Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Hoping to Help

  
Elder Jiminez, Chrysler, Elder Brayton




Hey everyone!

I did not have any time last week to write anything for real and I apologize about that. Today I have set apart a ton of time to hopefully respond and tell y'all about all the cool stuff happening down here in Chile. So last Monday the bishop of the church here and the ward mission leader took out us 4 missionaries of this ward out to eat at a really fancy restaurant. They treated us to some of the best sushi that I have ever eaten, granted that I only started liking sushi last year. But still it was delicious!! We have been having some crazy success in the ward these past two or three months. Between getting people to come back to church and helping them re-grow their testimonies of Jesus Christ and inviting brand new people to church for the very first time to experience it, there are a ton more people coming to church each Sunday. Between the time I got here to this week 
(which might be my last week here) we have seen more than 50 more people in the church!! And when the bishop pointed that out to me we were jumping around happy like little girls( he is like 6ft 5!) That's why I couldn't write anything last week. 

Oh and something else that happened last week, Sunday night when the zone leaders called us to see how are week went there was and earthquake! So let me explain before my mom freaks out too much. It was the tiniest tremor ever. Right after I asked the family that I live with to look it up online and it was a 4.7 that happened 40 km away and 120 km underground. It was seriously nothing but I got really exited about it because I have been waiting my entire mission to experience one.

So fast forward to almost a week later to Saturday, Chrysler finally got baptized and it was amazing! First of all I just want to say how much I appreciate him and his attitude towards everything. He showed up like an hour early just with as much energy as a man his age could have and then some. And then at about 15 mins before the baptism started he was very antsy and started to call EVERYONE, when in reality people here don't show up to and event until they are a least 15 mins late. But the actual service went extremely well. I got to share a talk about faith and repentance, Elder Jimenez got to baptize his first person ever, and the sobrino {nephew} (quien se bautizó hace 4 meses) {who was baptized 4 months ago} shared his testimony. I think the best part about everything was at the end Chrysler's best friend from a while back(who is now in the stake presidency) shared some thoughts and it was just amazing. The whole day Saturday was extremely busy but extremely rewarding. As we were walking back to the house Elder Jimenez told me that feeling the spirit this much makes you super tired. Yesterday was the fast and testimony of church so anyone could go up and share their testimony. I was thinking that it would be cool if Chrysler went up to do that, but something amazing happened. Chrysler's dad went up and shared a powerful testimony about faith. Keep in mind that he has never been to this church before, isn't even a member, but he was still up there!

And lastly today was a pretty normal p day, except for the fact that I lost my name tag at the beach while we were playing flag football. I also lost the Zip Chip ( its like a small frisky) so that is kind of a bummer. Then I got a hair cut and that was it! This may be my last week here in Arica but I will find out for sure Friday and y'all will find out Monday if I don't write, but I'll still get to send something Tuesday! I think its Labor day today in the states so everyone have a happy and safe Labor day! Do something awesome for me!!!! 

Love to everyone!

P.S. I had like a companion exchange last week with the zone leader and I realized just how bad my English has gotten, like it is super choppy and not grammatically correct and for whatever reason I now speak English with a super strong southern drawl. 
Elder Brayton
 
 

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