Elder Washburn in Osorno Chile: Week 12

November 18, 2013

Hey!

It’s been a really good week! We've had a few rainy miserable days, but we've had some hot ones too. It seems to be one or the other down here, very bipolar. Well I think I’ll start talking about my intercambio with Elder Gubler, one of our ZL's. We drove to Lanco with the Biggs and that in itself was an ordeal. As soon as we got in the car, the Biggs told us that they had just about died when a BUS ran a red light! Well not 15 minutes later we just about died again with them. We had to make a left hand turn. Usually this wouldn't be a problem but when you’re doing it in a 6 way intersection with a blind hill to your right and a random island in the middle, things get pretty hairy! We essentially had to do a U-turn while dodging traffic speeding down the hill. In the end we almost made it with out a problem until a car from our left was going up the hill and decided to run a red light. It was close but Elder Biggs decided to pull out and go straight. This would have been a good idea if there hadn't been an island. We dodge the island and gun it into the safety of another street. We then pulled a U-turn and made a right turn to where we needed to go. The rest of the trip went fine until a large rock takes out the right corner of our windshield. There were no cars in front of us and we saw it come from the OTHER SIDE of the freeway, where strangely enough, there were no cars either. I guess the rock just decided to throw itself!

Well we get to Lanco and the meeting goes fine, except for the fact that I stay in Lanco, but that turned out to be a blessing! The intercambio was pretty great! Elder Gubler is a great guy, we spent most of the time talking about Outliers, Bounce, Talent Doesn't Exist, and politics. The best part of all was that we taught a family home evening with a member present and the best investigator I have ever seen! We get to George (best investigator) and Carol’s house (Carol is a member). Well the first thing I notice are the rings. Let me explain, Elder Gubler had told me that George was the most prepared person for the gospel he had ever met but that he was living with Carol and that marriage or separation would be the biggest problem for baptism, and that he had assigned a scripture and had given them the Family Proclamation. Well when your biggest stumbling block between your investigator is marriage, it's a pretty big deal when they're wearing matching wedding rings! I didn't say anything and we moved on to ask him if he had read the assigned reading. He tells us that he has and that he also has started reading the WHOLE FREAKING BOOK OF MORMON! This is HUGE! Most investigators choose to be illiterate, they know how to read and they just won't. But this guy after one lesson is reading daily! When we asked him if he understood anything he said "not at first but I prayed and asked God for the ability to understand, and then I did.” HOLY COW! He hadn't even been taught about prayer yet. Well when we go over the Family Proclamation, he tells us that he really wants to start a family in the gospel and that he and Carol are ENGAGED! BEST LESSON EVER! TOTALLY MADE MY CAMBIO!

Well that went great as you can see by my EXCESSIVE use of capital letters. The rest of the week was ok.

Here’s some pictures of the international food activity that I couldn't send last week. The first is of Papito and Mamita and the second is of the young men, two are the familita? no sè and the third is of the sisters.

Love,

Elder Washburn