I really am learning a ton more about agency and all it contains

Alright! so Last week was super crazy! sorry about that! But! we are still working with the Vargas Family! hopefully i will have better pictures coming soon with more people dressed in white clothing! they have a date set for the 19th of October so thats what were working for! i think theyre gonna make it! they came to conference for two sessions! that was awesome! We also had another one of our investigators come... she didnt quite get what she was expecting... so we are gonna have to work a lot more with her. that was a huge dissappointment... but thats ok. i really am learning a ton more about agency and all it contains.

We knock a Ton of doors. I dont know if i have mentioned these before or not but they have these terrible inventions where the doorbell calls the house so all the have to say is "no, no, gracias" and hang up the phone. you dont even have a chance with those suckers. But we have a lot of interesting experiences! you really cant discount anyone, because sometimes it seems like the people who wouldnt want the gospel, are the ones prepared to accept it. and some people who seem really accepting but really arent. We went to one house of an inactive teenager and talked to his dad. he told us his son wasnt in and we asked him where he was at then started talking more about him and what he does and eventually he let us in. we had a lesson and we have gone back another time. He is accepting of the Gospel and we have a good friendship. i wasnt expecting that. Then we have these people who tell us they are busy so we set up another time to visit them and we come by and they are gone. so we come back and they tell us they actually really dont want us to come. some people dont want to tell us that straight up so they just make up ridiculous excuses. one lady told us she was gonna be sick for the next month. other people tell us to come back in like february. a little crazy but thats ok.

Im also learning a lot more about attitude. i thought that was a lesson i had in the CCM, but apparantly its a lot deeper than i thought! you really do choose to be happy. its part of your agency. Wednesday was a sweet day, i chose to be happy and i just felt it, all day, i loved people, the language was better, everything was beautiful. I went to the pension that night feeling full! The next day i did it again. BUT, almost every one of our appointments fell through. it was a little bit impressive! but every single time something fell through, it opened up the opportunity to go do something else that we learned was definitely more necessary. we were truly guided by the Lord and told where we should go and what we should say. it was truly impressive. we had an incredible day. At one house i knocked on the door ( we had already made an appointment) and she moved the blinds in the window, looked at us, we waved, and she walked away. so we waited... two minutes later we knocked again. then we heard the tv go on. so we knocked a gain and said "hello" to make sure they knew we were there and nobody came... so we were at the point of leaving when a family we had contacted a while a go but could never seem to catch up to walked by. We started Talking to them and asked them when we could come by. they gave the usual evasive answers... we are busy... my schedule isnt set... yada yada. but then my companion just bore testimony of families with power and the spirit and before he could even finish completely they told us when to come back. they said they might not be there but if they arent just keep trying. that was a sweet experience.

Also, we had an experience walking down the street when a lady called out after us and asked us when we could teach her! What?!?! we try and get people to "just listen and see" and we get shut down all day long! she ran out of her shop and yelled out to us! Super surprising! super cool! We werent actually in our sector though... so we had to hand it off to the other two elders but still! way cool! and hopefully it will get them a little amped up about the work!

We also had a really cool correlation meeting with the ward mission leader, where we really discussed realistic ways we could be better and not just, "we need to work together" "yea". we discussed and tried to help eachother out. hopefully that will help. my dream is to be able to get the ward as excited about missionary work as the missionaries (hopefully) are. i would love to be able to do that.

We have started running in the mornings and we played soccer today, which was super fun for me since i sat there the whole time. Yay for cripples! but all is well! i dont tell you this story to complain, just to assure you that im being nice to my knee. :)

I hope you all enjoyed conference! and realized the huge blessing we have to listen to it! now we just have to remember to apply it! one of the guys in my house noticed that when they made the challenge to invite someone to come to church before  christmas that nobody wrote it down! they were all taking notes but then strangely ommited that one... so this is my hope! that you can try to apply conference! and find someone that you can invite to church! 

I love you all a ton! miss you like crazy! remember to enjoy what you have!

Elder Gold

p.s.  My address now is, 

Elder Gold

Casilla 70

Antofagasta

Chile