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.