Nov 25 - enfermito

hola familia y amigos,

this week was a lot of fun, but it was a little rough because Elder Muñoz was a little sick. Elder Muñoz had a fever and was caughing a lot.

we spent a lot of this week trying to find people. because Lucas and Felipe got baptized we no longer have investigators that are progressing, so we are hitting the streets.

we came across an hermana this week whose husband is a member of the church, but he hasn´t gone to church in a very long time. they are named Francisca and Ariel. we have passed by many times for their house because they were a referral that we received from a member in our ward. they didn´t really want us to come into the house before but this week we found francisca walking in the street and she said that she needed a service this next week. we passed by her house the next day to coordinate the service project and share a quick message. they were  both taken aback when we said we didn´t require recompense for the service. we told them that we are here to serve them and help them with their relationship with Christ. they were really surprised that we were so dedicated to serve them.

that same day we were following up on a contact in the street. I had one address written and my companion had another. we stopped by the address of my companion. we contacted the joven that answered the door, and we asked him if we could share a message with him about Jesus Christ. he said yes, and we came in! Manuel was his name, and he was super awesome. it turned out that the contact who gave us his address lied, because the address number that I had didn´t exist and he didn´t live with Manuel. it was a bummer that the contact lied to us, but we found Manuel and he was awesome.

on Saturday we were searching for menos activos in our sector and we found a man named Washington Jimenez. he is a lawer here in Santiago, and he is super nice. we knocked on his door, and he immediatly said, "come on in". that is a sign of menos activos. he shared with us that he saw some things in the church that he didn´t like, so he stopped coming. it is something that we here a lot in the church. our job as missionaries is to remind these people the reason why they went to church in the first place. the reason is: without the proper ordinances performed by the priesthood authority of god, which is only found in the LDS church, a person cannot receive eternal life. Washington was really friendly and we are excited to work with him more.

this Saturday Lucila Palma went to the temple to do baptisms! we were so pumped. she went with a young single adult from the ward. we couldn't find a third adult man to go with us, so we couldn't go to the temple with her, but she told us she really enjoyed it, and now she is working with a sister in the ward to prepare the names of her mother and other family for the temple.

I hope you all have an amazing thanksgiving this week. I am so thankful for all of your prayers, letters, and packages that really do help me. I want to give a special shout out to my Mom and Dad who have been such a great help to me. Thanks Mom, thanks Dad.

Love,

Elder Williams

P.S. another quick shout out. word on the street is that Bothell High School football is cleaning up. keep it up cougs.

Nov 17 - Lucas y Felipe

hola familia y amigos.

This week was a lot of fun, and it was a lot of work too.

on saturday we had two service projects in the morning. we had to prepare a house for painting and then we had to go to another house and paint a living room.

I really want to focus this email on what happened on Sunday because it was an awesome day. we had stake conference this week so we had to get up extra early to go to the stake center to attend the priesthood meeting. we ran into a problem in the morning because we couldn´t find Elder Muñoz´s glasses. we searched everywhere in the house. while he was in the shower, I said a prayer that I could find them. right after the prayer finished, a thought came into my mind to check behind the curtain. I had already checked there and it would be highly unlikely that his glasses would have passed through or over the curtain, but I still checked. as I looked a little bit more in depth than the first time, I found them.

we then went to stake conference. it was awesome because the temple president of the santiago temple was there and he gave a talk about the importance of temple work to reactivate church members and insure that recent converts stay in the church. it is so true. this week Lucila got her temple recommend and is planning on going to do baptisms this next week. Luis and Carolina have already done them, and are now going on a regular basis.

another miracle that happened was that the water heater for the baptismal font wasn´t working. we grabbed a member from the stake who is a handy man to help us work on it. we were there for an hour trying to figure it out and nothing happened. we decided to say a prayer, and when we finished the member moved a valve just a little bit, and tried again and the water heater started to work. it was awesome to see two miracles about prayer happen in the same day.

after stake conference we saw the baptisms of Lucas and Felipe. Luis did all of the baptisms and he might get to do the confirmations because this sunday Luis received the Melchezidek priesthood. Felipe was really happy. when he had the chance to share his feelings about his baptism to the congregation he said that he was "thankful to God for a new life". Lucas thanked his mother, sister,and brother in law for all that they did, and for the first time in his life, according to his mother, took his sister by the hand. it is amazing to see how much that family has changed.

Felipe gave me a big bear hug after his baptism. Felipe and his father Victor do karate, and Felipe is really strong. every time I shake his hand he squeezes as hard as he can and I can honestly say that he has the potential to break my hand. Felipe is a goofy guy, but after his baptism he was so reverent and so happy.

later that night we taught a new man named rodrigo. he was a contact in the street about 2 weeks ago that we found again in the street. when we talked with him this week he told us that he had been waiting for us. we had set an appointment with him, and we had went last week but we found a business where he said his house was (it happens to us a lot when people lie to us). it turns out that there was a hidden house next door where he lives, so we stopped by yesterday to teach him. he told us that he feels lonely and that he wants to rekindle his faith in Christ. We told him that the gospel of Jesus Christ is here to help him.

I want to give my testimony to all of those who feel alone, depressed, or feel that their faith is dwindling. I know that Christ is our Savior. I know that he has provided a way in which we can combat the trials in this life with His help, power, and love. there are many ways in this life to dull our pains, but Christ is trying to communicate by means of his servants, like me, that the only way to find peace and salvation, eternal life and hope, is through the gospel of Jesus Christ. this gospel as been restored perfectly by a prophet of God. this gospel is found within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. if you want to know if it is true, come unto Christ, exercise your faith, and start to learn it, then live it, and I promise you will love it.

Love,

Elder Williams

Nov 10 - Elder Nelson

hola familia y amigos.

this week was awesome!!!!!!!

lets start with a sad story first, and then I will tell the awesome cool things. on Tuesday, Elder Muñoz and I were walking in the street talking with a lot of people and they really weren´t that interesting. nothing was happening, and we were on our way to lunch when we decided that we would talk with a man that was waiting in a nearby doorway. we talked with him. he said his name was Mario he was 28 years old and super awesome. he let us come in and we shared a quick message with him, we said a short prayer, and we set up another day to come by. he was really nice and interested in what we had to say. about 30 minutes later after the lesson we had with him we were waiting for our lunch which was pushed back a little bit, and we saw Mario biking towards us. he got off of his bike and with a frantic look said "Elderes I have been looking for you guys for the past 30 mintues" we thought he was going to say "I read what you left me and I want to get baptized" or "come to my house right now I want to learn more". instead he said " I talked with my dad, and he doesn´t like you guys, so could you please not pass by our house again?" that was a little bit of a bummer, but asi es la mision

yesterday we had a conference with Elder Nelson. it was so awesome. he talked about the importance of using the guide to the scriptures, (which doesn´t exist in english) he and his wife also taught the importance of knowing who we were before we came here to the earth. we have to know that we were valiant as spirits before we came to this earth, and that we did many great things before we came here. there is power in knowing that we did great things before we came to earth because our ideas of what we are capable of increase. Elder Muñoz and some other missionaries performed a musical number and it was really awesome! We were sitting in the front row and Elder Nelson was right in front of us. its a good idea to have connections with the musicians entonces.

Guess who I ran into at the Elder Nelson Conference! (Hermana Todesco - from Woodinville)

this Sunday something awesome happened. my first week in the mission I met a man named Santiago. he is 60 years old and from Peru. I have knocked on his door 10 times and talked with him many times and I have never been able to share the gospel with him. this Sunday he came to church with us! we stopped by in the morning and he and his wife came to church with us. it was cool to see that after 5 months of nothing that all of our door knocking paid off. we had a lesson with him yesterday and he told us that he felt really good in the church and that he wants to go every week. he had a lot of questions about the bible that we helped him answered and he said to us that "I just want to find the church where God wants me to go". 

today our preparation day we went to the park. there is a huge park in our sector that is closed monday, but our pday was changed to tuesday so we got to go. 

we talked with a lot of people this week, and got a lot of doors slammed in our faces, but we are doing well, and we are happy!

Love,

Elder williams

Nov 3 - Temple

hola familia y amigos!

this week was interesting. we weren´t able to spend a ton of time in the sector, but we still had a lot of fun and a lot of the spirit.

this week was cambios and I am staying here in Quinta Normal with Elder Muñoz. I will be completing 6 months in my ward and 4.5 months with elder Muñoz at the end of this cambio. Im growing up so fast!

this week I had to do some identification stuff. I had to go and wait in a lot of lines and receive stamps and papers so I can stay here in Chile legally. it was cool to visit a different part of Santiago to do it. it was really funny to be in the large waiting rooms (similar to the DMV) and see hundreds of bolivians, peruanos, and argentinians. I saw a couple of gringos, and there was a silent recognition between us that was like "hey we are from the same country".

We were also out of the sector because my companion is practicing for his musical number with elder Nelson that is coming next week. just a heads up, I think they are going to change our pday to tuesday next week, but Im not 100% sure.

BIG NEWS! Luis y Carolina went to the temple and did Baptisms!! it was the best! they went with our ward mission leader, and Carolina said it was the greatest experience of her life. she said she really felt the spirit during her baptism, and felt it even greater for the people that she was serving in the temple! Im so pumped for them.

the other day we were teaching Felipe, and we were talking about tithing. when we finished talking about it, we asked him if after his baptism he would pay tithing. he said "if it is a commandment of God, I will do it". that got me so pumped to be a missionary. here is a young man that in completely changing his life because he has faith in Jesus Christ. Felipe is one of my heroes.

Lucas and his mom Ivonne are doing well. we have almost finished teaching Lucas what he needs to hear before his baptism, and now we want to focus more on growing his testimony. its amazing how much the simple things help. read the scriptures, pray, and go to church, and you´ll be ok, your testimony will be strenghtened, and the spirit will be with you.

I know this church is true. I know that it is Gods kingdom on the earth, and I want to serve my Savior for the rest of my life.

Love,

Elder Williams

Felipe la lleva

hola familia y amigos,

I hope you guys are excited for Halloween this week, because I dont know if Halloween exists here, but I´ll keep you posted.

this week we started off with a little service. this little turned into big service, because we didn´t know what we were getting ourselves in to. one of our investigators, Bridget, asked us to paint her ceiling. we thought "oh we just have to roll it with paint a couple of times and we´ll be good". we were wrong. we had to prep it first because there was some water dammage, and then we had to move all of her furniture, and use sand paper to scrape away old paint, so we were covered with dust.

we had a lot of lessons with Felipe this week. Felipe is the bomb. Felipe comes from a rough background. his mother and father abandoned him, and he now lives with his father who adopted him. he struggled in the past with alcohol and drugs, but is trying to turn his life around. he talks about how he wants his body to feel less "toxic". its a great privilege as a missionary to testify that through the atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ, he can be cleansed from the mistakes that he has made in his past. he is reading his scriptures, and he always has great questions about what he has read.

on Wednesday we used the cookie mix that I got from my package to make cookies for the Chandia family. they really like them, and they told us that they had stopped by the house of their neighbor every day to invite him to a family home evening, but he was never in the house. that was a little bummer. we are also doing this thing in elders quorum where we give a book of mormon to the other guys there, and they get to give it to a friend, and then the following week, they get to gift the book to another member of the quorum so they can share the book of mormon with one of their friends. this week the man who was sharing his experience about gifting the book of Mormon shared about how he offered it to his friend, and his friend refused it, and wouldn´t evern let him explain about the book. the quorum was a little bummed about the story, but its great to know that the members here are still willing to work with the missionaries.

On Saturday, Lucas invited us to a little family get together for his birthday. we arrived and the family was making completos. it was nice to spend time with his family, and also share the gospel with them afterwords. both Lucas and his mother Ivonne went to church this sunday which is so awesome! its the best to see people in church!

Yesterday we had a lesson with one of our newer investigators. Laura is a very religious woman who loves to study the bible. she is married and has a son who is 2 years old. Laura loves to study the bible and has studied in the past with Jehovas witness, but when we knocked on her door she said, "I dont know anything about the Mormons". we had already taught a lesson with her, and yesterday we stopped by to follow up on her reading. she told us that she was reading the bible, and that she read a scripture that says that if an angel preaches a different gospel, it is not of God. the message of the restoration and how Jospeh Smith saw angels was something that she took to be as false. she told us that she felt like we were not of God. In this moment I was extremely thankful for the book of Mormon. the book of Mormon is the evidence of the restoration of the gospel through the prophet Joseph Smith. We told Laura that in order for her to know if this is the same gospel that Christ taught, and if Joseph Smith really is a prophet of God, she needs to read the book of Mormon, and ask God to know if it is true.

I am so thankful to be here in Chile as a missionary. there are many difficult times here, but there are so many precious moments when people are touched by the spirit, and they change. I am changing everyday here, and it hurts, but I love it because I know that Christ is making me better than I once was.

love,

Elder Williams