July 20th, 2015: Another Good Week On the Books!

Well this week was a blast! I’m happy for the chance I have to serve as a missionary for the church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter Day Saints. When I think about serving the Lord I feel a great responsibility and I feel the love of the Lord.  I also feel a great weight on my shoulders, sometimes its weird to think but the Lord puts his trust in twenty year old boys to teach and preach the gospel in this part of the world.  I really have this great love and respect for all the other missionary’s who have come and gone and especially are going as missionary’s, we as gods army should become even more loving as gods representatives. 

This week was a week of learning, I love the book of Mark in the New Testament, I love how the Lord teaches us to "take up the cross" and follow him.  This has recently become my theme as a missionary.  We as humans and as latter day saints are generally obedient to the laws of god, but does that mean we are perfect? No! Sometimes we are obedient because we have to be, but not because we want to be.  The secret to this life and the secret to gain all the blessings that we could ever want is to have the desire and the heart to be diligent and to gain the love and confidence from the Lord! The act of taking up our own cross is to become even more like the Lord and our Savior, obviously we cant go outside and build a cross and carry it around... but we must become like him and leave the things that are from the world in the world, and we need to gain a better understanding of living the Lords commandments.  It all makes so much sense! It’s like going the extra mile! Then we can really become more like the Lord and become his servants.  So how can we do this? An example is something that I took out of my life, before going to sleep I used to think about skiing, it was nice to think about skiing and living in the world and I thought it relaxed me, but now I do so much more than that.  Now I think about Book of Mormon stories and I love it! Something so little has helped me so much, my night terrors are not as frequent hahaha and I feel better, wow works haha thank you Book of Mormon stories!

Also I’m so proud of my little brother Luke, I talk about him all the time, and my companion "Elder Gutierrez" says that he will go to "Argentina!" as for me I’m almost positive that he will serve in Canada but he will be speaking French.  And there it is, after a bunch of meditation and thought and scripture study I’m guessing ole Canada but speaking French, hope I’m right! But I thank my savior for the chance my little brother gets to feel the love of the lord and teach his gospel.  I got to admit I still sing in the shower, I sing worse but I sing the song "I hope they call me on a mission" and I get a laugh out of the fact that I’m actually serving a mission, then almost cry thinking my time is running out.... what crazy mood swings haha but I love this life and I feel great! I have better health and I feel like I’m doing well! Its time to baptize!

One of my stories for the week was when we confirmed Matias as a member of the church, I don’t know why but we did not have communication with this family for the whole week, they would not answer their phone and they would not come to the door 

"because they are often studying".  Of course I freaked out and started to get nervous I think I picked up this trait from my dad, haha. But after a bunch of prayer and a special fast he showed up Sunday and said that he was away from his house for a week but that he received every message and every letter we wrote at left at his door and with a smile this little 9 year old kid told me "I wouldn’t miss the Holy Ghost for the world" and I marveled at that! Why don’t we as members of the church do everything we can to keep the spirit in our lives? We should do everything possible to be at the church early reading our scriptures and getting ready to be apart of the sacrament! I will do everything and anything to gain myself the Holy Ghost as my constant friend.  I love that right at this moment I know that the lord trusts me enough to make the right decisions to edify the church in this city.  I feel like this city has become my project to the Lord, nine moths in my mission has been spent sweating, laughing and crying in this hot humid city to establish the kingdom of god. I love how I could walk down the street and usually I can meet someone that I know, and we are talking about main street! Its as if this people have noticed that I have been here awhile hahahaha. 

Thank you for all your prayers, I feel them, I cherish them, and I love you all!

Elder Logan Shill Passey

July 14th, 2015: What a hard, yet GREAT week

This has been the hardest week of my mission, I have never seen the force of opposition so hard in my life like I saw this week.  We lost a bunch of investigators and we also lost a couple of baptism dates, and Matias became sick, so what did we do? We sat down and thanked God, which was hard to do when all these bad things were happening but we did not ask why, we only tried to reason why they happened and guess what! After a bunch of prayer and fasting we had really the greatest week I have ever had in my mission, all in the same week! I remember what happened to Peter as he set off onto the water to go and meet Christ who was so firmly standing on the water, as Peter started to walk I like to think that his feet where wet and he was a little bit cold and began to doubt, so he began to sink, and with that last desperate cry he pleaded to the Lord who caught him and said "why did you doubt man of little faith" why did you doubt? That struck me this week as I was walking around in the cold and the rain searching for people who are ready to be taught the gospel.  I realized that when things got bad we tried to push or way out by our own power! We started to work hard and ram ourselves out of the slump we hit.  Our diligence never faltered but the attitude was the problem.  We trusted in our own power not the Lords.  In the story of Peter he did not save himself from the water did he? He only was saved because he humbled himself and reached out to lock his relationship with the Lord, only then was he saved, and in my mind he was more prepared for the future.  I feel like I have grabbed the hand of the Lord and savior Jesus Christ this week, I know it without a doubt! And I will never try to do things without him! 

Blessing number 1- we found a bunch of new families this week, three to be exact, I love teaching them because I love to think of teaching my own family and to see the family feel this love is so amazing! So awesome! But they are great! I hope that they will progress, but what tender mercies has the Lord sent me? At the end of the week I was crying with my companion, I have not seen such a change in the blessings like this week has taught me, we went from one of the worst weeks of my mission the best week in literally three days.  All of which were helped with prayer throughout the day! So that was a great blessing!

Blessing number 2- MATIAS WAS BAPTISED! He said he would not suffer to wait another week without being baptized! Wow! What a great blessing! I loved to see him enter into the water with his grandpa and be baptized. I have never seen a shivering boy with such a big smile before! And the best thing is that his family is doing great! The dad is a little bit more stubborn but hey! They are progressing; I promise that I will send pics! But his little brother gave talk during the baptism service! Wow it was so special! 

Blessing 3- It rained so much that there were lakes and rivers running through the streets! Funny story is that for the past three days we have been waking up at five thirty to do things for president and to fill up the font.  It was pouring rain, like cats and dogs, like buckets of rain and as we where heading to the church we had bags full of containers of food, Tupperware I think its called, "you all know how much the relief society likes there Tupperware".  As we where walking I smiled and said, "well at least it cant get worse!" Just then the bag holding all our containers spilled out into the street and my companions umbrella broke hahaha and the containers went floating down the street! Laughing and bitterly knowing that I should not of said that,we collected every container and waited in the rain and sang until a taxi came to pick us up!

I know Christ lives and he guides us to a state of happiness, also I love my family. 

Luke, you are a stud, keep it up and have a happy birthday!

This little girls loves her Darth Vader

This guy looks just like Grandpa Passey

Matias

This is my house

I am getting more creative with my pancakes!

July 6th, 2015: The Power of the Fast and Chile won Copa America!

Okay I just want all of you to know how different our mission president is! I know without a doubt that he is called of god to be our leader in this great work, the work of salvation! What blessings we have to be apart of this great work. We also confirmed Cecilia a member of the church! Wow she was so full of happiness that it was incredible! Also I had my first council with president Diaz, this man is an angel sent from god as well as his wife! Other than that this week was full of challenges, we walked and walked, like pioneers jaja and guess what I know that it all paid off! What blessings do we have as members of the church! Sometimes we forget don’t we? It’s so easy to forget God as natural men, but how can we ever do that to our Lord and Savior? I know that we must be constantly fighting our natural man and one way we can do this is by fasting and heart felt prayer.

So I’m sure my mom is dying to know about my new president, well they are from Chile and they are so full of love that it’s almost unreal! The other thing is that the change has been drastic, I still quite don’t know what to think, he has given us literally so much freedom! For example, I feel like one of those dogs who are always on a leash and then when for the first time in their lives they are let free they go wild and just spaz out, ya that’s how I am right now, I’m still trying to figure everything out but let me just tell you what’s changing first, we can now drink coke! Hahahahahahaha Yes! I love the coke down here and it is seriously better then mountain dew or any other drink in the world! It is different than the coke in the USA because it was real sugar and more sugar hahahaha but hey I think that’s the reason why it was banned in the first place, because gringos get addicted, but I will only buy a little bit "as I pause to take a nice long sip of my coke:)" hahaha.  But the other thing that is really weird was that he is letting us go anywhere we want during our p day, remember when president shut that rule away and made it even more strict, well its gone and I have my little zone running free through a huge city in south America.......what could go wrong right? Also we can drink a drink that’s called mate, its an herbal drink that’s drunk out of a cool looking straw and an old cup, I cant wait to try it out and see why south America is going nuts for it! But we will see tonight hahahaha. The other thing that I love is that we can also get together as a zone, we have never done this as a mission, while other missions do this every Monday it is so new to me its almost to weird to think of, but hey I know that he is receiving revelation from the lord so I will follow with all my heart! I love him and the love he shows all of us especially when we are proud of what we have done.  I am learning the importance of the power of love and how it can help everyone stay obedient, we will see how it works out! But game on! I have been dying to play some soccer!

Also I just want to tell all of you that CHILE WON THE AMERICA CUP! Chile has never won a cup before and when they won it was so nuts, I have seen many things before in my mission, I have seen riots in Valparaiso and I have seen earthquakes and fires, but I have never seen the people go quite as crazy as when they won the America cup! The best part was.........hahaha get this, PRESIDENT DIAZ SAID WE COULD WATCH IT, so on the Fourth of July I had a huge bbq and then we sat down in front of a huge screen at the bishops house and watch the last and final game of the America cup, Chile against Argentina.  It was nuts and I have not felt that much suspense and nerves as I felt watching Chile go into extra time and then beat there dreaded foes in penalty’s! Wow it was nuts, it was also the first time I have watched TV in one year and three almost four months, not going to lie I felt so weird! I felt like I was breaking every rule in the book "which I was if president K was still my president" but with Diaz no, it was fun to watch this country win! Finally it is over, it was so hard to teach because everyone was so filled with nerves for the big game. Every member was praying that Chile could win, ya it was a little bit extreme but hey I’m living in South America, everything is extreme!

But the best part of the week was when all of Chile fasted for rain, Chile has been going through some seriously strong droughts and we as a country fasted for rain and when sacrament meeting passed and we walked outside it was pouring rain!!!!!!! The tear-filled eyes of the people could not make me hide my tears as I realized that God does listen to every prayer, no matter if its a zone leaders plea for more help and revelation or if its a entire country fasting for rain, GOD WILL ALWAYS HELP HIS CHILDREN. What blessings we have as sons and daughters of him! 

Matias did not get baptized yet, we fill that he needs more time to get ready, his parents and inactive, so we are trying to keep him full of hype and help his parents reactivate in the church!

I love you all so much thank you so much,

Elder Passey