Hey all!

This week was one of the most wonderful of my whole mission.  And the thing is, I'm not really sure how to say why!  Because I'm not really sure why!  But it was a great week.  Hard, at times, but great!

There isn't much to say when it comes to the investigators, just because we haven't been too successful in finding them.  But I do have a few things!

So remember the couple of active members who have a ton of less-active kids and non.member grandkids?  They're the familia Perez, just so you know they're names, and we're continually finding that the family is a fountain of potential.  Which is awesome!  They're all awesome people and an amazing family, and they all really need the gospel in their lives.  We can help the whole extended family be united under the gospel of Christ, which is an amazing prospect!  This week we found another less active daughter of the family that has two kids that are without baptism.  Her name is Johanna, and she's an amazing woman.  We had a lesson with her on Wednesday, and she came to church on Sunday!  Which made me really happy.  She also has a boyfriend who I think is also really prepared to receive the gospel, so we're going to try to teach him too!  We haven't been able to teach the other daughter and grandchildren of the familia Perez this week, but hopefully we'll be able to this week!

Family of Alan!  Not much happened this week with them, but Macarena (the little sister of Alan) told me that after our last lesson together, Alan read the Book of Mormon with her and they prayed together.  Which melted my heart.  He is the best convert ever.  Anyway, he prayed with her to know that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is the work of God, and she told us that at that moment that she felt something peaceful and different.  Isn't that great?!  She's only 11 but she can recognize the Spirit.  It goes to show that age doesn't make that much of a difference.

So that's about all I have for this week!  Elder Bednar also did a special training for the area south America south, which includes the countries Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay.  At least I think.  But he came to Argentina and did some trainings for the leadership of the church, and then a special one for the missionaries!  It was an awesome experience and I learned a ton.  He's also one of the funniest people ever when he's in less-formal settings.  I would go into more detail but it wouldn't do it justice.

This Saturday there were two baptisms!  They were both from the other branch in Santa Cruz, but the Paniahue Elders usually go to their baptisms anyway to support the converts and the missionaries alike, so the Saturday we went and it was an incredible experience.  Every baptism that I've been to here has been an incredibly spiritual experience, and it usually brings me to tears.  I wish I could put the experience I had this Saturday into words that could properly describe how I felt.  I looked at all the people in the room, and something hit me really hard.  I had an experience that was a little similar to what Chelise described to me in her last letter, where I just realized the divine potential of everyone in the room, as if I could see it.  I could see how much God loves us, how great the sacrifice of Christ truly was, and how beautiful the ordinance of baptism really is.  It's a trivial act, that in itself does absolutely nothing, because the only power behind doing any of these things comes from the atonement and grace of our savior Jesus Christ.  It hit me how simple it was, how easy, and how merciful God is to provide us with such a simple means of accepting the grace of Christ in our lives.

Know that God lives, remember that He loves us perfectly.  Remember that He has a plan that sometimes we don't understand.  ''Fear not, little flock, do good,'' always keep following His divine counsel and always put your trust in Him.  No matter what happens, I want you to know that I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and Redeemer, and no force of hell nor earth can separate me from that knowledge.  I know that this is His church, that He is at the head.  If we follow Him perfectly and follow the guidance of the Spirit, we cannot fail.  I know that whatever happens here is His will and will be for the best because I am following Him.  And I know the same for all of you, because I also know that you are following Him.  I love you all, so much.  And I can't thank you enough for the sacrifices you've made for me and how you've helped me to grow into who am I know and have the testimony that I now have.  I love you all, and I love God, because being as insignificant as I am, He watches me with perfect love and cares about me infinitely.  And I can say the same about all of you.  I love you all!  Have a great week.

Love

Elder Fox

Things are still pretty great

Hey all!  I'm glad to hear that life is good!  Life is fantastic here too!  But at the start of the week it was a little rough.  I was feeling incompetent, which lead to a decrease in performance, which lead to feeling even more incompetent.  Which is a pretty nasty cycle!  But I read my patriarchal blessing and prayed a lot and now I'm back and feeling better than ever!  Which is great :)

Funny story time!  Some background.  About a month ago, President sent us all a letter informing us that we as missionaries shouldn't use some of the words that are super common here in Chile.  Some of the words on the list were 'chuta' (equivalent of 'shoot' in English), 'pucha' (the same), 'bakán' (cool), and, most distressingly, 'po'.  We as missionaries had these words so ingrained in our vocabulary that it was nearly impossible to stop using them at first.  We are getting more accustomed, but for me it's still hard to not say 'chuta' because there's nothing else to say in Spanish that could mean 'shoot'!  So one day I was walking down the street with Elder Barbosa (native Spanish speaker but knows a lot of English) when I, for whatever reason, wanted to say 'chuta'.  Instead of 'chuta' I decided to go with ''bahumbug'', though I have no idea why.  After I said it, my comp paused for a moment and asked me, ''... bahumbug.... what type of bug is that?''

That tickled my funny bone.

SO!  The family of Alan is going strong but couldn't come to church this week.  It means we have to reset their baptismal date, but that's okay because we know that one day they'll all be baptized, even if it's after one of us leaves.  So they're doing great!

Sadly, we're on the verge of dropping Isabel and Blas.  Neither of them are willing to live the law of chastity by getting married or getting separated, so we'll pass by one more time and talk of faith and living the commandments and if things don't look up we'll have to stop going by.  Really sad, but if people aren't willing to progress it's what you have to do.

Janet is doing well!  She's reading the Book of Mormon more, but she still hasn't gone to church.  Her progress is slow, but at least it's progress!  She's another one who I'm sure will be a very strong member one day.

And now the miracle story!  So a week ago I was on divisions with Elder Santini, the day we put the baptismal date with the family of Alan.  Later that day we went to the house of a daughter of a family of really active members, who gave her to us as a reference.  When we went by, the daughter that she gave to us as a reference wasn't there, but another daughter who lives in another house in Santa Cruz was there with a bunch of other members of the family.  Elder Santini and I talked with them, invited them to church, and set an appointment to come back and teach everybody that was there.  They were a super awesome family, so I was super excited to go by again.  When we invited them to church, the son of the daughter that we met said ''See?!  I told you we should go to church again!!''  Which I thought was pretty awesome, since he's just 11.  Sadly, we couldn't go by them the day we said we would, but it was alright because they forgot anyway!  But yesterday we went to the house of the family of really active members to talk to their less-active grandson, and the same sister with all her kids were in their house!  What are the chances?  We then got talking a lot, and discovered that none of her 3 kids (age 11, age 14, and age 16) are baptized, and that the church has always been something extremely important to her but she's failed in going.  She also told us that she's in contact with the missionary that baptized her a very very long time, and that recently she was telling him that she was having a really hard time.  Apparently he told her to have faith, and that the missionaries would be coming by.  We asked her when that happened, and she told us that is was the exact day that Elder Santini and I came and found her at her sister's house.  The same day!  Aint that awesome?!  Anyway, she said that she understands that it's time to end her personal apostasy, and get back to church and bring her family to the gospel.  She has a ton of faith in Christ, and understands that His love is never far from her, and that He's always watching over her.  She said that she would go to church, and that night we also commited her 3 children to baptism.  The Spirit was very strong for the whole lesson as we talked about eternal families and about convenants.  It was an incredible moment, and a miracle that I definitely won't forget.

So that was my week!  Sorry I don't have a ton to write about this week.  The church is true!  And it's amazing.  It's a little ironic that I struggled with feelings of incompetence the same week that I shared with you all my feelings of the atonement and of grace, but hopefully I learned my lesson from it and won't fall into that trap again.  With Christ in our lives, there really never is a reason to feel like we're less than anything.

Oh I almost forgot!  I gave a talk in church on Sunday for 20 minutes about consecration using the story of Jesus telling Peter to 'feed my lambs' and the story of the feeding of the 4,000 with 7 loaves.  Which was fun!  I learned a lot about consecration this week and applied it and as a result I felt even more satisfied with my work and happy :)  So all is well!

I love you all!  Take care!

Love

Elder Fox

Amazing Grace

I decided to finally send photos and do other things I needed to do before the group letter.  Which is good!  I've been putting that off for a super long time.  BUT now I don't very much time to write anything.  Woops.  But I'll try to pack as much into it as I can!  Forgive my spelling and grammar errors.

First off!  This week was a week of miracles.  It was incredible!  The biggest of all of these relates to the family of Alan.  In our first lesson with the family, Alan's sister didn't have very much interest and his mom said that she thinks all the churches are equal and that she doesn't want to change.  The Dad is already a member but he still hasn't been to church.  Alan was the only one who accepted the baptismal date in that lesson, and he was baptized on that date last change.  Fast forward to this week on Friday, and I was in their house on divisions with Elder Santini.  We were going to invite them to an activity, but they couldn't go.  Even though Elder Barbosa wasn't there, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to teach them and try to put a baptismal date with Alan's mom and sister.  We started teaching the first lesson, and only got as far as ''God is our loving Heavenly Father'' when Alan's mom blurted out:

''You know what, I want to get baptized, but not right now because I'm super tired and my mom is sick.''

Wait... what?

We haven't even mentioned baptism, and we hadn't taught the whole family like that since that first lesson where Alan accepted the baptismal date and she was sturdy in her opinion.  At first I ignored the second part of her sentence and asked her why she wanted to get baptized.  She said that Alan had a serious conversation with her where he said that he wanted to baptize her.  She also said that after seeing how happy Alan was after his baptism, it's hard to deny that it's something that brings the love of God in our lives.

Way to go Alan!  Best.  Convert.  Ever.  He's really timid so he doesn't say much, and I've never heard him bear his testimony, but little moments like this let me know that his testimony of the restored gospel is actually very strong.

Then Macarena, Alan's sister, came in to the conversation and told us that she wanted to get baptized on the same day as her mom!  So after some conversation, talking about her doubts about getting baptized within the coming weeks and everything, we did put a date for the 12th of March.  So we're super excited!  I was walking on air the whole day.  It's something very rare and special in this mission to be able to bring a whole family into the gospel.

Also!  We finally had a lesson with Janet.  You guys haven't heard about her in a while, she's the one that has the son in the mission and didn't want to get baptized until he gets back.  Also, she needs to get divorced from her past husband in order to marry her current boyfriend and she can't do that because her ex-spouse is giving her a lot of money to take care of her disabled daughter.  So the situation is a little complicated!  But we had a lesson with her and it was very special, she's an awesome lady.  She says that she doesn't like to be pressured into things so she'll go to church when she wants to, but we're encouraging her and promising blessings for going.  She's reading and praying every night which is awesome, and she described an experience to us where she found an answer to her question in the Book of Mormon just by flipping through its pages.  So cool stuff!  She's another one that will definitely be baptized, but sadly it'll be very very very long down the road, due to the laws of Chile more than anything.

My comp lost his wallet this week!  And again, we were able to find the wallet within 3 hours of losing it.  Another great reminder that God is always looking after us :)  He left it in a colectivo, just like I did, then realized it a few hours later when he wanted to use it to change out a 10,000 bill for 10 1,000´s in order to get another colectivo home.  He realized it was gone, and we had no idea where it could've been or where he left it.  We decided to take a colectivo anyway, so we went to the street where they pass and within seconds a colectivo passed and we got in.  The first the the colectivero said was ''Hey did you lose your wallet?''  When my comp said yes, he opened the glove box and there was his wallet!  It was the same colectivo that we used to get there.  It was another wonderful miracle of the week, and something that actually left me deeply touched.  I've seen the hand of the Lord a lot here in Paniahue, especially in these few weeks.  It was something amazing to sit in that colectivo and think of things that have happened in my mission and all the miracles I've been able to see.  It all really is incredible.

I'm finding that it's harder and harder to speak english out loud.  Spanish words keep slipping in there and sometimes I mix the two languages in rather horrible ways without thinking about it.  I did divisions Friday with Elder Santini (from Hawaii, thus he speaks English) and it was difficult to speak just English!  The funniest of the day was when I said ''Sabaday'', a mixture of ''Sabado'' and ''Saturday.''

So that was my week!  Sorry I couldn't say much.  This week I had some pretty profound experiences with grace, and the power of the grace given to us by the atonement became a little more personal to me.  It's amazing to me that because of the atonement we never have to be haunted by the mistakes we've made or the people that we were, that with the true cleansing power of His grace we only ever have to look forward.  It brought to mind the story of Lot and his family, when they were commanded to never look back.  Because of Him, we truly never have to look back.  It was amazing for me to realize that the person I have been in the past is forgotten, and the atonement took shape for me in my mind a little bit more than it had.  I loved my Dad's thoughts in his letter a while back about the individuality of the atonement, and I think that's a truth that I've been able to internalize.

I love you all!  Have a great week!  I'm praying for you!

Love

Elder Fox

Wanted: Paniahue Mormon

Hello all!

So I sent you all the recording already!  In the recording I give you all the updates on the investigators that I have to give, and I'm going to try to take time to send photos, so I have only a few thigns to write about in the email!

First I helped a member butcher a lamb.  Wasn't the best thing I've ever done, but everybody has to do weird things on their mission!  Nathan defeathered chickens, if I remember right.

Quote of the week:

''But he plays tennis.... soooo.... he's not gay.''

     -Elder Barbosa

Also!  I found salt and vinegar potato chips this week!  I was so happy I almost cried :')  First rootbeer and now salt and vinegar potato chips!  I'm practically in the states again!  I also found ranch salad dressing!  Another rare find.

Also the Branch President informed me of a show on Discovery Channel he watched where a guy named Bear Grylls was in the mountains eating smore's with President Barrack Obama.  I'm very interested in what this is.  I'm assuming it's Man vs. Wild and a special episode where he does it with Obama... but how can that possibly be?  I'm very interested to know exactly what happened, so if someone could do some research and let me know that would be appreciated :)

The rest of the time I'll devote to the wallet story!  Yaaaaay wallet story!

At the end of everything I lost 29,000 pesos, got my wallet back, and accidentally became famous across the whole region!  And here's how it happened...

So we were in a colectivo (like a taxi but it has a set route that it repeats over and over and it doesn't leave the route unless you pay extra, so kind of a bus-taxi kind of thing,) when I took my wallet out to pay the driver.  We had an awesome conversation with the driver on our way, and we became instant friends with him.  We had found out that he was friends with Alan and his family, and that he was a man of faith but without religion.  I honestly have no idea what happened after that, but I think that I neglected to put the wallet back in my pocket.  I have no idea how that happened.  But 10 minutes later I found myself in the dry cleaner's without a wallet.  I immediately called the assistants and got permision to email you and cancel my cards.  Despite the circumstances, I was pretty calm.  I knew that everything was going to be fine, and it wasn't really the most horrible thing that could happen to someone.  We also had met the driver pretty well and we could get his number through Alan, so I thought it would be likely that I'd find it again.

BUT Alan didn't answer his phone.  So after doing the things that we came to do we took another colectivo back to the house and waited for the same colectivo to pass us again so we could look in the car for my wallet.  Miraculously, the same driver passed after just 1 minute of waiting.  We called him over, explained what happen, and we all looked for my wallet together.  There was nothing.  We looked under and over every surface, and we couldn't find it.  It had been stolen.

Hahaha..... woops.

At this point I was glad I had emailed as soon as I did, and hoped that none of the cards would work for the person that had stolen it.  The colectivero felt really terrible, and I told him not to worry about it because it wasn't his fault, but he still insisted on buying us a coke at the store nearby and also a big thing of juice to take home and drink as a part of lunch.  It made me happy that there are such kind people out there.  Even though I knew it had been stollen, I was still pretty calm.  I had lost my Chilean I.D, my drivers license, my health insurance card, my mission card, my two personal credit cards, and 29,000 pesos.  But I knew that in the end it wouldn't be a big deal, and I said a silent prayer in my head asking that everything would be alright.  We went back to the house and started eating lunch.

One hour later!  We got a call from the Hermanas in Chepica (same zone but different city about 30 minutes from Santa Cruz) who said that they had good news.  They started off the conversation with ''Elder Fox lost his wallet right?''  To which we replied affirmatively.  They then told us that somebody in Santa Cruz had found the wallet in a curb on the street, and posted a picture of my Chilean I.D. on a website.  Then an investigator of the Hermanas in Chepica saw the photo online, saw that it was a foreigner Gringo with a tie on, and thought that it had to be a missionary.  So she found the address and number of ther person that posted the picture and called the Hermanas in Chepica immediately.

All in the space of an hour and a half.

The Hermanas passed us the data and Elder Barbosa, being super excited that it had been found, called the colectivo driver and told him that someone had found the wallet and that we were on our way to their house.  The driver then told us to wait right where we were, and he came and picked us up and drove us to the address of the person that had my wallet for free!  He's super great.  Best colectivo driver ever.  Anyway, I yelled at the gate, the woman came out, gave me my wallet, and we were off!  It was a miracle!  When I looked inside the wallet I saw that my 29,000 pesos that were inside were missing, and that my personal credit card had been moved to a different place.  It appears that somebody had stolen it, taken the money, tried to use the card, failed, then threw the wallet in the curb, where the kind lady found it and put my I.D. online.

All in the space of an hour!

SO that's my miracle of this week,  After that happened I emailed immediately saying that everything was fine.  Luckily nothing was missing but the cash.

Now here comes the funny part.  5 minutes after that an Hermana from the branch called us and asked about my wallet, saying that she had seen my picture on the internet.  We explained the whole story.  A few minutes later, another hermana from the branch called us about the same thing.

Odd...

Then the English Classes started.  Everybody who came to the English classes had seen that I had lost my wallet on the internet and had seen a picture of my I.D.  Apparently, people had taken the post from the original site and, wanting to help out if they could, had put it on facebook.  In the space of two hours it went viral in this whole region of Chile.  The girls in the English class told us that people in Santa Cruz who recognized me were commenting saying that I was the ''Paniaue Mormon,'' and people had started to call me by that name.  The Paniahue Mormon.  A half an hour later I got another call from the Elders of Paralillo:

Elder Santini:  ''Hey did you lose your wallet?''

Me:  ''Yes... but I got it back so it's all good!''

Elder Santini:  ''Oh good!  You know your picture is all over the internet?''

Me: ''Yes......''

Elder Santini:  ''They're calling you the 'Paniahue Mormon'''

Me:  ''Yeah I heard that...''

Elder Santini:  ''Yeah everybody seems to be talking about it.''

Me:  ''Yeah I have no idea why.''

Alan called from Rancagua saying that he had seen it too, and the next day at church all the members said they had seen it.  Today in our P-day activity the other missionaries were saying that a post was flying around facebook with a picture of my carnet saying ''Wanted:  Paniahue Mormon.''

And that is how I became famous for being a dork and losing my wallet.

So that's my week!  I learned that when we do dorky things, God will always help us out anyway and grant us a miracle, but if he can he'll also throw a little humor in the situation, just to teach you a lesson.

The only sad thing is, my Chilean I.D. picture is terrible.

So that was my week!  I love you all!  Have a great week!  Make good choices!  The church is true!  Hang on to your wallets!

Love

Elder Fox

The Best Week Ever

Hey all!  This week was awesome!  And super hard!  But mostly awesome!

My new comp!  Is super awesome.  He is the most stellar missionary I think I've ever met.  His name is Elder Barbosa and he was born in Peru but moved to Barcelona, Spain when he was 7.  He lived there ever since.  He's a convert and was baptized 5 years ago, which I think is awesome.  It's been awesome getting to know him!  This is my first time leading a sector and I've been making plenty of errors but he's been helping a ton and I feel like I've already learned and progressed a ton in this week.  The only reason the week was hard was the stress of leading a sector that I've never before experienced.  But it was the kind of hard that made me feel great at the end of the week so that's good!  I'll start with the fun stories and move on to the cool things that happened.

I found rootbeer!  In Chile!  I was so happy I could've cried.  That day I bought four cans of rootbeer and vanilla ice cream for everybody in the house to have rootbeer floats that night.  It was a ton of fun.  Then a few nights later my comp bought rootbeer and vanilla ice cream for everybody for Elder Crane's birthday, so I had rootbeer floats two nights this week!  After 7 months of no rootbeer at all, and I was starting to really miss it.

That's the only fun story!  Now things that happened!  Just so you know, we haven't been able to find Karla (the dyslexic girl who could read the Book of Mormon perfectly and started believing in God when we talked to her) since we talked to her last, which is kind of sad, but we know she's still there!  We hope to be able to pass by her this week.  Also, Felipe (the investigator that the other elders found and put a baptismal date for us) has passed his date and we still haven't been able to find him in his house or get a hold of him on his phone, so we're starting to think he was a dud.  Which is disappointing, but it's okay!  We can move on!  

BUT!  We found other people and some of our investigators experienced huge breakthroughs this week.  And thus it was the best week ever.

Isabel y Blas!  I'm not sure how much I've been talking about them, but they're an older couple who we've been passing by since I got here.  They both already know that the church is true.  Their only difficulty is that they've never been able to go to church because they work in the city market which is only open on Sunday and Wednesday mornings.  Also, this week we found out that they aren't married so their baptismal date also fell.  But that's okay!  Because this week we promised Isabel and Blas that if they took an hour out of their store to go to sacrament meeting this Sunday, that the Lord would bless them for their sacrifice and that they would end up recieving more money by the end of the day than is usual.  We also mentioned again all of the blessings that come from church attendence and this week they came!  I was so surprised!  And I don't know why!  But I was!  I was so happy I could've cried.  My companion noticed that Isable was crying during the sacrement and during the hymns, which I think is awesome.  I think they both felt something different, and I'm sure that they're going to get baptized.  I think it touched Isabel especially because she's told us recently that she doesn't feel like God is with her, that God has abandoned her and she only feels that God is near when we are there in their house.  We've been talking about that lately, and how going to church would be something that could help with that, and that the goal of recieving the gift of the holy ghost would help her feel Him always.  So it was a great week with them!  It's awesome to be able to see their lives change and be able to feel the Spirit more.

Pamela!  This is the awesome story of the week.  My first day with Elder Barbosa we were walking down one of the main streets when we crossed the street at the same time as a young girl.  She said hi to us, which called to my attention because people rarely say hi to us before we say hi to them, and I said hi and asked how she was doing.  We had crossed the street at this point and she told us that she didn't have a religion and that she really had a lot of questions about us and wanted to know more about what we believe, and asked if we could sit on a bench and talk for a bit.  Whoa!  What a response to a 'how are you?'!  I was pretty shocked, but excited at the same time!  So we sat down and talked for a bit.  We answered some questions, and she expressed that her Dad was a evangelical pastor and that both her parents are crazy evangelicals, so she doesn't want them to know that she's currently investigating other churches.  Under those circumstances we wouldn't be able to teach her if she weren't 18, but we're in luck because she's 18!  But as a result she doesn't want us to haver her phone number nor her address to her house to avoid awkward questions.  So it was a little bit of a tricky situation.  I suggested to her that we meet at the church the next day with other missionaries to be able to answer her questions in a better setting and be able to teach her something.  She agreed, and we went on our way.  I was super excited about the lesson because nothing like that has ever happened on my mission before, so we went to church the next day and we waited.  For a long time.  We waited until 30 minutes after the set time of the interview, and I decided to call it quits and head out.  Needless to say I was pretty disappointed.  There was a possibility that we had lost her, as we had no other way to contact her.  I was praying all day that we'd be able to find her and talk to her again, not that day specifically, but that we'd be able to run into her again, because I felt something very powerful in our first conversation together.  That night at 9:30 when we were walking back to our house I saw a pair of girls wakling past us, but one of them was staring at me as she walked by.  Because it was dark I didn't see until she was close that it was her!  It was Pamela!  I love those little moments that let you know that God's there.  I was super happy to have found her again, and we talked a little bit in the street again.  Sadly, after our previous conversation she wanted to investigate more and turned to the internet for her source of information.  Woops.  I blabbed for a solid 15 minutes that night, telling her about my personal conversion story, how we don't worship Joseph Smith, how we're not a cult, and how I know beyond doubt that the Book of Mormon is true and that this is the true church.  And a lot of other myths that she read.  I invited her to come to the English class the next day, and she said that she would come!  But I was still unsure how she felt about the church and about us and everything, and thought that perhaps she wasn't as prepared as I thought she was.  The next day came!  And Pamela came to the English class!  Again, I was super stoked.  At the end of the English class I had the impression to invite anybody who wanted to stay and ask us questions about our religion to stay and ask said questions.  All 12 people in the class stayed, and the first question that was asked was about Joseph Smith.  We taught them all lesson 1.  All of them.  All 12.  Alan's dad and sister were there, attently listening the whole time, as well as 9 new investigators.  It was one of the most incredible experiences of my mission, if not of my life.  The Spirit was very strong, and they all understood the lesson very well, and they all accepted the invitation to pray and read the Book of Mormon.  The things I noticed most in the lesson were the reactions of Pamela.  She was super happy and nodding her head the whole time.  In fact during the lesson, she often answered the questions of other people in the class!  Extremely well!  She's practially mormon already!  After the class she came up to me and I asked if her she was going to read the Book of Mormon, personally.  She said yes.  I asked her if she was going to pray.  She said, ''Yes, I have to do it.''  She was super happy, like incredibly happy, and full with the Spirit.  And I'm super excited to see what happens next!  She may not get baptized while I'm here, but I know she will one day.

So that's my best week ever!  I love you all!  Remember that God is there and that miracles are real!  Have a good week!

Love

Elder Fox

Bautizmo! Por fin!

Hey everybody!  This week was great, but there haven't been very many new developments since we've been busy doing divisions and preparing for the baptism and stuff like that.

SO!  Changes!  Wooooot!  Elder Leguizamón has 2 and a half changes here in Paniahue, which made guessing what could happen difficult because normally with 2 changes you stay and with 3 you leave.  But what happens with 2 and a half?  Hard to say.  I honestly wanted him to stay because he's an awesome example and a great friend, and it would be easier to strengthen our new convert with him here.  But alas!  He's going to Rauquén in Curico, the place where Elder Hadlock started his mission!  He's going to be a district leader again which is awesome, he deserves it.  I'm going to be with Elder Barbosa!  Like the character from Pirates of the Carrabean (is that how you spell it?)!  He was born in Peru but has lived in Spain for a very long time.  I hear that he has a peruvian/spaniard mix in his accent, which will be interesting!  He was a zone leader  for a while (I have a habit of getting put with ex-zone leaders) but he only has 2 changes left in the mission so he was released from his responsablities to be able to die as a normal missionary.  And I hear he's awesome!  I don't know why I keep getting put with these superstar missionaries, either I keep getting lucky or President thinks I'm a problem child.  Either way I won't complain!  Cuz it's great!

So that'll be my next change!  I'll probably be leaving after next change because if I stay two changes to kill him I'd have to stay a fourth change for another missionary to get here and that's longer than normal, but we'll see!

So this week was good!  We still haven't met our investigator with the baptismal date that the other Elders put, but we're hoping to do a family home evening with the other elders and him this week so that'll be good!  We also put a baptismal date with one of our investigators named Blas!  I only met him once because for whatever reason this whole change Elder Leguizamón has only been able to find him while on divisions with another Elder, but I met him recently and he's awesome!  He and his wife are both great, and they both already feel that the church is true, the only difficulty is getting to church because they work in a job that they only do Sunday mornings (selling things in the feria (don't know the translation for feria)).  And they would've put a fecha with his wife Isabel as well but she wasn't there when they were able to teach him.  So that's three baptisms this next month hopefully!

Another cool story!  Elder Leguizamón and I decided this week to go through all of the contacts in our phone labeled as 'investigator' and call them if we don't know them (because contacts build up as people never delete the investigators they stop going by) and we found a great investigator that way!  Sadly I forgot her name because I only met her once and it was a 5 minute conversation, but I have it written down somewhere!  In the call she said we could pass by her house and we did Sunday and had a brief conversation.  She told us that the missionaries were passing by often and she really liked what they were teaching but then Elder Junior left and Elder Bernal (from my group, the missionary that I replaced when I got here) came and they never passed by her again.  Which is odd.  She said that she sees something different in us and is genuinely looking for the truth.  Which is awesome!  We'll see where it goes!

Also we started teaching(ish) some people who have been coming to our English classes.  They're very young, and here I've noticed that the youth are very very similar to the youth in the States (probably due to the unversality of opinions provided by the internet.)  So it's interesting talking to them!  Most young people I've talked to have the same opinion, that God is just an energy through all of us and that there really isn't even a God nor a true church, but that Jesus Christ was still the son of God (I have no idea how that works either.)  But this Saturday they accepted what we've told them pretty well!  We just need to teach official lessons and leave commitments and everything.

Then of course there's the story of Alan and his baptism!  But I'll save that for the end of everything.

Some funny stories!  In divs I went with the zone leader Elder Miller to a house of about 20 Haitian people!  Which in Chile is definitely not something you see every day.  Apparently the zone leaders had taught one lesson, but they weren't sure that they understood everything because the Haitians are still working on their Spanish too, because they speak French!  And I was so sad that I had forgotten absolutely everything I have learned of French!  Cuz it would've been awesome to talk to them in their native language, because it's a little odd that we're speaking a language we're new to and they're speaking a language they're new too but we have to speak that language because it's the only one we have in common!  We invited them to play sports with us that night, and Elder Miller told them that I knew French but I explained that I forgot everything when I learned Spanish.  They told me to try anyway so I just said 'I don't know' in French and left it at that.  They were very entertained at my attempt to French.

More stories of Chilean news!  So early in the week I was in a member's house eating lunch when I saw a story about a bunch of rogue waves that have been going on in Viña del Mar.  There's this platform that's pretty high above the ocean that's a really popular tourist spot, but this week these giant waves have been coming every now and then and soaking everybody there, which they found pretty fun!  The whole news story was about how much of a thrill these tourists are getting out of standing on this platform as giant waves come up and soak them (and the cars driving on the road by the platform and everything in the area.)  Later in the week I was in the same home and saw more videos of giant waves coming and soaking the platform in Viña del Mar, but this time with nobody on it.  The headline was ''They're getting sick of the big waves.''  I thought that was hilarious.  I love how frank these headlines are.

Another headline!  The story was about a mall that got robbed before it opened, and the headline was ''It hasn't opened yet and they already robbed it.''  Yep.  Classic Chilean frank headlines.

So the baptism!  I never really told you much about Alan, but that's because we honestly didn't do very much for him.  That's the amazing thing about this story, is that all we did was invite him to be baptized at the very start of the change, and he took that invitation seriously and did everything he could to arrive at that date.  He is an amazing kid, and really just want to do what's right and what's going to help him.  It was a miracle how it happened, and it really goes to show that it's not the lessons that lead someone to baptism, it's the Spirit and the commitments you leave them.  He prayed and felt his answer on his own and learned to recognize the Spirit, he decided it was important to be baptized, and he was the one who asked us what he needed to do to be baptized, and he did everything necessary.  We hardly did anything!  So it really was a miracle.

Which leads me to completing my thought from last week!  I was talking about how the circumstances leading to the emergency of the font not being full at my last baptism were very unusual, and likely caused by God in order to teach us a lesson.  I think that story is a great example of our limits, and of the Atonement.  I don't have a lot of time to say everything that I was thinking (probably should have skpped the Chilean news story) but I learned through that that the atonement of Christ does more than cleanse us from our sins, it can also perfect our efforts.  What I mean by that is that in this life whatever we do (as long as it's the will of Christ) our efforts can be 'filled' by the atonement, to that the effects of what we do are much much greater than what we actually do.  Because of this, even though as humans we 'awkwardly lump around', we can make a huge difference because the atonement fills the gaps in our imperfections in everything that we do to serve God and to serve others.  The atonement fills the gaps left by our errors and our imperfections, in everything that we do.  Alan was a great example of this, because we didn't do much in his progression, but the atonement made the difference.

I love you all!  Have a great week!

Love

Elder Fox

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