Jack - March 2

Hola como están?

This week was pretty good. At one point a bunch of headphones with the built in microphones arrived here at the office and we were just like, "no way, the church really wants us to talk with our families" then someone else said, "dude I told you the church was true! I knew it!"

A couple days later President received a message saying that they´re for a spanish test that all of the gringos have to take. Oh well. He was also told this week that an apostle is going to visit us. Woooooooooo!

Other than that, we´re getting everything ready for transfers and all that jazz, it´s pretty crazy but things are going well. 

I´ve gotten into a pretty good rhythm of fervent prayers and meaningful scripture study recently and it is life changing. It truly brings all of the power and support that you need to get through the rough patches of life, and enjoy even more the good parts. I can truly say that a meaningful personal prayer really builds a personal relationship with God. And that combined with meaningful scripture study, applying the scriptures to your own life, brings all the revelation and guidance that you will ever need. 

Life is rough, but life can be great.

Jack - February 23

Helloo! How is everyone?

This week was pretty good, it was kinda rough at some parts but all in all it was pretty good. 

Yesterday there was a stake activity here in viña and I was working in the office when one of the other elders called me and told me that some of my converts from Quintero were there. So I ran outside and found them, it was awesome haha. Actually there was a game of soccer going on so I went and talked to some of the young men´s leaders from Quintero for a couple minutes, then sebastian saw me and ran up to me, then ran over and told Franco, and then they both just gave up the game and came sprinting over to hug me. It was awesome.

Then I was talking to one of the leaders a little more, he was someone that Elder Cenname and I had helped reactivate, and he told me that all of the young men right there were from Quintero. I was astounded! There were like 20 young men! When I left there had been 6-7. It was really cool to see the great change. It was pretty crazy the impact that one member had on the ward by coming back.

Today for pday we went on an awesome and gorgeous drive along the coast and eventually we found a cool cave and we explored a little. Then we went and ate at TGI Fridays. It was pretty fun.

Anyways, I hope everyone is doing well!

(some missionary apartment fun...)

Jack - February 16

The church is true! I talked to my FAMILY TODAY!!!

And there was a baptism today!!!!

Jack - February 9

Hey everyone, sorry I didn`t write last week. Thanks so much for all of the birthday greetings you sent though. I received so many that I didn`t have time to write the weekly email haha.

So far so good here in the office. It`s definitely different. It takes a lot of getting used to. But everything is going well. 

Last week for my birthday, President Romeu and his family invited us over for a barbeque at their house to celebrate (It was also Elder Pinheiro`s birthday) So it was awesome. 

We also tried to go go-karting but we got caught in a ton of traffic so we didn`t have time. But today we went hahaha, it was pretty awesome. A little weird to drive a normal car afterwards though, I kind of had the mindset of "I`ve got to pass this car!" and "I have to brake just right on this turn to not spin out" hahaha. But then I remembered I was driving a real car. 

Last week we had to go move everything out of one of the pensions in Valparaíso, and nobody else wanted to drive so everyone made it my "trial of fire" to see if I was good at driving or no. It was crazy but pretty awesome too. Just so you know, Valparaíso is known for it`s insane hills, and we had to help the elders move out of their house at the top of one of those hills. So we had some fun adventures speeding up and down the hills of valparaíso in a huge van full of furniture and stuff like that. The good news is, I drove like a pro even after so much time. It was crazy though.

Anyways, I hope everyone is doing well, I can`t wait to hear from you guys.

Jack - January 26

I need some sleep.

Hey everyone life is good, how are you doing? I have had a crazy week full of lots of work and organizing and all sorts of stuff. It was pretty fun to be able to be there for the farewell party of some of my companions. I realized that now as part of the office until my last transfer, I`ll be in that party right up until it`s my turn. That`s so weird.

You wanna know what else is weird? Driving.

But I`m getting used to it again rather quickly.

As far as other things go, I am not getting used to being in the office. Then again this was just about the busiest week the mission has had in a long time. Transfer week is always super busy for the office, but it got way busier when we found out Elder Bragg of the Seventy was coming to visit the mission, and we had to organize everything to bring every single missionary to Viña. So it`s been a busy week. I`ve gone to bed later every night and gotten up earlier every day. I`m exhausted. But it`s been a good week, President just took us to get lunch to celebrate, so that was nice.

I still haven`t even unpacked my bags, but this week should be more relaxed, so we should be rolling along pretty soon.

Anyways, I hope everyone has had a good week, I`m excited to hear from you guys.

There are more photos than this, I just don`t have the rest of the photos from the mission camara

Jack - January 21

What would you say if I told you I could see the future?

Prediction #1- I´ll be writing again on Saturday. Actually, from now on I´ll be writing every Saturday.

Prediction #2- I´ll be in Viña until the last transfer of my mission

Prediction #3- Very soon, I´ll be driving again

Prediction #4- I might get fat.

Anyways, the truth is that this week is transfer week, and even though normally the actual transfers happen on Wednesday, I´m already in my new area. We actually received my transfer news early because, well, I´m the new Mission Secretary.

And yes that means that I will be working in the office of the mission for the next six months (little walking hence the get fat part) as the new mission Secretary. That means that now I am in charge of all of the legal paperwork involved in the visa process for every missionary in the mission. I am also in charge of basically all of the planning and scheduling of the office. And yes, that means that as soon as I watch some instructive videos on the rules of driving mission vehicles, I can drive.

I don´t know exactly how I feel about it, I thought I was going to stay there in Santa Julia, but oh well. Probably the best part though for now is that this week is all of the farewell stuff for three of my old companions, so I get to be there for the party and all that. That´s pretty awesome. I get to be there to say goodbye to Elder Gutierrez, Elder Robinson, and Elder Graves. I´m excited for that.

Anyways, that´s the news for this week. I have a bunch of photos to send, so enjoy!

Jack - January 14

Hey Family, how´s it going?

Life is great, let´s enjoy it.

I don´t have a ton of time to write for a couple of different circumstances, but everything is going awesome. We are receiving an incredible amount of blessings in our area right now, we´re working our butts off and seeing the results.

I feel like this is going to be a great year and I´m excited to just enjoy all of it, all of the ups, all of the downs.

Look at this!

I was studying this week in Ether 2 in the Book of Mormon and a lot of things really stood out to me, but I liked this part the most.

The Jaredites were going from the wilderness towards a promised land and they were being guided continually by the Lord as far as to where they should travel. And the Lord tells them this:

7 And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop beyond the sea in the wilderness, but he would that they should come forth even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands, which the Lord God had preserved for a righteous people.

I liked this verse because I know that the Lord has an incredible, incomprehensible amount of blessings reserved for us, yes, our own promised land. And He wants us to inherit it, He doesn´t want any delays in our journey, but rather that we should go forth to receive it. 

And so the Jaredites...

" it came to pass that the Lord did bring Jared and his brethren forth even to that great sea which divideth the lands. And as they came to the sea they pitched their tents; and they called the name of the place Moriancumer; and they dwelt in tents, and dwelt in tents upon the seashore for the space of four years."

The Lord brought them there, to the great divide between the wilderness(afflictions) and the promised land (blessings) and what did they do????

They stopped! for four years!

So the Lord comes down again, "And for the space of three hours did the Lord talk with the brother of Jared, and chastened him because he remembered not to call upon the name of the Lord."

They stopped along the way because they stopped relying upon the Lord, and because of that they wasted 4 years in the wilderness.

My message today is to tell you to stand up and get to work, go searching for the Lord´s direction to free you from trial and affliction and lead you towards your promised land. Call upon His name always.

I love you guys.

Jack - January 7

Happy New Years!

How`s everyone doing?

This new years was way different than my last one. Last time I was a little shocked by the fact that I`d be away from home for all of 2018, I remember the shouts of other missionaries as the fireworks started "I`m going home this year!" or "I`m gonna get married this year!" 

Well, as we begin 2019, I can join in saying "I`m going home this year," as for the marriage one I highly doubt that, let`s everyone calm down hahaha.

 

Anyways I`m excited for this year, it`s going to be a great year of change, progress, and joy. I can promise you that. That`s something you`ll see in me when I get back, and it`s something I hope to see in you too.

Anyways thats all I really want to report on for now, let`s get to work!

(This was for the new years activity I put together with my companion for the zone. It`s some tradition from Ecuador and Colombia and places like that to make dolls and burn them with your new year's resolutions to celebrate)

Jack - December 31

Hola Todos,  Como fue su navidad?

We had an interesting week, inbetween Christmas and New Years everything always just kind of dies off in missionary work, so it was kind of slow in that sense. We Also were planning a baptism all week, luckily it all turned out well, even though the ward kind of exploded trying to put it together, and well because of other things. But anyways the baptism went really well, President Romeu even came and played violin so that was awesome. This week only Andersson was baptized, Victor, the kid, didn´t feel quite ready so we´re going to keep teaching him a little bit. But Andersson was really excited for everything it was awesome. Afterwards he even gave his testimony.

Now, like I said about the ward, this week we didn´t have any members sign up to give us lunch due to a big lack of communication. We had lunch all week thanks to an awesome family that fed us well (really well actually, they make good food). But anyways once the Bishop found out that we hadn´t had lunch set for the whole week and that we were basically planning and preparing the baptism on our own, he basically flipped out and got mad at everyone for a lack of communication and for neglecting their duties. (well, he got mad at us too for not calling him) But the good news is, now all of the leaders who are supposed to be in charge of missionary work in the ward are going to start working. So it was kinda rough, but it should actually turn out better haha.

But yeah, that´s basically it for now

Que esten bien!!!

Jack - December 24

Feliz Navidad a todos!

Espero que todos pasen una navidad llena de felicidad y amor y que podamos recordar a la parte mas importante, el nacimiento del Jesucristo.

Hey Everyone, this week has been pretty good. Today I`m a little bummed out because I had to run around Viña all morning to do a bunch of paperwork for my visa, on Christmas Eve. Oh well, at least along the way I ran into Elder C. It was so great to see him again hahaha, we had a good time remembering Quintero and joking around while we waited in line. Unfortunately I also received some bad news. It looks like Elder C will be going home this week, the church mission department thinks he`s not healthy enough to be in the mission. So that kind of stinks, since the beginning we`d known that he had a bunch of health problems, but he seemed to be doing really well. It`s ok,

24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.

(2 Nephi 2:24)

Anyways, we`re pretty excited this week, part of the family I mentioned last week are going to be baptized this friday! We`re so happy, hopefully everything goes well this week so that they can be baptized.

As a missionary, sometimes this time of year is even worse than usual, at a time when you would think that more people would be focused on Christ, less people have any interest in Him. This week we contacted a lot of people who rather rudely expressed that they didn`t have time. It`s kind of sad, but it makes sense in a way, at the time of the birth of Christ nobody had room or time for Him either, and so, He was born in a manger. I`d like everyone to consider the importance of Christ`s birth in our lives, and what we are doing to celebrate it, and I hope that everyone makes more time and place in their lives to consider the birth of our Savior.  

Merry Christmas

Elder Blaylock

This week we also had a Christmas activity with a couple of other zones 

Elder G is almost done his mission! :( Time flies.

Jack - December 17

Hola mi familia, como les va?

This week we had transfers, I´m now with Elder Rosado from Ecuador. He´s pretty chill, and we´ve been working pretty effectively together so that´s good.

This weekend was pretty great for us. On Friday we got a call from the assistants about somebody from our sector who was looking for the missionaries and the closest church to them. So we called them and went to visit them and they´re awesome. They´re Venezuelans that moved to Chile a couple of weeks ago because everything is going really bad in Venezuela. But they´d been looking for the church ever since they arrived because one of them was baptized as a teenager but left the church for family conflicts. But they had found missionaries when they were in Concepción in the south of Chile and sent their address, then they went looking in valparaíso for a church building but it was closed because it was Saturday and no one was there, then they found the mission office and talked with Elder Gutierrez (who also served in my area, so he knew where they lived) and finally we met them. We found it hilarious because they´d been searching for so long, and it ends up that we live in the same apartment complex hahaha, and there´s a church just up the hill hahaha. 

So we taught Viviana and her son Victor and committed them to be baptized and they were really excited and said that they want us to teach the rest of their family living there with them too, so the next day we returned and taught their cousin, German(He´s the member) and their friend Anderson. The lessons were great. We committed Anderson to be baptized as well. And they almost all of them came to church yesterday! Viviana had to work, unfortunately, but she´s already looking to change to be able to go to church. And then in the nighttime, we were able to go with them to a Christmas concert in Viña! It was a pretty crazy weekend. 

But anyway, that´s all I´ve got to say,

I hope you´re all doing well!