Less Talk, More Photos 12/30/13

Well today we had consejo de lideres today... And we just talked on Wednesday.... So im gonna keep this short today and just send whatever fotos i have on my camera that you havent seen! haha. 

So im dead tired right now because when we had consejo de lideres we have all day p-day... So after consejo we went and played futbol for awhile. And its getting pretty hot here. So i am DEAD tired right now haha... That sunscreen that was sent to me in my christmas package was inspired. I need it big time. Its saving my skin right now haha thank you so much!!!

Wellllll it was just FANTASTIC getting to see and talk to all the family on Google Hangout on Christmas!!! EASILY the best part of the day haha. IT was so awesome to see everyone. It was werid and amazing for me to realize that... besides my parents, it had been a YEAR since i had seen and talked to everyone else! WOW how time passes by so fast. haha. All the siblings look great and happy, and all the nieces and nephews look GINORMOUS and cuter than ever! I miss you all so much! 

Well so just a quick update of how the Christmas week went. So on Christmas we just woke up, opened presents, skyped, ate lunch, and then went to the "mission activity" where we just basically had a big asado and dinner and played games (i played futbol the whole time haha. I love it and make sure to take advantage of every opportunity i get to play it. Helps keep me in a little better shape as well! haha) and it was alot of fun! So we just passed it well on christmas day!

and that was basically it haha. There were lots of little funny things that happened this week. We had a ward christmas party (it was super.... okay. not anything great haha) there was some crazy drunk lady in the street that out of nowhere starting yelling at us and tried to hit my companion with her big old purse. But she was drunk or something so she missed and wasnt even close.... I had something in my mouth so i tried to spit it out, but its really windy here so it just came right at me and nailed my shirt... haha just things like that. But overall it was a good week! 

Now we just need to get back to the hard work so we can llevar a cabo la obra del Señor!!

Were having some struggles with this family weve been working with... so if you could please include them in your prayers. Theres just something thats not clicking and their not making the gospel a priority in their lives... So keep the family Sid Vargas in your prayers please!

oh and last thing i remembered. On Tuesday we had our district classes, and since it was Christmas eve we asked our district leaders to just have a little fun with it and do something christmasy in their classes. And so the class i was in, we reinacted the first christmas... i dont remember how to say it in english haa. pero hicimos un pesebre. and we videotaped it and it was way funny and fun. But i dont know how to send the videos on this email so sorry :/

But more than that I just have some fotos from opening presents and stuff haha. So ill pass them along. Its not much but better than nothing.

I love you all lots and lots and miss you lots and lots too!!! Have an awesome week and have a happy new year! We dont have any special plans or get any special exceptions for the new years, so we`ll just be out working! But have a good one! I love you and miss you!

Chauuuuuuuuuu!

Elder Heyman

1. This is the son of the family we ate dinner with on Christmas Eve! One of santas little helpers haha. He wanted to take pictures with me with our christmas hats on. His name is Diego.

2. We got our christmas ties!!!! Yeahhhhh!!! We were so happy haha. Theyre awesome ties. Thanks so much mom and dad!!! :) We love them! (We were so tired. We went straight to opening presents haha)

3. Heres me with my awesome stocking! haha i loved it. I was gonna send a prettier looking picture but i just found this picture WAY to funny to pass up. We were SO TIRED. haha.

4. Heres me with some of the take away christmas morning! Ties! Peanut butter! Lotion! Sunscreen! American candy! WOO HOOOOO!!!! I scored big time!!!! Thank you so much parents and family :) I Love it all! 

5. This picture is funny because it just shows how religious Chile is. This is just an average little corner shop thats called "La Nueva Jerusalen" which means The New Jerusalem. haha... Not quite... not quite...We just thought it was funny it was called that.

1. This was a SWEET dessert we got the other day. We never get desserts as well presented as this. So it called for a foto haha. 

2. Me with previously commented dessert. 

3. This was just funny. Elder Tafur (to the right) is new and we went to go sing for those kids like i told you about. On the bus ride elder tafur PASSED OUT. and had his head on his comps shoulder haha. So we took a picture and it was funny. 

4. Heres an awesome chocolate santa claus that the same hermana that made that sweet dessert made herself. She gifted it to us!.....

5. ...and it was DELICIOUS! 

We had cambios today! 12/16/13

We had cambios today... And there werent any changes in our sector! Soooo Elder Holt and I will be together another six weeks! And were way pumped haha. We get along SUPER well and work well too. So it will be way fun. Elder Holt is actually on his LAST cambio now haha.... So, in missionary terms, I will be "killing" Elder Holt. O sea, sending him home haha. It will be weird! Its the first time ive ever had that! 

So we had another awesome week! Theres not a TON to update you on. I do have some fotos to send though! So ill do a little bit of writing and let the fotos do more talking haha. 

So our zone and the Zone of Talcahuano Norte have received an assignment from president! And together our zones are going to sing a few christmas songs to a group of kids from i dont know where... haha. I actually dont have a ton of details on it. The other leaders do haha. But so on Tuesday we got together to practice a little bit. It was a little rough because people were trying to get too fancy and were trying to teach parts to a group of people who did not understand a thing about it and didnt have the ability to do it... haha. But so in the end we got it figured out a little bit and it looks like its going to turn out great :D haha. So that was fun. 

On tuesday or wednesday... I dont remember which. But Luis (that got baptized when i first got here) we went to visit him and his parents, and his mom had seen something about the Christmas devotional online or something. Anyway so Elder Holt and I went and downloaded the devotional onto my pendrive and then we watched the devotional with luis and his parents. So i got to see the devotional! :) (in spanish haha) it was awesome! I liked it alot. Monica (the mom) still comes to church every week... but progresses really slow. But she LOVES it. So were gonna start working with her so she can get baptized in Enero! 

Another thing is that this week they had a stake primary christmas activity. haha. And so i got asked to play the piano again to accompany the primary. So i went and did that and it was fun. The primary from each ward song a few christmas songs to los abuelitos (the grandparents) from the stake. The attendance was pretty low.... but everyone loved it! :) haha. So that was a fun little service i did. 

and lastly... On saturday we had another baptism!! :) This week Valentina was baptized! Its basically the same story as Paulita. The family was less active, so we helped them get back to church, and valentina wasnt baptized so she was baptized as well. I shall send pictures. BUT! The BEST part of the whole thing...... Was that her DAD got to baptize her! woo hoooo!!!! AND he did the confirmation!!!!! Ahhhh it was the best thing in the world haha. We were so excited for him and her and just all of them haha. ah man it for real was the best. Theyre such an awesome family haha. Theyre all so humble. Anyway. So we were really happy and excited about that. Ill send pictures!

And then on Sunday just to finish off, we had the confirmation of Valentina, AND Paula finished off her baptizm by also being confirmed in church. So we were very happy. 

And now i find myself here back on monday! 

I really dont have too much more to update on... haha. So to finish off Id just like to ask that everybody keeps the family Sid Vargas in their prayers. Theyre such an awesome family and they need to be baptized so bad haha. It will help their lives so much. And they want to be baptized and love chcurch and everything... but theyre just kind of hestiant on taking the step.  So if you can keep them in your prayers, asking Heavenly Father to bless them so that they make the decision to be baptized on the 28th of december! Please and thank you :) 

Sooo... thats it for this week! Im just gonna send some pictures now haha. I love and miss you all! Hope youre having an awesome month of December! Hope youre all involved in the work of salvation! Because its the work of EVERYONE! Invite everyone to learn about the gospel and to come closer to Christ! Have an awesome week! 

-Elder Heyman

Fotos- 12/16/13

1. This is (was) our zone! We took a pic all juntos during our last clase de distrito.

2. Funny zone christmas pic. 

3. Valentina and her dad on baptism day!!! 

4. This isn't the family complete. but heres a foto of us with the parents, her older brother, older sister, and a niece. haha

5. Heres me with Paula and Valentina on confirmation day! Theyre the cutest ever hahaha.

1. Foto of all those of the family that were present for the confirmation that we took after church! 

2.  This is at the primary activity. The kids sang in these christmas hats so we took pictures with them on. 

A Crazy Stressful week with a surprise baptism! December 9, 2013

Hey everyone! Well... Once again i had a crazy week. I feel like im just going to be saying that about every week for the rest of my life haha. This week was just crazy because we had to deal with a lot of baptisms haha. He set a high goal for our zone this past month, and were way pumped to work on it and feel like were going to get it. But so this week was just crazy with trying to save a few baptisms and get some stuff straightened out... haha. anyway. Heres some notes from the week. 

On wednesday I went on a mini cambio to the sector Esmeralda to do a baptismal interview of the daughter of an active member family who had apparently not been baptized... She had no registro of her baptism and they remembered it had happened and didnt know what to do. The girl had gone inactive for a year and a half due to problems with other members and is now back in church and wanted to "start over", didnt have a registro, so.... Oh man. It was just a complicated situation haha. Anyways. So then there were problems with the bishop and he was getting angry and upset about it, and I went and talked to him while i was there on the mini cambio, and then he got mad and upset with me because i was being fuerte with him trying to solve the problem but he was not willing to work it out at all and just refused to even talk to me about it... it was stupid. It was stressful. It was annoying. And in the end it turned out that the girl didn`t even need to be baptized again, they just had to fill out a new registro. bah. 

There are still lots of little details that the church misses here in Chile so that the church can have "Crecimiento real" (in the words of Elder Gonzales (seventy)) and that is one of the problems. There are WAYYYY too many people who have no registros but were baptized, the Member List Services are just jacked up, and almost all the wards have an assistence of about 100+ or - , but have HUNDREDS of members listed. In Curicò The ward had assistence of 100 and a list of 1,700 members listed. Ridiculous. So basically we have 1,600 menos activos in our ward. A friend serving in the US recently emailed me and mentioned that in their ward they have TEN menos activos... I couldnt believe it. haha. Anyway. It was just a really frustrating annoying experience. But yes i learned lots from it.

and p.s. while i was there on the mini cambio a drunk guy like attacked me haha. He kept grabbing me and just wanted to talk to me but he kept grabbing me and putting his arm around me and all this stuff. So finally we just had to run away a little bit haha. It was funny.

Moving on... on Thursday i had another interesting experience. Eating lunches here can be a stressful experience too haha. Because the Chileans are very proud and sensitive about their food. So long story short, if you eat the food too fast, they (without asking) keep putting food on your plate. Even if you dont want it or dont have more room. And if you dont eat ALL the food, they get offended. But if you eat your food too slow, they also get offended and they assume you just dont like the food. haha... So you have to eat JUST right or else it could be problematic. SOOO on thursday  in lunch the hermana gave us a soup to start. And i like soup. And it was a great soup. It tasted really good. But im just not good at eating really hot things or really cold things because ive got a sensitive mouth i guess haha. So i was eating the soup a little to slow..... So my comp had finished his soup already and was just waiting for me to finish to they could serve the next plato... and the hermana got REALLY upset and mid spoonful (as i was bringing the spoon to my mouth) the hermana reached over, grabbed my plate, and took it away from me and said "fine if you dont like it or dont want it you dont have to eat it! We`ll just move on to the next plate!" and then grabbed her own plate and said "and im not gonna eat anymore either because now im mad!"  and i was only like halfway done with the soup! so anyway i tried to defend myself and said "no hermana i like the soup a lot! I want to eat it! Give me my plate back i want my soup!" but she refused. and we just moved onto the next plate. So. Lame. Thats never happened to me before in the mission hahah....

Then on saturday there was a baptism in the zone! Yay! And so we ended up going to the baptism. It was a woman who got baptized..... and de repente I ended up singing in the baptism! haha. I did a solo. And I said "Cuando Me Bautice" o sea "When I Am Baptized". haha. And it turned out pretty good. The service also turned out well so we were happy. 

Also on saturday morning Elder Holt and I had an awesome surprise! We were sitting in our study room studying in the morning, and all of a sudden the phone rang, and it was an hermana from the ward. So we answered and she said "Are you busy?" We answered that no, we were just studying" and she said something along the lines of "Oh good. Well elders i just wanted to call you this morning and wish you a WONDERFUL day. That you find lots of investigators, that your citas dont fall, and that the Lord blesses you lots! We love you, are grateful for your work, and we support you!" And that was all! You have NO idea how pumped up that got us hahah. It was the best thing in the world! We hung up and just stayed their open mouthed and speechless. That was ALSO the first time THAT had happened to me. But it was the best feeling ever and brought the spirit into our house so much! haha. For real. and it only took like literally 30 seconds to a minute. SO. I invite you all to take like 2 minutes out of your day, find out the local missionaries phone number, call em, and give them a little pump up message like that. Seriously it was the best ever. Youll make their day. and invite the spirit alot into their lives. And youll receive the spirit in your own life for doing it. So go do it! Thanks.

Then on Domingo we had an awesome day... We had a baptism! haha. So Paulita got baptized on sunday!!! During the week we met with them and the mom said that the original baptism date (14th of december) Wasnt going to work because not all the family members were going to be there. So... we worked things out, and decided that yesterday after church would be the best thing. So yesterday we had her baptismal service! And skipping alot of details... it was just one of the best, most spiritual, heart wrenching baptisms ive seen haha. It all turned out great and perfect and fantastic. I sang another solo in Paula`s baptism too! :) This time I sang "Yo siento su amor" o sea "I feel my saviors love". But so her family were all there and stuff.... and the spirit was there so strong in the service. haha. Theres lots of details but nothing id like to share in the email haha. So ill have to share it later. Just remind me if one day you`d like to know haha. But, ill send some pictures of the baptism to see.

And that leads me back to monday. This morning we had to wake up and be in the office early to do a practice for the christmas devocional. I was assigned to sing in a choir for the christmal devocional, and i will also be singing in a mens trio hahahaha. hahaha. I dont even know what more to say about that. But im excited and it should be fun. It practiced and it sounded good. Room for improvement..... but it sounded good :) haha. 

anyway. Ill send some pics. I love you and miss you all. Hope all is well. Enjoy the christmas season. Share the gospel with everyone! Especially now. And especially because the Lord has told us to through his prophets and apostoles. So lets be obedient and do it! Love you and miss you all. Have a great week! Hasta la proxima!

Elder Heyman

Fotos- Dec 9, 2013

1. These are fisherman that are preparing their nets for the season... haha. They hooked up to cualquier fence and spend hooooouuuurrrrsssss there the whole day tying it up. Que loco.

2. We cleaned our apartment, got inspected, and got a "celestial" rating. Heres the proof!!! haha

3. Heres Elder Holt with la Paulita. haha she loves dance and does some cheerleading thing and was showing off to us how she can touch her foot to her head. Heres Elder Holt`s attempt. i didnt even try hahaha. 

4. Paula and her family! 

5. Me, Elder Holt, and Paula

6. Paula with her two older brothers. Theyre studs.

7. and some of the baptismal crew that came to support. 

I didn`t even realize this past week was Thanksgiving... :O December 2, 2013

Hey fam. How is life? Its good to hear everyone had a good thanksgiving this past week! I literally didnt even realize it was thanksgiving this week... haha. Obviously they dont celebrate it here! There was only one moment when Elder Holt in the morning said "Hey! Its thanksgiving!" and we were surprised, said happy thanksgiving.... and thats about it haha. Oops! :P

Anyway. We had a pretty good week this week. I think. Lets see...

On Tuesday... it was dad`s birthday! haha. We had consejo de lideres on tuesday morning, so I took advantage of being with President and Sister Arrington, snapped a photo with them with a note for dad, and they let me send it to him then and there on their Ipad! woo hoo! hahaha. im pretty sure you`ve seen the photo. Ive received questions about the "Happy Birthday" sign in english that was hanging up. Well it just so happens that coincedentally it was one of the assistants birthday that day as well. And so they had decorated the office a little for his birthday! Que perfecto! Totally took advantage of that haha. But so i have no idea where they found a happy birthday sign in English! but anyway. Happy Birrthday dad! Hope you had a great one. 

A funny story from wednesday was that theres a Menos Activa family that were teaching... and they have a REALLY funny dog. They have a dog that just LOVES rocks. You can pick up cualquier rock and throw it and he just CHASES it down and grabs it and chews it and stuff. haha idk its funny. So whenever we pass by their house we always throw it a rock or two because its super funny. anyway. On wednesday the dog accidently got left outside of the gate and was just playing in the road. We were on the way to our house because we had to grab a video we had left there. So the dog saw us, recognized the blancitos, the white shirt and everything, and came flying over to us ready to play. hahaha. And so we threw a rock. It ran, fetched it, and came back, ready for another one. We kept walking.... and it kept following us. and following us, and following us. haha. So we were trying to get rid of him! So we would grab a rock, chuck it WAY far, and run really fast to try and lose it. but it KEPT finding us and following us! And it followed us all the way back to our house! haha. And so everybody saw us with the dog and lots of people were laughing and smiling because we had this dog following us wagging its tail super ready to play and stuff, and we were trying to get rid of it throwing rocks and running and stuff. haha. It was ridiculous. anyway when we went back to where we came from, it was still following us, so we went back to the members house, and called them out to come get there dog from us hahaha. 

Thursday night we had an interesting event. We played soccer with one of our investigators at the chapel to finish the night, so before we went to bed we tried to take a shower... The showers here are super funky. and to get the hot water to work, you first have to turn on the sink in the kitchen until that water gets hot, and then when that water is hot, turn on the shower, and then turn off the kitchen. haha. i dont know why its like that. Dont ask. Anyway. So we went to turn on the water in the kitchen... and all of a sudden the knob broke. and the water was on. And we couldnt shut it off. Nor find the valve thing to just shut off the water  completely. So we searched and searched for a few minutes... and didnt know what to do. So we finally did a prayer, got up, went searching again, and finally found the knob, and cut off the water to the house haha... But so then we didnt have water in the house. ha. So the next day we called the house owner, but he couldnt come until SATURDAY morning to fix it... so to shower on friday morning, we boiled a bunch of water so we had hot water, then turned on the freezing cold shower, and just worked with that, finding the perfect mix of hot and cold water haha. And we survived.

Friday was also a great day because we finally received a fridge! haha. I havent had a fridge the whole time ive been here in this sector. Finally i went and talked to the office elder in charge. and finally this week we got a fridge. I can finally have cold milk and cereal for breakfast again hahaha. Yay. We were very excited to receive that.

And the last cool thing was from sunday. The first thing is that on Sunday morning we called the Family Sid Vargas to see if everything was all good for church... but they said they were sick and werent feeling good and so "They were going to see how they felt when the time came whether or not they would make it to church"..... which is always bad and nearly always turns out negative. So we were pretty down about that and did all we could to help them out so they came. Well church started and they werent there :( SO we were sad and thought man theyre not coming.... WELL like 10 minutes after we started, they showed up!!! We were so excited and happy for them. It was a HUGE sacrifice they made to make it to church, especially because they were all pretty sick. But they sacrificed and came, and we know that the lord is going to bless them bigtime for that sacrifice. Por sacrificio vienen bendiciones!!! So we were very excited to see their dedication to these things. 

The other super cool thing from Sunday is that we had a ward activity/devocional. A guy from Chillan came to the ward who does a presentation about the Book of Mormon, and like the "scientific/geographical evidences" of why the book of mormon is true. And so I guess theres 5 different presentations they have, and it was only the first one. But the presentation was SO COOL. It really like... opens up your eyes and makes the scriptures come to life and shows you that the things they talk about really exist in the world haha. For example, yesterday we only talked about Lehi and Fam`s journey to Abundancia and to the americas, and with google maps and the scriptures he kind of "Showed us the path" they might have taken. and it was so cool! Made the scriptures really come to life! and he also talked a little bit about Christ coming to the americas and some ancient documents theyve found that have been translated and talk about a "white bearded god" that visited some people in the america.... anyways it was just a bunch of stuff like that and IT WAS SO COOL. hahaha. Obviously its not the stuff you should base your testimony of the book of mormon off of, but it really brang the scriptures to life. so I liked it ALOT. and i have a bunch of notes taken down so i can see the stuff after the mission too since its online and i cant search it now haha :P

and that brings us back to monday! And here i am :) 

Anyway. I love being a missionary. Its the greatest experience ever. Im learning so much and growing so much. I love this church. I love this gospel. Its true and its been restored to its fullness. Que bendicion! haha. I love you and miss you all! Have an awesome week! Hasta la proxima!

- Elder Heyman

Mas Fotos- November 25, 2013

1. Me and Elder Holt. we were happy campers.

 

2. Me and Luis. The "golf pro" that got us the hook ups so we could go play that morning!

 

3. Coca Cola is HUUUUUUGE here in Chile. This is just some thing thats in our sector. Its cool so i wanted to take a picture with it haha.