Staying in La Cisterna

Hey everyone! So I want to give a good quick report on my week! It was been one for the books!

Our Zone

 So, I will be staying here in La Cisterna for my 4th change. And very likely my next one as well because Elder Moore goes home before I will! So, It looks like I will be finishing my mission here, which is fantastic!

On Monday, the sister missionaries gave me the notice that Pierre was going to be baptized on Saturday! and that he wanted me to baptize him! I will be going over to their ward on Saturday! I am really excited and happy for him!! 

Our Church Building in La Cisterna

Another Investigator of ours by the name of Carlos will be getting baptized on the 12th of May! He lived in San Francisco for 25 years and is a US citizen! He is really nice and the lessons we‘ve had with him have been remarkable! He has loved coming to church these past 2 weeks and is really excited about all of this!!!

We had a really fun P-day and we played a bunch of fun games with the zone and we had a blast!! The mission is great!!

Hammers and Fences and Roofs, Oh My!

This week’s been really good!

I want to start by telling an experience of what happened this past Thursday.

We went by to talk with a man by the name of Carlos. He lived some 25 years in the United States! So, we went by his house because we planned to walk together to the church for the lesson we were going to have. When we get to the door, he comes out in a San Francisco sweater (it was 85 degrees mind you) and a bald eagle USA hat!! I loved it!! We walked to the church talking a little about his time in California and the things he liked about the states.

Once we arrived at the church, we were able to show him the chapel, baptismal font, and we watched a video because he was short on time. He really enjoyed our time together and said that he would come to church on Sunday! Really cool experience actually!! On Sunday, he arrived 15 minutes early!!!! 

Since being companions with Elder Moore, we have been doing lots of service. The members found out about my companions’ skills with building things. Last week we had some 10 hours of service hahaha. We built a fence for a sister in our ward and we helped to build a fence for another sister.

On Monday, we had a zone conference with the mission and it was awesome! It got us motivated and fired up! Great things are happening here in the zone and in the mission!

Afterwards, we went to the house and we went out and we had a really great day! We went to work, and we found a very kind Haitian man who was really humble and was really receptive to our message and even asked us where the church was before we invited him!! Looking forward to our follow up lesson with him in these next few days.

Following that, we went on splits with two future Elders from our ward and we were able to help them with their preparation for their missions. We had two really good lessons with investigators! 

Today, we went to the temple and we had a great day. It’s always great to feel the spirit and to be there.

Service, a Haitian Rapper and March Madness

Really good week! I enjoyed it! Let’s see here, Last week on Thursday we had divisions and I was in our sector here with Elder Scott!! We do zone leader divisions and we ended up being together funny enough. We had a great day as well! We shared with our neighbor two doors down who really opened up to our message and what we had to share! We talked about repentance and forgiveness. We started the lesson and ended it completely changing the theme, but that is how it is at times! Elizabeth opened up to us and really pondered what we had to say. At first, she was somewhat interrogative with her questions and comments but after that lesson she was really nice and open with us and even came to church on Sunday! 

We had a lesson with Mr. Cool (a Haitian rapper that we are teaching) We have been teaching him now for the past week and he is really nice and speaks a little bit of English. We read 2 Nephi: 31 with him and we talked about baptism and he was totally down! But then he told us that he is moving!!!! But that’s alright. He is living in Talca now (a city to the south of Chile!)

On Saturday, we received a phone call from Pierre telling us that he was moving too! And he wanted to see if we could help him! So we made a change of plans on Saturday, called an Hermano with a van and we went to go and move his house. He moved just outside of our ward in the neighboring ward to the west of ours. We didn’t get around to talking about details that he moved out of the ward and that he would be better off attending another ward because we were moving and because we wanted to have to a lesson and tell him that. Sure enough, he showed up 10 minutes early to church that Sunday (Service is the way to people’s hearts) 

We passed by Sunday night with the sister missionaries of that ward and we explained the ward boundary lines and how he lived outside of the ward and he took it great! He has a date and everything! and I even think it’s a blessing in disguise because there are great Haitian members in this other ward. 

On Monday, we had interviews with President Gwilliam, which are always fantastic! 

Yesterday, we had a great lesson with a man by the name of Patricio. He is an Evangelist and  he loves sharing with us. He came to conference two weeks ago and enjoyed it! We talked about The Bible and then about The Book of Mormon being a story of a family leaving to the Americas. Bit by bit, he is becoming more receptive to what we have to share. We also threw darts a little before heading back home.

Lastly, we competed in the finals for our March Madness Tourney.  If you know me, you know I wasn't going to lose.  You are looking at the Santiago South March Madness Champions.  

 March Madness Champions

 The Coveted Prize

All in all, it was a good week.