Wow this week was crazy and felt really long. A ton happened.
First of was all the goodbyes in lebu which were rough but not as bad as i thought. I could pretty much squeeze everyone in by the time i had to leave and i got packed up all nice for the transfer. After that Tuesday we came up to conce and waited for all the missionaries from the zone to get their comps etc. which took a really long time. Elder Gomez is awesome. He is way funny. I'll have to send a pic next week, but he is great. Pretty much more than half of our 30 missionaries are new in their sectors, so that's crazy. Like 25 of the 30 have less than a year in the mission too which is also crazy. Two of our 3 district leaders are first timers as well, including Elder Meiling my trainee -- hahaha that was a really cool surprise. The good thing is that all of the missionaries are really excited and dedicated to the work so that's cool. After they all got off to their sectors we finally got to our apartment which is really really nice and on the 5th floor of a building hahaha it's really cool and big. Then after that that day I got to know the sector a little bit. Ok so Boca Sur has 6 missionaries divided into three different parts of the ward. It's a really big sector even divided. I think our sector alone has had 20 baptisms SO FAR this year which is kind of ridiculously enormous for our mission, but we are having some problems with retention and working effectively with the ward, but we are working on that. A large part of my work here will be reactivating recent converts and working with them but it's ok because a ton of new opportunities will open up too. We are always, always way busy. There is just a ton to do and a ton of people to teach. The sector itself is not like anything else "'ve been a part of on the mission hahahaha it's totally crazy. It' somewhat poor and there are always a ton of people just outside and something is always happening. I don't know -- it's hard to explain but it's like there's just a different energy in the air here that is totally crazy and exciting 100% of the time. Some parts of it are a little frightening but everyone tells me that the missionaries live in their own bubble and that nothing happens to them and I believe it so I'm not scared ever or anything like that don't worry. It's mostly just really fun here and the people are really humble and nice. There's a ton of converts too that are really excited to help the work too which has been cool. We do a lot of divisions here and can get a ton done in one day. It's been intense. Truth is that I only really worked in my sector like a total of 2 days because so much other stuff has been happening. We had another leadership council Wednesday, Intercambio Thursday after a district meeting, and then the 18th de September holiday made it so that we had Saturday, Sunday and Monday free, which was way different from last year and really weird. We had the ward party on Saturday which was just all kinds of killer with all good Chilean traditions like cueca, food, kites, games, music, jokes etc. Everyone teases each other a ton here. I feel like there are so many people that I still don't know anyone hahahaha around 180 people attend here which is huge for our mission. it will be fun to get to know them all if we get the time to do it. Sunday after church we passed by some recent converts' houses and ate all kinds of asado and empanadas and made ourselves kind of sick. We had to be in the house early and we hung out for a while and went to bed. Monday we played some volleyball and ultimate frisbee with the zone and then monopoly after which got pretty intense hahaha. It was wierd to rest for so long and it kind of set me off balance and made me want to get back to work again honestly. I felt like I didn't really have a purpose for a while there it was super confusing. Today we had a zone conference and taught the zone how to plan lessons better and how to study and some other basic stuff that a lot of new missionaries don't learn how to do until way too late in their missions so hopefully that turns out. The APs are in our zone so they helped out with their lesson and a few of the other missionaries did some stuff too. Oh ya I had my first ward mission correlation meeting WHOOOO only 14 months into my mission too hahahaha! That will be a new cool thing I've never gotton to do before! the ward mission leader is a return missionary who got back like a month ago so that's cool. Truth is I dont really know our investigators yet except for a few that I hear are progressing but I'll have to let you know more about that when I can wrap my head around everything and get to know them better. We have just been crazy busy. Wow my brain is kind of fried and I'm pretty tired. I'm going to have to take it easy for a little I think. Mostly it will just be really nice to get to know my sector and getting back into the routine of things will help me feel more relaxed. As far as spiritual learning goes I'm learning a lot about the power of delegating hahaha. I have also been studying a lot about what it means to "know" Christ as the scriptures mention a lot. I think it means a lot to be able to say that we "know" Christ, or maybe that it's something more perpetual than something that we just accomplish. I guess it has to do with conversion too. Ok well I'm loving it here and loving the challenges I have. I have really seen how the Lord will consecrate our work and our efforts so that they turn out better than we can do ourselves. I got my birthday package too! Haven't opened it yet of course so I'll let you know. Love you all Elder Trevor Smith
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Elder Trevor SmithElder Trevor Smith is a Mormon missionary in the Chile Concepcion Sur mission, the same mission where his dad served. Although this is Trevor's own mission, he grew up hearing about the beautiful land of Chile and the loving people that inhabit it. These are the letters from his experience there. Archives
July 2017
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