Week 62 - Walking back was a bit SHOCKING!

November 3, 2014

Hey guys it's been a pretty crazy week!  I think I'll start by talking about last Friday which was pretty fun. We woke up and studied and then went off to send the tithing to the bank. Got back contacted a bit and went to lunch. Afterwards we left to study and then went out to a small two house población called La Vegas... it's about 30-40 minutes ride out from Fresia with a 15 minute walk through the campo (country), we walked to a member's house and ended up teaching her and a family that lives next door. They were great people, and we had a very good lesson. Walking back was a bit shocking, I brushed my hand past an electric fence... not as bad as I would have thought and it made for a good laugh! We then went to a PF family that went inactive about a month ago.  The father is an alcoholic and the past missionaries thought it would be a good idea to get them married and dunk them as soon as possible. I'm sorry to say it wasn't as effective as I would have hoped, but they're slowly making progress and while the father has left the house the rest of the family came to church this Sunday and their 7 year old daughter walked to church all by herself my first Sunday here.

We haven't had too many other funny experiences this week but we've had a bunch of little tiny blessings that if you weren't looking for you'd miss. We have just found some amazing people. I'm not sure if I mentioned this last week but my first week in Fresia I bumped into my investigator Jose from Puerto Montt, the only person I hadn't been able to say goodbye to which was frankly amazing!  I mean I know it's a small town but that's a whole lotta "luck"! (Puerto Montt is a big city about an hour and a half south of where Hayden is currently.) We've also met a bunch of inactive but really receptive members. Although It's been raining a lot we've still managed to make more contacts than we normally do and we have found a lot of new amazing investigators and a bunch of people who I really hope will progress.

Halloween was pretty fun but down here the evangelicos have hijacked it and claimed it as national evangelico week, so we got a little bit of flack in the calle. We bought candy for trick or treaters but gave it all away in the street, so that the two groups that did pass by our house didn't get any, bummer.  Other than that not much has happened. We've had some amazing lessons and I love my companion to death and it's absolutely gorgeous here! I honestly couldn't ask for anything more.

Elder Washburn 

List of Questions I sent Hayden and his responses:

1.  Please tell me a little about your new companion. Where is he from? Interests? Hard worker? Teachable? Are you learning from him? Do you have anything in common? He's a great kid, incredibly intelligent and a very hard worker.  We've both seen the same movies and read the same books so were having a lot of fun. He's from Utah.

2. Do you like being a "mom"? Pros and cons?

It's really fun to mostly talk about how the states are. Thats a pro and a con because its good to know but at the same time it makes me a tiny bit trunky. 

3.  Describe Fresia, I've heard it's beautiful but couldn't find much on the internet.

It is beautiful but you won't see much on the internet because its a small town of maybe 10,000, but it's very pretty.

4.  How are your shoes holding out? If you are in the country you need shoes with good support. Saving money isn't worth ruining your feet.  My shoes are fine really.  The bottoms are wearing out a little but the arches are fine and they're still water proof anyway. DO NOT BUY ME NEW SHOES, if my shoes wear out I will use my boot versions which are practically pristine.

5. Who feeds you? does your laundry? The branch president feeds us and we do our own laundry.

6.  I am going to send off your Christmas package this Friday. Any last requests? Would you like spices for cooking? How about Christmas music? Jeans? More socks? Gifts for your companion? I really don't want anything I've got way too much stuff as it is. Just send some letters.

7. Do you expect to be in Fresia for Christmas? Will you still be able to skype? I probably will be in Fresia this Christmas. I'm not sure if I will do it there or if I will go down to Puerto Varas, but I will skype.

8. Do you have a favorite person/family in Fresia? Not yet, the branch president is nice but when it comes down to it there’s only about 20 people and the majority are 50-80 year old women.

9. You have never said if the music I sent was ok? Can you delete songs that don't work? The music is ok don't worry about it.

Week 61 - ME FUI! Also, I'm a mom, Executive Secretary, Sunday school teacher, etc...

October 27, 2014

ME FUI! also I'm a mom, executive secretary, Sunday school teacher, etc...

Hey guys it's been a pretty crazy week! If you know Spanish or could tell from all of the crazy callings I'm obviously not in Kanas or Puerto Montt anymore... I got a call last Monday night telling me that I was going to be a mom in Fresia and actually become the daughter-in-law of Elder Solomon, even if I'm already his nephew (fist bump if you can figure that out, mi familia misional es bien complicado). 

So I went to Fresia, a tiny little pueblito about and hour and a half north of Puerto Montt to be Elder Roy's second companion (or his mom) who is the son of Elder Warburton, the son of Elder Solomon who is my uncle (elder Wise's brother) ....fun stuff! So I couldn't really do much to say goodbye because well, I only had Tuesday.

Tuesday morning I woke up at about 6 and got started on making a chorillana, which is a giant mess of fries, cheese, grilled onions, steak, and chorizo, so that I could hide Elder Souza's Moroni letter in it. I'll send a picture of it, poor guy almost died after we took the picture, priceless! So I had my last district meeting and it went really well.  We ended up doing the math and finding out that over 530,000 of the 583,359 members in Chile according to the statistics of Southern Chile were inactive. We then talked about working with menos activos and pf families because every baptism every missionary in the room had was from a pf family... fun stuff. Well we stuffed ourselves on the food, as a zone took photos, and then we wrote in each other's red books. We went to lunch with the Bahamondez family and told them the news and took pictures, because no one was going to be home later that day. Afterwards we went and tried to visit every family I knew in the ward and we actually got a lot more taught than I would have thought. Passed by Carlos (soon to be missionary) and gave him a tie with all of the hilarious "tie Quotes" my mom sent me once. He was really nice and gave me one of his awesome skinny ties. We had once with Jonathan and then met up with Marcello before going home to pack at 10, really sad day.

Wednesday was a bit of a shocker. We went to the bus station with all of my bags and met up with Elder Roy. We said goodbye to everyone and then headed on to a mini bus to Fresia. The trip was a bit shocking to say the least.  It was a very beautiful ride but on the way Elder Roy told me about Fresia. We're a branch of 14-20 people and he told me that I was probably going to be the branch president the way things were going, I was more than a little scared!  We got home and changed out of our suits to have lunch with papito, the current branch president.  I had met him before the last time I went to Fresia for a service project (by the way I'm back in the zone Puerto Varas!) Things were going all right, the food was amazing but I was told that the morale is really down and that he wants to call it quits as branch president.  Luckily we had a consejo de rama and everything has changed completely! He told everyone that he really wants to stick to it and be branch president as long as he could.  Let's just say I was really excited! Papito is amazing, he passed through Fresia a couple of years ago as the bishop of Colon and decided that they really needed some leadership so he moved here to be branch president, and quit his job at the Oilla in Puerto Varas as pastry chef (best restaurant in Puerto Varas). He is really cool person.

Sorry guys I don't know what happened but my time is up, I'll have to write later but I just want you to know that I love it here and I'm really excited to be in the country again!

Redneck for life,

Elder Washburn

Elder Souza's Moroni letter

I made ribs for Johnathan and his family

Week 60 - The Baptism

October 20, 2014

The Baptism went pretty good.  Everything ended up falling… the talks, the musical number, the prayers, etc. but it was still just an amazing experience! I really can’t explain enough how everything went wrong but to see an inactive family return to church and cry as they hear the testimony of their son was absolutely amazing, I really can't describe it! The confirmation was a bit different though, Marcelo slept in and so he ended up coming in the door about 15 minutes late. Luckily he made it in time for the sacrament and they were able to "squeeze in" his confirmation before the primary program... a bit of a close call but it all went well and the bishop gave an awesome blessing. I also got a letter from Grandma Layton.  I couldn't read most of it but it was very thoughtful and sweet and you could absolutely tell that it was her writing it.

Elder Washburn

Week 58 - Where did my time go?

October 6, 2014

Hey! Sorry I don't know what I've been doing with my time but I really don't have time to write a full letter. I did write a real letter while waiting for conference to start so I'll have to get that sent out pretty soon. Not too much happened this week to be honest.

Monday we didn't do anything. I cleaned the house, the other guys took naps, we went out to buy groceries, came back, and went out to teach a menos activa.

Tuesday I had my district meeting it wasn't as amazing as I would have liked but we had a pretty good practice, we went to the Bahamondez's to eat lunch like every Tuesday and then went out to work. We ended up bumping into Jose and teaching both him and his Aunt Gloria. He was really receptive again and we ended up changing his fecha bautismal.  He's a good kid, we really tried to focus on him this week and we passed by the house every day. He's starting to read and pray on his own now. We then had an awesome cita with Marcelo. We finished teaching the commandments and he understood and was willing to comply with everything.

Wednesday we passed by Jose and some menos activos. We read and had a great lesson. Later we chopped all of Jonathan's wood and introduced him to his new home teachers. We had our correlation meeting in the chapel and that took the rest of the day.

Thursday we had interviews with the President and had weekly planning, everything went great.  After interviews we went to the house and then passed by Sebastian and checked on Antonia Barria, who we had given a blessing to earlier. She was pretty happy and doing fine.

Friday I don't remember....

Saturday and Sunday we had conference!

And that was the week. Love you and congrats on the anniversary!

Elder Washburn