Monday, November 24, 2014

November 24th, 2014: New Companion, Baptism and Tons of Miracles!

Okay so here is the new news from Chile!  I got my new comp! wooooooooooooow!  I really thought that I would have another change with Elder Ammirati but guess what?  Life goes on!  On the day of the transfers we got our call, with the suspense seriously hanging over us we heard the news that cut us like a knife, Elder Ammirati was leaving so we packed him all up and when he was packing we got another phone call that gave me another job! I was called to be a new trainer for a new kid, like so new that he was still green!   So what happened is I got another call saying that president wanted to have a talk with me!  He talked to me and told me that I was going to have a comp, Samoan, he is from Samoa!  He is so cool and I love him so much!  His name is Elder Puefua and he is a spiritual giant.  He was also a marine before the mission.  Turns out he is a happy dude that goes with the flow and laughs and sings a lot.  Of course not church songs! This missionary has potential!  He is super strong and we have had some great experiences already in the mission and I hope that they will continue again!

Also in the news of how my Spanish is coming I have learned more Spanish in a couple of days than in months so I think that because I'm literally teaching all the lessons and I am doing everything I had to learn, and with my call as a district leader and other things I am really stressed and overwhelmed sometimes then I hear my big old Samoan sing "somewhere over the rainbow" and it makes me calm down and I look back with a smile hug him and ask "what hymn is that" hahahahahaha  I love him so much and who would of thought that a new kid would be the one who teaches me the most Spanish!  He is totally not fluent but understanding and getting better!

Hey my house flooded this past week!  So we finished our last p day and where walking around teaching the gospel and guess what!  We got this crazy call from the pensioner, or the main missionary over the whole housing for the mission saying that there are some screaming angry Chilean women in our house saying it was full of water!  So we freaked out and ran home thinking we where getting robbed!  Turns out that our toilet got ripped in half! the toilet literally broke apart in two Pieces spraying water all over the place!  I felt like Eddie Murphy from daddy day care as I looked and there was water on the walls and the ceiling of our house!  There was seriously five inches of water in our house and we live in the top floor!  It spilled out and was running down the stairs like a waterfall! so we come running around this hill and see women running around with handfuls of garments and stuff that's soaking wet!  Then when we showed up they finally cut the water to the whole apartment and everyone was dripping wet!  It was so gross and we opened all the windows, someone broke Elder Ammiratis bed and we ended up sleeping in wet clothes in wet blankets with the windows open trying to dry everything out!  I woke up with like the chills and we had no dry clothes and this was two days before transfers!  Elder Ammiratis stuff must of been like seriously wet still as we loaded his stuff into wet suitcases hahahahahahaha  Wow what crazy stories of the mission!

Miracles! okay so I am here to talk to you about miracles!  Read doctrine and covenants 76.

Another miracle, we were contacting this house and my companion was feeling sick because he hates beans, lemons, and other things that are only eaten in Chile, so he was hungry and tired and I did not want him to have a new missionary freak out so we knelt down on this fifth floor apartment complex and I prayed to let us know who to teach and what I should be doing to help us progress and then we get up.  I hug him and do what my mom always does and says how much she loves me!  Then as we are walking away with my arm around him a door opens from behind and a lady sticks her head out!  We went back and talked to her and she was almost in tears and she let us in and we talked to her and I shared the first lesson with her and my comp had some crazy spiritual experiences and testimony's as well!  Then I felt that this was the perfect thing to boost my comps animo. I told him to invite her to be baptized!  He looked at his agenda and asked this beautiful investigator to be baptized!  She said yes and started to cry.  The spirit was so strong and as we where talking we asked why she opened the door, she said that she was watching tv and she heard the voice of her son " one that lives super far away and never visits" yelling something.  I was taken back and asked what and she said "mama, mama, hurry and open the door! you need to open the door!"  And she said she literally ran and opened the door and there we were standing there walking away and it was this crazy experience that was so spiritual and beautiful!  What  a blessing that I have to be in this work and to have the gospel in my life all the time that I can recognize this work and the Holy Ghost.  How awesome!  I love this place so much!  It was such a miracle!

Also speaking of baptisms we had one!  MARIA!  She was baptised and I baptised her!  Remember she was the one who came running over to tell us she wanted to get baptized?  Well it gets better!  She was baptised! hahahahahahahahaha  I love the fruits of our labor!  It was such a beautiful service and I was crying "thanks dad" and she was as well and when she came out of the water she looked so......stunning and glowing it was unbelievable! what blessings!

We also found a new family that will be baptized in December as well!  How awesome is that!  A family of three who are really cool and super strong in there beliefs in god.  I believe Elder Puefua is key in all this work.  He is my little luck charm!  My big ole Samoan!  I love that kid.  fotos are on the way!

Love you all!  This work is hasting over here and I really am losing myself!  Its about all my life, dreams thoughts actions and everything. lo amo mucho! 

Elder Passey














Sunday, November 23, 2014

November 17th, 2014: Week before Transfers

Okay I will be super brief about some of the stuff that went down this week, one of the craziest things ever! dog fights and crazy bad situations. also we are going to be having transfers this Wednesday and I can not believe how fast this change has gone, also we sent off Christmas packages this week so I am hoping they will make it to you!  Please be cool and do not open them until Christmas, its not much but its the best I could do!  We had what is known as a bounce back week and here we are and we will get this baptism this week with Maria, if you don't remember her she is the one who was waving us down and asking us if we could baptise her!  It was such a confidence booster, but we will also be waiting to hear from the doctor about when Patricia's surgery is and when we can then plan for baptism! I love this work so much and I love the fact that I can be the servant of the Lord for all these people, but that means we should never but our guard down or we will always fall.  I don't want you guys to freak out but my companion and I got into a sticky situation and I will tell you more about it......

But first we have been seeing some crazy dog fights going on and they get so vicious and horrible with blood and pain, I don't like it very much and just proves to me that really I am a democrat at heart hahahahaha  But we have been making a ton of progress with Maria, she really is crazy though, like super crazy,  She has read the Book of Mormon already and knows the pamphlets by heart and so she is ready to be baptized!  I was getting nervous and I am still pretty nervous that she has already been baptised before but she does not pop up in the records!  So I guess she will get baptised! I can not express the funny things that she does! She lives in the most poor circumstances that I have ever seen, for example using a five gallon bucket for a bathroom and I also think she does not too much, its so humbling but I know that the Lord will bless her life in so many ways and all I need to do is have the faith that she will be a faithful member to receive these blessings!  She will have her interview tomorrow at 12 in the morning. I hope that she passes with flying colors, we have been working our bums off and I hope that one of us does not get transferred and have to miss out on the fruits of our labors!  Man how bad would that suck! 

My Spanish is getting better and I know that I am learning every day and I can teach and preach the gospel with out trouble, but I am learning and the goal is fluent, I wont back down from that. 

Okay are you ready for the sticky situation of the week, I feel so awful for this and I was so dumb! okay here we go so we were walking into a house of a recent converts and they were having a party for there grandmas 70th birthday and they had this huge blue cake with lots of frosting and sprinkles but also a ton of pineapple. We met them and I trust them with my life because they are good converts and faithful as well so they sat us down and gave us this piece of cake, a huge piece of cake and I was so hungry so we all started to eat at this cake, it had this super weird taste to it and I thought that it was the pineapple being super strong so we kept eating, then at like the last bite I was feeling a little bit weird and I smelled the cake and it smelt funny, I look over at my comp and my mouth just dropped open, he was sniffing at it as well and we started talking about the cake and it was an alcoholic cake!  This store baked this cake and then they poured one liter of rum over this cake to keep it soft. I was wondering why is was so moist! ugh So then I started to feel it hit me and we called and told president as fast as we could and he understood perfectly that it WAS NOT OUR FAULT AND WE HAD NO IDEA.  Their kids where even eating this cake. so then we just ended our night at like nine and walked home and I was stumbling like a freaking drunk to the house.  My comp did not eat half of it before we found out!  How dumb is that!  First time being drunk and its on the mission.  I was losing myself pretty bad.  But by the morning it was over and with that horrible experience passing I felt better about the week!

Well that's all that happened hahaha.  It was a wild one, we gave the sister missionaries another blessing.  They are really going through some challenges but they are awesome!  Well ya we will see if I am still here next week, love you guys so much!

Christmas Spirit in Chile

We really dont know why this thing is on this stick.  
Haha we think its Maria's job to be santa

Photo on Maria's front porch

Elder Ammirati

Christmas Photo from Chile!

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

November 10th, 2014: Week by Week

What a week it has been! Its been a little bit crazy with lots of running around and eating weird stuff!  This week was hard because we had a terrible experience with my companions grandma passing away, and one of our investigators did not pass her interview......and our other investigator who we love so much could not get baptised because of her dad and the things he said destroyed her, oh how blessed we are to be in a gospel that loves and focuses on family's!  I can not describe how much love I feel for everyone of my family members!  Especially how we can be together forever through this eternal plan! I know this is the true gospel of the Lord and I feel myself changing everyday as I strive to be the best leader possible and how I try to follow our beloved savior.  I love the quote by president Boyd K Packer that says "WE ARE NOT OBEDIENT BECAUSE WE ARE BLIND, WE ARE OBEDIENT BECAUSE WE CAN SEE.  I love this quote and I love the fact that it is true, I really am learning a ton about how to follow gods commandments. I also know now that we often get confused with one of the most important lessons and commandments of Jesus Christ, be ye therefore perfect........what a hard commandment right?  But we can overcome this by trials and mistakes, if we are too scared to try how will we ever succeed?  We must be like those young 2000 stripling warriors and go out and follow the commandments without a fear or a doubt, yes we will make mistakes and like those 2000 young brethren we may fall from the weight of our sins or the loss of blood but they kept getting up, and the would not go down and forget there master, they knew their Lord and God and I know mine personally, I testify that there is a course out there for you and I and I will do everything I can to be an example of the believers.

Okay so after that tragic incident with my companion we had to get our animo back up so we left on an adventure and took a bus to this mountain city that reminded me a ton about the states, they even had a McDonald's so we got so full that night.  We where suffering but it was a animo booster, also I guess that no one told me but monopoly is back at McDonald's and guess who won a small fry for free?  I did! Power to the Americans!  We walked back up laughing and yelling ganaste! jajajaja  It was hilarious because Latinos never win I guess.  But we had a great time in Placilla. 

What has been super hard for me this week was I was and still am kind of sick, I got a blessing from our zone leaders when I was wearing sweaters outside in the middle of the day because it has been super cold for me but its really hot out here and I was not getting to hot!  But I am getting better and I am proud to say that I have not missed a day of work for my own problems, I have always been ready and will always work until my body does not move, this is the lords work, I love it so much and I will die for this cause, hahaha  I also cant wait to rest and my companion says that the black marks under my eyes wont go away so I am a sickly looking fellow, also I lost more weight so I am sitting at about 152 pounds right now........... I think I need to eat more!

Speaking of eating we ran out of food and because of our work hours and lessons it was impossible to buy food so we cooked everything we had, we put this weird pasta with mayo and Chile powder. yuck, also with oatmeal we put chocolate powder and made no bake cookies, so we had six plates off no bake cookies in our fridge but nothing else!  But we had some crazy adventures with food!

Valentina, my dear little ten year old who was so ready to get baptised but her dad called from the Dominican Republic and told me that she will never be baptised like he was......he was super drunk and made all of us cry, but he will not let her be baptized it was so sad! I don't want to talk about it to much but it blew me away......

Sorry guys but I don't have to much time,  But I love you all!


McDonalds

Planning for a District Meeting.  I call it Inspiration,
it looks like my room with Luke,  HAHAHAHAHAH

No Bake cookies for three days!

Sunday, November 9, 2014

November 3rd, 2014: Halloween!

Man last Halloween I was dressed up as a nerd with a shirt tucked in and a tie with pens in my shirt and even a calender, this Halloween I was dressed up exactly the same!  How weird is that?  Man I need to get with the program and learn how to dress up! Halloween really is pretty different here than in the states and there is just a bunch of rebellious stuff that goes on here and really its down right lame, I was going to sleep to crazy music and laughter and I really did feel like I was getting flashed back to my college days! But what a life I have been having here is Valparaiso!  I have never felt such great blessings before in my life, conversion is a life long task and I have this hunger for the gospel like I have never felt before!  What blessings haha and there was some pretty sketchy moments that happened and I was so glad that my companion and I are obedient and our plans to baptize! Yeah life rocks!


Good news, we will be baptising this week! Patricia is ready and we hope Valentina is ready as well!  We talked to Patricia and she is so funny I love it!  Her middle name is "from the snow" it is so cool and she asked me to baptise her!  That was a bummer because I wanted my companion Elder Ammirati to baptise her!  He has not baptised yet so when she said my name it just killed me a little bit, but I hope that Valentina will let him baptize! He is such a great example to me and everyone around him.  We also have someone that looks like Scarface in our ward.  That was cool!

We also got attacked by dogs but my companion went karate on them and we escaped!  It was so cool,

just a side note, we ran out of gas and we would not buy new gas because right now it is super expensive so we took cold showers for a whole week and boiled eggs in our electric water heater, it was a great experience and funny to hear my comp put his whole body under the water  it was like gasps and pants hahahaahahahahahah.   But this week was progressing super well until we talked to Jorge, Jorge is our less active member who we were trying to get to go on a mission but then we where talking to him and he told us how much he loves us and trusts us then told us he just barely got a girl pregnant and is going to be a dad!  He is 17 and the girl is 14!  It made me think of my sister and I am so glad that we were raised in the church, but he just blew it big time,

I love you guys so much and I hope that you have a great Holiday season!  Football is in the air and lots of food! I am so pumped for Christmas and the chance I get to talk to my family!