Week 24 Vallenar

Aug 24, 2015

So this week was a pretty eventful week. We started the week off with an awesome BBQ with the new family we met. They let us use their house to have an awesome going away party for Elder Còmena from Peru! WE ATE LAMB! It was honestly not that good hahaha. I thought it was just okay. It has a very distinct taste and tastes more like jerky than anything. It was kinda sad because Elder Còmena is by far the coolest Latino I have met here in the mission. He is soooo nice and has helped me a lot. He will be missed. We also had the opportunity to go to an investigators beach house, which was really fun, but I forgot my camera so I couldn’t take any photos. We had another Noche de Hogar with a family from the ward. It was super fun because they made awesome gringo treats like brownies. That’s one thing I miss a lot from the states. A nice warm brownie. The brownies here are not very good but she did make some really good cupcakes. We are still in a hole with Jonathan. He basically said he won’t come to church anymore until someone explains to him the meaning of some of the symbols on the salt lake temple. He is convinced that they are diabolical. He keeps telling us that he is just concerned for his salvation and doesn’t want to "sell his soul" away. So that’s where we are at with him. We are going to go to teach him another time with a member that can better explain some the symbolism because as missionaries, we cant just go search this stuff on the internet. It will truly be the "DO OR DIE" lesson. If he doesn’t change his mind we will have no choice but to leave him. It might just not be his time yet. Its super sad to see how close he got and to fall like this. I hope we can help him. We are also currently teaching a girl named Maria Bravo. She is super cool and has met with missionaries before. She likes the Book of Mormon and loves having us over. We have taught her two lessons and we are supposed to have one with her tomorrow. She is just really hard to find. She is never home! We are also still teaching Ingrid and she actually came to a Noche de Hogar at the Dominguez family’s house. She liked it a lot and wants to continue meeting with here. We just can’t teach her when her husband is home so we have to wait another week until he leaves. We also have to have a member present to teach her because we can’t be with a woman alone. As far as the new family we found, they are doing super good! They weren’t able to go to church yesterday though but they said they would this next week. We haven’t taught them an official lesson yet because we want to teach all of them at the same time. Also, we can’t teach her when she is alone either. We have been waiting to find a time to teach her and her husband at the same time as well as her daughter. We have an appointment at 7 tonight with them so we will see how that goes. So we had cambios this last Saturday and it looks like ill be here in Vallenar for another 6 weeks at least. I’m super happy because I need to get a baptism before I leave! We are going to be working hard to make it happen. We are going to try and get Claudia and Victor married and baptized. It should be a challenge. I absolutely love my companion haha. We get a long super well and we are like best friends. Our humors go really well together. We should be stand up comedians haha. My Spanish is always improving. I learn new words and phrases everyday. It’s amazing to see how far I have come in just 6 months. As of today, I have been in Chile for 6 months if you include the CCM (MTC). I cannot believe that a quarter of my mission is already over! Oh, so last night, there was an Earthquake! We were with two investigators just talking and the ground just started shaking. It was so freaking cool! It wasn’t a super strong one or anything but I definitely felt it haha. Also, we walked into the pension the other night and I turned on the light and a HUGE spider was sprinting across the ceiling! I grabbed a book to hurry and kill it and it jumped off the ceiling to avoid getting killed. It was sooo scary! The spiders here are insane! I taped it in my journal hahaha. Anyway, that sums up this week. Love you all and take care! Chao!

Elder Spanbauer

Food Preparation

Elder Malan

My District

Elder Comena from Peru

All the Gang!