Week 86 Antofagasta

Oct 31, 2016

This week was great and I’ll be sending some recordings of how the week went in another email. Here are some pictures from this week, including a baptism of a family that I was teaching in my old area of Calama. Also, a baptism we had this week in Antofagasta with the sister missionaries! It’s been a great week!

Elder Spanbauer

I also had the opportunity to interview and then baptize two of the sister missionaries converts named Kevin and Hector. My companion baptized the daughter of less active member named Yashira. Here are some photos!

So this week was awesome! I received word that a family I taught in Calama got baptized! Here is a photo!

Bishop and his son! HAHA

Working at night in at the top of the mountain!

Week 85 Antofagasta

Oct 24, 2016

Hey guys, 

I’m going to have to make this a quick on but I’m going to send my voice recordings of the week as well. So first off, we didn’t receive any transfers so I will be with Elder Moraga for another six weeks here in Antofagasta. I’m excited for this because Elder Moraga is awesome. We hardly ever argue and we teach well together. One of the highlights this week was that Marco, one of our investigators went to church! He comes from a very humble family. Their house is at the very top of the mountain and its made out of ply-wood. We picked him up in a member´s car and took him to church yesterday and he went in sweats. It’s because he doesn’t really have any other clothing. The young men included him right away so he really enjoyed it. He is 17 years old and we are going to try and set a baptismal date with him this week! Elder Walker will no longer be my zone leader and a Brazilian is coming to replace him. My paptito dies this week (Elder Leon) :( That is the quick update for now. I will send some voice recordings.

Elder Spanbauer

My Mamita and Papito and Javier!

Week 84 Antofagasta

Oct 17, 2016

Hey everyone! This week was an eventful one. We started the week off with some recent converts in a family home evening and it was awesome! Elder Moraga and I weren’t totally sure on what we should share but when we got there I felt the strong impression to just have a testimony meeting with all of them and it was super awesome! Everyone felt the spirit and after everyone said it was what they needed. So that was a cool experience. Also I taught how to teach the restoration in less than 5 min. to my district and they have all had success with it! It was an awesome district meeting. Alejandro is doing well but still has many doubts and questions. We watched the restoration with him and he really liked it. He says he would like to see a baptismal service before participating in one so we are working on that. He went to church and enjoyed it a lot. Also, we have been working with the Talbots (Senior Missionaries) with a family that they found and all of them went to church yesterday! The father doesn’t believe too much but he is progressing a lot! Ricardo doesn’t want anything anymore... we passed by his house and he told us that he thought a lot about his baptism and doesn’t want to keep investigating. It´s amazing how fast the adversary works with people but we are going to give him some time and then pass by in the future. Julian is just waiting for his papers to arrive from Santiago so he can be a legal citizen of Chile and get married. Once he is married, he can get baptized. This week my whole district went over and worked in the sister’s sector to help them out and it was awesome! We found tons of new people to teach for them! I also interviewed a young boy named Sebastian. He is ten years old and will be getting baptized on the 29th of October in the Sister’s sector. Church was really good this week because we had 5 investigators present in sacrament meeting and the talks that were given were awesome! That is really the update for now... I got a little sick this week but it was just a cold so didn’t stop us from working or anything. Anyway, Love you all and until next week!!!!

Elder Spanbauer

Family Home Evening Activity! Giant stuffed Chicken

Week 83 Antofagasta

Oct 10, 2016

Hey everyone! I´M AN UNCLE!!! Congrats Tori and Joey!!! I feel like it was just yesterday when you guys told me that Tori was pregnant! Time flies sooo fast in the mission. So this week was a pretty good week because we managed to work a lot with members and we also have some baptismal dates set for the end of this month. Alejandro, one of our investigators goes to church basically every Sunday and has a baptismal date set for the 22nd of Oct. He is super awesome but a little shy and awkward as well. He has a lot of questions about the book of Mormon but that´s a good thing. The other investigator that has a baptismal date is Ricardo... he is a new investigator we found knocking on doors and he is super awesome. He has problems with the word of wisdom but we are gonna help him with that so he can get baptized on the 29th of Oct. I had the opportunity to do a companion exchange with my zone leaders and I worked with Elder Faúndez from Santiago Chile. I learned a lot from him. He literally talks to every single person that passes him in the street! Not a single one of them gets away hahaha. Let´s see... what else? Oh! I made no-bake cookies! haha This week we also had a stake activity in Antofagasta Centro (Where I served while being in the office) so I got to see a lot of old faces! We did an open house in the church and our job as missionaries was to go to the streets and invite people to enter the church and see what we do as "Mormons" and show that we don’t sacrifice animals on an altar hahaha. This Sunday we had 6 investigators at church so that was super awesome and in the evening Elder Talbot (a senior missionary) did a presentation of the book of Mormon. He showed physical evidence within the book of Mormon showing that now man could have just made it all up. He also showed where he believes the family of Nephi landed in Central America. Elder Talbot has traveled the world studying this while he was working for BYU and he probably knows more about the book of Mormon than any other man I’ve met. So that was pretty cool. That´s pretty much it... I feel like the more time I have in the mission, the harder it is to write because I feel like I´m writing the same thing every week... Today we got our hair cut and played soccer with the zone. That´s all for now... Love you all and send me more pics of the new baby of the family! 

Elder Spanbauer

I´M AN UNCLE!!!

Week 82 Antofagasta

Oct 3, 2016

Hey everyone,

So as far as numbers go... this week wasn’t that great compared to last week but, a lot happened this week. I did a companion exchange with an Elder from my district to see how he was doing and it was awesome. His name is Elder Soto from Argentina. We taught several people. The cool thing is that Elder Walker (one of my x-companions from the office) is my zone leader so I got to spend the night with them as well and catch up. Our sector sits on the side of a mountain so we are constantly going up and down and it sucks hahaha. We have been working a lot at the top of the mountain because most of the people up top are receptive and live in humble conditions. Also because the elders before never really worked up there. We have had a lot of success in finding new investigators. It is really hard to get Chileans to commit to doing something hahaha. We are teaching an investigator named Julian and he is getting his legal work done to get married and baptized! He will find out tomorrow if he can get married or not. We also participated in a "Mini MTC" activity that was for all the young men in the stake. I was in charge of the "Boise Idaho" mission haha! I got to teach English! I am actually thinking about doing English classes every week to find new investigators. So this was the week of General Conference and it was awesome because I got to see it in English with all my American buddies haha. We had one investigator go named Alejandro and he watched it in English because he understands a lot. He thought it was interesting but it’s hard to know what he´s thinking because he doesn’t really express much emotion haha. I really liked what Elder Nelson said about joy... "Joy is a gift from god for the righteous" and he explained that the world does not offer us joy... but rather temporal pleasures that we often mistake for "Joy". Joy is only obtained by living the principles of the gospel and by understanding the plan of salvation or better said... the plan of happiness. I also liked how Elder Ballard said that "The restoration was not some event that took place in 1820 but that it continues to be unfolded" or something along those lines. We are part of the restoration! We are spreading or "restoring" this great truth to all ends of the earth just as the prophecy says! How great is our calling as members of the church! I learned several things in this conference but those were some of my favorites. Things have been really good here in Antofagasta. We played soccer again today as a zone with President Ferreira on a full sized field. It was super fun but I realized that I’m not in the shape that I used to be hahaha. Anyway, that’s the update for this week! Love you all and until next week! 

Elder Spanbauer

My District

Elder Moraga, Elder Walker and Elder Faúnez