December 29th, 2014: Feliz Navidad

Wow what a great Christmas it was that we have been so blessed to be together! I loved talking to my family on Christmas and it was so peaceful in seeing that they really are having a wonderful time out in the USA! haha  This Christmas has been super humbling for me in many ways and I have been so blessed my whole life to know that this day is the day of our Lord and Savior.  We spent Christmas sweating under the ever penetrating sun and I can not even begin to describe how happy I am!  When was the last time I had to put sunscreen on at Christmas? I'd say never!  We had some great blessings this week and it was full of miracles and spiritual blessings! I'm so happy for this great week!

So first I want to talk about my goals for the new year, in preach my gospel it talks a bunch about how we need to better our understanding of the attributes of Christ, so what I will do is I thought of twelve of the most precious attributes that I want to study, fast, and learn about and for the next year.  I will be focusing on only one a month until next December!  It will be amazing and I have confidence that I will be richly blessed!  But we only receive blessings when we work hard and have faith so I will be continually working to see how it goes!  And don't worry I will always right about it and we will see if I change by the end of the year!  What I might start out with is patience! It is amazing and I need to learn more and more of it everyday to get into this world and be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

We celebrated Christmas with a family that is getting ready for baptism and I am so stoked for all the pictures that I have!  We did a secret Santa thing and I cant tell you how strong the spirit was there when we opened the presents on the stair outside their house and hearing the little girl say that it was the best Christmas she has ever received!  The only thing I bought that wonderful angel is lotion and perfume but she started to cry and I cant believe how lucky I have been blessed to live where I have been living my whole life!  Like I said before this was the most beautiful Christmas I have ever had in my life! I can not even begin to describe it!

Mom the family I interviewed passed and was baptised on Saturday, a mom and her twelve year old daughter! It was so great and I love how happy they felt when I was able to say" Pamela, Francisca, you are ready to follow our savior and be baptised and all of us crying through the last prayer was arguable the best Christmas present in the world.

My comp and I will be having changes New Years eve and to say the least I am tired, stressed and happy all at the same time!  What blessings! but its been sad, I have been training for three months now and feel like I could have done better and will do better if I get the chance again!  But we still don't know who will go and who will stay so I hope that everything will go well and I will be sending a bunch of pictures next week of my new comp if I get one!

Also Luke stop flirting with my bishops daughter,,,,,,,,,,gross

And Rachel you wear make up?

Nate looks like some hipster

Mom and Dad I love you all so much.

Merry Christmas!

oh p.s. Pray a lot for my city right now!  This is fire season and we have already had four fires in my hill alone! people are lighting fireworks off.......not a smart idea, or throwing there cigarettes into dry grass, please pray that this year we can keep the fires under control!

Christmas with the Garrido family

Thought you would like this, Look how skinny I look!

Me saying goodbye to 2014

MARIO!  My favorite game character

They were on this trolley thing

My Comp, Elder Puefua

Picture of my district!  Elder Sanchez high up on the chair and Elder Nash far left, Me in the red tie, Elder Puefua far right and Sister Page bottom left.....mom and family she is from Concord North Carolina!  She says her mom can make a better apple pie but I quickly responded that no one can beat my grandmas pie! And then Hermana Hansen on the bottom right, she is from Seattle.

December 22nd, 2014

What a week it has been! I'm seriously in love with all the seasons but mostly in love with the fact that I am serving with the greatest zone, companion and spirit of revelation exists! What a great tool we can receive if we are faithful and if we are working with contagious spirits!  We had a lot of things happen and we found a bunch of crazy investigators and its super sad to see how Satan takes over, really I can see peoples spirits yearning to break free and be saved, men, women and children are always screaming to break free of their natural man! I can see it in every single investigators eyes but what is super sad is how there "natural man" wont let them break free of all these horrible sins and addictions.  A light that can be found in everybody's eyes gets dashed and clouded over by harsh words, immoral actions and blinding humility. In these things I have learned that as missionary's we can only do so much to help them, there comes a moment in there lives where it's necessary for one to chose to break loose of these chains that are continually trying to drag us down and endless misery We all can do it!  It's not important if we are all the way drunk or just a random error, the secret my beloved family and friends is the gift of the atonement.  What people often think of as chains dragging us to our fate is not true! WE HAVE THE KEY to unlock us from those chains!  But we need to battle with the natural man to become more like Christ, who lived in this world but truly was not of this world, being perfectly perfect may not be possible but why not try?  Trying is the action to perfection, If god sees that then we will always win in the end.

Our family got so close to being baptised but they let there natural man win again and did not show up to church. They will be great members and they all have testimony's but the action of coming to church is super hard for them, really i don't know what else to do for them, they really need to start progressing and going to church to feel the spirit! ugh!!!!! Brings me to tears haha so then my companion and I sat on our beds last night and ate chocolate and listened to church music "family's can be together forever" man it was like we just got dumped haha  But it helped!  So we will see what their doing today because we have a lot of things planned in how we could help them and we also are going to be spending Christmas with them this year, it will definitely be super humbling! I can not begin to describe to you how it makes me feel seeing people living like this and knowing how blessed I am to be working where I am right now, there are worst places to be in South America. seriously I have heard some weird stories so I am fine with all of that and I love my mountain hills of Valpo and all the trash and dogs haha  But what they really have to do is put taxes on stuff! its a little under two dollars to buy 2 liters of beer here, if fact sometimes its cheaper then coke,,,,,,, wow hahaha  You know a country is a little off when..... 

Crazy story of the week Maria V. my convert had a pretty crazy break down this week and we listened to her cry as she just dumped her boyfriend, and how he left all these beer bottles all over the floor and dirt!  So I did what my companion Elder Artiga had us do when we had a bad week, we wrote all the bad stuff that has been happening and shoved it all into three beer bottles and chucked then as far as we could off this cliff and watched them bounce and break and it really was funny to see her running and throwing these things as hard as possible! She would start screaming and throw this bottle super far!  The sister missionary's in my district are so awesome and they gave her a skirt and some shoes!  What blessing it is to have great friends in my district!

My companion and I are getting along great, sometimes we argue but its okay because we are always learning and he has really, really, REALLY helped me with my patience!  Yesterday a ward member told me that if I would even hope to have a successful marriage I would have to date and marry a Latina haha because all the American girls in the world are not following the example of Christ and are not patient servers like Latinas hahahahahahaha I about blew up and freaked because she is always hitting me with low blows but I kept my cool and then she called my companion a pig hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha  It's not his fault that he eats food fast!

Love you all so much!

These are Pictures from the latest zone conference:

I was asked to speak in front of two Zone's

December 15th, 2014: What a crazy week!

Well lets see what happened this week huh? First, we are working hard, we have baptism dates but our family did not show up to church, what I have come to realize is that one decision can change a world, one prayer restored the gospel, one mother and father helped raise the son of god and lastly one decision for not coming to church can leave missionary's in tears.  Mom I have not received the Christmas package yet but its coming!

Okay so lets talk about what I really need to do better and what I can do to make my dreams become a reality. First lets talk about beliefs, beliefs are a lazy's persons way of saying they follow something, while faith on the other hand is completely different.  When we believe its great.  When we have faith and we are humble before the Lord we can receive great blessings and great answers!  Faith is everything!  We can believe anything we want but with faith it becomes possible, I have FAITH in my savior and that his infinite sacrifice has reached out and taught me and wrapped me up in hugs and comfort.  I love the fact that I am here working as hard as I can to be as positive as possible and to be a better teacher through love and patience.  As I looked in the index I have come to find that patience is the ultimate definition of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  So what will I do to be better?  Think before I blindly act and do whatever I can to listen to the spirit and say what the spirit tells me.  The Holy Ghost will show what I need to do to become a even better teacher and disciple of Christ!

Another thing that was really funny this week was that we were teaching and contacting this guy outside and his wife opened up the door and she was from some other church and started to yell and say we where devils and stuff so I answered and we had a great conversation but then she started to speak in Hebrew, like Hebrew, I knew instantly it was a different language and I asked specifically what it was and she told me that it was the language of the lord and his real words teaching me......odd right but his wife just kind of laughed but the best part is when we where walking away I was just blown away about how she went that far to talk to us in Hebrew and my companion was talking to me and he said "man I'm really new because i did not understand any of her Spanish!" hahahahaha  He thought she was speaking Spanish the whole time!  It made me laugh and hug him a bit.  But ya we also have been learning a lot together and we talk a lot and he often corrects me on what I should be doing better, it bugs me at first but looking on it during the night before sleep takes its toll on my worn down body I think of how right he is and the love I have for him grows even more, its really incredible!  But its the thing that I really want to learn is how to listen!

There is one other thing that happened that was really cool! We had a zone conference and really I love learning from president and all the wisdom he has and this bond that i feel like we have built. I'm so glad that I could have learned at such a young age the importance of hero's.  We need to follow hero's to be better and he is one of my hero's and the first and best hero's is my dad.......even though he does not write me every week, I feel his love and his prayers!  But we learned about how our whole mission is going to be changing!  We are using different methods to teach and to show videos and all this stuff its crazy, we are not like the states but we are working hard and bringing these people to God!

As for investigators are concerned we have this family that are progressing.  But what sucks is that they did not show up to church! How lame!  But we just met another kid who is 17 and getting ready to join the army and he is awesome! I have always wanted to baptize a kid my age and to get him ready to serve a mission.  That would be awesome! 

Love you guys and I hope you know I am trying to be as good as I can be! I am so ready for Christmas and I cant wait to start a new year!  How crazy!  love you all

Elder Passey

Valparaíso Zone meeting.  December 2014

December 8th, 2014: Dream On!

Hey guys! I am here loving life! I cant believe how much I have changed! Its so funny to hear all the things that have been going on this Christmas season! I love hearing stories from my companion about how life is back in the "states" hahaahahahaha  I realized that I have been out for awhile, haha Man I am getting old in the mission and I love looking back on the perspective of life in how I have changed in just nine or ten months. Its so crazy! love life and I love living it! But we had a good time and now maria is a member of the church! She got confirmed last Sunday! wheew! I was stressing abut it. I am seriously turning into dad! 

First off happy birthday dad! This is a shout out to my beloved father who not only helped me along the way but he literally taught me the best way possible, by example.  I love him so much and i love how he taught me that sometimes the lord teaches us the hard way, not to make us discouraged but to help us become better people. sometimes we become prideful or stiff necked humans who will only learn from hard things, but we need to use these hard things for the benefits of our lives.  Once we become disciples of Christ we need to do something even more, we need to go teach it! How dare we be followers of Christ and not do what he has told us to do?  To share! That is why I love my dad, he is sharing the gospel with so many people and I am so happy to have him as my father, everything in my life has been modeled after him, so I want to say thank you, but mostly I love you dad, you let me choose who I wanted to become, and here I am receiving the gospel of God!  I love that man! Best stories of my dad is obviously when he speared me in the head, when I knocked out my teeth and he drove me to the dentist like fast and furious style, all of our ski trips where I ended up being better then him at the end of the day while he would go sit and sleep in the car hahah. Also when we would go train dogs in the swamps, I love him!  Also when he would do a back flip off the tramp and then be sore for a month hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha,  Dad don't worry we will be fit together when I get back.

So going off the topic of my father I am turning into a worry wart. I believe that it is a habit that comes with sharing the gospel, the whole go with the flow thing has come and gone as I am now rushing around finding out who needs what and how I can magnify my calling!  I love it but I was feeling so much stress and I have been fasting so much for Maria to get confirmed that I was sick.  She went completely dark for like a week straight and after a lot of fasting we ended up finding her and finding out what has been going on.  Now she was with her dad but she ended up coming back to get confirmed and I loved seeing her there with a new kind of glow that I have never seen before and it was a good job moment!  We are having so much success and I cant wait to experience it again!  It really makes me so happy to see people feel the Holy Ghost in their lives, seriously how great a life she will now have, hard yes but joyful of course!

Today we are helping our family that will be baptised on the 21 if everything goes to plan.  We set up a Christmas tree! it is so special and I am so pumped for Christmas, no lie.  Though I feel that it is not even close to Christmas as I sit here looking out over the ocean and the nice heat hahaha  Is there snow yet?  Super random question. But they are doing really well, Tomara is the mom, Alison is 12 years old and Kathrine is 23, a family raised without the gospel, but they will be brought into the flock.  I love this family so much that I cant wait for them to be baptised! 

We also ate some weird food and honestly I have no idea what it was, it killed my comp hahaha.  It was like salty bread in water with beans and the lockness monster all in one! haha  But glad to say that I won! Mom I don't know the time yet for Christmas, but we will know next monday.  Will you make sure my Skye works and everything?  Thank you!  I love you all so much!

December 1st, 2014

Mom! Happy Thanksgiving! Guess what! For this thanksgiving or Friday I guess I went to the presidents house with all the other district leaders and we ate lunch and had a great lesson on how to be leaders, I am definitely here to be with this group of people and with these investigators!  The story of the week is I got asked out by a girl hahaha So I still got some game I guess.  But I just walked away and my comp was like dude why did you walk away from that contact she seemed super interested! I asked him if he understood, he said no and I explained and he laughed saying how goofy I am, I guess that we are super goofy on the mission and we change a lot but now when looking back on my past life that was weird and crazy I am utterly astonished at what has happened to me haha  I have been through so many crazy and spiritual experiences and I cant believe that I have been heartbroken by investigators and laughed till I cried in the same day! Emotions are a funny thing!  But this week was really good, we had a bunch of progress in our zone and we are looking for a brighter future ahead!

Today and this letter is all about patience and how we can handle it, for those who really know me know I am not too patient but I am learning!  We had this huge battle with our mamita, I don't know if I told you guys but I was sick of the way she was treating us, she was calling us the most dirty and sloppy missionary's she has ever seen and how we need to learn how to stop being pigs and stuff. the other thing that bugged me was how she uses three liters of soap in almost one week, sometimes two, that's two batches of laundry which consists of seven shirts, socks and pairs of garments and maybe pajamas!  Man what a joke!  So I don't know to much about laundry granted but I went and told her if she really needed to spend all that laundry on one batch of clothes.  She then told me that in "my ignorant culture" its not a problem but here you have to be clean! huh funny but the USA is so much cleaner then here, anyway so I decided I am going to switch mamitas and I switched to this one lady who reminds me of my mom so much I love her!  "Don't worry mom I will send pictures" but anyway it was really cool and I talked and switched but it took a lot of patience and she was very angry, I realized though that patience is not showing your anger until after you Can let off the steam for just a little bit longer, I love learning all these attributes of Christ!

I learned a ton this week about being a leader and about how a leader "shows how"  I love this phrase and I will use it for the rest of my life, how can we be leaders in this world and not show how? I don't understand that haha but we will always be great examples to this world we first lead by example, we look for those little lost sheep and we first show how to come back into the fold, but once we are working with individuals and not a group as a whole we need to focus on them and how we can show how.  But I love all my one on ones I have been having with president lately.  It's been motivating me a ton and I really love all this support and how I can really act in the name of the Lord.

Quick note, the love I have been showing and feeling for these people is huge, no words can physically describe the love and the pain I feel when people chose decisions in this world!

I love you guys so much!

Sorry this letter is short today but hey I want to tell you about my prayer lady haha  We asked her to start from the first of the Book of Mormon and what happened was incredible, she is now in one week in Third Nephi! what!!!!!!!!! She could not come to church last Sunday but I hope she is improving. 

Love you all a bunch and do not open my Christmas gifts!

This are pictures from The District meeting with the President

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

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!