worked with Elder Villavicencio and Elder Lloyd for the night.  We went to Jessica's house again and watched Meet the Mormons.  It was awesome, we talked to them and Jessica said that she prayed about the Book of Mormon and about Joseph Smith and said that she got a very peaceful feeling and that she knew that it was true.  I was stunned, she was golden!  I was feeling super grateful that I was able to participate in her conversion process, because she'd likely be the best investigator that I'd meet on my mission.  I was very impressed with her and her dedication and her sensitivity to the Spirit.  That night Elder Hadlock and I stayed the night in Talca and us and all the Elders in the apartment put apartments in the main room and had a giant sleepover.  It was awesome.  We were super happy for the other Elders because they had a baptism coming up, and the had Jessica and her son that were fantastic investigators, and one more really promising investigator with a fecha.

That next day we went to zone training and went back to Conti, and that's where weird things started happening.

We got a call from Elder Villavicencio and he told us that they discovered that Jessica was a member that had been ex-communicated, and she'd been wanting to be baptized again but wanted to keep this information from the elders so had been pretending to be a real investigator.  The news shocked me, I'm not going to lie.  It shocked me a lot.  But, I realized that if she goes through the long process ahead of her and ends up being re-baptized, that'd still be incredible, and I would have still helped in that process.  Also, her son hadn't ever heard of the church before, and the elders are now working on getting him baptized.  The coolest thing about that though, is that he's saying that he wants to serve a mission.  And that is flipping fantastic.  So, even though the news was shocking, I'm still very grateful that I have been able to be a part of their big life changes.

Elder Villavicencio called us the next day and told us that their other fechas fell too for other odd reasons, those poor elders had a really hard week.

Also, Elder Hadlock and I returned to the family that they found on Tuesday and they are very very kind people.  I love them to death.  I forgot their names, BUT I'll tell you them as soon as I remember.  The problem is, we found out that they didn't understand very clearly when Elder Villavicencio put the baptismal date with them on Tuesday.  We brought it up again to confirm it, and they told us that they weren't going to get baptized because they had been baptized in the Catholic church and didn't think it was necessary to do it again.  We explained the restoration and the importance of the preisthood authority again, but they still held firm in their conviction that they didn't need to get baptized again.  So they lost their fechas, but we're not giving up!  If they truly understand the restoration they'll be ready and willing, and they're an amazing family. 

That's about all!  But I have some funny (and weird) stories to share that contribute to the weirdness of the week.  And then my awesome spiritual moment for the week!

So Elder Hadlock and I had a really unfortunate encounter with an army of pre-teen girls.  We were contacting and passed this party that was going on outside with at least 50 pre-teen girls, but four of them were on the curb close to where we were walking.  When we passed them Elder Hadlock just said ''Hey do you want something?'' and handed them all little ''Ha nacido un Salvador'' cards that we got at the Christmas activity to hand out when the storm started.  Suddenly EVERY pre-teen wanted the card.  All of them.  In seconds we were surrounded on all sides by 12-year-olds and we gave them all cards.  But that's not where it ended, they found out that we were from the states and that we spoke English, and then they were all asking us every kind of question you can think of.  All of them.  At the same time.  What's your name?  What does this thing in English mean?  How do you say this thing in English?  Where are you from?  What do you do here?  How long have you been here?  What does this english swear word mean in Spanish?  Why do you have dirt on your butt?  Meanwhile they were all taking pictures and videos and voice recordings and selfies to put on social media after, which I thought probably wasn't the best thing for the public view of the people on missionaries, but we couldn't escape!  That's when Megan the gringa came because she lives really close and her brother told her about the commotion going on outside with her gringo friends.  She came to us and we spoke english to each other which definitely didn't help the situation.  She suggested that we just run, but I didn't want an army of little girls chasing after us in the streets for everybody to see so I thought better of it.  We ended up slipping out while enough of them were just focused on Megan the gringa and snuck away.

Sorry Megan, it had to be done.

We also had a 40-year old woman hit on us reeeeeally hard core, but I don't have a lot of time so I'm not going to go into it.  It kind of freaked me out, to be honest.

Oh, by the way, if it was Mom's wish that I play the piano on my mission, she definitely got her wish.  I played every day in the CCM for opening hymn.  Day 1 in the field in my interview with President he informed me that I'd be playing for the newbie meeting in 10 minutes.  Wasn't a lot of time to prepare.  Then, I accidentaly became the official ward choir accompanist because the ward pianist is the conductor of the choir.  So I essentially have to learn whatever songs they want to sing as quickly as humanly possible because we don't have a lot of time to waste sitting in the church for me to practice.  Also, since I played for the ward choir it got out that I play piano and now people call me and ask me to play for whatever activity or that they're going to have, and usually give me about a days notice so we have to run to the church for a half an hour so I can practice.  A lot of piano.  I'm getting a lot better at learning hymns quickly.

Spiritual moment!  There were lots, but this week Elder Hadlock and I did a study of the atonement in our companionshiop study and both ended up tears.  A lot of tears.  I felt like Hermanas, but it was a really amazing study.  He read a poem about missionary work and the atonement and we both just lost it.  I learned a lot though, and I felt the spirit very strongly, and gained an appreciation for the atonement that I've never had before.  It was an amazing experience.  Also, the other night I was feeling really down on myself and Elder Hadlock had the perfect things that I needed to hear and shared the story of him and how he's felt his whole mission up until that point and that was also an amazing.  Maybe I'll be able to share both stories in more detail when we skype because they were amazing and I can't really do it justice in this email.

So this week was kind of a rollercoaster of all kinds of emotions, but there were so many incredible things that happened this week, it made it an amazing week.  My gratitude for the atonment and my Savior goes beyond words, and I know that He loves us more than we can imagine.  I wish I had more time to share my feelings, but I don't.  Poop.  Hopefully next week will be a little less crazy so I can share what I'm feeling.

So that was my week of what the fweak just happened!  I love you all!  Have a great week!  You're in my prayers!

Love,

Elder Fox