Elder Parker Spanbauer: Week 65 Calama

June 6, 2016

Hey everyone! So we had a great week. Last Pday we went to Chuquicamata! It is the worlds largest open pit mine and I think the worlds largest copper mine. It was really awesome because we went with the Zone Leaders and a few other elders. Tuesday we didn’t have a district meeting because one of the elders in my district got sick so we had to cancel it. President is really strict about being with people of the opposite sex. This week I had the opportunity to do a companion exchange with an elder from my district and it was super fun. I spent the day with Elder Childs. He is from Kansas and he is hilarious! While we were working we found a new investigator named Ivan. We actually found him by accident looking for the house of another investigator. He invited us in right away! The coolest part of it all was that we taught him the restoration in English!!! He asked if we could teach it in English so we said of course! He understood it very well. It was the first time in my mission that I have taught a lesson in my native language! Elder Bravo and I had a decent week, we found several potential investigators but we are still having a hard time getting people to commit to something. Also, we experienced a little apostasy this week. Luis, a Jewish investigator of ours met with us at the church to have a lesson and literally out of nowhere Carlos, another investigator of ours walks into the church and joins the lesson.... No one invited him! But we decided to have a lesson with the two of them. Everything started off well but then Luis just started attacking the church and the book of Mormon. It was a very uncomfortable moment for us because we had another investigator present.... We testified of the book of Mormon but Luis just couldn’t accept it. The bad news is that Carlos kind of joined his side in the lesson and now I feel that Carlos is going to fall into apostasy because of Luis. At the end of the lesson Luis wanted to say the prayer and he said it in a yelling matter and used many words in Hebrew. I did not feel the spirit at all and the worst part of all is that at the end of the lesson... Carlos said he felt something and Luis started to explain that it was the spirit. Then Luis put his hands on Carlos`s head and gave him a blessing!!!!!!!!! ..... I have never witnessed so much apostasy in one day.... Luis actually went to church and it was awesome because bishop`s first counselor basically changed the lesson plan in priesthood and just had several members stand up to give their testimonies about the book of Mormon. This class was definitely directed towards Luis haha and after he asked if anyone had any doubts about the book of Mormon and Luis said nothing. It was a good Sunday. Anyway, not much is new here... just working hard to find new investigators. Here are some photos from Chuquicamata and from volleyball today.

Elder Spanbauer