Jack - April 9

QUINTERO!!!!!!!!

...es super lejos!!!!

Yeah, so my new area Quintero is really far away from Viña and it costs a ton to go back and forth, so that`s going to stink. Also my area is really big, its got Quintero, then also a bunch of other little towns too, like Loncura, Ventana, Horcon, punchucavic, and valle alegre. I actually have no idea what they`re all called but I did my best haha.

My companion is Elder R, and he`s pretty cool, he`s from Washington. This transfer we`re going to be seeing a lot of miracles here in Quintero, because basically the story behind this area is pretty sad. There hasn`t been obedient missionaries here for a loooooonnnnggg time. The people here are really receptive so there`s been a ton of baptisms here, even with some disobedient missionaries, but almost none of the converts have stayed.

Either way, we are super excited to get to work in Quintero, it has so much potencial, I just feel like there`s no time. I`ve hardly been in Quintero because of a ton of different things. But this week should calm down a little bit, so that`ll be good. I`m super grateful for all the things I learned in Placilla, because even though it was way harder to have any progress over there, I learned how to work hard, so I got here and we made some great plans to really get to work. Now with two missionaries who really want to work here in Quintero, it`s going to be crazy the amount of success we see. Just hearing about everything that`s happened here in the past makes me sad.

Either way, here we go!

Also I got to see Elder B again yesterday because his new companion and I just switched places so they somehow made the pretty long journey for a baptism in Quintero yesterday.

Parker - April 9

Hey everyone!

We have had a fairly busy week, but it was all worth it.

We got new sisters in the district, whitewashing. So that's been pretty fun, as district leader, making sure they got a good start to the transfer. But, yeah, they're doing great, the elders who were there last transfer left the area book pretty organized. 

We also did exhanges with members one fo the days this week so my comp could go check out a new area and try and find some new people. And it was a pretty good day, really guided by the spirit. 

And yeah, let's get right to Sunday, cuz it was pretty sick. We had Six investigators at church, and one of the kids who got baptized got confirmed too. Also, one of our toughest investigators finally broke down and agreed to get baptized. She's getting baptized this saturday, along with K and J, the couple I talked about before. 

And then we had Ward Council to talk about the changes from general conference, and we were able to refocus the ward on the whole ministering thing. It really sucks, but a lot of members here have a really bad attitude towards visiting people. Their attitude is "Well, no one visited me for my such and such years as a member, and I'm fine, even though I had problems. They made a covenant with God, not me. I'm not gonna do any visiting." It's honestly really sad to see. 

Even sadder though, was Elder's quorum. We came in a little late, cuz some of our investigators had to leave early and we were seeing them off. And they were talking about what happened with a service project for an old widow. 

They had never shown up to do it, and so she got someone else to do it, and got mad at the elder's quorum. So, when I came in and heard them talking about it, my thoughts were "Oh, they're talking about how this was a tragedy, a mistake we made, and we can't let it happen again." But no, they were justifying themselves and were talking about how we need to set a clear difference between "a job" and "a service." Apparently "service" is something small that we help with, but it doesn't take much time or effort to do, and how the elder's quorum is there to do service and not jobs. But I thought that service was just an unpaid job. And all I could think of were the Savior's words in the sermon on the mount: Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. I felt like asking them to reread those words and then wonder whether or not we should be distiguishing between "a job" and "a service."

So yeah, please, all of you, listen to the prophets and apostles of our day. Service is religion in action. Truthfully, we wouldn't need a church to go to if all the gospel required was to read the scriptures and pray to get to know god and receive divine knowledge. The reason why we have a church to go to is so that we can receive help. And if you are fortunate enough that you do not need help, and you are fine just the way you are, then it is the commandment of the Lord:  One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

I can't stress this enough. It is only through service that we can truly get to know our Savior. For He lived a life of Service, how can we follow him, if we do not the things he did? 

I share my testimony with you all, that if you follow the teachings of the living prophets, you will prosper in the land. And if you truly love your neighbor, serve them. 

In the name of Jesus Christ,Amen

Elder Blaylock

Jack - April 2

TRANSFERS...

Drumroll please!

I´m off to Viña!!!!!!

That´s right! By wednesday I´ll be in my new zone, which is Viña del Mar! ¡Qué Genial! Apparently my area is Quintero, which is a town that´s like 45 minutes to an hour away from Viña, which kind of stinks to be so far away from everyone but I´ve heard great things about the area! It´s apparently beautiful because it´s a bunch of beaches, I think someone told me it´s a peninsula, so that´ll be awesome. It´ll be cool to be closer to the mission president and the office, if I´m there for a lot of time I´ll be able to get to know the current president before he leaves and the new one when he gets here. Someone also mentioned that it´s supposedly the area that has the most success in the mission... which´ll be a bit different than Placilla. I don´t really know who my companion will be but I´m super excited, I feel like I´m moving forward. The only problem is now I have to pack.

This week was super busy, we had two activities in Placeres and then with the General Conference we didn´t have a ton of time this week to get a lot of work done. But it was awesome.

General Conference was so good! Lots of new changes and great messages. By the end I was just so excited for everything! I love the new ministering idea instead of home and visiting teaching, I think it´ll be awesome, and the whole Priesthood session of conference was incredible, greater understanding of what the Priesthood is and does and more focus on caring for each and every member of the church. I really felt the Spirit strongly all during conference. I liked how all of the talks seemed to focus on the importance of seeking and recognizing the influence of the Holy Ghost, and also about understanding and fulfilling our responsibilities as members of the church and disciples of Jesus Christ. 

I hope everyone had an awesome week this week and was able to enjoy Easter, I hope everyone was able to listen to General Conference and I invite everyone to listen to and study it in order to find more direction in your life. This time next week, I´ll be in Viña. ¡Chao!

Parker - April 2

Hey Everyone!

TEMPLE EN SALTA!!!!! So that's really cool. I knew that it was coming soon, but it was cool to have it announced while I was still on the mission. Other cool news: My former mission president is now an Area Seventy! I know a general authority! 

So yeah, what a conference. If I could give this conference a title, I'd name it "Powerful." Such a powerful conference. So many talks full of truth and light. 

But, I'll start from the beginning. 

First of all, in this week, we found two new investigators to teach. It's a couple, the woman is the niece of a recent convert, and her boyfriend has had drug problems since he was 12. She got our number from the convert and sent us a text saying that she wanted us to help her boyfriend. So we met up with them, and they are very humble, and ready to learn about the restored gospel. We invited them to baptism, and they accepted. They even remembered the date we set a few days later. And they came to conference! It was so great. 

Then, last friday, we had a surprise party for a young man and young woman in our ward. That's the first enclosed pic. 

And then conference. Sigh first of all. I want to express the deep disappointment I felt when I arrived at the Stake center with fifteen minutes to go, and literally no one had shown up to set up the conference. And no one did show up until five minutes after it had started. It was soul-crushing, to think that I might miss this conference.

But, the Lord had mercy on us and we managed to get it up and running quickly, even in english (whew). And as Russell M Nelson was sustained, I couldn't help but feel such a powerful spirit, and the confirmation that that man is a prophet of God. This confirmation was further confirmed by the results of the rest of the conference. 

So many powerful messages shared. I loved Lynn Robbins talk on failure, as well as the entire first presidency's talks. Whenever they walked up to the pulpit, spiritual truth just poured outward. Some of my favourite quotes from conference inculde: "We're just trying to keep him of the ski slopes." "I chuckled then, but I feel it now," "Behold the man," "If to err is human nature, how many failures will it take until our nature becomes divine? A thousand? More likely, Millions," One more day," "Meekness is strength, not weakness," "I get it, I get it (I know I already quoted him, sue me)", "the smell from the kitchen that signals that her lovingly prepared dinner has become a burnt offering," "By small and simple things are great things come to pass,  #bringbalancetotheforce (ask me later about that hashtag)" "It's not the closest to Christ's church, it IS Christ's church!"  Amongst many others. Those are just the ones I can remember with most clarity. I also loved Bendar's talk on meekness and the first presidency's focus on receiving personal revelation from the Holy Ghost. 

The Priesthood session was also amazing, I personally loved the focus on really taking advantage of and exercizing our priesthood authority and power. Oh, another quote I loved so much: "We don't need so much priests in our church, but we need priesthood holders in every home." I loved this!

Now about the changes: Uniting High Priest groups to Elder's Quorum, and streamlining home teaching and visiting teaching into ministering efforts. This is truly inspired by the Lord. And is further evidence that the Lord is hastening the work in His way. The wisdom of man could not have seen such perfect ways to simplify and refocus the members. This change is unexpected, yet inevitable, like a good twist at the end of a story. 

I also love how, with certain members throughout the world dealing with doubts and saying that the Church always says to just obey what the leaders say and other such nonsense, what President Nelson chose to focus on as he takes the calling is personal revelation. It's as if to say "You don't need to take the word of any man, you have access to the source of all truth, use it, and see if this man is a prophet of god." 

With regards to transfers, I'm staying, and my comp stays the same. Nothing too crazy. 

Anyway, I would exhort all of you to listen to the Prophet's voice, and seek personal revelation in all that you do. There is no other way to endure to the end that with the Lord's divine guidance. I can testify that whenever you are willing to listen, God will speak to you. You don't have to interpret vague feelings you may be used to receiving. If you listen with faith after asking, you will know what He is saying. You will be able to almost hear it. But you will know, nonetheless. 

I love you all, and I share my testimony, and bless all of you in my prayers, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Elder Blaylock

PS The other pics are watching the conference in english and going out to dinner before priesthood session. A gringo found a place that sells real burgers.

Jack - March 26

Hello Everybody! 

It´s been a while since I´ve started in English I think.

This week was, I don´t even know, it went pretty quickly, and slowly.

I had exchanges twice this week so I wasn´t in my area for a good chunk of the week, and in both of the exchanges not a whole lot happened. In the first one the zone leader had to make a bunch of phone calls because someone was having a ton of stress, and in the other it was with a new missionary leading his area for the second time, so we did a lot of walking because he still doesn´t know it all that well.

We find out transfers next week and it´s likely I´ll be transferred, I´ve been telling everyone my guess is the Zone of Quillota (I just chose a name and stuck with it), but then I heard that´s where basically all of the avocados in Chile come from so.... fingers crossed, am I right? I heard people literally just give it out in the street.

I received some personal revelation this week, and it is awesome. It helped me out so much, so I figured I´d share it. I was listening to all the drama the zone leader had to deal with during exchanges, and we were talking about it, and the whole time I had a distinct feeling there was something I had to learn from it. At one point we were talking about some of the things that were causing this other person so much stress, and part of it was due to some comparisons they were making with their area and the success of other people (Sounds a lot like all of my stress, and my area is worse off than theirs, but anyways...) And suddenly it seemed like words just came out of my mouth, but they were talking directly to me, it was so weird. I said, " But there´s no point in stressing over that, that´s not your mission." 

That´s not your mission.

All of the stress and disappointment over comparing my area and my mission with the success and progression other people are having doesn´t mean anything. That´s not my mission, it´s not that we´re doing the same thing and they just do it better than me, we´re doing different things, however similar. I´m the only one doing this work I´m supposed to do right here, right now, in only the way I can do it. There´s no point in comparison. In the end it comes down to our works or actions alone, not how they match up with somebody elses. For example, as missionaries we have 30 minutes for exercise in the mornings, and after exchanges my companion told me the elder he was with was curled up in a blanket on the floor, so he felt like his exercises were good. But just because someone else doesn´t do exercises doesn´t make any half-hearted exercises my companion did a good workout. I hope that makes sense. But yeah, I basically learned not to compare things. I´m not saying I´m perfect at it now, but I understand it better. Be happy for other people, and don´t let it get you down. What you´re doing is something only you can do. Only you can live your life. 

I hope everyone had a great week this week, until next time!

-Elder Blaylock

Parker - March 26

Hey Everyone!

This was a fairly interesting week. 

First of all, We did have a baptism this week. They only thing is that they didn't show up for church yesterday, so they didn't get confirmed. 

But still. Their names are M and F. They're cousins who are living in the same house. M's mother and F's aunt is an inactive member who wants to come back to church. Also, the house is huge and like 30 or 40 people live there, so me and my comp are treating it like a gold mine. 

But anyway, M's dad died less than a year ago, which is what prompted his mom to come back to church. We've been visiting them for a while, and they love it when we come, because they say that they can feel a different spirit when we come. They were both pretty excited to get baptised, and we also had some members baptise them, the only thing is that they were invited to a birthday party afterwards and they didn't go back home until late afternoon yesterday, so they didn't go to church. 

But yeah, other than that. We did exchanges with another companionship last Tuesday, and on Wednesday, we had interviews with Mission President. They went pretty well. Based on what President told me, I'm probably gonna stay in this area until the end of my mission, cuz after this transfer (which ends next monday), I'll only have three transfers left, 4 and a half months. Which is really weird to think about by the way. How little time I have left. But it's ok. I'm gonna keep working hard. 

And yeah, then we did exchanges again so we could get the baptismal interview done. And we also had a Family Home Evening with a family of less actives, who made us some pretty good pizza. 

Then, saturday was a crazy day. We had to end exchanges, then we had to head over an hour away to do a surprise baptismal interview in another area in the District. Then we had to come back and organize the Baptism.

And what a baptism. Literally at every turn, we had problems. First, we get a call that says that M is sick and won't make it. We head over there and turns out he's feeling better now. Then, we check the baptismal font, and it's all dirty, our Ward Mission Leader didn't clean it like he said. So we quickly clean it as best we can. Then we wait for everything to start, and it starts to rain, so we get a call, and it says "hey, its raining, I don't know if we'll make it." So we get our Ward Mission Leader to hop on a motorcycle and bring them to the chapel. AND THEN, there were a bunch of people already in the chapel for some young womens thing, and it had already ended, and we invited everyone to literally just walk from one room to another in order to participate in the baptism. But they didn't want to for some reason. That was frustrating. And THEN, when we actually did the baptism. M had to be baptised like 4 times, cuz the member didn't do it right. 

Sigh. It was a very stressful baptism. And then they didn't make it to the confirmation. 

But, don't worry. I'll be fine. I'm really excited for general conference. It's gonna be really interesting with new apostles getting called and sustaining the new prophet. 

Anyway, that's pretty much all I have for you guys this week. 

I love you all!

Elder Blaylock

Jack - March 19

Hola Buenas Tardes! ¿Como están?

This week was pretty... empty.

On tuesday it seemed like we were running all over the place doing all kinds of service for people, we were behind schedule basically all day. Wednesday we had our zone conference which went really well. It included both of the zones of Valparaíso so I got to see Elder G again. I also got to catch up with some other elders who arrived with me to the mission field which was cool. 

Thursday and Friday my companion got pretty sick so we basically stayed in the house all day. Friday night we had a ward activity that went pretty well, a lot of members came. 

Saturday we spent basically the whole day in a different area contacting a bunch of new apartment buildings, then afterwards there was a baptism there and a barbeque.

Today I had to do some paperwork to make sure I can legally stay here, so that stinked a little, but then we got to play soccer with the Viña zone and the mission president (who was a professional player here in Chile) so that was pretty fun.

So yeah, not much happened this week, which was a bit of a bummer. In other developments, for some reason this week my companion´s shoulder has started hurting him whenever he laughs, we don´t know why, but basically we do something stupid, we laugh, then I laugh harder because his shoulder starts hurting. Other than that I hope everyone had a good week! 

(PS Best street name ever)

Parker - March 19

Hey Everyone!

And yeah, we'll start with the bad news. Our baptismal candidate, E, didn't get baptized. It was going great, we were working hard and visiting him every day, really helping him get over his smoking addiction, aaaaand then Friday morning, he receives a call from his mother in Buenos Aires, telling him "I bought you a ticket, you're coming back down to Buenos Aires today at 4pm."

...

So yeah, he didn't get baptized. But we talked with him and he says that he knows where the nearest chapel is in his neighborhood, so who knows? He says that he's gonna go. 

But apart from that, the week has been interesting. We've been working with our other investigators, and we've had to drop one, cuz she just is not very interested right now. Maybe we'll go back someday. But we have other two investigators that came to church yesterday, and they're pretty excited about their baptism this Saturday. Their names are M and F, two cousins, who live with M's mother, who's an inactive member. We're trying to reactivate her and her daughters, and these two kids were also interested in hearing our message, and now they want to be baptized. 

And this last weekend, we were pretty discouraged with our baptism falling through, but Sunday, we had something interesting happen.

So, my companion and his last companion have been chatting it up with some older couple they always pass by, and this past week, we stopped by and they invited us to LuncSundayay. And we end up finding Five new investigators. A really good family who are pretty interested. So that was something that really lifted our spirits. 

And today, well, we were gonna head up to the mountains, but the bus never showed up, so we decided to go around town. We climbed up a tree, (yes we are in a tree, not just standing around trees in the photo). And we ate some pizza that's probably the best pizza I've had in Argentina. It's pretty close to pizza from america. 

And yeah, that's about it for this week. 

I love you all! 

Elder Blaylock