Jack - December 10

Well, another transfer goes flying by, it definitely was the fastest one yet. As for transfer news I`ll be staying training someone else on how to be zone leader. My new companion`s name is Elder Rosado, but other than that I don`t know him.

Here at the end of another change, in a little bit of reflection, these past two changes right at the end, I`ve learned some powerful lessons on love-(not romantic love, just love in general)

Here are my thoughts.

I was in Quintero for 7 and a half months, throughout that whole time I was teaching a family. Right at the end, the two boys were able to be baptized, which was incredible. But with them I learned as I said a powerful lesson. When we started teaching them, one of the boys wasn`t really interested, he didn`t pay much attention, he didn`t want to be baptized, but he enjoyed being there with us. His brother, always surprised with his spirit and maturity with regards to the gospel. And so, when I arrived I focused more on the one who was more receptive and I always tried hard to gain his trust. Meanwhile his brother, took a particular liking to me. As time went on the two of them started to gain interest and participate more. Then we lost them for a time. And finally, in my last transfer with Elder Cenname we baptized them. And now, as we went to say goodbye. The hardest was to say goodbye to the one who at first, wasnt as focused. I felt the amount of love he had for me and that he was truly sad to see me go. Obviously everyone was sad, I`m amazing. But what I learned was that even though I tried so hard in the beginning to "earn" the trust and love of the other, his brother had simply loved and trusted in me.

Love, cannot be earned. It can only be given. Give freely

At the close of this past transfer, yesterday my companion Elder Cruz and I went to say goodbye to one of the families of the ward. It was a heartfelt moment. Even more special than any normal goodbye. Since the beginning of his mission, this family has supported and loved Elder Cruz. Their son served a mission in Brazil, and after seeing how the members looked after their son, decided they would do the same for any brazilians who came to the mission. And so from the beginning Elder Cruz` mom and the family have been in contact, sending him little treats from brazil or things like that. Until, Elder Cruz arrived to serve in their very area. Now watching their goodbyes was a powerfull experience. Afterwards he just said to me, "this is awful, Like at the beginning of my mission, I just said goodbye to my family again." Anybody who`s served knows the pain of saying goodbye to their family to go on a mission.

Love, is home. Love is belonging. 

There are so many out there longing for gifts of love and belonging. There are so many longing for home. Love unconditionally.

Have a good week.

Jack - November 26

I am so grateful...

...that I was bit by a dog on thanksgiving. Twice.

No, broma, hahaha

But yeah some dog bit me twice in my legs, but it´s all good.

This week was a lot of the same. Talking with just about everyone. It was a good week, just like normal though, not much to comment on. Actually looking back at my agenda now it´s true, we just contacted all week. Had the opportunity to teach one or two people but other than that just a lot of the same. Yesterday one of the young men brought a friend to church though, and we were able to teach him, which was pretty good. He seems cool.

But yeah. I hope everyone is doing well!

Chaito. Chao. Chao. 

Jack - November 19

The work is going... slowly.

This last week we had one of the assistants to the president with us to help out the zone and inspire them and help everyone to work more effectively and all that, and it went well. It was kind of a busy week because of that, we did a lot of exchanges with all the elders of the zone, it went by pretty quickly and it was pretty cool to see some good results from the zone, but our sector is pretty much the same. We´ve got basically no one to teach and so we´re contacting a lot. Our contacts are all really good too, but in the end the people don´t want anything to do with us and are quite rude. So the week has gone by quickly, but slowly at the same time.

Haha, all of the receptive people we find live in other areas hahaha.

Anyways that´s basically all I´ve got for this week. I hope everyone is doing well.

Jack - November 12

Hola everyone, ¿Cómo están?

Everything here is going, slowly. Haha, we don´t have anyone to teach and we're not really finding anyone either. So each day is basically the same. Contacting. 

Um, other than that, last p-day we went looking for a waterfall as a zone, and it was pretty fun, we never really found the waterfall I don´t think, though technically there was a small amount of water falling.

I don´t really have a bunch to say, but I´ve got some photos, so enjoy!

Jack - November 5

Hola ¿cómo están?

There´s not a whole lot to report on this week. The new sector is pretty good, the members seem awesome, the pension is nice, the zone seems cool. Pretty chill week. My companion says he´s contacted literally every house in the area though, so it might be a little tough to find people, but I´m excited, it should be good.

Today we´re going to go as a zone to have a picnic by a waterfall, so that should be pretty fun. I´ll try to take some pictures.

We had a meeting this week with all of the other leaders of the mission and with President Romeu which was pretty cool. It was neat because with this past transfer, now everyone in the group that arrived with me is a zone leader, so we took a picture together.

But yeah, not much more to say. I hope everyone is doing well!

Jack - October 29

Well, here we go with transfers!...

I´m...

...Staying!!! Hahaha no, I´m not. Don´t worry. That would be a LOT of time in Quintero. Though it is a little weird to leave, I´ve been here for so long now. I´ve forgotten what it´s like to change sectors.

Anyways, for those of you curious, I´ll be going to Santa Julia in the Achupallas zone. There I will be one of the Zone Leaders along with Elder Cruz, my new companion. 

I actually already know Elder Cruz, he arrived with me here in Viña, but he only stayed 2 changes in his sector. It should be a lot of fun. He´s a pretty funny guy. He´s from Brazil, so it´ll be my first companion since my training that´s not a gringo.

This week was awesome. It was kind of stressful because basically all of it was focused on getting everything ready so we could have some baptisms saturday. Then on sunday all of the members in Chile got to watch the Concepción, Chile Temple Dedication. It was an awesome experience. It was the first temple dedication I´d seen and it was awesome. Really powerful.

The baptisms were awesome. I´m so glad everything worked out. Franco, the older of the 2 brothers who got baptized, was baptized first. It was really funny because as soon as he entered the water he just started swimming around. It was hilarious.

Anyways that´s basically all of the news...

Here´s some pics!

Chao chao chao!

Jack - October 22

Hola ¿cómo están?

It´s been a pretty good week this week. We found a new person to teach and it was awesome because he´s really nice and likes talking with us, he seems pretty receptive. But also his house is super nice. I took a lot of pictures. We walked in and we were just amazed (For example, he´s got two grand pianos in just that main room) but we sat down and tried to focus on teaching. But then afterward he was just like, "Well, do you want to see the house?" And he showed us around the property. and it is awesome.

Other than that we´re preparing for two/three baptisms this week, so we´re pretty excited. I´ve been teaching them for a long time so it´ll be pretty cool if everything works out. They´re great kids.

Other than that next week we´ll know the transfer news which should be interesting. Let´s just say 7 and 1/2 months in an area is a long time. I still love Quintero though. And Elder Cenname is awesome, we get along really well. Even though I´ve been here a long time it´s cool to think back at all that´s happened, all that´s progressed. Everytime a member makes a comment about how long I´ve been here or about something that happened back when I first got here it´s weird to think about who I was back then and who I was now. Especially in these last 3 months with Elder Cenname I´ve improved a ton I feel like. The whole journey has been rough, but I´m actually really happy with the progress I´ve made.

Anyways, now on to the photos, there are many...

¡Que estén bien!

Jack - October 15

How´re we doing?

I know it´s been a week or two pero está bien no se preocupe. I´ve had a lot of interesting experiences the past two weeks and well, I´m pretty excited to keep going. I´ve gone through a lot of struggles recently with a number of different things. As most of you who know me well probably know, I´m a bit of a perfectionist. Sometimes I think I have a little OCD, so a lot of times I´ve ended up getting pretty discouraged at my weaknesses. As I´m sure everyone has. But it´s been something throughout my life that´s bothered me, I have such a strong desire to always be better that when I fail I just feel worse and worse. And each failure or mistake is added to a pile that just gets bigger and bigger and never gets smaller. So everytime I get discouraged it would be worse because it would be the latest failure or mistake added to the memory of a lot of unresolved previous mistakes or failures. 

Now, to use the words of Elder Gary E. Stevenson in his talk titled "Your Four Minutes" (Go read it, it´s amazing) 

If you have ever felt like that, stop thinking that, and never think it again. 

What I have come to realize is that the Devil works a lot more subtly in our lives than we realize. As recently explained Elder Dale G Renlund:

"For those who believe in Jesus Christ, repent, are baptized, and endure to the end—a process that leads to reconciliation11—the Savior forgives, heals, and advocates. He is our helper, consoler, and intercessor—attesting to and vouching for our reconciliation with God.12

In stark contrast, Lucifer is an accuser or prosecutor. John the Revelator described Lucifer’s ultimate defeat: “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ.” Why? Because “the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.”

Lucifer is this accuser. He spoke against us in the premortal existence, and he continues to denounce us in this life. He seeks to drag us down. He wants us to experience endless woe. He is the one who tells us we are not adequate, the one who tells us we are not good enough, the one who tells us there is no recovery from a mistake. He is the ultimate bully, the one who kicks us when we are down.

If Lucifer were teaching a child to walk and the child stumbled, he would scream at the child, punish him, and tell him to quit trying. Lucifer’s ways bring discouragement and despair—eventually and always. This father of lies is the ultimate purveyor of falsehood and cunningly works to deceive and distract us, “for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.”

If Christ were teaching a child to walk and the child stumbled, He would help the child get up and encourage the next steps. Christ is the helper and consoler. His ways bring joy and hope—eventually and always."

Basically, we´re not perfect. Metaphorically speaking we are currently learning to walk through life. At any point that this type of judgement/Accusation is made it is not Christ speaking. It is always the Devil, and unfortunately, usually disguised as our own thoughts, as often is with the Devil. "The art of persuasion is making others believe it was their idea."

We have this time to try. To fall over. And to get up and try again. Repentance is the process that lifts us up and moves us foward. So Repent. 

Thanks for all your love and support, I´ll see you next week!

-Elder Blaylock

(CATS! BABY ONES! One of them is named batman)

Jack - September 24

Hola familia, ¿como les va?

I don´t really have a lot to write about this week, it`s been an interesting week, kind of just preparing a lot of things so it`ll be a great transfer. Even though the Chilean independance day is normally pretty crazy, nothing really happened in Quintero because well, everything is contaminated. But that`s ok we were able to have a good week. We ate a lot of BBQ though which was pretty awesome.

Other than that, not much to report on, I`ll be sure to have more to share next week.

I hope everyone is doing well!

#longliveschoolwithsmells

Oh I also heard that Quintero was trending here on Twitter, so that`s cool.

Jack - September 17

I love Quintero! Hahaha, so with all of the contamination stuff the kids haven´t been to school in a month, and now passing by the different schools of Quintero is very amusing, for they are covered in contamination protest propaganda. I´ll be sure to send a picture as an example. The school I took a picture of is a Catholic school called Colegio Don Orione, and well, they changed it to say Colegio Con Olores, or rather in English- School with Smells. hahaha

Anyways, in case anyone was curious we received transfer news yesterday, I´ll admit I was rather surprised. I´ll be staying in Quintero with Elder Cenname! By the end of this next transfer, I´ll have 7 and a half months in Quintero. mucho tiempo. So I think it´s safe to say I´m out after this one. I´ll be able to finish training Elder Cenname, so I´m excited.

Other than that, this week Chile started their festivities for their independence day, which unlike other countries, lasts about a week hahaha, so we´ll probably do a lot of walking because most people will be busy.

Pero bueno, ¡nos estamos hablando la próxima semana!

Les Quiero

Jack - September 10

Alright so, I think it´s about time I fill you in on the life in Quintero because I´ve been forgetting to mention any of it.

SOoooo, not too far from Quintero, there are a bunch of factories and mineral refineries, which, began to not work recently. So about two weeks ago now all of Quintero was contaminated, like the air and water and all that was bad, so people were losing feeling in their legs and fainting and throwing up and all sorts of nonsense. So, being the very wise missionaries that we are, we went out to work anyways. Then the day after we find out things got way worse and there were like over 100 people in the hospital and they started closing the exits to Quintero and all that. So at that point, we called the zone leaders and basically just said, "Yeah so Quintero is... dying. We´re not, but we don´t want to either." So we ended up staying in the house that day. But other than that we´ve been fine, there were also two little earthquakes the same week. But this whole contamination situation has just gotten more and more interesting. The people started protesting and doing marches and stuff like that. At one point they stormed over to the factories and broke in and trashed the place. Later the President of Chile came to Quintero, but a bunch of people basically just booed him. We wanted to meet him and give him a Book of Mormon. Then the other day we heard there are still protests and that now people started throwing rocks and stuff at the police. So we´re doing pretty good. :)

Our work really hasn't been affected at all actually. But it´s still interesting. This past week I finished a year in the mission, so we had a little ceremony, which I´ll send a video of. 

Our ward also had a party to celebrate the upcoming 18 de Septiembre (which would be like our 4th of July, except they celebrate it for like a week) The highlight of which was when they got bored of playing traditional Chilean music and played Highway to Hell in the middle of the church building. It was fun.

Other than that I hope everyone has an awesome week, I´ll talk to you next week!

Traditional shirt-burning at the year-mark

, and when lunch falls through and you use your firehouse subs skills.

Jack- September 3

This is it, a couple of days away from the official one-year mark!

This week was pretty, rough. We had some great plans, we´d found a bunch of new people to teach but then this week every single plan we had fell through and we lost a lot of people to teach. So we´ll be starting pretty close to scratch this next week. We have some good ideas though, so onward we go.

Honestly, my mission has been pretty hard, I´ve worked as hard as I can, yet I´ve experienced a lot of disappointments and a lot of times I´ve felt pretty hopeless. (Don´t worry this´ll get better) 

But this week, after a lot of long, rough days, I felt like this. Sometimes I´ve felt in my prayers at night like I´ll just collapse, but at the end of my personal study this week a scripture caught my eye that really encouraged me to keep reading, it literally seemed to speak to me. The scripture is in the Book of Job, in which, if you didn´t know is basically about a dude who is super righteous, then in an instant loses everything, in this part one of his friends is offering him some advice and words of comfort.

Job 4:

3 Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands.

4 Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.

5 But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.

6 Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?

7 Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?

8 Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.

...

12 Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.

13 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,

14 Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.

15 Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:

16 It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,

17 Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?

18 Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:

19 How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?

20 They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it.

21 Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.

Right. So all of this is complicated, I honestly had to read it a couple of times to understand it, and I don´t even know if I understand it perfectly, but I definitely think I understand what I was supposed to. A lot of times I´ve felt really sad or depressed because I hadn´t accomplished any big change in anybody´s life, I´ve had some great, really powerful experiences, but then afterwards it´s almost as if there was no change, so a lot of times, I felt pretty down. But I really liked how Job´s friend reminds him that he´s taught a lot of people, and that a lot of people have been strengthend by him, because even though I haven´t accomplished that great impact I was always looking for, I can say that I have taught a lot of people, I have been there in the exact moment that they needed comfort, I have offered the exact words needed to strengthen them. Then in verse 5 Job´s friend acknowledges that he´s had a lot of troubles, but asks him in verse 6, basically, "Isn´t this what you believe in?"

"Don´t you know that everyone must pass through difficulties?"

"Isn´t this what you believe in?"

He qoes on to explain that even though challenges can be to punish us, most often they are to teach us something, they´re there so that we can grow. And if we´re experiencing difficulties, we should know that the innocent never perished, that the righteous were never cut off from the Lord. So we have to know that He´s right there beside us to help, strengthen, and guide us through the trials. 

Later on his friend explains a vision he had that´s a little tough to understand, but he basically asks "Shall mortal man be more just than God?" which is to say "Do you think your plan for you life is really better than God´s?" 

"shall a man be more pure than his maker?" - "God literally made you, I´m pretty sure He knows why He made you"

"Trust in His plan, even though it´s tough, it´s better"

Maybe God´s plan for me is much more day to day, to help on the smaller yet just as important scale.

At the end he says, a little strongly, that we all die without wisdom, but what I think he means is that we´ll die one day, and still not understand why we went through so many difficulties. But one day when we´re back again with our Heavenly Father we´ll understand. And we´ll thank Him.

"Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed. For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid." - How firm a foundation

"When ye are weary he waketh morning by morning." - 2 Nephi 7:4

Even when it´s tough, when all you can do is get to the next day, He´ll be there to wake you up, and He´ll watch over you day by day.

I love you all, have a great week!

(I definitely did not describe all of that well enough but oh well)

Jack - August 27

Hello!

 It´s going to be a short letter today because I´m a little short on time. But everything is going well. I´m really enjoying training because my companion is awesome, we get along really well and we´re having a great time. Even though the work is hard we´re both working diligently and faithfully through it. This week we were studying together one of the talks that the mission gave us to read in our welcome binders and it was really fun to read it again and think about it with my companion. The talk basically just makes you realize that you can choose to become who you want to be, it´s kind of a heavy talk and kind of just puts everything right there in front of you. So when we had to pause in our reading it was always funny to hear my companion "You can´t leave me hanging on that!" We always refer to the talk as talking about our futures, it´s a pretty fun time.

Even though I haven´t hit a year in the mission yet, my companion pointed out to me that I have less than a year left. That was weird. But I´m happy and excited for this next year!

I hope everyone is doing great!

Jack - August 20

50 weeks! 

That´s a lot of time.

Welp, this week went well. I think. We spent a lot of time preparing baptisms, our ward had 2 this week which was pretty neat. It was two kids 8 and 9 years old. The ward mission leader was supposed to plan them, but he´s a young dude preparing for his mission so he didn´t really know what to do, so it basically all got dumped on me. At least the baptisms turned out well.

This week I had some really good studies. One helped me to better understand the importance of prayer, and the other helped me understand way better the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation. First of all, it´s important that when we pray, we actually talk with God. It shouldn´t just be your shopping list of blessings you want. A lot of times we feel like he isn´t listening because we don´t recognize answers, well if you want Him to talk you have to make it a conversation. Telling Him a list of things you need just leaves room for Him to say "That´s great." or something like that. But if we try harder to make our prayers conversations, that´s something between two people, and I know that He´ll be more likely to respond more openly. Prayer requires an effort, and brings some of the greatest blessings. Actually my studies on Prayer led me to give better prayers and receive more revelation in my studies. And for that I´ve come to understand better the Atonement and Plan of Salvation, and let me just say, I´m not great at explaining things but I can testify that Jesus Christ is our Savior, that He is full of mercy and grace, and that He has given us so many gifts and our lives to learn and improve and change. God´s plan is perfect, and I invite everyone to learn more about it. For me, one of my favorite chapters in the scriptures is in the Book of Mormon; 2 Nephi 2. It´s amazing.

Anyways, the work is hard but worth it, I hope that everyone is doing well!

Jack - August 13

Alright! ¿Quien quiere conocer mi hijo?

For those of you who are confused, there`s some missionary slang that if you`re training someone, they`re your son.

Transfers all went really well. Right before receiving our new companions I got to spend the day with my old comp, Elder B, in his sector because he`ll be training too. So that was a lot of fun, we got to catch up on some stuff, remember some funny stuff that happened, and prepare to be trainers. 

Right before we got out trainees, Presidente Romeu gave a capacitacion with the Assistants about training and it was really cool, one, because I´ve always wanted to train, it`s such a cool experience in the mission, and two, because my trainer was there too, hahaha. 

Then we had an awesome and exciting meeting where each new elder got assigned an area and their companion, and everyone was cheering and really excited the whole time. It was great. I was the first to receive a new companion, and he`s awesome. His name is Elder C. He`s from Las Vegas, and he`s super excited to be in the mission. We`ve had a great first week. 

I`m not going to lie, I`m pretty stressed, I obviously want to do a good job, and know I have a lot of weaknesses. But I`m really excited for this transfer. The only part that might be sad would be the end. I`ll have been in Quintero for 6 months, so it`s likely I`ll be transferred in the middle of Elder C`s training. But I`d like to stay, Quintero is a good sector, and Elder C seems like a great guy.

The other day we contacted a drunk guy in the street, and it was actually a good contact, or well, we did everything really well, the dude was kinda weird. But what was really funny is that he kept saying that all the missionaries are spies for the United States, here to see how they live. Which was funny enough, but then after the contact my companion looked at me confused and asked me what he was saying, and so I explained that he thought we were spies and my companion just started to laugh. "Oh...I thought he was saying we were feet!" "That all gringos were feet!" Hahahaha it was really funny, to be fair the two words do sound similar.

Anyways that`s it for this week, I hope everyone has an awesome week!

A couple pictures of our 'family history' work

Jack - August 6

TRANSFERS!

ALRIGHTY THEN, who wants to know what´s up?

I am actually really excited. I´m not gonna lie this last transfer was really tough for me. So I´m just looking forward to the best transfer this next transfer.

I will be... staying. My companion is getting transferred after only 1 transfer here in Quintero, which is weird. But I´ll be staying as District Leader, only now, I´ll be training!!! I´m really excited, I´ve always wanted to train, I had a great experience with my trainer, so I just hope training is just as awesome. Also. Speaking of my trainer... He´s the new Assistant to the President!!! Which is awesome, because that means he´s now in my district, and he´ll get to see me train. This is going to be so much fun. I´m really excited. I just won´t know who my companion is until wednesday, but this´ll be fun.

Other than that, not a ton of news. This week was pretty good because I wasn´t that sick and I got to do 3 Baptismal interviews which were awesome.

I hope everyone has a great week! I can´t wait to hear from you guys.

Parker - August 8

h o m e 

Jack - July 30

I am definitely SICK of being sick.

Yeah somebody fed me some fish this week and I´ve had some pretty bad stomachaches all week. Oh well, it was nice to be well for a couple days this transfer.

Other than that the District meeting went pretty well this week, I did a fun class with a bunch of funny drawings and stuff like that. And everyone liked it, so I was pretty satisfied.

We´re still working hard with the people we´re teaching, but not much has changed. The cool news though is that the district is doing really well. As a district last week we had about 10-12 people with baptismal dates, so that´s really cool. It is a huge district, but still, that´s more than I´ve ever seen. I´m also excited because it means I get to do a bunch of baptismal interviews, which are some of the best experiences ever. So that´ll be fun. 

Transfers are coming up, which is pretty exciting. Honestly, I don´t know if I want to stay or if I want to leave. I think this last transfer has kinda brought down my perspective of this sector. But it´s ok, trials are the building blocks of miracles.

I hope you all have a great week!

Parker - July 30

Hey everyone!

Yeah, it's true, we are entering into my last week in the mission. 

It's pretty....exciting. 

The mission has been a really wild roller coaster ride. There have been ups and downs, but really, I can honestly say that I have come out of it a better man than I was before. I've had to pass through the refiner's fire, but now I can look to the future with hope and faith. 

I'm gonna keep working hard, in this last week, but I know that I have done what our Father in Heaven has sent me here to do. I have carried HIs will and His word to many. I have opened eyes and helped others move forward in a Christ-centered life. I had to work hard to do it, but with the Lord's help, I managed to make it through. 

Truly the mission is something really special. I don't know if I'd go on another one any time soon, it's been really hard, but what I can say is that I will never regret the decision I made to serve. 

Love you all! 

Elder Blaylock