October 14, 2013

I still don't feel like I am going to be home on Saturday. I can count the days, I know at what time I am going to be where and I have all the tickets bought, but it still doesn't FEEL real to me. I have not been on my mission long enough to be coming home.

I have a feeling that I am going to be really tired when I get home so low key thing might be better,at least for  this weekend.

I don't really have all that much to say to be honest. I wasn't going to do a recording, but then I decided to do it, so there will be some news there.

Please have a jug of choclate milk at home for me...its been too long!

Love

Jord

Audio summary...

This is my last week in Chile. In fact, it's not even a full week as I'll be home on Saturday. 

This week the zone leaders did an inter-cambio with us, where we changed companions for the day - actually I didn't change for the day, Elder Gillespie and his companion changed with the zone leaders. So, Elder Bryan, whose also from Canada came here. In the last week or so I've picked on Elder Rodas at times, tickling him because he yells and freaks out a bit and it's hilarious. I did that when Elder Bryan was here and he said "You're ticklish" and we teamed up on him and just destroyed him. It was so funny. 

On Friday they did a meeting for all the missionaries and they went over some of the guidelines and enforcement of rules and such. It was a bit boring for me and I wasn't too engaged as it's not going to be relevant to me. Probably not the best, but I think you get it.

This week we found 2 less active guys who were baptized when they were 14 or 15 and they're now around 28 years old. They're twins and we visited them a couple times this week. We went by on one day and only 1 of them was home because the other was travelling somewhere. The one at home said he would like to share with us, but he was painting his house so he couldn't. So we said give us an old shirt and we'll help you paint and he said yeah, right, like this is a joke. We said no, really, we'd help so we painted for about an hour and shared a message for about 20 minutes before we had to go to another appointment. It was really good.

I've been making a lot of pizza lately so I'm getting really good at the dough. The pizza here isn't that great so Elder Rodas is loving this. He's happy like a little kid. I probably won't have much time this week, but I'm going to try ham and cheese braid. I got all the stuff to make so that should be pretty good.

We got to see Flavio again this week. We didn't really have a set plan going in, but General Conference has just happened so we figured we could share something from that. We had asked Flavio to look at some of the conference talks so we asked him to pull it up on his computer. I remembered that there's often highlights from each conference of the apostles and first presidency messages that they put together a presentation. The one from this conference isn't posted yet so we watched the one from April and it was really good. Really, really good. It was 22  minutes of really concise doctrinal points. I think he really liked it.

Yesterday we went to Daniel and Lorenza's to say good-bye. We took them some pictures with our address on the back and the large print Bible and Triple Combination which we wrote in and listed all the elders and sisters that had taught her. I think it was a really good gift. It was a little sad - I really like that family. I don't cry anymore, I think I've run out of tears on the mission because we have to leave places so often. But... if I was going to cry it would have been leaving that house - we've been really close to them. That was cool.

That's really all I have to say. We'll be able to talk later this week. I'm looking forward to that. I've loved my mission, but it's soon time to go. I'll see you guys Saturday. Don't forget to come to the airport!

Caio!

October 7, 2013

The visa stuff is coming along. I need to recieve my passport and register the VISA, then take out my carnet (ID), but that can be done in two days easily. I expect to have my VISA in my hand tomorrow as President is doing interviews.

I didn't expect you guys to rat me out about being sick, but some parents are exaggerated and freak out for little things thinking that their child is dying and I didn't want that...I am fine now BTW.

That is good that things are fine with Maxine's surgery and everything. I hope that keeps up.

I talked about General Conference in my recording but I loved it like always (since the start of my mission).

I will start working on my talk. I guess I have to start thinking about experiences now.

Love,

Jord

Audio summary:
This Wednesday this week we went to the Registry because Elder Rodas had to do a transfer for his Carnet, which is like an ID card. All of Chile has them. We know a guy from our sector that we've been visiting and works there. They do all the legal paperwork for entering and staying in the country, etc. The armanas (sister missionaries) had gone in the morning and had been waiting for a couple of hours in line and they called us to say we should come and we could join them in line. So we went there and stood in line for a little bit and the guy we knew called Elder Rodas out of line and had him fill in a paper form to process his transfer and we were done. It kind of sucked for the armanas because they were still in line... it seems our connection paid off.

We got notice this week that we're changing to our summer schedule so we get up 1/2 an hour later, go out 1/2 an hour later and come back 1/2 an hour later. President Dalton also gave us 1/2 an hour extra for P Day. According to the schedule it would end at 6:30pm, but he said it can just end at 7pm so that's cool.

Yesterday night me and Elder Rodas had a "fight" in the Pension - not a real fight, but we were yelling and wrestling. Elder Gillespie was on the phone trying to get the stats from the other sectors and we were making a lot of noise and it was really funny. I can't fully explain, but it was really funny at the time.

Today for P Day activity, Elder Rodas and I went to... drum roll... a rock museum. It cost 500 pesos, which is about a dollar and it was pretty cool. We got to see rocks from all around the world, definitely worth 500 pesos. It was cool and I took a bunch of pictures. I'll send some or just show you when I get home. 

I also went to print off some photos today for my converts so they have at least one photo from me. I've been really lazy with that - I'm not very good at that sentimental stuff.

I talked about Patricio Pinto before, he's a prominent lawyer here and is in our ward. He's a really good convert and he really wants his family to be members, but they haven't really shown any interest. He talked to us yesterday and said he had an idea to try and work with his daughter - she's about 20 or 21 year old. He thought we could help her with some stuff that's not really church related, but would be helpful. He said she's got some papers in English which we might be help her with, so I'm like, OK. Wow - she's studying geology or something and I got this 12 page paper on magna and how it forms and how it cools and stuff way over my head. I didn't understand that much, but because it's English I could understand enough to pick out the important parts. So I've been trying to do that and I've learned a little bit... I learned that I don't want to study geology. 

The biggest thing that happened this week in the whole world, even if you're not a member, was general conference. Even for those that didn't listen, it was the biggest thing that happened. I wrote down my favorite talk from each session: 
Saturday morning session - Edward Dube who spoke on looking forward, not back. Keeping an eye on what we still need to accomplish. He focused a bit on callings, commandments, trials, etc. 
Saturday afternoon session - D Todd Christoferson. He talked about the Divinity of Women. It was just a really good talk. One thing he said was women are the guardians of the wellspring of life, and too much focus on sexual equality will lose the complimentary differences we need in the world.
Priesthood Session - President Monson talked about Home Teaching and just laid it down - you need to do home teaching. It was good. Liked it!
Sunday morning session - Henry B Eyring talked about Happiness in Marriage. As I'm coming home soon, marriage is something that's on my mind a little bit for the future. It was really good. He said being one does not mean being the same, being one means the decisions of the other become your own decisions. Joy and happiness are guaranteed to the faithful.
Sunday afternoon session - Kevin S Hamilton talked about the importance of attending church, all meetings. He said invitations to do good activities instead of better or best activities are temptations.
Funniest moment - Terence M Vincent was speaking and got attacked by a fly. It was right in his face - he kept his concentration the whole time, but it was really funny. We were laughing.

General conference was pretty awesome. I took 11 1/2 pages of notes. I hope you guys watched more than 1 session of conference. If not, when I get home I'll have to whip you guys in to shape. : P

I will only have 1 more recording, which is next week. I will try to keep track through the week and make it a good one.

Love you, caio!

September 30, 2013

So... this week is going to be a short recording. Not too much happened this week. We did inter-cambios, which are companionship exchanges, on Friday. I got to work in my previous sector so I got to visit some of the people I haven't seen in a little while - like Lorenza, Daniel and a couple others. I think Elder Gillespie another inter-cambio before we go. The family who feeds us went to Santiago to go to the temple and they brought us back the large print Book of Mormon and Bible. We got it for Lorenza and we want/need to take them to her. That's cool.

One day we went to the hospital to give a blessing. We've been visiting a lady who has been less active along with her son and husband. They're really nice people. The husband ended up in the hospital from a blood clot. He was having big problems for 15 - 20 min, but they did something really quick and there are no lasting effects. So the wife asked us to give him a blessing so we did that. That was good.

Funny thing that happened. We left the pension one day about the same time of the other elders. They left a little earlier, but we took a shorter route in the same general direction and we crossed their path just in front of them and I just caught a glimpse of Elder Gillespie out of the corner of my eye. It took a second to register and I told Elder Rodas to look back and when he did he paused just briefly and then kept walking. Just as we started walking again a bird dropped a big poop right in front of us - if he hadn't stopped to look back he would have got pooped on. It would have been really funny... but really crummy.

We've been teaching a guy named Flavio - I'm pretty sure I mentioned him. He met with the missionaries about a year ago. We went to speak to his girlfriend who he is living with. She is intelligent and was really good to teach. We have to wait now because Flavio works in the mine, 10 days on and 10 days off.

In our ward there are 2 girls - one is a recent convert (Mira) and the other is member who has re-activated (Pacquita). They are friend and they live together. About a week ago we shared a lesson with them about missionary work and sharing the gospel. Pacquita has really been sharing the gospel - she's got 2 referrals that we can't contact right away, but she wants to bring them to church. We're like wow! Jocelyn, Daniel's daughter who's been a member for a little while now is really good at sharing the gospel with everybody. She brings friends to activities and to church and all sorts of things. Her dad and her grandma (Lorenza) are also sharing and she's got an aunt who is meeting with the missionaries in a different ward here. They are doing really good - they're great converts. They understand a lot of stuff.

So the reason is was kind of a slow week was that I got sick. Apparently it's really common for missionaries to get sick just before they go home, but it really sucks because I want to work right to the end, but I got really sick. I'm actually still pretty sick. I've had this huge pain in my lower abdominal but I did get checked out and am taking something for it - it's just an infection or virus that will go away pretty soon. So I've had to spend some time in the Pension because at times it's been quite painful. I should be back out pounding the pavement in a couple of days. But, one cool thing, I took to studying the Atonement of Jesus Christ while I was laid up and will probably continue until I come home and then some, maybe. It's really interesting. When you break it down, it really relates to everything. We've had some really good discussions around things I pulled out of various scriptures and things - things I haven't really noticed. Maybe I can share some of it when I get home. It's been really cool.

That's basically it as I've been sick most of the week. Don't worry though, I'll be fine. If I tell you about it next week again, then you can be concerned. But, I'm fine. The worst thing is I am just eating noodles.

I'll talk to you next week. Caio!