Week 52 - Stake Conference in Puerto Varas!

August 25, 2014

Hey guys how are ya doing? It's been another great week. We've had a bit of good weather and a fantastic stake conference in Puerto Varas. That's right I got to go back and give juice (talk, catch up) with all of my friends (the Cortes' and the five other huge pioneer families that make up the ward) it was a great experience! Even after a short 6 weeks everyone seemed to remember me and can now pronounce my name! It was a great experience!

(Note: Puerto Varas is the area Hayden was in for only six weeks before he was transferred down south to Punta Arenas. Although he was only there for a short time it has been his favorite area and he got very close with some of the families. Puerto Varas is also very beautiful.

 

Puerto Varas

So Monday me and Elder Davis did a short intercambio. We went to the mall and looked for a good umbrella and some gringo food. Puerto Montt is pretty amazing. We found McDonalds , Pizza Hut, KFC and a few other choice gringo restaurants, it was pretty exciting! After we got my umbrella we came back up and emailed before we met up with the other elders in the house.  We then went out and worked and tried to look for all of our investigators whom have seemed to disappear...The rest of the week was about the same, we looked for people who just seem to not exist anymore.

But then Saturday came and we had the first session of stake conference here in Puerto Montt.  Most of my buddies from Puerto Varas showed up so it was great to chat a little before the talks. The talks were really inspiring, especially Lalo Cortes'. Afterwards Papito took us out to McDonalds for triple burgers. I'm not going to lie after a little over a year without eating a "100% all american beef patty" (I don't believe that either) I didn't die eating it, ok I might have even enjoyed myself, who am I kidding I just about died I was so excited! What can I say? I miss gringlandia!  Either way we had a good time and came home at about 9:30.

Sunday was even better but I have no time to write you guys I have no idea what happened! I just gave juice so I really cant tell you what happened it was great to see everyone and feel loved I guess. Well it's been a great week I love you all!

Elder Washburn

Week 51 - Baptism!

August 18, 2014

Hey guys how are you doing?

This week was all in all pretty awesome!  We had a ton of lessons with members, a good district meeting and more than that we had a baptism!!!  You really can't ask for more than that!

Ok, this Monday was pretty good except for the fact that it rained like crazy. I really couldn't believe that much water could come down, especially when it had rained every day for a week straight, but that's what happens when your in Puerto Montt. I've been told by some of the members that they don't believe in Noah's flood because every other year it rains seventy days and seventy nights! Luckily I spent my winter in Punta Arenas because snow beats rain any day of the week! Well we started off going to the church to play a bit of ping-pong before we went out to do a couple of penalty kicks and then we went down to the zone activity where we ate arepas, which are from what I could taste really fat columbian corn tortillas. But, we left full and got in a little more ping-pong. Afterwards, we emailed and got to work. We ended up finding some really cool friends of the Bahamondez familiy and put them with fecha, their names are Gloria and Jose and they're just amazing, prepared people who want to know everything about our message. Afterwards we went to Jonathan’s house where we talked to him about his baptism and went over the interview questions he's doing great and is absolutely prepared for his baptism.

Tuesday, I woke up and finished some last minute preparations for my district meeting and then we headed out early to grab some things from the ward mission leader....... well I'm running out of time so I'm going to skip some great experiences and go to awesome ones.     

 This Friday we had Jonathan’s baptism.  It was amazing! It seemed like everything conspired against us but it all turned out all right and we could all feel the spirit as the vale waned thin! We had gone to the church about 3 hours early to fill up the baptismal font but it turned out that the automatic drain wasn't working.  So without us knowing at 7 it still wasn't full. At about 6 we had a full on black-out so we got Jonathan changed with our flash lights and didn't notice the water level until Jonathan (25 year old sailor from a fantastic pf family) and the bishop stepped into what was only about a foot of water! He was baptized lying down. It still went great and the devotional afterward was fantastic. Well there are a couple other stories I wanted to share but I guess I'll have to wait till next week. I love you all and hope you'll have a great week. I know I will!

Love,

Elder Washburn

Week 50 - My First District Meeting

August 11, 2014

Hey guys how are you doing? Guess what? This time next year I'll be headed home! My release date is 11 of August.  I'm doing fine, all be it a bit wet! It’s been a pretty hectic yet at the same time a slow week.

Monday we cleaned the house and went to Lider. The house was a wreck, we ended up throwing out about 50 pounds of rotten food and I cleaned all of the dishes for the 3rd time this week...woof, afterwards we went to a members house and picked up Carlitos, a future missionary and went out to Romina’s house where we mostly talked about faith. It was a good lesson and she understood all of it now she just needs to go to church.

Tuesday I had my first district meeting, it went pretty great considering I didn't do anything at all. I spent days planning for it and in the end we just ended up talking about our investigators and their needs, which was only supposed to take half an hour but took two instead. Oh well, the zone leaders liked it and now I know my district’s investigators. Afterwards we all ate lemon pie for Elder Bustamante's birthday, no tortaso (cake in the face) but it was fun anyway! After lunch we walked around and tried to setup citas with no luck, so we went to a inactive/super active house of the familia Bahamondez, where we found Jose a new investigator that they brought to church last week and Gloria another golden investigator that invited us to her house for Saturday. We talked about the restauration and introduced the plan of salvation and gave her a folleto. Afterwards we walked around and did contacts until we came home.

Wednesday we went out in the morning to do service (chop wood) but it ended up falling through so we contacted until lunch. After lunch we went out contacting and found some really cool people. As we went to visit an old member, a man came out calling “elders, como estan?” Figuring he had to be a member, we went over to visit him, turned out he had rented his home out to the elders about 15 years back, and he's a professor of electrical engineering and mechanics, aka smart cookie, we came in for a sandwich and talked about the bible and the restauration. Afterwards we went to Ignacia’s house, she's ten years old and her grandmother is a recent convert, we went in and did my baptism by fire object lesson, talked about authority and put her with fecha bautismal. It was great because she already had her answer but just needed to recognize it and at that point she new that she didn't want to go through her first communion first. It was awesome because when we told her that we needed permission from her dad she called right up and put him on speaker phone so we could hear his answer. Awesome guy, he told her that they had talked about it and that it was her decision, and that he just wanted her to be happy, he then asked when he was going to be able to sign the papers... absolutely amazing!

Thursday weekly planning in the morning and I got to admit I don't know what happened after that...

Saturday was amazing! We had our cita with Gloria and Jose was there along with an inactive member from the Bahamondez family who bore his testimony like crazy and promised to go to church the next week. We put Gloria and Jose with fecha and then invited them to come to church. Gloria absolutely loved the message and was sure that it was true. Afterwards we played ping-pong with a couple of members and investigators in the chapel as an elders quorum. Hno Gonzalez and I killed everyone, fantastic day!

Sunday, Gloria is amazing! It turns out that the Bahamondez family didn't pick her up but that she went over to their house to ask for directions to the church. They ended up taking her there, they were just running a bit late but still, absolutely amazing!

Great week don't have time to write anything else but Iove you all!

Elder Washburn

P.S. next week we have a baptism! Woooohoooo!

Week 49 - aaaaaa...Broken Keyboard

August 4, 2014

hey how are ayou doinag I just want ato agive ayou a heads up and tell you that there wona't be a novel this week athere really isn't that much to write about most of mya time was just spent packaing my bags that and its reallay hard ato write with all of these stupid a's aaaaaa the (the letter naot my districat...)   but reallay I alove it here with the exception of all of the rain. U0am going to byuy my self a good umbrella this coming p day.

Thank goodness I asked Hayden questions this week or I wouldn't know anything about his new area! 

Questions:

1. What is your new address?

         No idea.

2. Dahianna wants to know the address and name of your ward so she can find your Mamita on FB. Do you have one? What is her name?

         We don't have one anymore but our ward is Presidente Ibañez.

3. Who is your new companion? Where is he from? What is he like? Do you live with any other Elders? Who is your zone leader?

Linares, he's Peruvian and from a tiny little city in the middle of the amazon some crazy name in Quechua that means red earth (Pucallpa). I'm living in a house of 4 with Elder Souza from my first district.

4. What's your new house like?

The house is a lot better than the last one, no black mold and it doesn't drip.

5. How's your new district? Did you know any of the missionaries previously? How many missionaries are in it?

The new district seems pretty good. I still haven't met everyone but 3 of them were in Villarica/Pucon with me. I have 8 missionaries.

6. What do you think of Puerto Montt so far?

It’s rained every day I've been here but other than that I love it sorry about the random aaaaaaaaaaaaaas from atime to time my key boards broken.

7. How big is the ward? Are the members nice?

         We have about 120 active members and they're all amazing.

8. Have you heard of an Elder Alder that just arrived last week? His Dad was a friend of Dad's and Uncle Bengt in college. I heard the group was huge, like 29 missionaries!

I met Alder in the Punta Arenas airport. It was huge. (I think he meant Ackerman. Alder’s mom told me he is serving up north.)

9. I bought you new contacts. How many should I send you?

dona't send me any contacts I've used maybe a single package of the first box I really don't wear them. I could use some more socks.

10. Do you have a microwave?

        

         I have a microwave

Sorry so many questions! I love you!!!!!!

I love you too