Wow! its been a fun week! as always it just FLEW by like lightning! Almost all day tuesday we spent cleaning... that pension was AWFUL, i honestly doubt that it had been cleened in 6 months... my comp cleaned the bathroom and i cleaned the kitchen... i dont know who got it worse... there were things in the sink that had been molding forever, and everything had a lay of bad water minerals and stuff on it... i washed dishes for like 3 hours straight. But, now its like a million times better, when i showed up i thought that this was one of the worst pensions in the mission, but know its a lot better... i dont know how much detail to go into but we did lots, I replaced the shower head, a few light switches and wall sockets, and we only had 2 funcioning lightbulbs when i showed up. Now everything works. which is good. it only needs to be painted (which we probable wont do because of time), and we have to do something about the toilet... its... bad. oh, and the door... as you can see in the pictures i sent... so yep, that took a good 8 hours of work at least. but it was fun. we are now able to exist in the house and funcion well. who woulda thunk that i would care about dirty things... the mission does things to you.
Also, i am following after an Elder who wasnt all that excited about some of the rules here... so its been a little bit of an experience to have to tell people that they just let us know that we cant do this that or the other... being the bad guy is not my favorite part, but i know its for the best, so onward with faith we go... sometimes i still fail, but im trying. Its like a purging process. but im glad my Companion is Willing to follow me, at least he isnt fighting the obedience... he doesnt exactly try to take the lead in proomoting it... but if i make the choice he wont fight it. so we are gonna keep working on that! always fighting to be a little better.
Elder Jimenez! (heem én es) is from Santa Cruz Bolivia! again! the same place as Elder Estrada, but we are having a good time together. he is a fairly quite guy when he wants to be... but hes got his jokster side as well. he always makes fun of me hahaha, but in a good way. i think we will get along well. im glad he wants to be obedient.
The ward is AMAZING here... we have more than double the amount of members as an average... its gonna be great! lots of people who are willing and eager to share the gospel! now we just need to be worthy and dilligently searching for the spirit and help them to know how to do it and we will just have MOUNTAINS of sucess here. party! we really do have a great ward! my first week in Vallenar i met EVERY person in the building and was able to remember all of their names... here.... yeah right. floods of names and info, we are both kindof trying to get to know the sector, Elder Jimenez was only here for 6 weeks before i got here so there are lots of people that he doesnt know either. also, this is the first ward i have been in where the other sector is with Sister missionaries. more adventures!
I still just LOVE to feel the spirit directing me. We had an appointment with a family that hasnt gone to church in like 3 years because they had a problem, so we got to go visit them and they started off with the whole speech about how they were never going to come back and what happened and everything. i was really trying to search for guidance as we continued talking about other stuff, i was sure they had already heard a lot about why they needed to go to church and stuff and i felt impressed to talk about the book of the mormon, right as we were about to start, the dad, who didnt want to participate came down and said that he had to go buy some stuff so we tlaked for like 2minutes and then i asked him if he would stay and talk for just 15 minutes. and he DID! all of the members and said that he was the key so i really wanted to get him to participate, so we talked about the book of mormon, not at all about the church, and challenged them to read it daily! and they said yes! hopefull they do it! I feel like if they start rreading the book of mormon either the time will come when we feel to invite them, or they will just go to church by themselves. it was just a good lesson. i dont know how to explain it.
sometimes i feel like im just rambling with my stories but i really am just excited to be here. i feel happy. there are always problems but there are so many golden moments and good things to think about. so much good in this world! i love it!
There are people who are prepared to listen to the gospel. and we can find them. The gospel is true, and i love my Savior. I need His guidance. i feel His presence. im so grateful!
Im glad that the fourth of july was good for you guys! i didnt even realize that it was the fourth of july until we had a meeting and some of the other missionaries wee talking about it... man. i guess its better that way. because i love the fourth of july. but i shouldnt really care about it right now, better to be focused!
I love you! Thank you for everything!
Elder Gold
