September 29th, 2014

I would like to start this email by saying that we are as the dust of the earth, but we will always be able to receive blessings from the Lord and he will always bless us if we keep the commandments and keep enduring to the end. but as well as service, this week my companion had a great week but it was super hard and not much success on the paper and in the books but we are generating a bunch of new work and its really paying off.

Okay so the Lord likes to bless his children but how? I am here to tell you that the Lord our almighty God will always bless you, I know it!  But the question is how, there is a recipe that we can always use to gain answers to our prayers, one- we need to be worthy of our prayers. how can we expect to get answers if we are not worthy? I am here to testify to you that we can never get answers if we are not worthy to recieve them, think of it as a phone without a battery, we have this great device to talk to god but without the battery its useless. then when we are worthy we need to do something more, we need to do everything in or power to make things a reality, praying, reading the holy words of the prophets and fasting.....  also with the power of tithing, then when these things are accomplished there is nothing holding us back from communication with god! how great is that!

We all get answers in different ways, so then we need to be receptive to the spirit and I promise we will get tons of answers through the spirit  Well that's what I have learned this week but its something that I feel that we all need to share with everyone.  Because there are so many people who are upset and think that God does not talk to them, but I promise that he does but lots of times we are expecting a answer in such a different way that we miss the answer.   So I am hear to encourage you, plead with you with all the sincerity of my heart that if you feel that God has not answered your prayers to humble yourself and get on your knees and offer up your soul to God and be as humble as the dust of the earth, then through his mercy and infinite kindness he will reach down and wrap us up in his arms of everlasting love.  

So it turns out that I will have a baptism this transfer after all! Wow what a blessing.  I have been working with this investigator from the sector of the other elders in our district.  Only when I have the opportunity to have companion exchanges.  But we interviewed her and through super spiritual experiences she asked me to baptise her...... it brought me to tears because through tons of fasting for a baptism I will get one this Saturday before general conference that I love.  What a great opportunity and privilege to baptise her.  She is such a strong convert to the church.  In her own words she told my companion who interviewed her "you are all angels of God and I love you all so much but I have been praying and I want Elder Passey to baptise me, whenever he is in our lessons I cant help but crying from such a strong spirit."  I can promise you that it was not me speaking to her but the spirit, I am only the mouth piece of such a great work.  Marixa is her name and she is so cool and awesome! I  know that it was the work of the Lord working though me that I could of blessed this lady.   My Spanish is not perfect and I know that but she is such a great confident boost to me.

This life is so great and I am so blessed in all my doings, now I need to pray that time slows down so I can enjoy it.  It goes by so fast and I am close to seven months in the mission! Wow.  How crazy. But all my life I have been preparing for this mission and now I'm living the dream, this will be my last two weeks and then I may leave my zone and go to some other part of Chile to preach the gospel, I love Quilpue!

Thank you for all your prayers love and your friendships, I use all of our experiences to develop the church of God! I love you.

September 22th, 2014: Week of Miracles

This was a week of miracles and learning. I'm really living in a love hate relationship with my companion that as I'm writing this letter it turned to worse when president wrote Elder Abarca and said that he needs to follow my advice on some of the rules.... shoot now he hates me and says I'm not communicating with him very well.  But all I'm trying to do is be a better missionary and trying to leave this area better then when I found it.  With two weeks left its up to the lord in how this situation will turn out.  We are still having miracles but its a miracle in itself if we can become a better companionship and follow the promptings of the spirit.  We also have a great investigator Sandra who has a baptism date.  But we need to be super productive with her because she needs to get married before her baptism.  Her boyfriend is a piece of work but I will talk about that later.  Also lets see it was super hot and very cold all in the same week.  It was also the independence day for Chile and we had a ton of food!  We have been working with Mario and Claudio some more and of course I have to add some stories about them so lets start. haha

Okay so with Elder Abarca we are always good friends then Monday happens and then we hate each other.  I just feel so bad because he is "dying" on his mission and i am "growing" its just been so hard to really get along.  But we are either friends or not and I love him so much and I know that I am pushy and its only because I want to get these blessings from the Lord. That's the only thing I want and honestly I don't think I'm getting them and the zone leaders and the mission president thinks so as well.  So he wrote my companion a letter just barely telling him that he needs to follow my counsel and so he leans over and asks me if I have been telling president that he has been being disobedient and I said "yes, why?  Strike one, he responded and said that president wrote him a letter that cut him.  So know we are in silence and I just need to play it out and keep working harder and harder. I feel so bad and feel that we are both the problems.  Our working styles are really not compatible but we will see. With love everything can be possible.  I make his bed all the time and make smoothies for him now and its just a matter of getting along now.  But I know that the Lord will bless us.  We only need to be diligent, loving, or really the six bees from President Hinckley. 

Miracles have been showering on us but we need to realize them.  We taught and have a ton of investigators that are getting better and better and baptism dates!  We taught this girl Sandra who is 18 but she is living with this 27 year old less active member of the church. He believes everything is true and has this testimony but what is really the problem is he is super prideful and does not want to go back to church because he had this own personal problems with members of the church. So we are trying to get them married haha.  They are super awesome people but pride is really just a work of the devil.  I feel super bad and want them to get married.

Chile independence day! 18 of September people eat tons and tons of meat hahaha and I think I gained a ton of weight so there is that. haha  But they also eat these really good empanadas and they are super good with meat and cheese stuffed in them and they are probably 3000 calories a piece!  One girl in our district ate 11 of them hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha  But so it was a day when everyone is drunk in the streets and this week was super hard to really get people in their homes to teach and preach the gospel.  But they really have a beast feast and all they believe in is eating meat and getting drunk and dancing on these days so that's what we have been up to this week.

So we mad a bad choice and went to visit Claudio and Mario and they where a little bit drunk.  Claudio wants to change his life so he was sober and we went and were chilling by their huge metal oil barrel with fire in it talking and having a good time and eating some food when this friend of theirs was super drunk and making some dumb comments and Mario kept waring him to cut it out and stop being disrespectful and then we went and sat down in this other room and we were teaching repentance and we heard an argument break out and then they turned up the music louder so we could not hear anything and then the music cut out and there was silence and the girlfriend came in and grabbed this gun and said we should leave because there drunk friend was "sleeping" and so we got escorted out by Mario  hahahaha.   I think there was a fight in progress.  But that was a little bit loco and nuts.  But hey we are learning and he really wants to change so we have the faith to keep visiting them.

Sorry that this letter is so short but I really don't have much time, but hey I want to bear my testimony that I know these things are so true and I can feel my relationship with my savior growing and growing stronger every day and I know that he lives, he really does want to bless us with so many gifts we just need to be worthy to receive them.

This is a wierd drink that they all drink on the 18th of september!
Motte con husillo its oatmeal and a apricot

Another picture of the drink

Picture of me in the tractional clothing of Chile.  hahaha  
So at first I thought it was a joke
but this stuff is serious for them

This little girl who was participating in the dog food race

Before service, in the pouring rain!

Selfie Sunday!

September 15th, 2014

Man this week sucked, it rained for the first part of the week and then it was blazing hot this last part of the week. and lastly my comp and I live on this rollarcoaster of a relationship that really is super un healthy. But when we look at only the bad things in life then really our life will look bad, soooooo here is all the good things that has happened in my life this week and this is how I have been super blessed to find faith in the things that are not seen right now but are true.  First we lived through my first one on one gun experience, we also had a great couple lessons with this family, also I did not get sunburned, that was a blessing and I learned how to be a better missionary and solider of god.  So really a ton has happened this week! what blessings!

Okay so first we are going to get all the bad out of the way, my comp and I have had some talks about how we need to improve stuff to be better missionary's, well it was me starting the conversations but it ended up in tears and then we try to fix it and then new stuff comes up and we have another "talk again".  For example he says its okay to watch television!  So I come out of the bathroom in one of our members houses and he is sitting down on the computer watching videos on youtube about this type of Chilean dance! whaaaaaaaat!  So I told him to cut it out and then at lessons if we are there and the tv is on he is watching tv when I am bearing my testimony and we cant have any real good conversations and communication because he is not even listening to the lesson!  So after I read the rule to him and by the way he says that he really is not watching tv but glancing at it every now and then....how sad.  So he also says its okay to watch television about the culture of our mission. and country.....false!  So we had some talks when he did not get out of bed until I get out of the shower and we are getting better as a companionship and in spite of it all we have had some great experiences together and really he is becoming a great friend and the love I have for him is crazy big but I know that I am not perfect and I have things to work on as well.  He thinks that I am to strict and up tight and I need to relax and then he thinks I'm trying to steal his role as district leader.......false!  But whatever, I just want the best for us and its not my fault I talk to the zone leaders because he is in the shower for an hour and a half and I have to read the numbers.  But oh well haha.  Really we are getting closer together and do some fun stuff together so we just need more time to get along.  So that is that haha

Okay so now we got all this nasty bad stuff out of the way lets look at all the good that the Lord likes to sprinkle in our lives.  First we had a great ward activity and really it was such a great learning experience and I got a great taste of the culture and of course I took a ton of pictures and there was some things that are so different from our culture that I just laughed so hard and they look really funny at times but what blessings I have to learn another culture and language and the best is I want to be a Chilean so I'm trying all the nasty food and laughing and enjoying my life and that has been a great blessing in my life.  I also got dressed up as a Chilean cowboy and then took fotos with tons of people!

Okay so another thing with the whole living thing, every breath we take is a great blessing and I know that people do really crazy things and that we are alive is such a great blessing.  I have a goal to be thankful for everything because as long as we are still breathing we are progressing.  So with the whole gun thing we really were with our gangster friends again and we where sitting on this muddy couch in there front yard with all these geese and mud and its nasty and this lady was holding this kitchen knife and was waving it around to get her point across. Then this lady came over to fix their guns, so here is our investigator Claudio who has the nickname by the way as "Rottweiler" and you don't want to know why but we are talking about the ten commandments in this setting with tons of fleas and then he stands up and pulls out a revolver pistol and it looked like an old school western gun and he said to this lady that he needed more bullets..... So this lady was waving the gun around and talking to us about Mormons and pointing the gun at us and asking if we really where believers of Christ, it was one of the moments to defend my faith, we told here that these things where true and she did not do anything.  After they said that we are the new members of the family and they showed us there other rifle and then that night we heard that there was a gun fight in the tomas but no one was hurt so then we talked to Claudio and he said he was alright hahahahahahahahahahahahaha what is going on? Glad that I'm friends with the boys who win. But what a blessing, he is trying to get away from all this and I hope he does.  We wont be able to baptise him because we think he has killed somebody and soooooooooo ya, but we are going to keep passing by and building up there faith. 

Also it was like one hundred degrees and I did not get sunburned......wow, and no sunscreen so that was a blessing but I bought some more but that was really cool, still pasty white and American, what a blessing.

We are making progress in our ward with the part member family's and really they are getting better and we are expecting baptisms this transfer.  Its been super hard but we really are learning so much from everything.  Oh I almost forgot!  I got two packages today, one from my mom and Mackelle pope the other from my friend Kaitlin Baird..... that was the greatest moral booster ever!  What blessings and its so crazy to know that I have a family and friends that are having lives normal. but we should always be striving to be working better to be bigger and better missionary's.  Thank you all for everything.

oh p.s. look at the sunset every now and then and realize that the Lord is really looking down on us with interest "How can we grow from bad experiences?" or how can we learn from this life? I know that bad things happen believe me, but that's not the point of life to just survive the bad, we need to CONQUER the bad and then improve.  If no, then we lost, its hard and its sometimes close to impossible but we will always get a helping hand from god. Cho!

September 8th, 2014

Okay so this week we had a pretty big week that of course had challenges and laughs and tears, tears of the spirit of course!  The whole companion thing is going okay and I'm learning how to be patient more than anything else.  He really is from Chile and because of that its hard for him to be so close to his family, really its closer to his home than I was to Idaho, and remember how bad I did not want to go there?  So I think he has been battling that on his mission and I think that he is loosing steam but we are all here together and we have great things ahead of us and I will not back down.  I have changed my life, my attitude, and my thoughts and even my language so I will not give in and let the bad side of me come out, never again.  I was mean and I was rude to people in the past and I will never go back to that....ever!  There are so many blessings to be obtained when we follow our Saviour  so why not receive blessings.  It really is definitely a lot harder but it all works out in the end right?  And the answer to everything is love..... so we had a crazy week this week with tons of experiences, my comp had a huge fight with a dog, super spiritual lessons with ex-communicated bishops, anti Mormon material and baptism dates!!!!!!!!!  What a week right?  Better get started!

So with the whole companion here is the situation, I do all of the teaching so I am learning Spanish so much faster so I decided that is a blessing rather then a trial, he has a love but often I am teaching the lessons while he is sitting in a seat looking at his hands, so its hard being the one man wrecking machine.  But hey, he helps out a lot and we are learning together and this p day we had a great time together and the bond is growing, but the one thing that is really starting to drive me crazy is that he does not make his bed!  How can you be a missionary and not make your bed! ugh it drives me nuts and then I just laugh when I'm thinking of all the people who don't make their beds and it was me six months ago, haha how crazy that just little things are changing in me and know it really bites when they are habits of other people.  So really the conclusion one morning was I felt so bad for Luke that he had to live with me!  Sorry bro, trying to live with me was rough man, no more of that life!  But we really are bonding.  I had to " cut " him once because he sings worldly songs and it drives me nuts and I cant think because they are in English so I just stopped in the middle of the street and read in our missionary handbook about music and told him to quit it or at least sing in Spanish so I can practice, in the night I apologized and he did too and we are working together to help us grow and become close, watch he will be one of my favorites.  So today we ate some super sketchy sushi and some food from Iraq.....only in Chile and they were from the same store hahahahahahahahah  So I  had on the same plate sushi and this weird type of meat and bread, hahahahaha  Weird stuff is going down in Chile. but we really are growing closer and fotos are on the way.

So the story about how my comp fought these dogs is kinda funny because he is really just a goober, straight up and honest no lies, it rained all week.  We where walking through this hill with its trees and rivers and these nasty dogs came running down this muddy hill and they slipped and ran right into my comp, then he used his umbrella as a shield and they broke it in half.  At this point I was on the other side of the river because if there are two of us on this tire bridge it sinks so i jump across and threw this rock at this dog and we where safe, but muddy.  After he kept saying that he got bit but I did not believe him then he pulled up his leg and there was a big old bruise with teeth marks, again another memory of Luke when that horse tried to kill him! hahaha  But after the mamita put some rubbing alcohol on it we where all set to go! So that's the story of the week!

We are having contact still with the ex communicated bishop Osvaldo, see if you guys don't know he was ex communicated and left the ward and because of that they closed this church and he took half the ward inactive at his down fall.... well we have been teaching him and he has a daughter that is ten years old and trying to get her baptized!  The thing is he wants to baptize her but he does not have the authority to do so...but he says that he still has it so there are some problems there! But we keep having some really great lessons and one night we cried and cried and we told him to never look back, this is a thing that I am using in my life and for my whole life to come, never look back, if you sin and Satan pushes you to your knees, pray and stand up.  And once you repent NEVER LOOK BACK!  We are clean once we repent and never again are we looking back, looking back wastes so much of your energy when you need to look ahead at the world and life to come!

So we fought some anti Mormons, apparently there are some on this hill and there is this weird valley that have some with beards and a load of wives so he wanted to know why they are different for us and he kept trying one thing after another to get us to lose our faith.  This is one area that I love about my companion, he knows every scripture in the bible and they went at it and I was just sharing the testimony and at one point he pushed his finger into my chest and said, "your not a disciple of Christ and never will be......."  I looked at him and through tear filled eyes I said, "No I'm not a perfect disciple of Christ and will never be because I am not perfect but I do follow him and I know that one way we can follow him is through love and faith, I am a representative of Jesu Cristo and I know that this is his church and as a representative of him I'm telling you that we need to always follow him. I know it! and you can fight all you want but you are a child of god and you are special."  After we walked away I felt super tired and strained and my comp hugged me and said he felt the spirit really strong and understood every word.  I want you guys to know that this is his church, we need to repent and take life one step at a time.  Its hard and sometimes, we stumble but the Lord will pick us back up and like any other good brother, and friend he will cheer us on unto the end.  I know that we will live with him again, I simply know it!  I have this thing thats stronger than a belief or faith, actions.  If we really have the faith and the belief we show our Lord through actions and love.

With baptism dates we seriously have protection in the Tomas right now. its getting full of trash and worse and worse.  But I love it and the people are super humble.  The family that we are teaching is really like a movie, its between Scarface and the Godfather.  I know that those are two really scary movies but they are true in this family, this guy Mario is six foot five and like three hundred pounds, he has a "secret business"  and he is pretty wealthy but he says if he buys fancy things it brings to much attention to himself.  He has about thirty geese with names and they imported them for Australia!  They are like worse then guard dogs and they love him and hop up on his lap.  He is about sixty years old and he has a twenty seven year old wife with a baby, but we have baptism dates with him and with one of his "venders".   Ya its a little bit interesting but now people see us talking to him they don't laugh at us anymore and they don't jab at us and yell at us and mock us, its weird, they know we are with Mario! hahahahahahaha  He said if we ever get in trouble yell his name and say you are a friend of Mario and all is well and they wont do anything!  Man we have a gangster that is awesome!  But he is sweet and we have Claudio with a baptism date! 

We alse have a part family with a child who has a date as well not quite as cool as a story as the gangster Mario but its a fecha! 

I love them so much and I love the people and I know that all I have to do is have this love for them and for my comp and everything will work out.  I love you guys and miss you all so much and I know that these are the two years to really put and give my all for the Lord, thanks for your prayers!!!!!

Elder Abarca

Sushi in Chile

Elder Osuna

Riding the bus in Chile

Me with Elvis at the "Seventies" ward party

Bonding with my comp at the ward party

Hermana Luisa

September 1st, 2014: Still in Quilpue

Nope, still in Quilpue.........that must mean that there are someone here that I need to baptize and change, who knows, but all I know is that when this transfer ends I will have seven and a half months in the mission, close to eight, wow!  This week was very crazy and we had a ton of changes, Elder Osuna left and now I'm here with another companion.....he is not the same as Elder Osuna and Elder Artiga but he is really cool and he has been called to be the district leader, also he has a ton of time in the mission so he is a little bit dead haha.  He has about one year and six months in the mission and he is from Santiago Chile!  Really the Lord has blessed my life with so much love for others and I am really blessed with this whole new attitude as my dad would call it because there are some stuff that this companion does that would of killed me before.  But now I just smile at the thought of my old life and my old self and then I start to love him and shower him with affection and love and everything works out, and guess what!  Now we are great friends!  His name is Elder Abarca and yes mom I have pictures haha.  He is a little shorter than me and a little biggerhahaha and his goal this transfer is to go on a diet....huh, I said that our goal is baptisms first and I definitely felt solo in some lessons but because of that my Spanish is really improving and I'm gaining more and more experience in my lessons and I feel super comfortable, I know that my Spanish is not perfect but I'm always just trying to improve and hey if we are improving that's good right?

This week we had this crazy awesome activity in our ward and it was this dance of the ages thing, so they all dressed up from the 60´s to the 90´s and they had this costume contest and this old man dressed up as Elvis and walked out to the middle of the floor and they played some sweet Elvis songs and they went nuts when he started dancing, it was super hard to stay focused when all these songs started to play and I got lost in my thoughts of home for a little bit and enjoyed myself in this great activity.  What was the best was that we had two of our investigators show up and they had a blast and they have a baptism date for the 14th of September.  In truth I feel super pressured right now, I feel solo and that its all me right now, I'm really the leader and its hard because we have all these great people but we need to baptise, its been one month since the last time we baptised, that is unacceptable and i have been blessed with the opportunity to really take the initiative and be the leader and get some baptisms!!!!

This week was really cold and it did not help when my comp got attacked by a dog! he seriously got chomped and I did not know what to do our what was going on so I kicked at this dog and then as we where walking away I just started to laugh and laugh, poor Elder Abarca, he is so nice and loving but he is one of those accident prone people who i just need to help all the time or he will get himself into some kind of mess haha.

I got my hair chopped off by these ladies last week and it was horrible, Elder Osuna and I sat down to get our haircut and asked how they where and they said "great, thanks to Jehovah!" and I just sighed when I sat down and we got into a pretty good conversation that turned a little bit heated for them and that's when they took it out on our hair, they just cut mine super short and did the exact opposite that I asked for, but that is the life I guess right? 

Okay so spiritual experiences, we taught some really good lessons and we really did feel the spirit so strong and we have this lady who is Patricia and she is so great and so pumped to be baptized!  She just needs to push through all the difficult times to be baptised because this is the time that Satan really pushes hard against them, So ya this was my week, not to much happened but I love you guys so much and I'm so pumped to hear about how Nate schooled in football and really I want to tell you guys about how much I love this mission,

Never before in my life have I been so tired at nine thirty at night, but I have dreams about teaching and baptizing and they are all about other people, almost all of our conversations are about others and how we can better then so when they enter the judgement seat that they can be calm and collective, when we do have conversations about ourselves its always about how we can be better.  I love how we can draw so close to these members and these investigators.  These guys are so awesome and I'm so happy all the time, true I'm sad when bad things happen then I remember my awesome family and friends who are always praying for me to do better.  I only have a little bit of time in this mission and then I enter the mission field of life and I cant wait to find and teach people at home but really here is my people, I am a Chilean and I love every hard minute of this work.  I want all my family to see how happy i am!  This life rocks!  I love the spirit and I love my Savior, my light and my example forever. 

Love, Elder Passey

P.S.  I am on a really old computer so I will sent pictures next week.