Hey,

Okay, so last week was a mission changing week. We set a goal as a district here in Buenaventura as 6 missionaries, or 3 companionships, to find 100 new investigators for each companionship. It was an entire week of contacting people and teaching them the message of the restoration in about 5 minutes. We ended up the week finding 102 each companionship, making it 306 as a district. That slaughtered anything I had ever heard of before or I had ever done. It was awesome!

It started on Tuesday when Elder F. and I were talking to some people outside of some store on the corner and we were like "hey, we can teach you guys something?" So we went over and sat down on this rock and taught about the restoration to a group of like 30 people. It was like John the Baptist or Jesus sitting on a rock back in the day preaching to the people...it was awesome! Afterwards, we told them that anyone who wanted a Book of Mormon could have one. We only had like 6 on us at the time, so we gave those out and had to sprint down to the apartment and fill our backpacks up with more books and gave them out to all the people. We ended up giving out both backpack fulls of Books of Mormon and had to sprint back to the apartment to fill them up again and we gave them all out again! We ended up giving out a box and a half of Books of Mormon which is like 50 to 60. It was awesome. We just told everyone they had to read the book and ask God if its true and they could have one. We've found some people who have already read and prayed about it and have a testimony of it without even really knowing what it is...it was way awesome.

Oh yeah, and for the first time in my mission, I am staying in the same area with the same companion for more than one transfer. Woot.

We met someone the other day who had a pet sloth. I got to pet it. It was legit.

La semana pasada fue loco pero fue chévere. Queremos que las personas tengan un testimonio del Libro de Mormón para que puedan superar todas las dificultades. Vamos bien. Estamos trabajando todos los días y disfruto de cada minuto. Nos vemos.

Elder Chase

Hey

So last week we had some baptisms. As a district we had three. Two of those were ours. They were Roberto, an older guy who had to move from his girlfriend's house in order to get baptized, and David A., a 15 year old kid who's the son of a church member. The whole district worked really hard and we were really happy about the baptisms we had. But, we we're also a little disappointed because a large amount of people who were supposed to get baptized didn't. 

Oh yeah, for some reason they extended this transfer a week, which kinda messed up Elder F.'s and my plan. But we're just gonna try to take advantage of it. We won't know until next Monday night if there's gonna be changes.

One thing we've really learned is the importance of a testimony of the Book of Mormon. All the people who didn't get baptized were the ones who didn't really have a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon, but the ones who did, did. We are always trying to get better and help the people with all this.

Anyways we are still working hard. Last week, I had worked harder and been more stressed out than any other week up to this point on the mission. We were doing marriage papers, getting members to visit investigators, and baptismal interviews. It was nuts!

Elder Chase

 

Hey everyone,

Another week in BV. This next week is the last week of this transfer. For all I know I could be out of here. I sure hope not though. We're having baptisms this Saturday. We currently have 4 people who have enough church attendance to be able to be baptized. We're gonna try to work hard with them so the can do it. We would have two more but, they're living together and not married. It blows because no one in this country is married and they all live together and no one can afford to get married. It's a pain sometimes.

Saw something funny the other day. Everyone here likes to have stuff in English. Whether it's on their clothes, their cars or whatever. One guy had the title of Tupac's "Only God Can Judge Me" on his windshield. It would have been a lot cooler if it hadn't been spelled "Only God Can Jodge Me" haha. Not like anyone heer would even notice or even know what it meant anyway.

One of the things we've learned is that there are a lot of people out there and a lot who are ready for the gospel. The hardest part of everything, I think, is deciding who to keep teaching and who to leave behind. It sounds terrible, but we have to leave behind the people who aren't progressing and aren't keeping their commitments because it's not fair to the people who are out there waiting and are ready. The two major commitments that help us figure out who to continue visiting and who to leave behind are if they come to church and if they accept a baptismal date. Obviously if they never accept a date, they aren't going be baptized and, in this mission, you have to come to church twice before you can be baptized. So if an investigators isn't coming to church, it's a better use of your time to move on to someone who is more serious about the gospel.

Entonces vamos bien aquì. Queremos terminar bien èste cambio y vamos a hacer todo lo posible para tener bautismos èste sabado. Que estèn bien.

Elder Chase

Hey everyone!

So I forgot to bring my agenda that has all my little notes of stuff I wanted to talk about. I do remember one thing - I don't know if I already mentioned the time when we were talking to one of our investigators outside her house and some guy comes up and tells her "These men are from God but don't worry about me though. I'm crazy. I'm a little bird." and then starts flapping his arms and hopping away. It was hilarious.

We worked hard last week to get people to come to church and had 10 people come. We were super stoked about that. They are also in the process of buying the land for the chapel they are gonna build here.

Time is flying by. Tomorrow I hit my 7 month mark. I'm in the second quarter of the game. If I end up staying here 4 transfers, by the time I leave Buenaventura , I could be almost halfway done, haha. It's been good though. We're working hard and always trying to improve. Sometimes, as you get more time in the mission, you develop habits and tend to do the same things all the time. But we are trying really hard to always mix it up and try new things. We are teaching a lot of great people and finding new people and leaving behind the ones who don't keep their commitments. The next baptism day is the 16th and we are working like crazy to try and get as many as possible. We can't have services every week because it costs money to rent out the pool.

Todo esta bien aquí. Siempre trato de mejorar y ayudar a las personas a venir a Cristo porque así es el propósito misional.

Elder Chase

Hey everyone!

First off, we had some baptisms this week!! Elder F. and I had two in our area - Pablo and Euclides. Pablo is the 20 year old son of 2 members and Euclides is the guy I found when I went to the centro in the beginning of last transfer with the big sign shouting "clase de inglés clase de inglés gratis gratis" and he actually went and now he's baptized! Just shows you how there really aren't any coincidences and the Lord will put people in your path.

So, almost all of the members here in this city are new to the church and sometimes some pretty funny stuff happens. We have some unique lingo and sayings we use often at church. Sometimes people just being introduced to the culture of the church will repeat things they hear and mix them up or just say or do things not in the "normal" way we're used to hearing them. There's this one guy, Mario, whenever he blesses the bread he takes his whole arm and like sticks it out in front of him in some weird curve and puffs out his chest and says the prayer in a super deep robotic voice"OhGodtheeternalfatherweaskthe..." like way fast. My favorite up to this point is the same guy gave the lesson in Elders Quorum and he'd just have us read some random verses and then without explaining anything be like, "well, I think that's pretty clear" and move on. And then at the very end he gives his testimony and he says "I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, amen (it's a practice to close a prayer or testimony in the name of Jesus Christ...not the "Latter-Day Saints.") It's probably the same way for them when they hear us gringos speaking Spanish, ha! They are trying, but it still makes me laugh.

Other than that, things are going well. We have 8 baptismal dates set for the 16th of Febrero and plan on having a lot more. We just need a lot of people to go to church. Our area only had five investigators at church yesterday, but as a district in the ward we had over 20. They couldn't fit everyone in the casa capilla. Plans are already being started to build a real chapel here. I doubt I will be here when it's done, but maybe when they start it.

La semana pasada fue chévere y sé que recibimos mucha ayuda de arriba jaja. Trato de aplicar lo poquito que sé para que la obra aquí crezca. No podemos hacer nada a menos que el Espíritu esté con nosotros. Que estén muy bien. Chao.

Hey,

Things are going well. This week was super stressful all the way through Saturday. Last week was the week of "si o siembra" where basically we had to find as many new investigators as possible. The mission goal was 15 for each companionship for the week. Elder F. and I put 40 as our goal. The whole mission is having the regular interviews with President Prince and he said he is really impressed with our goal and he is assuming that we, of course, we’re gonna achieve it. This was on Tuesday, so I was really stressed Saturday night when we only had 20 out of 40. We had one day left and still needed half to get to the goal we set. So Sunday, after church, we just went out and decided to go find the investigators we needed. The Lord really helped us and we worked hard and ended up finding 33 that day for a total of 53 in the week. It really was a blessing. I was feeling really down, especially Sunday morning, but my companion and I just did our best and the Lord helped us.

If things go well we should have 4 or 5 baptisms this Saturday. It’s been tough because I've been moving around so much that I haven't had the chance to see the results of my work. I haven't seen a baptism since September, so this Saturday will be pretty cool.

Also the family of Magnolia in my old area, the 3 daughters are getting baptized this Saturday. It is so cool to see what has happened with them from the very first day when Elder A. and I contacted them outside their house. Now they all have super powerful testimonies of the Book of Mormon. Oh yeah, two of them, in the 6 or 7 weeks that it has been since we gave them The Book of Mormon, have read the entire thing. It is way cool to see how they have gained such powerful testimonies. Y., one of them, isn't even baptized yet and the branch president put her in the class where they teach people how to become teachers so that she can teach already!

Sé que El Señor en verdad nos bendice cuando hacemos su voluntad. Fue difícil la semana pasada pero ya hemos visto los frutos. Vamos bien y nos vemos en dos.

Élder Chase

Hey everyone

Okay, so good news and bad news with the transfers. The good news is that I´m still in Buenaventura. The bad news is I got changed from La Isla to another area called La Marina. So that officially makes it 4 different areas in four transfers. Oh yeah, and four different companions. Elder A stayed in the Isla and I am in the Marina with Elder F from Santiago, Chile. It's been really stressful this week. What happened is that they changed out 3 of the 6 missionaries here and 2 of them were both in the same area, La marina. So what happens is president moves me to their area with a new comp. It has been super stressful trying to find where all the investigators live and get to know the investigators and all that. Elder F is good though. 

So, one cool thing though is, remember when I did the whole shouting out in the street "clase de ingles" thing? Well, it turned out that out of all the people we met doing that, only one actually ended up coming and kept coming consistently and lived in Elder B and W area. They gave him a baptismal date and now he is my investigator. His name is Euclides R. He's like 35 and single. I think he's like quiet out in public but loves to go on and on in the lessons. 

Oh yeah, Saturday we did service and helped a member clear out his land. We all rode a jeep down there. Basically what happened is they handed us machetes and said go at it. It was so sick! I just got to hack at whatever and chop it down! We were basically in the jungle with machetes with permission to destroy everything. It was so cool!

Entonces ésta parte de mi misión ha sido tal vez la más dura hasta éste punto. Pero está bien porque El Señor nos ayudará según nuestros esfuerzos. Grácias a todos ustedes por todo lo quehan hecho para apoyarme y la obra del señor.

Elder Chase