August 15 and 22, 2016

August 15
That cupboard was my old candy store! (referring to a little cupboard we refinished for Clara and Lily) They gotta take good care of it. But that is going to be really cool to go up there!

I've seen like 3 seconds (of the olympics)  on a tv before we asked them to turn it off haha. We haven't seen too much. But they are on every tv. It's the olympics or soccer. USA! USA! USA! I miss the olympics a little bit, but there will be more. 

Good faith mom, he won't let you totally crash and burn. (responding to my worries about teaching seminary) They ask about me because like they say here I'm regalón. 

I miss the trees a little bit. North Carolina is really pretty. 

This week Jenny, that girl that got baptized when I got here, we were teaching and I asked if I could use the bathroom and she was like "Elder, just imagine you're in your house." And that was really funny. 

A lady named Monica, came to the church yesterday. Even though we had like 4 people that said they were going to come only she game. So that was disappointing, but Monica had a really great experience and was able to meet some of the members and she liked it a lot. 

This week I've been studying a lot about humility and the importance of being humble. It is really important. I liked Doctrine and Covenants 112:10 and it says "Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers." We need to be humble enough to recognize our dependence on a superior Being. If we can do that we can receive the guidance that we need. we just have to be humble enough to ask it. 

That was the week, everything is good, we're eating a lot

Love you guys,

Elder Cheney

August 22
Writing stresses me out, I don't like typing haha that's why. 

You guys went on a lot of vacations without me! I think I went to Huntington beach one time. Not a good week for phones, you guys should all get nokias like us, I haven't broken one yet. (referring to the fact that both David and I water damaged our phones).

Just pray a lot and do the preparation, if you do your part God will help you teach. I really don't know what else to say, that's what I do to get ready for lessons, pray, study, pray, and then I kinda just go for it. And always see what I can do better after. 

I want some icecream. There are a serious lack of Cookout milkshakes in Chile. But there are a lot of really good food. We did a Family Night this week and we made sopaipillas pasadas again. They were really good because the sister made them and we kinda just watched. But she told us how to make them. 

My companion is Elder Palilla from California. He's a cool guy, but he has a huge giggle problem. If anything funny happens this guy just can't keep it together. And I'm pretty funny so he laughs a lot. But I really like working with him and I've learned a lot from him. I think we're probably going to get split up this change (this Wednesday!!!!!!) so we'll see who I'm with this week. I'm kind of nervous for changes because there are a lot of things that could happen. 

I think I already sent you some pictures of where we live, but it is pretty much a townhouse. It's pretty good, it has a nice shower so that is all that really matters. It's not as cold here as it was in Olmué. We live on a peninsula so it's pretty cool that we can almost always see the ocean. 

We've realized that we eat a lot of fried stuff and drink a lot of soda, so we're trying to slow down on that, but the people here are just too nice. They always try to give us soda, even if we ask for water. It's pretty funny, they refuse to give water. 

The ward, Quintero, has an attendance of 100-110, and I really don't know what else to say. They're good people, they love the missionaries. They always give us lunch. 

Yesterday we were contacting and we had 10-15 straight people that really didn't want anything and then the last house on the street we were going to contact, we knocked the door and a 17 kid came out and we were like "We're missionaries... can we share something with you?" And he was like "Yea, do you want to come in?" And I said "Yea, vamos" so we went in and there were like 4 teenagers that are all cousins I guess. They're all evangelico but we shared with them about the Book of Mormon and some other stuff and it was pretty cool. They all said they are going to read and that we can go back this week. It was a cool end to a week that we have been having trouble finding people to teach. We have a lot of hope for the kid, Sebastian that he can progress. I'll let you know what happens this week if I don't get transferred. 

In my lecture of the Book of Mormon I read 3 Nephi 12:16 "Therefore let your light so shine before this people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." A question that came into my mind was: Are my works glorifying my Father in heaven? If not what do I need to do better? In everything that we do there are people that are watching our example. So this week use your light to glorify Heavenly Father!

I hope your happy with this email because it is huge!

Some requests:

Send me some pictures from my childhood that I can print out (baptism, sports, family events)

Get my siblings to email me! I don't even know if they are alive (Melissa is the only one putting out an effort, but she's forgiven because she has children.) The rest have no excuses. 

Eso no más, Love you guys!

Elder Cheney

August 1, 2016

That sounds pretty cool, you'll have to tell me how it is. It sounds like it's putting more of the responsibility on the kids so that's awesome.   In response to the new seminary doctrinal mastery program.
Tell Cameron's mom congrats and hola from me. Cameron Smith, who just left on his mission.
This week we are teaching Juan Carlos. He is really funny and humble. We reads everything we invite him to and he prays when we ask him to (just about everyone gets too embarrassed to pray the first couple of times but he went right on ahead). We invited him to stop smoking and drinking and he agreed. I think he has felt a little empty before in his life because he told us that he wants to find peace in his life. But we'll see if he is willing to obey the commandments.

Today in the morning one companionship of sisters in my district asked us for a blessing of health so we met up with them in the office of the mission because it is like right in between us. We saw president and he was like oh yeah do the blessing in my office! So we went to the office of president and I gave the blessing with President and an assistant right there. I was really nervous haha, but I got it all out.
We got to church and about three minutes before Sacrament Meeting started the ward secretary comes up to me and asks me if I could speak for like 8 minutes. I was like oh crap and just started marking scriptures with pass along cards. I decided to talk about the Sacrament because it's a classic and just started reading scriptures off and whatever came to my mind. I think it went pretty well, the Bishop didn't ask me to sit down so I didn't say anything too bad.

This week I have gained a strong testimony that obeying the commandments makes us happy. God knows that when we obey the commandments we will be happy, that's why he gives us the commandments. And when we are not obeying the commandments, like Alma says we "are found in a state that is contrary to the happiness" Alma 41:11 (It's a translation I don't know what it actually says) So the invitation this week is to choose happiness and obey the commandments!

Love you guys!

Elder Cheney