AJ's email from 5/28/12

View of Rain from AJ's pension

       well the last couple of days this week got kinda long. i definitely like the rain, but i hate it as a missionary. it makes it so hard to do anything, especially in a sector as big as el monte. cuz then we have to start walking and people dont answer their doors and lots of people go to bed early. so i think the only thing that i actually enjoyed about the rain, was the rain itself. to be honest though it was a lot of rain. it started around one on friday, while we were in lunch, and stopped raining yesterday around 3. and it wasnt like it went on and off the whole time, it rained the WHOLE time. and most of it was a down pour. every couple of hours it would sprinkle for about 10 or 15 minutes, but for the most part it just looked like a shower with all the water coming out of the sky. but then today the view is awesome seeing the mountains on the other side of santiago. cuz in the middle of the city you cant see the bigger ones that are behind the big ones and in the campo you normally cant see them from the air being bad. but the air is pretty clear today and you can see the mountains towering over the littler ones covered in snow. its awesome

More, and more, and more rain

        before i start with what happened this week though, there is something that i forgot to mention last week. there are 2 kids in our branch that are preparing to go on their missions right now and the both got their call last week. they are cousins so its kinda cool that they are leaving together, since one baptized the other about 3 years ago. the one who was baptized 3 years ago, joaquin, is going to cordoba argentina, kinda in the middle of argentina. the other, benjamin (who is the branch presidents son) got a calling that is a little more interesting to me. he is going to fresno california. i think its awesome for him that he is gonna be able to serve in the states and have that experience and to be able to learn english. they both leave in august.

        so last monday we played soccer. and i played the whole 2 hours without stopping while most of the others would play a little and then rest. and towards the end it got to me a little. i dont know what happened but my achilles started hurting all of a sudden. not real badly but enough to bother me while i walked. then tuesday i woke up and it hurt a lot. i couldnt even walk up and down the stairs in our house. i kinda had to hop a little which was funny. so i had the zone leaders call the doctor and set up something to go in. and on top of that we did divisions so i went with elder mcbride to cordillera and was walking the whole day which didnt help me at all. so wednesday morning we went to santiago and the doctor told me that i will be alright. i just strained it and so i have to take iboprofen and rest a little and ill be alright. and that worked out alright cuz yesterday i was back to normal where i could walk without it bothering me at all. but it still kinda worried me on tuesday when it was really bad.

       what i realized from going to santiago though is that im pretty happy that im still in the campo cuz its still kinda hot in the middle of the city. and we are going into winter right now. so im glad that im out here where it cooler and makes it easier. the other thing from santiago is that i had forgotten how big the mountains are. it was so impressive as we got closer and closer to them. cuz there is nothing like it that ive ever seen before in the states. wednesday we went and taught maritza and we kinda just read a chapter of the book of mormon with her and talked about it a little. then after that, i felt impressed to share my testimony with her and it was great. you could feel the spirit so strong and i felt so good after i shared it with her. cuz i really want her to have her own testimony and stay strong after she gets baptized unlike half of the people here that get baptized and are gone between 6 months and a year.

Cutting bell pepper at the short skinny counter

        thursday we got into the house of a cousin of the relief society pres. her name is guadalupe. it was funny though cuz she is really nice and likes to joke around, and she has had lots of missionaries come to her house before. so the first thing she said after she told us her name is "you guys arent gonna convert me, no one can". and so i couldnt help thinking "ya we`ll see about that". but because of that, we did things a little differently with her. instead of trying to share something right away, we just talked with her about whatever for an hour to kinda gain her confidence. and there were a couple of times where she asked questions that had to do with religion so we were able to teach a little that way. then later that night we were looking up names of inactive people from the ward list. and one of the doors we knocked, an older lady came out to talk. and the first things she said to us were "well look who showed up from no where, the lost people". apparently no one from the church has gone by their house in a really long time and she seemed kinda interested in the church again so we set an appointment to go back on tuesday. and i hope that most of the family is there cuz there are 7 kids and all them have kids also. so that could turn out to be something big for us.

Rice for dinner on a rainy night

         sunday we had the district conference here so we got to see president king and hermana king cuz president has to be there being the head authority in the district. they really  kinda focused on missionary work and how important it is for the members to do their part. they talked about knowing who the people are around you and gaining their confidence so that you can share the gospel with them. president shared a story about a lady who got baptized in republica last month. she is a single mom living with her 3 kids in the middle of santiago and her neighbor is the one who introduced her to the missionaries. but the member lady started by doing things like offering her help and inviting the lady to christmas dinner and other things like that. so when she asked the lady to come over and have a family home evening with the missionaries there, the lady had enough confidence to trust her and accepted. a month and a half later she was getting baptized. i hope that it helped some of the members here realize that we can only do so much as missionaries. its really the job of the members to find people and help them progress. we just teach to get them there. so i liked that a lot.

         that was basically everything that happened this weekend. i hope that everyone is doing well. take care

Its a miracle!!! He's eating something with a vegetable in it!
Missions are AMAZING!!

Before I post AJ's email this week, I had an update on another of my Mlazgar Missionaries. On Sunday Nathan was ordained an Elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood and has begun his mission papers. He turns 19 in November, but will have his papers complete by the end of July. Nathan and AJ's missions will overlap several months. So...the adventure begins anew...
       so ive decided that im gonna have to start writing in my agenda what happens everyday so that i can remember when i get here to write. cuz i always think of the things the day before and then i get here after playing soccer and my mind goes blank from being tired. but ill just have to write the things that i do remember for now.

       wednesday we had a lesson with a girl that we had contacted the week before. she seemed alright but not someone overly amazing that i was really looking forward to teaching. and i was kinda right about that cuz it was tough since she didnt really understand a lot of the stuff we were saying. i dont know if it just didnt stick in her head as we were talking or she just doesnt understand things very well, but it went kinda slow. the good part though was that her sister, trinidad, was there who is a lot better. trinidad understood a lot and actually kinda helped explain some things to her sister sometimes. she seemed pretty interested in what we were teaching and gave us her address to go by her house too cuz she lives somewhere else. so i am kinda looking forward to that cita this week and hopefully she will be there. then at night we had a lesson with the gonzalez santis family. we taught the word of wisdom and it went...alright, is how i guess i would put it. they all drink tea, guillermo (the dad) smokes and says that he literally cant live without it. and they all drink a little. so we are gonna have to work on that with them a lot.

AJ and Elder Braddy

       thursday morning we had a training meeting in peñaflor with president king. we learned about the spirit´s role in the conversion, the importance of prayer, and how investigators can recieve answers through going to church. that was all good but what made me happiest was seeing people there that i knew. i got to see elder braddy and elder merchan from when i was in republica. i saw elder calditaran from when i was in melipilla. and then elder sosa was there too. i was especially happy to see elder braddy cuz he goes home this change and so i probably wont see him again. and us 2 with elder leavitt were the 3 that always caused so much trouble together in republica, so we are pretty close.

Mother's Day dinner

       friday was the mothers day activity in the branch so we spent pretty much all day involved with that. cuz we went to the church around 5 to help set up everything and then it started around 730 and lasted til after we left at 1030, but it was a lot of fun. before it started we had to go out with the elders quorem president to buy some of the food and other ingredientes. and since i have no idea about anything that has to do with cooking, he was laughing at me basically the whole time and kinda teaching me how to buy it all. then after we had to go to some lady´s house to pick up more tables cuz there are only about 2 tables in the entire church building. the lady owns some catering type business so she had a lot of that stuff. when everyone was there, they started off with all the priesthood singing i am a child of god, but dressed up in little hats and with their faces painted like little boys. it was hilarious. i wish that i would have taken pictures of that but i didnt think about it. then everyone ate. they had chicken with rice. the chicken was so good, and i had almost 3 full plates of it all. i was so full after that that i almost had trouble walking around for a little while. then after that, one of the guys from the branch presidency (hno reyes) messed around for a little doing some different stuff and making everyone laugh. he made some hermanas sing, others dance, and then they did a little game where a guy had to sit behind the whiteboard and pick who his wife was out of 3 hermanas. only one got it wrong, and it was hno reyes who started the game.

Maria, Nicole, Hna Susana
and son Sebastian, & Hna Aida

Men cooking for Moms

       saturday we had lunch with hermana aida because almost everyone else went to the temple together. it was nice to have lunch just me and my comp with them. cuz being with all 4 missionaries sometimes can get boring. cuz elder crane and elder bloxham have a different sense of humor than elder sanchez and i and dont laugh sometimes with us and our jokes. that morning though we had a really good lesson with veronica vidal. she has been having a really tough time lately with everything. with her studies and then with her family and just other things that are going on. and so we talked a lot about how the gospel helps us change our lives and helps us be happier. and that when we do what god wants, he blesses us. and the whole time the spirit was super strong and i know that she could feel that what we were saying was true. so she committed to start reading more and trying to really know if this is the true church cuz she wants to be happier.

       yesterday i was kinda sad cuz we didnt have anyone come to church. maritza didnt come cuz apparently one of the girls from her other church called her in the morning crying cuz she missed maritza in their church. cuz it had been 3 weeks since she had gone. so being a 16 year old girl, maritza felt bad and ended up going there instead. so we had to reset her baptismal date for the 17th of june. but she promised to do everything that needs to get done to be baptized that day. i really hope so too cuz it would be my last day in el monte and i would love to leave with a baptism.

       but anyway i hope that everyone is doing well. i hope you have a good week, take care

YW watching kids for Moms

Hno Reyes making Hna Haydee sing

Hna Aida, Hna Oteiza & Hna Carmen

AJ's email from 5/7/12...and a bonus from 4/16/12 (whoops!)

   tuesday was one of the craziest days that i have had in the whole mission, if not the craziest. it started with president king coming to our district meeting in the morning. and when he comes, everyone tries to be on their best behavior so its funny to see how people change. but that meeting went well. elder vilar kept asking him questions to try and get president king to tell him if he has changes but pres wouldnt budge at all and didnt say anything. it was just funny watching elder vilar suffer from dying to know. then after the meeting we did divisions so i was with elder ramirez from peru. he is a greenie so he only has about a month and a half in the mission. and he talks a lot. it kinda got annoying sometimes cuz he just never shuts up. but its cuz he has so much energy i think. we had lunch the 4 of us together in el monte so at least i didnt have to deal with it right away. then after lunch the other 2 came over to our pension to fix my bike tire cuz it had gone flat. while they were there, they asked if we could do divisions with them at 7 cuz they had 2 citas scheduled and both were important. and we agreed cuz we had nothing to do. 

What goof-balls! AJ & Elder Vilar

just after leaving the house to work, elder vilar called me with a plan. cuz he knew that i didnt really want to be with ramirez and he wanted a break from elder crane for a day, so he thought of a way that we could get away with staying together after the divisions at 7. he told me to let the air out of the tire again so that it looked like it was flat again so that elder vilar had to come fix it again. and so i did it without elder ramirez noticing and we got permission from the zone leaders to stay in the divisions all day. it made me happier too having elder vilar in one of the noche de hogares that we had with the gonzalez santis family because he was a lot better teaching them with elder vilar instead of elder ramirez. and it made the whole day fun. and then at night we stayed up later talking cuz it was the first time that we were together alone for the first time since we had split up 6 weeks ago. then around 1 we finally went to bed but the day didnt end there. about 2 minutes after getting in bed, one of our investigators called us asking if we were ok cuz she saw a big fire close to our house and was worried about us. so we looked outside and there really was a huge fire about 100 yards from our house. so elder vilar and i left the house, in our pajamas, me in my glasses, and without our nametags. and the fire was huge and awesome and we stayed there watching it for about 20 minutes before finally going home and going to bed for the night. it was a day that i wont forget for a long time.           wednesday we found a lady to teach that is pretty good. her name is maria veronica. she shared with the missionaries about 10 years ago when she was a little girl and she has lots of good memories with the hermanas that were here. and she seems pretty interested cuz now she older and understands more. and she wants her family to be closer cuz they have grown apart the last couple years as everyone has gotten older. so im looking forward to teaching her.

Eatin pizza with the district.

            then sunday in church, i was so happy cuz maritza (the girl that we are teaching that is the most promising to get baptized) finally came and she loved it and told us that she is going to start coming from now on. and so that means that its a lot more possible for her to get baptized in june like we want. and then from the gonzalez santis family, fabiola the daughter and guillermo the dad came to church too and that was cool to see that they are interested also. so it was nice to see them all there yesterday. and then after church, it started raining around 330 and it rained all day til about 11 so it was tough to do anything. cuz we have to walk in the rain cuz its impossible to go in bike and with the sector being so big, it was tough. but it was fun seeing it rain so much again after the last 7 months of it not raining.

Elder Vilar, AJ and their mission mom!

          and that was pretty much everything from this week. the weather is still crazy here. its hot one day and cold the next. i just want it to be cold all the time already. with the pictures this week, 1 is of when we gave hna aida a little pillow that says i love you mom in spanish for being the best mission mom that we could have possibly asked for. and then the other 2 are of today when we went to eat pizza as a district in the morning for the last time before changes tomorrow. i hope that everyone is doing well. take care

I realized when I was attaching this weeks pictures that I skipped a bunch of pictures from a couple weeks ago... so... here are the pictures from April 16 ~ followed by that email ~ and BOY ~ its a long one! (Remember you can click on any picture to enlarge it.)

Zone Conference at the Santiago Temple. AJ's standing between Brady and Sosa...big surprise...not!

Singing "Happy Birthday" ...and yummy cake!

Working hard? or hardly working??

YUMMM...

Market eating area

Hma Susana and Hma Aida, as usual, keeping busy!

Being sick sucks so bad. especially in the mission cuz you still have to go out and work during the week and dont really have any time to rest. cuz we always have set appointments with people and lots of times its the only time they can meet with us so if we miss the cita, we have to wait another whole week to see them and thats not good. i think i had a cold and thats it, but it was still miserable. it all started on tuesday night. i started getting a runny nose and i just didnt feel good at all. so we ended that night early and went to bed cuz we had to be up early to go to the temple. then i was pretty sick wednesday. thursday was a little better but it changed from a head cold to more of my throat hurting and not being able to talk very well. and thats how ive been since then. even up til this morning i woke up coughing and my throat hurt. so hopefully ill get a little better this week. i think that its just with how weird the weather has been and also with us going into winter, lots of people have been getting sick.

        wednesday we went to the temple for our zone conference. it was awesome, especially cuz i havent gone in almost a year now. being there, feeling the spirit that there is inside, and just being with everyone was great. even being sick i was still able to enjoy it. we had to wake up an hour and a half earlier than normal to get to the temple on time. cuz its an hour an a half long trip from el monte to the east side of santiago where the temple is. it was so weird being back in santiago. we drove right through the middle of my last sector and i felt like i had gone home. it was weird lol but i had forgotten how busy the city always is and how many people there are. but then going into the temple where its just quiet and peaceful all the time, it was nice. then after we got back to el monte, we only had one cita that night with the familia gonzalez santis that we found last week. they are very good. fernando, the son, had read the pamphlet (if thats how you spell it. im used to just saying folleto) and they all payed attention and had really good questions and comments. they are gonna progress really fast if they make time to do just a few things. and the other good thing is that fernando´s girlfriend was there who is a member and even though she is inactive, she helped us out a lot. im hoping that helping us with this family can help her become active again.

         thursday was the best day that we have had in the last 2 weeks. we finally got into a few houses and found a couple new people. one was a guy named mario. he was an antiguo  investigator that we found in the area book. he told us that he has listened to missionaries for about 10 years now but hasnt ever gotten baptized cuz he is co living and cuz his pareja doesnt like the church. cuz apparently everytime he gets close to the missionaries and the church, he gets kinda down or something and so she doesnt like that. so we talked about how satan tried to bring us down when we are doing things to be closer to god. and that he doesnt want us to be happy and have blessings. so he just has to work through it a little and things will be better. but he seems to already have a testimony of everything and wants to get baptized, he just cant right now. i almost feel worse for people like him than people who straight up reject us. cuz he knows what he has to do. at least the others dont know. then at night we had the noche de hogar with hna aida but this was the first time that we have had other people come too. they invited jose and nicole, who are in the retention. and then nicole brought a friend that lives close to her, vivi. vivi is really cool and i had talked to her before when elder vilar and i were together. she is interested in the church a lot but her pareja doesnt like it cuz he and his whole family are evangelico. but it made the whole thing a little different but it was still fun.

        then friday a huge market thing started in el monte for the whole weekend. it was to show off whats called artesanía which i have no idea what thats called in english anymore. but its basically just hand crafts. but there was a show everyday with different people coming and then different stuff to do. and it brought a lot of people to el monte from all over. we stopped by there once on friday to drop something off with hna susana. cuz her and hna aida set up a food place there to sell stuff and make some money. also we had a house blessing with a girl, kati. she is 18 and was taking care of her 1 year old and we just asked to share something with her and she accepted. but the reason i mention that is cuz later we were talking to hna susana about that kind of stuff. and i found out something kind of sad. el monte is the third poorest community which i already knew. but to go along with that, its also the community with the highest teenage pregnancy rate and births to teenage girls. and thats in all of chile. it just made me feel bad for all these girls who dont know what they are getting themselves into and are so young and arent ready for it. but it wont be something that will easily change if it ever does. i dont know the specific number, but i would say that over half the girls between 17 and 22 already have a kid or are pregnant. and considering i have yet to find a couple younger than 35 and married in all of el monte that arent members, those kids arent coming into very good families. so thats sad.

        sunday was kinda a different day. porque hna aida and hna susana were still working in the market thing. and i knew that they needed help with how many people were there. so we kinda had to make a decision. we only had 2 real set citas the whole day. so we thought instead of going out and knocking doors and finding no one cuz everyone was at that place, we decided to go help them sell stuff and do a few contacts while we were there. and it was a lot of fun. we went straight after lunch and it was packed. my job was to tell them what people wanted and then deal with the money. cuz i was their human calculator and helped things move along more smoothly. it was a lot of fun. and over the whole time we were there between friday saturday and sunday, i had 3 conversations with people in english and talked to several people who came up to talk to me about our church. it was good. one of the conversations was with a family that was on vacation from texas. another was a young guy and his friends that were selling beer, all of them from the states. one was from florida, another from boston, and the last was born in santiago but had lived in florida almost all his life. but it was weird contacting him in english.

      the last thing from the week is the family we found yesterday. they were a reference from a guy in the ward of la islita, from our same stake. his name is cristian and the lady is carolina. they are both married but separated and have been living together about 3 years. and they have been having a tough time. and they told us from the beginning that maybe its a  punishment for living together even though they are married to other people. but with the divorce being legal since about 3 years ago, its tough. she is a inactive member and he is really good and is willing to do anything to be happy and have a good relationship with his family. so he will get baptized as soon as the whole thing gets worked out with the divorces and they get married. the problem with that though is that a divorce costs about 400,000 dollars here, and they need 2 of them. and then after all that they have to get married. so needlesstosay, its gonna be a long long time for them. but im gonna be happy to help them with everything.

    the pictures this week are one of our zone, a few from us working in the little place with hna aida and hna susana, a couple of the eating area from the market, and then the last few from when we went to the temple. the one of me in the line there is when they recognized the people who have upcoming birthdays and they gave us a cake. it was delicious. other than that i hope everyone is doing well. take care