Hey

Alright, so I'm back in Cali now. My zone is called Villa Colmbia and my area is Ciudad Modelo I. Before, in Limonar, I was in the nice part of Cali. Now, not as much. This place is pretty sketchy... haha. There are a lot of "red zones" or areas we are not allowed to enter. The work has been really slow. When I got here there wasn't a single progressing investigator. We're basically starting from scratch.

My companion is Elder C. from Peru. We have the same time in the mission. He's a recent convert from 2 years ago. We're going to try to turn this place around and have some good success. We are going to have to work way hard though, but nothing is impossible. Only the two of us live in the house, which is a lot different than 6 in Buenaventura. After 4 1/2 months in Buenaventura, Cali feels almost cool now, haha. All the other missionaries are always complaining about the heat and I've barely broken a sweat, haha.

The one investigator we have is Snyder. He's 17 and has been seeing the missionaries for 2 years now. We're trying to figure out what he needs. Even Pres Prince has talked to him, but nobody has been able to get him to commit to baptism.

A little side note that made me feel good: Elder C. is a little new to the church and the mission has been kind of hard for him. But, President Prince called me out of the blue the other day and told me that Elder C. told him he was happy with me as his companion and that we were trying to be obedient and work hard. Then President Prince thanked me for being a good example to my companion. Yeah... haha...felt kinda good.

Ahora vamos a romper este lugar. Vamos a despertar a los miembros aquí y tener muchisimos bautismos. No será fácil pero todo es possible. Vamos a buscar un milagro aquí.

Elder Chase

Hey!

So my time in Buenaventura is finally over. After 4 and a half months, I am getting transferred. I'm going back to Cali. To the other side of the city this time. It's gonna be tough leaving here. It's the first area where I've really been able to build relationships with the members and investigators. But I'm ready for whatever the mish has to throw at me. I've heard some things about my new area, should be interesting. I haven't been there yet, so I don't know, but it sounds like they need help and aren't having any success. We'll see what happens. Elder H. is going to Tuluá, Elder A. to Palmira. and Elder M. to my zone in Cali. Oh yeah, my "dad elder" I. is coming to Buenaventura to be a zone leader.

Conference was great. We basically got most of it, but the internet here isn't too good. I didn't bring my notes, but here a are few things that stood out for me. I remember how Pres. Uchtdorf reminded us how Satan wants us to define ourselves by the bad things we've done, and how we can't let him make us do it. I really liked Elder Packer and Elder Eyering's testimonies at the end of their talks. It's always powerful when an apostle bears witness of the savior. I liked Elder Christofferson too, but I'm probably just biased because I shook his hand when he was here...haha.

He aprendido mucho en mi tiempo aquí y será difícil dejar este lugar. Pero sé que me he esforzado mucho y que voy a esforzarme siempre por ser obediente y trabajar duro. Nos vemos.

Elder Chase

Hey!

Last week there we had some baptisms! Elder F. and had one, Melany,  the little sister of Janni. It was cool. We were a little disappointed because we planned on having three baptisms, but one is still having problems with the law of chastity and the the other's family members are all Jehovas' Witnesses and we think they and her "friends" did something so we couldn't contact her and she wouldn't get baptized. Anyways, were gonna keep working with them and try to find some new people too.

Spanish is coming along. It's a good thing I learned how to roll my R's before my mission because you can't really become fluent without being able to do it, haha.

Next week there are transfers. It's probable that Elder H., A. and I will leave BV. I'd love to stay, but I have been here four and a half months and will probably be transferred.

On April 27th, President Bednar of the quorum of the twelve apostles is coming to our mission. Should be sick! This will be the second apostle I've seen in my time in the mission. I don't know if he speaks Spanish or if he has a translator or how its gonna work, but it should be awesome!

Que pena que no haya más tiempo pero ya está cerrando la tienda. Nos vemos.

Hey

This week flew by. Elder F. and I have been working like crazy. Out of the 4 new people who went to church the other Sunday, 3 came again and all have baptisimal dates for this weekend on the 30th! Their names are Sujei (30 something), Paola(18) and Melany(8). Melany's parents aren't members of the church so she is a convert. She is also the little sister of Janni, who was batpized last week. We've tried to get their mom to come to church but she hasn't yet.

Things are looking pretty good. We are gonna work hard this week to get our fechas in the water and confirmed this week. That would be 4 baptisms this month, which would be pretty good.

We've really been working with the members a lot to help these people. It's kinda hard when there are 8 missionaries all sharing one branch and there's only so many church members who can really help. We are trying to bring members to lessons and we organized a movie night that a member is gonna have. He invited 2 investigators, one who has committed to baptism, to watch the testaments. We had to help him with the refreshments and the movie.

Oh yeah, cool experience: In BV when it rains, the whole world stops. Normally we have about 100 people every Sunday, but the Sundays it has rained we had like 40 to 50 with 0 investigators. Last Sunday it was pouring rain in the morning, so we all prayed as districts that either the rain could stop or the people could have to courage to come to church in spite of the rain. Within 5 minutes of praying, the heavy rain was down to sprinkling, and within 10, it stopped completely. Pretty sick (cool)!

Entonces estamos haciendo todo lo posible para que estas personas entren en el agua este fin de semana.

Elder Chase

Hey everyone

Last week went well. We had five investigators come to church and four of those for the first time. We really worked hard with the members getting them to call the investigators and get involved and it paid off. Also, Janni, who was baptized last week, was able to get confirmed this Sunday.

Last week I saw something that kind of gave me a reality check. This one girl we know named Faisuri showed me a letter she got from a girl in the US. I looked at it and it was called "Releasing children from poverty in Jesus name." It was basically where some girl in school in the US participated in a program to write to a girl living somewhere in the world in poverty. If I were in high school and we did something like that, I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it. But reading that letter and seeing the pics of the 10 year old girl, it just hit me that I'm on the other side . The girl in her letter was talking about how she went to her grandmas and stuff, and drank apple cider. And I am now for the first time seeing the other side. Faisuri will probably never have the kind of life a girl has in the US. She lives in a wood house. They all get there water from these pipes that spit out water only every two days. They have to save up plastic bottles and fill them up there to have water for the day. It was just kinda crazy to think about where I am and all that

Other than that, things are going well here. 2 new missionaries arrived here and we're 8 now in Buenaventura...all in the same ward. Elder E. from my group is here now, which is pretty cool.

Todo va bien todavía estamos trabajando duro. Cada día puedo aprender y crecer y más importante, puedo ayudar a las otras personas a hacer lo mismo. Que estén bien

*From his personal email to his Dad regarding the recent death of a close friend of ours:

"I remember Bro Billings was always happy and always made people feel good when he was around them. And, that he was the only "old guy" I knew who still had six-pack abs...ha-ha. The loss of life doesn't seem to make sense sometimes. Someone told me once that sometimes life just throws you a "poop-ball." Just know that he is in paradise and still the same guy and will still be around when we all get there someday. I'm sure he's happy there hanging out and I'm sure he's doing the same thing up there...making other people happy and feel good. It's alright to be sad, but just know we'll all see each other someday. Use it as motivation to stay strong in the gospel so we can all reunite up there."

Elder Chase

Hey

So there were baptisms this week. Elder F. and I had one and the whole district had five. Her name is Janni and she turned 16 on the day of her baptism. It was pretty cool. Although the one thing that stinks is that we went to go pick her up Sunday morning so she could come to her confirmation and she a had fight with her mom and her mom wouldn't let her come. So we're just really hoping she comes next Sunday to get confirmed.

Earlier this week we had the loudest thunderstorm I have ever heard in my entire life. And it was in the middle of the night. There was one thunder so loud it woke up all six of us at the same time. Elder Hogan thought they were bombs at first and I thought it was the second coming. It was pretty scary.

It was pretty cool this Sunday, we saw our convert David A. bless the sacrament.

Anyways, so this morning the Elders here really wanted to wrestle for some reason. They put a bunch of mattresses on the floor and tried to get me to wrestle. I had already told them a million times that I'd wrestle, but I wanted to find some grass or somewhere where there is space, but they kept pressuring and I finally did it. We wrestled for probably about an hour and during that our I re-ripped open part of my finger that I had cut in the fan earlier last week. I also got one of my toenails ripped off. We finally decided to stop when two of the mattresses got separated while I was wrestling and one of the Elders whipped me backwards and I smacked my head super hard on the tile. It hurt pretty bad haha. It felt like someone had dropped a brick on my head from the top of a building. I think I'll be fine although, even right now, my head is still kinda pounding and I had blood taste in my nose for a while, haha.

Forgot to mention, but someone broke into the apartment the other night. We're all okay and fine.

Entonces todo está bien aquí. Aprendo cada día lo poquito que sé pero a la vez veo cuanto he aprendido. de todas maneras he cambiado much y más importante, he ayudado a algunas personas a cambiar tambien.

Elder Chase

Arana...yikes!

Hey!

So I turned 20 yesterday. Pretty cool. Didn't really do anything for it, but it was cool knowing that I've hit the 20s, haha.

Fun fact - the missionaries did a special musical number "La Oración del niño" ("A Child's Prayer," in english?). Anyway, we did it in English and Spanish and I did a nice little part with the recorder that I found earlier in my mission, haha. My first public musical performance, haha.

Also, President and Hermana Prince came down for the branch conference yesterday. It was cool. They both gave great talks. Pres Prince's was about when he unknowingly tried to pay for something with a false 20000 pesos bill and the person wouldn't accept it. He was like, "Well I don't even see the difference in size or letters or anything" and the person was like, "Sorry but the differences are there. That's not the bill accepted by the government." He compared it to baptism and how some other churches may perform baptisms similar to ours, but lack the proper priesthood authority from heaven. It was cool.

One of the 11 gringos that arrived at the same time as me in the mission is going home next week beause he got intestinal infection. Sucks for him. I sure hope that doesn't happen to me, haha.

Also there's a whole bunch of blocks and stuff going on between cities in Colombia. At this moment, no one can get in our out of Buenaventura. President Prince told us to go stock up on food today because if nothing can get in, food prices are gonna shoot up and were not gonna have any food here in the city. It's nuts!. I think all transfers have been canceled because no one can move around. I mean, I was gonna stay here anyway, but still it's nuts.

De todas maneras todo está bein aquí. Este cambio que viene vamosa trabajar mucho mas con los miembros porque hemos visto que tres de los 4 bautismos que Élder F. y yo hemos tenido aquí han sido familiares de miembros.

Que estén bien

Elder Chase