Elder Benjamin Sierra's Missionary Blog

CELEBRATIONS, OLD FRIENDS AND THE WORK MOVES ON

January 3, 2018

Ok let's get down and dirty! To be honest, Christmas was cool, but not that cool. I enjoyed the season and everything for what it was. There were a lot of things that I learned during the month of December that are more important than the typical Christmas experience, but that being said, my roommates are a bit less fun in terms of wanting to do things (i.e. baking, decorating, etc.)

The talent show was pretty fun though! Our Feliz Navidad, cumbia version, was a success! (Cumbia: An extremely popular dance rhythm from Colombia but also popular in Chile and Mexico amongst others. Often classified as salsa, played in 4/4 time with a heavy beat one and accentuated beats three and four, giving a loping rolling rhythm similar to "riding a horse".)
I thought we'd look super dumb, and I think we did, but everyone loved it, including President! I know someone has it recorded so I'll get it!

New Year's was way fun! We got permission to have dinner until 11:30pm and a family in Lo Blanco invited us. They invited quite a few missionaries and it was a fun time. I also bought an AWESOME hat; you'll see it in the pictures. We got some party poppers and had a ball!

Other good news:

A man in my first ward, Las Americas, finally got baptized! I taught him for a little bit while I was there and then we passed him to other Elders and then I kept seeing him but left the ward. He just recently got baptized and now all his family are members! It was really cool to be able to go back to the ward, as well. I got to see Valentina Varas, the girl who we found and reactivated and who then went on a mission. She came home due to health problems. She's the one who made my tie, too!

This week we've been really trying to find new people and things have been going surprisingly well! The past week was pretty good, and then all of a sudden, we filled up our entire week with appointments by contacting and talking to people yesterday, alone! It was pretty cool and we've seen a lot of little miracles as we've been trying to lengthen our stride more and more!

Our current investigators are doing well. We have 3 with dates right now. Two of them are José and Camila, a couple that needs to get married. We're seeing how they plan on resolving that problem. They might actually separate. They're great and have come to church twice in a row and a few other times, as well. Camila especially wants to get baptized, but we're really going to have to work hard to get them ready and living all the commandments. If you could pray for them, that would be really cool!

Anyway that's the gist of what's happening over here in Santiago. I'll send some pics and let you know how things are going next week!