Elder Parker Spanbauer: Week 32 Arica

Oct 19, 2015

So as stated above this week went by super slow. It is getting really hot here in Arica and I’m going to start having to wear sunscreen everyday. The sun here is brutal! There is like no O-zone haha. So this week we did a lot of contacting because my companion doesn’t know the sector very well and we need to find new people to teach. Something that I have learned is that I am super good at contacting random people! I simply use clues to start conversations. For example, with one guy, I saw that he was wearing cool Nike shoes and I asked him where he bought them. Then we had a conversation about shoes and then I slowly worked it into "We would love to come back and teach you a little more about what missionaries do" and he said YES! With another old lady she answered and didn’t seem interested at all but then I started asking questions about her family and she told us her granddaughter sings in English. I then asked if she could have her grand daughter sing a song for us and sure enough she did. It was funny because she sang "love me like you do" by Ellie Goulding and I just so happen to know that one hahahaha. I ended up singing it with her. She invited us to come back and we ended up going back and having an awesome lesson with her. A lot of times I use my soccer skills to contact kids in the street. We had "Folleto Friday" and we had to get rid of 20 Law of Chastity pamphlets. It was kinda funny because we gave one to a couple of kids that were previously making out on a park bench. I seriously love being a missionary. There was one night that we went to a less actives house and he cooked us BBQ wings with fries! He lived in Utah for 3 years and knows a good amount of English. The food was amazing! Also, we had a Noche de Hogar with the Familia Julca. (Family of investigators). I made cookies and brownies with the brownie mix I got in my pouch! They were all in amazement haha. One of them ate like 7 brownies. It was awesome and we also played "uno" with them after. They are going to get baptized but they just are waiting to get their visas in order to do so. The dad (Alfredo) is one of the most incredible men I have ever met. He is truly someone prepared by the lord. I can’t wait to get them married and baptized as a family. We are also teaching his nephew that is about my age. He is catholic but is very interested in our church. The noche de hogar that we did was in the church so it was his first time being in the church. Now we are trying to get him to come to church with us as well. We are also working on getting a younger girl baptized with the age of 10. Her older brother was baptized and then the oldest sister was and now she wants to. We want to talk about president first to find out what we should do. The mom works in a bar so its complicated. A bunch of snakes have been hitting on my companion and me and for those who don’t know, the word "snake" is missionary code for young girls that always hit on the missionaries. Then there is "dragon" which can be just an older lady or even grandmas sometimes haha. Trust me, I’ve experienced it all. Today we played soccer and ultimate frisbee with some elders and it was way fun. One of the elders I met in Vallenar was there! Elder Oakey! Ill send some pictures. Love you all and Take care!

Elder Spanbauer