April 22, 2013

Heyyy family and friends and whoever reads these letter things. How
are you? Im good thanks. Okay. Here`s my letter:

So Im trying to get back into the habit of writing things in my agenda
that are interesting and whatnot so that on mondays I can remember
them and share them with the family. So here they come from the past
week...

So first off, I SURVIVED MY FIRST EARTHQUAKE!!! woo hooo!!! hahaa. Oh
man. It was crazy. Monday night we were sleeping, and we woke up at
like 3 in the morning, and the house was shaking like CRAZY. Oh man it
was crazy. Ive never experienced anything like that in my life. But so
I woke up and my bed was just like jumping around, and the other beds
as well, and there was lots of noise and the craziest thing was the
loud, deep noise that the EARTH was making! hahaha. Oh man it was
wack. I had no idea what to do so I just sat up and looked over at
Elder Arancibia (the chileno, who was also sitting up) and in my head
thought "oh my gosh. I have no idea what to do. Do we need to run?
Hide? What do I do... Elder Arancibia is Chileno, he`ll know what to
do so I`ll just follow him..." hahahaha. But after like... 30 seconds?
its calmed down and finally came to a stop. So we all just sat there
and repeatedly said "ohhhh que loooco." and immediately went right
back to bed. hahaha. Sleep is precious... Anyway. So I survived an
earthquake. Also, turns out it was even an earthquake just un
temblor... Aftershock? I think its called in english haha. But it was
crazy. I cant even imagine a real earthquake.

Then on Wednesday we had the chance to give 2 members blessings! They
called us up and asked for our help so we went over and did that. I
love being able to do that. It makes me feel great being able to
exercise the priesthood to help others out. Anyway one interesting
experience was that one woman asked for a blessing of salud because
she said she felt sick and had alot of pain and etc... and so I gave
the actual blessing to her. And it was interesting because I noticed
as I closed the blessing... that I hadnt really mentioned much about
her health in the blessing... Just alot of counsels and reminders
and... not much about her health. So I just thought "ehhh whatever.
Asi serà"  But so after we did the blessing she said "You know Elders,
can I tell you something?" And then she began to explain what was
going on in that time and how her bad health was actually coming from
very stressful situations and bad things that were happening in her
life and everything... And it was awesome to kind of listen to her
tell us all of that, and realize that the blessing I had given really
was inspired and directed exactly to her needs! Because
teeeechnically... she wasnt super sick. but just really stressed out
and needed help. And thats exactly what the spirit inspired me to say
in the blessing! To give her inspired counsels and suggestions of
things to do to help her out instead of really being focused on her
health... haha. And yeah it was just awesome to make that connection
after the blessing as she told us what was going on and really be able
to see the Lord working through me!

The other thing I wanted to point out is it has been crazy during my
time out here to REALLY see the scriptures come to life... Before I
kind of thought about how the scriptures always said "following after
the foolish traditions of their fathers" and people doing things to
praise God and really just doing it for show and to be prideful... and
honestly I guess I just kind of thought of those things as common
catchy phrases in the scriptures. But being here and 1. Strengthening
my testimony of the gospel and 2. Talking to so many people and trying
to help them get on the right path... Its just been amazing to see
that even nowadays... The foolish traditions of the fathers and doing
things to be seen is real and its going strong... Its the most
frustrating thing to teach people and have them tell us "This all
makes sense. I completely agree with all of this... I think you guys
are right... But my parents were Catholic, I was born Catholic, I am
Catholic, and I will die Catholic and nothing is going to change me!"
And its so frustrating for people to tell us how they dont think its
right that the members of their church live pretty humbly and are
quite poor, but through their "tithing" that they pay to their pastor,
their pastors are living the high life... But they dont want to do
anything about it or accept the truth!!! Ahhhh. Its sad.
The church is true. And the scriptures are still true nowadays. The
foolish traditions of fathers and the prideful people still live on...
and theyre going strong. Its crazy to see how much the scriptures have
come to life here in Chile! Were super blessed to have the truth!

Shoot I had alot of stories from the week sorry haha. Probably the
FUNNIEST moment from the week was our lunch we had on saturday. We
went to a family where just the parents were home, so we ate with
them, and the father is a menos activo, but he speaks spanish pretty
dang fast... So anyway. We had some corn on the cob as part of our
lunch... And for some reason they thought we didnt know how to apply
butter onto corn on the cob... ha. So Elder Adamson went first to put
butter on his corn, and we were just going to use a butter knife to do
it... So the whole time the Hermano was explaining how to do it. But
hes a fast talker and he`s got alot of animo in life... So he`s like
yell-talking to Elder Adamson how to do it, but Elder Adamson couldnt
understand the Hermano too well...and so the Hermano was trying to
explain how to do the spreading motion with the knife, and he was
saying over and over "Get the knife, and then with the hand do this"
and showing the action of how to spread butter hahaha. But Elder
Adamson couldnt understand, and was getting really flustered and felt
pressured and confused and everything... and it turns out the only
thing he could understand from the Hermano was "Con la mano! con la
mano!" So Elder Adamson just gets super flustered, drops the knife,
and slaps his hand onto his corn and starts spreading his butter with
his fingers hahahahahahahahahahaha. I started DYING laughing hahahaha.
Because the Hermano yelled "NO!" And ripped Elder Adamson`s hand off
the corn and al tiro grabs a napkin and wipes off his fingers and oh
man it was just the funniest moment ever. And we were all dying
laughing hahaha. And you have to remember this all happened within
like 7-8 seconds hahaha it was happening so fast and aw man we all
just died laughing. hahhaha. So i talked to elder adamson about it
after and he said he just thought "huh! weird! Maybe its just a
cultural thing they do here!" So he just started spreading the butter
with his hand hahaha. It was really funny hahaha.

And the LAST story/interesting fact from the week is that we have
another gringo in our ward now... Who is NOT a missionary. But WAS a
missionary. One of the sisters in our ward will be getting married in
a couple months... Once she gets her visa to go to the USA... and
meanwhile the gringo is going to be living here for a few months while
they wait for the visa... So long story short is they served a mission
at the same time in the same mission and HE was HER district leader
and now he`s coming back to come get her to get married... They claim
there was nothing during the mission but SKETCHYYYYYY. Anyway. So
thats something weird. REALLY weird.

Oh and also the bishop called us at 9:45 sunday morning (church starts
at 10) asking a HUGE favor that I could give a ten minute talk in
church that day hahaha. So I put a little somethin somethin together!
And it turned out really well! I got lots of compliments on it
afterwards! So thats good. I talked about Mosiah 2:41 (Thanks Chris!
haha) and about having the faith to keep the commandments. Para que
sepan.

Other news for the week! We`ll have a baptism this week! Fransisco is
going to get baptized this week on saturday! Fransisco is the 12 yr
old who we randomly entered their house one day and his mom asked us
which baptism she had received was correct. So now their back in
church and Fransisco is going to get baptized on Saturday! Sweet! So
were way pumped for him because out of nowhere they changed ALOT in
their lives... and now they really like church and everything. We went
to Fransisco`s house on Sunday morning to make sure they were up and
on their way to church, and Fransisco was way pumped to go to
sacrament meeting. haha. But he says he doesnt like the classes
afterwards... Weird report from a 12 yr old. Usually its the other way
around haha. But so were excited for him! Hopefully my camara works by
then for pictures! If not ill snag some from Elder Adamson`s camara!

Buttttt thats basically the update for the week... I think this is the
longest letter ive written in awhile. Enjoy haha. I love you all and
miss you lots! I hope all is well over there in the US of A. Or
Argentina. Or whereever you may be in the world. La iglesia es mas que
verdadera. El evangelio bendice las vidas de las personas MUCHO. Solo
necesitamos VIVIRLO. Sino, no hay promesas de recibir las bendiciones
que estan esperandonos. y no queremos perder estas bendiciones. Porque
el Señor nos puede bendecir mas que nosotros podemos imaginarnos.
Entonces VIVAN EL EVANGELIO! Les quiero! Les echo de menos. Que les
vaya bien. Chauito!

-Elder Heyman