Marchant Clan: 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