Nothing is impossible!

Hola fam from villa sur. I was so excited to get the pics of my new neice. She is so so so cute!!! I am excited to get to know her in a little while. Lyndz, as always you picked a weird name but so far i like the names that you have picked so we will have to see. I dont even know how to say her name zharaa...? haha but she looks so cute and sounds like she is really loved. I am proud of ya lindz for being awesome. Mom told me bout your missionary work that you are doing with this lady that lived by you and thats so awesome. Keep it up and help out thoes missionaries in utah. They need as much help as they can get. 

So this has been a pretty boring week here in chile. Nothing really exciting happened here so i dont really know what i am going to write about. One really cool thing that happened. This week we had a conference with the mission. We have one every change and they are always awesome. It was sweet cause they always talk about what i need to hear and this one wasnt an exception. 

This past change i have been really down and not had very much energy. I have had to push and push myself to help my comp and keep me going and it has been really hard. So i havent had very much excitement. But that is exactly what they talked about. Also they talked about how nothing is imposible. They showed this movie of a guy who had done the ironman, where you swim, bike and run. He had done it a bunch of times and it is extremely hard to do even for the most fit and strong people in the world. Well, he had a son and he wanted his son to do this ironman just like him, but there was a problem. His son had a spinal disease and he couldnt even walk. But that didnt stop his dad, it made him want to do it more. And by the way, his son wasnt 4 or 5 he was 20 years old.

So the dad ends up tying his son, who is in a small boat, to his back and swimming the full lenght. He made a seat for his son and strapped it on his bike and went the full lenght of that. And ran with his son in a special wheel chair for this ridiculous distance and finished the race. It was incredible to see it, at the end i was in tears. They interview the dad at the end and he looks right into the camera and says, “Nothing is impossible!” that really hit me hard. He is true, nothing in the world is imposible. If we want to do it we just have to work and work to acomplish it. This guy was in his late 50s when he did that and i am sure it nearly killed him. But he had the goal that his son was going to do this ironman and he did it.

Many times in life things dont go how we want them to go. But what are we going to do? Are we going to roll over and die or bite the bullet and do it. I am sure that tons of people told this man that there was no way he could accompish this imposible race with all that extra weight but he did it anyway. What are we going to do when we hit bumps in life? We can make excuses, “its way too hard” “its imposible, we are never going to be able to do it”. Or we can stand up tall and go. Give it our all and then if we cant do it at least we did all that we could to try. 

Life is hard. I am not going to deny that. But we just need to live every day, try our hardest and when we hit the pillow at night make sure we didnt leave anything out on the playing field. I know this church is true. I know it! Please dont forget it. Every single one of you know it as well. You have had spiritual witnesses. Dont forget thoes feelings when it gets tuff. I have seen it so many times here on the mission. People know its true but they forget or just dont want to do it. This church is not for the weak. We are the strongest there are. What other church askes for 2 years of your life? 10 percent of your money? To give up every single thing that the world says in right and good? You are stronger than you know. I love you all tons. I am so happy to have such a loving family. You guys are my joy and i am always bragging about you to every one here. My favorite part of the week is when i get to hear from you guys. I love it so much. You guys are awesome. I cant wait for conference and i hope that you guys just soak up every single word that our savior says through the mouths of his chosen servents. Have an awesome week!!!

Love

Elder hall

Head cheeze

Hello family. I am glad to hear from all of you and to hear that all is well at home. This has been a crazy week for me. First off it was the 18th of september which is like the 4th of july in the states. So this whole weekend there were crazy people having parties and drinking and doing whatever else. So it was really hard cause everyone was with their families and hanging out and drinking so it was hard to get into houses but this week we have tons and tons of new people to teach so i am excited about that. 

So the 17th we had a ward party and it was awesome. We had a dinner and the ward members danced. Also it was so cool cause our investagator, bernarda, was able to come to it and she had tons of fun. She loved the activity and her daughters actually danced in a little dance that the primary put together. It was so cool. Also for our gospel principles class, the teacher put together a little lunch and invited bernarda. So we had that the 20th and it was really good. Bernarda loved it and is having tons of fun with the members. When the members help, the work is so much easier. 

But lastly but definately not least, bernarda was finally able to assist the church this Sunday. It was a miracle but a sad miracle. The 21st, bernarda was at her house and her boy friend came over to see her. He was all drunk and got mad at her and hit her really hard. The cops came and she had to fill out all this paperwork. Finally, she told us that she is done with this idiot guy. So that means that she isnt going to be gone on the weekends. So this was a huge miracle. We have been praying really hard that she would be able to assist and finally she did. A lot of times the lord answeres our prayers in very different ways than we think. But this has really strengthened bernarda. She said that now more than every, she needs the Lord and she is going to keep learning. She is awesome and will be baptized soon so we are really excited about that. 

This week has been extremely hot. The weather here is crazy cause it doesnt change seasons, it just goes from cold to hot. The trees dont change color or anything. It is such a abrupt change. But i knew that it was spring when i woke up at 230 friday morning with a runny nose and sneezing like no other. My alergies have hit with a vengance, i have never had them this bad before. Luckily i had some clariton in my suitcase but i am running low on my supply. So mom, if you could send some, asap that would be awesome. Ya, well i tried making my famous orange julius on Saturday but they dont have orange concetrated cans down here so i took orange fanta and froze it and made it with that... it didnt work out that great but i will keep on trying and see if i cant perfect it. Also this past week i had the privalege to try queso de cabeza. Or for thoes of you who dont speak spanish, “Head cheeze.” But its not cheeze, it is head... they take the pigs head and take everything, the nose, eyes, lips, ears...and put it through a machine and make strips of meat with it. But if it had not been for the fact that i knew what i was eating, it would have tasted pretty good. I have to say it wasnt that bad but i am never trying it again. 

So before i forget, i just wanted to say happy b-day to sister cummings. I believe it was her b-day on the 13th or something like that. I know its late but i just wanted to let her know that her ex home teacher was thinking about her. I hope everything is going well with the cummings family and my bud chris. 

Well to finish i wanted to tell you one last miracle that happened this week. Well about a month and a half ago we got a reference from this guy in a different ward. He has a friend from work that has been interested in the church and she wants to investagate the church seriously. So we got the reference and tried calling like 10 times and did all we could to get in contact with her. But after a while we couldnt get a hold of her or the guy that send us the reference so we got discouraged and gave up. Then yesterday, we were walking back from lunch and i had the feeling to go down a street that we usually dont go down. So we were walking down this street and this guy starts to aproach us. I am usually a little nervous when people aproach us cause they usually want money, are insane, or want to rub my head. So i was goin to avoid this guy but i had this thought come to my mind that said that i needed to be nice to this guy. So i started talking to him and he told me that he was the guy that gave us the reference and that this woman is really excited to learn more. He showed us where she lives and we have an appointement to teach her today. I am really excited and i hope all goes well. Thats my miracle. It may not be something huge but there are small little miracles that happen every day. We just need to listen to the spirit and do what it says. If we do then we will be put into the right places and talk to the right people. 

Well i love ya tons fam and i am glad for all you do. Make sure that you are still doing what is right and following the council that we recieve. I am really excited for general conference and i hope you all are too. WE HAVE A LIVING PROPHET TODAY AND GOD SPEAKS THROUGH HIM. LISTEN TO HIM!!! TAKE HIS ADVICE INTO YOUR DAILY LIVES!!! LOVE CONFERENCE!!! Haha i love you guys and think about ya ton. God be with you till we meet again. And as always, GO COUGS!!!

Love ya

Elder hall

it is good luck to rub a red heads head…

Hola family from villa sur. Man, one word describes what we have been going through the last week. HOT!!! It has been so hot this week it is crazy. Today has been the hottest day so far though. It was nice at the beginning but now it is just getting old. I am starting to want it to be cold again… but its all good. My comp says that this isn’t hot yet. Once we hit summer I guess it gets a lot hotter. I am looking forward to that…NOT. Haha but thus is the mission. I love it!!! me knocking a door...as you can tell i am yelling but that is how we knock doors here. 

Well this week has been a weird week. First off, this past Tuesday we were walking down the street, in a more getto part of our sector. All the sudden two guys come out of no where and start walking besides us. So I was a little nervous but to add to that I realized that they were smoking pot or some kind of drug and that they were very very high. At this point I started getting more nervous. All the sudden this guy sticks out his hand and starts rubbing my head. My instincts kick in and I shove him away. He gets angry and comes and starts rubbing my head more. By this point we had stopped and my comp and the other high guy were just sitting there watching us. I was shoving and pushing this guy but he would not get away from me. Finally I push him hard enough that he almost falls down and he just takes off. My comp just starts laughing and says that it is good luck to rub a red heads head… So I guess I will have to look out in the future for that.  ya well the 18 of september is like our 4th of july so i bought a chilean flag at the store so that i could be patriotic but when i got home and took it out of the wrapper i realized, it wasnt a flag. so i think we are going to pull a "rocketman" and hang up our chilean apron flag!!! i love you guys, chao

Another weird thing that went on this week was September 11. I guess like 35 years ago there was this really bad dictator that came to power here in Chile. His enemies all started disappearing and so did people who had nothing against him. People started dying and being put in jail. So every year since then, on sept, 11 the punk kids of chile do stupid things. They start burning stuff in the streets, fighting, they throw chains on the telephone lines, break into stores, and just cause havoc. The cops here go out to try and handle it but a lot of times the cops die, little punk kids die. Its so stupid. So on the 11th we had to be into our houses by 6 in the afternoon so that we weren’t in the middle of all the crazyness. And at around 9 at night the government cut the lights so that when the kids throw the chains, it doesn’t do anything. So we went out to work early and did our personal and comp studies at night. It was pretty scary around 930 cause we could hear gun shots and people laughing and screaming. But nothing happened to us or any other missionaries in our mission. Two pics of me and my comp studying by candlelight on sept 11.

Me and my chilean baby...ya dont worry its not mine. its the baby of a recent covert that his wife just had. so cute!!!  I am glad that you guys got my package and liked the pics. Mom, I am going to answer your q´s. 

1. I wont get the opportunity to go back to the temple until the next june, or when I train a new missionary. 
2. if you send a dvd I can watch it but it has to be only pics and videos of the fam. If you wanted.
3. this week I got a letter from landon (thanx bud) and from sister masterson with the ward newsletter in it. I was getting letters from some of my friends but haven’t gotten one for a while
4. if you want to send a package, go ahead. Just make sure you aren’t spending too much money on it. Also, if you could remember when you send your next one, to put a good country cd in there. (its not for me, its for my Chilean dad, he loves country.)
5. about your facebook, it is weird to think that you have one but its all good I guess…
6. I haven’t been able to go sight seeing very much on my mish, there really isn’t much to go see in the city and its really hard to get permission from the president to leave our mission. 

Lastly about my Spanish. I feel really comfortable with it. I am very happy because almost everyone can understand me. Sometimes it is hard for people to understand me cause I am gringo and they cant understand my accent but for the most part everyone can understand me. The only thing that I am trying to improve right now is my vocab. It still isn’t as big as I would like it to be so I am working with that but for the most part all is well. 

But ya, right now we are teaching bernarda still and she and her daughter are doing well. They are really progressing and we hope to see them progress more in the near future. Keep praying for her, that she will be able to fix her situation. Me and my comp are doing better. You just have to show love for them and really let them know that you care about them and all works out. I love you guys tons. Thanx for writing me and I hope that you are doing well. Keep up the faith and do the thinks that you know you need to do. Have fun and remember that Jesus is the Christ, the Saviour of the World. When we need His help all we have to do is ask. Remember, don’t forget Him when times are going well, or He will be slow to hear you. 

Love ya. Go Cougars!!!!

Elder hall

also that is a pic of the sunset in our backyard

God is trying to make us better

Hello family!!! 

I hope all is well on the home front. All is well here in chile. First of all i am going to answer all of your questions mom. (by the way, it makes it a lot easier to write when you ask some questions that you want to know.) 1. do i fix one meal at night? Sometimes, i usually eat a bowl of cereal in the morning and sometimes ill make something at night. But i have cut back on eating at night cause i am fat and need to lose weight. Haha 2. can i get the basic ingridients? Ya i can get everything that i need to make something. But they dont have butter here only margerine so i dont know if that makes a diff but ya. 3. what kind of recipies? I would like some breakfast recipies, and dinner. Small things that are easy and fast to make. 4. what do i eat? I EAT EVERYTHING, DO YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ME??? Haha. 5. edith domingez is a really awesome lady in my ward so and she wanted to write ya so ya you can add her if ya want. (i cant believe that you have facebook.) 

Lastly, why do i write my letters at different times? The reason is cause there are pdays, like today, when the zone wants to play soccer in the morning. So we go do that and then go shop and then do internet. Somedays they dont so we go do internet and shop and other stuff. So it all depends on what we are going to do for the pday. For pday we usually play soccer. That is really fun to do. Also we sometimes go to a place called estacion central which is a place with tons of stuff to look at and buy and it has american restaurants. And then some pdays we just sleep cause on the mission you never get to do nothing, so when you do, you do nothing. 

So last week in my letter i wrote how i was sick of people yelling at me and throwing stuff at me and stuff like that. That night we went to a family home evening with this really awesome investagator and watched finding faith in Christ. 2 things really hit me hard while we were watching it. 1st, in the movie, there is this part that a little girl asks “why didnt the people believe in Christ even when they saw miracles?” i have been asking myself why people wont believe in the truth that we have. How can they deny the spirit that i know they feel when they hear it? Then i realized tons of people didnt even believe in the very Son of God... He was the best teacher there was, people saw so many miracles, even his apostles had a hard time believing in Him. I realized that if people can reject the Son of God, Jesus Christ, then they can reject me a humble servant of Him. 

2nd, there is a part in this movie when Jesus is walking through the streets with the cross and people are yelling angrilly at him, “crucify him, crucify him!!!” they are spitting at him, throwing stuff at him. And this was after He suffered in the Garden and was wipped and beaten by the roman guards. He was exausted and He could have just snapped His fingers and destroyed every single one of them and continued on His path to a house. But he took all the yelling, screaming and everything else with such eloquence...

I then thought of a quote, i dont know if i made it up or if i have heard it some other place, but i have adopted it as my mission quote. It goes as follows, “If we´re not willing to walk a mile in His shoes, we aren´t worthy to carry His name on our Chests!!!” sure, i have had a hard couple weeks but if we cant go through a little of what Chist did then i definately am not worthy to carry His name. I am so grateful for this quote and i hope that it will help me throughout my mission and my life. 

So this same Family home evening, we had it with this awesome investagator named bernarda. She is about 40 and has a little girl who is 9 named isis... Ya i know its a weird name but thats not the point. So we have been working with them for a while and they are awesome. The problem is that Bernarda is married but is trying to get divorced. The divorce system here sucks and takes like 2 years to go through the process. She has a boy friend that she visits on the weekends and she cant come to church cause she isnt here but isis comes with the neighbors girls. The neighbor, Maritza, (my chilean mom) told bernarda that we were going to have changes. So when we arrived at the Home evening, she was so so happy. I asked her why and she told me that she had been praying that i wouldnt get changes and that i would stay here to teach them. She said that God had answered her prayers... it was really cool to hear that. To hear that i am making a difference in someones life. I hope that i will be able to continue and that we will be able to change many peoples lives here in villa sur. 

When we are going through hard times it is just because God is trying to make us better. If we go with the punches and march ahead always, then we will eventually transform from coal to diamonds. If we lay down and die, then we will never be able to grow or become better. Always keep on going even when you think you cant. You will be blessed more than you know. God lives. He isnt sleeping or on a vacation. He is here to help His children and he doesnt want us to fail. Jesus is the Savior and Redeemer of the World. We are in His church and we will always be ok as long as we stay on the road that He set for us. Sometimes it might get a little bumpy, but we will be fine. Everything will work out in the End. I love you all tons and hope that you have a great week. Continue praying for me and for Bernarda. You all are in my prayers and my thoughts. GO BYU!!!

Les Amo demasiado 

Elder hall

Let us live in a way that we always represents our church and our Savior

Hey family how are ya? Its elder hall, your fav bro and son. Don’t worry mom, I am still alive. I hope that you didn’t have a heart attack. Ya well sorry for not writing ya yesterday. It was really weird. We were sitting there Sunday night waiting for the district leader to call us and let us know if we had changes or not. He calls and tells us that the president hadn´t made changes yet… so we were like, stop lying and just tell us before my ulcer pops. He says that he isn’t lying and that he hadn´t made changes and that Monday is going to be a normal day. It was so weird, so we don’t know what is going on but we had a normal day yesterday and today is our pday. Also last night we got the news that neither me or my comp have changes. So we are going to chill out in villa sur for another 6 weeks. 

First off I want to tell you guys thanx for the package. I got it this week and it was awesome thanx so so much. It totally made my day to see all the pics that were in there and to see what has been going on. It is so crazy to think that life goes on even though I am here in chile. I know it is weird but I didn’t think that life was going on back home. Thanx for the candy and the pics and everything that you sent. It was perfect!!! Also, tell chad happy b-day from chile!!!

So this past week has been weird. We had a day that was like 90 degrees and the next day was like 45. it has been cool to be able to wear just a white shirt and tie. I love having nice weather. I think that this summer down here is going to be a really hot one. But I am excited to get out of the freakin cold weather. Also we had a sweet lunch. We went over to this hermana´s house and she has a daughter who lives in the united states so she told her what we would like. So we had fresh lettuce with ranch and a big bowl of chile!!! It was so awesome. I forgot how much I missed fresh lettuce without all this salt and lemon juice or oil. Also the ranch was so good, I love ranch. Today we went to this store called jumbo. It is like an American store and its awesome. I bought 8 bottles of mountain dew and 4 of dr. pepper. It is awesome but I think the lady at the chechout thought that I was insane. 

Well as for the work, we are still working… haha it has been a better week. Now we have people to teach and we have found another cool family that we are teaching. This week we had tons of people come to the church and a lot of the recent converts. So it has been a better week but still hard. I am officially sick of people yelling at me everytime we leave a house and are walking down the street. People are always always yelling or throwing stuff or laughing at us. Today some lady came up to us and asked us where the nearest chapel was. We weren’t in our sector so we didn’t know. Finally she said, “your Spanish really sucks” and walked off. I was just starting to get confident in my Spanish and someone says that. I don’t get what drives people to be mean to other people… I am really sick of it. But I guess that is how the mission is and I will just have to get over it. 

Wow, the news about amy really shocked me. You will have to tell her that 2 days ago I was reading through all my letters and read one from her that said that she wasn’t going to get married until I got back haha. Tell her that I won the bet and that I am going to be waiting for a wedding invite. Also tell her congrats but that I don’t approve of him… haha

Sorry that there isn’t very much in this but after a while it is hard to tell you new things that are going on. One thing that really hit me was a email that I got today. (Mom and dad, before you send this letter to other people, delete this part, thanx.) today I got a letter from Bronson. It was one of the coolest letters I have ever gotten. He thanked me for my last email that I sent to the fam and how it really hit him. He said that he is changing his life around and that what I said really helped him, how what I said was exactly what he needed to hear. Also he said this “ Thank you for being such a good missionary and setting such a good example for us all. Keep us the good work and keep your head high. Remember that just because you are there in chile, doesn’t mean that your missionary work is not bringing back a in-active here.” That really hit me hard and it made me think that tons of times you really cant tell who you are helping and whose life you are changing. Many times we cant tell the affect we have on people. I realized even thought I am not baptizing all of chile it doesn’t mean that I am not making a difference every day in someones life. We never know who is watching or what kind of impact we can make in other peoples lives. Let us live in a way that we always represent our church and our Savior. Let us make sure that no one looks at us and says, “look at that mormon and what they are doing. If that is what there church is all about I don’t want to join it.” We cant make a difference in many peoples lives. Just try your best every day and do what you know is right. You never know what your example will do. 

I love you all and hope that you have a great week. Choose the right always and be who the Lord would have you be. Don’t let the world define you. Define yourself and stand out against the crowd. Go Cougars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love

Elder hall