GREAT NEW CONTACTS, CRAZY COINCIDENCES AND LIGHTENING STRIKES TWICE IN THE SAME PLACE!!

October 11, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

This week, the work's been rolling along lot better. We've been finding some new people but haven't been able to teach our new family again. We're going to do a service for them tomorrow so maybe we'll get a chance to teach them then. We've found a couple more Haitians and have another 2 in our teaching pool that are doing great as of right now, but we were only able to teach them twice. In all, we have roughly 3 groups of people, making 8 individuals in total, that are ready for a baptismal date and that have already accepted a baptismal invitation, so "SE SUPONE" that things are gonna REALLY get rolling this weekend because we have appointments with all of them. 

One of them is Silvia Arraya. She's an AWESOME reference we got from Denver, Colorado. She has a Chilean friend there that introduced her to the Church. Silvia's around 50ish and really cool. We called her the day after getting the reference to see when we could meet and she was like, "OH MY GOODNESS! I LOST ALL HOPE OF SEEING YOU GUYS!" and I was like, "Why? it's only been a day" and she was said, "No, I've been waiting for months!" What?! Well, we planned a date to see her and taught her yesterday. It was one of the best first lessons in my mission and she was very happy to see it. She said she wanted to have a church, a place to direct her faith, but didn't like any of the ones she had visited before. She loved hearing the message of the Restoration and is excited to read the Book of Mormon. She really just understood everything very well and had some great questions. 

Super neat story: On Sunday, we had nothing to do for 3 hours and so we were going from park to park, plaza to plaza talking to everyone we saw. NOBODY wanted anything until we got to this one guy smoking a joint, Fabio. He was the nicest flippin' dude we had talked to that entire day and we had a very good contact! He said he was from a different part of town and was with his mom for the day. When we were about done talking to him we asked him if his mom would be interested in our message as well and he was like, "Maybe". We asked for her name and he's said "Silvia"..."¿Silvia Arraya?" "Sí" and we were like no way! We already know her! He was like, oh neat. It was pretty cool. Fabio wants to stop smoking weed and be an airline pilot. We sent his reference to his respective sector. 

One last story: 

We were walking with an investigator to an FHE (Family Home Evening) and we were with our bikes, but walking. This sketchy dude comes up, my comp says hi to him. The dude seems normal and walks towards my comp and so I keep talking to my investigator. Then I didn't realize he had started walking back towards me. With one hand he grabs my bike and with the other he points a knife towards me and says "*bad word* give me your bike", then takes it and rides off.... And you know what the sad part is? IT WAS THE SAME GUY WHO ROBBED ME LAST TIME... WITH THE SAME FLIPPIN KITCHEN KNIFE! 

NOT COOL

So, right now, we're bikeless which is kinda hard but really not that bad. 

We were able to have a good day yesterday anyway so, yeah. 

It was a good week. I hope you all have a good one! Chao!

-Elder Sierra

THEY WORK PICKS UP AND ELDER SIERRA LEARNS TO MAKE YERBA MATÉ

October 4, 2017

Wow, so this week we had lots of work to do and had some cool experiences. With my new companion, Elder McKane, we started working on getting some contact with our investigators because the independence days and my former companion leaving the sector kind of slowed us down. We got a couple of lessons in with Alexander, however, after the last one, we think it's time to drop him. We're going to leave him with a chapter to read in the Book of Mormon, but he recognizes he isn't doing his part and told us that, basically, he doesn't want to do his part either, so it's pretty sad, but there's nothing more we can do. 

Despite losing Alex and not being able to find some other investigators, we've found some great new ones that we're really excited about! The other day, we decided to contact on a less familiar street and nobody was home or, if they were, they were not receptive. We literally got to the last house and a woman came out and greeted us surprisingly nicely. We introduce ourselves and it turns out that she used to see the missionaries in another part of town. I said, "Great! Did they ever share anything with you?" She said "No, they just ate with us." *facepalm*

Ok, so we talked to her and it also turns out she needs to finish an extension to her home that would basically triple her living space and right now they're very cramped. We asked if we could share a message with her family and she said, "Yes, when they're all home. Come back Sunday." Sweet!

We came back on Sunday and got to teach a lesson to her family of 5! (husband and 3 kids) We chatted with them and taught the Plan of Salvation and they were all very interested and had many good questions on baptism, death, and authority! At the end, we extended a baptismal invitation to them and they all accepted! 

It kinda seems like a normal story, but in our mission, it was kinda crazy to find an entire family where all were interested in the Gospel and were able to listen to us together!

Apart from that, we've found some very nice Haitians that have visited an LDS church before and we've set up some times to meet with them. They're really excited to learn more about the Church. 

In other news, Elder McKane is a Maté enthusiast (Yerba maté is a drink made from steeping dried yerba mate leaves)and he taught me a little on how to better prepare it. (I had always been bad at it) Ironically, he's way more into mate than my Argentine companion was! We got some nice flavors, Forrest Fruits and Guaraná. There's also a cool family in our ward that "deals" maté for us. They go up to downtown and pick up maté there for cheap and we pay them back. So when I get home, I'll be a master "cebador".

Sidenote:

Since I've never been a big NFL fan my comp has been training me to be a Kansas City Chiefs fan. So every now and then I say things like 

"Well, are you a Broncos fan?" 

"Yes"

"Well I was gonna say it could be worse..."

And then my comp gets really happy with me. 

And a funny story!

Today, we watched the 6th Star Wars with part of the Zone because my comp loves Star Wars but had never seen it. We were watching the movie, all chill like, and there's the part where the Ewok shows up and is speaking his gibberish and then out of the blue he just perfectly pronounces "Chucha"- a Chilean swear-word- and everyone just dies! (Translates to "Dang it") It was used in perfect context and everything! Good thing there were no Chileans there! 

Well, that was my week! Sorry I don't have any pictures but I'll get some next week!

Love you all. Have a good one!

-Elder Sierra

WARD PARTY FOR MEMBERS ONLY...WHAT THE WHAT?!

September 27, 2017

Dear Family,

This week, we had a ward party for the Chilean Independence day, which was cool, but also super lame! It was cool because it was an awesome ward activity: lots of food, people dancing cueca, games. It was great! However, people (like Queene, our super awesome recent convert) asked Bishop if they could invite people, like non-member friends and family, and he said no because there wouldn't be enough food...

But you know who the members DID invite? Their extended family from other wards in the stake who were already members. So, really, no purpose was served except partying, and they made sure not to have investigators there. Elder Bellido and I were kinda mad, but that sums up our ward and many others in Chile. They don't really care that much about sharing the Gospel if most of their family is LDS and they have enough LDS friends to not feel lonely.

Well anyway, we did get transfers. Elder Bellido left, I'm staying in this same ward, we're continuing as DLs and my new companion is Elder McKane! He is super fun and really enthusiastic! He's from Draper, UT, and has been in the mission for 11 months. It's been really nice because he's a lot more relaxed and patient and that just makes things easier for me and less stressful. 

We had a rocky start to our first day, though! We had to take a bus back to our house from the stake center because we had his bags, and the two directions for the bus are really close and I took the wrong one! We ended up going about 30 minutes in the wrong direction! We ended up at the end of the line and I talked to the guys there and they sent us on the same bus going the other way and we finally got to the house! But, I think I may have left a backpack on the bus with one of my notebooks, a water bottle and some other stuff. That was kind of frustrating.

Our first day was pretty good. We got to do a lot of proselyting and it was just kind of refreshing. I feel like a lot more will be able to get done now. We found some investigators, made some visits, and we even got a really good reference in a pick-up game of basketball! We got the district pretty excited too. Monday I gave the class on "hablar con todos" (talk to everyone) because we had an area seventy, Elder Bragg, give us a zone conference a couple weeks ago and he talked about that a lot and said that if we need to talk to 600 people to get a baptism, then that would be 21 people a day for a baptism every month. So I was like, "Well, what if we just do that?" so we're going to keep track and strive for 21 people a day. 

Today was a fun p-day. We played water-balloon volleyball,10/10, highly recommend. We also wanted to watch a movie so we checked President's "approved" (or so we thought) movie library and saw the Fantastic Four. We thought, ok! We started watching it and then stopped watching it... we're pretty sure President never approved it. It was pretty lame anyway. And now we're here writing! 

All in all I'm excited about this week, I think a lot will change and I'm happy! 

Have a good one everybody!

-Elder Sierra

A NEW HOME, FAULTY PANTS, AND CHILEAN INDEPENDENCE MEANS EATING ASADO FOR DAYS ON END...

September 20, 2017

So this week was kinda slow because of the Chilean Independence celebrations! Here, they do quite a bit. Everyone was off work from Saturday to Wednesday and here for their parties they usually do cook-outs. Like, every day! So Sunday was our first day with asado for lunch and that was pretty fun! Then comes Monday, then Tuesday, and now today, we had a zone activity, also celebrating Chilean independence, also with asado. We're kinda dying right now. Both my companion and I are having digestive nightmares! 

Something really awesome happened this week, too! 

Since I arrived to this zone (about 3 months ago) we've been living in an apartment that's pretty nice but has a really lame flaw. It's super humid and the walls and just about anything near the walls grow fungus! We lost a couple pairs of socks, my comp lost a backpack, me a wallet, and some other stuff had fungus! We would talk to the Pension Secretary but he said there was nothing he could do because the owner didn't want to do anything about it. Now, in our district we have a companionship that also lives alone fairly close by. As we're doing inspections we were thinking about how cool it would be if we lived together, because the house used to be for 8 missionaries anyway, and then I was like, "Wait, what if we just talk to the office?..." So we did. And they said yes, but were moving kinda slow about it and then my comp got mad and told them what was happening in our house and told the office to change us and that he wouldn't sleep one more night in our house.... so then they changed us that same day! 

Now there's four of us in the house and it's SO MUCH better!!! Living with just one companionship in the house is so boring but having another just livens everything up! We cook a lot more now and every night, we play B.S.! It's quite the change so we're pretty happy! 

We also got to do a really fun service project on Friday and Saturday. There was a house in our zone that burned down almost to the ground and we got to help take it apart! (So, really, fun for us, not the homeowner)

We broke apart walls and destroyed roofs and all kinds of stuff! There'll be some pictures!

Another funny story. The other day, I found some clothes left behind in a house that fit me and were in pretty good shape so I kept them. Among them were a pair of grey pants. The fit but they were slim fit and were pretty tight, especially to be riding a bike. One day, I was wearing them and as I hopped off my bike, my pants RIP! But like, a lot!!! Basically, the entire seam around the crotch ripped out! We had just arrived to lunch so I had to go in with my backpack in front of my pants and keep it on the down low during lunch. But then, when we were about to leave, and I didn't think she'd found out, she just stood at the door and didn't go inside. I was waiting for her to go inside to jump on my bike but she didn't do anything. Then she said, "Elder, I know what happened!" and started laughing hysterically!  I'm pretty sure that made it into the Whatsapp group of the Relief Society. 

This week we had a good lesson with Alex but he hasn't been doing more lately so we're worried about him and have gotten to the point where if he doesn't keep his commitment this week we may have to drop him which would be lame. We have some other new investigators but we've had nearly no opportunities to teach due to the independence celebrations. We'll have to see how things go this week. 

Anyway hope everyone's doing well. Have a great week!

-Elder Sierra

P.S. Notes from a chat with Elder Sierra regarding teaching whole families which spilled over into the state of the wards and branches:

"The problem with Chile is that the nuclear family is pretty dead. In my experience, 85% of children are born out of wedlock, outside of marriage. No one plans their families; they just get pregnant and then stay together or split... It's a bit tough to teach the law of chastity. In the church, there are very few wards that are complete with all their organizations. A lot of ward would probably die without missionaries. But the youth who are active generally do go on missions. A young woman we helped re-activate in another area is now serving in Honduras!"

Giving service to a house that had burned

MORE DILENQUENCY AND SHENNANIGANS, EVEN MORE HAITIANS TO LOVE AND ELDER BRAGG COMES TO VISIT 

September 13, 2017

So this week was pretty neat/different.

In Chile they have not one, but TWO days where dillinquents go out into the streets and do shannanigans! One of them is the 11th of Sept. which is supposed to commemorate the day that the communist government fell (and the dictatorship arose) but it's just an excuse for the flaites to be flaite. 

Sunday night and just about all of Monday we had to stay in the house. However, we got permission to spend it in the house of other missionaries in a neighboring ward. We made no-bake cookies, pizza, played a rousing round of monopoly (which I won ) and made banana smoothies.  One of the new American Elders and I also taught our latino comps how to play BS. (Patrañas for those who were wondering about a translation) They loved it and we had fun playing it. 

On our way out Tuesday morning I found a pair of nike running shoes and soccer shoes that only fit me out of us 4, so I took em home! 

This week was good in many aspects. We had a great referral for a Haitian in our sector. We went by to check it out and he saw us, was super happy and invited us in. I love the Haitians. They were finishing up watching a soccer game and then the 5 of them that were there had everyone else around quiet down so we could share. We taught about the Restoration and they were very receptive. Three of them (2 had to go to work) accepted a baptismal invitation. We have a return appointment with them this week. 

We also had a Zone Conference with the entire mission on Thursday with Elder Bragg (part of the area seventy). It was a really cool meeting and he gave some great ideas on how the mission can progress even more. 

Other than that, we've been doing some contacting. A lot of our current investigators are a bit busy so it's been hard to teach lately. The district has been doing really well, though, and I'm loving being able to be really involved with how the other companionships are and helping them progress. 

That's about all for this week, have a good one!

Elder Sierra

INTERVIEWS WITH THE PRESIDENT. PLUS, HOW DO WORLD CUP QUALIFYING GAMES AND PISTOLS GO TOGETHER?


September 6, 2017

Well, this week was a bit crazyish. I was kinda sick throughout the week and part of the weekend which slowed us down a bit. Friday, I got to do a division with a new missionary, Elder Atkinson. It was fun to go out with him and have a little change of the norm. It's always pretty cool with greenies; they're usually full of surprises! 

That day, we were doing some contacting and we found a couple of Catholic ladies who had some questions about the Church. They had a niece who's going to be sealed in the temple and they don't like that they're being "discriminated" against. We tried our best to explain how the temple is a sacred place and how they were not going to be married, but rather sealed. They just took it all personally and got offended but then they asked if we were members all our lives. We said we were and they said something about how we only believed what we believed because we were raised that way. Then Elder Atkinson bore his testimony which involved him having separated himself a lot from the Church and then coming back. The Spirit was very strong even though his Spanish was awful! The women then kind of changed the subject a bit and it was lame because they knew they felt it but it didn't soften their hearts. They did want us to come back so we'll see if they can progress. 

Funny story: There was a World Cup Qualifying game with Chile this week and on that day everyone's getting ready and starting up their grills and such. We're on our bikes heading to a home of a less active member when, as we turn a corner, we see a guy about 10 yards away pull out a pistol, shoot it off in the air and then put it back in his pants.... We just keep biking and as I pass him we make eye contact and he's like "... VAMOS CHILE!!!" and I'm just like "um... vamos Chile!" and keep going. #Justchilethings

This week was a bit tough regarding the companionship. Sunday he got upset about something and we weren't even able to go to work that day. The next morning I forced a companion inventory and it didn't go too well. However, we had a leadership meeting and after being able to interact with others he kinda got out of his rut. After that, things were good and have been good since. 

Yesterday, we actually had interviews with President. He went first and then I went. When I talked to President he actually talked to me about what my companion had said about me and it was really neat. He said that my companion said he feels bad for his companions because he doesn't always treat them very well but that he was really grateful for me in particular because I've been very patient with him. Actually, what President said (quoting my comp) was "I love Elder Sierra very much. He's been my favorite companion." That was kinda cool to hear. We talked a bit more about the sector, too. He then asked me what I thought would be good for this next change. I said,really, I just want to be kept busy with plenty of things to do and when I have changes, I'm going to be working a lot more. Then he was like, yeah I already have in mind what I'll do with you and it'll definitely do that. I'm on the inside all like 

I have a slight feeling that I'll be called to train... something tells me... 

Well, it was a great interview, my best yet. Today we had some fun. We climbed a hill! It's like our only hill... but it's OUR hill! We then ate swarma; that's always a good time. I also won a game of monopoly last night, #1sttime  

That was mah week! Have a good one everybody!

-Elder Sierra

CHECK OUT MY TIE!

SUSAN'S BIRTHDAY PARTY

HIKING THE HILL

LOTS OF NEW INVESTIGATORS AND A BIKE ROBBERY BACKFIRES

August 30, 2017

Hey!

So you know how last week was pretty lame? Well this week was a lot better!!! I don't know if I mentioned that last week on, maybe, Tuesday, my comp and I kinda got fed up with each other and then we talked with the Zls. Well, now we're doing really well! Well, at least compared to last week. We've been talking a lot more and getting along great! I've been helping him more with English and recently, he's been kinda interested in going to the States (more on that later...), partly because the son of one of our members in the ward came to visit her and he's lived in Miami for the last 44 years. He's SUPER American, like more American than me! He went off for half an hour about how amazing the States are in every aspect: the people, economy, food, landscape. And Elder Bellido just sat their soaking it all in. On Sunday, he wore a USA pin on his suit and E' Bellido was like, "Hey, I like your pin!" and he was like, "I always bring my country with me wherever I go!". So now he's thinking about it...

Recently we've been teaching Haitians again! We started with a Spanish class, got some people coming and then invited a missionary that speaks French to come and harvest them! There were 5 when he taught and two of them were assistants to an Evangelical Pastor so they weren't very receptive. The other 3 really like the message of the restoration and want to hear more. One of them is extra cool. His name is Rosney and he went to church! Anyway, there came a moment towards the end where we gave them all a Book of Mormon in French and one of the less receptive ones was like, "So can I sell this?" (just to be lame) and we (the missionary who spoke French) were like, "Well, you defintely shouldn't." And he was like, "Yeah, but I could use the cash." Then the Elder said "Well, if you think the Word of God should be sold, go right ahead" And everyone went kinda silent. 

In the sector things have been better! We've found tons of people through service, Spanish classes, and some contacts! Actually, we found 12, which is really, really uncommon in our mission, so it was a pretty good week! 

Yesterday was a crazy day. First ,I woke up sick! Sore throat with headaches and just kinda general achiness. kinda lame. Then we had our district meeting and it was swell. Then, when we went out to work, my bike axel broke so we had to head to a of couple appointments on foot! Then we headed to a bike shop. I had switched bikes with my companion so he would ask because they would be sure to overcharge me for being American. When we asked about it, the price seemed kind of expensive so we walked away and called the office to see if they wanted us to do the repairs there or somewhere else. They didn't respond and we were at a corner thinking of what to do (with the bikes in our hands) when a young guy comes up to us all like "hey, Imma need your bike" and we're like "um, no" and then he says "Well, look! I have a knife!" and opens his jacket to show us a kitchen knife he has in his pocket. So, we just had to give him the bike... HOWEVER, the funny thing was he took MY bike from my comp, the broken one! I don't know how far he got, but at some point I sleep well knowing the back wheel fell off, probably while he was riding it. 

We called President to let him know what happened and he just died with laughter! He thought it was the funniest thing in the world! So, yesterday was a pretty lame day, but I'm getting  a new bike today so it's all good. These bikes will come with gps trackers so the next times someone is robbed, President will be able to find it on his phone and we'll get the police to round 'em up! 

Today was Susan's B-day party too! It was pretty fun, we just passed by her house, ate some completos and gave her her gift! I guess I forgot to mention the gift we planned for her! I had always known she wanted a quad (like the one I have) so I made a plan with 5 other missionaries to have a member buy a quad at the temple and all of us pitched in $13 each for it! We all wrote a little message in the blank pages and she loved it! I have a video of it, but I forgot my adaptor!!!! 

Anyway, that was pretty much my week! Love you all. Have a good one!

-Elder Sierra