Hey everyone!
It was a really good week but pretty much just more of the same! Wow this was a long transfer and now we still have one more week. I'll let you know what happens with the transfers in a week! I had an intercambio in Temuco again and it was really fun because I got to spend the night in a house with four missionaries from the states. It was just refreshing to talk to new people and joke around after so much time alone in Cunco. We laughed really hard and got to talk in pure English which I won't lie, was kind of refreshing as well hahaha. My Spanish has really improved a ton now and people keep telling me I talk better than people with a year and a half. Sorry to brag. The truth is I think the whole Spanish thing is a fulfilment of the Lord's promise that our weeknesses will become strengths through the atonement. In the past Spanish was definitely a weakness hahahaha. After that we had a really cool day Wednesday where we saw a ton of blessings from working with less active families! We stopped by like 3 families and found a ton of awesome "news" who are now kind of our best investigators. It always kind of felt like a chore for me to work with less actives but now I realize how efficient and awesome it is! Another cool thing that happened Wednesday is that we were contacting this street but had to go to an appointment, but I felt like I should contact one last house. This kind of teenage girl answered and told us that her family would be home at 7. Those are usually totally throw aways, but for whatever reason I wrote down the address and at 7 o clock. We went way far away for about 3 hours, and at 8 I remembered her and felt like we should go back, which was weird. I told Elder G but he was pretty much not excited at all because she was young and it was so far, but I haggled him enough and we went. The dad was there with another sister so we ended up finding a family of 3! We didn't get the chance to teach much but they accepeted a baptismal date! Bad part was that they couldn't come to church because their grandpa is sick and lives far so they went to visit him. It gets better though because it turned out the mom who is currently working outside of Cunco had been listening to the missionaries before and went to church a few times! What. I really hope it works out for them! I'm tired of finding people who disapear immediately and they're really good! It was just a cool, really classic missionary guided by the spirit experience. Pretty classic story. After that the week was pretty average and uneventful. We couldn't find Juan because he was out camping at lake Icalma but who can blame him it's gorgeous over there. We did go to this other little pueblo in our sector called Las Hortensias, but the whole place is so small and quiet it was like a ghost town. It was really pretty and the people were nice, but it's kind of hard to convince people to take a bus for 20 minutes to go to church in Cunco when they can walk 30 seconds and get to their church. That's the kind of funny thing about religious choices in the countryside, they're very geography and convenience based. Speaking of that I had two really good ideas that I think would really get the work of the Lord moving here in Chile, that would be way more effective and cheaper than all the missionary`s dum ipads in the states. 1) a bus that the missionaries could drive to everyones house to pick them up, rain or shine, to go to church. Like a Mormon school bus. 2) the missionary lesson pamphlets with bigger letters for old people. With those two little things I think we would be the biggest church in all of Cunco easy. Church was better this week we didn't teach every hour so that was cool. Actually we didn't teach at all! Way nice. We did also bring one lady to church who is the aunt of the only recent converts here. It was cool because the missionaries had taught her forever ago but then she dissappeared, but we found her again and set up an appointment. We could kind of tell from the vibes of the lesson that she was planning on just telling us to not come back and that she wouldnt change, but somehow even though the lesson was just ok, she committed to go to church at the end of the lesson. That's just how the Spirit works I guess. It changes peoples hearts right before our eyes sometimes. we haven't talked to her since church so we will see what happens. We did some more research into the kind of oral history of the branch that our mamita keeps, and we kind of realized that we need to focus a lot more on helping the members and leaders here. This week we are going to have a cool activity too of "minute to win it" hopefully it works out. According to what we here from the members and what we see in the records they had like a 4 year streak of super lazy time wasting missionaries here. Truth is I can totally see why this sector does that to missionaries here, because the work is really hard, we are so far away from everyone, and it's really easy to waste all kinds of time with the members, but hearing and seeing all of that just makes me even more detirmined to keep doing things in the Lord's way. One cool spiritual thing this week is that I realized how important the role of forgiveness is in missionary work. I had the thought that im not really sure if I forgive people who I talk to and teach in the mission. As missionaries here, we are kind of the bottom class of people hahaha and it's easy to be angry at everybody who rejects us, but I realized that if I want to love the people here more, I kind of have to forgive everyone who tells us no or worse here in a way. There's a lot of people with bad attitudes about rejection from the people here, but I really do love them and I should show it more. Christ is the perfect example of that. Ok that's kind of it I hope it's good! I'm loving it here and really trying to still give it my all! Ex missionaries keep giving me your advice! I love you all and am doing great here in Cunco and don't want to leave this sector! The next transfer is 7 weeks too which is extra long. Love you all! Trevor shoot no pics i was lazy and didnt buy new batteries until today srry
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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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