Popito!

Elder Palpa heading to Copiapo

Well, this week has to be one that I will not forget anytime soon. I'm not even sure where to start but I am going to save the most exiting for last! I´ll start off by saying that Elder Palpa is leaving this cambio (transfer) and going to Copiapo, so I have already put him on his bus and he has 20 hours before he gets there. 

Sunday, he gave a farewell talk and we invited basically every person that we had ever talked to, to come to church to hear him speak. The church was FULL of investigators and less active members. And now we have a good handful of people that are ready to get baptized within the next month or so, so I am really exited for the progress of them. 

One bad thing that happened this week was in the process of helping Christofer change and get ready for baptism, he realized that it would be impossible to change if he was still living in his past so he talked to his boss, his wife, and his friends here and he has decided to leave Arica to look for his change in a city further south,( like 25 hours south). When he told us about his decision to leave he cried, I cried, and his family too. And even though it is sad, I support him absolutely 100% , and I told him this too, because of how much his life is going to change for the better and how in just 1 or 2 years he is going to look back and realize how much has changed for the better because of the decisions that he is making now and the sacrifices that he is making for his wife and son.But he has promised me to find some other missionaries down there. 

This next Monday we are going to Lago Chungara! But to replace my companion, I am getting a new missionary! That's right! I'm going to train a new missionary and I can't even begin to describe how happy I am. So, tomorrow I take a bus to Antofagasta to go and bring my comp back to Arica (24 hours round trip) And for whatever reason a missionary term for training is to say that you are having a kid, I think it's really funny that I'm going to be a Popito the same week of Fathers Day!!

Lots of love from Chile and pray for my Hijto(son) lol 

Elder Brayton

Lago (Lake) Chungara

Guessing this is a kind of scooter since I don't see pedals.

A week to explore!

Conquering the island!

Hi Everyone!!

Right now we are going out with one of our investigators to hang out with him and meet his family. But everything is awesome here! This week is President Dalton's last week as president and this time next week we will have a Chileno president. So this week we have a conference with Dalton as a farewell. I think but he doesn't actually leave Chile until July because he has to train the new president. Then, right after we are going to have more conferences to meet the new bossman. This next cambio I really want to train a new missionary and I have a feeling that I might do just that!! I hope that I get a Colombian comp to train!! That would be sweet! This past week we broke the record for attendance in the ward. We had 164 where usually it is in the 120´s and 130´s! So now the bishop is super happy with us, so he offered to take us out to eat somewhere nice one of these Mondays. 

That's about it.... we did do service this week and it was construction and the guy that we were helping just kept saying, dang you gringos must love to work, because I was working super fast! Here are some cool photos from this week! We explored and island, found a cave, I found a sand artist in downtown and after talking to him for a bit he was like, watch what I can draw! The restaurant is a sweet hidden spot in the corner of another sector that me a Elder Crabtree found and so we decided to have a little bro date during intercambios.

Love y'all so much!!! 

Elder Brayton

Elder Brayton inside the cave. 

Running on island

Some things never change...

Sidewalk artist

Positive Peer Pressure

Hello! So as this week has been unfolding, we have had lots of
opportunities to teach youth not of the church and to spend time with some of the recent coverts that are also youth. The think that Elder Bednar promised in the training meeting back in January or February was that he said that the future of the church is with the youth in South America and that if we focus on working more with them then we will see a direct result in the work and in the investigators. Or something like that anyways. But as we have been having lessons with youth and gathering together in groups to help them strengthen each other. And during one of the lessons, I just sat
back to looked at everyone and what they were doing and how they were all acting and I remembered the promise of Elder Bednar. And I'm not really sure what to call it in Spanish but I have been calling it the positive peer pressure plan. And that is what it is! Before whenever I thought of peer pressure, it always came with a negative connotation.
But just like everything, there is a good side and a bad side. And that, here especially, it is hard for these kids to make good decisions and strive for better when they always see the negative. And I have seen some amazing friendships come from doing lessons like this. Just today for our p day we went out to eat with 2 recent converts that live here in Arica and a member that all she wants to do is to serve a mission. 

Okay, I'm out of time because we got to the cyber late but I will send photos next week!! Everyone take care!!
Love,
Elder Brayton

Baptisms!

Well this week was a very good week to be a missionary in Zapahuira. Not one, but 2 baptisms in our ward this week! One from us and one from the sister missionaries! And an end to the long streak of no baptisms in the ward. It was awesome because when I got here the Bishop had
been on vacation in the United States and still had 2 weeks left, so as soon as his plane landed in Arica(the same night as the baptisms),his first counselor called him and told him to go straight to the church, but didn't give him a reason why. So just as he is getting to the Church we were finishing taking pictures outside. I can only imagine the surprise when he finally realized what was going on! 


José, our convert, is awesome. I have never meet anyone more dedicated to the gospel than him. Right after the first lesson that we had with him he accepted right away to be baptized and that same week he was leaving with us to do visits and help us teach lessons! Its difficult to get members to go with us usually but José calls us and asks if he can come with us almost every other day! And he has all the desires in the world to go on a mission. I gave him my second set of
scriptures so that he can continue to study and learn! And he is already going to seminary in the mornings!

Love,
Elder Brayton

Arica!

Our happy missionary!

New companion Elder Palpa from Peru.

Well, now I can talk about Arica a little bit more since I have gotten to know it better this week. The city is a lot smaller than Antofagasta, but it is so much cleaner and tranquil. But it is very warm and very dry. In Antofagasta, it was the rocky steep dessert, here it is the sandy flat dessert. Today we went to the downtown section of town and it was awesome! There is anything and everything over there. And there is this restaurant called Rolys and they have this hamburger with beef, eggs, french fries, and bacon. It was bigger than my plate! I struggled to eat all of it and I can still feel it now 5 hours after. Also fruit here is SO cheap. I went to buy bananas today from a farmers market type of place and I handed the guy 2000 pesos(>$3) and he looked at me and shrugged his shoulders and then proceeded to give me almost 20 lbs. of bananas! It was sweet!
 
The ward and sector that I am in is pretty great too, really everyone I have met is cool. They are all super exited about the missionary work and they all think that I speak great Spanish. The only bummer is that they told me on my first week here that the ward hasn't had a convert baptism in over 2 years. But I have come here to help change that real fast! It's a difficult sector but there is also tons of potential. I still haven't met the bishop because he is on vacation and gone to the states. But I have gotten to go to some of the little
towns and I would even call them villages because they are so small. It's cool to see how country life is here vs living in the states. For some of the people that live really far away they have wind turbines to pump water from a well and they just go without electricity for the most part. Its almost like camping all the time!!!
 

One thing, or person rather, that I want to talk about before he gets too far away from my mind is Hugo. Hugo is an Indian that has lived in Chile for his entire life. Up until he was 16 years old he didn't even know that electricity was a thing. But I met him in Antofagasta because he lives directly in front of the church and his wife is a very active member there. I'm sure, like all the other missionaries that have been there before me, I had tried to talk with him to get him interested in the church. Well I tried, and got nowhere to start off with. So I just started talking with him about anything and everything. Our families, jobs that we have had, memories from our childhood and stuff like that. One of the coolest stories he told me about was when he was a kid, he can remember carving arrows and spears to fish with. Fishing was one of the few ways that his family could eat consistently because nothing grows here easily and Chile has a huge coast. This continued for just about the entire time that I was in Antofagasta, and eventually we progressed enough to where we could talk about stories from the bible. And he liked the stories of Jonah, but he loved the stories of Peter! I think more than anything he just liked that he was a fisherman and that he became a fisher of man. And so kind of as a joke he would always ask me how the fishing was going (referring to the missionary work) and I would always tell him about what was going on and who we were teaching. Finally after getting to be really good friends with him I got the call that I was getting transferred. Then the morning that my bus was going to leave he called me and said that he had a little gift for me and to come pick it up. So we went by there on the way to the bus terminal and hands me this awesome hand carved spear and the blade is made from the sword of a swordfish. He told me that it is similar to what he used to fish with as a kid and that we were both Fishermen and that we had to stick together. The tikis mean kindness (bottom) and wisdom (top) and that those were two things that he felt a lot as we talked. I just wanted to share this story so that everyone can know a little bit about Hugo and how much I have learned from him.
 
Lots of love from Chile!
Elder Brayton!

Elder Brayton with Hugo & his wife in Antofagasta.

Handmade spear from Hugo

Antofagasta a Arica

From Antofagasta to Arica

Welp, I got transferred to the northern most sector in Chile in the city of Arica. Arica, from what I have seen, is a precious city that is very clean and very well organized! My trip up here was VERY long, a bit more than 12 hours in a bus but it was very cool because we took the Pan American highway almost all the way up and it was all beautiful coasts and mountains. In this sector, I am only 10 min from the boarder of Peru. Also, technically, our boundaries for the sector covers all the way to Peru and Bolivia!! Fun stuff even though I don't think we will ever travel that far to go and teach. My new companion is Elder Palpa. He is from the city of Lima Peru and he has just like 3 more months than I do in the mission, so we are both pretty young. It is sweet because when we are standing next to each other, I look like a giant because he is only like 5 ft tall. But he has a huge heart and I'm looking forward to teaching with him later today!!! Also I don't have time today but next week I have to tell everyone about what I got right before I left Antofagasta! But until then,

Take care Everyone!!! 

Elder Brayton

Mother's Day Skype

Elder Brayton in Antofagasta, Chile

The BEST part of Mother's Day is Skype session with our missionary! He looks & sounds great and is having much success. Here's a video: