Look for opportunities to help others

Crazy week!

After church on Sunday, we had just walked into our house and 30 seconds later we heard a scream and banging on our door.  We opened it and it was Pablo screaming that his sister’s house was on fire around the corner.  We dropped everything and sprinted out the door.  When Elder Perrett and I got there the house was completely covered in fire and we heard the pop of electrical wires exploding.  My comp and I ran over to the house next door, hopped the wooden gate, and climbed on the roof and started throwing buckets of water on the house.

 The firefighters were struggling with the fire because there were only 4 of them so me and Perrett actually helped a ton.  While one of the firefighters was on the roof of the burning house, the roof broke in and he was holding on the side of the roof so he wouldn’t fall into the fire.  There was too much fire in between us so we couldn’t reach him but one other guy was able to help him.  It turned out to be the home of a neighbor of Pablo’s sister and that the fire was started by the mom smoking.  She was a 32 year old single mom of 2 kids, ages 9 and 12.  The kids made it out but the mom didn’t.  It was really, really sad.  

So in the 2 hours or so of fighting the fire we missed out on teaching a good amount of lessons.  One thing I learned is the importance of teaching by example.  A lot of people saw us up there on the house helping and they know who we are.  As missionaries, and for everyone as followers of Christ, people are always watching and judging.  We always need to act according to our beliefs.  We always need to look for opportunities to help others.  Not just wait for them to come.  We need to act like followers of Jesus Christ.

We had some really great lessons this week with our investigators and I learned a lot.  On Saturday we did a service project at a member’s house.  We dug a huge path, made wooden frames, filled the frames with cement and smoothed it out and made a sidewalk.  Also, we were robbed this week.  Someone stole our big gas tank so we don’t have any hot water.  The showers went from room temp to ice cold.  Straight ice.  Love Chile!  

I hope you all had good weeks!  I'm praying for each and every one of you!  Take this week to look for opportunities to help others.  I love you all!!!

Elder Vincent

Need to enjoy each moment

Family Home Evening (Noche Hogar)

This week was kinda tough.  I’ve been super sick so working has been a drag.  Also we got destroyed with the rain the whole week.  Two highlights for this week are when Daniela accepted baptism for Nov18, and having a crazy cool lesson with Marcelo about his future.  Marcelo, Daniela and Sefanya are all getting baptized in the next few weeks!  

SO much rain

I had a cool experience walking in the street on Saturday.  It was raining so hard and it was slapping me in the face and I was soaked and a little cold and this thought popped into my head and I was like wow there is nothing else like this in the world.  At times the mission is so hard.  I’m super sick, starving because I’m fasting, and soaked from rain while walking around all day.  You just gotta enjoy it. I’m living in a foreign country on my own, learning a language and culture, meeting new people and hearing crazy stories everyday, and helping people change their lives forever by coming unto Christ.  It’s hard but I love it.  And this is the only opportunity I get to do something like this.  Tiene que disfrutar y aprovechar cada momento!

I love you ALL!  I hope all is well back at home!  To all my people from L.A., even though I’m in Chile, I could still feel the pain of the Dodgers losing.  NEXT YEAR!!  Haha!!  Have a great week everyone!

All my love,

Elder Vincent

working in the rain

Canella the dog

walking the hills

Halloween time

Victor, our investigator

Shoe inserts from my mom !! 

Enjoying sushi at Noche Hogar

Our district and zone leaders

Beautiful beach

Hey Everyone -

This week wasn't the best. We had good numbers and everything but the work didn't really progress very much.  We met a couple of good families this week so they will hopefully progress these next few weeks.  

Eating completos WITHOUT mayo

One awesome thing that happened this week is on Sunday we went around to ask all the members to set up stuff and we set up 5 Family Home Evening's and 14 members to go out and work with us throughout the week.  The ward is really excited to be involved in missionary work again.  

One crazy thing that happened this week is we saw this guy on a tractor fighting with some old farmer who had 2 horses with him.  We didn't hear what they said but the old guy started throwing massive rocks at the guy on the tractor so that guy started driving his tractor at the horses who went crazy and they were kicking at the tractor.  Gotta love Chile. 

Valle Hermoso

I hope you all had another great week.  Sorry this letter is so short - just a reflection on my week haha.  Next week will be better! 

Love you all,

Elder Vincent

RAIN with Elder Boveda

Our room after getting packages - like Christmas morning

Elders Dawson, Perrett, Boveda and me

Pablito taking a siesta

Hey everyone!

Constanza on confirmation day

Killer week!  We had our investigator Constanza (Conni) confirmed in church on Sunday.  She was so happy!  I got to do the blessing which was nice.  It’s amazing to see the difference in her compared to when we met her.

Last Monday we went to Pablito’s house and made empanadas for Pres and Sister Catala.  The zone leaders helped too.  It was a really cool experience.  This Thursday he is going to come and work with us so we’ll show him what’s good in Valle Hermoso.  

One highlight this week was taking one of our investigators, Sefayna, to the Temple in Concepcion.  We met up with President and Hermana Catala and he taught her about the Temple.  Sefanya doesn’t speak Spanish or English.  Her sister translates and we use hand motions haha!  She’s also reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish.  Even though she doesn’t understand it she still reads it because she likes the way she feels.  She’s not progressing as much from understanding/learning as much as she is from feeling the spirit.  It’s amazing.  

We celebrated Elder Perrett’s birthday this week.  There’s a tradition in Chile to smash an egg on someone’s head when it’s their birthday.  So, I smashed an egg on his head and he took a shower.  Once he got out and got dressed Pablito smashed another egg on his head so he had to shower again haha.  

Overall, it was a really good week.  Our goal is to have 8 more baptisms in the next 3 weeks.  Elder Perrett and I are still working really hard and having a ton of fun.   I hope you are all doing well back at home!

All my love,
Elder Vincent

Elder Boveda

In Coelemu on an intercambio

Dancing with the wild dogs

One of the kids at church that drew a picture of us

Hi guys!

This was an awesome week!  Elder Perrett and I have been working really, really hard and the hard work and obedience are paying off!  Our investigators Ramon, Ingrid, Daniel, and Adriana all have baptism dates!  Two on Oct. 21, and two on Nov. 4.  We are super excited for them.

Nothing too crazy or exciting happened this week - just a lot of hard, focused work.  We still had a fun week full of soccer games with little kids, service projects, and throwing rocks at dogs that try to bite us.  Our members this week were awesome.  We taught 26 lessons with members, 16 new investigators, 20 references contacted, and 4 people with baptism dates.  It was a really solid week.  

On Saturday we were walking home and decided to go find one more person.  So even though we were exhausted and didn’t want to keep working we turned around to keep working.  As we were walking down the street some guy came up to us and said he was a missionary but is now completely inactive at church.  But, his son just turned 8 and he wants us to baptize him.  It’s crazy the ways Heavenly Father blesses us for doing one more thing or working just a little harder.  

Life is awesome right now, I really can’t complain.  There are definitely long and tiring days but I’m really happy.  It’s amazing to see people’s willingness to change and improve their lives and the pure joy they get from it.  I’m grateful to be a part of it and to help them find this happiness.  There is no greater joy than living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I have personally experienced it and have seen the same with the people here in Chile.  I love this Gospel and I love you all!

Have a great week!

Elder Vincent

The oven we helped Pablito build

Making empanadas at Pablitos house for Pres and Sister Catala

Elder Perrett!!!

Home sweet home

This week was awesome!  We got some rainy days and it was really cold but we still worked through it.

Two highlights this week were:

-One of our investigators, Belen, really wants to get baptized the 21st of October.  She’s really excited but she needs permission from her dad because she’s not 18.  Whoever is reading this PLEASE pray and fast for Belen and her dad!  We need a miracle right now.  

Watching Conference with Elders Miller, Bromley, and Perrett

-General Conference was awesome.  So nice to hear the voice of the apostles and to hear their messages.  Two big things I took away that I want to share are first a quote by President Deiter F. Uchtdorf: “Blessings do not come from our abilities but our choices.” 

 And second is advice from Bonnie Oscarson about service.  She said we should always be asking “who needs me today?”  The essence of living the Gospel of Jesus Christ is service!

I hope you all had a good week.  How is it already October?!  Time is flying by.  As always, thank you for the endless love and support.  It’s truly carrying me through the tougher days.  I’m thinking and praying for you guys constantly.  Keep making good choices and keep serving!  I love you!

Elder Vincent

Ping Pong between Conference sessions

Spray paint outside of the Church

Hi Guys,

 

My week was kind of good and kind of bad.  

I'm not really sure what to say.  Elder Perrett and I were having a good day of work and we were walking on the train tracks by the ocean to our next lesson and we saw 2 men rob and beat an older lady.  It really messed Elder Perrett and me up.  I am just mad that two people would do that and I'm mad at myself for not running over to help her.  But, it wouldn't have been safe for us.  It was a horrible situation and a horrible thing to see.  

We kind of walked around aimlessly the rest of the day and didn't accomplish anything.  We were hoping the following day would be better because it was zone conference and we were looking forward to learning from Pres Catala.  

------

Zone conference was good and I learned a lot from President and Hermana Catala.  His talk focused on us changing our mentality and spending our time on people that have problems and want our help.  It was super cool. 

We had been working with one of our investigators, Carlos, everyday.  He was excited to be baptized on Saturday until his nephew talked him out of it.  It totally killed our drive but we just ignored it and worked crazy hard.  We are working with some more Haitians and lots of other people.  We found a couple cool kids on the soccer field (cement field) who then met us at church on Sunday.  Obviously, the Carlos situation was disappointing but we did a really good job of getting over it by working harder.  Great life lesson, haha. 

In church I presented an idea I had to the members to have them think of one person they know that would have a happier life by having the Gospel.  So, this week we will visit those people with the member who wrote the name down.  Should be a solid week of work. 

For Family Home Evening this week we watched the Tree of Life cartoon with 13 investigators.  The cartoon was the same we used to watch as kids at home.  I was surprised at how much I remembered and how powerful it is to me at 19 years old.  The Tree of Life message is one of my favorites and I really felt the Spirit.  

Working this hard makes me so exhausted but it makes the time go by way faster and I'm enjoying it a lot more.  

I love you all,

Elder Vincent

Sling shots to help with the wild dogs