Getting back to normal‏ (April 13, 2015)

Well, its been a crazy wek yet again here in chañaral, but the good news is that it should be gettingmore normal... soon..

I hesistate to say that only because i know that evytime i think it all goes back tonormal iswenthings just keep changing. soooo we will se what happens. This week we moved out of our house that didnt have water. the sister missionaries have a big house with light and water, so they oved out of their house and went to live with some members, and we omovd into their house. so that has been happy. hot shower, washing our clothes and the dishe constantly, flushing the toilet... heaven. so that was really nice of them to help us out with. obviously we talked to the presednt and everything about it so we are good with the move until the water comes back to our old pension. wich hopefull should be the end of this week! thats what everyone is saying anyway... people say a lot of stuff that has no truth or anything (i cant tel you how many times i have hard that ts going to rain again[which would be so bad for this place right now] ut it stil hasnt rained, becuase people just like to tell stories) but we are hoping that its gonna bethat way, its nice to be closer to the church and everything.. but i miss our old house.

also, i finally got all those pics on onedrive, so you can go look at a little bit ore of the madness that i in, i hope you can geta little bit of a taste, sometimes its hard to take pics when im busy woring and super muddy... but i got a couple of them in free oments.

Ths week we started to get back to proselyting again! we worked from 10 to 6 in the mud and then from 7 to 10 in the sector trying toteach people and contact people aain and all that good stuff. its been awhile ince weve been able to really sit down and focus on our investigators, we were out for a whole week, and then working in the md form almost a week straight. but it was nie to get back into that. teaching the gospel. thats what i cae for. so we did that and then saturday and sunday we were ableto work like normal allll day long... but i got a terrible cold... so we stayed in the house saturday morning and then left in the afternoon because we had an appointment. it was ok, i just couldnt talk because coughing had already ruined my voice (its still like that, it was fun to sing in church hahaha, i lost about half of the notes) and i was a little bit out of it. so i didnt talk very much i was basically just present. it was just annoying because t went tstraight to y lungs, but we had agood day, contacted lots of people and hopefully wewill be able to keep up the momentum. and this week... we will see if we are needed to take out mud, it looks we have one more hermana that has had a really rough time with it ad doesnt have much help so we might be there this week. that is yet to be seen. this friday we are going to travel again to antofagasta! they are going to have a conference for only missionaries with Elder Dallin H Oaks, he is going to be in antofagasta and we are going to get together in the bigger cities to see it. we thought we were going to go to copiapo which is a lot closer, like tw hours, i was suuuuper stoked to go see people down there again, but the presidet decided to take us to antofagasta... 6 hours away. but its because copiapo is still full of mud as well. it didnt et destroyed that bad as far as building and stuff go like here, but it did get filled with mud. Anyways we are gonna go to antofaasta on friday early beause my comp needs to go to adoctor to do a test for his glasses that got broke, and stay the night there to have the conference on saturday moring ad come back that night. which just happens to be transfers night.... it has been sooooooooooooooooooo fast. the cambio is almost gona and it just flew buy so much. we will see what happens seeing as me and my comp finish at the same time. though if they change ne of us and wehaveto go notrth... its gonna be strange travelng friday saturday and then again on onday. my HOPE is that i can go tain this cambio... i would love that to death, but we will see how it goes... there are a lot of possobilities.

This week we had a fun experience with potato chips... lots of stores thathad food in themgot destroyed... so lots of food got thrown into the mud, including tons of bags of potato chips... so as we were working one day someone offered us a juice that wasstill sealed but totally muddy, obviously they couldnt sell it anymore so it was trash for them and they didnt want it, so we washed it, and drank it and it wasdeliscious, and htat started everything... then Elder Fuller found a mini priles container... we were a little skeptial because the outside wasnt solid nor sperical anyore but we decided to try it, it was a bt of a struggle to open it after it was clean but... pop! and it was beautiful on the inside,not even a drop of mud or water oranything. brand new. and that started it all. one day we took a bucket and a half of bags of potato chips home, washed them off and started eating, and there are still plenty in the house! free food!!! nbody else wants muddy things! but i do! :D

So that has been my week!

hope yours will be great! the church is true1 we need the Gospel! it is the only truth! ove you so much!

Elder Gold

Chanaral (April 6, 2015)

Well, im so grateful to be back here. this city that was a little bit hard for me to love in the beginning feels so much nicer. im back in my normal house, with all my stuff, clothes, my bed, my food, people i know. its lovely.

Well! President Toro went to Taltal to pick us up!!! yyyyyyaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy!!!!! we were so happy. we got into chañaral, had time to change our clothes and went down to the center of town immediately to start excavating his store... incredible.... you can see where the water got to. it was 7 feet high at its highest point. taller than i am, and in the whole part of the city... i took some pics but right now its a bit hard because we only have one computer and so we arent really able to write to a ton of poeple or do stuff like that. but one day i will get them all sent so you can see them. its crazy. this work is ROUGH. just shoveling mud, all day. its like endless work. we worked form about 2 to 8 the first day and we got half of the front part of the store... probably about the width of our house long and about 4 feet wide cleared down enough to walk through with boots on and not get them filled with mud. 6 hours of work. and that was probably about an eighth of the mud. and that doesnt include all the time that we are gonna need to take to clean things off. take out his furniture and just try and save things in general. plus, that was six of us. and that was only one of the threee places that are owned by members that got hit. so, we have lots of work hahahaha. on the second day i was destroyed. the third... worse, but the fourth i felt better :) also, fun fact, when every single person on the street is throwing out as much mud as they can as fast as they can, the street gets really full of mud. and they literally cannot keep it clean. they cant pick it up as fast as we throw it down. they have a constant stream of loaders and tractors and skidsters oh my! fun times

So here we are in this wonderful city that has suffered some serious damages. we get nice and dirty but we have a good time while working. its pretty crazy how happy we can be even though we are all dead tired. and people seem to be really giving right now as well. there are lots of people just gifting medical masks for all the dust and mud, and gloves, even work clothes and boots. lots of volunteers form other cities, its cool. plus the other night when we got bakc to the house, we heard a semi horn blare a few times and people start to scream so we ran outside and they were just throwing 6 liter jusgs of water form a big truck! they gave us 5! so that was sweet! Plus we have had lots of help come from the church in form of food and water that people have brought to us. that whole fast offereing thing that President Eyering talked about is helping us out right now. that, and the humanitarian fund. but things are getting back to normal as far as shipments of foods to the stores and such.

 we have electricity, but we still dont have water... so we are currently using two of those 20 liter things that we fill with water in these massive things that they have put out in the street for everyone, plus if you are at home there are a few water trucks that just pass by and fill up all the things you have waiting by the door... our problem is a lack of things to fill up hahaha. but we have become professionals in showering with a tiny bit of water that we warm up in front of the heater at night so its not so terrible, and we take hose baths almost every day in the church, that has water and electricity. so thats fun! i remember when i was a kid and we used to play in the mud and then had the obligatory hose down to be able to enter the house. its the same. Thankfully (more blessings) The water in the churhc is somehow lukewarm, so its surviveable. 

Anyways. we are just having a party! we have worked a lot! and i think we probably have a good week more of it before things start to even out here.

Conference was awesome! we got to see the first two sessions on saturday but had to skip the priesthood session because there was a.... i dont have this word... toque de queda.... when you cant be out in the street past a certain hour because the military is petrolling... curfew? is that it? i dont remember. anyways. we werent able to watch the priesthood session. and on sunday morning we got to see the MoTab presentation and the first 30 seconds of the conference before the powerr went out ofr the next three hours. we waited there... but it never came back. thankfully, we got to see the second session! 

it was a great conference! great talks, lots and lots about families and the importance of them. I liked it a lot! and about our need to hold strong to our own beliefs and our faith in God. we must only trust in Him.

The church is true! the work is good! im loving it! this has been an awesome part of my mission! im safe and happy and grateful for my companion. he is a sweet guy. I hope you all know that i love you and i know that the Gospel is exactly what we need. i will never be the same! i love it!!!!!

have a great week!

Elder Gold