November 16, 2015 - Nix the Hicks

Hola familia y amigos,

Well, the transfers were announced Thursday night, and they told Elder Hicks and I that we are both staying in Cerro Colorado. We got a call on Sunday afternoon though from the assistants to tell us that Elder Hicks got transferred! This morning we went to the mission office, and Elder Hicks took off to another sector, and now I am with Elder Fasshauer from Lima Peru in Cerro Colorado. We were kind of bummed because Elder Fasshauer and Elder Hicks were on their last change, and they both got transferred to a new sector where they don't know anyone. Oh well. Elder Fasshauer is really nice, and he isn't looking trunky, so we are going to be able to work hard his last change

I left my old agenda and journal in the house, so I´ll try my best to remember what happened this week. 

N and K, a part member family, had their oldest son baptized this Sunday. We have been working a lot with them so k gets baptized, but she still needs some more time. Their son, Benjamin, is 8 years old, so it is a ward baptism, but he wanted Elder Hicks to baptize him. We told him that usually other members do it, and that he should pick someone else, but he wanted elder Hicks to do it. Yesterday was his baptism, and we had some investigators that came to see, so it turned out really well.

We found an awesome family that is really religious. they let us come in and they were really receptive to the message. It was nice to find them after a week of not finding anyone. We´ll see how it goes with them.

We are still working with R and P. They weren't able to come to church this week, and because of the baptism, we couldn't visit them yesterday, but we are planning on passing by with a member to visit them this weekend.

We found another new person named P. He was very formal. He was very impressed because we arrived with shined shoes, and exactly at 11:00. Just goes to show that the little things count. he really likes serving the community, but he lives alone. We hope that he understands that the best thing to help his fellow men is the gospel, and we hope that the members will help us out with visiting him.

I'm still walking around a little lost here in the sector so it is going to be fun to open this sector with Elder Fasshauer.

Just want to end with my testimony about repentance and prayer. I always heard leaders and people in church talking about daily repentance. I understand how it works now. I repent everyday as I set goals to become more like Christ, and I track my progress when I study the scriptures and pray to God every night. there is nothing more beautiful to me than repentance, and I am so grateful for God´s plan that has given us the conditions of repentance of man in this state of probation. I am thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ who lets me be cleansed from my sins.

gracias por todo,

Elder Williams

November 10, 2015 - Play Ball!

buenas tardes todos,

Sorry for writing today instead of yesterday. Every 6 weeks, our P-day changes to Tuesday so we can go to the temple. The temple was closed today so we played baseball instead.

Elder Hicks and Elder Williams playing baseball!

This week was a ton of work. We walked and talked and prayed and preached a ton. 

On Tuesday, we got to teach M and F. They are recent converts from Haiti, so I got to use my Haitian skills from Quilicura. That night we also got to teach N and K. K is not a member and N is getting reactive in the Church after a while outside of it. They have a son named Benjamin who is 8 and is getting baptized this week, and they have two little identical twin girls who are both one year old. We helped K focus on asking God what He thinks she should do instead of her following some of her associates that are putting doubts into her head.

On Wednesday, I got to go to my first district class in 6 months.It was fun to see everyone. I didn't recognize too many missionaries, but Elder Huarca is in my zone, so I got to catch up with him a little bit! That was fun. Elder Hicks gave an awesome class about not setting low expectations for ourselves. It was awesome!

District Class

On Thursday, we met with a less active sister named R. Elder Hicks had been visiting her a while to help her come back to Church. We gave her everything we got. Scriptures, prayers, phone calls, a member to pick her up, and she still didn't come to Church...no!!!!! that's just the way it is sometimes in the Lord´s vineyard. We also taught an investigator named P. She hasn't been going to Church but she has read until 2 Nephi in the Book of Mormon. We gave her a blessing of health and she said that she felt really good afterwords, and that might be the answer she was looking for. We got to reiterate that this week, when we teach her with a member present.

On Friday, I got to go on my first interchange in 6 months, so that was fun. I went with Elder Huber (who lived beneath me in BYU actually). He is my zone leader. He is a really great missionary and he loves to talk with new people. We got to teach some awesome people in his sector, including a young woman who´s name was Vaitiare (which is Rapanui for white flower).

On Saturday, we had tons of lessons planned and they fell through. that´s just the mission. We talked with a lot of new people though, and we found an awesome family of Peruvians. They were pretty impressed that in my family we also drink hot chocolate and eat panettone during Christmas. They were really nice and humble and they accepted our invitation to go to church!

On Sunday, tons of people came to church. A lot of the converts, and two of our Haitain investigators came. The Peruvian family didn't show up, but we are going to verify with them. There were a lot of less actives that came,  including the family of a perspective elder we´ve been teaching. Next week, I am going to play the piano in church. They don't have a piano player here!!! We sing acapella.

Sunday night we did divisions with our ward mission leader and the second counselor.The two of them are awesome and are always willing to work with us. I love member missionaries. We taught R and P. They are the two Haitians that came to church today. The first counselor came with me, and we taught them about baptism, and Hermano Hugo committed them to being baptized! They are set for a date in a couple of weeks, so we´ll see what happens. The members really are the key to helping people progress, and it meant the world to R and P to know that there is a whole church full of Chileans who are willing to help them out.

Today we played baseball and I jammed my finger (after hitting two home runs) so it hurts to type, so I'm going to wrap this up.

I am so glad that what I am teaching is true. I know it is true because the Spirit has told me countless times. Sometimes I feel sad as a missionary as I share the most important message in the world with people that don't want to or can't listen. I beg that each of us can listen! LISTEN! The Spirit is talking with us, and we must hear. It is a still small voice that only the humble can hear. We are dedicated to finding those that have been prepared by the Lord to hear His voice. We are doing everything we can to help them hear. I testify that those who are members of the Church can be the friends, mentors, and instructors that teach our lost brothers and sisters how find the truth and hear His voice. please, listen and then help others do the same.

Love,Elder Williams

November 2, 2015 - Renca la lleva

Hola familia y amigos,

New sector, Renca.

Well, this week was crazy..,. I am now writing to you all from Santiago, Chile.I am now in Renca which is a sector that is pretty metropolitan. Estoy con Elder Hicks (from Memphis Tennessee). His companion, Elder Garcia, was the missionary that replaced me in the island. Elder Hicks has one full change left in the mission, and I'm pretty old, and the real changes are in two more weeks, so we don't know if we will continue together.

Elder Williams and Elder Hicks

Okay, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday was me and elder Adams teaching everyone we possibly could and make sure that they were doing well before I left. We took a lot of pictures and I feel very pleased with the progress that we've seen on Easter Island. The other day I was praying and asked God how he feels about what I did on the Island and he told me He was pleased. I wasn't perfect, but I was obedient and I served well.

On Wednesday Elder Garcia arrived, so we had a couple of days to train him and show him how the Island is. He´s from Peru, and he is really tall. He went to military school, and he is a very obedient missionary. 

On Friday, I left. It was weird to be on a plane alone. I got to contact a cool Chilean couple. They had a recently born baby, so I pulled out some pictures of Christopher and we got to talking (the dad worked for Deloitte, so we talked about accounting for a little bit).

I got to Santiago late Friday night, and Saturday because of all of the Halloween parties we couldn't teach anyone so we did a ton of contacts. It was fun to be walking in dusty streets again.

I feel really blessed for having served on Easter Island. I learned and changed a lot. I learned how to love on that island. I noticed that the contacts I did with the people in Santiago were different because I wasn't doing it for numbers, but for love. the people could feel it as well.

I'm excited for what lies a head, but I am far from trunky! I am excited to be serving the Lord Jesus Christ here, because He is my king, and I will serve Him until the day I die.

Love, Elder Williams

Elder Williams on Easter Island!

October 26. 2015-ka oho mai koe ki Santiago

iorana korua,

This week was definitely an adventure, and many things happened that are great for the Island.

On Tuesday we went and visited Luis Chavez. He doesn't have any family here, so the church is basically in charge of him, and since we do almost everything in the church, we are in charge of him. We had to go to his house and bring him his clothes and food and stuff because he is now in the hospital.

That afternoon, we visited M who is working in her camping hotel. It looks like she´ll be finishing that job at the end of this month, so she´ll have more time to hear the lessons and progress towards baptism. We also ran into a Finnish tourist who said she wanted to grill us about Joseph Smith. We left quickly after hearing that.

On Wednesday, we got a call from a guy named Lr. It turns out that about 3 months ago I did a contact with him and his mom, and I had left a card with my number on it. He wanted to see if we could help him with English. We stopped by to get to know him. He was really nice. He wasn't too interested in the gospel, but his mom was, so we are teaching his mom while we help him with English a little bit.

That night, we had an awesome meeting with R. The best part about it was when Rp arrived. We had invited him to come to the meeting (because he is the Young Men President) and he actually came!!!!!!! He hasn't come to a meeting in a while. The Spirit was really strong and we had some great ideas to help the members stay in the church for their classes. We were also talking about having a Ward Choir and changing the church schedule and having the classes first. We are pumped.

On Thursday we had really awesome lessons. We taught J about forgiveness. He is running into some problems with his sister M. M is R´s wife. J doesn't want to go to church because he wants to avoid problems with M. We had an awesome lesson, and he said at the end he was going to go to church. He didn't end up going. We visited him again on Sunday to see why he didn't go to church and he told us that he had offered to throw a birthday party for an orphan here on the Island who had no one to celebrate with. We were thinking "that´s a pretty good excuse". Now he understands that he has set aside the problems with M and focus on God.

We taught LP as well. he is doing great. We taught him about el sacerdocio de Melquisedek (I don't know how to spell that in English so I put it in Spanish) and he is going to start getting ready for it. On Sunday, he had an interview with my companion (the second counselor) and he committed to paying tithing. He is doing really well considering that about 6 months ago he was on the street drinking.

We also taught S and her family that night. They all prayed to know if they needed to get baptized. No one received an answer, so we explained to them that we must ask with faith. That means that we might need to ask more than one time. We invited them to do it again, but to ask in a kneeling prayer in an environment without distractions.

On Friday, we got rid of a giant mound of dirt and plants that was at the entrance of the church, and we turned it into a little flower garden with a stone wall. The things we have to do here in the Island are awesome.

That same night, we had a ward family home evening in the church. We got there early to await a sister from our ward who was going to help us make pizza for the treat. She didn't show up, so I made the pizza on my own. It turned out good, and the ward loved it. P, the construction worker who is visiting from Santiago gave the message. he talked about baptismal covenants and taking the sacrament which was amazing because he has been less active for more than 20 years!!!! The island has really changed him. Friday was his last day here, so the activity was a goodbye party family home evening. Lots of investigators and converts came, so we were way happy. President called us during it to talk to us, and he called right when everyone was laughing during the games party of the family home evening. He was a little concerned but we explained to him what was happening and he was okay. 

President called because he was concerned about the branch. I, our Relief Society President called him this past week and told him that he had let us hanging out here in the Island. He hadn't been calling us or sending people to check on us and that he had left the missionaries doing everything. She had also complained that M was doing too much in the church and that because of all of the church stuff we, the missionaries, didn't have enough time to do missionary work. The President called us to give us some counsel. It is true that we feel that President isn't communicating enough with us, but that part about M doesn't make sense. He has given one talk and he doesn't come to any meetings. We are still working hard though. We had a baptism while the Relief Society President wasn't here, and she hasn't been on the Island for the past month. We called her the next day to tell her that if she has concerns about the branch she needs to talk to us and Brother Tuki. If she calls the mission president it looks like the church is a disaster. We´re still trying to clean up the results of that phone call.

On Saturday, we helped M prepare her first talk in sacrament meeting. We are asking her to speak about forgiveness to help J and m who were both going to be in church this Sunday.

Sunday morning we found out that there was an election for the Rapanui. They are determining if they are going to allow the national parks association in their island or not. According to Brother Tuki, if there are elections, the church can be let out early so they can vote. We thought that we were going to only have sacrament meeting, but Richard announced after the sacrament that the meeting was over. M was there with her mouth open thinking "i thought I was going to give a talk today?" we tried to change Brother Tuki´s mind, but he wanted to end, so we did.

The election was crazy, we didn't even go near the city center because there were people protesting so the Rapanuis didn't vote. It was crazy. they had the cops there and everything. If you want a real political thriller, research Easter Island.

Sunday we taught C, a less active member, and we taught T. He isn't listening to his parents and doesn't want to study or work or anything. We taught him that laziness doesn't come from God. We hope that our message got through.

That's pretty much it for this week. This week I learned a lot about patience. Sometimes you just need to kick back and watch the Lord work at His pace, instead of interfering with your pace. I know that this is His work and that He is in charge. I think Him for His spirit that guides us in our paths as we do His work.

Love 

Elder Williams

P.s. President called me earlier this week to tell me that I am going to Santiago this week, so my time in the Island is now over. they are buying my ticket, and I should be in Santiago before Halloween.