June 15, 2015 - Paciencia

Hola familia y amigos,

Whoo, this week was definitely an intensive exercise of patience. We had a lot of appointments fall through and a lot of activities in the branch that got in the way of our proselyting time. We are still doing well though, and we are excited for this week.

On Tuesday we received a phone call in the morning from Sis. B. She is a sister from my stake that is visiting the Island, and she said she had a package for me from my mom, and she wanted to take us to dinner. We accepted right away. It was a ton of fun to see her and talk about Bothell, and she was so kind to bring a package with her. I was really impressed by all of the English that Elder E understood. He was talking with us like he was a gringo!

After eating dinner with sister B, the church soccer team had a game. we lost, but we played a lot better than the past, and I am definintely improving as a goalie.

On Thursday we were knocking some doors and we met the most famous sculptor on the Island. He was pretty cool and he told us that he had traveled the world and been to more than 100 countries. He was way cool. He said he wanted to come to church this sunday, so we invited him. He didn't come, but he is still really cool.

That night we had a class in the church for the teachers in the church. I was called as the teachers for the teachers in the church. We should have seen 10 people there but only 2 came. It was a bit of a downer, but the class went well, and everyone understood.

There was also a lightning storm that night which never happens on Easter Island

On Friday we helped set up for and celebrate J's  birthday.She is an investigator of the other elders, but she lives in our sector. It was a fun time, and there was a lot of food that was eaten. 

on Saturday we got to teach R. He is the owner of a grocery store close to our house. we found his house on accident and we were able to teach him. the lessons here are difficult to control. we usually have to spend the first lesson with people getting to know them and their beliefs. the people here like to talk and it takes about 30 minutes to establish trust between us and the people. we have an appointment with him for next week to teach the restoration.

On Sunday we found out that the other missionaries are giving J. and her family to us to teach. They said that they need to spend more time looking for new people, and that we could use someone to visit in the night (because we usually are left without people to visit in the night time). It will be exciting to teach them, because they are a wonderful family.

That is the big news of this week. Big shout out to Lizzie Williams who is having a birthday this week! her present his coming a little later this month (her baby boy). 

I just want to end with my testimony. I know that this is the church of Jesus Christ. I am a pretty weak imperfect person, and that is why Christ has a gospel and a church to help us. we are all weak and imperfect and we need His help. We just need to come and follow Him. I am trying my hardest to be the best missionary I can. 

Love,

Elder Williams

June 8, 2015 - ¡Feliz Cumpleaños a Mi!

Hola familia y amigos,

This week I turned 21! It was an exciting day and it added onto another exciting week here on Easter Island.

On Tuesday, we got to teach M. who is a less active member of the church here. She told us that when she was baptized she hadn't really developed a testimony of Joseph Smith, and that she wants our help so she can gain one. It was a very spiritual lesson, and we were able to understand what really goes on in the mind of less actives in the church. They know what they need to do, but they don't want to do it. That is also how Amulek felt before he became a very powerful companion to the prophet Alma in the Book of Mormon.

After that we got to teach M. She is also a less active member of the church who has a son who is not a member.We taught about the Restoration, and she committed to reading the Book of Mormon again to know if it is true. Sometimes you have to jog the memory to remember the testimony you already have.

On Wednesday, I celebrated my birthday.It was a pretty typical day until the night time where 3 families invited me to eat food and celebrate at the same time. First we went to I. and P's house. We ate food and they sang Happy Birthday to me in Rapanui. After that we went to L's house. He had arroz con leche and a little cake ready for me. After that we went to C's house. He had a cake and fish ready for me. He gifted me some cologne! It's not because I smell bad, it is so I can smell even better!

On Thursday we went to the library on the Island because we are preparing a family history activity, and we are researching the resources that the Island has to help with family history. while we were on the way to the museum by bike seat broke off, so I had to ride on my bike that morning without a seat. It was very tiring on my legs.

This week we also had an activity with some investigators and the first counselor in the branch and we went fishing! I took pictures, but I left my camera in the house, so I will send them next week. I caught a fish! it was a little one, but it still counts! 

on Friday, I cooked lentejas for lunch. Lentejas is a very authentic chilean food, and I was very proud of myself for making it for the first time. That night we also taught a less active recent convert named B. She also doesn't have a very strong testimony of Joseph Smith. We have had to teach about Joseph Smith a lot to less actives.

on Saturday we left the house early to drop our bikes off because Elder Espinoza´s wasnt breaking well. when we left it started to pour, so we got all wet. after that we went to a service project all wet. we ate lunch and changed our clothes and we were walking the rest of the day. because we were walking we could do about one third of the things we usually do.

Yesterday we found an awesome new family!They have been here on the island for about 4 months. They are both pharmacists. we asked them what they would ask God if they could ask of him one thing. the dad said a family that will be together forever and the mother said strength to be a good example for her kids! They were really nice and said we can pass by whenever we want. they are awesome!

This week was definitely a blast. Even after two months here, I am still getting used to the island. I am working different spiritual muscles here. It is called missionary work because it is hard, but we teach the plan of happiness so we are happy as well. I know that this is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that He is the Savior of the world and He has not left us to our own self destruction. He has a church to help us, and a gospel to save us. I try every day to share this message so the Spirit can tell people that it is true. I am learning to love the people here, and as I love them, they hear the Spirit more easily.

Love,

Elder Williams

 One of Elder Williams' birthday parties

Another birthday Party!

 He still loves to fish!

June 1, 2015 - Happy Birthday To Me..... In Two More Days

Hola familia y amigos,

First off I want to start and say thanks for all of the birthday messages. I feel really awesome. Thanks to all of you that have helped me get to this point in my life. I am only what you all have helped me become.

Anywho, let me tell you about my week. On Tuesday we had another soccer game. we got permission from the President to have a soccer team made up of members of the church and the missionaries. we were playing against the second best team here on the Island and we lost. I was the goalie, and after losing 2-7 we are looking for another goalie. the team is a great way to build unity among the members and the people who are getting to know the Church

On Thursday we got to do a service project for M. We helped her in her garden. She said she was able to read a little bit of the Book of Mormon, but she wasn't able to pray about it. She said she was going to read more. She is such a sweet lady. She has a lot of things to do in her house. She has two little boys, and she is working two part time jobs. 

On Thursday, we were able to visit with L. as well. L. is an investigator that has been going to church for a while now, and recently his girlfriend M. arrived from Peru and they are living together. We started teaching M. They had some questions about a modern prophet, so we showed them a video of Thomas S. Monson. M saw it and was really impressed. they are working on picking a wedding date.

On Friday we were going to meet up with a less active convert, R to help construct a music school. the Toki school is a Non profit that is working to preserve and teach Rapa nui music to kids. they are made of all volunteers. We came to work, but Rosa didn't show up because of her work, but we met some awesome guys that were working there as well.

On Sunday we celebrated the birthday of T. He is the most recent convert here on the island. We played foosball with him and we ate a ton of cake and meat. we also played a prank on him and threw balloons with flour at him (its a rapanui tradition).

This week was a lot of fun, and it was a lot of hard work. I try to include the highlights of the week because no one wants to read "I walked, knocked a door, and no one was there. then I went to knock another door, and a little kid opened the door and said his parents weren't home". It would get a little boring, but I want you all to know that I am working hard on the outside as well as on the inside. I am trying to develop a greater love for the people and more humility. I know that I'm not perfect, but Jesus Christ didn't come to help perfect people. I know that He lives and that He is changing my life.

Love,

Elder Williams

May 25, 2015 - Servicio

hola familia y amigos,

This week we did a lot of service, and we had some awesome activities.

On Tuesday we painted the house of an older sister in our branch. there were a lot of spiders, but don't worry no one was hurt. 

On Wednesday we had a rehearsal for a play that we performed on Saturday. In Latin America there exists a show called Chavo del 8. It is very popular in any American country that speaks Spanish. The men in the branch put on a spoof of el Chavo and it was a Mormon spoof.

On Friday we cleaned the gardens of the church. They are now very pretty. 

On Saturday we had an awesome activity. We roasted a lamb on a spit. we had a huge fire and we roasted lamb over the fire, and we acted out our show. There were a lot of people that came, and it was a big success.

After church on Sunday we saw that across the street they were throwing a party called a corantun. it is a huge BBQ where anyone can come and eat free food. they cook whole cows underground and they serve them to everyone. it is the best. we ate there on Sunday.

Also, on Sunday we got to teach M we have passed by her house many times, and she never had time for us, but yesterday she let us in. She had a lot of questions, and she was very confused about where the truth was. We taught her the Restoration and she committed to reading the Book of Mormon. We are very excited to see what happens next. We have a service planned with her for this Thursday. 

A big shout out to Hermana Williams who lost her backpack. hang in there hermanita!

Love,,

Elder Williams

May 18, 2015 - Real Rapanui

hola familia y amigos,

This week was a lot of fun, but it started out a little slow.

On Tuesday my foot got operated on. I had an ingrown toenail, so they had to take it out. I was in the house on Tuesday and Wednesday, but because we had some down time, I got to read a lot of church talks, and Elder E and I wrote a song about Easter Island. it was fun, but I was pretty ready to leave the house after two days trapped inside.

On Thursday, we got to work like normal, and it was an awesome day. in the afternoon we met M and his family. He was one of the first people we contacted here on Easter Island, and he was very nice. This time he was home and had some time, so he let us in. We taught him about the Restoration, and he had some awesome questions, and he said he would read the Book of Mormon. He didn't want to pray though, which was a little sad. He didn´t know how to, so we taught him, and we'll see what happens next with him.

After M., we met M.. She used to receive the missionaries a lot, but these past 6 months she has gone through a rough separation. We found her, and she was very nice, and we offered to do a service project for her. Here on Easter Island, we do a lot of service and it works really well, so people want to listen to us.

After M we went to try and teach a young man we had contacted and we found a lady outside of his house yelling at a tree. We realized that it wasn't the tree that was the problem, but it was her cat that was stuck in the tree. The tree was a palm tree, and it had no branches to climb. We helped her tape together some broom handles and a bucket with salami in it to lower the cat down, but the cat wouldn't come down. She actually called the fire department and they helped get the cat down, but she was really impressed that we helped her so she said "stop by my house any day you want". 

on Friday we were looking for people from the area book and we knocked a door where this lady came out and called us antichrists. that was fun. I was thinking "what is it that I have ever done in my life that would lead someone to think I was an antichrist". thankfully the answer to that question is nothing.

After that we had a ward activity where we played soccer on a real soccer field with synthetic turf. The smell brought me right back to Bothell Football days. I was the goalie and I did a really good job! That means I was eternally branded as goalie whenever I play soccer here.

On Saturday we did the service project for M. We were pulling these giant weeds for 3 hours, and it was so tiring. that same day we also met an Argentinian who showed us a triple that a missionary had given to him 2 years ago. we were talking with him, and he said "you're from the church of Jesus Christ?" "I have a book from you guys". he is pretty Catholic, but he still seems very nice and likely to listen to us at some point.

On Sunday, I taught the gospel basics class. We also stopped by the house of the lady that had her cat stuck in a tree, and she told us right away to come in. her name is D and she was very nice, which was refreshing because that whole afternoon no one had let us in. 

That was my week, and Elder E and I are doing well here. Easter Island is completely different from Santiago, so we are still getting used to how things are here, but we know that we are what God wants us to, and we know that our message is the most important thing in the world.

Love,

Elder Williams

May 11, 2015 - Happy Mother's Day

hola familia y amigos

This week includes a year completed in the mission and Mother's Day. It was therefore, an awesome week.

I'm going to keep this email short, because I talked with my family yesterday and told them a lot of things. This week we had a lot less service to do. however on Friday we helped a member construct a roof and weed the side of a house. They didn't have clippers, so we used machetes. That was fun.

On Thursday I completed 1 year in the mission. To celebrate, we got home in the night and made a little fire pit in our backyard and we roasted smores. It was so awesome. There's a tradition in the mission to burn a white shirt, but I like my clothes so I burned marshmallows!

On Sunday, we had a special Mother's Day program in the church. I played the piano for a musical number. The sacrament meeting was put on by the young men in the ward. The young men that participated are all recent converts and investigators. It was awesome. They sang a special musical number to finish. 

We ran into a surprise in the church as well. There was a guy who arrived to the church who was speaking English! His name is Dallin and he is working on the island in an internship from BYU Hawaii. It was cool to talk with him. when he was looking for the church, He talked with one of his co workers who is a less active member here, and he asked her if she would go to church with him to show him where it was. he reactivated a member the first time he came to church. He is only going to be here for 6 weeks, but he is awesome.

The mothers day call went well. I hope everyone talked with their mothers. that is very important. 

I know that the church is true and that the Gospel is what blesses families more than anything else in the world.

love,

Elder Williams

May 4, 2015 - I Don't See Any Eggs Here!

iorana familia y amigos,

Let me just start right away with what happened this week.

On Tuesday, it rained a ton. The climate here on Easter Island is tropical, so the rain comes unexpectedly and it comes hard. The whole afternoon we were searching for people, and we were just getting poured on. I thought about the counsel that the mission president from my home ward gave to just 'look up and smile' That's what we did, and we had a jolly good time in the rain. We visited an older man from our ward who lives alone, The other elders couldn't visit him, and had told him that they would play a couple games of dominos with him, so we stopped by taught him about the word of wisdom (because sometimes he accidently buys coffee thinking it is hecho) and we played dominos. 

That night we were looking for a less active member of the church. On Easter Island the houses don´t have numbers. they just have street names. If you want to find someone, you have to knock the whole street and ask everyone. We were knocking to find this less active and a young mother answered the door. We talked with her and asked if she knew where the member lived, and she told us, but we kept on talking with her, and we asked if we could share our message with her. She let us in, and we could see that she was there with her family and they were all sitting around doing nothing and we thought "this is awesome, we are going to teach a family". 5 seconds didn't pass until this older woman comes out of the kitchen and begins to yell at us saying "who let you into my house. Get out of my house! we are Catholic!" we left. it was a bit of a bummer. but don't worry we don't stay sad for more than 2 seconds. we left and knocked another door.

On Wednesday we were knocking some doors, looking for more people, and we heard someone playing a ukulele in a nearby house. obviously, we went and knocked that door. we found a young man who was there, and he let us in to hear our message. he told us that his dad is in Santiago because he is really sick. He was very nice, and he liked what we had to say, but he didn't have a lot of time, and he goes on vacation to Tahiti this week, so we will wait another week to chat with G. again.

On Thursday we had to stay in the house in the afternoon because there was a protest near the house. dont worry, nothing happened. there is just some tension between the Easter Island natives and the government of Chile. the Rapa Nui want the national parks to belong only to the Island and not the government of Chile. there were some people marching about that, and we were advised to stay in the house.

On Friday we did a service project for a less active family. We had to coat these wooden beams with gasoline to kill termites, and it smelled so bad while we were doing it. I do not like the smell of gasoline. after that, we went to a funeral because the son of our land lord who is our neighbor and our good friend, died. it was an interesting experience to see a rapa nui funeral. they sing a lot and they wear white. 

On Saturday we had the baptism of T. He was one of the people the other elders were teaching before I arrived, and he got baptized on Saturday. They get baptized in the ocean here which is really cool. a recent convert got to baptize him, so we were pretty excited about that. In the baptismal program we sang "I am a child of God" in Spanish and Rapa Nui. It was awesome. After the baptism the family invited us to a barbeque.

T. was baptized by R. (a recent convert) in the ocean.

The four elders serving on the Island with T. and R. just before T's baptism.

It was a good week, and I am really loving the mission here. Im pretty excited to be completing a year in the mission this week, and even more excited to talk with my family this next Sunday. 

Something that has stood out to me here on the island is that I am in the middle of the ocean and yet I feel the same Spirit of the Lord when I take the sacrament and when I pray and when I read the scriptures. The Lord has no bounds. I know that this church and this gospel are true because the Spirit has revealed it unto me, and that is not something I can deny.

love,

Elder Williams