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
