The Gift of Tongues was Definitely In Play Friday

August 13, 2012

To start off I just want to say that I have gotten all of your letters that you have sent since the 29th of July. I also have gotten the packages that you sent. That was really nice. Thank-you! We get mail every Wednesday in District class.

I'm going to answer all of your questions first from last week and then with the time I have left, I'm going to tell you about the highlights of my week. I'm just going to print off your letter for the week that you send me via email and then read it when I get back to the house. I will then plan to answer all of your questions in my next weeks email.

1. The church in Renca is beautiful. Renca's a pretty poor place in Chile and then all of a sudden you see a nice church. Last weeks attendance at church was 95 people.

2. We buy food at a place called aCuenta. It's like a King Soopers or Albertsons.

aCuenta in Renca, Chile

3. The imported foods cost a little bit more than the US. For instance a box of Frosted Flakes costs about 4.30 or so. Lays potato chips costs just over 2 dollars. Cost depends on the different kinds of food and what you want to buy.

4. Hna Pino does our laundry for us. She is so awesome! She's like my mom here! haha

5. There are 8 people including me in our District.

6. There are about 16 people in our Zone.

7. The food is pretty good. Some food is nasty but thats alright, I try everything.  I've tried empanadas, sopopillas, panita (cow liver.. interesting) and then we have a ton of rice and chicken.

Chilean Sopopilla

Chilean-style sopopillas are delicious fried rounds of pumpkin-spiced dough drenched in a brown sugar syrup. They make a delicious fall breakfast or afternoon snack. Sopopillas are traditionally eaten on rainy winter days in Chile.

Panita (Cow liver!)

8. We work a lot with Inactives and trying to find new Investigators.  We have a key indicator for our mission that says that we need to do 10 Permanecers (visiting Inactives) per week.

9. There are no Hermanas in our District.

10. We can play hoops on P-day but I haven't played yet.  Right now I'm downtown sight seeing and it's really cool.

11. I  told Pres Essig about Chanse´s dad and he said that he served with him for a long time in Logan and that he's a great person.

Highlights of the week..

On Monday night, we had a great Family Night at the Caballero´s home (I actually took a picture with this family, but I forgot to bring my cord with me downtown so I could download the pictures for this week.. so sorry about that.  If we have time when we get back to Renca, I will use that time to send pictures and finish up emails). During the Family Night, Victor and Amauri (two of our Investigators) came. They are brothers. We watched a little clip about the woman with the living water when Jesus talked about eternal life. They liked the lesson. After the lesson, I tried my first empanada! It was great! (cheese and shrimp). I even took the leftovers and ate them the next day!

Cheese and Shrimp Empanada!

Chileans love to eat empanadas. They eat empanadas for a quick lunch, at asados (BBQ cook-outs) during holiday fiestas (celebrations), and in their homes. It is one of the few foods in Chile that, according to polite society, one may properly eat with his hands. These delicious turnovers are filled with various kinds of cheese, meats and seafood, sometimes fried and other times baked.

On Tuesday, Elder Weigel and I taught the Toloza Castro family.  This was their second time visiting with us. We taught them the Restoration.  They were very interested and Hernardo, the dad, was really into it.  We extended a baptism date of September 2nd and they accepted! I'm excited to work with this family and see their progression to baptism. Hopefully they stick with it!  Tuesday night, we had another great Family Night with the Toro family. They are great members in our ward. They invited two of their neighbors to come over for Family Night to watch ´Como hallar fe en Cristo'.

"Como hallar fe en Cristo" (Finding Faith in Christ)

One of the neighbors was really interseted and we left them both with folletos (pamphlets) about the Restoration of the Church. We have since passed by one of the neighbors houses, but they weren't home.

Spanish Restoration Pamphlet

Wednesday, we taught a bunch of lessons and had some good visits.  We tried to visited Guillermo but he wasn't able to listen to our message because he had to work the night shift and was sleeping when we stopped by.  We ended up sharing a message with his wife and daughter who are Inactives.  We left Guillermo's wife with a plan to try and stop smoking which included some ideas on a piece of paper to go over.  We were also able to visit Victor, Amauri, and Claudia (spouse of Amauri, who's an Inactive member). They are always intrigued with our lessons. The problem with Amauri and Claudia is that they are not married. Amauri actually went to get an hour (appointment) for them to get married after we had a few lessons with them. They told Amauri he couldn't have an marriage appointment since he doesn't have a work contract! It was horrible.  So now we are really trying to help him find a job so that he can get the contract, get married and can then get baptized.  We taught Amauri and Claudia all of Lesson 3 and they were really receptive. We commited Victor to another baptismal date of Sept 9th. (In this mission you have to go to church 3 times before you can get baptized and Victor didn't go three times before his other baptism date, so we had to change it to the 9th of Sept).

 Thursday Elder Weigel and I worked a lot with Inactives and visited a few future Investigators. One of them is named Reuben. He loves to talk and is really involved in the Catholic church. It will be hard to get him to crack, but Elder Weigel and I will try our hardest!

 On Friday we had an Intercambio. This is where you work with a different missionary in your District for the day either in your sector or his. Elder Barnes came to my sector and I had the responsibility to direct my sector after only being here for a week and a half... it was crazy! Elder Barnes didn't come with a map of the sector so I was pretty much on my own trying to find my way to our appointments. Elder Barnes has only been here 6 weeks longer than I have, so it was a little tough, but it was great for us.  The gift of tongues was definitely in play that day!  We visited the Taloza Castro family again and watched the Restoration video with them. 

Spanish Restoration Video

They liked it a lot and I commited them to keep reading the Book of Mormon and to come to church on Sunday. We spent the rest of the day contacting a lot of people and knocking on a lot of doors. No one has a doorbell here, so if you want someone to come out of their house, you yell, "Halo!" (pronounced like hello with an "a" like hallo).

I don't have any more time. I will finish next week.. Love you all!

Tan