week 73: Licantén

Elder Olson and Elder Hiatt in Licantén

January 15, 2018 (audio letter transcription)

Hey everyone, Elder Olson here,

So this is week 2 of transfer number 12. We are here in Curico right now for Pday. We just got something to eat. We're gonna make some sandwiches. We just had a zone activity down here with the zone. We played soccer and then we went to go get burgers at a place that was supposedly really good but it was closed. So we just went to a bakery and got some bread and meat and cheese...which is probably better us anyway just because of how much money we've spent on travel these past couple days. It's a two hour drive from Licantén to Curico then two hours back so it's quite the trip. So this week has been good. 

It's been cool to be here with Elder Hiatt, that's my trainee's name. He's from Orem Utah. So not too far from home. He's super cool. We're having a good time out there in Licantén. It's a SMALL town. It's so small. We went out running the other morning and we ran around the whole town and back to our house and it took us about 15-20 minutes and that was with some pretty big hills. So it's not a big town. Our chapel that we have isn't actually a chapel, it's a little house. I sent pictures before but it was about in the second or third month in my mission. Tiny little chapel, well house. They have it kind of modified to have a sacrament meeting room in the bottom floor and classes on the top floor and then there's a little pool in the back for a baptismal font. So that's cool. 

This week on Friday I had a District leader meeting for all the new district leaders because they've changed some things for the District Leaders since I was one. I went with the other DL from our zone who was also a zone leader. He came here from being a zone leader, along with me. We went up there. It was good. We watched the funeral of President Monson which was great. The thing I took out of that, there was a part in the closing hymn, after they'd talked so much about all of his lifelong service, and then the closing hymn was...I don't know if the title was "Weary Not" but I know it said "weary not" a lot and President Monson was good example of that. A good example of being perseverant and continuing on in Christlike service for a long long time. I imagine what it would be like to serve a mission for 60 more years and that would be a lot of work so I have a lot of respect and love for him for that. 

Our days working the sector have been a lot of contacting. We've tried to work with the members to figure out who we ought to visit. We've had some visits with members in their houses. We've had mission coordination with the ward mission leader or branch mission leader on Saturday night and he told us Saturday night that we were going to have to give a talk on Sunday. So we were kind of nervous about that seeing as how it was already 10:00 when he told us that we had to give these talks so we rushed and prepared talks and then on Sunday we kind of got saved...some people from the Stake came and were giving talks as back up...well not as back up I guess WE were the back up that day. And then we're going to have to give our talks next week instead. The branch is small. There were, counting us, 19 members who attended church on Sunday. We had some visitors, some people come out to the beach and so there were probably about 30-35 people in the branch but there were about 14 visitors. So it's small. But they are good. They have a REALLY good branch presidency. They are all really focused and really dedicated in the work. The mission leader is good. In all of our contacting we've found some people who are pretty promising. We also have found that there are a lot of part member families in the town so we are going to be working a lot with those. That's kind of the basic update. We don't have much time because we came down to Curico today and I forgot to record on the bus and now we have to leave time to write and then get the two hour ride back and we're sitting down eating lunch right now. So today's not going to be a very long recording.

But I'm doing good. I'm excited.

oh yeah...

Also something really cool that's happening is that Elder Christofferson is coming to the mission. I may have mentioned that I'd heard a rumor that he was coming, but now President made it official. Elder Christofferson will be coming down to visit our mission and Santiago South on Valentines Day. So on the 13th the WHOLE mission is going to get together in Rancagua. I have no idea HOW we're going to do that because there's like 200 of us and then we're going to sleep in Rancagua that night. So I don't know, I have no idea how we're going to do that...if we're going to all be in houses of missionaries in Rancagua or what the plan is. And then the next morning we will drive up to Santiago in a stake called San Bernado where we will have the conference for about 2 hours with Elder Christofferson. So I'm really excited about that. That's something that I ...well it's kind of rare to have a Seventy come and then a month and a half later have an Apostle come to visit the mission. So hopefully it's for a good reason, not because there are a lot of problems in our mission. But we have a good mission. We are seeing a lot of improvement. 

I think that's it. Love you guys. Hope everybody's doing good. Have a good week!

Elder Olson

The tiny apartment (and YUCKY mold)

Coming into Licatén

Licantén church (in a house)

The song sung at President Monson's funeral

week 72: Changes...going to be a trainer

January 8, 2018 (transcription from audio letter)

Hey guys,

So this is week 1 of transfer number 12. We are about to have some changes. We found out the transfers on Saturday in the evening. And it looks like I'm leaving Baquedano. I'm going to be going down to Curico again, but kind of far outside Curico to a little sector called Licantén. It's right by the beach so that's pretty cool. It's about two hours from the city of Curico. It's in the other zone in Curico, the one I was NOT the zone leader in. And I'm going to be there as district leader and training, in a whitewash. For any of you who don't know what a whitewash is, a whitewash is a missionary term for two new missionaries getting to the same sector at the same time. 

So the last two missionaries who were both in that sector, one of them went home from the mission, he just finished. And then the other one was Elder Villegas, and they took him out of the sector. He was one of my old companions. Now it will be me and a new missionary who hasn't gotten here to the mission yet. So that will be super fun. I've never trained before so I am excited for the opportunity. It'll be something very different from being a zone leader I'm sure. There are only 3 Elders coming into the mission this change so there will be two other trainers with me. I know all the elders in the office and I was talking to them and they have the records for the missionaries who are coming. So it looks like there's one from Orem, Utah Valley, there's one from Argentina and one from Brazil who are coming into the mission. So it's going to be one of the three that I'll be with. So I'm excited to see which one. We won't find out until president Harris has interviews with them and all that. That will be on Tuesday and that will be the day that I'll be there in the morning doing a training, receiving a training for the new trainers and then we'll have a meeting with all the trainees and the trainers together, I would assume....that's how it was when I got the mission at least and then we'll head down to our sector. It's about a total of 4 or 5 hours from here in bus but it looks like the assistants are actually going to help us out. I was talking to them and they're going to drive us down in their car all the way to our sector and one of the assistants, Elder Pollard, he was in Licantén before. 

I've mentioned Licantén because in my second change in the mission I went there on intercambios, on splits. When my companion went home and the companion of Elder Pollard, the now assistant, also went home, we went there together for two days and so I got to know the sector a little bit. I feel like the Lord might've been preparing me, I'm not sure. But I remember it quite a bit. Actually that day we had kind of a special situation because there are 3 towns that are part of the sector. One called Licantén, one called Hualañe, and one called Iloca and I got to know all three during that two day intercambio. Which is something different. Also it sounds like they'll be giving me quite a bit of money working down there. It won't be on bike. All the towns are too far apart to bike. About half and hour on bus each on from each other. But they want us to work more in one of the towns, the one that's NOT on the beach, the one called Hualañe. They want us to work there because that town is starting to grow it sounds like and that town has a lot of potential. But the missionaries haven't been able to go there because it's too expensive and they end up without money at the end of the change. So now they've given us a little bit of extra money and are asking us to work there as well. So I'm excited for that. So that's what's going on with the changes. I'm super excited. 

I don't know really what to expect. I've been asking around though, because a lot of my friends, people with the same time in the mission as me, they've all trained already but seeing how I've been a zone leader for a while now, I haven't had the chance to train. So I'm super excited about that.

This week on Tuesday we had exchanges, intercambios, splits with the assistants so that was fun. I went with Elder Montano from Mexico. It was a good time. We kind of contacted a lot. All four of us were working in the sector of the assistants. I don't know, it wasn't anything too special. It was kind of like just trying to help them out in their sector because they don't get a lot of time there. 

And then on Wednesday we had to go to the hospital. Don't worry, it was just to help the nurse translate. There's a new nurse who just got here so we had to go help her with translate for a companionship that didn't have an Elder who spoke english so we had to kind of go in the middle there. So that was a lot of our day wednesday. 

Thursday and Friday we had some time to actually work. We taught a lesson to a reference from a member family. He's from Columbia. He's the boyfriend of a member...they met on the internet and he came down and is now living at their house and I think they have plans to get married at some point. But he really likes the church. They'd sent the missionaries to his house there in columbia and he was liking it and he had a baptismal date. The only reason he didn't get baptized there was because he ended up working a lot in order to save money to be able to come here to Chile. So he's got a lot of potential.

We've got a lot of new investigators who have a good chance of getting baptized in this next couple of changes so I'm excited for them. Replacing me here, Elder Lee is going to be with Elder Stevenson from Idaho, who I was in the same zone with in Buin. He's a good guy. They'll do a good job here.

Jorge got the priesthood this Sunday, which we were really glad about! We were talking to him and he told us that the Branch president had interviewed him and we were like "awesome! yes! So did he tell you you were going to get your priesthood?" And he's like, "yeah he told me in March I'm gonna get it." And we were like, "what's up with that?" because he should be able to get the Aaronic priesthood in a week after his baptism. So he should've received it LAST Sunday. So we were pretty confused there. We weren't sure what was going on. But then on Sunday we found out that Jorge had just misunderstood. They called his name in Sacrament meeting, they had him stand up and they sustained him also to be, they called him as a ward missionary, which is interesting because the branch missionaries should be helping us to give the discussions to Jorge a second time...normally the branch missionaries do that with us after baptism. But now Jorge is the Branch missionary so it'll be all on my companion now. He did get the priesthood that day. He was kind of surprised himself. He didn't quite understand. I don't know if it's just because the branch president didn't explain it very well. We talked to him about it and I think he understands everything now.

Today we're going to go pass by the mall and eat some lunch. There are some places like Pizza Hut and KFC that you can only find here in Rancagua so we're going to go enjoy one last lunch over there and probably buy some new pants as well. Then I'll be packing all evening...getting ready to go.

One thing that happened this week, that I'm sure most of you heard about before I did, was that President Monson passed away. I think it was his time. He's been sick for a little while and I think it'll be good for him and his family that he can go on to his work in the next life. I think it was Elder McKonkie quoting another prophet saying that it was graduating. Graduating to the next life where he'll be able to contribute even more to the work. I'm excited to see the change. It's gonna be super weird having a new first presidency as well because basically for my whole life it's been, well for as long as I can remember, for half my life, it's been President Monson, President Eyring and president Uchtdorf really. So it'll be interesting to see what the new first presidency looks like and what happens with all of that. I'm more than confident that those who will be called have been prepared before their call and will serve very well in their callings. I'm excited to see the changes. 

Also, other news, this isn't official, they haven't announced it but it sounds like we might be getting a visit from an Apostle in February. I'm not a hundred percent sure but in talking with the office, it sounds like Elder Christofferson might be coming by and giving us a visit with our mission and Santiago South together. So that's really cool. I'm excited about that. That's not something that's very common either. We just barely had a conference with Elder Bragg of the seventy and so it'll be really cool now to be able to hear Elder Christofferson speak to us. 

I know that the prophets we have today, that the quorum of the twelve apostles, are called of God and I know that our church is led by inspired leaders. Whether they be your bishops, your stake presidents, or the president of the church. I know that they are called of God and they are there for a reason. I know that especially the prophets and apostles communicate directly with God. I hope you all can feel that, the importance of modern prophets as we see these changes coming in the next few weeks, the next few months. 

I love you guys. I hope everything is going well.

Take Care! Bye!

Elder Olson

Rancagua, Baquedano zone

Brother and Sister Carrasco, members who help us a ton

Week 71: Happy New Year!

January 1, 2018 (Transcription from Audio Letter)

Hey everyone, Happy New Year!

This is week 6 of transfer 11 and the first day of 2018!

So it's been two weeks since I've been able to write or send anything so this is going to be kind of a recording to catch up on everything that I haven't been able to talk about all that much. 

Starting off with last week, (the week leading up to Christmas) we had a lot of activities and things like that for Christmas with the Branch and with the Stake. We sang in a couple of Stake Choirs. We helped out in a branch devotional as well. I think I may have mentioned they asked me to be the angel in the devotional. So that was...that was fun.

Then on the Tuesday before Christmas, we went to a central plaza and we sang songs for everybody. There were actually a lot of people there. I was really impressed. A lot of members and then people who weren't members stopped to watch and listen. So that was cool. We got there early to help blow up helium balloons and then they handed out balloons with a card for Light the World to everyone and then everybody let them go at the same time at the end. So that went pretty well.

So after that, that weekend, Jorge got baptized! Wahoo! I'm super super excited about that. He is great. He's still doing great. He was baptized on the 23rd right before Christmas. He was baptized by a member, Hermano Torres. It was a pretty small little service but it went well. There were probably about 3 families of members, maybe a total of 16 people there at his baptism and it was really spiritual, at least for me. I felt the spirit pretty strongly, so I enjoyed having that experience and it went well. The brother that was baptizing him, he... I think Jorge kind of went limp when he went under the water, he was kind of expecting the member to kind of pull him out. And Jorge's not THAT big but not a small guy either, and the member was recovering from a car accident and so his arm strength isn't all that good. We were actually kind of worried that he wasn't going to be able to do the baptizing. But with a loud grunt and a lot of visible effort, the member got him up out of the water. So that was good. It all went well. hahaha. And then the day after there was the confirmation on the 24th. And we just had a short little sacrament meeting with a primary program and my companion and I were able to participate in the confirmation with the Branch President. 

The primary program was great. I also felt the spirit watching that. I enjoyed it. And then that night (December 24th), we first talked with our families and then we had dinner with our Branch President and his wife and also with Jorge which we were really grateful for. We were trying to look for somebody to invite him and if not we were going to go eat with him because he is separated from his wife and he lives by himself so we were looking for a way to help him have a merrier Christmas. I think he had a good time.

Here in Chile, Christmas is a little different. Everybody opens their presents at midnight instead of waiting til the morning. So there's a bunch of parties and everybody's out until midnight on Christmas eve and then they open all their presents and they're like, "yeah cool" and then they're up until like 2 or 3 in the morning and then they go to  bed and then the 25th Christmas day is like nothing for them. They don't go to work but they don't really do anything else either. They maybe sit around in their house, maybe have another dinner, maybe they'll go out but it's just kind of like any other holiday, not all that special, from what I have seen, from what I understand.

So we were there, not until midnight, only til 10. All the members were surprised, especially the returned missionaries, because most of them had received permission from their mission presidents when they'd been serving but we did not have permission to stay out later for new years or for Christmas. 

So during the week, we had a good week, we found a lot of new people. We talked with a lot of people in the street and we just kept finding and finding and finding a lot of new investigators, so that was really cool. We found almost 2 new investigators every day. So that was pretty cool. 

We also did a couple...I don't know if they're called splits or divisions...in Spanish they're called exchanges basically...intercambios. Where one companion goes to another sector with another missionary and the other missionary comes to our sector, our area. So we did that twice. I left both times. I went to be able to accommodate for the schedule and for the missionaries that we had. So I went to Donihue on Wednesday. I was there with Elder Rogers who I've known for a long time. I saw him start his mission in Buin and now have been his zone leader for 3 changes here in Rancagua. So I've gotten to know him pretty well. So that was good. He's a great missionary. Oh also that day, we had some lessons with some Hatians. Elder Rogers speaks very very very well, Creole/Hatian. And so I got to practice my Creole a little bit. I was able to understand probably about half of everything that was going on. I was able to explain what the book of mormon is and some very basic stuff and introduce myself and ask them a couple basic questions about themselves. But I understood quite a bit actually of the Creole so I was very very excited about that. That's a talent that I haven't been able to develop all that much. Not a lot of missionaries do. Elder Rogers is definitely the best in the whole mission as far as I know, at speaking Creole. But that's a talent I would like to develop a little bit more.

On wednesday we went straight from Donihue, came back to the house and I grabbed some other clothes and then went straight back out to Rengo to do intercambios. I was with Elder Pistorius there, one of the people from my district in the MTC. So that was really cool. He's also a great guy. Him and his companion are great missionaries. We really enjoy having them in the zone. We tried passing by my Aunt's family's house to see how they're doing but they weren't home. But it was still cool to be able to go on intercambios there. I like Rengo in general and we were able to have some good lessons as well. We were in lessons basically the whole time and then we were in their ward council meeting so we were pretty busy that whole day.

Then this weekend we did some stuff for new years, new year's eve. But let me see, I don't want to skip anything here. Nah, everything's been pretty normal, just still working our hardest.

We have a kind of new investigator named Eileen. We found her in probably the third week of this change. She is the cousin of a member from a little town outside of Rancagua. Her cousin is a returned missionary. Her mom is a less active member. And she is not a member. She's 18. She has a son who's like a year and a half old and they live there, the 3 of them. She listened to the missionaries before and she really really really wants to get baptized. She's super excited about it. She almost got baptized with the other missionaries but her son got sick and she is worried about taking him to church and there were some other complications. So we still have been teaching her. We visited her twice and so we're still not 100% sure what happened the other time. The other missionaries didn't leave a very good record of why they stopped teaching her. But she seems to have a lot of potential. She came to church this week which was awesome. Also members brought 2 other investigators to church this week so that was awesome. It's not common to have members bring people to church so that was a nice change. So that was cool. Eileen now has a baptismal date for the 3rd of February so we're going to be working with her and praying for her. 

Last night for new year's eve, we worked for a while, had some lessons and then we had some appointments that a member was going to accompany us to, so we went and passed by a couple other investigators and then we went with that member to have dinner and share with his family. He has some...well his son is less active and his kids are all less active...most of them don't live with him but his youngest son lives with him. And his daughter drove down from Santiago with her boyfriend as well. So that was really fun. It was a good dinner. We had some BBQ and were back in the house by 10 as normal. 

Our zone had a great week as far as numbers were concerned. We were really excited for them to see a lot of the progress. There are a lot of investigators that I think have a lot of potential. We should be having, well I would say 1 baptism this week, we COULD have more, but we will have another baptism this week which will meet our...if we have that baptism...we will meet our goals for baptisms for the change. We already met our goals for the month of December, but if we're going to meet our goal for the change, we need 1 more this week. And then hopefully we can keep elevating the zone a little bit at a time. But it's been really good. The zone's been really stable. We haven't had any weeks that we were just like, "oh this week was a tough week" where the numbers just drop a lot. It was just a really good change.

I'm still enjoying being with my comp, Elder Lee. We'll find out changes this week. I have NO idea what's going to happen. I've been here for 3 changes already. So the most logical thing I think would be for me to leave but I could definitely stay with Elder Lee another change because we get along great and we are having success in the sector and in the zone. Elder Lee could also leave, you never know. But we'll find out probably Saturday. We also have exchanges/splits with the assistants tomorrow so that'll be fun. 

I want also, for a spiritual thought, I was thinking about a talk from Elder Holland he gave at BYU for New Year's, I don't know what year, but he talks about a scripture in Luke...I don't want to say the reference in case I'm wrong...I think it's either Luke 9 or 19 verse 32 which says "Remember Lot's wife." (it's actually Luke 17:32) That's like the whole scripture. But the idea is that Lot's wife, well Lot and his family were commanded to leave Soddom and Gommorah, that one is in Genesis 19 I believe, and they kind of dallied a little they kind of lagged behind, took their time, and then they kind of left running from the city and Lot's wife looked back and they had been commanded NOT to look back...to look not behind you. She was turned into a pillar of salt. So Elder Holland talks a lot about why she would be turned into a pillar of salt just from looking back. With the new year, we have an opportunity to look forward a lot more than looking back. The problem isn't the look back because we can learn a lot of things from the past, but he illustrates, or at least the point I get is that we should not look back longing to be in the past, like wishing we were in another time. Just enjoying where we are now and enjoying the hope of an even better future.

So I hope you guys all made it this far in the recording...I know this one was a little long. But I want to wish you a happy new year and I hope everybody is doing well. I love you. Take care!

Elder Olson

Elder Olson "helping" fill balloons at the plaza

Elder Lee, Jorge, Hermano Torres, Elder Olson

Elder Olson on Christmas Day 

Elder Olson and Elder Lee shared a "talent" at the Zone's Christmas Day gathering

Elder Shumway and Elder ? show their "Talent"...Elder Olson couldn't handle staying to record the end...sorry

 Elder Olson's reaction to Elder Shumway's talent

Huge moth under the glass, it was flying around the shower

Countryside

Elder Rogers and Elder Olson in Donihue

The District 

from a Chilean member, Hermano Torres

NOTE: this is not from Elder Olson. This is a letter sent to Elder Olson's parents concerning Elder Olson and the baptism of Jorge.

Hi! I'm Heraldo Torres . Im member of the church and I have been working with elder Olson and elder Lee of the Baquedano branch, Chile Rancagua stake. It has been a great blessing to work with these two missionaries. Recently I baptized Jorge Droguet . I visited Jorge with the elders and it has been awesome to see him progress. 

I attach some picts of these missionaries. 

Thank you for sharing with us those wonderful missionaries !!!

Heraldo Torres L.

Hermano Torres, Jorge and Elder Olson and Elder Lee

Week 70: Merry Christmas!

Note: Elder Olson didn't write any emails this week but we did have a great video call with him. Here are a few clips I thought you would enjoy. 

DECEMBER 24, 2017

week 69:Jorge is getting baptized this week

December 18, 2017

Hey everyone, how's it going?

This is week 4 of transfer 11. And we are just finishing up an activity in one of the play centers/parks here in Rancagua with 3 of the zones and the office. It was like a big combined thing, it was like an Olympics but without sports. Doing things that President's wife invented, like wheelbarrows and piggy back rides and like filling a bucket with water...you know, that kind of thing. So that was fun. And then we had Papa John's!  They gave us a budget for it. I was sooooo excited about that because normally for our zone meetings we kind of pay for everything...we buy food if we're going to do a BBQ or something and then everybody pays us like 2 like dollars per person but a lot of the time it ends up being a little more expensive for us and we lose a bit of money almost every time. But this time they actually gave us extra money to be able to do it so we got some Papa Johns Pizza, which was awesome and had some medals for the winning team for the winning zone. We did NOT win although we kicked butt at the wheelbarrow race and some of the other races but there was a type of soccer baseball mix, almost like kickball, but it was still different from that, and that wasnt good for us because we're 9 gringos in our zone and almost no latinos so we were kind of in trouble for that game.

This week was a good week, we did exchanges/divisions, I don't know what it's called in English, with Do ñihue, I've mentioned it before...it's a country town. So that was good. I was with Elder (?) We're working a lot on talking with everybody. Kind of helping him get over the fear barrier and talking with people in the street. so that was fun, it was good. He's a really really good missionary...great future. He's kind of new in the mission. He only has about 6 months.

The next day, we didn't have lunch, so we just went and bought pork (sorry just had to run across a street) so we made pork tacos, something I'd never done before. Luckily it turned out super good. Elder Lee had had some mexican companions so he  made some sweet salsa the other day and we put the salsa on the pork tacos and it was soooo good. We like grilled up the veggies and blended it all together it was good stuff.

Another thing that was really cool this week was working with Jorge. I'm pretty sure I mentioned him last week. But he is an investigator who we found at the very end of November. We contacted him in the street with Elder Davis. He was just super prepared, like God does all the work with him, we haven't done anything. I mean we've obviously tried to help him as much as we can but he was basically ready to be baptized right away. We moved his baptismal date now...this week we moved it from the 13th of January to the 23rd of December so we're really excited about that. So yeah, he's going to get baptized this week. I'll be able to tell my family about that in the skype this week. He asks questions when he has them, and nobody's gonna just have NO questions. Like he has some doubts every once in a while, but nothing that impedes him from being baptized and he's really excited. There are some members who are really excited to help out with him and actually a member that we've been working with, with him, who's going to baptize him. The story is actually kind of funny. We sent a text so that brother/member asking him to congratulate Jorge on accepting the baptism and that he was going to be baptized. So then we go to talk to that member and he speaks English, and he was like, "Hey guys, guess what?" and we were like, "What?" and he said, "I talked to Jorge." And we said, "Oh? yeah? that's good. And how'd it go?" And he's like, "yeah, it went good, bro. But I asked him if I could baptize him and he said yes. I'M going to baptize him." And haha, so he made an executive decision to kind of decided that HE'S going to be baptizing him which is great, it was just kind of a surprise for my companion and I because we'd planned him to ask him about it in the next lesson. So that was good. 

We had a couple chances to go and help with school activities. We went and sang with the ward choir in Rengo on Tuesday and then yesterday we went and practiced with the Church's Choirs for this big activity in the plaza here in Rancagua that we are going to be doing. So it's actually tomorrow. It's this big Light the World activity, which is going to be cool. 

I think that's about it. Nothing super interesting. I'm excited to talk to the family on Christmas. That'll be good. I don't have my scriptures out to give a good spiritual thought right now. But I hope everyone is doing well. I'm doing great. I love you guys. Take Care! Bye!

Elder Lee and I and our pork tacos

week 68: Throw out the Tea and Coffee

December 11, 2017 (transcription of audio letter)

Hey guys, hows it going? 

This is week 3 of transfer 11 and right now we are on the bus headed back to Rancagua from Rengo. 

We just finished a Pday activity. We went out to Rengo to try to climb a mountain. It did not go so hot, but we had a good time. We had the Elders from Rengo, which is about an hour away from Rancagua, we had them looking for a hill for us to climb as a zone because everybody in the zone wanted to do that for a Pday. So they found, well they kind of found one, they'd talked to some people and they had told them about this hill that we'd have to take a bus to get to and it was up kind of in the mountain range a little bit. So we got to Rengo at about 10:30 at about 11 we took a bus. We thought the bus was going to be a 15 minute ride, 10 minutes maybe, but it turned out to be like an hour long bus ride to the place where we were headed...maybe between a half an hour and an hour. So we got off and it was kind of just the middle of nowhere but we found a trail that was kind of by a campsite. Then we started hiking and first ran into some bee farms so we had to double back and find another trail. So we hiked along for a while and the trail just got smaller and smaller and less and less. I don't know, less hike-able. We, after about half an hour, it got to the point where we were just breaking branches and ducking through trees and trying not to get snagged by too many thorns. Kind of just bushwhacking to make our way through but we were really determined to try to get to the top of the hill. But by the time we got to somewhere which was probably the top, there were just trees everywhere and the trail kind of just disappeared and it was time to head back to make it to the bus. So in the end it was kind of a bummer that we didn't get any cool views or anything like that from the top of the hill, but it was still fun to get out and do something a little different. We got some good group pictures so it was a good time. 

This week has been good. It's been awesome. We've actually been working alot with one of our investigators, his name is Jorge. He is an investigator that Elder Davis and I found in probably the last week of the last change. And he's doing great. I really think he's going to get baptized. He's come to church twice now. Last time we talked to him about the importance of staying for all 3 hours and he actually stayed for the whole time. He also came to a special lesson we had with President Harris and the Stake President here in our stake center in Rancagua. So that was really cool. He's had a lot of questions get answered. He's thrown out his tea and started drinking herbal tea instead. Oh here in Chile, I don't think I've ever described this before but, everybody either drinks tea or coffee or if they're mormon they drink herbal tea or coffee substitute. The one they normally drink is called Ecco that comes from a grain actually rather than coffee but it tastes similar. But EVERYBODY drinks one of those two things. Normally in the night, with their last meal, their onceE~ they drink some of that. So Jorge, his only problem with the word of wisdom, was the tea and coffee, but he wasn't very stubborn about giving it up. After we taught it and asked him if he would do it, if he would keep the word of wisdom, he didn't sound super sure with his commitment but he said he'd do it. And then the next time we went back, he'd given out his tea and he'd switched to herbal tea and was looking for a good coffee substitute and we're going to have to confirm whether he actually left the coffee or not, but I think he did. So he's doing really well. Also in our last lesson with him, we were talking about his baptismal date, which WAS for the 13th of January and he asked if he could get baptized sooner. He wants to get baptized this month, in December, which is awesome. We're going to do everything we can to get him baptized as soon as possible. He's got a shot at getting baptized on the 23rd, right before Christmas, so keep him in your prayers. Hopefully he can make some progress and achieve his goal of being baptized and really being converted. 

Apart from that, on Wednesday we had zone conference with all of the northern zones here in the mission, so it was a little bigger than normal. There were 5 zones there instead of the normal 2. We talked a lot about companionship study and charity. It was good. There was a lot of things I learned I think. We did a part as zone leaders where we took our zones aside and talked about companionship study and did a little fun activity and I think it went well.

Also this week, on Sunday, the Branch President asked me to give a talk in Sacrament meeting which I haven't had to do so far in the mission actually because all of our branches so far and wards have been generally big so I haven't had to give a talk before in sacrament meeting...just get up and give my testimony. So it was fun to prepare the talk. I think it well as well. I talked about being the Light, to go along with the Light the World theme. And we as a mission right now are doing a thing with the members where we are inviting them to pray for missionary experiences and to have missionary opportunities to be able to share the gospel with others, even if it's something small. But every morning and every night we are asking them to pray and to ask for those experiences because really I think a lot of the members and a lot of members in the church in general, we just don't know how to look for those experiences, or we get so caught up in our other things, our other responsibilities, that it doesn't even cross our minds...at least for me it was that way. I was always so busy with my own things, that I never looked for opportunities to be a missionary with others. I still had a few opportunities but I was not very good at actively looking for them. So that's something that I would like to help members here, as well, be able to improve. That's something that I've seen in myself, something I've been able to improve being here on the mission and I hope it's going to be a lasting change. 

Other stuff that has happened in the week...

Yesterday the missionaries in our branch had to go sing in a Christmas devotional to support our branch choir, because the branch isn't too big. They had been saving up for several weeks to come help. So we went over to the stake center and added our voices to the choir. Also, my companion and I sang in a stake choir because they called us and asked us to help with that as well. And I think we're going to be singing at least once or twice more this week. We have another activity in Rengo in the community on Wednesday where we're going to sing and talk to the ...I don't know how many of us missionaries are going to sing and if they are going to have some missionaries contacting people while the rest of us sing...I'm not sure how their ward has this planned out but we'll see how it goes. 

I don't know if there's much more to add but I'm very glad everything is going good. I hope you guys are all having good times or remembering to light the world. So I think that's going to be it. Love you guys. Take care!