September 26, 2016

Something I've been thinking about as a missionary sometimes we gotta straight up tell people that they're sinning and we need to be direct even though it might hurt their feelings or it's hard. 

(In response to me wondering if taking naps is wasting time.  I'm a wimp, but seminary is very early : ) Haha, maybe just take one less nap a week and study 30 minutes more of the scriptures. Actually something that one of the teachers in the MTC told us that really stuck with me was something like "Waste is sin. Sometimes we waste our time, talents, and potential with things that don't have eternal significance." So if you feel like you're wasting potential that you have then it's probably bad, but also you gotta take breaks and enjoy life. It's a balance. There is too much to accomplish haha. 

This Sunday we had a lady, Anita, go to church. She is a reference from a member and her husband died a month or two ago. Her parents are Japanese but she is really Chilean so it's pretty funny. We're going to have a couple lessons with her this week to invite her to get baptized. SO pray for Anita!

Also we found a couple Constanza and Claudio that are so awesome. Have you seen that parody of Hello with the missionaries? It was pretty much exactly like that. We actually had an appointment with them at 6 and they weren't there. And around 9 We were walking around and no one was home and we were contacting. So we decided to go back to them and she came out and was like "Come in!" And we went in shared about the book of Mormon and they agreed to read and pray about it and she said a prayer at the end. Then as we were leaving they were like "Oh wait!" And then they gave us each a bag with juice, cookies, homemade bread and a banana that they had prepared for us. We're going to have another lesson with them tomorrow so pray for them that they come to church!

And we're working with other cool people but right now they're the coolest. 

And the drink thingy with oats and a peach is mote con huesillo, it's a chilean drink and it's pretty good. Besides that this week a house got robbed while we were there, my companion got bit by a dog, and we got changes coming up.

Love you guys! ¡Pórtense bien!

Elder Cheney

September 12 and 19, 2016

September 12:

That's sweet about Tyler, good luck to him! (Daniel's cousin Tyler just left on a mission, his first cousin to serve a mission!)

I just finished John and am starting up on acts, I want to finish in September the new testament so we'll see how that goes. 

BYU is still awesome (in reponse to the football loss to Utah), so I'm already over it. 

This week we have been on the search for people to teach and we're still in the process of finding people that are interested. So en eso estamos. 

So I'll just share a quote from Elder Holland: "Christ has overcome the world... Our fundamental requirement is to have faith in Him and follow Him- always. When He bids us to walk in His way and by His light, it is because He has walked this way before us, and He has made it safe for our own travel here." 

I know that Christ is the perfect example and the only way for us to return to our Heavenly Father. He is willing to help us, we just need to let Him. 

Hope you guys have a great week!

Love,

Elder Cheney

September 19:

That's awesome about Nathanael, he'll be great out there. (Daniel's friend who just received his mission call) And that reminds me, I finished 8 months this week, the time is flying by. I don't want to think about it. 

I really like the talk (The Inconvenient Messiah by Elder Holland), it is amazing to think about how he overcame all of the trials and they were made by the best tempter ever. He knew where it would hurt most and that's where he tried to tempt Jesus.
Wow, Dustin is doing a lot. Something that adds a lot of pressure is having older siblings that have done it before. That's something I like about the mission, I'm Elder Cheney, I'm not anyone's brother, son, or anything, but I'm judged exactly for what I do, so I like that. Obviously, I love you guys, but sometimes there is a lot of pressure added to be like your family. Just tell Dustin to keep doing what he's doing. It's hard to see how unimportant the people are (apart from a couple) in high school until the day after graduation. But he's a good kid and it seems like he's doing the right things. 

If people ask how I am tell them to write me and figure it out. Haha just kidding, I'm doing really well. Even though I haven't written much about what we are doing here I love being a missionary (I can say that now without lying- we always lie at the beginning) and I'm learning a ton, all the good stuff. Being with Elder Carter has been really cool because I have 100% of the responsibility and it's scary, but I have also seen the most growth in myself in this past month. He's been having a tough time lately so I've had to help him out and try to comfort him haha, but he's a good kid. 

Yesterday was the 18th and that is when they celebrate the first national meeting of chile( pretty much independence day) and they eat a whole lot of meat, empanadas, and other stuff. So we joined in and ate a bunch. It was really cool, they really go all out and put flags up everywhere. I'll probably still celebrate it when I go home, it's a good time, but I need to learn to make empanadas.

That was pretty much our week, love you all!

Elder Cheney

September 5, 2016

This week was a good week. Elder Carter is my new companion from New Mexico. He is right off the boat and got to Chile a week and a half ago because he did the MTC in Mexico. He's a good guy and I'm excited to work with him.

I just really want you all to know that writing stresses me out and I don't like it. It's too much pressure to write too much. But I'll do it because I love you. 

The baptism was for a kid that his mom didn't want to get baptized for a while and then last week she decided that he can make his own decisions so he decided to get baptized. We just helped set up the interview and teach him a little, but the guy is a machine. His name is Benjamin and he is ten years old. 

Other than that I have had a cold all week but I'm finally getting better, which is lame because it's supposed to be getting warmer. 

But we're doing pretty good, the people are feeding us a lot so we're not going to starve. 

Love you guys!

Elder Cheney

 

(Note, we got an email from the mission president that Daniel is now a trainer!)

 

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

July 25, 2016

Freaking Cosmo hahahaha I love that guy. That's sweet about Dustin, he has to work there when I get back so I can get some sweet discounts. Sounds like you guys are doing good! Is Dustin putting pictures on instagram? I only have one Christmas wish and that is that my brother can keep his promises.

This week was a little wild. We have had to travel a lot in bus and have been really busy. Last Monday I had a really bad cold and was blowing my nose all day then Tuesday we left to work for a little and then I starting having a fever so we went back to the house. The thermometer said 39 degrees Celcius and my companion says that's like 102 fareinheight. My head hurt like no other and I was burning up. So I should probably be dead. But yea I was really uncomfortable, but I slept practically from 5pm to 5am (We had to get up early to go to a zone conference.) But the blessing was that when I woke up to go Wednesday the fever was gone and just a little bit of the sniffles. Now I'm all good, 100%.

I did my first baptism interview and it was a really great experience. It was with a girl that is like 21 and her testimony was so awesome so it made it a very enjoyable experience and I'm looking forward to doing it again. 

A scripture that I read in personal study that stuck out to me in Alma 39:14. It says something like "Don't search the riches or the vanities of this world, because behold, you can't bring them with you." I was thinking about that and was like oh crap, I have some things that I like that I don't want to lose. Then I thought ok if I can't bring my stuff with me, what can I bring with me? And the answer is knowledge and your family and friends. So I'm glad that if I can only bring a few things with me they're the things that are most important. Right now I'm working on bringing my friends home and after the mission it'll be my family, but it is a blessing to be a part of this work. 

That's pretty much all that is new with me, it rained a little bit, how's it going up there?

Love you guys!!!

Elder Cheney

Catch up emails

As many of you know, Daniel's grandfather passed away a couple of weeks ago and I have been in Utah for the past few weeks with family and have not been able to share Daniel's emails. So here is the catch up, including a quick note we received from his mission president--

June 27
Were you a chaperone? (referring to a youth conference trip to Palmyra.  I wasn't a chaperone, I was the cook!)  I didn't know you went to Palmyra that's pretty cool! I want to go again when we get back, it was a really good trip! Speaking of that this week was one year since I left for BYU! That's crazy haha, time flies. 

Tell me before you send the package, but can you send a bunch of coins too? They're good to give to people and I didn't bring any. 

This week was a lot of walking, it wasn't too cold so that was good!

This week was the finals of the American Cup with Chile and Argentina. Chile won, and it was cool but obviously we didn't watch the game and there was a lot of celebrating last night. 

So it's really late for this, but tell Dad happy father's day!

This week has been really tiring, but I want you guys to know that I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the Church of God.

Love you all!

Elder Cheney

P.S. I going to print some pictures so I need everyone to send me some good pictures! (I have to be in the picture to qualify!)

July 4
Wow oh wow oh wow.

2nd week that you missed writing me! Feel bad! Ok that's enough. (I missed writing, was spending time with my dad in the hospital)

This week has been very interesting. I'm going to start learning how to knit so I can make myself some dope socks and maybe a tie. 

I sent a letter for Dad's birthday today so let me know if you see it. Also has the letter for Dustin got there yet?

I was showing a family the pictures that we took as a family during Christmas and the Sister said that you looked beautiful, because you're a Gringa woman.

Since you didn't write me this is going to be very short, but I have a quote from this past conference that I liked very much. It's from President Eyring "Where and when we feel the closeness of the Savior depend on each of us." So think about that this week and what you guys can do to enjoy more the closeness of the Savior. 

Love you guys and hope you have a good week!

Elder Cheney

July 10 (After he got the email about his Grandpa)
Mom, I'm sitting right next to the window in the public internet place crying haha, the people are watching me. Could you send me some of the stuff he said about his mission? Thanks for the email even though it probably wan't easy. I'm really greatful for the example of Grandpa Money in my life and the influence he had on me through you. He's a lot happier than we are right now (Alma 40:12). I hope you guys are all doing good and if there is something I can do, let me know! I am grateful for the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation that this time is just a snippet of our existence. That's awesome that he kept up with his Spanish! Really close, Cuando damos...

Looks like we're going to have a baptism this Sunday! Rosa, I think I told you about her already, but she is going to get baptized this week. Also we have changes this week too, so we're a little nervous. I have been thinking and I don't want to leave Olmué. I've been with these people for 5 months and it would be really hard to leave them. I don't know if that means its my time to go or what, but it'll be hard when I have to go. It could be this Wednesday, I'll let you know what happens. 

Love you guys a lot and hope you are doing good with everything about Grandpa. THE GOSPEL IS TRUE!! 

Elder Cheney

July 17 (After the funeral)Looks like it was a good program, and dad gave the dedicatory prayer! I was thinking and I'm sad that grandpa died, but also not too sad. I read Alma 22:14 in my personal study this week and it says "... (Jesus Christ) breaketh the bands of death, that the grave shall have no victory, and that the sting of death should be swallowed up in the hopes of glory." It is awesome to see that it is so true that the grave doesn't have victory and that death doesn't have a sting when we have this hope in Jesus Christ. I really am so grateful to you guys as parents for everything that you have done for me to help me get on the mission. Hope you guys are doing good and tell everyone I said hola. 

This week has been probably the most stressful week of my mission. Remember how I said I didn't want to leave Olmué? The Lord has a funny way of knowing that what we don't want is what is best for us. You probably saw by the pictures but now I'm with a gringo in a sector called Quintero. We are really close to the ocean, we can see it from our sector. My companion is Elder Palilla from Los Angeles, California. He is hot off of his training so he has one transfer less than me (4.5 months in the mission). He was here before so he is helping me a lot to get to know the sector because I am practically lost. That is pretty stressful but also I got called as District Leader so I have a ton of responsibilities with that. There are 4 companionships in my district and one of them is the zone leaders. I thought I barely had free time before, but now there is no time for anything. In the night I have to call everyone and see how their day went and give them advice and a whole bunch of stuff that I have no idea what to do. Usually the zone leaders would be able to help me but the zone got put together with another zone and there are 24 missionaries in the zone (usually there are 12) so they are really busy too. It's kind of like when Nephi had to build the boat but had no idea what to do. That's me right now. 

Honestly, I miss Olmué, it was a good sector. And I knew where I was going there. But I know too that I'm going to love it here. I feel like I'm going to be here for a while and I'm ok with that. It's weird to get used to living with another person that isn't Elder Gonzalez, but he's a good missionary and wants to serve. 

Also we had a baptism! I'm not sure if Rosa got baptized, but I hope all went well with that. The little girl that we baptized is Jenny. She is super awesome and there was a whole ton of running around that we had to do to prepare for that which just added a little to the stress. But she's baptized and super happy so we're are going to work with her to help her keep strong. 

That's pretty much it from my week, just a little bit of crazy stress, but I hope you guys are doing good and I'm praying for you,

Love,

Elder Cheney

***From his mission president:
Dear Cheney Family,

It is a pleasure for me to greet you and to inform you that your son, Elder Daniel Gray Cheney has been assigned to serve as a District Leader in the Chile Vina del Mar Mission. He has demonstrated a sincere desire to serve the Lord while sharing the gospel, and he has diligently set forth a good example to his companions. His responsibilities have increased along with his opportunity to help others.

I thank you for raising your son in such a dedicated way and pray that our Heavenly Father may bless your family while your son serves in this great work.

Sincerely,

Raúl Antonio Díaz Navarro

Mission President