March 17, 2014
¿Cómo andai microndai?
It's been a pretty good week. I told you guys all about Monday
and the amazing trip out to Saltos de Petrohue and other than some strange news
Saturday, everything has been pretty normal.
Tuesday everything was normal, in the morning we got a call that
district meeting was canceled so we got to tract in the morning instead. Not
many Chilenos are awake let alone willing to listen to the missionaries at
10:30 a.m., so that was fun. For lunch we got some chaparitas from papito
(hotdogs wrapped in pastry and deep fried) After lunch we took Hernan Cortes to
a lesson with Freddy (Hernan or papa is the father of all of the Cortes
clan) The lesson went great, very spiritual and when asked to pray, Freddy
didn't even hesitate. We couldn't find
Ingrid after that so we contacted until we came home.
Wednesday morning we had a conference with Elder Pulsipher about
the MLS/census program. So I got my 5th rundown on it. I still love it though,
you never run out of people to visit and look for. It's great to be using it
again. After the conference the Zone Leaders handed me my birthday
letter from Grandma Layton, loved it as usual!
Lunch was this mix of beans, rice and chorizo that all of the mamitas
seem to make. It's good with a lot of Tabasco. After lunch we went to Ingrid’s
house with Eguardo Cortes the owner of the frutería. Ingrid our investigator is
amazingly spiritual, has 3 children but is in a bad relationship. Her two older
children are baptized and she's just waiting to get rid of the boyfriend so she
can get baptized herself. Well Eguardo who lives the law of consecration was
kind enough to bear his amazing testimony of the blessings of putting the
góspel first. Such a great lesson! He then drove us down to the chapel for our
meeting where we were going to meet our new Ward misión leader. Well Eguardo
saw one of his vans from the frutería and told us he didn't need to ask who it
was anymore...surprise! It's Maricio...Cortes! I'm telling ya this family is
amazing! After a great meeting we all crammed into the front seat of the van
and headed up the hill we got and headed to Joel’s house. Great news, he
was there. Better news, we actually got to teach the plan of salvation this time. At first it seemed
like our words were going in one ear and out the other but when we were talking
to him about going to church he said his wife couldn't because their pastor got
mad, but that he felt like he couldn't know if a "fruit" was bad or
good if he didn't at least look into it and he had a really strong desire
to come to church.
Thursday nothing happened. We walked around tried to get a hold
of some investigators but nothing really happened. We did meet a really cool
testigo missionary from Munich. His name was Florian and he was a really nice guy.
He invited us to one of their reunions at the church that day, I got to admit I
really wanted to go but we can't without direct authorization from the
president, un poquito fome, but whatever. We came home, planned and I made some
steak sandwiches and put it with some caramelized onions and garlic and some
grilled bell peppers it was good.
Friday was great. We worked on the census mls site in the
morning and got a ton of work done. We
came back for lunch and then got to work. We had a great lesson with Ingrid
about fasting and then we had a family home evening with the Heim family. We
watched and taught the restauracion and then ate completos and German pastries.
We then went to Rafael Angulos house where we taught English and ate some more. We came home stuffed so we planned and hit
the canvas.
Saturday was filled to the brim. For the most part we worked on
the census in the morning and now I've really got it down. It only takes 2
minutes per person now. We then ran up
the hill grabbed lunch ate it in 15 minutes and then ran back down to catch a
bus with the zone leaders to Fresia. I got on the bus all right and sat with
Elder Jones. First thing he asks me, “have you lived in a house of 4?” Well
that was a weird question but I say “no” and he tells me it's going to be
a blast... Surprise! I’m getting transferred or rather kicked out of my home
because hermanas are coming. Doesn’t matter though the new place is huge and I heard
the Papito, Patricio…. drumroll….Cortes is awesome and that and we're going to live
with two other missionaries. So we then did a sick service project in Fresia,
ate some delicious homemade pína cake and then came back where we got soaked
and the story I sent my mom happened after that. I came back and made this monstrosity
of a grilled cheese palta, marinated Philly cheese steak and palta grilled
cheese sandwich. Most fattening delicious thing I've ever eaten!
Elder
Washburn shared this experience:
So it was about 9:10, it was raining and we were soaked. We had
exhausted every contact, new investigator, and menos activo that we knew and we
were just knocking doors at this point. I was sick and tired of these garbage
excuses people were giving us when I remembered an experience that Elder Jones
our zone leader had shared with me on an intercambio about him and his
trainer praying in the middle of the street during the diez y ocho. So I looked
at Elder Abarca and said "how about a prayer?" He shrugged and we
asked Heavenly Father to help us find someone prepared for this message. Well
we knocked until we reached one of the last cul-de-sacs at the end of the
street. But, we knew that we had to be there for a reason. The last house on
the last street and we found him. Christian, a 21 year old kid who had been
searching for the góspel his whole life, he had been born and raised in a
church but was so tired of the hypocrisy and doctrine that he just couldn't
relate to it. So he went to the
testigos, he tried the LDS church for a bit, and then tried Buddhism for a time
before finally becoming atheist. We shared a few quotes we remembered from
Elder Uchtdorf's “Come Join Us” talk, and bore our testimonies of our loving Heavenly
Father. He decided that he should
probably give us another shot. We set up a cita for this next Thursday.
Elder Washburn
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