February 24, 2014 (day 83)

Hola hola hola!!!!

This week was quite eventful! It went by really fast because we had a ton to do. I am completely exhausted but very happy!!! Here is a little of what happened:

Martes: We got almost nothing accomplished. It was a frustrating day because Elder Cropper was sick and then we traveled to a little town outside of Olmué and had lunch with a family out there, but they forgot about us so lunch ended up taking 4 1/2 hours! It was the worst haha. We did get one lesson that day with Carlos, who we found out only had a week before he was going to leave for the marines. So he actually leaves tomorrow I believe. His family are all members, but he never had any interest. He was always very cold towards us and didn´t want to talk to us at all. He and his wife, Evelyn, were having some marriage problems because of some bad decisions he had made and were at the point of divorce. There were a lot of people praying and fasting for a miracle. This day we started to see the beginnings of what looked like a real change in him, and I know that it really was a miracle, because I saw how he was before. We committed him to be baptized on Saturday the 22 and he accepted! A great end to a frustrating day.

Miércoles: We taught another English lesson to Humberto, the really rich old guy, and that was fun! We actually taught almost no English becasue we started talking about the gospel, which is what we wanted anyway haha. We had a fun family home evening that night with a big family and then taught Carlos again. Each time we met with him he seemed different. He seemed to be getting happier each time, which was really cool to see!

Jueves: We had lunch with Lorena and Pedro which was fun because we found out that Lorena is pregnant!!! When they go to get sealed as an eternal family in January (that is the goal we have for them), they will have two little kids to take with them to the temple! Really fun! I am kind of an adopted uncle haha. Alonso, their little boy calls me Tío Marchant. We had the baptismal interview for Carlos and everything was set for the baptism on Saturday. So exciting!!!

Viernes: I went on an interchange with Elder Otterson. We stayed in Olmué and had a really good time. We had a lesson with Carlos and he was ready to get baptized the next day so we were really excited!!!!!

Sábado: We had a big service project helping Pedro work on his house with the Elder´s quorum. We worked for like half of the day and then had a little barbeque which was fun. Then we had to hurry home to change and go prepare for the baptism. At 7 we had the baptism and I baptized Carlos which was awesome!! The water in the baptismal font is freezing cold because the hot water in the church hasn´t worked for 6 months haha. But it was ok, I didn´t get too bad of hypothermia ;) But seriously, it was an amazing experience!!!

Domingo: Carlos got confirmed and received the Aaronic Priesthood! We also traveled almost to Santiago and visited a house on the top of a mountain to teach a girl, and only had 30 minutes there before the bus we had to take came by. We caught the bus and then went to a family home evening with Carlos and his family.

Aaaand that brings us to today! We just had a district activity where we watched The Other Side of Heaven and made food from our countries. I made Kraft Mac and Cheese that I found in our apartment from an old elder hahaha. It was kinda funny. But it was a fun activity!

This week was really great! The mission really flies by. It is crazy that I have almost been away from home for 3 months. I really can barely believe it. I love the mission so much!!!! I can´t even explain it, but I wouldn´t trade this for anything. I love you tons and I will talk to you next week!! Chau for now!!!!!! 

Love,

Elder Marchant

Elder Marchant meets Elder Cropper

February 17, 2014 (day 76)

Hola hola hola!!!!!!!

Hi everybody! This week has been crazy! We haven´t been able to sit still for one minute. We always have appointments and places to be, which is what you want as a missionary, so life is good! I am way happy right now! Anyway, this week I missed writing a few days because I had no time in the night or anything, but thats ok. Monday was a great day because I got mail! I had tons of letters. Way more than I deserved, so I felt loved :-) We had a nice relaxing day after a zone meeting, so I felt really good afterwards.

On Tuesday I had no time to write but I don´t remember anything exciting happening. We just worked all day. 

Wednesday was really fun because we taught an English class to the richest guy in Olmué! He is the dad of the owner of a hotel called La Rosa Augustina, which I actually live just around the corner from. He is this 90 year old guy who goes everywhere with his personal assistant and chaufer that is also learning English from us. Haha it is really fun to teach him, because he is surprisingly humble and a little bit of a jokester. 

Oh, now I remember what happened Tuesday. I had an interchange with Elder Hormaechea, my old companion for the day! It was really fun! He came to Olmué to say hi to all of the ward and to visit a ton of people. It was also his birthday and a family invited us over for a surprise they had for him, which was a cake and they wanted to sing for him. The only problem was they also had Elder Hormaechea's family on skype to sing to him. That is like one of the biggest rules in the mission:  you only talk to your family like that on Christmas and Mothers Day. His dad asked if they were breaking a rule, and Elder Hormaechea said yes, so they quickly turned it off. Haha I felt so bad because that threw him off for the rest of the day and probably for like a week. It was a major shock to see his family like that and have to just hang up right away. 

Thursday was a blur, and I didn´t have time to write either unfortunately. But Friday was great! Carlos, who is a marine decided to get baptized! He wants to change things in his family and he is getting baptized this Saturday!!!!!! Carlos´s wife is a member and his son and sister in law are too. He is really trying to turn his life around, and I really hope that all goes well this week. We have a lot to teach him this week. Also that day the President of the mission, President Kahnlein, found out that we are teaching the owners dad of the Rosa Augistina, and he wants to go to one of the lessons with us so he can talk to him about getting a free stay at the hotel hahaha. I really don´t want him to come with us, that would be really intimidating, especially because he is fluent in English and Spanish.

Saturday was good, we taught Humberto English again (owner of the hotel) and then we had a few appointments and then we went to a special conference that was for all of Northern Chile. It was basically like a Stake Conference, but not. 

On Sunday morning, we had the rest of the conference and Elder Quentin L. Cook spoke and a few members of the 70. It was great! We then had some more lessons and in the evening and then went home dead tired. I am always waaaaaayyy tired haha. I actually fell asleep in a lesson yesterday. It was really embarrassing. There is this recent convert named Inés and she talks and talks and talks and talks, and I fell asleep haha. She wasn´t upset though. She´s great though haha. 

But anyway, I had an amazing week! I love the work! I can´t believe I am already half way done with my second change in the mission. We only have 17 changes as missionaries, which is every six weeks. So crazy!!! There is no place I would rather be! Thanks so much for everything! 

With very much love, 

Elder Marchant

February 10, 2014 (day 69)

Hola hola hola!!

This week flew by. Its crazy that it is already Monday. Anyway, usually I bring my journal to the ciber to write down what I did during the week, but I forgot it, so I´m not going to remember much haha. But I´ll try my best.

The week started off good because we found some new people to teach! My companion and I just seemed to be recieving a ton of blessings. We have been trying to be really obedient in everything that we do. Something that I have learned this week, and really has actually seemed to keep showing up in everything I hear and study is that we have to consecrate ourselves to the Lord. What does that mean? I have been thinking about it all week. As a missionary I can have a lot of success if I am obedient. In life in general we can be successful if we obey the rules. But to consecrate our lives to the Lord is more than obedience. Its more than spending every minute of the day trying to invite people unto Christ. To consecrate our lives to the Lord is to accept the Lords will as our own. I can walk around all day spreading the gospel and think in my head the whole time, I don{t really want to do this, but I know I should. I could think that, or I could think, anything that the Lord wants me to do is what I want to do. 

That isn´t an easy thing. I definitely have to improve on that a lot. But what I have learned is that life is about change. We are always becoming better or we are getting worse. There is no stopping change. So we need to continually strive to be better. We need to continually humble ourselves and accept the will of the Lord, or we will not benefit from any of the good things we do. It is one thing to do something good for another person, and it is another to do it for them because you love them and love the Lord. I love the scripture that says that says that we can serve and serve and serve, but if we don´t have charity, or if we don´t love the people we are serving, it does us personally no good whatsoever. Something I think every single person can improve on.

So anyway, I really don´t remember much of this week haha. We have a baptismal date! For the 28th of February with a lady named Jimena. But we think she is going to move to Bolivia like this week, so we are hoping to be able to pass on a reference to the missionaries in the place she is going to live. Other than that we have really just been searching and searching for new people. 

I have to play the piano in church, and it is so bad haha. I mess up so much, but the people don´t judge me. I don´t think haha. I hope we have some time today so I can just go to the church and practice for a while. 

Oh we just had an activity with our zone this morning where a member of the Stake Presidency came and talked to us and I got my mail! I got like 10 letters haha, and a package :-) Thank you thank you for the scripture case and pictures and candy. It is muchly appreciated. 

Anyway, I´m going to have to be better next week and let you know what happens during my week. I don{t remember much if I don´t have it written down. Ooh I was going to say that I keep seeing the dog that bit me and it keeps trying to attack us, so we just throw rocks at it. My companion is really scared of it haha, but we haven´t really had any more problems with that.

haha Funny story I just thought of, every day that we see Pedro and Lorena, Pedro says, no habían corbatas para hombre?? that means, there weren´t any ties for men?? haha they all say I have little girl ties. They just don´t know what real style is. I think I´m going to give my pink tie to Pedro when I leave, which I hope isn´t for a long time!

Well that is pretty much what I have to say haha. sorry I didn´t have much info on the week, but I will be better next week! I love you tons!!!!! Until next week! Chauito!

Con mucho amor, Elder Marchant

This was a prank they played on me in Family Home Evening where you touch the bottom of a plate, but its dark in the room, so you don´t see that you have stuff on your fingers, and then they tell you to rub your face. It was a pretty obvious prank, so I figured it out and wanted to get it all over to be funny. Haha everyone thought I would be really mad or embarrassed, but I knew all along, so it was pretty funny.

February 3, 2014 (day 62)

Hola Hola!!!! 

This week a lot of things changed. I think for the better with everything!!

Not much happened at the beginning of the week, but Wednesday we recieved a call that Elder Hormaechea was getting transferred and that I would be staying in Olmué. We were both surprised and kinda sad, but thats how the mission works. We packed up Elder Hormaecheas things and headed out to say goodbye to a few people for him. The ward here is really sad that he is gone. There were a lot of people crying, we´ll just say that. Anyway, we headed off to Viña and had a short change meeting and I got a new companion named Elder Cropper. He is from Iowa and he has about 1 year in the mission. He is a great missionary! I am going to learn a ton from this change.

Thursday was a bit frazzled. We went to the house that we had been looking at to rent and worked some things out with the owners and we had tons of stuff to do, so we only had about 2 hours to actually go out and do missionary work. Elder Cropper hated our house from day one haha. I guess he isn´t a fan of animal planet. 

Friday we had a talent show in the ward which was pretty fun haha. The other missionaries and I sang Called To Serve in a way that was supposed to be funny but I don´t think it really was haha. We painted eyes on our chins and sang upside down and covered our faces except for our mouths and chin, so that when we sang it was like funny faces singing... I really have no clue how to exlain it. I think everyone was probably wondering what those weird americans were doing. Oh well haha, it was a fun laugh.

Saturday: We had a great lesson with Lucy, who is a lady I have talked about before. She wants to get baptized, but she really wants to get baptized with her husband. The Spirit was really strong in our lesson! We just need to get to know her husband a bit more so that we can teach him! The family is incredible, and I have really come to love them a lot. I know that through the gospel they can be an eternal family! Something that I have definitely realized more is how happy the gospel really makes people. There is nothing on earth that can bring more happiness. I love the gospel!!!!

Anyway, Sunday we had a family home evening with a ton of people which was great! The ward really works hard to invite people to church or to activities. Our ward is great. But we don´t have a pianist. Thats one thing I don´t like. That means I play the piano every Sunday haha. Some songs I don´t know and I just get like 10 minutes to practice and then I have to play. I think it would sound better without the piano most of the time haha. Hopefully I will get better as the weeks go on.

Today we moved houses!!!!! We just got done before we came to write. Our address is Avenida Hugo Quitnteros 5533 Población Carlos Condell, Olmué. Our new house is tiny, but I love it!! 

That is about what happened in my week, other than a lot of walking up hills and crashing on a bike haha. Don´t worry I´m ok. A kid wanted me to take a turn riding his bike and I went into some sand and crashed haha. I didn´t get hurt, just really dirty haha. Oh and my companion just told me he would like to go running in the morning sometimes!! I haven´t been on a run in a long time!

We are going to buckle down and work really hard this week. We have some big goals for this week! I´m excited to work! I love working! The problem is that lately we have had so many things to do that we haven´t been able to work like we want to. But this week looks like we will be able to accomplish a lot! I love being a missionary! There is nowhere else I would rather be!! I love you tons!!! 

Chau!!