Earthquake news. Aaron is ok !

Hey everyone, just letting you know that im doing fine, no problems at all. Twas crazy and stuff but im good! If we get permission to call ill call you in a bit. Id love to know if youve heard from ryan though. Love you all. Im good! Dont worry at all. Talk to you monday!

Bueno!

Hello everyone. Another week gone by here in good ole Santiago.

  So I shall start off at the beginning of the week. Well, not really. Cuz nothing too terribly exciting happend at all this week haha. So I'll just skip around and say anything that happened. Tuesday I did divisions with Elder Maxfield, the newest Elder in the sector. He got here with me on the mission. It went well. Im glad I took Spanish before the mission, you can really see a difference between him an I, so I am grateful that I did that haha. Hes an alright guy though. He's different from me Elder Frost and Elder Devitry though, we´re all like goofy and do stupid things but he's very serious about everything. But oh well, people are different.
  What else happened in the week. I forgot to take notes, so that's not good haha. But really, nothing too exciting happened. We did a sector slam (when all the missionaries in a zone, go to one of the sectors to work for a couple hours) and knocked for a couple hours and got rejected by everyone...I suppose that's exciting. Not really haha.
  Anyway, Ill just start talking about the investigators' progress. They're doing better. Maria Jose, the flaite girl smokes. We've been trying to help her stop smoking for like a month but she wasn't progressing. Out of nowhere though, she said that she got the willpower to actually do it and the other day she only smoked one and a half cigarettes as opposed to 20. So that's really cool. She seems a lot happier as she's doing it. So hopefully she keeps going til shes done. Juan Jose's family is doing ok. Cecilia, his mom, is progressing. She's like just about to accept to be baptized, she just neds a little bit more. She's already said that she knows that everything we've taught is true, but she says that baptism is a very serious thing and that she wants to be super ready. So we just need a little more time with her. I think she'll have a date by the end of the week. Hopfully she can get baptized before they move though. Juan Jose is one of my favorite people here in Chile. He LOVES us. He's already talking about serving a mission and stuff, and he's only 11. He wants to come to the States. I told him if he does I'll go look for him to say hi - haha. But yeah, I love seeing the changes that this gospel makes in peoples lives for the better. Did I tell you about Ricardo? The 31 year old guy that doesn't smoke or drink or do drugs? I think I did. Well we taught him again finally and we learned that he is a super cool guy. Like one of the best people I've seen here. In his spare time he helps kids do the right things in life. He organizes soccer teams so that they can stay on a good path in life, gets mad when they say bad words, then invites all the kids in the neighborhood to go over to his house and have some drinks and play playstation 3. That's unheard of by the way, that he has a playstation 3. He's the first person I've seen. They're like double or triple the price here, all electronics are super expensive. But yeah, hopefully he progresses more.
  Disappointing thing was Sunday though, when only one investigator (Maria Jose) came to church when we were supposed to have like 7 or 8. But life goes on. Hopefully we can get a lot of teaching done this next week.
  Today for P-Day we went and played soccer with another zone and I'm super tired. I'm just not in shape to run. But I still held my own, so that's good. Then you know what we had for lunch? Dominoes! Man it was delicious. We had pepperoni and chorizo, which is basically like hot dog pieces. It was super good.
  Oh yeah, we went to that one guys house from the Stake again. Hermano Moya. He lives in the are that looks like the united states. And his daugters speak Spanish. It was cool and we had an amazing lunch. Steak and mashed potatoes.

  And that's all I got for this week. The weather is cooling down a little bit, so that's good. I found a bunch of good ties in the feria the other day for super cheap so that's really good. And the mission is really cool. I love it. The church is true. Love you all and I'll talk to you again next week!

Oh yeah, here's some more pictures.

1.Soapaipillas, a typical fried thing you buy from street vendors-tasty

2. Juan jose made us soapaipillas in the shapes of our names

3. Me and rustys long lost cousin

4. Rustys long lost cousin with big ears

Wena Wena!

Hello everyone and happy Valentines day! I had a pretty interesting week. Nothing too exciting in terms of investigators or progress : (    But other things that happened were pretty interesting haha.

  So in the beginning of the week. Nothing happened haha. But Wednesday we had a pretty funny lunch that's worth noting. At lunch was a 97 year old woman, one of the oldest people I've seen in Chile, but the weird thing was that she was in very good health. She walked with a cane that's all. And she was hard of hearing so the family basically yelled at her the whole time, haha. But she was really funny cuz she messed with us, like she hit one of the elders and told him to hit the next one, like passing it along. Later she tried hitting Elder Frost with her cane as a joke. It was just funny cuz she was old and still liked to have a good time. Hopefully I'm like that...
  Then Friday came. FRIDAY OF DEATH. So I wake up Friday morning to go play ping pong (there's a park with a table next to our house). We 4 were gonna go, but I didn't feel too good. I told the other Elder who was waiting for me that I didn't think I'd be able to go cuz my stomach was hurting. Sure enough, 15 mintues later, there I was in the bathroom throwing up. And I felt really good after so I thought it was over with. Nope. Every hour and 15 mintutes, like clockwork, I was back in the bathroom throwing up. This lasted til like 3 and then I was just exhausted and laid down in my bed and slept til 9. Before, I slept in between the throwing up sessions, but not too well. One of those times I was sleeping I was interrupted by an earthquake haha. That was cool. But yeah, at 9 I get out of bed, feeling decent, walk around the pension a bit and find Elder Frost cleaning. He tells me, I sure hope you didn't drink out of this container, there was mold in it.......I had. I made kool aid the night before and drank like half the pitcher, but didnt realize that the stuff in the container was mold. I am so stupid haha. So basically it was self inflicted misery for Friday. Way to go Elder Mayberry....
  But Saturday SOO made up for it. So Elder Frost in one of his sectors became friends with some of the members, and one of these families was getting sealed and invited him, so, being his comp, I gotta go to the sealing too! It was basically one of the most amazing experiences ever. The spirit was so strong it was incredible. Just confirms to me that this gospel is really true, and it's impossible to deny. When we were there you could really truly feel that their marriage was going to last forever, and not just in this life. It was also really cool because I was reminded of when we got sealed as a family. What an incredible experience. Church is true.
  Ok in terms of investigators, basically it's really slow. No one's making any great progress. We really need to work hard with them right now so they progress and we also need to try really hard to find new people. So me and Elder Frost will be tryng a lot to do that this week. Hopefully we get some kind of success, I shall be sure to let you all know how it goes.
  But yeah, thats all for this week. Thanks for all the support and love and prayers and everything. It really means a lot. Hope you all have a great week and I'll talk to you again soon! Oh, I'm gonna attach some pictures :)
Elder Aaron Mayberry


1. Funny sign in Lider (Go usa!)

2. TEMPLO

Change # 4!!

Yup, Here I am starting cambio number 4, having 6 months in the mission already. How crazy. Time sure does fly here in the mission.

  I´ll start off with the thing everyone wants to know, cambios. Me and Elder Frost are staying together here in El Valle, so we´re happy about that. First time where I'm not switching comps, haha. But that's a good thing cuz I have a good comp. Sad news is that Elder Sáenz, everyones favorite mexicano got switched out of the ward, but we were expecting that cuz he's spent the whole mission here (6 months) and that's a really long time to be in one place in this mission. But yah, so not too many changes. I'm happy that I'm in El Valle again.
  So this week was a pretty boring/interesting one at the same time.
  So we actually got our carnets this week, hallelujah. It was a long day with a lot of waiting in lines, but we finally got it done. I should receive it in the mail in a couple weeks and I'll take a photo of it and send it to you guys.
  This week I did a lot of divisions with Elder Saenz, cuz our companions were sick a lot. So we worked together Wednesday Thursday and Friday and it went well. He's a really cool guy and it's fun to talk only spanish.
  In terms of investigators, things are doing alright. We still have our normal investigators, Maria Jose, Juan Jose´s family, and a couple others. Not too many interesting developments with them though. We just have to keep going with them so that they can get baptismal dates. Some of them are pretty close. We also need to start working on finding some new ones.
  An interesting thing. Juan Jose and his family is gonna move! They said they're gonna move at the end of the month, which is very disappointing, but I know that Juan and his grandma will keep going to church, we just need to help his mom and sister to do so also. I'm afraid that if they leave that they'll stop progressing when they get over in the south. We´ll see what happens with that though. Something cool is that I'll be able to write Juan cuz he´ll be outside the mission so I'll be able to email him and make sure he's doing good and stuff. But other than that, no new developments in terms of investigators.
   So that was the week, roughly boring and no new excitement here in El Valle . I'm glad to be staying here through another change though, because we should see some big progress with lots of our investigators, and some will be returning from vacations, so it should be a good change. The last one ended kinda roughly but this one should make up for it. Sorry theres not too much to say this week.
  Oh, so an interesting thing I learned how to do in my free time this week was how to solve a Rubiks Cube haha. The things you learn on the mission :)
   Well that's it for this week, love you all and you're in my thoughts and prayers. Church is true!

Love,
Elder Aaron Mayberry

I'm six months old this week!

Wow it's crazy that this month I will be turning 6 months in the mission. That means a quarter of it is already done. My how time flies...

  Well this week was, yet again, hard.....Our sector is kinda in a drought at the moment, for us and also the other Elders in the sector. So that isn't too fun. Well I'll start off with the progress of our investigators. The flaites are doing ok. At the moment the only one thats progressing is Maria Jose and her boyfriend Juan, whose already a member. But they have been steadily improving. We watched some of the animated book of mormon stories with them and they loved them and kept them for a day and watched all 12 that were on the disc, so that was cool. We really just need to get past the big two obstacles with them at the moment, so we´re gonna start focusing on that. First we´re gonna set a goal to stop smoking, and then with time a date to get married if that's what they decide they wanna do. But they're doing good.
  Juan Jose and his family is also improving. His mom has a lot of interest and stuff. And her sister is listening too when we´re there teaching. They just need to pray and receive an answer that it's all true. We've been talking a lot about baptism with them and how its important and necessary and they understand it, they just wanna be sure about it. Like I said, they lack the answer to the prayer. But that'll come.
  And that's basically all the investigators we have at the moment that are progressing. We´ve been trying to find some new ones to teach but it's been really hard and we´ve had very little success. We do have one prospective person though. His name is Ricardo. He´s 31 but looks like he's in his mid 20s. He doesn't smoke, drink or do drugs, and that's why he looks so young. We have a lesson with him set up for Wednesday, so that should be a good one. But yeah, thats all we got at the moment. Its been rough.

Other things during the week....
  So in chile the ID card they used is called a carnet. And we as missionaries need to get a carnet for foreigners, which we get at like around 6 months. So on Friday me and Elder Frost went to get it. Elder Frost has to renew his because it has already expired after a year. But yeah, so we woke up bright and early at 5 to leave by 6 and get to the church offices by 7. We got there on time then the lady told us where to go and we left and got to the big visa office place and waited in a big line and got a number. After waiting like 15minutes a voice comes over the intercom and says that the system is broken and that it will be fixed in three to four hours......So we called the lady in the office and she said to just go back there and we´d have to do it another day....So we wasted lots of time haha and have to do it all over again on Wednesday. That should be fun...
  Hmmm, yeah it was a boring week so I don't have much to talk about, I'm sorry.
  OH. I remembered something that happened. So me and Elder Frost were walking home along the big graffitti wall on the way back to the pension one night. As we´re walking we see a black dog in the street barking at a bunch of dogs behind a fence. A bus turns around the corner. The dogs continue barking and the black one keeps standing there. I realize what was about to happen, and sure enough, it happened. I see it unfold in front of my eyes (we were like 10 feet from the dog), and I turn my head when it was gonna happen and THUD THUD followed by dog yelps which slowly stopped.....Oh man, it was intense. But yeah, witnessed my first dog getting hit by a car here in Chile, and I'm sure there's more to come. But it wasn't that fun, I wouldn't recommend it. But one of the more interesting things that happened in the week.
  But yeah, that was basically the week here in El Valle. Nothing too exciting. But it's all good. The work is great and I love it. The next time you'll hear from me, there will have been cambios, so that'll be exciting. Well, til next time!

Love,
Elder Aaron Mayberry