Faith (February 16, 2015)

Dear family!!! We had an awesome week! i hope you guys did too!!

This week we were shown by the Lord how immediate his blessings are. we started last week to try and exercise more faith as we left everyday to find news, and resolved to do everything we could to talk to the highest number of people ad ask everyone for references. even the people that we had just met, or when they obviously didnt want anything to do with the church. The lord blessed us in miraculous ways. and im sure we are gonna keep finding!!! thats the best. We can already see so many people. im sad that it took me so log to learn to simply exercise myfaith. but in the ed, better late than never. its gonna be great!!!

WE had one miracle family that moved in from antofagasta that came to us in the church ad told us that theywanted us to visit them. their daughter is a member but they aret. ad they want us to teach them. ttue miracles! we had another awesome family that we never saw coming when this family called us at 6 ad told us that they invited a family to come over for a fHE at 8 that same night. we shared a little about the pla of salvation and they are also super interested. plus we found a more people doing contacts in all places and we got a bunch of references. it may not have been the highest number of new peole youve ever seen. but it was immediate. and powerful. an answer to our faithful prayers!

Fernando is still just as awesome as ever. his family is currently in bolivia visiting for another week, so he is just home aloe a lot of times. we are goa try to go out and visit some people with him. also, we are going to teach his siter again this week. she had a baby like 3 weeks ago and we are hoping to share more with her andd get her to go with her brother to church. they have a really cool family. her daughter johanna has already been to church like 3 times and she loves it.

This family from antofagasta is truly Golden. we had an awesome lesson with them on friday... we talked about the  pla of salvation and helped them to really understand the point of it... it was so sweet. they may need a little time to adjust

The last 2 days were more of the test days... those days when you basiclally just end up walking around all day, plus only investigators went to church. but both times at night in the last hour we were shown that endurance is important because bioth times we were able to find people in that very last hour. walking aroud ALL day. for 5 hours straight. but that last hour we had to be working to be able to fid these people. 

This week we also made some deliscios food... new recipies for home... lomo saltado... in spanish thats called jumped sirloin... but it was tasty! who knew that i could eat red peppers onions and tomatos??? God sent me to Chile just to learn that i think hahaha. 

and we went to the mall on monday and ate in the foodcourt... i spent almost 8 bucks on a combo... a little one. without refills. so that was sad... but the burger was tasty!

Elder Sanchez and Elder Chambi continue to kill me with their stunts. with one of them i would be laughing a lot. with both... man. they just feed off each other like crazy. this week they went totally racist against me for everything. they start to make up these stories about random stuff, or they blame me for eating their food and such and i just laugh constantly... its terrible! all in jokes though. 

The mission is great! im still just learning like crazy nand loving life. there is nothing better than enjoying evry minute! these experiences are priceless!

Anyways! i love you all to death!! have a great week! the spirit is guiding us always! It has helped me so much! the church is true!

Elder Gold

"Tiny earthquake" on February 11, 2015

 (Translation: Bus[es] are exquisite)

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God's Plan (February 9, 2015)

We had an awesome week this week! my favorite part was the leadership council that we had on thursday. we traveled all night wednesday, had the meeting all day thursday and then got back home at like 3 in the morning on friday morning. its a party, but its soooo worth it.

God really just sends you exactly what you need when you need it. i know ive said this before but many times i feel like ive already learned a lesson about something until i learn a bit more and just get to the next level. That happened this thursday. they talked about Faith. man... i knew all the things they tlaked about but some of the words really just struck me. Faith is so important in missionary work. just having the hope really that everything is gonna go well, and when it doesnt having the faith to just keep moving forward and trusting that there is a reason beyond your own understanding. God is always blessing us according to our faith. and as hard as i may have been working maybe i havent had that constant faith and hope that we are going to have sucess. but thats why we have repentance right? we can all change and be better. every time we learn something new we just have to try and apply it. do better. every day. simple.

The past week has been full of dissapointments. really just about everything we have had planned has fallen every day. but thats ok. its all gonna work out. as we keep moving with faith and dilligence God has promised His blessings and His promises are always completed. for example... sturday we had walked all day long, from appointment that didnt work out to appointment that didnt work out, trying to talk to people and such but with basically 0 sucess... so we were walking to contact someone that said that we could come by but in march because they are going to go to the south of chile for the next month or so... and we decided we should just go pass by for this family we had contacted a while ago... so we passed by and knocked on the door and nobody was there... right as we were ready to go, the guy got home.... opened the door and let us in... alright... welll we would prefer to be with the while family but thats ok. its something... then right as we were starting.... the whole family got home! came in and sat down to listen! We had one of those lessons where you can feel that the people really understand the importance of what we are teaching and want to follow. God blessed us right in that moment when we were starting to get down, and He whowed us that he can send miracles. So now we just have to keep going and the miracles that he showes us will keep coming... we will continue learnign just as much about God as the people we teach. thats why the mission is so dang awesome!!!!

I love teaching now, ever since i trained in vallenar i have felt that my teaching has changed drastically. it used to be a lot more of just a memorized ritual of telling people a lot of info that they never understood. then i had a while when i just kinda taught a lot of random principles using the scriptures but without much preach my gospel info... but i have felt the huge difference in my teaching as i have learned how to apply the lessons to people. help them to understand the principles we are teaching not to just be present as we talk, and not to just teach about Christ without a set direction really. I like reading Preach my Gospel because i have read the lessons like a million times, but as i study i start to pick up new things, and make my ability to teach a specific principle better.

i dont know if i already wrote this or not but talking about how God sends us what we need when we need it. I was talking to an Elder the other day and he said that President Dalton had told him about what happened when he called me to train. i didnt feel ready at all, but i was willing to follow the assignment. and PResident had asked this missionary how i was doing in my sector and he told president Dalton that i was having some problems, that it was a bit rough, and president told him... "well, i need you to keep an eye on him then, because i felt that he needs to train right now." how right was he! i will always say that training changed my life.

last thought for the day. in the council on thursday i learned something awesome, in spanish, we dont have an index to the scriptures, its a Scripture study guide. and in there, when you look up a word (just like in english) it shows you the "see also" words... and when you llok up joy in spanish, which is Gozo... there is only 1 word that goes with it. obedience. that is so very true.

The gospel is great my family! i invite all of you that read this to strengthen your testimonies and to live the gospel more fully! i promise you will have more blessing and more joy! i love you all so much!!! i hope that this week is amazing.

Elder Gold

First week of cambios‏ (February 2, 2015)

Whew! the time just fliiiieeeeesss bye. every week is faster than the last. its so crazy. we had a pretty good week. we got to know lots of people with my new Comp Elder Chambi. hes from Arequipa Peru. there is currently a temple being built there. hes a fun guy. we all get along really well. hes really funny. and so is Elder Sanchez... which means.... i am now the butt of all jokes hahaha. but its ok. everyone in a while they get in these massive trash talk sessions with eachother, thats entertaining! but we all love eachother a lot! its all just in joking! Life is happy. its super duper hot down here right now.. the thing is, the temperature is actually pretty nice, if i stand in the shade forever its warm but like a happy warm, but the SUN here is just incredible! you can feel it burning through any sunscreen you may have on! without the sun i would be a happy camper. im still a happy camper. but i would be a happier less sweaty camper :)

Like i said, Elder Gines went home last week. He finished the mission. i miss him! he was one of my best friends here in the mission. its cool to know that we will be able to get back together back in BYU, that is if he doesnt get married before then!!!

People sometimes make me laugh, Last week trying to send all the missionaries to their new sectors we had sooooo many angry bus people telling us that we couldnt put our bags on the bus. at first i was struggling to maintain myself calm because i dont really enjoy people screaming in my face, but then i was able to just be calm and laugh it off. we had one person who let us put the first bag of one of the sister missionaries on the bus and when we went to put the second one on he rejected it... so i explained to him (calmly) that what we have in our bags is everything we have for two years and if she didnt get the bag on the bus she wouldnt have clothes to wear in the city she was going to be in. he started screaming at me telling me it wasnt his problem and that he makes the rules and that we werent going to be putting the bag on. so i asked the sister wich bag had more clothes in and she said it was the one that hadnt made it onto the bus. so, then i had to start begging him to just change the bags out so that she could have clothes wich he didnt want to permit either telling me that i must be kiiding, trying to play with the bags putting them in and taking them back out and that i had already put it in and it was too late. THANKFULLY, the lord softened his heart and after staying calm and offering to go gget the bag myself he finally permitted it. hopefully we will be changing buses before next cambio because mission wide we had huge problems with it. but thats ok! just hte adventures of the world! Plus when we went to go send the bags thorugh a shiping company it was super fast and really cheap. it was supposed to arrive 2 days from the ship date and only cost like 20 bucks per bag. lots of blessings.

We met all sorts of new people this week. thats one of the cool things about cambios. everything changes, and somehow that makes you be in different situations. so we have been in the attitude of finding more poeople to teach and we have been able to meet lots of new poeple and find people that we were never able to get in contact with before. its been a good week. we also had a lot of appointments fall on us but thats just culture here. all is well.

Funny thing about summer here that i cant remember if i have already commented... Everyone takes their vacations at the same time. everyone. so there is never anyone around. for example most wards here in copiapo drop by about a fourth of their attendance. if it usually had 80 it has like 60. but for some reason summer is also one of the best times to get new people to go to church. for example this sunday we had a lady who hasnt gone to church in almost 4 years go again! hopefully she will keep herself active! if she is active she activates the rest of her family with her! thats like 10 people more and 2 of them who arent baptized. so we are gonna be working with her! but that was a complete surprise for us! usually she doesnt even share with us when we go. we share with her husband who has started to be a lot more active as well.

Another novelty this week.... the Elders in my old sector Palomar got robbed... again. like three weeks ago they broke in while they were sleeping and and opened the unlocked door and stole about 400 dollars or so worth of stuff... and this friday we went over there to do aparetments checks and i filled out the paper and wrote that they needed to move because it wasnt safe.... just to prove my point that very day, like 3 hours after while they were out working they came back in, broke the locked door (crappy cardboard) and stole about 200 dollars worth of what was left! so they are doing an emergency move. they moved all their stuff into the house of a member and they are sleeping with us for now. sadly you have to get robbed twice to be able to move out of crappy pensions! BUT! im super grateful for 5th floor apartments with good doors and locks in apartments with security! yay!!

Its awesome to see how the Lord is hastening his work (alsost said apresurando becasue i couldnt remember that word)! we had a meeting with the ward, and a nother meeting with the zone leaders of the stake on sunday and they are starting to apply some awesome techniques to go out and strenthen every one of the weak members one by one. The Lord is calling for all of us to work right now, and he is preparing the people to be able to come back. When we hav faith and we put forth effort we can see huge miracles. My favorite part about the mission is seeing people who have changed their lives and the joy they have gained. even if that just comes from becoming fully active in the chrch after some years. when they are able to be truly converted it is the best. I love preaching the gospel. i dont know what i would do with out this experience. i will never change. this isnt just a mission for 2 years, this is the mission of a lifetime. God is real. and he loves us and Guides us. I hope that we can all remember that!!

Have an awesome week!! love you all tons!

Elder Gold

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Cambios!! transfers!!‏ (January 26, 2015)

Hey!!! sorry! we had a super busy week with the cambios and all sorts of problems with buses not letting the missionaries take all thier bags... sooooo i had 0 time to write tody. but next week will be better! Elder Gines went home! the world is happy! im with Elder Sanchez and Elder Chambi.  Love you all tons!!! have a great week!

Elder Gold