Good week

Top of Penco

Hey Everyone!

We had another good week of missionary work. Wednesday we taught 8 lessons and found 2 new people who want to learn more about the Gospel.  That night we had Family Home Evening with some ladies who don't go to church very often.  They are all about 60 years old and CRAZY!!!  We had the funniest conversations!  We also talked about the Word of Wisdom and they all committed to go to church on Sunday.  

On Sunday, I spoke in Sacrament meeting and also taught the Sunday School class.  My Sacrament talk was from Jacob chapter 5... how great will be our joy if we bring even one person unto Christ.  In Sunday School I used President Nelson's talk from our last General Conference about the importance/value of the Book of Mormon.  He starts the talk off with a story about an African King he met (awesome story) and after asks us how much the Book of Mormon is worth to us. It's really interesting and worth the reading.

Making humitas (tamales) with Lici and her baby Emily

We also spent time this week helping Pablo rebuild his brick oven, and we helped Dora make humitas. The week flew by and I'm looking forward to this coming week, especially Lici's baptism.

THANK YOU for all of your support, letters, and for praying for the people we are working with.

I love you all,

Elder Vincent

What I showered with the other day

Family

Hey everyone!  I hope you all had a great week.  We've been busy here in Chile!

I've learned recently that my attitude greatly influences my relationship with my companion.  If I treat him like a kid when he makes an immature joke, then he acts like a kid.  But if I say something like "hey, good one!" then change the subject, he starts talking about something more mature.  So, I realized that I really have the responsibility to make sure our relationship is good.  I wish I would have seen this earlier.  

I got robbed last week while writing at the cyber cafe.  Luckily we chased the guy down and got everything back!

We had two awesome highlights this week...  First, Diego was baptized!  It was a special experience for him and I'm so happy for him.  His dad isn't a member but was there to support him along with 10 other family members. 

Second, is an even better experience, and something I will remember for the rest of my life.  I received a call requesting me to go to the police station at 4pm to translate English for the police.  We got to the little plaza where the police station is and there were police waiting outside for us to arrive.  We made this huge entrance as they escorted us into the station while everyone inside was staring at us.  They put me and my companion into a room with a computer, tables, and lots of chairs.

The police officer said "Elder Vincent, this is Cristobal, he lives in Belgium and only speaks English and German.  He was born in Chile and was put up for adoption 29 years ago because his father lost his legs in an accident and couldn't provide for him.  We were able to find his biological family and they are going to meet him for the first time in 29 years and we need you to translate."  Then the family came into the room.  Mom, dad in his wheelchair, his 7 brothers/sisters and all of their kids.  There were about 20 in total.  Every single person in the room - family, police, etc - was in tears.  I was able to translate for them and talk about their lives, jobs, families, etc.  It was incredible to see Cristobal's joy every time I said "this is your next brother" and with the biggest smile he would say "I have ANOTHER brother?!

Nobody can argue that family is not the most important thing in the world.  I am so grateful for my family and the opportunity I have to help unite other families.  This is something I will never forget. 

I hope all of you can remember the importance of family and that you can help others understand its power and importance too.  It is the greatest gift we have from our Heavenly Father.  I love my family and love all of you like my family. 

There are 4 people that want to get baptized in the next 2 weeks.  Please pray for Lici , Antonela, Genesis, Ana Maria, Sandra, Luis, Orillana, Sebastian and Marcelo. 

Have a great week!  All my love,

Elder Vincent    

Family night at the Salazar's

Domingine and Rodrigo

A friendly (?) spider on my suitcase

Happy New Year!

Hey Everyone!

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone made good goals for the year and had a fun New Year’s!  

I was thinking about what I was doing last New Year’s and how different this New Years Eve was haha!  I made all my goals for 2018 and it’s cool how I get to just focus on the mission.  I’m going to work super hard, focus 100% and give everything I have to the Lord.  

We have 7 people wanting to get baptized in the next few weeks.  We’ve been working with Ana Maria and experienced the craziest miracle this week.  We were singing Christmas hymns to her 94 year old mother and Ana Maria’s kids called on the phone.  They could hear us in the background and she said she thought they were going to be mad that we were at her house, but instead they responded saying how nice they thought it was and we have their support.  So Ana Maria has a baptismal date for the 6th of January!  I’m super excited for her. 

Penco ran out of fresh water for the week. 

The city put out these massive plastic water tanks for people to fill their buckets but they’re super dangerous because people are fighting over the water.  Sometimes I think Chile isn’t such a bad country but then stuff like this happens and reminds me why it’s a third world country.  The water in the tank is so bad but we have to drink it and “shower” with it. 

Please pray for all the people we are working with… Ana Maria, Miguel, Lici, Estefan, Sandra, Diego, Domingine, and especially Marcelo.  

Thank you all for your letters and support.  It means so much to me.

Love,

Elder Vincent

Christmas

Elder Espiritu, Stephania and Marcelo Dec 21st

Hey Everyone!  

It was a good week in Chile!  On December 21st we organized a Christmas concert.  We had a choir of 12 missionaries and had a great turnout of members and guests.  It was so sick how it all worked out and came together.  The only bad part was that our piano player, a 10 year old kid who can actually play really well, got nervous and ran out after the first song.  So we had to do the rest of the concert a capella haha.  I feel bad for the kid but it was a good activity overall.  

We received some very sad news about Elder Reyes, who was my second companion and finished his mission a few weeks ago.  He recently was hit by a car and apparently is likely to die.  He’s been in a coma for a few days now.  We lived together for a long time and became good friends before he left.  Please keep him in your prayers.  

Elder Gillett

Our mission Christmas conference was really fun.  We started off with a really good talk from President Catala then had a ton of friendly competitions.  It was all super funny and it was cool to see all of the missionaries, especially the ones from my training group in Mexico.  There were two really powerful moments in the conference.  First, to thank the ladies who made lunch for all of us, we all sang The Spirit of God in harmony and it was crazy.  I’ll email the video next week.  The second was when we ended the conference by getting on our knees and praying for Elder Reyes.  

Christmas Eve dinner with Pablo

In Chile, they celebrate Christmas beginning on the 24th at 2:00am!  So we made Christmas eve dinner at Pablo’s house.  I made empanadas and steak, and he made chicken, rice and french fries. I put Lawry’s seasoning on the steak and it was SO good!  One thing I noticed is that presents and stuff alone don’t make the holiday happy.  I got tons of stuff in packages but that didn’t matter at all to me.  I was just thinking about my family.  

Stephania asked us to help with a service project and we also taught tons of lessons.  We are keeping busy!  We have 5 investigators who have committed to baptismal dates in the next few weeks so we will be busy helping them prepare.  Please keep them in your prayers as well.  

I love you all,

Elder Vincent

Christmas Eve dinner

FaceTiming my family on Christmas

Christmas with my training group from Mexico

Elder Espiritu on the bus 

Love and serve others

The Salazar's bunny, Vincent.  Named because he's white.

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had a good week! My week was good, especially because we ended the week with 5 people asking for baptismal dates!  We are super excited for all of them and the choices they are making. A great way to start off a new year for them.  

We had a zone conference and it was crazy good.  The message from President Catala was powerful and helped me a lot.  My interview with President was crazy good too and changed my life and my mission.  I have so much respect and love for him.

The work is good here though we are dying from heat! We had a great service project this week where we were asked to get a specific plant which we had to go up to the mountains to find.  It wound up being a big hike to find it.





With Christmas coming up I just want to make sure you all remember our Savior and His love and example for us. There is no better gift at this time of the year than to be like Christ by loving and serving others. I hope you all have a great Christmas with your families!

All my love,

Elder Vincent

Eating at the Salazar home

Working on unity

Hey Everyone -

This week was a little rough.  None of the people we are working with made it to church, which was disappointing.  I did get the chance to go to my first area, Chillan, to pick up my Visa.  It brought back a ton of good memories from the beginning of my mission. 

We spent a couple of our days this week doing service.  One day we split wood for someone and another day we helped Pablo make tortillas that he went and sold on the street.  

Maximo was 2 days sober when we worked with him on Tuesday.  He looks and seems so much better when he's sober.  We taught tons of lessons this week.  I'm exhausted but happy about the work.  

The Salazar family had us over for Noche de Hogar (family home evening). We played Bean Boozled that mom sent me and related it to a trial of faith.  It was super funny and ended up being a really good message.  

Me and Elder Espiritu

My companion and I work really hard together but haven’t yet learned to gel like Elder Perrett and I did.  During studies on Wednesday I asked him if he thought we had good unity and he said no (which was what I was hoping for) and so we talked about all the things that we need to change to have a better companionship. The next few days were better and hopefully moving forward things will be continue to be good between us. 





I can't believe that Christmas is in two weeks!

I love you all and appreciate your love and support,

Elder Vincent

my "tree"

Stefanya got baptized

Hey Everyone!

So my week started out kind of sad. It was really hard to say goodbye to Elder Perrett and others in my area who were transferred that I'd grown so close to. I felt really lonely and a little homesick.

Hard saying goodbye to Elder Perrett

Elder Espiritu's first day in the mission

My new companion is Elder Espiritu from Lima, Peru. He is coming right out of high school. My first impression was that he seems really young but that he is a nice kid who has tons of motivation and is excited to work! As the week went on I discovered that Elder Espiritu is really quiet. We get along well but there's not a lot to talk about. One good thing I've noticed so far about training is I truly have to forget myself. When I'm not focused on the investigators I'm focused on my companion and making sure that he's okay and doing the right things. So it's a good way for me to turn outward and give everything I have to others.

Daycare center

On Wednesday, we went to a daycare center to do a cultural presentation for kids ages 9 months thru 5 years. It was really cute haha. I spoke about the American flag, Disneyland, and American food. Then they gave us certificates, gifts and completos (hot dogs).

On our way home we passed this tiny little wood hut on the side of the road. We actually just walked past it at first assuming that there's no way someone actually lives there. We passed it and about 15 seconds later I had the impression to go back and knock on the door. We knocked and this old, dirty man came out. He looked at us and before anyone said anything he started to cry. He said he used to have everything - a house, family, food, money, etc. Then his parents died and he got into drinking and lost everything. He said he hasn't showered in weeks, only owns the clothes that he's wearing, goes to the bathroom on the floor of his hut because there's no bathroom, and he sleeps on the same floor that he used to go to the bathroom. He also told us he was just deciding to give up on God because he wasn't going to get an answer to his prayers. He told us that we are the answer to his prayers and I think he's 100% right. There's a reason we decided to turn around and go knock on his door. I have a really good feeling about him.

Stefanya's baptism day

The week ended on a high note. Stefanya was baptized and confirmed a member of the church! She thought the service was really good. I'm super happy for her and the progress she has made in her life.

I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season!

Love,

Elder Vincent

Saying goodbye to Elder Dawson

Ran into Elder Roundy, my companion from El CCM