First Cambio in the Mission Field!

Can`t believe it is already time for another week to begin! Today was the first exchanges, luckily for me, I get to stay in Quillon. After having a few mini cambios, I have begun to realize how blessed a town Quillon is. It is the calmest area in Chile! En serio! The people are so laxed, and will honestly give their all. We had one family cook us lunch, which remember is a big meal here, and later that day we found out that the family had no more food for the next day because they used it all to feed us. So we managed to muster up some pesos and buy/cook food and surprise them. It was so amazing, we had a noche de hogar (family home evening) and we realized how blessed we are to have each other, and we are meant to bear anothers burdens. Anyways, me and my comp are staying, though he got promoted to big time District leader so I get to travel much more for interviews and such!

Already, so this past week was fairly decent. We have had a lot of member present lessons which is very important in our work, and one Hermano Lopez has been wanted to work with us a lot since he doesn`t have much else to do. The best part about him accompaning us is that he has a CAR! Thus, we have been trying to reach out to those menos activos in the country, like way far out. And those lessons are actually very promising! Two times we went out to visit them and they were working so we helped them so that they had extra time, like we grabbed the eggs in the chicken´s coops and we picked tomatoes and such. Oh and for those of you who don`t like tomatoes, we have them with absolutely every meal, I have started to really like them. Instead of having salad like we know it in the USA, they have tomatoes! And usually only tomatoes! One members house was along this dirt road that took us 3 hours to get to (we didn´t know where it was except for ¨it`s the house and the end of the road¨) and when we arrived they lived in the really old looking wood house and outside was a mini coup, and inside they had the new ps4 and a freaking huge flat screen haha! Anyways they came to church, and so did his 3 beautiful daughters! On the way back we contacted someone very interesting. He knew a little ingles, had read the Libro de Mormon (he likes to read and a friends gave it to him) and he has never met the missionaries!, the only issue, he lives in the campos.

Been giving a lot of blessings for the sick, one man, who was not even a member had heard that the missionaries were able to give blessings of the sick, so he asked us to give one to his son. It went great, and hopefully will lead to the water. So another time we were walking just contacting some houses in the campos, we found this giant hand looking thing, which from what my comp thinks, some crazy guy carved it, named luci. Which when I asked luci who...he said luci fer....so who knows ahah.

IT RAINED! One day it rained, the last Thursday, and it poured for about 5 hours in the morning, and then when it stopped the sky cleared and is hasn't rained since! It was so odd, is was freezing that day it rained and then next is was super hot. One thing I am grateful for, every night the sky is clear and I can see the stars as I go to bed. All I know, is it passes all my understanding. 

Lastly, my week concluded by my companion and I eating at a menos activo house, she is fairly old and is very sweet and dear to us. Well as missionaries it is a rule for us not to eat mariscos, which are clams. Well she made soup with mariscos. All I know is we ate them gladly without saying a word. Sometimes it is hard to tell what is wrong and what is right. While trying to be cien por ciento obedient, I feel sometimes the rules can be adjusted. But I know this that through having faith in the Lord, and following by odendience,you will find peace and rest in your life. As in Moroni 7:3--  

 3 Wherefore, I would speak unto you that are of the ^achurch, that are the ^bpeaceable followers of Christ, and that have obtained a sufficient ^chope by which ye can enter into the ^drest of the Lord, from this time henceforth until ye shall rest with him in heaven.

As missionaries people are put into our path, and have been prepared for us, but we are disobedient, leaving late,spend to much time in lessons, or other obstacles, we fall off that path that has been layed before us. How can we expect God to let thing fall into our lives if we are not where he drops them? 

Hope all is well. May Dois Bendice nos con salud y sus bendciones. Be ready to recieve them, for they are there.

ConAmor, 

Elder Siaosi

Faith is a hope for things which are true, and hope is a power beyond all imagination

What the crazy week! Lets see, started out with another mini cambio with Elder Trancoso again, he loves the cambios I guess, so we´ve had a few(3). It was a sweet experience. One thing about the people of Chile, you never know if they are able to be taught. The HARDEST part about the work here is that about 80 percent of the time people are either not ready to be taught (not home, or too busy to be taught) or they never take things in, as a serious matter, they talk fast, and talk a lot about nothing, straight up nada haha. Half our conversations talk about how freaking hot it is! Buen pe, we did have one lesson with a super progressive family of 5, and we taught the 10 Mandamientos, and the Palabra de Sabiduría. After they agreed to follow both laws, my companion (Trancoso) said, well then, do you have anything that goes against these laws, and she said she had coffee, and so he said bring me your coffee. And she was a little taken back, and then he asked again if she was ready to follow all of God´s commandments, and if so bring me your coffee, and then he stood up and we went with her into the kitchen and had her get her coffee and I put it in my backpack! So sick! One thing I have begun to notice is that the days go by super slow but the weeks are fast, and another Elder who has been out 11 months told me that soon the weeks will be super slow, and the months are fast! One bad thing about the cambio, I think they have straight up poisonous plants around their house! But at least the rash went away! One thing I have realized, we as missionaries walk for miles, have aches and pains, get disappointed, and have a fear for every lesson and contact. That is what it is all about though, because for that one baptism, I´d have it no other way!

Had a little fit with my companion this week, we use bikes sometimes, and as a rule, we need helmets, so he made me buy one, and he would get one later since the store only had one. Well he never bought one and we went on using them for about two weeks. Then one day he told me we were not going to use bikes anymore, and I got a little frustrated because I had to buy a helmet (they are not cheap) and he told me we needed helmets so we can´t use them anymore, WHAT THE HECK, but oh well, it was just an hour of bad attitudes, but one thing I realized, it was not worth it, nothing went well, and as Rep. of JC himself, I was not being my best. We got over it after a while, and things are back to normal. If there is any place to change yourself, it would be during the mission, so why not change for the better.

Well we finally have someone with a baptism date, but she was not able to make it to church this Sunday, even though she said would. And so my companion and I waited for her outside of the church, and when it was time for La Santa Cena, the Usher would not open the door for us because they just started the song for the Sacrament, and so we didn´t get any, which I was disappointed but not to bothered about it, AND THEN the next hour we had a meeting with the stake president telling us how we were bad examples for the young people in the ward, and how we have bad planning (which we walked 20 minutes to the investigators house and she was not there so we left to get another investigator, and then 10 minutes before church she called us and said she was walking over), and how we are missionaries of the Lord and need to be the example for the ward! But I guess all we can do is just try to be better, and represent the Lord better.

OH! So we had this super sweet fundraiser for the jovens to be able to pay for EFY, and it was a big tournament for fútbol and we had food and drinks to buy and it was an all out great experience. The missionaries made it to the Finals and lost to these super scrubby guys :P But after this sweet activity for the Branch, my companion and I were walking back to our casa and we saw an accident! It was a hit and run, this white truck rammed a blue van at a cross section and both went straight into this concrete casa no one lives in! And the truck reversed and then hauled. Well my comp and I ran over, there were two people in the van, both were conscious, but the driver had her leg pinned to the door and her arm was broken, but nothing fatal so that was good. That was a crazy night!

Almost time for my first real cambio(which we have every 6 weeks) I do not think I will be moved or have a new comp since I am still being trained but who knows. I feel like as soon as I get the Spanish down I will be PRO! Teaching people is not that hard for me to do, I know what people need to hear and be taught, this I have been trained in, and my companion is a great teacher as well. Hopefully by the next cambio I shall have the language in the bags! Hope everyone at home is heathly and well. I am doing great. One thought for all at home: It is a Mormon message about why sometimes God lets us go down the Wrong Roads in this life. For all those who feel like they are have problems and doubts about their lives.

Les Amo, and wish you well, 

Elder Siaosi

                 A little of the glory of Chile in Quillon. The sunset is smoke, not clouds!

The weeks fly by, but the days are oh so Long!

Hola Hola!

Fairly busy week, not much time to email this week! Got a meeting in the big city! Had a great birthday! Had a random meeting with the Zone in Chillan (hour out so it is a hassle) and we had a normal class like on tuesdays but after Elder Clawson pulled out this cake for me and the whole zone sung Feliz Cumple! Also we had lunch at a members house whose birthday was the same as mine so we shared regalos! BTW thanks again for that awesome package for the birthday! This week I went on a mini cambio, which is when you go on splits for a day with another person in your zone, which happens to be an hour drive for me, and that was quite fun, we were both greens, but he is from Chile so at least we had that!  All is well with me, hope for the same at home! Love everyone and wish you well!

One good spiritual story!

We were at a members house and I was supposed to give the spiritual thought but I was not quite sure what to say so I was flipping through the scritptures, it didn't help it was in Spanish! And I stopped at a verse I had no idea what it said and I just looked through it. I announced that I wanted to read Mosiah 4:9 and then attempted to read it In english it reads:

 9 Believe in ^aGod; believe that he is, and that he ^bcreated all things, both in heaven

 and in earth; believe that he has all^cwisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not ^dcomprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend. 

After I finished, Hermano Lopez (the member) starting crying, he began to tell us about his wife, about how she had died two months ago, and that everyday he pondered about God, and how his sorrow and how much he missed her. And that this scripture was exactly what he needed to hear. M companion started to tell me about how before his wife died he visited them and was prompted to share Alma 40:11, he didn`t know what it said until he read it. It is a very touching scripture about our souls after the pass, look it up if you have the time! Hope to touch those with the Spirit! If I stay ready to teach I won`t have to get ready right!

Love everyone, hope to write much more next week! 

Elder Siaosi

Learning how to make the most  famous food down here! Sopaipillas! They are just fried biscuits and the people down here basically eat everything with them down here! And the other, is this sweet old gothic catholic building we attended a meeting in (it was a Catholic meeting). While on the mini cambio, a investigator said he would go to our church if we went to his!

The Craziness in Chile

This past week has just been full of radness! So New Years here is a HUGE thing and everyone parties till the sun comes up, the problm is that we as missionaries are supposed to go bed at 11:30, but we may or may not have been in bed awake till the new year. But how can you sleep when there are people screaming outside and giant speakers in the area counting down the time, seriously every twently minutes he would scream a time, and at 10 minutes he just counted down haha, and at 12 sharp there were screams all around, one odd thing though, it is illegal to have fireworks in our area, mainly because they lead to fires. And speaking of fires there is always a fire going on somewhere, not so much in our town, but way into the distance you can see the smoke from the forest fires, good thing there is nothing but dirt where I live! But back to Año Nuevo, the problem was the next day, because everyone was either sleeping, gone somewhere, or taking it easy at their homes so we contacted for hours and got like 4 people, and no one was able to have lessons so we just tried to find things to do!

After New Years there was a Conference for all the new missionaries in Concepcion and it lasted two days. We had classes with the Mission Presidency and then went on Splits with the missionaries in Concepcion. It was real neat, I found out that people speak completely different Spanish where I live and in the city! So I am in the campo part wich is just the country and everyone has a slur, when I went on a splits into concepcion the city I was able to understand them! It was a really good experience to go on a split because my new comp spoke english and so he was able to teach me some cool things about the mission that I would need to know, and what to look out for, and we have some sweet lessons with the city folk. One thing I do like better about my area, no one has much to do and in such everyone wants to talk, in the city everyone has somewhere to go or is too busy to stop to talk to you!

After we finished that, we returned to Quillon and camped it for the night. The next few days we worked and worked and where able to get 4 new investigators, hopefully we can keep teaching them and they accept our message and feel the Spirit! The language is coming little by little and hopefully I can understand even the people with no teeth and mumble as well! 

Thanks for the package and the gifts! I already opened the box and put everything in order, all that is left is the letter itself, I can wait a few days for that. So far my favorite thing in the box, besides the food, was the picture that I believe Curtis drew, I loved it so much! I was going to mount it on the wall, but I just keep it in my journal. Thank you so much for the package again, I can´t believe I am almost 20 haha, but if you look at it like I will only be in Chile for one more birthday it doesn´t seem that long huh! Well, let me tell you one thing that you will probably be shocked about. So after the year had ended my zone had achieved its goal for baptisms and in such we got to go PAINTBALLING haha, who would have thought! Plus we got all decked out, and it was burning hot, in army gear and went all out haha! Best Birthday party event ever for being out on the mission! 

Miss you all at home, I came to the mission at a odd time where everyone was fiesta-ing but now the work begins! Hope to make everyone proud, especially God yah! Love everyone and wish you well!

Elder Siaosi