Monday, January 25, 2010

What a week!

  Yeah, this week has been a very interesting one. One of the harder more stressful ones since I got here in Chile. I´ll elaborate, don't worry. Just lots of stuff going on recently that has made the work hard. But it wasn't all too bad, there was some good parts of the week.

  So lets see, to start of the week. Things were ok at the beginning of the week. Except Monday night we got a call from one of the missionaries in the office and he had a favor to ask of us. He said that the MTC here in Chile wanted some Elders from the mission to take out some of their missionaries into the field for a day so they could practice. So on Tuesday we had to do that. We had to go all the way to the church offices here then pick up the Elders, then go back to our sectors to work. I was with an Elder named Elder Ortiz, from Viña del Mar here in Chile. All of the missionaries that came with us were going to Colombia but their flights and stuff got delayed so they had to stay at the MTC a little longer so this is why we had to do this in the first place. Hopefully you can understand haha. But yeah, it was ok with him. A little different. Made me wonder if I made the same rookie mistakes when I got here to the field-HA. But yeah, then we had to go take them back at 9, a lot earlier than we normally go in. So then we had to do this on Wednesday and Thursday as well... not too fun. But it was a good experience and everything.
  Ok, now to the bad news. Well, the stuff before was kinda bad news haha, but now to the real bad news. Our investigators. Its not like BAD news, just that it's been difficult with them as of late.
  I´ll start with the flaites. They are doing ok as of now. They kinda started heading downhill at the end of the week. We were teaching them and they've been having relationship issues and stuff and began to talk about that when we were there. Stuff came up and they both said they weren't gonna come to an activity we had on Saturday. Oh yeah, earlier in the week Maria Jose promised to stop smoking, which she is working on. But Juan kept saying that Maria Jose was having lots of doubts and stuff and that it was hard with her. But they both did come to the activity and we watched a movie called finding faith in Christ, and when it ended Maria Jose was crying and said that she felt a really good feeling in her chest that she had never felt before and Juan went on describing to her that it was the spirit and that it was telling her that this is where she needs to be and what she needs to be doing. So looks like we still have some hope with the flaites after all.
  Erika, Constanza, and Martin..... Well during the week Elder Frost went over there with one of the MTC kids and almost put baptismal dates on all of them, and her other son Johnathan and his wife Natalia (who had listened to us like twice). He said it was really good but they just need a little more time. So we go by yesterday and Erika comes out and tells us that they're going on vacation.....til March.....OYE. Also in the conversation she said how she knows the church is true, they're just a little scared of changing. So that is very VERY frustrating. Some of our best investigators leave for a whole month. Hopefully I'm here next change to see them progress.
  Juan Jose is still a stud. The other day we went to the AMM, the church distribution place here and bought a new triple combination for Juan and a hymn book and he was very happy to receive those. We had a good lesson with him, his mom and his sister yesterday and they are progressing good.
  And that's all of our investigators at the moment. Also in the field of bad news...Gina. Shes a recent convert that got baptized the last sunday before I got here. So like a little less than three months ago. Shes now going downhill. She says she's sick of the church and we passed by and she started smoking again.....Ugh. It's just so stressful here when youre preoccupied with all the people and their salvation and stuff. But this is the Mission.
  So yeah, that's basically what's happened so far this week and stuff. Today is just gonna be a boring p-day in the pension, but those are always good. We made hamburger helper for lunch today :D So hopefully this next week will be a better one. Love you all and the church is true!

Elder Aaron Maybery

Monday, January 18, 2010

Flaites!!

Hello everyone! It has been an ok week. But some good stuff has happened.

In terms of investigators, we have a few. Lemme start off with the "flaites."
   So yeah, Juan, María Jose, Matias. They are all doing super good. They have been progressing a ton. They read and pray all the time and asked if they could start reading the book of Mormon from the beginning. Of course! we said haha. We talk a lot about the palabra de sabiduría (word of wisdom...its hard to remember these names in english) and they are gonna stop smoking. That'll be one of the harder things they do. But they're super good and really want to. Remember how I said that Matias also has his girlfriend living there with him? She came to church with them on Sunday! Twas so cool. I didn't know if she was gonna come but she did and hopefully she liked it. We shall find out tonight when we have our lesson with them. But yeah, thats the flaites. They are probably our best investigators as of right now. They're gonna get baptized, it'll just take a little bit of time because they have to stop smoking and then we have to work on the law of chastity stuff. But its all good, they're amazing.
  Remember Juan Jose? The 11 year old that got baptized like 3 weeks ago. Well he´s basically AMAZING. He is a person that was prepared and so ready to receive this gospel, its crazy. Like 2 weeks ago we asked him if he wanted to start reading the book of Mormon from the start and he said yeah. Last time we checked, he's halfway done with the book! Hes crazy! And only 11. He is gonna be an amazing missionary. And he's already talked about wanting to go in 8 years. He's so cool. But now we´re teaching his sister again, and his mom has also joined in. And they seem good. Like the mom seems pretty excited about the gospel and stuff, so we might see some more good things come out of the family. Unfortunately only the sister came to church on Sunday, cuz the mom had to vote, but its good. At least she came haha.
  Oh yeah, so the second round of voting for the president was yesterday, and now the president here in Chile is named Sebastián Piñera. Apparently hes FILTHY rich. Like he owns, LAN Chile, one of the airlines here, and also Colo Colo, one of the main two soccer teams here in Chile. But yeah, so that's exciting, a new president.
   Some sad news, so remember how I said I was gonna go to the Temple? Didn't happen....At the last minute, one of the other guys going called the assistants to ask permission and they said no, and he asked if he could just do divisions with my companion and they said that's fine. So I didn't end up going. But it's ok. I had a pretty fun time on divisions haha. Me and Elder Zarate, from Peru, got yelled at by an old lady. But like YELLED at. She came outside and before I could say anything she was yelling at us and saying tons of bad words and telling us to go back to our countries. It was hilarious. You just can't get mad when something like that happens.
   Hmmm, what else happened this week. Nothing really. Today we went and played soccer as a zone and that was a ton of fun, but I'm super tired. My legs hurt too. I haven't ran in a while haha. But yeah, that was the week. Hopefully the next one is good too, with lots of progress in our investigators.

Love you all and youre always in my prayers. Til next week!
Elder Aaron Mayberry

Monday, January 11, 2010

Hello everyone, its me again.
   So yeah, this week was fairly boring. In terms of trying to find people and teach our investigators lessons, we didn't do so well. Some went out of town, others just weren't home, you know, the life of a basic missionary. So that's not too fun. But it was actually a successful week, and I shall talk about why.
   Let me update you on some old investigators right now. Ok, so Juan Jose got confirmed this week, so that's always good when that happens. Oh, Juan Jose's sister, Aimara, lost interest and isn't listening to us anymore :(   Life goes on. Do you remember María Zuñiga? The SUPER old stubborn lady? We had two lessons with her this week and we had to drop her/she said she didn't wanna listen anymore. So that was sad. But I kinda saw that coming. She said that she had never received a response to her prayers, but really she didn't wanna listen because she was afraid of changing. She said that after 75 years of life following tradition in her other church that it would be too hard to change. So she said to not go by anymore. But it's ok, we did all we could with her. She used her agency to choose to not to listen to us, nothing more we could've done. Anyway, remember Erika, Constanza, y Martín? I dunno I ever wrote about them. But we´ve been teaching them for a while, me and Elder Evans did but they went out of town and now we restarted teaching them and they are good. They say they have testimonies and believe that it's all true, now they just have to go to church and can be baptized! So hopefully in 3 weeks or so they'll get baptized. And Alexis. It's been hard with him. He now is working two jobs so we can't really teach him in the week anymore. So yeah. But he still keeps reading and that stuff so he´s still good. I have faith that he´ll get baptised, but it'll just take a little more time. And those are all of our old investigators and what's going on with them.
   Now to tell you about the new people we´re teaching. It's pretty funny. I´ll start last Saturday, when we first contacted them. Ok, so we do the contact, and after we´re like eh, maybe we´ll pass by them if we have time some day. It seemed just like a not good contact. It was a young girl, like in her 20s, and said to come by another day. So we went by another day, and her brother, a big Chilean full of tatoos and smoking came out and we asked if we could come inside to say a prayer, and he let us in....not what we were expecting. So then we talked to that girl again and said the prayer and asked if we could come back. She said yeah, and that her boyfriend would be there and he likes to talk about God. So we came back and he was there. His name is Juan. María Jose´s brother, Matías also lives in the house, with his girlfriend, Mary. María Jose is 22, Juan is 25, Matías is 19 and Mary is 22. And they're all super flaite as they say here. Likened to the US it'd be like gangster, but different a little. Like from the street. I dunno, theyre just flaite haha. With tattoos and all that good stuff. But the lesson went really well. And I mean REALLY well. They were all super interesteed. Except for Mary, who didn't listen. And it evern turns out that Juan was baptized a long time ago, but went inactive when his parents separated. And he still remembers his baptism, who baptized him, how he felt, and still knows lots of the stuff he learned when he was younger, so he´s been helping us to teach a lot haha. Who would've known that these young kids are all investigating the church now. So we´ve been passing by them a lot. They always have lots of questions, and good ones too, and always read the stuff we give them and all pray too. They've each said a prayer while we´ve been there. They're all super eager to keep learning and listening to us, its crazy. Me and Elder Frost still are shocked at who we´re teaching haha. I'll try to get a picture sometime. But yeah, so we invited them to come to church and we said we´d come by in the morning to look for them, and when we passed by in the morning, they were already ready to go haha. Mary didn't go, but the other three did! And they liked it a lot I'm pretty sure. They were interested, asked questions, felt good, and even stayed all 3 hours. So cool! The gospel blesses everyone, even the flaite Chileans. So it's a cool testimony builder. And the last time we went by, it was just Matías and his girlfriend Mary, who actually listened to us, so it looks like she´ll start being there normally now haha. So cool. We still have a lot to go with them, especially in the areas of Word of wisdom and law of chastity, the two they break frequently (all three smoke and the pairs aren't married), but we´ll get past those. They are super cool. So those are our new investigators, the flaites.
  So yeah, that was our week. Twas alright. We´re teaching some cool people though, and that definitly makes all the hard stuff worth it, when you see this gospel bless their lives.
  Haha, so tomorrow is Elder Frosts birthday, so for p-day we went to tgi fridays! Me, Elder Frosts, Elder Saenz and Devitry, and a couple other elders came. Elder Evans came! twas cool to see him. So that was fun. I attached a picture.
  Also exciting news, tomorrow I shall be going through the temple for the first time here in chile! Elder Frost got invited by a member in his ward before to go through when they do for the first time, so that means I get to come too! Should be super cool, and confusing, cuz it'll be in Spanish, but it'll be good.
  So yeah, that's all for now. Hope all is going well with you all. Love you all and pray for you all daily.
Love,
Elder Aaron Mayberry


Monday, January 4, 2010

Happy new year to you all, and here's to a good 2010!

Yup.

   First week down of this new change. It has been good. Actually, not too good at all. Pretty hard. Let me elaborate a little.
   So this week was new years. Really nothing too exciting happened. Except that EVERY single one of our investigators went out of town haha. Which made the work this week sloooooow and difficult and we had to try to do a lot of finding of new people, which is good and bad at times. Anyway, starting with the beginning of the week...
   Tuesday. We had a super cool lesson with Juan Jose and his grandma. Remeber how I said that his family was now interested? Yup. We got to teach his sister, Aimara on Tuesday and it was really good. We taught her lesson one and she seemed interested and it seemed like she understood too, which is good. Juan and his grandma were there to help us out, which was cool. Investigators seem to like it better if normal people are there to help teach, not just two weird gringos dressed up in funny clothes all day. But yea, that was a good lesson. Fast forward a few hours and we were in the chapel that night, and guess who was there? Aimara, and her mom! We had no idea why or how she knew, but she was at young womans- haha. That made us SUPER happy to see. Turns out she was there to get an interview to see if she could go to the young womans campout activity thing. And she is gonna go. That will be really really good for her, to make friends in the church and be able to talk to them and ask them questions and stuff. So that was a really nice little surprise.
   But then the rest of the week was basically really stupid haha. We only got to teach investigators one more time, and that was Aimara again. We watched the restoration movie for a family home evening. That went well. She said that what we had explained earlier was now easier to understand and clearer.
   So yeah. The rest of the week was super boring. And I mean REALLY REALLY boring. Since all our investigators were out of town, all we could really do was pass by less actives and recent converts or knock doors to find new people. We did a combination of the three, which was ok. But we tried to have our fun. Elder Frost is a really funny guy. And he likes to talk to EVERYONE. Especially the stupid kids that yell "HELLO" at us. He turns it around on them and goes and talks to them and speaks to them in English and eventually we talk to them in spanish and ask why they wanted to talk to us, which of course was no reason at all. They just think its funny to yell at the gringos. But it leads to some funny conversations. Especially with the groups of drunk people. Elder Frost also likes to make friends with the Chilean youth of our age group- (haha). And it's funny cuz they actually like talking to us, cuz we´re gringos and they wanna know why we´re here. We always get offered beer or cigarettes, because that is what everyone does here. But it's fun to just talk to the Chileans. On Friday we talked to this group of 20-25 year olds as they were doing a barbeque and they told us to come back for some meat later, and we surprised them when we actually did - haha. They were really excited to see us and were yelling "Hello!" "You came!" "UTAH!!!" haha. So they gave us some meat and we left cuz we had real work to do. Twas pretty funny.
   But knocking doors and stuff got us some pretty cool contacts to go by this week and the next, so hopefully those go well. I feel like they will.
   So new years...BORING. It was just a normal day, fireworks are illegal here, and the only place that they can use them is designated areas (like the stadium, they have a show there), and of course our window faces the opposite way of all the places. So we looked outside at midnight and saw nothing, heard a few things, and that was it. Not a very exciting new years haha. But oh well, I'm in Chile, and that's pretty cool.
   Hmm, I'm trying to think of what else happened. Nothing. That was our week though, pretty boring and uneventful. But good nonetheless. It's always good when you're doing missionary work. Hopefully this next week we´ll see lots of progress with our investigators and hopefully we´ll see some baptismal dates for these next coming weeks.
Happy new year to you all, and here's to a good 2010!

Love,
Elder Aaron Mayberry
P.S. I´ve attached a picture of me and elder frost, and a picture of the ugliest dog I've ever seen in real life.

Elder Frost. Elder Mayberry


Ugliest dog I've ever seen in real life.