Hello from Vicente Valdez!

Hello everyone!

  Here I am fully adjusted to life in my new area, my new comp, etc. I'll give a brief account of what it's like here and how the weeks been and stuff.
  So my new sector is pretty cool. It's a pretty nice sector. The ward is really cool too, and there's a good amount of people that are in the ward. It's also kinda big though, so that's not too fun walking around everywheere all day and stuff and you all know how bad I am with directions, so you can imagine how I'm doing getting used to my sector haha. But I'm trying.
  Our investigators are doing good. We have quite a few actually, pretty much teaching all day every day. We haven't had much time to knock, which is ok by me cuz I'm not a big fan of knocking haha. But our investigators are cool. I am still working on figuring out who's who though, but it's all good. We have some that have some good potential of getting baptized this change so that'll be cool.
  Things are going really well with my new comp too. Like I said he's elder Evans, and he's from the Sacramento area. A place called Yuba city I think. He's cool and we have fun and we get a lot done too so that's really good. A funny fact is that he knows how to hypnotize haha.
  But the week was good, I'm getting used to everyone, the new sector, teaching with my new comp and stuff, but the next weeks email will be more descriptive for sure.
  Some other random things. I'm super excited for conference this next week. What a blessing it is to listen to Gods chosen servants on the earth. It's crazy to think that that's what they are, prophet and apostles, and that they are really here and we can listen to them twice a year, but it's so cool! Theres no doubt in my mind that these men are called of God and receive the revelation from Him and we receive it. So yeah, I'm excited for that.
  A VERY FUNNY COINCIDENCE. so on Saturday I was in lunch with a family from the ward. Their daughter was there and her fiancee came in and started talking to us. He saw my name and he's like hey, I know an Elder Mayberry, but I've already heard that before in this ward apparently there was another Elder Mayberry a few years back, so I asked him how long ago he was here and he said, " no, I met one in Concepcion".......HAHAHAHAH. I asked where and he said Talca. Indeed where Ryan was at the time. THATS CRAZY!!! It was super funny. He's like oooohhhh, thats why you guys look so much alike haha. Turns out he's the Mission Presidents son of Ryans mission. How crazy is that? And he was only in Talca for one day while his dad did interviews and thats where he met Ryan. Oh man this world is small. But I'm sure you'll all get a kick out of that story.
  Ahh yes. I guess I'm looking forward to my birthday. Its weird. Ill be 20. Thats old. I'm looking forward to making my cake and we're gonna go out to a restaurant to celebrate next Monday.
  But yeah. I love the mission and my new ward and everything. Hopefully I get adjusted here in the next week or so haha. But I love you all and keep the emails coming and everything. Thanks for all the birthday wishes too :D Love you all and stay safe! You're always in my prayers.

Love,
Elder Aaron Mayberry

Elder Mayberry leaves El Valle!

So yeah, last night was changes and.................I left El Valle. More about that all later. I'll talk abou the rest of the week first.

  Not too exciting of week really. Wow, side note, this keyboard is really not working too well,. so if there's mistakes I apologize beforehand. Like the ridiculous amount of spaces at the beginning of this paragraph, I clicked the space bar once. It has a mind of its own, apparently...
  So yeah, the week was just kinda allí no mas, just an average week. Nothing too terribly exciting happened. We have some really cool investigtors though, well, Elder Frost has some pretty cool ones- haha. Cecilia came to church and is still good for getting baptized the 28th, so that's super cool. It's been really cool to seen her progress ever since Juan Joses baptism way back at the end of December.
  Theres a SUPER cool family that we're teaching, Erika (pretty sure I've wrote about her before), her two kids Constanza and Matrin, and her other son Jonathan and his girlfriend Natalia. They're really one of the coolest families in Chile that I've met. They are gonna get baptized, there's no doubt in my mind. Erika finally came to church on Sunday after investigating for a looooooong time , so that was a relief. We also gave Erika and Natalia a tour of the church and they both loved it a lot. So they are some of the best investigators we have (had).
  The other people we had were just kinda between progressing and not progressing, so there's not much we can do with them.
  Sunday I gave a talk in church, which I still hate doing haha. It went well though I think. I wasn't as nervous as I usually get.
  But yeah, that was basically all the excitement of the week, and then came cambios. bum bum bum. The call came last night and the other 3 elders from El Valle are staying and I left. Needless to say I was pretty disappointed. I wanted to stay in El Valle for another change , to see Cecilia get baptized, and see the other cool investigators progress. And cuz I love the ward and the people in it. But that's not where the Lord needs me at the moment. He needs me in Vicente Valdez, in the Stake La Florida.
  So last night I did all my bags and all that fun stuff (which is the worst part of changes by far), got to bed, then we woke up and went to the place where we met and listened to president talk for a bit, then got our new comps and areas. My new comp is....Elder Evans. Now, this is a different Elder Evans than the one I already had haha, but they got here at the same time. My last three comps all got on the mission at the same time haha. But this Elder Evans, was actually my zone leader in my first zone of Puente Alto, so I already know him. He also was the trainer of my MTC comp Elder Erickson. But yeah, here we are in Vicente Valdez, which is a legendary ward amongst the mission. Everyone says its paradise, cuz the ward works super well together, helps the missionaries, and all that good stuff. So thats super cool. I'm very excited. Sad to leave El Valle, but ready to see new things. So I'm excited for this coming change.
  Yup. Asi es la mision. Super glad to be here. I love the mission, I really do. Church is true. I shall let you all know how this first week goes here in Vicente Valdez in one week! Love you all! Chao!

Love,
Elder Aaron Mayberry

Another good week.

  This week wasn't a terribly exciting one. Nothing big happened, just some big aftershocks, a little cold, and some new investigators.

  So yeah, big news from the week. Tuesday night I felt like I was getting sick, and Wednesday morning, sure enough, I wake up sick. Ugh. I hate being sick. But I'm all better now pretty much. Just had a little cold.
  Thursday, at like 11:30, there was a big aftershock, like a 7 or something, and then a little later around 12 there was another but a little smaller. Kinda exciting, but definitely not even close to what happened a few weeks ago. We didn't even like worry about these ones haha. It felt like the house was barely shaking.
  And some good news, we found some really cool new investigators! I was on divisions with elder Skinner, a really cool guy, and we found this Peruvian lady, taught her a couple principles from the first lesson then set up a return appointment for the following day (Saturday). We went by Saturday and taught her all of lesson one, the restoration. She liked it. She said she'd read from the book of Mormon and pray, and also said she'd go to church the following day. So in church, at 10 when the meeting started, we had no investigators. Ugh. But then a few minutes go by and Andrea, our new investigator, walks in and loved it. She stayed for all 3 hours, which is really good for the first time for an investigator. In the investigator class, we talked about prayer and how one could pray to find out if the church is true and stuff, and then out of nowhere, Andrea says, yeah I woke up early today, at 7 to read the part of the B of M that they gave me, and while I read it I felt just a huge happiness inside......Wooooo! Haha, needless to say elder Frost and I were grinning ear to ear. So we`ll see what happens with her in these next coming weeks. But she's really good.
  Our other investigators are struggling to progress. We have such cool investigators though, they just need to do their part and read and pray and stuff. Cecilia didn't come to church this week, so her baptism got postponed til the 28th, ugh. But its still good cuz she`ll still get baptized.
  And that was our week. Nothing terribly exciting. A dog followed us from our sector to our house, a 35 minute walk haha. Oh yeah, and changes are coming up this Sunday.... So we'll see what happens. Cuz I'd love to stay and see a bunch of people get Baptized next change, but I've already been here for 4.5 months, so we'll see what happens.
  Yup. Love you all and I'll let you know what happens next week! Take care!
Elder Aaron Mayberry

Seven months in the mission.

Well, this week I have turned seven months in the mission. That seems kinda old already haha. Still got a ways to go, but man its flown by already.

  This week was not near as exciting as Ryan's week haha. Santiago was relatively undamaged from the earthquake, so we have just been doing normal missionary stuff like always.
  On Monday we had a big devotional as a mission. It was really cool. Definitely was a big testimony builder about this work, how it's all guided by the Lord, and revelation. So yeah, about two weeks before the earthquake hit, we all got a flyer from the mission about what to do in an earthquake and how to be prepared. Coincidence? Nope. We found out that a little bit before, the mission presidents wife woke up in the middle of the night because she felt that there was going to be an earthquake here in Chile. She mentioned it to some of the office elders, and two of them had dreams that the same thing would occur. So they put the flyer, sent it out, and then we were hit by an earthquake. Isn't that crazy? The Lords hand is definitely in this work, and it's such a cool thing to know. President then shared a scripture in Luke 21:11 and 13. Basically says that there will be earthquakes in diverse places, and they will be opportunities to testify. So the focus for us was obviously to testify to people about the work and stuff, and that they would be prepared because the Lord had humbled them. Another cool scripture we've been sharing lately. It's in Helaman, don't remember where, but it says that the Lord gives us disasters, hunger, and all that good stuff, so that the people remember him. And it's really true. Now more than ever people think about religion in their lives. Everything happens for a reason.
  The rest of the week was kinda allí no mas. Like just kinda average. Nothing terribly exciting happened. Except for on Friday we got a baptismal date for Cecilia, Juan Joses mom! It was a really cool lesson. Juan is such an amazing kid. He bore testimony for us and asked his mom if she would get baptized and she said yeah. So she now has a date for the 21st of the month. So that's exciting. We're gonna be doing a lot of knocking doors this week to find new people, cuz the ones we have aren't really progressing too well.
  And yesterday was pretty cool too. We had stake conference, but it was a special one. It was via satellite from Utah and it was for like 40 stakes in Chile. And we got to hear from Elder Bednar from the twelve and from President Monson, so it was cool. Juan Jose, his mom Cecilia, and his sister Aimara went too. So that was cool. They said they liked it a lot.
  And yeah, theres been like 50 bajillion aftershocks here. Its stupid. Sometimes when we're sleeping one of us will move and it moves the whole bed (bunkbed) and we get scared cuz we think its another earthquake haha
  Other than that, the work goes on like normal. It'll be exciting to see what all happens from here on out. The church is TRUE, without a doubt. Love you all and thank you for all your prayers and concerns and stuff. I'm just fine though, so no need to worry. Love you all tons.

Elder Aaron Mayberry
P.S. My earthquake pictures are not as exciting as ryans.

1. The wall with all the graffitt on it, the part that fell down.

2. Wall to a school that fell

3. Basically the extent of the damage everywhere here, a wall that fell down around the house.

 

4. My official chilean ID.

Surviving the 8.8 Quake!

2-27-2010
  Hey everyone, just letting you know that I'm doing fine, no problems at all. Twas crazy and stuff but I'm good! If we get permission to call I'll call you in a bit. I'd love to know if you've heard from Ryan though. Love you all. I'm good! Dont worry at all. Talk to you Monday!

3-1-2010.
  Yeah, so this was a pretty boring week, so I don't have much to write about. Sorry it'll be a short letter.....Oh wait. I guess you guys heard about a little earthquake we had here in Chile. I guess I should talk about that haha. : )

  So yeah. GIGANTIC EARTHQUAKE. I'm gonna write a big description of everything in the email so don't worry. I'll start from the beginning.
  So we go to bed Friday night at 11:30 pm like normal. At 3:34 we were awaken by a shaking house. Oh yeah, so you know, we live on the third floor of an apartment building, just imagine it being high up haha. So I wake up, and feel the bed shaking. I'm on the top bunk and I asked Elder Frost if he was feeling it too. He said yeah so I figured it was an earthquake. It started off pretty calm, just a little shaking, so I jumped off the bed and got into the doorway. And as soon as I got there, the shaking got harder. And then it started shaking harder and harder and HARDER. I can't even tell you what it was like. It was insane. The noise was so loud, the walls were shaking ridiculously hard. My thoughts were the following: Without even thinking I said a prayer, then came the thoughts of panic. It seriously felt like the walls were falling down. I thought for sure the building was coming down, and there was nothing we could do on the third floor. It was too hard to move because everything was shaking. I remember thinking at one point, because it really felt like it, that the building was collapsing. I have never feared for my life, but in this moment I really did. It was pretty darn scary. And it didn't help that at one point a man outside started screaming. I thought, oh man, that guy is dying, we´re all dead - haha. Then the shaking got even more intense. The earthquake itself lasted for like a minute and a half or something, with a majority of it super hard shaking. But then it ended. Finally. We all 4 Elders threw on shirts, shoes, grabbed phones and keys and RAN outside. I was expecting to see pure destruction outside, like buildings on the floor and everything. But there wasn't any of that when we got outside. Just lots of hysterical Chileans. Funny thing, we looked outside before we went downstairs and all you could see was lots of lit cigarettes. That's the first thing the Chileans did, smoke. I thought it was pretty funny.
  Anyway, we get outside and sit out there for a bit, like until 6am when we feel its safe to go back inside. We get back in, inspect the damage, then attempt to go to sleep. But at like 7:00 or 7:30 there was an aftershock and we all jumped out of bed and RAN outside so fast. We then were outside for a while, playing uno, eating snacks, then went back inside. Then we really inspected what had happened to the building, pension and stuff. In the pension, there was just a big mess. Stuff was on the floor, but not too much was broken. Only a mirror, a mug and a picture of Elder Frosts' (which was of dragonball z haha). In the pension, theres some cracks in the walls, nothing too major. On the outisde of the buildings there's some damage, like cracks and stuff, but nothing like the buildings are gonna come down.
  We then got a call from our leaders and they told us to go out and work in our sectors in street clothes and offer service to people that need it. So that's what we did. Actually first we ate lunch. We had no power, water or gas, so we couldn't do anything. So we went to a little store and bought bread, ham and cheese and ate sandwiches. At the store was a television and we got to see exactly what happened everywhere, the damage and all that good stuff. Anyway, we went back, ate, and then left to the sector.
  Going to the sector we expected to see a lot more damage and stuff but surprisingly nothing happened in our sector. The only damage there was some walls that were around houses fell down and also that big wall with all the graffitt on it. Some of that wall fell down, so that's disappointing. But we went and visited all our investigators and the members houses to see if everything was all good. And it was so, that was good. All our investigators worried about us, haha. Every single one of them said, oh we worried a lot about you Elders all alone and stuff. It was funny, cuz they all said it, haha. But yeah, thats how we spent our day the day of the gigantic ridiculous earthquake.
  And Sunday, we were still out of water and power so we couldn't shower, but the other Elders invited us to their bishops house to shower. Then we had church, with 50 people, then went to lunch and had a normal day. Theres been like 50 billion aftershocks though. Like every 15 minutes and stuff. But yeah, here we are.
  And that was the earthquake. Not much else to share because everything else is not exciting in comparison. Our investigators are doing ok, no big developments or anything, and we´ll see what happens now that the earthquake hit. But yeah, I survived! It was scary but here I am. Not something I'd like to relive though. But thanks for all your prayers and stuff. I love you all and hope youre all doing good!
I'm gonna send a different email with some pictures and stuff.
Love,
Elder Aaron Mayberry