Feliz Navidad and a Nuevo Año!

That title was lame. Ain't going to lie.

Painting a school
for a service project.

Anyways, this was a rather uneventful week lesson wise. Everyone had plans for the holidays, and all of the people we did try visiting had family or someone over so we really didn´t get in. At all.

So I talked with my Family on the 24th (fantastic!) and after that we visited the Cisterna´s family for a Christmas Eve dinner. We had really good roast beef with mashed potatoes. They wanted to make sure that we were well fed for the holidays, so they cooked us up something. Love that family!

Thursday, I had already opened my presents on the 23rd so I could say thanks to my family in person for the awesome star trek shirt and missionary supplies that they sent me, so there wasn´t anything under the Christmas tree  However... Christmas dinner... Holy fetch it was amazing! We got together with the Mancilla family (Maca for anyone that remembers) and had Pollo Relleno (Refilled Chicken, I have no idea what it could be in English, they basically filled Chicken with an assortment of meats and other goodies and baked it.) It was absolutely fantastic! Maca taught me how to do Helado Frito (Fried Ice cream)... That stuff is amazing...

The chapel´s sprinkler system broke
 coming home from the service project.
(Saturday, forgot to put that in the letter)

Friday was kind of slow. Lot of walking around, a ton of time trying to find citas. We did get a chance to get into Cata´s house and talk to her dad, who is less active right now. I´ve been getting to know him rather well and I can definitely say that he is really cool. We got into a couple of really cool conversations about planes and engineering topics. I still wonder why he isn´t active... But we are working with him on that.

Saturday was slow again. We only got into one house, but it was mostly just looking for people to teach.

Sunday is our last Sunday where church starts at 11, and we are going to be switching over to the 9 o clock schedule next week... that´s going to be a lot of fun getting up even earlier...

Monday, my comp bought himself some really, really cool new year gifts. There is a store here that sells packs of Rubik Cubes, and my comp bought a pack of a 2x2, a 3x3, a 4x4, and a 5x5 rubiks cube... Dude, that was amazing! They are Shin sho (I think that´s what they were called) competition cubes, and a lot better than the original 3x3 by Rubik's. That was the highlight of that day, the rest of it we spent looking for people, again.

 My comp got into a paint fight while
painting another house. (Tuesday)

Tuesday, fireworks! Only listening to them... We had to be inside when they started to fire those off... That was kind of sad, but the explosions sounded amazing!

Anyways, love you all! Cya in 12!

Elder Faber

So, my comp got engaged.

So we got new agendas! (Finally) and I left my old one in the house... so let´s see how well I remember the week

First of all we have had plenty of service. We helped a guy named Rafa give gifts to over 600 kids at an activity that he organized, by himself, with his own money. And this activity was not cheap. He hired the police and the fire station to come over and give kids rides and let them wear official helmets and such like that! I was in charge of keeping the juice container refilled. Luckily it wasn´t that hot, and it rained during the middle of the activity as well... But we had a really good turn out, and a lot of happy kids.

Then we had another service project... We went to a school that specializes with kids with Down Syndrome, so they needed help getting everything set up, and keeping the peace with the toys and Santa lause. I helped set up the sound system (well, tried before the guy they hired came and took over. He was surprised that I was plugging everything in the right places) and then we helped pass out gifts for each one of the kids. It was a really cool activity. And we got a photo with Santa! 

I also learned how to make Pan de Pascua. that stuff... It´s gross unless if it is made perfectly (which I have seen someone do once in my entire mission). It´s Chilean (mejor dicho, South American) Christmas bread that is basically fruit cake. While we were making it, I met a return missionary who just got back from Brazil and completely forgot Spanish. Pure Portuguese. She could understand Spanish, but could not speak it if her life depended on it. Luckily Spanish and Portuguese are so close together I could understand(ish) and have a conversation.

David and Ignacio got their baptismal interviews, and they both passed with beautiful and amazing colors! They are both set and ready to go for the 4th of January, and Ignacio has asked me to baptise him! Those two were seriously prepared. The Lord does give people miracles, even in Condell.

We had a ward activity last night, the youth put together a dinner activity for the entire ward, and they put me in charge of making the ensalada (it would be salad in English, however the way they do it here is ENTIRELY different than how we do it in the states. Here salad is lettuce drowned in oil and lemons...). That was dumb, because I ended up cutting my finger pretty bad with this strange leaf maker blade thingy... That was fun.

Now to explain the subject line. My comp got a really large, really perfumed package from his girlfriend yesterday. we opened it up, and it was filled with chocolate and a small black box. We opened the small black box, and we found two rings with a note that said "Will you marry me?". He already had a promise ring that he gave her, but these rings were a completely different story. Pure titanium with a small diamond with an engraving that says "I love only you" and "I love you". Dude, that happened... All of us in the house basically died. I still make fun of him for it.

Love you guys a lot! Sorry I can´t remember what days all of this happened, but that´s about it!

Elder Faber

On Christmas Eve we were able to Skype with Joshua.  It was an amazing experience to have as a family.  My thanks to the member who let Joshua use her laptop!

Cambios!

December 17 email ~



Guess what? Im still in Condell! But Fernelius thinks for not much longer...

Omar's Baptism

Anyways, fun week. Even after the accident with my knee last week, I've been going about a little sick... I've been heavily medicated the past couple of days to work, but still happy! Aint no reason on earth to be depressed!

Thursday we had a really fun Family Home Evening with the Sevedra family. They are kind of half active half inactive, so we've been working to keep them on the "active" side. But we had a fun baptism lesson, because Elder Figueroa worked in Chemistry before the mission, so he gave us some chemicals so we can show what baptism does to us. It was pretty fun. then I made French toast for everyone! (yes, i did cook)

Friday, we spent most of the day in the Temple. Recently, the temple has been doing a christmas concert, so if we have an investigator or a menos activo we can go with them, so we brought the cousin of a member that's an investigator. It was an interesting concert... Kind of. However, I managed to find Elder Prada! that was an emotional encounter. I almost cried. Miss that kid.

Saturday we had a conference as a mission. We did service in the morning, met up in the chapel, and we watched Princess Bride as a mission! That was hilarious. Then the Pres gave us as Christmas presents book marks with real leaves from the Sacred Grove in New York! Im not going to forget that gift.

Sunday we went back to the temple with David. Met up with some of the Elders in my old zones. That was pretty cool too.

Monday we finished up all the lessons with David. He's progressed a lot, and now wants Elder Fernelius to baptise him.

Tuesday, I finally met some new people that my comp was teaching but we never managed to find. There's a really cool investigator that had a baptismal date that has a lot of war stories. Other than that, did a lot of contacting.

Today we went shopping! And that's about it. I couldn't play soccer because of my knee, so I read the book of mormon the entire time.

Love you guys lots!
Cya in 13!

Elder Faber

Joshua and his mission "dad" Elder Nichols - who leaves for home in a couple of weeks.

Joshua's looking forward to opening his
Christmas package. :)

Fun Week!

December 10 email ~

Santiago Temple

So, this week was super busy, and super crazy. Let me explain

Thursday we went to the temple. That was super fun, they had too many priesthood holders to do ordinations and baptisms that Elder Cascante and I were permitted to do a session! That was really cool, I went in and got some answers to questions that I had. The temple is a really, really fun place to get revelation, relaxation, and lots of answers.

Friday made me change my opinion about everything about what a mother is. To keep their identities secret for right now, we had a cita with a couple of less actives, and about half way through the lesson the mother broke down and started to cry. It surprised us at first, then we found out why. Her kids (except for a couple of beautiful exceptions) only go to her for money. They rarely ever let her see her grand kids, and they have just been abusing her emotionally for a really long time. We shared some scriptures about the atonement, but it really changed my perspective about how I want to treat my parents as they get older. Parents spend more than half their lives raising kids, developing bonds, and love them with all their hearts. Even when we make mistakes they will love us more than we can imagine. I think it would be a good idea to return the favor. Here´s a special shout out to my parents! Love you guys a lot!

Saturday we did a thing called a ¨cosechón¨ where other missionaries from your zone swarm your sector and do contacts. They did that to our sector this week, and I got paired with my Zone Leader Elder Kimbal. It was really fun, we did a lot of contacts with El es la Dadiva (he is the gift). We got a couple of good references and we´ve got a couple of citas set.

Sunday was fun. We have a menos activo Hno Flores that basically has the Bible and the Book of Mormon memorized. We have no idea why he is inactive, but he gives fantastic lessons. We talked about the Priesthood, and why it was necessary that Jesus was baptized, and how Jesus got the Priesthood from God even though he was from the Lineage of Juda and wasn´t supposed to get it. He also taught me an interesting quote that I liked, it goes ¨No tenga miedo a dudar, porque la duda es la puerta para exploración¨ (Don´t be afraid to doubt, because doubt is the door to exploration)

Monday we started out the week really good. We had David, who told us that he received a super cool answer to his prayer about baptism. He told us that when he prayed in the morning to know if he needed to be baptized, he was completely filled with the Spirit. He said that it was one of the most happiest, awesome experiences in his life. Love that kid. He´s set for his date on the 5 of Jan. We also had lunch with the Bradfords (from Mapleton) and that was a lot of fun, because my comp and Elder Figueroa at the same time screamed at them that I was super good with computers. So what ended up happening is that we got a ride over to the office so I could fix some printers... That was fun.

Tuesday we helped out our other fetcha Ignacio, because he had some doubts about going to church. He doesn´t want to get baptized, move, and get lazy and not go to church because David isn´t there. Good reasons, because we did explain to him what happens after baptism and the importance of going to church. We managed to help him with his doubts, and he learned all ten commandments in less than 10 minutes (that was super cool).

Today... Well, our pday is super short today because of a conference that we will have on Saturday. To say the least, we played soccer. A lot of it. It was super fun until I screwed up my knee. Don´t worry (Mom! Cough cough) because I can still move it.

Other than that, still healthy, haven´t been shot, and still going strong!

Love you guys!

Elder Faber

Joshua and Elder Fernelius at a Chinese Restaurant.

Sooo.....

December 3rd email~

Its hot... Really hot...

This week it got up 95....

I miss snow, really, really bad.

But! It was an alright week!

Thursday not much happened. We had a good lesson with David about his baptism (NEXT MONTH!!!) and he told us that he still hasn't received an answer yet about him being ready or not, but we're working with him to help him figure that out.

Friday we taught Maca (Katana lady) and we had a really good discussion about Nephi and when his bow broke. His brothers whined and complained and Nephi stood strong. Then we taught Cata's mom (a member in the ward that speaks English almost perfectly) about Genealogía because she got a calling the last Sunday. I offered to help her out with any computer issues that she might have using the Family Search engine.

Saturday we had a TON of service... A lot of members decided to get a lot of projects done because of a nationwide television program called "Teleton". Everyone basically gets the day off so that way they can watch this program that is funded to help out kids in need. So we painted a house basically. That was fun. My companion painted himself instead of the walls

Sunday was pretty bad in the chapel... Because of Teleton no one came  our attendance dropped from about 60 - 70 to 40 in a week.

Monday we had a fantastic lesson with David about his baptism (again, but this time with a hitch) we taught with the baptismal questions that the bishop asks during the baptismal interview, and when he answered all of the questions... Goodness, that kid is prepared... He answered yes on everything and bore a really strong testimony. I really wish we could baptize this kid earlier.

Tuesday we spent the entire day in the center of Santiago... My comp got his results back from the doctors from the tests they did to figure out why he's in pain. Out of three tests, he tested negative on everything, which is a good/bad thing. Good because he doesn't have a parasite, bacteria, or a worm, but now we don't know why he's been suffering for the past couple of months. While we were out I bought a new scripture case to support my bible better because my bag is tearing the shiz out of that thing  I really can't afford to buy a new one.

TODAY WAS AWESOME. As a zone we went to a zoo! And watched a live water show (I completely forgot what it is called in English) with a penguin and sea lions!!! That was awesome. It really made me wonder how much time it takes to train one of those to do a show. Now I'm here, and its about 93 degrees outside.... I'm a living waterfall, I'll just say that.

Love you all!!!

Elder Faber