MEETING WITH ELDER COOK!

How´s it going everyone?

I just wrote a couple letters and it is really difficult to think in English right now haha. Elder Young and I have only been speaking Spanish to each other. We have a new sister missionary in our district and Elder Young translates when he talks in district meetings so she understands and his English is terrible, and I can´t not laugh at him haha. I know my English is bad too but not quite there yet.

Anyways, our baptism didn´t happen yesterday. We went to her house and she was sick (she´s 14 and kind of stubborn) and we offered to give her a blessing and she had basically already made the decision to not come so she will get baptized this coming Sunday.

This past Wednesday we had a special meeting with Elder Cook of the 12 and it was so awesome. He and Elder González of the 70 spoke to us along with some other seventies, and it was wonderful. Elder Cook spoke about working more in line with Bishops and the members, because if people don´t stay in the church after getting baptized, they become worse than they were before. 

Satan would love if everyone would just get baptized then never go to church ever again. We have to help these people stay in, those of us who have been born in the church have no idea how hard it is for them. We are a different culture haha. They have to be grounded in the Gospel in order to endure to the end.

Oh, and I got to sing in a quartet for the meeting which was pretty cool. Pretty incredible meeting though and I´m just excited to be serving a mission. We are finding like crazy here, which is such a blessing. I love you all, stay awesome.

Love,

Elder Wardle

Teaching by the Spirit

Hola todos!

I don´t have any time today. We got to go to the temple this morning as a complete mission and then we had lunch with the Bishop and we watched 17 Miracles for our P-day, which rocked but now we´ve got to run around a bit. 

We had a really cool meeting yesterday, it was all the bishops in the stake, the stake presidency, all of the missionaries in the zone, and President Gulbrandsen. It was incredible and our goal as a stake for baptisms is 45 which I know we can accomplish if we truly have the faith and do the Lord´s work in His way. Obviously it is His will that we bring into the fold everyone that we can.

Elder Young and I have been changing our teaching styles a little bit to better incorporate the Spirit and truly help these people instead of being just missionary robots who deliver a well memorized message. We had a lesson last week that was so incredible, and we know that it wasn´t us, we just got out of the way of the Spirit. 

This Wednesday we have the privilege to listen to Elder Cook of the Twelve, so I´m really excited for that. Keep doing awesome and wonderful.

Love,

Elder Wardle

TRANSFERS

Hello everybody!

We had a pretty awesome week here in Parque Chacabuco, except it is getting cold. It's super weird because the humidity makes it so you can see your breath when it isn´t even that cold so you feel colder, or at least I do. It´s really funny though because everybody dresses like we are in the middle of a blizzard and it is maybe 45 degrees and then there is us with light sweaters on haha.

We had a baptism this Sunday with an 8 year old! His grandma is a member and so we got him baptized. Last night was really funny because he asked us if we were gay, so we had a fun time explaining that haha. He´s a really funny kid, though. 

We also started teaching a girl named Yesica that plays all kinds of sports and she is super cool, she has a baptismal date for this weekend but she still has to talk to her parents about giving permission, so pray for that!

So we had transfers today and Elder Pastrana finally left Parque Chacabuco, and I got Elder Young. He has the same time in the mission as Elder Pastrana and I think I wrote about the missionaries that were having 7 or 8 investigators at church every week, yep that´s my new companion, so we´re just going to baptize all this transfer.

I love all of you. Keep being awesome and writing and all that jazz.

I´m praying for you too, so keep praying for me, cause that stuff works.

Love,

Elder Wardle

Crazy Week!

Hi everybody!

So we had another crazy weird week. Tuesday we had a meeting with all the leaders in the mission and their companions, so I got to go and we learned A LOT from President Gulbrandsen. We talked about Gathering Israel, which in this mission is just inviting everyone before, during, and after the lesson. There was a district that started being super diligent about doing it to the point of being annoying and they had NINE investigators at church last week, so I think we are going to start trying that.

After the meeting we did some abnormal splits because Elder Pastrana went with one of his old companions to visit a family who´s daughter died in their old area, so I got to go with a different elder to one of the richest parts of the mission, and it was pretty crazy.  Wednesday we did more exchanges within our district, so I wasn´t in our area until Thursday. 

It was really awesome talking to you guys yesterday, and basically covered a lot of stuff yesterday so I guess that is it. This upcoming week we have a few baptisms planned so pray for us, cause we´ll be praying too, and fasting, and visiting them every day so we can help them be clean. 

Pretty amazing opportunity to be on a mission. Love you!

Dog Walker and the Siesta!

TRUSTING IN THE LORD

Hola todos

So we had a pretty weird week, but it is crazy how much the Lord guides us as we trust in Him. 

Last week we put a lot of baptismal dates and worked really hard to see them and keep up with them, but we only were able to bring one person to church yesterday. Elder Pastrana and I felt like we worked hard this week and did our best, but our results just didn´t show it this week at all. 

One of our investigators is the daughter of Alejandra, a recent convert, and her daughter is the only one in her family who hasn´t joined the church. She didn´t wake up yesterday and we just don´t know what to do with her now. We´re praying and studying and I know without a doubt that we will receive the revelation we need for her, but right now it´s just hard. 

That´s something I´ve learned so far, is that the work is just hard sometimes, sometimes you just don´t want to do it or you feel like you aren´t doing all you can or things just aren´t going your way, but then you just get enormously blessed by the Lord.

This letter seems kind of whiny, but I just have been thinking a lot about agency and our role as children here on the earth. It´s amazing how much our Heavenly Father loves us because He is constantly calling to us to be better, to repent and experience the joy that He has prepared for us if we will just go to Him instead of trusting in ourselves. 

We are so lazy and weak as humans, but through Him we can do all. I guess this is just an invitation to be a little better, pray a little harder, and go to the Lord. 

Life is a lot easier when you´ve got a perfect Being guiding you. Don´t know why people don´t get that haha. 

I love you all, keep being amazing. Props to Zac for showing some dogs, sounds crazy to me. I pray for all of you.

Love,

Elder Wardle