And another week has gone by!
How was everyone's week? Some of you are finishing up exams, others are getting ready for musicals, others are living life or whatever adults do at the end of January! Let me know I'd love to hear about how everyone is doing!
Well for me this week started out with me breaking into an old lady's house and ended with 3 big dogs attacking us! And throughout that was rather uneventful sadly. Well besides two baptismal dates, intercambios and zone conference. But other then that it was boring. Actually we did have some really good burgers 1 hour and 2 buses away from our house and some inactive members contacted us.
So yes I did break into an old lady's home, yes it was easy, no I didn't steal anything, no it wasn't a dare, yes the house was really nice, yes she is our neighbour, and yes I did have permission from her. We came home from working and she was standing at her door with all her groceries and couldn't open her front door. And we asked if she needed help, she said yes yes, please break through the back window and come and open the door. So I did the only reasonable thing I could do and opened the window instead of breaking it, and climbed on through, walked through her very clean and organized house, ate some of the food on the counter (just kidding) and opened the door and helped her carry in her groceries!
The next day we had a lesson with two of our friends, Leonor and her daughter Pia. We talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ, had a powerful lesson and I asked if being baptized called their attention and they both said yes! They will be baptized February 11. (Took me a while to spell february haha). I am super pumped for them!
The next day I went on intercambios with Elder Carenio! He is a peruvian from... well Peru. We were in the same zone in my first month in Chile and it was awesome to get back together! He is literally so awesome and funny and wholesome! He helped me restore my animo (motivation), as I have been struggling a little bit with my companion right now. We enjoyed some pizza, had some great lessons, and some good laughs. Good times.
We also had zone conference where I got to see my Valle de Azapa boys, Elder Plane and Elder Carlson, it was good times! We learned qualquier cosas about how to schedule our days and weeks better, how to set better goals, how to have better plans etc to work with more force and strength! It was great!
We had some really good burgers for lunch on Saturday, the member lives about an hour and two buses away, in a valley of some big hills, the neighbourhood there is very spectacular and green! And clean, and a lot of them didn't have huge gates and fences but had lawns, felt like I was actually in Provo Utah is the best place I can match it to. We were 10 min early so we decided to climb the hill a little bit, in which we found out was actually private property and technically we weren't allowed to do that... oops.
This week we had two inactive couples contact us to visit them! They are both young couples in their 20's. One of them, the guy, wanted a blessing of strength for his kick boxing fights. (Shout out to my friend who does kickboxing! So cool!) So we did that and had a lesson with them, we are going to have Once, dinner, with them this week! He wants to come back to the church, her not so much. And the other couple, we went over yesterday and ate some fuego pizza, got to know them, the dog peed on my leg, the cat clawed my pants and drank some juice! They are an awesome couple and I am grateful they reached out to us!
Tonight we were leaving a Noche de Hogar, translates to night of home, but the actual terminology in english is Family Home Evening. Basically when a family gets together and shares the gospel, and we were invited! We had some good food as well! I recommend trying cream cheese block in a bowl with soy sauce poured over it and eating that with crackers! So delicious! Anyways we left and who was waiting for us? Big Dog #1, Bigger Dog #2 and a special appearance, featuring Biggest Dog #3. Boy is Biggest Dog #3 BIG. (Hmm the word big looks weird now to me, that ever happen to any of you?). Anyways they start running at us barking. So we do what any Canadian and Mexican in Chile do while being charged at by dogs. We pull a charge of our own and start running at the dogs. It was pretty awesome! It was like a movie scene! And usually dogs at this point would get scared and stop their charge. Well #1 and #2 stopped. But #3 is just a different breed and kept coming not caring his backup singers dipped. Absolute menace. So we start doing the hokey pokey, Alabama stomp, swing your partner round and round, hollerin and hootin thing that any Canadian and Mexican would do in Chile. And that also didn't work. So the next thing was grab the nearest rock and threaten to throw it! That one always works! So we looked around for rocks while stompin and clappin and there are 0 rocks around, so we grab the nearest piece if air by our feet and threaten to through our atmospheric pressurized air and it worked! Huzzah! Hurray!
Spiritual thought: In a talk in 1993 by Spencer J. Condie titled "A Mighty Change of Heart" he quoted President Benson a former prophet.
"President Benson has said, “Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right.” When we humble ourselves, the Spirit will always tell us what is right."
This is a valuable lesson to learn in all of our relationships, our relationship with God, family, friends, spouses etc! Often we get caught up with being right, not caring what is right as says in the quote. I can remember countless arguments between me and my brothers, I don't remember what we would be arguing about, but all I remember was a furious passion to be right not actually caring whay was right. Thinking that what is right is being right. But that is not the case. It is hard to let go of the pride and be humble, seeing what is right and not concerning myself with who is right. In a different dynamic from my furious passion, here in the mission I've had to humble myself to know what is right by God. Not leaning on my desires to be right and do what I want. But to let go of that and learn what is right. And most importantly, act on what is right! It is very difficult, the natural man is an enemy to God for this very reason.
Question of the week: How can you incorporate this teaching in your life and relationships?
Talk about it as families, siblings and spouses. Keep it in mind when your with friends.
Love you all!
Elder Spencer
Intercambio with Carenio, eating pizza and drinking Dr. Pepper which is very hard to find in Chile. Was one of my first times drinking it.
The illegal hill we climbed and its view, and the greenery in the valley or whatever it is called.
