I hope you are well and happy!

This week was really good!  We had a series of miracles happen in our ward and I am really excited.  First we were able to finally find a house for sister missionaries to move into our ward. In four weeks we will split the ward and we will have four missionaries here. That will be so awesome because I know the ward will improve with success and excitement.

Then we were able to set a baptism date for two families in our ward. There is a couple whose son is a member and they have been investigators for a long time but they needed to get married and we set a date for them on August 23--a little far away but that is when they are getting married so we will just wait patiently and work hard with them. The other is a woman named MJ who was an old investigator who stopped listening but then we found her in the street and started teaching her again and now she has a baptism date for July 20. Two miracles!

Last we received two strong references this week from members. These two people, F and M are people who are prepared to listen to the gospel and to find answers to their doubts. They need the Gospel in their lives. There is a difference between finding new investigators knocking doors and working with members. The references from members are already prepared and interested. Our contacts are really new to the Gospel and don’t understand, so they need more work to prepare and many times are not willing to listen. I know that working through the members is the best way to do the work. But I am really excited to be working her in El Mirador. A lot of things are changing right now.  

I hope you are well and happy!

Love, Elder Christensen

Check out my blog:

drewbabeinchile.blogspot.com

What up y'all.

Everything is good at the MTC... well i guess it is as good as it can be for being the MTC ya know? but i have a pretty cool group of guys but my comp and i have had a few rough patches haha.... But i am having a pretty good time now that i have settled in and started to really know how to work.  I see Christian quite a bit, enough for my whole district to know his name and be friends with him haha so... It is so nice to see him around here and makes it seem more like home everytime we talk and see each other.  Cook is on my same exact schedule so i am sitting next to him as we speak e mailing or i guess as i write! Its nice to see him and talk to him as well! But reminiscing makes it harder to be gone sometimes.  I hope all is well there!

 

Love,

 

Elder Barker!

Dear Homies

Please check out my blog at

http://drewbabeinchile.blogspot.com

To all my Homies!

I leave today for the MTC and so I just want to say thank you for standing by me. To those who are on missions, and to those who are not, thank you for inspiring me and supporting me. I cannot believe this day has come already. It is a day that I have talked about my whole life, and I could not be more excited! Mexico City here I come! Well, actually, Provo here I come...

I want to give a shout out to Elder Durham. Thank you my gentlemen for the letter. I needed it very much. And I want to apologize to all of you currently in the field for not writing you guys. I really have missed you guys. I cannot wait for all of us to come home and catch up with a fresh batch of missionary stories. And we'll be able to communicate in our own secret language (Spanish) too. Sorry Ninow and Jacob...

Love you all,

Elder Brown

 

Dross!

Hello everyone!  First off, thank you to everyone for your prayers on my behalf.  I am doing better and even though everything with my chest pain is not completely resolved, I am loving the work and able to everything I need to do.  It is awesome to feel the power of prayer working in my life and I am grateful to all of you for caring so much!  Thank you.

This week was great!  We found 4 new investigators and lots of our contacts came to church which is huge here.  It is really hard for the people to get to church and so we are super excited when they make the sacrifice and come.  I love my little branch.  The people here are so SOLID and they are amazing!  My companion and I are in charge of conducting, teaching, presiding over all the meetings etc. for the next two weeks while our branch president is away.  I guess I will see just how far my Russian has come J  But I am kind of excited about it – it will be a great learning experience for sure!

Olga – who was baptized a few weeks ago is coming to church and doing well.  It is so great to see the gospel change people’s lives and it is really humbling to be a part of the Lord’s work.  I can really see the love He has for all His children….pretty incredible.

The snow and ice have finally gone and with it – our hot water!  Now that it is “spring” and getting warmer, we no longer get hot water for our apartment apparently.  We asked our landlord about it and he just was like – yea, there is no hot water….so???  I am learning to take fast showers J  But it really has gotten warm and everything is green instead of white and now the rain has come!  And I mean RAIN!  They call them Russian Power Showers and we get soaked pretty regularly – no hot water in them either – hahaha.

We went to the Rinok (market) last week to buy some peppers and there was a COW on the chopping block... in 4 pieces! legs.. guts... everything... the WHOLE THING!!!! and the head was chopped off... fur and everything still on it... man... it was fresh.... DROSS haha we didn’t buy it don’t worry... but you think a 72 ounce steak is big... try a whole cow!

I was also listening to a talk, and the speaker said something interesting... they said that a lot of the time we believe IN Christ... but we don’t BELIEVE Christ... we believe that he is the Son of God, Redeemer of the world, that he died for us... and that he is the Savior of the world... but some too often don’t believe that he can save them.... WHAT GOOD DOES THAT DO!? What’s the point of having a Savior who doesn’t Save?????? It’s like having a lifeguard that won’t get out of the dang chair!!!! Christ didn’t HAVE to go through with everything he did... he had free agency like us all and chose to do everything because of how much he loves us! and as i started thinking about that and studying it... it really helped me accept Jesus as my Personal Savior.

I hope everything is going great with all of you!

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

Elder Sven :)