Week 14 Vallenar

June 15, 2015

Hola Familia Y Amigos,

Esta Semana fue bacan! Encontramos y Enseñamos a muchas personas! Usamos la carpeta de Área para encontrar antiguos de los otros misioneros antes. Enseñamos a una mujer se llama Doris Cordoba. Ella es muy receptiva y le gustó la lección que nosotros tuvimos con ella. Le enseñamos como orar. Ella no quería orar para terminar la lección. Fue muy chistoso! Escribimos los pasos para orar y ella lo hizo. Últimamente, Yo creo que ella va a ser bautizado en el futuro. No se cuando exactamente pero va a pasar! No puedo Esperar!!!!! Enseñamos a Nicanor y el tampoco no sabe como orar. Estamos trabajando con el para ayudarle como leer y como orar. El es muy tímido. Cuando El ora, no es en voz alta entonces necesitamos enseñarle como nosotros oramos. Enseñamos a muchas otras personas pero no tengo mucho tiempo para explicar cada lección con cada uno de ellos. También, yo tenía que discursar en la reunión sacramental ayer! Tenía que hablar por 15 minutos en Español! Yo oré antes de la reunión y cuando estaba hablando, tenía miedo. Estaba tranquilo. Cuan gran es la oración!!!

Anyway, time for you guys to use Google translate! haha. I will help you guys out, the word "Bacan" means "awesome" haha. So this week was awesome. We had a lot of success as far as teaching. We taught a lot of people that normally don’t let us in the house. We taught several people how to pray which was awesome. One man named Eloy Cortez absolutely did not want to pray haha. We just sat there until he offered the prayer. It was too funny but he needed to be forced to do it haha. Elder Leon wrote down the steps to praying so that he could do it. It was such a cool experience. I think at times we forget how amazing prayer is. Growing up in the church it was always something that we did. Like a habit almost. When coming to a place like this where some people have never prayed in their lives.... that is a humbling experience. We definitely take prayer for granted in the United States. Yesterday I had to speak in sacrament about the gospel of Jesus Christ or lesson 3 for missionaries. It was sooo cool because I didn’t have much of a plan going into it because I thought it only had to speak for like 10 min. max and when I got up there to speak, they said 15 minutes.... I was like.... uhhhh.... okkaayyy. Anyway, I was able to speak freely what I wanted to say. It was sooo cool. Everyone after told me that they understood everything I said and that it was an awesome talk. They all know me as "Elder SpiderMan" because no one can pronounce my name haha. It was a really cool experience. Also, today for P-day we went to this place above Vallenar where there is a lot of trees and caves and we had like a little BBQ thing with the zone leaders and a member from there sector. It was sooo cool! As some might know, right now the "Copa América" is being played in Chile. Chile of course is going to win haha jk but President Dalton gave all the missionaries permission to watch it today and Friday if we are with an investigator while watching it. Elder Leon and I don’t really have a set plan as of right now to watch it but we are going to try and arrange something. Anyway, That about sums up my week. I Love you all and I’ll talk to ya next week!

Here are some answers to some of your questions…

So I FINALLY GOT THE FIRST PACKAGE! I was so excited to have different cereal. There is like 3 types of cereal here and it gets really old super fast. I loved the candy and jerky especially. Also, one thing about books here in the mission that you should know. We can’t read anything that isn’t in the missionary library. So basically nothing. I have every book that I’m aloud to read. I’m kinda bummed because it looks like an awesome book but my zone leader said straight up NO haha. Sorry guys:( Anyway, I was shocked to see how big the box was. Normally the missionaries receive little shoe boxes full of stuff so they were all telling me I had to share with the whole zone hahaha. Thanks guys so much. 

Spanish update: 

I’m finally starting to understand a lot more. There is still a lot that I don’t get but for the most part I understand most conversations by context. I’m praying a lot for the gift of tongues and I can see the results everyday. 

Sad news: Elder Taylor (my companion in the MTC) went home like in the first couple of weeks because he tore his ACL in the mission. super sad :(

Investigator Update: We have been working with all of our investigators towards baptism but as of right now, none of them are ready for baptism or are almost ready for the invitation. I’m not totally sure if Nicanor is going to be baptized soon because he hasn’t been coming to church so we will see what happens there. I have intercambios this week and one of the zone leaders is going to come to my zone and I have to lead him around for the day so that is going to be interesting.

Anyway, I love you guys a ton and I’m going to send some photos from our adventure this morning.  

Elder Spanbauer "Elder Spiderman"

#dontbebasic