Jack - June 18

¡Hola mi familia!

Hey everyone! How´s it going? This week was pretty good.

Basically the highlights are from the weekend. We did an activity with the youth of the ward playing games like dodgeball, soccer, basketball, and volleyball. It was a ton of fun, but now my companion and I are super exhausted haha. We destroyed at basketball though (I wonder why...) But anyways it went super well, so we´re gonna start doing it once a month and tell the youth to invite their friends, so we´ll see how that goes. Or will we? We find out transfers next week, but I have no idea what will happen.

This week we´re going to have a ward activity to watch Coco, and to talk about our ancestry, hopefully people come, it should be really fun.

The family we´re teaching is doing well, but the mom took the kids to Viña for some reason all weekend, so they couldn´t come to our sports activity or to church which stunk. But the Dad is doing awesome! He came to church again, and his phone finally started to work so he listened to the first 14 chapters of the Book of Mormon. It was so great, in one of the classes he was just like, "I don´t know how people say the Book of Mormon is false! All you have to do is read it!" It was great. He also really enjoyed the part with Nephi and Laban, he kept saying every once in a while "He just cut off his head!" Haha it was funny, but seriously he´s doing good, now we just need to help the rest of the family.

Seriously though the Book of Mormon is incredible, not only is it holy scripture like the bible, but it also has great stories. It´s a really interesting book, you can feel that it´s true as you read, and you can enjoy the richness of its lessons, while also reading about cool stuff like wars and miracles and things like that. 

Anyways, that´s my email for this week! Que les vaya super bien.

chaíto!

Parker - June 18

Hey Everyone!

This has been a fun week. 

We had a Seventy from our Area Presidency, Elder Packer come to our mission, and we had a special conference.  

It was pretty good. He shared some really good idea on how to find new investigators, keep new converts, and reactivate less actives using Family History. 

Also, he said something that I loved, it was so great. So in the mission, they've been focusing a lot on numbers right? And President keeps telling us that the average in this mission is 1 out of every 25 new investigators gets baptized. And he asked how we could baptize more. A zone leader suggested that we could find more investigators. Elder Packer suggested that instead of that, we could focus on better finding methods, so the 25 we have are more likely to get baptized, and improving our teaching so that we could help them understand better. He said that if you use better finding and teaching methods, you could get it up to 4 out of every 25, cuz they did a study. 

It was really great, just what the mission needs. Cuz there are a lot of lazy missionaries when it comes to actually teaching. Their idea is "well, if they want to be baptized, they'll understand."

But yeah, it was really great. I loved the conference. I also gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. I decided to focus on Unity, cuz that's what this ward really needs. And I shared a lot about looking for the positives in others, a lot of what I've been sharing in my weekly emails lately. 

And yeah, apart from that, I did the math today and I have about 49 days until I go home. It's pretty crazy. This is my last week before my last transfer. I don't think anything drastic is gonna happen with me, they'll probably let me end here tranquilo in Lastenia. I hope so, anyway, love you all!

Elder Blaylock

Jack - June 11

Hola Everyone!

How´s it going?

This week was pretty long for us, but I didn´t get much of a chance to record most of it in my journal, so I don´t remember much of what happened. It was a good week though. We found a bunch of promising leads for people to teach, so that´s exciting. 

The main thing that happened this week was the zone conference we had, it was the last one of our Mission President and his wife. It was really good, we learned a lot about faith, the Book of Mormon and the stories it leaves us, and how to exercise faith with power. It was really interesting, I just wish the mission President didn´t go so fast, I couldn´t get all the notes I wanted, but I imagine I´ve got enough notes to get me started entonces está bien. 

Also I hit 9 months this week.

Speaking of that, I´d made it pretty far without any strange food...

That streak ended this week. We ate Blood Sausage one day and Cow stomach another...

Life is fun.

Other than that, we´re pretty excited because our main family of investigators is really changing for the better. We´re seeing a lot more spirituality in their home. The parents have a bit more trials such as finding work, quiting smoking, and getting married, but we´ve seen a lot of miracles. One day we went their and they were pretty down in the dumps because they didn´t have any electricity in their house, o mejor dicho, they had too much electricity and it fried everything. Also they´re in the process of building their house and they still lack a lot of things such as running water, but we taught them a great lesson about prayer, faith, and hope in the promises of the Lord, and we invited them to pray as a family. The next day they were jumping for joy because they suddenly had light, and water in their house, so I´m pretty sure they understand the importance and power of family prayer now. 

That was pretty neat, it was a good week. Here´s some photos:

(We had a lunch that was just huge)

(It also rained a lot this week, Elder Robinson wanted to protect his bag)

Parker - June 11

Hey everyone!

This week's been fun. 

On Tuesday, we had a Zone Meeting. 

Thankfully, we have a good zone, so the Spirit was felt. 

Also, that day, we found quite a few new investigators who are pretty receptive. 

Wednesday, we had an activity in the church, Meet the Mormons with Popcorn. It went over pretty well, we had about five new investigators go. 

Thursday, we had to go to a Dermatologist for my comp. Turns out he contracted a skin virus from his last comp, who's from Bolivia. He's gonna be ok though, we got some meds.

On Saturday, I TURNED 21 FREAKING YEARS OLD. I feel so old now. How do I explain this? A family put a movie on at lunch on Sunday, and my comp would whisper to me (hey, that girl looks pretty hot) referring to someone in the movie. And I would be like: "Eh, she's pretty young." 

Maybe it's not so much a symptom of being 21 years old, than the fact that my sister now is 16 years old. But anyway,

We had Stake Conference on Sunday, where our Mission President and a former Mission President spoke, it was pretty good. A couple families also gave me a bunch of food for my birthday. It was fun though. I bought myself a tie for my birthday, it's green, it's sick. 

And yeah, that's pretty much it this week. 

Sorry I don't have any special spiritual thought this week. I've had a lot on my mind. 

Still love you all!

Elder Blaylock

Jack - June 4

Hola a todos, como están

Whew, this week was tough. For a lot of reasons, but it´s all good. Life moves on forward, we have to too.

I don´t really know what to talk about this week, not much interesting really happened. It was just a stressful week in general for me. But everything is going well, everything is still basically the same. Just lots of work here in Quintero. Today we´re going to play soccer with another zone, and next week we´re going to play with the Mission President against my old zone, Valparaíso, where my old companion still is. So that´ll be fun. 

I wish I had more to report on, but I can´t remember much that really happened this week. One day we went to Viña to do an open house in another ward building, before that we had lunch in a pueblito, and when we got back we had a lesson in another pueblito so we were basically just traveling all day.

Since my email is a little boring, I at least hope everyone else had an awesome exciting week, I can´t wait to hear about them, and I´ll see what I can do about spicing things up this week.

¡Que les vaya super bien!

¡Chao chao!

-Elder Blaylock

Parker - June 4

Hey Everyone! 

This week was fun. We've just been keeping at it. 

The cold hit us this week with a bunch of rain too, and we have one radiator in the apartment that doesn't work too well. So even though it doesn't get as cold as in the States, literally zero buildings have been built to insulate heat, so we still freeze our butts off at night if we don't sleep right next to the radiator we have. Also showering is a daunting task. 

But anyway, we've been visiting people and trying to help them out. Something pretty awful happened this past week with some members. Basically there's this one house that is home to like three families. The grandparents and the little children they're taking care of. (The little kids that are over eight are baptized). That couple's son and his family, (only one of the grandkids is a member.) And the couple's daughter and her family, (all members, really nice). So, the son and his wife (as his sister, the member, describes them) are cruel to their kids, and are anti-mormon. Their kid who's member got baptized after turning 18, when he no longer needed his parent's permission. And he started going out with a girl from church and spending less time with his family. 

And this past week, they basically kicked him out of the house. It's kicked up a hornet's nest. The grandparents are furious because it's their house, and they shouldn't kick anyone out. The son and his wife are so prideful and stuck up that they can't see that they've done anything wrong and are blaming everybody else but themselves. The sister feels terrible cuz she's tried for years to try and mend the scars that her brother has caused with his apathetic attitude, and all for nothing. The bishop is pretty apathetic too, to helping him, cuz he blames the kid's relationship with the girl and spending too much time with her for the kid's situation. 

So yeah, it's been an interesting week. 

So, lately I've been studying a lot. (I'm a missionary, I gotta study). And well, it's all about trusting in The Lord, and being guided daily by the Spirit. We really gotta trust in the Lord. And learn to forgive as it states in Doctrine and Covenants 64:9-11: 

9 Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin.

10 I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.

11 And ye ought to say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds.

In other words, it is more important for us to forgive and let God judge our righteousness and the righteousness of others than for us to forfeit our keys to Heaven. It also has to do with the Higher Law that Jesus taught. To turn the other cheek when one strikes us. To go two miles with him who obligates us to go one. To give not just our cloak, but our coat as well. 

I've also been studying what true fast is, and the real blessings we receive when we obey the law of the fast. (It's Isaiah 58, the whole chapter, so good). 

But basically I wanted to draw attention to a particular blessing that fasting grants us. 6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 

It's promising us that we'll be able to break the bands of iniquity. Overcome sin, addictions, or oppression. It gives us spiritual power. 

Sorry this letter's a little all over the place. I've got a lot on my  mind. 

But yeah, love you all!

I'm hanging in there!

Elder Blaylock

Jack - May 28

Alright, here we go...

How`s everyone doing? Things here are all same old same old.

Not much really happened this week, a bunch of traveling for me. My companion had to do a baptismal interview in Concon which went on for a super long time, also there was a bunch of traffic going there and coming back. Then we also had a zone meeting in Viña where the zone leaders presented the focus of the zone for this transfer and we had some training. And another day my companion had a district leader meeting in Viña, so I was in exchanges until we went to pick him up. I did get to see Elder Bahr for a second though which was pretty awesome.

Speaking about exchanges, they were really interesting. I was in Quintero with Elder Pinheiro, our new zone leader, who just so happened to start his mission in Quintero. So that was interesting, most of the recent converts here are people that he baptized or at least taught. We had a good day though, I really felt the Spirit in all of the lessons we taught, which was pretty neat. One of them was in an apartment of a young family that was really struggling with a lot of problems, in their house it is really hard to feel the spirit because there are always so many things going on, especially their three little kids who spend the whole day screaming. But as we were trying to share a message, I felt prompted to change the topic, testify that we are representatives of Jesus Christ sent to help them, and set some goals to really help them find more peace and happiness in their lives. It´s not something I can explain really well, you kind of had to be there, but for the first time their entire apartment was silent, there was a really strong peace throughout the whole house, it was powerful. After meditating a little bit more in why later that night, the thought came to my head that Charity really is greater than anything. All of the lessons or visits that I`ve had in my mission that have been the most powerful, have been when I`ve really felt a Christlike love for the people. Obviously I`m trying to love everyone, trying to be able to help them. But when I can feel that desire deep in my heart, that´s when I´ve been able to bring the spirit to a lesson really strong. But more on that later.

I also had a really neat experience with my companion this week. We get along super well, but sometimes we really get frustrated in the way we want to work. So we did a good companionship inventory and figured out some reasons why we´re getting so frustrated in planning things out, we offered some advice to each other on how we can each improve, I´m glad we were both pretty humble about it. That´s why I love this companionship is that we both really want to work, that we both really want to do our best. (And I´m not saying my other companions didnt want that either, I´m just being grateful again). But the part that most impacted me was what we did at the end of our companionship inventory. We decided to take 5-10 minutes and really think about ourselves and each other, and we made three lists; 5 good things about me, 5 good things about him, and 5 good things about our companionship.

It was a really cool activity and it was really neat to see some of the things we both realized or to see something he knows he´s good at that I hadn´t thought of. Really it was a really neat exercise. But the best part about was the spirit of positivity, unity, and happiness that it brought. Often I have trouble thinking positively about myself because I´m a bit of a perfectionist, so my weaknesses really frustrate me. But putting forth the effort to think more positively, and then having someone else help you see the same was really cool. So I wanted to invite everyone to try it, to think of someone close to you, a family member, a good friend, someone in need, and make a list of the natural talents and gifts that they have, then share it with them. Do the same for yourself, ask someone to help you determine your strong points, what makes you, you.

Once you know these things, the best way to strengthen these talents, or develop them further is through service, love, charity. For example, something I was able to realize was that, like I said earlier, I´ve had quite a few experiences where I´ve really felt the spirit really strongly testifying to what I´ve been saying. That´s something I´m good at, inviting the Spirit. That´s something that I´ve noticed even more prevalent when I´ve had more charity for other people. But anyways, that´s the news for this week, I´ll be talking to you next week!

-Elder Blaylock