January 2017

1/9/17 This week I went into the city to get my Visa which was a crazy experience! On Friday, I was able to do the first 2 steps out of 3. The first took about an hour which was just standing in line for a stamp in my passport LOL. For the second, I stood in line for like for 5 hours and 15 minutes!! It was crazy but at least I was with my friends from the CCM, we all went on the same day. Since that took so long I had to wait and finish the 3^rd step this morning which took about 3 hours. It’s a long process because of lines but the time you are actually with a person is super simple and short. It’s weird.

This week really was awesome. I have been teaching the same 2 investigators for 4 or 5 weeks and this week we found like 4 or 5 more! Its great having so many people to teach and we are anticipating a few baptisms.

1/16/17 I had a dream the other day that on Mother’s day and Christmas we could fly home for that day and then leave again the next day. Super weird but pretty funny! 

I am going to order a scripture case from a member who lives in the Santiago South Mission. He has a pamphlet that a lot of the missionaries have ordered from. It is a case that is woven into the cover of my scriptures. Supposedly you can even order one from the states from this guy. I attached a picture for you to see the different ones. I will choose two of my favorite scripture stories for him to do a picture of, one on the front and one on the back.

So not a ton is new. We are still living in a little house with Elder Roberts and his companion from Mexico. He is actually from our group from the CCM and is super fun. We are still waiting for another house that is big enough for all of us! So that is exciting that if I stay another change here I will be with them. We have changes again the first week of February. I think Elder Matamoros will leave and I’ll stay but no one knows for sure! ha-ha! One thing I had to do this week is eat two slices of bread with nothing but avocado in the middle! It was the first time I was able to do it. It actually wasn’t too bad. That is like a meal that people have here. A roll with avocado and a slice of tomato. So I am getting more and more used to it.

This week we had a family night with a family that has been inactive for like 15 years. We are teaching one of the granddaughters that is 16 and we have a baptism date for the 28th! So that is exciting! But yeah the family night was really good. We shared the Mormon Message of The Hope in God’s Light or something like that. Its one that is pretty popular. I first saw it when Chan posted it on facebook last year. It was super spiritual and hopefully we can get them to come back to church! One cool thing about that too is I understood pretty much everything in the video in Spanish. Videos have been the hardest to understand but that night I understood everything. I definitely felt that part of it was that I was feeling the spirit very strong, it was really cool!

This coming week we have a meeting in San Antonio! (the beach) It is with my zone of Peñaflor, Talagante and San Antonio. So I will be able to see my friends from Talagante! I am excited for that and to see the beach finally!

1/23/17 So this week was pretty sweet. We had a meeting with president and 2 other zones. He gave us the new announcement of the schedule for missionaries all around the world I think. We now wake up 30 mins later and still have time to exercise. We eat and get ready but now we only have personal study and planning, then we leave at 10am to proselyte. We are to schedule 2 hours later in the day to do our choice of language study or companion study. We decided to do those two hours after lunch from 3 to 5 because it is the hottest time of the day and we are always super tired. We have till 9:30pm to get home and before it was 9. The new schedule is not very strict at all so it is up to the missionaries to use their time wisely.

Another new experience is that I had to eat blood sausage this week! You might not have heard of it but its literally blood inside of the outer coating of a sausage. You grill it just like sausage. It wasn’t too bad but because I knew what it was it was terrible. LOL The weather here has been super hot! It is like 35 degrees Celsius normally and then a few days have been like 38. I think that is only like 100 degrees but because the sun is stronger here it is rough!

Well I miss you and love you all!

Feliz ano nuevo!!

Happy new year! 

The new year was pretty cool! So now me and Elder Matamoros are living with Elder Roberts and his companion! It is a small house but super fun to be with Elder Roberts again! One cool thing about that is that Elder Roberts has some workout vids! So we have done that the last two mornings and it’s been fun!

On NYE, we had a regular day up until 9pm. Then we bought a bunch of junk food, went to the house, and played Phase 10 haha! It was a lot of fun. Elder Matamoros told us about a tradition they have in Ecuador where they build these little fake people out of stuffed paper and weeds and then burn them at midnight, haha!  We still had to be up at 6:30am for study and church.

Here's something random, I had to eat tuna this week! Super gross but I ate it all! It was like a nicer tuna helper so I guess it wasn’t terrible but I definitely didn’t enjoy it. I was starving though and knew I wouldn’t be able to eat anything else and I didn’t want to be rude! So finally, I had fish here! But only tuna. lol 

As far as new contacts, we haven’t had too many. I went on exchanges twice this week though and did actually have some cool lessons. I went once with an Elder from Brazil that is our zone leader. He is super energetic and fun and we found a ton of people to teach! Then another day, I had exchanges with my trainer Elder Agostinelli and his new kid that he is training now! His name is Elder Zimmerman from Gilbert! Haha He actually has a Mormon message about him. It’s called like Deyton’s legs or something like that, check it out! Its a cool story! But anyways, he is a greenie and only has like 5 days in the field. His Spanish is struggling a ton and I think that is why I needed to go on divisions with him. I needed to help him realize that it really does get better and gave him a few tricks on what he can do to study better. So, for that it was super cool because I feel like I was able to help him out a lot. I was also able to communicate with Elder Agostinelli much better than last time. He was super excited with my Spanish! For once I was the one translating for someone! That was sweet! 

I had a cool conversation with a member this week! I have been thinking about what my favorite stories in the Book of Mormon are because I am going to order a personalized case for my scriptures. There is a place that does them on leather and are super nice so I want one. In the beginning, I knew I wanted Christ on one side and I decided to do the part where he visits the Americas after his resurrection. I really like that part of 3 Nephi. But for the other side I had no idea! I thought about it a lot and three different times I randomly talked about Lehi’s dream with random people. Once a missionary shared it during a lunch. Two days ago, I was talking with a member and he brought up something that I hadn’t thought of. First of all, I like the story because it applies to my personal life. Right now I am living the gospel the best I can and I seriously love it. I want more than anything to be able to come home and live it with all of you like Lehi wanted for his family! But like him, my whole family isn’t active and so that makes me sad. Before, I had thought, yeah I really want my family to be here with me but don’t know exactly what to do. Then he shared with me that Lehi never left the tree. He stood at the tree and called his family to the tree. He told me you need to do the best you can to never leave the tree or the gospel. You can bring them to the gospel by being an example and inviting them to things and sharing experiences with them. You can’t leave the gospel to go find them however. That had a huge impact on me. If I ever leave the church even for a little while, it could be easy to fall away. So I need to do whatever I can to live it throughout my life. I am so grateful for all of my friends and family, I love them so much! I believe in our Father's plan for us and hope to share that with as many people as I can here in Chile and at home. I love all of the great blessings that I have in my life through living the gospel. :)

I am super excited for this new year!! I have set some solid goals that I think will help me a ton! I love you tons as well! Have a great week!

Hermana Tellez, Hermana Cronin, Elder Walz, and Elder Matamoros

Random guy on a horse..we see this a lot:)