January 26th, 2015: The Companion of the flea market

Hahahahaha weird title right? But we as a companionship have had a lot of things happen this week, we had some serious miracles pass and we got another baptism! Wow blessings are seriously rolling through and we are really becoming stronger and stronger in the gospel as missionary’s and as a ward as a whole.  We found some new family’s that I am really happy for and we are so stoked that maybe we can have a miracle this 8 of February, also we are covered in flea bites, yummy! hahahahaha but life goes on, we had some great moments and we worked as hard as we can and we are sooooooo tired but happy!

So happy for Elder Allred! Pure smiles yesterday as I looked at him in white as he was getting ready for his first baptism ever! He was so happy and no words can be described when I see people coming into the work and doing what the lord wants of them! It makes me feel like the mouthpiece of the lord and I feel sad when people don’t follow the commandments but I feel even better when they can rise from the dust and be men. But we had the confirmation of Benjamin yesterday and he was so stoked to get up and sit on the "big comfy seat" haha We where super nervous but we gave him the Holy Ghost and everything went well! We also found out that Giovanni has a fear of falling so that made his baptism super hard! He would not go backwards to save his life and Elder Allred had to baptize him like five times to get him all the way under, the last time Elder Allred just went for it and dunked him pushed him all the way to the bottom, I STAND AS A WITNESS TO ALL OF YOU THAT GIOVANNI WAS BAPTISED BY THE POWER OF GOD IN THE CORECT ORDER.  Some may think why would it matter if one hair was still out? Really it means salvation, we must be correct, we must be right one hundred percent of the time, because we are the church of God, thus being the church of god we will come through as the church who does it the right way one hundred percent of the time! I love this work and it was so great to see Giovanni getting baptized! The best was he surprised us after and went up and bore his testimony in front of the whole ward after his baptism talking about how he has never felt so happy before and how he wants to be the best he can be, I know for ta fact that he is a chosen elect person from god, he was found about twenty days ago, talk about a miracle! he was the fastest baptism and the strongest one at that! I love this kid,

OH AND HE SAID HE IS GOING TO SERVE A MISSION!

What a week! One day we where contacting in the jungle! Seriously its a sweet jungle with this river going through it but we went and we found some old stairs and followed them all the way until the stairs literally ended to a dirt path that took us to a man who is a fruit farmer, we saw him far off and my comp said, this guy is chosen.... I believed it when he ran to us and told us he wanted to change his life, I could smell the alcohol on him but we taught him and at the end of the lesson we invited him to be baptized and he said something that stunned me " I have already been baptized in your church" We just lost animo but then he said his family should get baptized! So we went back the next day and taught this awesome family! There are four of them with baptism dates for the eighth of Feb.! I’m so stoked and they all went to church as well as other investigators! we should have nine this month! Stroked is the only word that can describe it! 

Elder Allred and I have been having some weird night terrors and its been crazy! I woke up to him sitting up in his bed screaming "elder, elder! I asked what was going on and he said that a spider of the size of a basketball on the wall and it went running down on the floor, I was freaking out and we turned on the light and looked all over the apartment to find this spider which vanished from sight! weird huh!

Also I did another interview for the sister missionary’s in my district and his name is Mesach, he is 80 years old and kind of crazy he is super hard to understand but we went into the interview and I asked, "Mesach are you ready to be baptized, are you happy" and he simple responded "no I don’t want to get baptized" I was shocked, why would he be here if he did not want to get baptized, so we talked and I shared scriptures we prayed but to no avail as he would refuse to be baptized! I felt so bad going out and telling the Hermana’s that he could not be baptized but he did not even want to be baptized! It was crazy but I prayed so hard that I could feel the spirit and know what to say and to understand him and for that whole interview it was like we where speaking English, it was so spiritual, I honestly felt that we where speaking English, it was incredible.

Well that’s all folks! I love you all so much and that you for your prayers, please pray for Maria, my convert, she is super sick and is suffering a lot and might be sent to the hospital,

I know this church is true, I have never felt so strongly about the church before, but this is not even missionary hype, something is awaking inside me and I feel so good to be the lords servant, thank you for everything, your prayers and your examples.  

Elder Passey

January 19th, 2015

Wow spiritual days this week.  We had at the baptism of Benjamin!  I had the honor of baptizing him and it felt so spiritual to see him come into the water and help him and his family in one more step to pure excellence! I love this work! It’s so great and I can’t believe how happy I am! There is nothing better then being a missionary! I have come to the realization that I have been out ten months! Stop it! I cant slow the time down for anything! Its driving me crazy and to be honest I hate that my time is going by so fast, I am now the missionary that people call for advice and questions and they ask what we should do.......still feel young but love the fact that everyday I am pleading with the Lord to guide me and to be a direct influence in my life and it really works, every decision only comes after pray, always. And that’s how I want it to be for the rest of my life, I read a talk about family "discussions" the other day and thought about all the family talks I have had in life. Love my dad!!!!!! But the best part is god will always answer. Also Giovanni passed his interview and seriously it is so cool and he is awesome!

Benjamin’s baptism! Well we had more problems with the font again, hash tag Chile problems but it all worked out as I was able to baptize him and the thing was as we walk down into the shivering water the doors open and we get the spotlight on us and we see everyone looking at us Benjamin said "hola" and waved at everyone and they all said hola back and I felt like it was super funny that such a kid could be so sweet and genuine. After he was baptized they shut the doors and we started to come back out of the font and Benji jumped back into the water and started swimming around! I was horrified! I was like "get your skinny brown butt out of the water!" hahahaha no not really but ya that was a funny experience! His whole family showed up and a lot of them are not members! It was great to see the spirit touch there lives as well by his influence!

Giovanni passed his interview to be baptized! I love that kid! He was the young man who was wearing the St George t-shirt and is growing in love with the gospel! I swear he will be the best missionary the world will see as well if he keeps this up! he has not even been baptized yet but he keeps going and contacting with us and he even comes to lessons with us when we need a man to enter the house! He gives testimony’s super strong and he is 18 so in one year he could be a missionary! That would be so awesome! Love it!  I will show you a pic of him, and he is super funny and has lots of jokes about everything! He is great! Please praying for him that he can feel welcomed in the ward!

We also had interviews from president this week, in our houses! Good thing our house was not trashed, it was great and the spirit was super strong, as we were coming to the house we kept seeing drug busts and raids and our president was like, "those are not your investigators right? hahahahahahahahahaha I love him and we have such great conversations and he emails me a lot telling me tips and what I need to do.

Love you all a ton, we worked hard today and I want you all to know that my Savior lives, he is our greatest friend, I'm so sorry this letter is short but I don’t have time, read 2 Nephi 4! Its the best, I have grown to love being humble, and especially to listen to other people because everyone has a right to spiritual revelation, love you guys and pics are on the way

Benji's Baptism

Benjamin has a flown blown mustache.........and he is ten,
he wanted me to show you guys, what a stud!

Our Meeting with the President

Giovanni

January 12th, 2015: Like a Cholo

Man this week was crazy! I cant believe how many things has happened to Elder Allred and i!  We have seriously gotten ourselves in a bunch of weird sticky situations where we laughed until we cried, also this was a super bad week for my leg, everything that could of happened happened to my leg! Bad news bears!  But lets see what happened.......Benjamin passed his interview and will be baptised this week!!!!!! ahhhhhh  So happy he will be a great missionary!  He is just like Nate but Latino with a little mustache hahahahaha  I fell off a cliff while doing service... it hurt really bad, we put up a incredible 8 baptism dates in 7 days and I am starting to have sleeping problems so I have been so tired!  But all of this and more as we talked to a man named Gilbert who lived in Compton California for 20 years before getting deported for drug and violence and I hated talking to him in English and hearing a bunch of ugly words that do not attract the spirit, Patricia did not get baptised, it turned out to be bloody, I will tell you all about it, we contacted the "zombie blocks" and had a bunch of success and we are really using the spirit as forces in the labor! what a crazy week! 

Okay so I have come to learn that if you laugh at your companion for something that has happened to him the Lord will have it happen to you as well.  We went and did service for Maria, my convert and she is so  crazy!  She has really hit a low point in her life and she does not have money for anything, she really does not have money now for her medicine, she is suffering from schizophrenia and diabetes so when she does not have medicine she really does end up going crazy and freaking out.  She lives on the side of this cliff and she has cut her house out of the cliff, so after walking down to her house which pretty much is a dump we ended up cutting all the weeds down because she is scared that there will be a fire pretty soon and she will die if they don't get cut.  First of all her tools are a bunch of crap and are zip tied to the wood handles, also it took us like ten minutes to climb all the way to the top of the cliff and seriously climb to this overhang to cut grass.  Anyway my companion Elder Allred is such a boss and a jokester and was reading from the mission manual about how we should not be doing dangerous activity's and I was laughing and saying nothing could go wrong, in short it did go wrong.  I was leaning trying to reach these weeds and slipped and fell off this cliff.  As I was falling the world really went into slow mo and I thought that this was it and I was a goner! I looked and yelled "no elder!" and I really thought that the last image that I would see was my companions horror struck face as I fell off the lip of this cliff!  I landed and crumpled in the dust and I was laying there for a minute.  But I remembered the scripture in 2 Nephi were it says rise from the dust and be men,  So I got up shaky and I was fine!  It was a miracle! I landed right next to this toilet and I was so glad I did not hit it!  I broke a metal bird cage but it did no harm! I was a little shaky but my comp said he got some great pictures but he said he almost pooped his pants seeing me go off the cliff.  It was a good 20 foot cliff and I cant believe I fell! hahaha  But miracles do happen!

Also a dog bit me this week!  It was crazy and it hurt so bad!  we were talking to our investigators and as we were walking out of nowhere this dog freaked out and jumped and bit my leg and I hit it with the  Book of Mormon but I thought for sure I would have to get rabbis shots! ugh!  So I look down and it broke skin but it was not bleeding, I said a prayer, taught the lesson and after I called the nurse and she was saying a bunch of random stuff, like " squeeze it and see what happens, p.s. that hurt a lot, then she asked how I felt, dry mouth etc haha but really it was okay and I have a huge bruise now!

Also we were walking down the side of this hill when a stair I was walking on broke and hit me in the back of the leg, seriously! ugh my right leg is seriously a goner hahahahaha.

Benji passed his interview with flying colors! What a champ he is!  The thing that is so sweet is that he is going to church as well as his whole family, his mom is paying tithing and she will be called to have a calling soon!  Also his brother will be receiving the priesthood shortly!  We have re activated and it was a great experience.  I was practicing the questions with him and I asked him the question, "have you ever committed a serious crime?"  He started to cry and was super sad and ran away and told us later that he committed a huge crime, we asked what and his whispered to his mom and she told us that 2 years ago when he was at school he stole a pencil!!!!!!!  He told us he was feeling super bad so we prayed together and he passed the interview!  He is so pure and an angel not only for the family but for the whole ward!

We also had some crazy miracles with finding new people to teach.  We are currently teaching a young man named Giovanni, he is a stud 18 years old and when we contacted him he was wearing a St George t shirt, we laughed and told him we where from there, he invited us in and he will be baptised on the 25!

Tamara will be baptised on the 25 too!  She is great but getting her to church is super hard!

love you guys and pictures are on the way

Elder Allred and I on the side of the hill

Oh by the way we also found out how to use our stove! We did not have a pan
so we ended up just using a pot and making cookies and bread, really I am quite the cook!
Its amazing what flour water and salt can do for you!The stories about missionaries eating weird things are true!

This is part of the cliff hahahaha.  It looks a lot smaller than it is.  

Turns out what a bunch of drunk people do is that they cut open a melon and take the
seeds out and fill it with wine.   We did it for lunch but with juice, it was super good and I
 will do it with a Mountain Dew when I get back! So Chile!

January 5th, 2015: Transfers, Miracles, Hard Work and Dog Bites!

Okay so lets start off and work with the transfers, I did not get transferred, But Elder Puefua did,  The Lord has chosen me to stay here in Rodelillo and I think it is because I need to learn from the members more, I cant begin to explain the love I have with the members.  They are so great and I love them so much.  One thing that I know is that I could work on more interaction with the members in lessons with our investigators!  My new companion is Elder Allred!  He is a boss! He just finished his training and he is my junior companion and he is from Orem Utah!  We seriously live like thirty minutes away from each other!  He loves to ski and chill at deer creek!  He is 18 and played basketball! hahaha  I love him to death and made him pasunacakes!  If you don't remember they are just flour and sugar with water but they taste good! and he loved them! I really like his work ethic!  He is ready to get down and work and I feel like we are supposed to be together for this change, so we will see what happens!  The dog bite is a funny story I will tell you all about it!

Okay so transfers, it really came as a shock but I am really happy, I don't know where Elder Puefua is but he is training with a Latino up north, it was for the best of us I believe. I believe that I was not working to my fullest potential that I could and I was stressed a bunch and felt the ever sicking feeling of failure. I know I was trying as hard as I could and I really believe he has changed my life for the better, there was things I needed to know and to under stand before I could progress as a missionary and as a child of God.  Elder Allred is a super hard worker and he struggled a bit with his last companion because he was a little bit lazy, so what happened is when we met up we became friends on the bus and talked a bunch about skiing, his Spanish is great if not better then mine! and he has all the desires to really put his head down and work!  We are so ready to get things down and baptise! We have had pure miracles!  It has been incredible! 

Do you guys remember Patricia? she almost got baptised but didn't for her surgery, she is back in the game and progressing and will have her interview today!  The story is that Elder Allred and I are trying to be more direct with the promises and what the Lord expects from us in these latter days as a last ditch effort to get her to be baptised we where talking to her daughter who is not a member but said she loves the missionary's.  She helped convince her mom that baptism is important.  Elder Allred and I just started to laugh out loud by how easy it was! I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT! What great blessings, she was so hard but the change was really in a twinkling of an eye! What blessings we can receive when we work hard.  We are also teaching a stud muffin named Benjamin, he is 10 years old and reminds me of Nate a bunch!  What a cool kid he is!  His family is less active but they are getting better and going to church as a family and Benji is really starting to be the head of the family.  He is a sure baptism on the 18 of January and he will seriously be a stud missionary.  He already has a assignment in primary and he is rocking it!  He always says funny stuff like "I am going to school all the old men at soccer tonight"  He is a friendly rival to this little Colombian kid.  They are so cool together.

Cool story about Benji was he lost his hamster for about two days!  First I blamed the parents but whatever haha Then he was saying how he was praying and he prayed about four times day and he found it in the bathroom! What a stud! Prayer works! 

Well guys my companion also got bit by a dog.  He was walking down the street with me and we see up ahead this cop on a motorcycle swerving towards this dog and it was barking and obviously furious, but then as we passed the dog, he turned around and took out his anger on my new comp!  All I said was "oh no!"  His pants got all torn up and people where laughing.  The cop stopped and then drove away laughing!  South America! hahahahahahahahaha  I laughed super hard!  Good thing I can sew!

Love you guys so much!

Benji, me and his mom at a family home evening we planned at the church with Elder Puefua.
The others are members of the ward.  Benji is in the green jersy with his mom right next to him.

Benji and His Mom

Elder Allred

Transfers 12/14

Elder Allred and his pants after the dog bite!