Ok another kind of uneventful week -- sorry! I'll try my best! Obviously the highlight was talking to all you guys. Wedding stuff looks really fun. I'm sure it went great.
The week started out with the same ol same ol but this time the APs came down from Conce for the district meetings and to do divisions with us that day. Elder Quintero and Elder Haymore are friends from my very first transfers in the mission so we know each other really well and it was fun. They have a car and we have a driveway in our house but the Elders before us had lost the key to the padlock to the gate of the driveway so we had to spend like 40 minutes breaking it off to be able to lock up the car while we were working that day so that was a hassle but kind of fun to pretend like we were robbers jk. Elder Quintero worked with Elder Gordillo and was previously in San Martin so he was able to help us meet some people he new and we found a cool part member family that way. Elder Haymore is pure amor so it's always really cool to work with him and learn from him. It was productive. We had a good time talking about our early missions etc and a lot of missionary friends who have gone home now. Wednesday I'm kind of struggling to remember but I think we found another part member family that supposedly the mom was really unreceptive and cold but when we went over she was super nice and receptive. She had a lot of Catholic images on the walls but we are going step by step and I think she already knows she needs to change. Ingles class was fun that night and we had a good group of students that time. Oh yeah we ate a lunch that was just totally over the top. The member who had us over works in sea food importing and exporting between here and the states so he and his family had cooked like 20 pounds of swordfish and kept making us eat more and more but it was so delicious. I think I probably ate like 5 pounds of swordfish. This ward is awesome. Another lunch highlight of this week was one member's birthday so she cooked us bistec al pobre with rice and sausages and french fries and pork. What. Then at the end it was ice cream sundaes with oreo. My heart will never recover but it was so good.... Thursday was fun because I went to Nacimiento with Elder Burrows who I really love being with at this point. He has grown and learned so much in just two combos it's crazy. He has a really good heart and that counts for a lot. Nacimiento is pretty cool because it's a full on ward even though it's a smallish pueblo so we took the opportunity to do a little cleaning of the ward lists and found some cool less active and part member families. Elder Burrows is a really smart guy so we had some fun conversations about Spanish and music etc. It was really cold that night though. Funnily enough like 3 months ago his family had asked him what he missed from the states to be able to send it in his birthday package. At that time it was still boilingly hot so he said he missed 7/11 slushies. They actually found some freezer official Icee deals to send and have him freeze here so even though it was really cold we went ahead and ate one each anyway which was funny but totally worth it and sooo delicious. Friday was pretty boring as well honestly. We did a lot of walking and looking for former investigators from the area book with a little luck. For whatever reason English class that night was pretty empty. Fridays are usually a little rougher in that sense. Saturday was fun because we talked! I mostly couldn't get that out of my head honestly before or after. It also rained super hard from Thursday until Sunday morning so that was crazy. We taught one of my favorite less active families who is coming back and had some serious breakthroughs with them and they came to all three hours of church on Sunday and said they actually really like it. Sunday was awesome. The sun came out and it was a beautiful day. Our church meetings were so good this time. This ward knows what it's doing as far as that goes. Every hour was killer. We left feeling really good. We ate lunch with the Bishop Troncoso who I love and then got over to some members' house so Elder Gordillo could skype his family. We had some seriuos technical difficulty so it took a while to get started but we finally got it done and he liked it a lot I think. After that we were supposed to have a FHE with an active family and their less active invites but the invites didn't show up. We still had a good time. Actually it was with Christian Carrasco who was my gospel principles teacher in Villa Ohiggins back when he was single and now he is the Elders Quorom president here and married to a super cool Argentinian member who served in the same mission as him. They are both really humble and spiritual and mostly really really funny so we had a great time. Today was another highlight. I don't think I've mentioned brother Angel Cruz here but he is a convert from like 10 years ago who is now the high priest group leader of the ward and is just totally awesome. He and his wife had recently finished a 3 year part time service mission in Santa Barbara (chile). They both have been in charge of the ward temple trip this weekend in which like 65 members are going with like 7 recent converts. Supposedly they have like 250 names to do work for which comes out to a total of like 750 ordinances or something crazy like that. It's crazy how big a difference one person who magnifies their calling can make. Anyway today he and his wife took us and the Hnas from our ward and the one over to Alto Bio Bio, or a few towns east of LA in the cordillera and it was totally beautiful and one of the coolest field trips I've had in the mission. It was so fun. Nature for us is the closest thing we get to a temple trip in two years here. I really do leave visits to nature feeling renovated spiritually. One fun thing was a museum way up ther about the native tribe here the Pehuenches. Really cool actually. Lots of crazy connections between their culture and religion and legends to gospel stuff like the BoM and Bible etc. A Noah's flood story and pretty much an exact quote to Zenos saying we need to pray over our flocks and fields and friends and enemies etc. The craziest thing was that they had a big list of traditional last names of the tribe and one of them was "Levi". Yep. Straight up Levi. How crazy is that. In sacrament meeting a bunch of thoughts and scriptures came to my mind about the last two months here. I haven't had time to organize them all but it was mostly all about why the Lord gives us weakness and challenges. Some scriptures I'll put here and you all can look for the connections with me. Heleman 3:5 Ether 12:27 Moroni 7:48 2 Nephi 2:25 and a few more I can't remember right now. I think it's important to analyze the challenges we overcome to be sure that we have learned the lesson God wants us to have learned. Just a quick spiritual introspection after weve conquered some big trial to see what God has taught us; what He has made of us. It also helps us to see the "end" that justifies the sometimes painfull "means" of the events of our lives. At least for me it's provided some good perspective and even gratitude for trials I've had recently. This existence is full of a lot of "means" and "ends" in our lives. Ok I loved talking to you all! I love you all and hope youre doing great! Elder Trevor Smith
1 Comment
Solicitar un préstamo ahora
2/5/2024 06:27:47 am
Buenos días señor / señora,
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
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
|