Week 3

Hey Yáll! halfway done at the CCM. There is a hermana here The time seems to fly by, yet I seem like I´ve been here forever. Today I was able to go to the temple again on Thanksgiving and again it was only in Spanish. But what better day to go to the temple on THANKSGIVING! I´m so grateful for being able to have Prep Day on Thanksgiving as well. Though I am not having Thanksgiving at home, which I greatly miss, especially Mom´s cooking, I am grateful for being able to be from a country that has religious freedom and having a day so that we can remember how great our lives are, thanks to the hardships of others. 

Sister Bertha, thank you so much for those missionary books, they come in handy so many times, and are such good reads. And also thanks for the letter, it´s so great to get letters in the mail, not to sound  prideful but it sure does feel good to get mail in the district mailbox! Especially since the Elders in my district have gotten almost 3 times as many letters as the Hermanas! One funny event, my companions received three big packages from his brother and sister and they were loaded with rootbeers and krispy kreme, i don´t know how he got the krispy kreme, but the perk of being his companion is he shares the treasures with me :)!  Also thank you for all the love sent my way, it means a lot to me. Sometimes the days here feel long and repetitive but it is a pleasure to learn new things everyday. One thing I learned from TRC (which is basically the missionaries practicing teaching members lessons from the gospel) is that the Spanish we are learning is like talking to little kids, we speak so SLOW and the Mexicans speak like lightning, and from what I hear the Chileans make the Mexicans look like snails on how fast they speak, the field should be a joy.

Our Devotional on Sunday was such a good one! It was a recording of President Holland´s talk to the missionaries at the CMM. He spoke straight and with fire in his voice to the crowd. A few things he talked about:

¨Do not go back to what you were¨ 

President Holland expressed the thing that frustrated him the most in the Church, and it is when returned missionaries fall away from the church. He expressed that missionaries should not go on a mission unless they having a burning desire to teach others what great news you yourself know to be true. And he went on the say that if you have received such a witness then it is your duty as a witness to never forget what you know. It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes: 

“You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.”

President Holland also discussed that if you plan to change your investigators lives, you have to change yourselves, and I guess this can relate to almost all things in life. You have to live the life you want to teach others. You can not expect others to change if you will not put in the effort to receive that same change. Which furthers tom, you have to live the life you want to teach. You can not teach someone about following the law of tithing, if you yourself are not honest in your actions with your fellow men, or so on. From which, I am really going to strive to change my own life. To be a better loving person, and to take things seriously and with more diligence than before (I assume my mom has been waiting her whole life for this).

One thing that will greatly affect my lives,and i have to say almost everyone that knows me, will be if I have more Hope in all things.

Hope is often considered something as might or might not happen. That hope is unsure. BUT hope is a knowledge of things that are! Hope is something that you have when you believe! Hope that the sun will rise, hope that gospel is true, and hope that the Savior will come! Hope is a firm knowledge, and faith is having hope.

My times, running low to be on my emails but I just want everyone to know how grateful I am for everything. How grateful I am for the USA and for my family. How grateful i am for the Lord Jesus. Through small and simple things, all can come to past, and through small and simple things we have made it this far. Its because of family, friends, the scriptures, the spirit, the love of others, and the desire to endure all.

In the words of Mater ¨I don´t have to know where i am going, i just have to know where I have been.¨

Elder Siaosi

Here are some more fun fotos for the personas in America!

Here´s a fun fact for all those back at home, this is doctrine from my doctrine teacher, but I have always wondered why God´s plan wound be to have Adam sin and take the fruit. And then in the scriptures it describes Adam and Eve being as little children, having not known good from evil. And little children, thought they may make the wrong choices are free from sin. Thus our teacher explained that Satan had confused them and persuaded eve to take of the fruit. And a reason that Adam and Eve could not have kids without eating of the fruit is because that did not have feelings for each other, mainly because they did not know what feelings were, having never eaten of the fruit, and so it was all in God´s plan that they must eat of the fruit and leave the garden to follow all of God´s commandments.

Week 2

¡Que Bueno! Everything is great here at the CCM. One thing that I find funny, the time seems to fly by, but at the same time everyday takes forever to go by! I am quite sad I missed Justin´s farewell but I know that I would much rather be there for his homecoming! Only 102 weeks left right! I think that it such a bittersweet circumstance that so many of our close friends are serving missions all around the same time. 

Life here is quite a routine, we wake up around 6-630, which is sleeping in an hour that home life, so that is a blessing (Best wishes to Jason). Then breakfast is at 7:15, which is followed up by personal study, and language study. Then Lunch comes around and after we usually either teach mock investigators, reenact certain situations, ie knocking doors or meeting people on the streets. Then we finish with more language study and a class on the fundamentals of the doctrine, which is just class on religion. Mixed in between the day are various addition study times and breaks. Oh and not to forget the best part of the day, besides dinner, is Gym time at 3:30! that basically sums up a normal day. On Tuesdays we have devotionals around 8 and on Thursdays we have PDAY! 

Something funny about this last week, I believe it was on Monday we have a stress management class, mainly people are stressing about not understanding Spanish, but the best part was in was entirely in Spanish! And speaking of stressing, my companion is totally not speaking any Spanish!  I find it funny, though i shouldn´t that he butchers trying to pronounce certain words!  Oh and he got me SICK! I´m better now but I had the worst cough ever! Speaking of cough, he has about 200 cough drops and they smell the worst! He eats them LIKE CANDY!!!!!!!!

I´m so glad little JAAAASON did well in High Rollers, it´s quite an experience. Tell Jason that he needs to step up his game so that can go to BYU his freshman year while I am there! I miss the babies, especially playing games with Curtis and watching Corinne freak out at Curtis. Send me some pictures back so that I see the family and friends! So on the 20th of November, Mexico celebrated their Independence day from some country, I forget but at night, the sky was lit up with fireworks (which sounded a lot more like bombs, we all know about Mexican Fireworks) and that was a good time. 

This Tuesday´s devotional, the member of the 70 for Mexico, Hermano Alverez (i think that´s his name) spoke on Hastening the work of the Lord. He described the truth as flooding all of the Earth, and each missionary is to make sure every crack is filled! Just like Dad said, talk to everyone, the one person you don´t talk to, will be the crack that doesn´t get filled. Almost everyone you are going to meet is going to be a stranger, yet we have the abilities to change their lives. Prepare to meet God today, and your life will be limitless.

I miss everyone so much, life here is very regular, which isn't a bad thing but I miss the outside world (AMERICA), and great food(that Katsu Chicken mom makes), or playing with the babies. Stay strong and pray for me, I sure am praying for home. Amo Ustedes! 

Elder Siaosi

I hope to send more later today, we can only take pictures on Prep Day. But here are a few ones I thought you would enjoy. Especially the pasta and Mexican! The others are a bunch of mary Dolls I wanted to buy, and the other is my favorite Elder in my District!

My companion is the guy wearing the aviators, the picture describes him well. The other with the iron cast is the man who first created the school which became the CCM.  The others are some phun fotos!

Week 1

November 14, 2013

Querido amigos y familia,

It´s been a full week here at the CCM (MTC in espanol) and it´s been quite intense.The days seem long here, but they are all good days. Thursdays are my Prep Days. The weather here has ranged from 46 degrees mid day to 85. They only speak Spanish here in the CCM and it´s extremely difficult, but i know like 100 times as much as before i left. I can actually keep a good conversation going, but teaching is a whole another thing. I´ll begin with my companions, as my official companion is Elder Albert Steven Bence who is from LA, then the other mates in my district (of whole are all going to Chile Concepcion) are Elder Bertolio, Elder Stockford, Elder Taylor and Elder Judkins. There are also 6 hermanas in my district of whom three are going to Concepcion as well. 

As the first day here began, we had back to back meetings, again mainly is spanish, and to make things even better our Spanish teach barely speaks english. As funny as it sounds, I´m grateful for taking spanish in high school because at the very least i at least know how to pronounce words in spanish. Also having taken three years I surprised at how well i know the grammar for the spanish language, considering i still have troubles with english grammar. Well basically day one was just learning what to do and not do do here at the CCM. But day two! We had to teach a an investigator in spanish, and can I say we didn't even have our first spanish class till day 4, but to sum up me and my companions efforts we spent most of the time looking things up in our spanish to english dictionary. The good news though we found out after he spoke perfect english and was just a teacher. Phew! I thought we were going to make him not want to know more about the church!

 As the week went by I would find my understanding of not only Spanish but the gospel become stronger. On the first Sunday, which was a blast, we had a fireside after. The speaker was the Manager of the CCM and during his talk he spoke of his mission and how hard the Spanish was to learn and how odd the food was! Furthermore he spoke of the difficulties and struggles during his mission, which he later followed up by telling us he served in the Chile Concepcion mission, OH JOY! But as he spoke he discussed something that he believed all missionaries, and anybody else for that matter should live by. That being the theme "Remember Lot's wife," or never look back and what you are missing, but look forward to what is in store. Especially when what´s ahead is a path of righteousness and honor. I especially thought this was special because I am constantly thinking about all the things that I am missing serving the Lord and it really hit hard that what I left behind was the past and I needed to put all my efforts in the future, wither it being serving a mission, school work, or raising a family. Once you realize that you have left the distractions of the past, you can have one eye to God and you will begin to teach others better than your own knowledge. Such great stuff.

Well I can say after Sunday much of what we do here is the same (there is only really one purpose of being here anyways) and that is "Inviting others to come unto Christ by helping them understand the restored gospel." In so mainly what we do is one, learn spanish and two, learn about the gospel, which I'm realizing i may not finish learning well after my mission! On an upside, I was able to not only receive but to give a blessing to help out our missionary duties. One of the hermanas had asked me to give her a blessing and it was quite an experience. One I hope to feel many more times in my mission! Later that night I started to first understood why it is important to love your companion, and that even though they may get on your nerves, there a relationship that is much stronger than any pet peeves.

On Tuesday there was a missionary fireside broadcaster from the provo MTC (I saw Alec Sipple like three times on the screen) and in that fireside I wrote down two spiritual notes that I would like to share. The first being, in anything you do, have the pride in your lives to be able to speak to others and to look in their eyes with a knowledge of the spirit and the gospel. Second, that God will meet you halfway in all you do, but that doesn't mean He will do it for you, you have to work for what you want! 

To conclude with the series of events, I was able to go through the temple in Mexico city and it was so beautiful, almost as gorgeous as the San Diego temple! 

On a more temporal note, thanks to my Mother, I have the strongest desire to have a clean room, and to make sure everything is kempt and clean: I have actually gone off on my roommate about leaving socks on the floor. I feel like a mini you, and also, thought the food here is alright, I'm missing on all the home cooked meals and not mexican food forever! I thought I liked mexican food, but then i realized if I had any food everyday it might start to seem plain. I can say that I have been eating some interesting things down here like pigs soup and other fruits i didn't know existed. Also I have never been so exited to do my laundry before everything here gets so dirty so fast. 

I miss home very much but I am glad to be out serving in Mexico soon to be Chile. It is an experience here that I would not be able to have anywhere else and I know that it will just grow the longer I'm out. I find myself taking things more seriously, which i assume most will be grateful for, and I am beginning to have a greater love in my life for my family, friends, and the Lord. Thank you for all of your support and love, till next week.

Buenos Noches, y gracias por todo, con amor,

Elder Siaosi

A picture, of what it looks like outside of the CCM, my district, the gorgeous temple, and the preflight to Mexico. I'll have much more next time, but we can only use our camera's on Prep Days!

Looks like we made it!

November 6, 4:05pm 

Hey! Just arrived to the mtc in mexico and it is absolutely gorgeous! One thing about Mexico city is that it is the second largest city in the world and in so there is a lot of ghetto and the people look like they are struggling. But once we passed in the mtc here it is absolutely amazing! There were many people on my flight to Mexico from Arizona, and I sat next to missionaries. There are guys from LA and Hunnington! There is even a guy here named Elder Joe who is in the same mission as me! Crazy huh. Well so far I`ve gotten my name badge and place to live but other than that I am still going to get it all. In such i must go now since I still have much to do before the days over. Love you all and I miss you already! Oh on a side note, my Spanish is actually better than >I thought it would be so that's a plus! For now, Adios! Hablar luego!

Elder Siaosi

Goodbye Elder Siaosi!

What a Fortune!

      It was a good fortune to get a few months before the mission!

The mission call!

Hey everyone! It's the day before I leave and I'm prep'ing my blog before I leave so everyone can see the life I have in service of the Lord in Chile! As Josh Collin's once told me "what's fun, unless everyone can see." I hope to have a swell time and make y'all proud! As of now I'm going to be located in the MTC in Mexico city with the address which should be to the left of this post!  You can send letters/packages there if you want, or you can email me at jacob.siaosi@myldsmail.net . I believe I will only be able to email once a week so the replies may be slow! But most appreciated will I be for the messages!

There is also a website which I'm fairly new to called DearElder.com. Just a one-time registration, then enter the name of the mission and then the missionary and type away. DE prints them and sends them to the Church pouch system every Monday, so Sunday night is the deadline each week. Seems easy enough!

Also a word to anyone reading this, has most likely affected my life for the greater, and I thank yo so much for all you've done. Been a friend and mentor to me, keeping me comforted, and just being there for me in times of need. Thank you for just loving me for who I am and making me into the man I am today! I miss you all so much and hope to converse with you sometime in the future. Love you all and can't wait to serve! See y'all in two!