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

Last week‏ (January 18, 2015)

Well, we had a good week last week! We had an Elder from the office come down fand stay the night with us for three nights this week and had one of those conversations until 12:30 about the mission and life and evrything, but it was sweet. he is a really awesome guy. Elder Rodriguez from Mexico. he came down with Elder Garrison, who is from Nampa idaho. He and his wife are a missionary couple that we have had in the mission here. Elder Garrison got to sleep in the Hotel but Elder Rodriguez came to our pension. Elder Garrison is super funny. he told us a couple story about his life and how he kicked his wife out of the kitchen when they were newly married. we were all dying. but the moral of the stroy was that you should be positive with your wife and not critique her so much ha.

Also, on monday i went to go visit this famliy with a member, we had a good visit, it was his Home Teaching family, and when we left we realized that it was a little later than we had planned so to save time he decided to just take me to his FHE with his family instead of driving all the way over to wear my comps were and then come back. so i went with him and watched them have an FHE with him his wife and his eight year old daughter. and me, the fly on the wall. They tried for 10 years after getting married to have children and were never able to, until they were finally able to have 1 daughter. the lesson was about music, and it was awesome to see them trying to teach their young, and energetic (reminds me a lot of janie when shes babubly :)) daughter about music. i could truly see that she was their biggest treasure. It was just cool to watch them have this FHE, it reminded me of the ones we had as a family when i was a little younger that sometimes werent so picture perfect like Mom and Dad wanted.

We also had a major problem in the week... one of the member familys that we are really close to called us the day before we were gonna go visit them and let us tknow that they were going to seperate.... what???? so that was like mad haustle to get over there and help them out... we cant counsel people about marriage. but we can counsel them on other things. like patience, forgiveness and most importantly talking to the bishop, so that was a really stressful night... but miracles happen because yesterday we talked to them again and they said that they area lot better, they are willing to work it out again. but it was incredible to see how bad they were in that moment. Every day its just more to keep learning.

Have an awesome week! love you all!!

Elder Gold

ridin solo...‏ (January 12, 2015)

Hello once again! 

This week was awesome but Crazy! we did splits every day except for saturday! and i was generally the one who was off with the member! so that was interesting... its strange do be the only missionary because you have to cary everything! including all of the teaching. its much better to have someone there to back you up. sometimes i just felt like i was talking way too much. but it was fun! it was great to be able to get so much done! we were able to visit a lot more people and a lot more often. hopefully this will help the people to progress!

Fernando is just as awesome as ever. They set a date to get married! sadly its in march... so even i will be out of the sector, but who knows... maybe they will choose to do it a little bit earlier so that i can be there! thats the hope! but he went to church this week and started quoting scripture... we were talking about life on earth and the example of Jesus and he raised his hand and said "its like in 2 nefi 31 when it says that if the Lamb of God, who is holy needs to be bpatised, then so do we!" wow! awesome! he is just sooo ready... he just needs to get himself hitched! i wish the "take him to vegas" option existed here! 

We also learned that we lost another family of 4 this week. DARN! they moved. but i know they will keep progressing in thier other sector. and it will better because its really really close to their new house. Its sad to see investigators leave sometimes... it always makes me think of that bolivian family that i was teaching in Arica that moved away... i wonder what happened to them... hopefully they found the church again wehrever they ended up! Every once in a while i see a car that looks liek theres and i day dream that they have made it back here to copiapo somehow... anyways. I love that in the second life i will be able to go see all those people again, because there are so many people here in Chile that i already know that i will never see ever again. and that is sad. but in the resurrecion i will get to go talk to them and see how theyve been. 

Noemy gave her first talk in church this sunday!!! with just barely one month of time as a member! and she did great! she talked about honesty and integrity and didnt even read that much! she is 12! soooo  i was impressed! im glad that they are still holding strong. we are still just waiting on their callings!

Its fun to be in a trio now, Elder Sanchez is hilarious... i dont know how people can be so funny, or maybe me and Elder Gines were just bored of eachother? not that hes bad in any way its just a lot of time to be with the same person... but he just says anything and we both start laughing... plus hes an excellent storyteller, he remends me of Elder Rodas... because you cant believe Everything he says... but its still really funny to listen to his stories! and he cooks GREAT! we no longer have a mamita so we are cooking for ourselves again and he makes that a happy experience! he made these black beans with cream... i dont know why but it was just fantastic! he just grabs things nad throws them together and magic happens. benefits of having a chef in the pension.

  

Its a zillion degrees still. super grateful for fans and for people that give us water. its like added motivation to plan well because walking around in this sun is killer. i remember before i left looking at the temerpature here... it was always perfect. always. i was so excited... but  the sun.... in the shade, its survivable and with a little bit of a breeze even better, but when you have to walk in the sun you can feel it burning you. at least i can feel it burning me. people make fun of me all the time, they keep telling me that im gonna leave here black! and im on my way to that! sooo much sonblock! all the days. 

I am greatful for cold water, sun block, sunglasses, the spirit, fans, members who help us, a mostly flat sector, shade, my comps, delicious food, and good helath and spirits!

The church is true! Gods plan is perfect! and i love life almost as much as i love you guys!! have a great week!

Elder Gold

Happy happy happy nuevo año!‏ (January 5, 2015)

whew! 2015! we had a party in the pensh! ok not really... what we really did was get to the pensh (house)  by nine and cooked meat in the frying plan then played chess until 12 and watched some fireworks then slept! whooooooooooooooo! 

but it was good. nice and calm.  Then the next day back out to work! which is a little rocky that day but we just went out with faith and did our best! then that night we went to Antofagasta for the meeting! zippidy doo dah! those bus rides are killers. but it was pretty good! the consejo was great! Then afterwards we learned that we were going to be coming home with 2 more missionaries for the zone! one to be in a trio in paipote, and another to be in a trio with us! one of them was ELDER TURMAN :) ma child. love him. it 2was awesome to see him again. hes doing pretty good, and he speaks spanish waaaaay better now. but we had a good catch up session waithing in the bus station.  The Other Elder is called Elder Sanchez from Guatemala! hes a cool guy! his personality is really different, but not bad just different but hes fun! its gonna be nice to have 3 missionaries in the ward now because we had tooo much work to be able to do it all alone! so that will be really helpful! we will do lots of divisions.

Its getting REALLLLLY hot in copiapo. i am dying again. so very grateful for fans, because they are saving my bacon. i walk into the pension and just put it right in front of my face... the worst part is that its really mostly the sun! in the shade its all ok, but the sun here is just soooo much worse than anything i have ever experienced. however. i am very very grateful for the wind. that is my saving grace.

Also, this week we were able to find some more friends of our investigators (fernando and Luzmila) who are looking for God! i love it how people get prepared like that. they had been going to a church but someone came around and made them feel like that church was false.... so they stopped going.... perfect! this is where we come in and tell them that they can truly know wich of the churches is true and know exactly what God wants them to do! sadly, they arent married either.... nobody is ever married here. or if they are, they dont live with the person they are married to. so that is also our job.

This week we are going to have another Family night with Carolina and another investigator! its awesome to be able to have Carolina help out with the investigators now, she has such a great testimony and all sorts of energy! she will be a great help for so many people! thats why its easier to have sucess in one place once you have already baptized, it just has the snowball affect.

Oh right! Fernando!!! we talked to him last monday and we set goals with the family in the big FHE we do every week, he shared his goals with us and it was soooo awesome! "i want to get married, get baptized and then get married by the everlasting" thats the quote. oh and his temporal goal was to fix up his house some more. he doesnt know the terminology very well but last sunday we talked about the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. he already has that as his goal. he is so awesome. Luzmila is less sure about marriage... but we will help her out with that :)

AND Jhonny is also totally psyched to get married and baptized. he says that they will get married asap! so that was also awesome! but all of these awesome investigators... somehow ditched us in church... :P but thats ok. basically everyone went to the beach so next week will be better.

So we are gonna have an awesome week! i hope you guys will too! i love you all! the church is true!

Elder Gold

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Kreechmas!‏ (Dec. 29, 2014)

This is the white elephant gift I got from the mission Christmas party.  I put a family picture in it.

 Happy navidad! it was awesome talking to you guys again! i miss you all lots and lots! As always it weemed really short so there were a lot of things that i wasnt able to say in there so i will try and remember them all now but no promises... 

Christmas for us was pretty chill! we visited a few people, more members but it was good, we havent had too much trouble finding stuff to do this christmas so that has been really nice because i remember last year i didnt really know what i was doing and we did not use our time very wisely haha. but it has been good. Christmas eve we didnt have anyting to do after a few things failed in the morning so we went out with our "he is the Gift" cards and just started talking to everyone in the street! it was awesome though because we found  this guy that we had been trying to contact but we didnt know him... we just walked up to this guy and started talking to him about christmas and stuff and then asked him if we could come visit him and he said of course that the doors would be wide open for us! sweet! so he tells us where he lives and we realized that it was the house of the sister of one of our investigators named Fernando! we had been trying to find a way to get to that family for a while because their daughter goes to church with Fernando and his family so we definatley have an appointment with them for later on tonight. 

also, to help us contact people we started playing a game where we had to say a key word during the conversation... so my comp was like a pro, one time he had to say motorcycle and he totlally just snuck it in there without them even noticing, "people are more interested in buying cars and motorcycles than in JEsus"  and another time where he just alked about a seed like a pro... i however, am a little biut more CLUMSY with my delivery... one time he gave me the word Honduras... so i was like alright this will be ok, i can do this.. So we get talking to this girl and as we were talking i remembered that i had to say honduras.... so without any tact or anyting ata all i just bust out with "are you from honduras?" gaaaahhhhhh.... bumbling idiot! she gave me the wierdest look, and the same to my comp... yeah... she still said we could pass bye but, i totes sounded like amiassive idiot, another time he gave me the word Lung... so i said in the middle of the contact, jesus is the reason that we can breath with our lungs.... yyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppppppppppppppp. the pure essence of being smooth and subtle, that Elder GoLd for ya. but it was good, we found some good people.

On christmas eve night, which is really the biggest deal here, we ate with this awesome little family who gave us some candy and mugs as a gift and then went home and went to bed... that was all. sooo yep. pretty calm. Chrsitmas day we woke up, opened up our other gifts that we had from some other members. and from the fam and then kept studying , went to go do our weekly planning and then in the afternoon went to go visti a few poeple before calling you and then we went our caroling with some members at night, caroling was fun! we all packed ourselves into the car so we could go from house to house. to some investigators and some members. then the day after christmas it was all over. thus the christmas celebration is basically gone. everyone is talking about new years now haha. 

Also, speaking of Fernando... we were talking to him this week and he told us that he wants to get baptised!!! he says he know its true and he loves what hes learning! now... its complicated because he is currently living with a woman and she doesnt want to get married yet... so thats a little complicated for now, but she is awesome as well and she goes to church and reads and prays and everything, she just is afraid of marriage, so we will probably be seeing them get bpatised pretty soon! im super excited for that as well!

All in all, we have seen lots of tiny miracles the past few days, lots of people who we can see are truly being prepared to recieve the restored Gospel. it is SUCH a blessing in our lives if we let it be. i know lots of members who just feel constantly afflicted for stuff thats going on, but thats because they dont understand the gospel well enough. When we take upon us Christs burden, and lose ourselfes in Him. he gives  us all the hope and help that we need to be able to enfront any difficulty. I love the Gospel. i know this is true. I hope all of you also know that, and if you dont, you can come to know it, just by living it, but living it fully.

Have a great week! i love you all soo much!

Elder Gold

Choirs of angels (December 22, 2014)

yes, we are the angels of the choir ;) haha, but hello once again my friends! is anyone else amazed that its already the 22nd? crazy! 

but back to the choir thing! we had a crazy week of choirs! this week on friday we had a preformance in the plaza in the middle of the city with all the other missionaries it was a pretty awesome time! i definately made a fool of myself afterwards because everyone started singing that song in spanish and english... "i wanna wish you a merry christmas" and they called me and another elder over and made us dance with these signs... why i did that i will never know. it was just one of those things from the moment... so that was interesting! but lots of poeple saw us! and a few of them asked. so that was good. 

Then we had a big activity in the ward this saturday and we had to sing in ANOTHER choir that the ward had put together with us... that one was a tiny bit less beautiful... but still fun! and the activity went really well! we had lots and lots of poeple there! and like 13 investigators! we have some awesome inestigators right now. they have gone to hcurch a lot! just waiting for their baptism! 

This week we spent some more fun time in Tur Bus waiting for missionaries, but it was way better than last cambio. we didnt lose THAT much sleep this time but it still made the beggining of the week go by pretty slow. and then after that. FLEW by again. there is no stopping it.

We had a few lessons with an investigator from Colombia named Ronald... he is so cool, i love him to dath but he is soooo closed to the book of mormon. he accepts it like a good book. but as the word of God... never. but he is reading! so one day he will know! and we have this awesome hermano that comes with us that matches his knowwldge of the bible and helps us out a ton. plus the hermano always gets pumped after we go.  I love the members of this ward, they are all soo awesome. so dedicated. we have excellent families and excellent support. Plus i have another 2 and a half months here so we are just gonna take advantage of that. im sad that i never had the opportunity to go out with the missionaries before i left. i really would have liked that i think. basically every member we take out gets super excited about it.

Ive been working a lot on like setting more specific goals for myself these few days and its been awesome to see how much more effective i have been. especially in study. studying for like 20 minutes in specific things and not worrying so much about reading like straight through. thats what i used to do. i did finish the BOM 3 times this year, but i think it will be more effective to study more in themes. though i do have to keep reading straight through the bible and the DyC before i end my mission. then once i have finished it all i wont have to worry about it again haha. im currently reading in psalms... its a little bit slow... but there are some sweet things in there as well.

God is Great! its incredible to watch him help us in so many ways. I love the mission and im so grateful for this opportunity to change myself and to serve Him and my brothers and sisters! There is nothing more important than the things we learn about in church. nothing. im sure of it!

Im ecited to talk to you guys on thursday!! love you!!!

have a great week!

Elder Gold

I love the mishhhh (December 15, 2015)

So, im just gonna start his letter off talking about life. Its funny learning things. i have always always heard how we learn things line upon line right. but its just awesome everytime i learn something that i already know but i learn it just a little deeper than before! I learn about the importance of challenges, and then i learn it again, and then i start to connect it with other concepts... this probably isnt even making sense! but!!! God is Perfect! His plan is Incredible! everything just goes to help us... gah! We need to pass through hard things. its truly a need. if we were to just be in happyvill forever we would be so miserable. i used to get all sorts of worried when i had a bad week on the mish, when stuff would go wrong. i would worry that i was doing something wrong and try and figure out what i needed to do to be better. but the honest truth is that sometimes we just need to hae bad days! clearly we should always use those moments to improve ourselves, but we dont have to worry about everything when things are bad. This week Carolina got really mad at us, we hadnt really done anything but she was just mad. and it was hard to see her mad at us and everything, but it was just a moment for her, and it was a moment for us, but it just had to happen... yeah... i make no sense but God is just awesome. and He is always helping us. even when we cant see it. thats part of the whole faith thing. just move on with what we feel is right and he promises that one day we will understand why.

Ummmm this week was a little rogh as far as the missionary work went! we had LOTS of things planned that just did not happen. for one reason or another, but thats ok! it was just one week. next week will be better! And! im staying with Elder Gines for the next 6 weeks until he DIES! im going to KILL my comp! hahaha. thats just how we say it in the mish, but i love him, its gonna be a great 6 weeks! 

In other news.... We may or may not have definately waxed our legs.... right where the sock is... man! that hurt! but sometimes the little leg hairs get all tangled up in the socks and it hurts, sooo we just decided to wax it! our mamita has all the equipment and such... it was interesting! but now my legs are super duper smooth!

But! we did have an AWESOME lesson this week with one of our investigator families that is attending regularly to church.. they have had TONS of problems... tons. but they are just working out of them. it is so great to see thier progress. i love the gospel. i love seeing changes in people. this isnt just another religion. this isnt just eh way that we choose to believe in God. this is REAL, and this is what he wants us to do. this is the way to Eternal Happiness and happiness here on earth. im so sure of that. i will never be able to deny it. i love you all! have an excellent week!

Elder Gold