May 19, 2014 (day 167)

Hey there!!!

This was a really good week! Also a little interesting and different than normal, but I will tell you about that in a minute.

So basically this week started with visiting less active members and trying to find investigators. We had a great lesson with Andrés on Tuesday and on Friday he had his baptismal interview!! It was awesome! He is progressing towards getting baptized this Saturday and I am beyond happy! Woohoo! But other than that we didn´t teach much this week. The family of 6 that we were teaching never have time to let us in. They are really nice and sincere, but we will see if they will progress at all.

We had a really good zone meeting on Wednesday that was very inspired because the zone leaders talked about a lot of things that Elder Pava and I had recently talked about and that we need to improve. It was great! Mostly we talked about how we need to love the people we are serving. And I can definitely say that I put it into practice this week!

But the part of our week that was really different is that right now we are using a stand thing that we set up in the middle of busy areas like in plazas and parks and stuff that has a big question on it like: How can my family be more happy and united? And we stand on the side saying hola to everybody that passes by and if someone comes over to us and starts talking to them then we can contact them and try and get an address or phone number to teach them. But the key is that we have to wait for them to come to us. I have to say that I don´t like it a whole ton because we have the stand for 8 days. We have to use it 4 hours a day every day. In the 8 hours I have used it, like 7 people have come up to us, not counting all the drunks and people that come to make fun of us haha. It's a really humbling experience, because thousands of people pass by and most people won´t even look at us or say hi back. But its interesting! And the people that are interested make it worth it! But it takes up a ton of our time, so we were running like crazy this week trying to get everything done.

But this week I really learned a lot about loving people. I felt so much love for so many different people this week that I don´t even know! Last night We contacted an atheist man and I was just about crying when he wouldn´t accept our invitation to read the Book of Mormon. In that moment I realized how much this gospel really means to me. When people don´t accept, or make fun of or don´t want to listen to what we have to say, it makes me sad! Because I want them to understand what I do, because somehow, even without knowing them, I love them and want them to be happy. And this gospel makes us happy! 

My companion and I sometimes want to climb up on each others shoulders and start yelling so that everyone can hear what we have to say! Haha, not really, but something like that! 

But that was pretty much my week. I am really happy and really tired haha. I´m always tired. I think thats a good thing though. I love you all, have a good week!

Elder Marchant

May 12, 2014 (day 160)

Hey there! So I am pretty much the happiest guy in the world right now! This was a really good week. We had lots of things happen, but not really tons of time to work. We have extended sudies because I am training Elder Pava, and someimes that takes up a good chunk of our day. We also had a crazy amount of other stuff, which was all real good! We had a few lessons during the week. The best ones were with Andrés. He accepted a baptismal date for he 24th of May. He is so awesome!! He has the biggest desires ever to follow Christ and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to help him take this step in his life. He says he is getting anxious to get baptized. I am so happy to see the changes that are happening in his life!

On Friday we had a little activity in the ward for Mother`s Day that was really fun. Us missionaries put on a little skit that was so much fun! We pretended to be teaching a guy about how we need to respect and love our parents, especially for Mothers Day. He didn´t want to so we decided he needed a change of heart, so we pretended to take him to a doctor (me) who surgically removed his heart (a rock) and put in a new one ( a big pink heart shaped pillow) Lets just say we maybe went a little far with the ketchup and I may have ruined a white shirt. The story really needs to be told in person or you have to see the video, but the file is too big to send haha.

Anyway, The next morning we had a baptism! Martina got baptized at noon. We had to go fill the font beforehand, so we were going to leave the apartment early, but we ran into a little problem. I got locked in the bedroom! It was hilarious! We couldn´t open the door from either side and I eventually just had to climb out the window, because there was no time to disassemble the door in the morning. Haha so that was a little adventure. But we made it to the church in time to prepare for the baptism, and while we were there I just felt at peace. I didn´t have to worry about the door or anything else. The baptism was great! It was really cool to see all of Martina´s family there. Their family is slowly growing stronger in the church and they are way happy! And they can be an eternal family! I love seeing the happiness that this gospel brings to the lives of families!!

Yesterday was pretty much the highlight of my life though. Skyping my whole family from all different parts of the world! So cool! I have been so happy since then! And then we went and taught a family right after, and it was pretty cool! They are a family of 6 and they all want to find out for themselves if what we teach is true! I hope and pray that they will get baptized! The parents names are Jessica and Alan, with two daughters Britney and Mia, and the two sisters of Alan named Carol and Karin. They are great!! 

But that is basically what happened this week! Lots of real real good stuff! I love you all tons! Have an amazing week!!!

Love Elder Marchant

Cereal coming out our noses! 

Martina's baptism

Martina's family

Mom's favorite photo of the week!

May 5, 2014 (day 153)

Wow this week was awesome!!!!!!

Elder Pava and I are having the time of our lives right now. This week was really really awesome.

This week I have really noticed how many weaknesses I have. I am starting to understand the scripture Ether 12:27 a lot more. The Lord sent me Elder Pava to show me how much more room I have to improve as a missionary and as a disciple of Jesus Christ. We started the week off really well. We had a good lesson with Martina, and she is progressing nicely towards her baptismal date for this Saturday!!!!! She will be having the baptismal interview today and we are really excited for her!!! 

Thursday was a crazy day. We started it off nicely with some interviews with President Kahnlein. My interview was really good, and I left feeling really happy and ready to work. I also realized more things that I need to improve as I talked with him. He is really an inspired man and servant of the Lord. He is so awesome!!! But we left from there and had a lesson with Andrés. Andrés still wasn´t sure about his answer–if he wanted to get baptized, but he is so awesome! He decided he wanted to fast, so we decided to fast with him. So he decided during this fast to go and hike a mountain and sit on the peak. Its not really a mountain, but a really really big hill I would say. But he hiked that on Friday morning with the Bible and the Book of Mormon. He sat there for about 3 hours comparing the two and praying to find out what he should do. He is so awesome!!!!!!!! He finally came down and we went and visited him. He said he still wasn´t sure, but that he had received a lot of answers to prayers up there on the mountain. We watched the Restoration with him and talked about the importance of baptism. He still has not given us an answer, but he will figure it out soon! I have never seen someone so motivated to follow Christ, and I love it!!!!!

Oh I forgot to mention that right before that lesson we had a lesson with some recent converts and their cousin who is not a member. We started to watch a video and I got really really sick. Haha I had to leave and go to the bathroom in the middle and I threw up everything in me and was in the bathroom forever haha. I don´t know what I ate, or how the video ended haha because I missed it. But my companion taught the lesson solo and he did really good I think haha. But that was a fun experience. 

Anyway, Then we had another lesson that was even more way awesome because we taught a family!! They are way awesome! Jessica and her two daughters Brittany and Mia and then two sister in laws named Karin and Carol. They said they would read the Book of Mormon and pray and come to church, so we were really happy. 

The next day we went back to their house with a married couple who are members and watched the Restoration with them. They got really excited to come to church and said they would.

And yesterday they came!!!!! We had that family and Andres come to church and the meetings were all so awesome! They all felt the Spirit and I have just been so happy ever since!!! I can´t wait to go visit them today! I will be sure to let you know next week when they are going to get baptized because they sure will!! Anyway, I am just really happy and content right now. That's pretty much what happened in my week and I am very very grateful for the blessing of the gospel in my life. I love you tons!!

Elder Marchant

April 28, 2014 (day 146)

Hola Hola Familia!!!

This was a really long week. Kinda. Everything still flies by, but a ton happened!

On Monday after emailing, we climbed this big mountanissh hill close to where we live. It was really fun and way cool to look down from up there. We could see two big cities and the ocean from where we were. I will attach some photos.

Tuesday started out really good. We just visited tons of people and waited all day for the zone leaders to call to tell if there were changes. We couldn´t really focus all day. We ended the night at our Mamita´s house to pick up our clothes, and the zone leaders called and let us know that Elder Brown would be getting transferred. We were pretty devastated. We really grew to be way close in the last 6 weeks. It was pretty hard. So we went home immediately from there to start packing his bags. We finally got to bed at about 2 in the morning. At 6ish the next morning we were up to take him to the bus terminal. We said goodbye and I stayed with Elder Pederson, another elder in our ward for the day. We had a good day running my sector and his at the same time. Then we went to his house to wait for the zone leaders to call and let us know when our knew companions would be coming. So we ordered some delivery sushi and hung out until about midnight when we had to go back to the bus terminal to pick up our new companions. 

We got there and I found out my new companion is named Elder Pava. He is so awesome! He is from Colombia and got baptized 4 years ago. He is 18 and is such a great example to me. I am his trainer because he is a brand new missionary, but he is already training me. We got to bed at like 2 again that night, so in two nights of sleep I only got 9 hours of sleep haha. But that doesn´t mean we get any time to rest. I don´t think I would have made it through the week without the Lord´s help. I was exhausted haha.

The next few days I was trying to help Elder Pava get used to the mission and we visited lots of people, but didn´t have tons of success in the work. But on Saturday we found a new investigator named Danisa who is gret! She will be lots of work, but she is awesome. She said she would come to church so we were really happy. 

On Sunday the only investigator we had come was Martina, who is the 9 year old. Which was great, but we wanted to se some other people there.

We finished with church and then had to go study a little, so we started working at about 6. We started with a lesson with Martina and she accepted to get baptized on the 10th of May! We felt really good about that, and then we went to Andréss house and invited him to get baptized on the 18th. We had a very spiritual lesson and he is so awesome! He said he wants a week to pray and read the scriptures and make a decision. Pray for him that he will receive an answer!!!

So that was a really good way to end the week! I am really happy! I traded one great companion for another and I am loving the work. I feel like I am really beginning to get lost in the work. And I love it!

I hope everybody has a wonderful week! I love you tons!!!!

Love, Elder Marchant

This is the view from the big mountainish hill by where we live

Elder Brown and me

Elder Pava

April 21, 2014 (day 139)

Hey there everybody!

Sorry if this email has a lot of mistakes because my keyboard is horrible. ( I tried to make it less painful for everyone to read so all of the mistakes that I caught have been corrected. It is amazing what the mind will add or ignore when reading though. )

This was  really good week! We saw a fair amount of success and we learned a ton every day.

Monday was good. We bought tons of food. Enough for two weeks. We really don´t need that much because we only eat breakfast and a snack at night. So really we just buy cereal and Chilean milk which is the most sorry excuse for milk I have ever before witnessed. But I´m used to it. And we buy fruit and this stuff called Ecco, and lots of ingredients for brownies haha. But we´ll just say we loaded up on food. We had a family home evening that night which was good, because it was with a family of recent converts and the daughters invited a friend who isn´t a member. It was a good day!

Tuesday we visited a bunch of less active members, and that was good, because they came to church yesterday!

Wednesday we had a zone meeting. It was awesome. We learned a lot about how we should be teaching. We did lots of practices. The zone leaders said that President Kahnlein wants our whole mission to change how we teach, because I might be alright, but we are not teaching the way the Lord wants us to, or else we would b having more success. We learned a lot about the Spirit. In teaching we need to talk less and give the Sprit time to testify. We also can´t use the same words when we teach or when we contact in the street. We should just follow the spirit and literally not think about what we will say and just listen. To the investigator and the Spirit. We just need to focus on saying what the Lord would have us say and we will teach in a much more effective way. I think that goes for anyone who is tryng to share the gospel.

I also got 2 packages and some letters which was nice :) Thanks mommy and daddy and Janice and Donald!!

Thursday I felt rushed the whole day, but we got a few lessons with some inactive or less active members which was great!

Friday I had an interchange with my district leader. We had lunch at a house way far away, so we tried to catch a taxi at about 1 and didn´t get one until 2ish. We finished lunch and got to work around 5 in the afternoon haha. But we had a couple really good lessons. One was with Andrés. He is so awesome! He really just wants to follow Christ. We asked if he would get baptized and he said he definitely wants to he just isn´t really sure yet. I felt so good in the lesson. I love the happiness that comes from sharing what I know to be true! Oh, we also drank some homemade beet juice whch was fun haha. Not really.

Saturday we didn´t have much success until the night when we had another lesson with Andrés. We answered some questions he had and he said he wanted to come to church with us in the morning. 

Sunday He came! We walked by his house and picked him up and I think he really liked church! We are going to invite him to get baptized when we visit wth him tonight. He is so awesome. Basically that was our week. We taught some english lessons on a few different occasions which was fun. We still haven´t started teaching piano lessons, but we are working on that because it could be pretty fun :)

Have an amazing week everybody! I love you tons!!

Love Elder Marchant

To answer your questions, yes I got the package! Thanks a ton!! the candy is almost gone after like 5 days. No, we don´t do the laundry, we have a mamita named Hermna Viviana who is the relief society president. She says to say hi to you guys for her. She is awesome. I love their family so much! We get lunch from members every day except for Monday. And sometimes we get food from them in the evening as well. But that is just by coincidence. We walk tons except for when we go downtown to do interchanges or go to district or zone meetings. But during the week we walk tons. It is about a 25 minute walk from home to the church and we do that frequently. Occasionally we walk to a little town about an hour away but that is rare. So when we go downtown we go by taxi. They are called collectivos actually. They run a specific route. Taxis take you wherever you ask and they are way expensive. And we take buses sometimes. They are called micros. So ya! 

April 14, 2014 (day 132)

Hola Hola!! Hey just so you know I am doing great and am not currently in any danger of fires or tsunamis. I probably don´t even know as much as you guys do about the fires. I just know that about 2000 homes have burned down and that there is going to be a good portion of missionaries who will be doing a lot of service in the near future. But I am like way far away. Its like a 5ish hour bus ride from where I am in La Serena. And I´m in an elevated area so if a tsunami comes, there is no way it will reach me. But please pray for all the people in Valparaiso. They are going through some rough times right now.

This week we actually saw some success! It was cool to see some miracles happen after a few weeks of feeling like we were not really doing much. On Tuesday I had an interchange with one of our zone leaders, Elder Sherwood. He came with me to the ward I am in and we had a great day! We set some goals before the day to teach a lesson accompanied by a member, another lesson, and 2 lessons with less active families. We prayed specifically to be able to reach those goals. And we did exactly that! We taught a girl named Martina who is 9 and she accepted a baptismal date! Currently we are waiting to see if we need to change that date, because it doesn´t look like the dad wants her to get baptized. Please pray for her! Her mom, Francisca, just got baptized in February and they are great!! We also taught another lady, Jessica at the door of her house. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and invited her to read and pray about it. We read the introduction together and she got excited because she said if this book was true it would change everything. And she is so right!! Unfortunately we have not been able to get a return lesson with her but we keep going by like every day, so we will see!! It was really cool to see the Lord answer our prayers exactly. He really does listen!!

Wednesday was not too eventful other than English class. We had a whole 2 students come. So we decided to learn how to pray in english and sing the ABC´s haha. It was really fun.

We had a lesson with a kid named Ivan on Friday. He is 17 and so awesome!! He is looking for the truth and it just so happens that one day my companion and his old companion knocked on his door with the answer! We haven´t been able to get a lesson with him for like a month because he is way busy, but we finally did on Friday! We taught him about the plan of salvation and he is so humble and willing to to what the Lord tells him to do. We don´t have a baptismal date with him yet, but I think there will be one coming! It was just another miracle to get that lesson with him! I think we will be having another on Wednesday!

Yesterday we had a lot of nothing happen except for some less active members came to church which was great! We were going to have a family home evening with the bishop, but he forgot and scheduled another one with the other missionaries in our ward, Elder Valencia and Elder Pederson. That was a bummer. But it was getting late and we weren´t having luck getting in anywhere, and then we felt like we should go to a less active member´s house and we did. She was home and let us in. We started talking to her grandson who is not a member. At first we were just trying to help him with his calculus homework with no success because I didn´t remember a thing. Plus its harder in spanish haha. But we talked about religion with him and he is way interesting in learning from us. He was so awesome! His name is Andrés and he is my age. I am so inspired by people who have desires like he does to find the truth. We should be teaching him this week too so I will let you know how it goes!! 

All in all, this was a wonderful week! We saw tons of miracles and we are starting to see the work pick up a little!! I love everything about the mission and am happier than ever! Have a great week!! I love you tons!!!

Love Elder Marchant

April 7, 2014 (day 125)

Hola!!! 

I hope everyone is doing well!! 

This was a week of some mixed emotions, but I am doing really well and happier than ever!

Something kinda fun that happened this week was on Tuesday night when I was on an interchange with Elder Pozo. He is a missionary in my district. We stayed in my area and worked and I tried to not get us lost because it was my first time without my companion in my sector. It went really well fortunately, but in the night when our district leader was supposed to call us, nobody called. We were kinda worried, but we just went to bed. In the morning when we met up with our companions they told us that everybody's cellphones stopped working because too many people had been on their phones and it jammed the system.

There had been a tsunami warning and everybody had to go to higher ground. My companion and district leader were able to just stay at their house, but the zone leaders had a sleepover at their house that night. Haha everyone was worried, but it was just precautionary. We have had a bunch of earthquakes here in Chile, but I only felt like 2 last week. And they weren´t bad at all.

On Thursday we had a zone conference from 8 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. President Kahnlein came and talked to us and it was a really uplifting, good time. I learned a ton of stuff that I need to improve. We haven´t been having much success here in our area and we don´t know why. But we learned some great things and plan on making some good changes. 

General conference was awesome! We got to listen to it in English with the other gringo missionaries, and I loved every minute!! I learned a ton. I think my favorite talk was by Boyd K. Packer. He testified with incredible power that Jesus Christ is our Savior. It hit me really hard when he said that he knows our Savior personally. It was inspiring to me, and it makes me want to work a lot harder to get to know my Savior better.

I know that this church is true and that we have a living prophet on the earth that talks to God and directs the church by revelation. I am so happy to have the opportunity to be out sharing that with the people of Chile!

I hope everyone has an amazing week! I love you tons!!

Love, Elder Marchant

Hi there!!!!!!! so to answer a few of your questions, I am in La Florida, which is part of La Serena, but is like 20 minutes away from the coast, and we are at a higher elevation, so less worries with tsunamis.

English class was alright this week, but we had an 8 year old student and then two other ladies that came like an hour late, so not much success. 

Still haven´t started piano lessons, but I think we will this week! Should be really fun haha! 

Me and Elder Brown having a little fun after planning one night. haha

March 31, 2014 (day 118)

Hey there!!! This week flew by! I feel like it was just barely Monday. Anyway, I needed a day of rest because I am exhausted. This is what I did this week:

Monday after emailing we went and made some pancakes in the apartment. We`re getting some good use out of our new oven. We visited a few people, or tried to. Nobody ever follows through with the appointments we have with them. When we got back in the night I cut Elder Brown´s hair. Haha it was really long. I hope his new haircut looks ok. 

Tuesday: We did some service in the morning. We tried to seal a lady´s roof with tar. That was fun. We spent a really long time trying to wash the tar off our hands haha. I then went on an interchange with our district leader. We walked a ton and knocked a lot of doors. We gave it a really good effort, but didn´t see much success.

Wednesday: We had a bunch of appointments that all fell through, so we visited tons of less active members which was really good. Then we had English class which was pretty fun. I`m not sure I´m a very good teacher but it was exciting. We have one guy that comes and he loves english so much its kinda ridiculous haha. But he is going to bring 5 of his friends next time, so we are going to have a pretty good size class.

Thursday: We worked like crazy. We knocked a bunch of doors and made tons of visits. We met a lady named Laticia who we talked to for a little and gave her a Book of Mormon. It was really cool to talk to her. She said that she was going through some really hard times in her life a few years back and she was in the street one day frantically running because she was so upset and she was thinking about taking her life. She ran by an LDS church and somebody stopped her and took her in the church to talk to her and calm her down. She said that that person literally saved her life. I know that God places his children in the right places at right times to help other people. I also know it wasn´t a coincidence that we knocked on this lady´s door. I love seeing the Lord work through his children! So that was a really cool experience. We didn´t have much more success that day, but we ended the day nicely by throwing some brownies in the oven. We make lots of brownies. We are starting to become famous for them in the ward.

Friday and Saturday we just worked really hard and walked tons and tons and tons. And I loved it :) But still we did not really get into any houses which was a little disappointing. We tried to invite lots of people to church on Sunday. And lots of people said they would come!

Sunday: Nobody came to church. Haha surprise! It is a little frustrating when people say they will come but they don´t. We are pretty used to it though. People don´t know what they are missing!

We walked tons and tons and tons after church. Like maybe even more than usual. We ended the day completely exhausted. It was crazy that the week was already over. 

This morning we made more german pancakes for breakfast. This time with new eggs. So far our tummies are still holding up just great! We went to Walmart and walked around down town a little bit. So far a really good day! I also finished the Libro de Mormón today!! That was great!! I found a scripture that I really liked in the end. Moroni 8:3 ( I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end.)  It reminded me of everyone at home :) I invite you all to read it!!

Anyway, thats basically how my week went!! I love you all tons!!! Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Marchant

p.s. Oh and maybe if you want to race me with reading the Book of Mormon, I will be starting over tomorrow and reading it in 3 months! Good luck if you are up for the challenge!!

March 24, 2014 (day 111)

Hola Hola!!!

I hope everybody had a great week!! My week was pretty good! I love every moment of the mission! Right now we are not having too much success, but I am still excited to be here and ready to go once we find some people to teach! This is what I did this week:

On Tuesday we woke up and made some german pancakes for breakfast. We just got a new oven and bought some cooking supplies last Monday. We made tons of german pancakes. They were wonderful, but it turned out that some of the eggs we use might have been a little old and we spent the day running back and forth between our apartment and the church to use the bathroom haha. Oh well. Unfortunately we did not get much done that day. Just knocked a bunch of doors with little success. 

Wednesday: We left the apartment and our zone leaders called and asked us if we could bring them the copies of the keys we were supposed to make for our apartment. Turns out we forgot to make the keys and we left the only key that exists in the apartment with the door locked behind it. We didn´t have time to go try and break in at the time so we went to our district meeting and then to lunch and made a few visits before returning home and trying to enter in a window. I think it was actually a blessing that we locked the keys inside because we found out how incredibly easy it is to break into our apartment through the window. We are now trying to figure out a way to secure that haha. Something cool that happened that day was that we were just walking and Elder Brown thought we should go contact this little street and so we decided to do it. The first house we knocked on, a lady came out and once we said that we were representatives of Jesus Christ, she let us in. It looks like there is a big family that hopefully we will be teaching this week. I´m really glad Elder Brown listened to that prompting he got to go contact that street.

Thursday:  We knocked tons of doors and didn´t seem to have much success at all. We still were happy and working hard, but we just didn´t get into any houses all day.

Friday: We received a reference from our zone leaders and this guy lived a little ways away, so we decided to call him and see if we could visit him in the morning. We knew the house was a little ways away, so we started walking. Turns out it was about an hour walk to his house. Luckily we got in and had a lesson. His name is Germán. He is very open to what we have to say. We had a great lesson, and then we got to walk home haha. We got to our lunch appointment an hour late, but it was ok because we called them. We spent the rest of the day knocking doors.

Saturday: We knocked doors. This was the most tired I have been in the whole mission. That was the first day I just wanted to go home and sleep haha. Luckily we made it through the day.

Sunday: I got to speak in church :) how fun is that? I gave a 15 minute talk about the Holy Ghost. I was really nervous because it was my first full length talk in Spanish, but I prayed that I would be calm and I got up there and was just fine! We went and visited some people after church and then guess what we did! We went and knocked more doors! We are trying to knock every door in our sector. I think it will take about 3 months to do it haha, but we are making some good progress. 

Even though this week we really didn´t see much success, I still am always excited to go work. I really love working. There were days in my last sector when we would have tons of stuff to do and just wouldn´t have that much time to go teach and knock on doors and stuff. But I love working! I am happier than ever when I am working! I love being a missionary :) 

Anyway, that was about what happened in my week! I love you tons! Have an amazing week!!! Oh ya I just remembered that we are going to start teaching piano lessons haha. The bishop wants us to teach lessons so that they can have people who will play the piano in church. That should be fun!!!

Elder Brown and Erik

March 17, 2014 (day 104)

Hola hola familia!!!!! This week there was a lot of change. I`ll get to that in a minute though. 

This is how my week went: 

 Lunes: I don`t remember if I mentioned this last week, but we went to get some stuff from the zone leaders and so we went to the church in their area. My companion, Elder Cropper, and one of the zone leaders, Elder Newbold were playing soccer in the church and broke a window. That was real exciting. I don`t know if they ended up getting into trouble or not. 

But then we went to the zone leaders apartment where Elder Hormaechea cut my hair, and then we hurried home to get to a family home evening with our ward mission leader and his family. The Hermanas also came and we had a little farewell party for whoever out of the four of us was going to go. It was really fun. I really love that family. 

 Martes: We went and made some visits and spent a lot of our day out in a little town and then ended with another family home evening with a family and some friends of theirs. It was really good and the spirit was strong. There was a less active member family there and they seemed to be making progress towards getting back to church, but I don`t know if they went yesterday or not. 

 Mièrcoles: We woke up in the morning, and while we were doing our daily exercises, the zone leaders called us. Change time! They told me that I would be leaving and Elder Cropper would be staying. I pretty much wanted to cry haha. But also in some ways, I really needed to get a new companion. It was a little bit of a struggle sometimes. So anyway, I had like 5 hours to pack up and then go say some last goodbyes. I got packed and showered and then was ready to go, and Elder Cropper was taking tons of time. I wanted to go visit Pedro and Lorena and we were going to have to take a bus to go see them. I was ready to go and then some things happened that made us lose tons of time and I didn´t end up getting to see them :( I actually didn`t really get to say goodbye to anybody. Maybe that made it a little easier, but I was pretty sad. I really love those people, and I am sad to be gone, but that happens in the mission. Haha I left my pink tie for Pedro and he just emailed me, so it sounds like he liked it hahaha. 

But anyway, we headed off to Viña for our big change meeting and Hermana Frandsen bore her testimony which was really cool. I didn`t get to talk to her before or after though. She actually went to my old zone. She is in Limache. I got called to the north. I am now in La Serena. My ward is La Serena 4 and I am in a place called La Florida. Its a huge city here. I am out of the central part and more in an urban area, but it is huge. 

My companions name is Elder Brown and he has been in the mission for 6 more weeks than me, so we are both young in the mission. He just got out of high school too and he way cool. We have a good time together. We had some really busy days the next few days and I didn`t get tons of time to write, but I went on an interchange with the zone leaders to the central part of the city and I learned a ton. I was with Elder Cannell who is from Logan and he is almost done with his 2 years. We went out in the street and literally just contacted every person we could. He taught me a ton. I really had a good time with him. 

He taught me that as missionaries, we really can receive revelation. I have received revelation in the mission, but not quite in the way he showed me. He told me to look at the area book, that just has tons of papers and people and stuff, and he told me to look in the old investigators section and pick by revelation which one of them we should visit. I learned a lesson that really if we trust in the Lord and pray he will give us what we need. I really was directed to page in that book and found the person we needed to visit. I am amazed that our Heavenly Father without fail will give us what we need when we need it if we just ask. I know that revelation exists and that we can all receive personal revelation for ourselves.

On Sunday I got to speak for like 5 minutes in church which was fun. Thats normal for missionaries when they go to a new area. There are 4 Elders in our ward. Elder Valencia and Elder Pederson and then us. The ward is really big and our chapel is really cool looking. I need to take a picture of it. There is a recently returned sister missionary in the ward that served in Arequipa! I asked her about it and she knows Erin!! How cool is that? That got me pretty excited. 

I really like my knew area, but it is a ton different than Olmuè. Olmuè is like my second home, but I think I will really come to love this place too. Today for our preparation day we went to the center of the city to Lider. Lider is just Walmart in South America. Or at least Chile. It was huge! Definitely the biggest store I have been in here and I think about the same size as Walmart at home, so I was really excited about that. 

I also went to Mcdonalds haha. That is the first time I have seen a fast food restaurant here. Wait, actually I just remembered that there is a Dominos too. I haven`t been there though haha. 

So anyway, la Serena is waaaayy different than Olmuè, but it is great! I am really excited to get to work here. I am really happy to be with my new companion too. In the last few days we have already had a ton of fun together and learned a bunch. 

 I love you! Talk to you next week!! 

Chau! 

Love Elder Marchant

Erik and Elder Otterson (pix from the mission blog)

Hermana Frandsen just came from the Chile CCM to the Viña del Mar mission.
She is a friend from Jordan High.

March 10, 2014 (day 97)

Hola hola!!

I have learned a lot this week! It was a little bit of a tough week, but I am doing wonderfully!!

This week we worked really hard. We contacted and searched for people to teach and visited tons and tons of people, but we taught 4 lessons the whole week which is really bad. We can't figure out why we don't see much success. We have some good investigators, but nobody is progressing towards baptism which is frustrating.

We had a family home evening last night where we invited like half the ward haha, but guess how many people showed up! Like 2 haha. We had a very spiritual meeting though and we talked about how much the gospel means to us in our lives. We talked about our own personal conversion to the gospel and how important it is that we share what we know with other people. 

Not everyone will listen or accept. In fact, most people will not. There is a statistic in our mission that out of every 20 investigators that we have, which means that we have taught them at least once and have a return appointment, only 1 of those will progress towards baptism. Many people even will know that what we are teaching is true, and have very spiritual experiences and receive answers to their prayers, and yet will not want to get baptized or progress. 

I have seen that a ton in the people here. In order to get baptized a lot of people have to get married. Everybody here lives with their boyfriend or girlfriend and doesn't want to get married. We see so many people that just don't understand how important this gospel is. A lot of people see our church as something ''muy lindo'' which is very beautiful, but that is all they see in it. Even when they realize they need the gospel in their lives, many times they don't accept! Its frustrating! But I know how important it is so I am going to keep on sharing!

I love being a missionary! I have never felt more joy and happiness in my life than I have out here. Its crazy how we can spend a hot day out in the dusty streets and come back dead tired, but yet be really happy. It happens every day actually. I have never been more tired in my life. Unfortunately I have fallen asleep in the middle of lessons sometimes haha. I am exhausted. But it is worth it! 

This week we have transfers and I just hope that I stay. I really love Olmué and the people here. We will see what happens on Wednesday, but I think I will be going.

Anyway, I don´t have any crazy stories for the week I don´t think. Nothing that I remember at least. I am doing real good though :) I hope everything is going wonderfully back home! I love you tons! Chauito!!!!!

Love Elder Marchant

March 3, 2014 (day 90)

Hola everybody!

This was a pretty uneventful week. We worked hard all week but really didn´t see any fruits from our labor. I am really happy though!! I don´t really know why I am so happy because really not much good happened this week. We didn´t have many lessons at all and nobody showed up to church yesterday. I don´t know. It's hard to not have anybody to really teach that is progressing, but we still have a ton of work to do so that is good.

The first few days in the week we basically just knocked on doors and visited less active members and tried without success to find people to teach. Thursday we went to have lunch with a member family that lives out in the middle of nowhere and we started working with them to re-activate members and find new people that live out by them. It was really fun to see this family get so excited to help with the missionary effort. They got really excited and we have a family home evening with them tonight because they really want to help us out to teach people. We also went to a little corner store while we were out there and this lady had a really nice ice cream machine!! We got really excited so we got some. That isn´t something you normally see out here. Ice Cream is different here, not as good really. But anyway, that was something kinda fun that happened. Then the lady started taking pictures of us which was weird. Haha I guess we stand out a little bit. 

Friday we got to wake up at 5:30 in the morning and I went to a city called Villa Alemana to work with a couple other missionaries while all of our companions went to a meeting in Viña because they are district leaders. It was fun to work with a couple of elders that I didn´t know before. I got mail that day which was fun! I got a few cards and stuff, so I was happy! 

Saturday our recent convert Carlos and his wife Evelyn and their kids moved to the southern part of Chile and it was kinda sad to see them go. He is a marine and is going to go to Haiti to help with the relief effort there. I got to give him and his son Diego a blessing which was a really special experience. I have really grown close to these people and it is hard to see them go. 

Sunday was a tough day too. We didn´t have anybody show up to church and we just feel like we aren´t having any success. I am hoping for a better week this week. This is the last week of this change. So crazy how fast it goes by. I´m pretty sure I will be getting a new companion next week. I just hope that I will stay here in Olmué for the next change. 

But like I said, I am really really happy! I really can´t explain it, because we have had a disappointing week, but I just feel good. I am happy to be here and I am having the time of my life! This church is true! I guess thats why I´m happy! Thank you for everything! I love you tons!!!!!!! Until next week! Chau!!

Love Elder Marchant

 Carlos and his family

Huasos are just cowboys here.