January 2, 2018

Whelp this is it. It was a good New Years and Christmas, we had dinner with a family and then the night of New Years Eve there were some fireworks that they do here in Los Vilos. We woke up the next day to no water haha. It got cut in all of Los Vilos. But it's already back, no worries.

Something that Elder Rasband said "... a mission call form the Lord, my young friends, is the most important work that you can do." I know that there is nothing better that I could have done with the last two years of my life than be here in Chile serving the Lord. I am grateful for the experiences and the people that have shaped me into the person I am now. I'm definitely not the same as I was when I got here. This time has been special because I know that the Savior has given me the chance to really get to know Him. I know that He loves each one of us and that He gives us the chance to return. I know the Gospel is the way to find happiness and peace in this life. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ was restored through Joseph Smith with the proper authority of God. I know that we have men inspired by God today that lead and guide the Church. I know that we can have personal communication with God. I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, but He knows each one of us personally. 

 

Love you guys a lot! See you in a week!!!

Elder Cheney

December 18, 2017

It's one of those weeks where I'm feeling a bit lazy to write! Sorry!

We went down to Villa Alemana for a mission Christmas activity and I was able to see a lot of friends from the mission. Also I was able to stay the night in Olmué my first sector. I went and passed by a lot of people there and got to see them. It was really nice to be able to talk to them and see how everyone was doing. 

Also this week I was reading a talk and one of the points that I really liked is "It's just as important what we do as why we do it." We can go to church because someone expects us to or because we want the blessings that come from it. It will be a completely different experience, even though two people take the same sacrament, hear the same talks, participate in the same class. Especially with Christmas, it's a good time to reflect and think "Why do I do this?" 

Love you guys a lot, try to #LighttheWorld this week!!!!

Elder Cheney

 

 

December 11, 2017

This week I went on vacation to a place called Salamanca. Just kidding it wasn't really a vacation I left friday morning to do companion exchanges with Elder Ccarita from Peru. It was pretty fun. It's really hot there, I think I got two shades darker.

While we were there we taught a lady named Ruth. She has parkinsons but she sat to listen to us and we shared the message of the Restoration. She loved it, she was actually tearing up by the end. She said she really wanted to know for herself. She had actually been praying that God would help her out so that she could find the truth. She's very humble so it was awesome to be able to teach her. 

Then saturday we had what is called a Capilla Abierta (Open Chapel?) The whole zone was there and pretty much what happened was that we open the chapel put up some stands and give tours and talk about basic stuff like the restoration, baptism, the plan of salvation, etc. I was in the room with the baptismal font and me and Elder Navarro spoke about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was pretty fun, a couple people came in off the street, but it's a pretty small town so we had a good turnout. 

Actually to get ready for the Capilla Abierta we went to a radio station and we announced it. It was pretty cool, the first time I've ever been on the radio haha.  Then we went to church in Salamanca on Sunday because we were there pretty late saturday. We finally got back to Los Vilos at like 7 yesterday and it was like coming home. 

After we got back we were able to teach Tamara. She has a cousing Damari and they are going to get baptized soonish. We just have to confirm the dates, but their Grandma is awesome and brings all of her grandchildren to church. So maybe they'll get baptized the 23rd, right before christmas. But this week we'll make sure of that. 

This week I was reading a lot in the Book of Mormon and there's an interesting phrase "exception of persons." It says that God doesn't make an exception of persons or in other words that everyone is equal to God. But if we are not obedient to God we can lose out on many blessings. In Alma 28:13

 it says "And thus we see how great the inequality of man is because of sin and transgression..." So if we don't know the commandments and we don't keep them, unknowingly we will lose many blessings, that's why in verse 14 it says 

"And thus we see the great call of diligence of men to labor in the vineyards of the Lord; and thus we see the great reason of sorrow, and also of rejoicing—sorrow because of death and destruction among men, and joy because of the light of Christ unto life." We have the responsability to share the Gospel with everyone so that they can have the same blessings, and those blessings only come through obedience to the ordinances of the Gospel and the commandments. 

Love you guys a lot!!!!!

Elder Cheney

 

 

November 20, 27 and December 1, 2017

November 20

This week:

Last monday we had a family night and we watched a video from President Hinckley called "Lessons I learned as a boy." Then we passed out a paper to everyone in the room and had everyone put their name on top. Then we explained that to show charity we don't need to give people money but sometimes it's as simple as some kind words. So everyone passed the paper to their left and the idea is that everyone in the room wrote something nice about everyone else. At the end everyone ended up with their paper again and it had a bunch of talent, attributes or other nice things that people had said about them. It was pretty awesome. Everyone felt really good and we invited everyone to lighten someone else's day by complimenting them, thanking them for something, or just being nice because it really can go a lond way. 

Roberto- This guy a couple weeks ago we showed up to his house because he's living with a less active member, and he didn't really want anything to do with us. But a couple of days ago we went and he started talking to us and out of the blue he told us that he stopped smoking and he hadn't smoked for four days and that he wanted to go to church. We talked a bit about the book of mormon and the promises that Prophet Monson left us a while back and he got excited to read. So then he showed up to church on Sunday and yesterdaywe passed by after and they had read the first 6 chapters of the book of mormon and remembered a ton. He was pumped to and wants to get a suit to wear to church. We'll be passing by again this week, but he's a really cool guy and he likes to make jokes. 

Reynaldo- My main man got baptized this week. It was pretty cool his family showed up and it was a nice little service. Then he got confirmed on Sunday. He was smiling the whole time. It was kind of crazy because the morning of the baptism we realized that there was no white pants in the entire city so we took an hour and fifteen minute bus ride to go get some haha. It was a pretty crazy day, but it was awesome to see the baptism. 

Jesús- He's a recent convert of about 6 months but when I got here he wasn't going to church. He's gone two weeks in a row now and he wore a white shirt and tie last sunday. I think he'll start passing the sacrament soon, he's fourteen. he's a really cool kid, we've been helping him a lot with his english and he showed us how to draw a bit to pay us back haha. He has some friends and his mom that he wants to bring to church so he's pumped to help us out. Also he wants to be a missionary so we're helping to keep him motivated. So our boy Jesus is doing great. 

This week I got sick. I had a pretty bad headache and I thought I had a fever. Plus my nose was running a ton. I felt like a sack of garbage so I called the mission nurse. I was coughing up a lung and she had the nerve to tell me that I had the "common cold." So it actually wasn't that big of a deal. Plus the mami gave me some chinese pills that looked like little sombreros and I felt great after sleeping on that. 

Also this week we gave talks in sacrament meeting and I think the big hit was when my companion mentioned honey badger. Chileans had never heard of them so they went crazy. And after that the teacher for the class didn't show up so they put us in. Pretty much it was the elders show in the chapel on sunday. But it was sweet because we talked about the gift of the Holy Ghost and everyone shared experiences of how they had been guided by the holy ghost at some point in their lives. 

I really liked this scripture Doctrine and Covenants 45:57

 "For they that are wise and have received the truth, and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived—verily I say unto you, they shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire, but shall abide the day."

Love you lots!!!!

Elder Cheney

November 27

It was a good week, it went by really fast so I'm having trouble remembering some of the things that happened, but here it goes.

We had change calls on Sunday and it looks like I will be staying with Elder Hucks here in Los Vilos another change. It's going to be pretty cool because we already know each other and we teach well together so it's going to be a good change. 

Thanksgiving was pretty great. Turned out that the papis were trying to give us dinner and not lunch so we made our own lunch. We didn't find any turkey but we fried up a bunch of chicken with some mashed potatoes and gravy. To finish things off we had some brownies and icecream. It was a pretty great meal. After in the night the papis gave us some papas du queso which is like big tater tots with cheese in them and some meat. We finished Thanksgiving nice and plump. 

They're trying to get us to participate in the Christmas choir here, I'm going to do my best to avoid the members haha. Just kidding it looks like we'll be apart of the Christmas Choir this year. 

We had a District Conference and everyone went up to Salamanca. It's like a two hour bus ride each way. It was really cool, the theme was Jesus Christ, the rock of our faith. They spoke a lot of how we should always make sure that God is in first place and we don't let anything else take more importance. It was cool to be with all the missionaries there. 

We taught Delia this week the Restoration! It was a good lesson, she participated more than in other occasions. She had an accident and has been in bed for like a month but she finally is going to get her boot taken off in a couple days and hopefully she starts going to church. We're working with her so she can go. 

We also found some new people to teach this week, but we have to do some follow up to see if they're going to progress. But the work continues!!!

Also the investigator of the sisters asked me to baptize him this saturday. It was a really cool experience. He's a big guy, like 6'1 and maybe 230 pounds. It's a good thing I've been doing my exercises because it was not easy to get him back out of the water. he's been investigating the church for like a year so it was cool, all the members were happy that he got baptized. 

 

A scripture that I really liked from my study this week in Mosiah 15:9 

Having ascended into heaven, having the bowels of mercy; being filled with compassion towards the children of men; standing betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice.

 It describes perfectly what Christ has done for us. He makes it possible that we recieve mercy, He makes it possible that we can live again after this life, and He makes it possible that we can be forgiven of our sins. With Christmas coming up we should make an extra effort to remember Him admist all of the shopping, food, and good christmas music. To remember why we celebrate, why we get together as a family. Remember Christ. 

Love you guys a lot!!!!

Elder Cheney

December 4

We are definitely doing #iluminaelmundo or light the worldhere. We're inviting everyone to do it and we also have an open chapel program that we're going to be doing. In the zone we have 3 and we're not really going to have any help from the mission so it's pretty much just me and my companion planning all the activities. We have the first one this saturday. It should be pretty lit. We'll see how it goes, pretty much the goal is to get a ton of people in the chapel so they can learn a bit about the basic beliefs that we have. 

We taught Waldo yesterday, he's the dad of a recent convert. He was going through some pretty tough times there with the family so we started talking about prayer and then baptism. We talked about how baptism changes lives as we keep the commandments and keep our covenants (promises). He asked us "What are the commandments? What do I have to do to get baptized? That's what I need in my life." It was awesome, so we talked about a baptismal date. He has a lot of changes to make in his life but we're excited to work with him so he can become a new person. 

Something spiritual, in the leaders conference that we had this week some elders shared how they had made an effort to keep the sabbath day a little more holy. It's kind of hard as missionaries because we do the same thing everyday so there's not a whole lot to change to make it special. But I used some of their ideas, for example the night before I shined my shoes and in the morning I studied and learned how to play a hymn on the piano. It was awesome, during church I felt a lot more of the spirit and I learned a lot more from the classes. I felt more edified. Maybe that's something to look at, what we can do to keep the sabbath day more holy. It is something sacred for the Lord, just like the scriptures or the temple, we should treat it like that. 

Have a great week and check out Light the World in Mormon.org!!!!!!

Love you guys!!!!

 

 

Elder Cheney

November 13, 2017

Twas a good week here in Los Vilos. There was an incredible amount of wind haha, I don't think I'm going to be able to get over that.

Angelo- He's the guy that had a baptismal date, but started working a ton. We passed by his house and we shared Alma 5:12 right there outside in his car haha. It was a great conversation, we talked about the change he has had in his own life from the Gospel. He recognizes that he's had a 180, he wants to get baptized but he wants to wait a little more to get baptized. 

Esteban- This guy has been playing with my heart this week. We taught him on Wednesday and it went great, he accepted a baptismal date for the 9th of December. He's about 19 and he told us how he really wanted to change his life, so that was awesome. He told us he was going to go to some activities during the week and we passed by his house and called but we couldn't find him. That was pretty heartbreaking, then Sunday morning we pass by his house and he was there and went to church with us and stayed for the 3 hours. That ws awesome. Then we passed by for an appointment in the afternoon and he wasn't there again. Another heartbreaker. It looks like we just have to find him in the house. But he's a great guy, he has a ton of potential. 

Renaldo- My man Renaldo. He's going great, he's going to get baptized Friday. We were talking about obedience the other day and we asked "Why is it important for you to follow God's commandents?" And he said "Because... yes!" Amen, sometimes you gotta do it because it's the right thing to do. He's the chiquillo at the end. 

Also this week we passed by a kid (Tomas) to teach him english and after he brought us some juice. So I starting drinking really slowly because I'm sneaky and we started talking and asked him if he had ever had questions about God and stuff like that. He asked "Yea, what is God like?" And then he started firing off questions and we just answered them. It was awesome, really natural, sincere questions. Great teaching experience. Then we said, yea one more question. And he asked "What happens after we die?" We didn't answer, we just marked a Book of Mormon and then we gave it too him and invited him to study and figure it out for himself. He accepted and were going to have to do some follow up but he seems like a great kid, he's like 17 and his cousin is a recent convert in the branch. 

Also we ran through some long grass and my legs are itchy so pray for me. Yesterday we went to the chapel because there was an activity and all of the sisters from the relief society tried to out do each other by giving us different types of cakes and breads. Then they started watching Baptists at our Barbecue. We had to leave, but I had a lot of ganas to watch the movie haha. 

This week in a family night we watched a bible video about after the resurrection of Jesus and he was talking to his disciples. 

In John 20:21 he says:

Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Those words, peace be unto to, in contrast with the trials and afflictions that were going to come upon the apostoles seem a little hard to believe. But if you think about it, who had the hardest life, who suffered the most? Jesus Christ. Who had the most inner peace, despite what happened around him? Jesus Christ. The Father sent Jesus to do a work and as He completed with the will of the Father Jesus was able to maintain that peace, that peace that came from knowing that God was pleased in Him. Then Jesus tells us "as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." He wants us to do what he did, minister to those that need help, share the Gospel, be examples of His love. And he promises that as we do the will of the Father we will have peace in our lives, it doesn't matter what goes on around us or what challenges we face we can have true peace. 

Love you guys a lot!!!!

Elder Cheney

 

October 30, 2017

I'm sorry I know it's lame but it's one of those days I don't want to write a lot!!! But here's a ton of pictures!!!!!

We played soccer with the zone today and it was a ton of fun!

We went to Viña for a meeting with President and learned a whole lot of stuff

We drew up the plan of salvation to share with some people

And I found a couple little homies (that guy with a lot of hair was crazy!)

Great Scripture I found this week, Helaman 12:23-24

23 Therefore, blessed are they who will repent and hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God; for these are they that shall be saved.

24 And may God grant, in his great fulness, that men might be brought unto repentance and good works, that they might be restored unto grace for grace, according to their works.

But it was a great week, thanks for the love!!!

Love Elder Cheney

 

October 23, 2017

Dang that's too bad about BYU, at least it's still the Lord's school haha. Looks like all the fans have lost faith so that probably doesn't help. (I told him that we went to the ECU v. BYU game and it was ugly. The whole BYU football season has been ugly. : (

That would be pretty cool if you left the decorations up and we have a ham and cheesy potatoes dinner then we can take them all down the next day. But a little bit of Christmas cheer didn't hurt anyone. Porfi (His opinion on whether or not I should leave the Christmas decorations up until he gets home January 10)

My new area is Los Vilos. If I had to compare it to a place probably Dalheart, Texas. It's small and rural. It's kind of a fishing town so that's interesting. The sector is pretty small size wise but there are a decent amount of people. It is really windy. All the time haha. Even though we're going into summer right now I still wear 2 jackets walking around at night. The people are really cool. We've met a couple homey members and whatnot. My companion is Elder Hucks from American Fork. He likes to play basketball (even though he hasn't touched a ball in like a year) and he's a cool guy. He doesn't speak English, like he doesn't like to, which is good because we speak Spanish in between us. 

We had an investigator that was going to get baptized this Saturday coming up. We passed by on Saturday to make sure he was going to church. We passed by like 3 times but he wasn't there and he didn't answer, then we passed by Sunday morning to go with him but he wasn't there either. So he didn't make it out to church which was a heartbreaker. We passed by after on Sunday and it looks like he took another job on Sunday so he might be able to go every other Sunday and he kind of wants to wait a little bit more on baptism. So that wasn't too cool, but we're going to keep working with him to help him progress. 

We have a little homie named Renaldo that is going to get baptized the 4th of November. He's going really well for his baptism, he's praying and reading so he'll be fine.  And there are a bunch of other people that have a lot of potential here so we're excited to get to it. 

The other day I went up to Illapel for interchanges, it's about an hour to the north on a bus, and I was with my boy Elder Navarro from Mexico. We had a good day and we taught an investigator that is going to get baptized over there. She has a brother in law that was there and he was asking a bunch of questions. So while Elder Navarro was talking to the investigator I was able to talk to Marcos(the brother in law). He asked a bunch of really good questions to get to know our lifestyle as missionaries, what the Church is about, and how it all came to be. I pretty shared the message of the Restoration with him and it was one of the coolest teaching experiences on my mission because he had a desire to know and he asked good questions (yes there are bad questions). It was pretty laid back too, he felt satisfied with the things we were teaching, it was awesome to see someone feel the Spirit and accept the answers that we give. 

We're pretty much in summer but it's still kind of cold. I don't think it's going to get too hot here because of the wind. It's nice to be out here in the field again, there's a couple of things to get used to and I miss the boys in the office, but it's so awesome to teach a lot. It's a lot of fun. We've been able to teach a lot, or maybe I feel like it's a lot compared to the office.

Love you guys a lot!!!

Elder Cheney