So,,,, Not Much Happened.

“El servicio hace que miremos a lo que tenemos a nuestro alrededor, y no hacia nuestro interior. El servicio

nos impulsa a considerar las necesidades de otras personas antes que las nuestras. El servicio justo es la

expresión de la verdadera caridad tal como el Señor lo mostró.”

This week... Well to say the least, much stuff really didn't happen.

I lead the sector on Thursday, and most of our lessons fell through, so we did a lot of contacting. However our appointment with David was really good and we taught him about Thomas S Monson, so he can get an idea on who he is and why the prophet is super important in our days. 

Friday, we were supposed to have a conference with Elder Evans again to talk about the "Pilot Plan" that only 4 missions were doing in South America (Santiago West and South, and two more in Argentina), but it was cancelled when the First Presidency said that the Pilot plan that we were a part of is now going to be applied to every mission in South America, and are going to try to expand it to other countries. Yeah, not much happened there either. 

Saturday, well, no one was answering their doors, and all of our citas fell, so we went to a member's house that is preparing to go to the temple, and to share with her mother (who we just got a calling for this week!) who was inactive at the time. They served us Cinnamon Rolls (almost died of happiness) and then I had another episode of vertigo... That was fun, we couldn't leave for at least an hour until I could get my senses back. Then the phone call to the mission nurse was fun too, she yelled at me for about 15 minutes asking why I didn't call her after the second incident.

Sunday, David went to church! However the rest of the people we were teaching and most of the ward weren't there... I'm afraid if we baptize him he'll be more active than the entire ward... Then during the night, my comp started to have severe stomach pains that kept him up all night. 

Monday we visited the menos activa that threatened me with the Katana. Her name is Macarena (like the song) and we had a good discussion with her about what she's reading in the book of Mormon. AND SHE PROMISED TO COME TO CHURCH SUNDAY!!! Finals ended and she thinks she'll be able to make it this week. 

Tuesday was a nightmare. The pains that Fernelius was feeling finally killed all of his animo. We did intersector divs and my comp and Figueroa went to the hospital until about 4 in the morning... We all woke up tired today.

Wednesday, well, they were having a sell at a store here on all soccer gear, so we decided to try it out. I tried buying some decent field cleats for the large field next to our house, however the guy tried ripping me off by raising the price by 30 bucks... :P Instead of doing that, I went and bought some decent soccer socks for cheap (without getting ripped off)

That's my week! Love you all! 

Elder Faber

Joshua and Elder Cascante

New Sector, New Way to Eat Lunch

Joshua and Elder Figueroa painting a cart that will be used
to hand out toys to kids in need.

So this week was interesting (as always)

Thursday, I can't really explain a lot what happened in my sector, but I did divisions in the sector right next to me. I had a really scarry contact that thought that he was Jehova and that he threw back missionaries with his faith by raising his arm... I can't really remember what happened, but I do remember running my legs off.

Friday... hehe, we had a really fun cita with one of our investigators named Liliana. There's a word here in Chile called "palo". The first time I heard someone use that word, they described it as "Jeffery R Holland punishment". Why did I mention that? Because that's basically what we did. She said that she had a revelation that God told her that she didn't need to be baptised and that nothing is going to happen after this life. I'll just say that we read a good amount out of 2 Nephi 31 and the New Testament. However, it worked! She showed up and it seemed like she was still happy with us! We managed to get back to her house on monday and she still let us in.

Saturday was a good day. We didnt get any lessons because of the amount of servicio that we had, but I went back to Nocedal for the baptism of Valentina! That was a good baptism. Apparently the ward had put a massive emphasis on this baptism, but when we got there, guess what? No one from the ward showed up... HOWEVER. The Henriquez family went all out and invited their entire family! We had over 60 people show up, and only 5 were members. That was a good day, I passed out at least 10 the Resturacion pamphlets... Good day.

Sunday... Lunch... That was a fun, scary lunch... What happened? Well the member gave us a ton of food, and I realized that I wasn't going to be able to eat all of it. So I politely told her that I couldn't finish it. That was a mistake... She got super mad, went into the house (we were eating outside because she didn't have a man in the house) and came back 30 seconds later with a freaking Katana! She sat in front of me, watched me eat until I ate every single bite...

Monday. David and Ignacio. Those two guys are perfect (se que ustedes han unido con este grupo, entonces no voy a hablar mal jaja, no se precupe, trato a decir solo buenas cosas) we taught them a really cool lesson, and they said that they are still working on trying to get answers. David already has a testimony that the church is true, and Ignacio is working on it. We got him caught up with the missionary discussions so we can teach him and David at the same time. Now that we have the support of their parents and also from the President (ya!) we can baptize them a month early! HAHA

Tuesday, well Elder Fernelius accidentally cooked something really bad (it was a really weird pancake that looked like a stake of all things...) so we basically had to stay inside while he recovered. So we went to the chapel so we can get some secretary work and rescate work done. Then I had a thought. We have a computer there that is "broken" (so says the chilean tech support) so I decided to fix it. And that is exactly what I did. Yep! I am awesome.

Today was great! We put together teams and did a little "Fifa" as sectors. We got together as a house and wore our Colo Colo jerseys! To give you an idea, that's chile's ghetto team. It was a good game, even though we lost.

That's about it! Love you all!

Elder Faber

Apostles and Trains

So... This week was super interesting. Especially today, hence the subject line.

So we have a super fantastic Investigator named David that we have been teaching. This guy is FANTASTIC, BEYOND MENTION. We found out recently that the lessons that we teach him, he goes and teaches his best friend, and when we invited David to church, he brought Ignacio (the friend) TO FREAKING CHURCH! HOW COOL IS THAT!? We managed to teach Ignacio before Mutual last night and we placed a baptismal date with him for the 4 of January!!!

Speaking of investigators, Valentina from my last sector will be baptised by her dad this Saturday!!! I'm super stoked. I really hope it all turns out well. Photos to come!

Also speaking of awesome things.... I SHOOK ELDER NELSONS HAND. I SHOOK HIS HAND! And he said my name wrong... Every single General Authority I have met (Elder Nelson and Elder Rasband) have said my name wrong. I told my comp about it and he told me "Even Abram had his name changed to Abraham". So, I guess I'm going with "Fa-bear" for the rest of my life now. It has been decided. he talked about some really cool things, such as the gathering of the 12 tribes of Israel, how the Americas are the lands of inheritance for the seed of Joseph, and the origin of the word from Hebrew which means "I exist". I thought that was super cool.

So about the sector, it is really tiny, but there is a lot of potential. I still don't know ti completely, but I'm getting there.

TRAINS!!! PDAY TODAY WAS AMAZING. So first we went to a museum about the world, the origin, the different types of climates and animals in Chile, and a whole bunch of other different things. One word to describe it is "BACON!!!" Took a lot of photos there, but the best part is the FREAKING OUTDOOR TRAIN MUSEUM THAT WE FOUND!!!

Joshua's District with a Sea Whale Skeleton

It was filled of just awesome... awesome machines.... I almost had a heart attack. I counted all of the photos that I took, and it was about 100, but I'm not going to send all of those to you guys today, sorry. Ill just send the best 

Love you all! Thanks for the support!

Elder Faber

Joshua and a stuffed penguin.

October 29 and November 5

October 29 email

Whats up?

Well, this week has been interesting, let me tell you all why...

Thursday we had a cool lesson with Pedro Lieva. We´re helping him with his english because he´s going to have a job interview for a restuarant in Sweden! So we are helping him improve his English for this interview. Hes super talented though, he speaks Spanish and French almost fluently. He loves food, and you can tell through his cooking (You can literally taste the love) We also did a bunch of campo contacting that day as well. Met a cool dude that had a lot of doubts about the bible but knows god exists. His name is Victor, and he was super happy when we told him we were giving him a book of Mormon for free! We´re going back today, Ill let you know how it turns out.

Friday, we went contacting in the blocks of Ochogabvia again. Theres a lot of people there that have never seen missionaries before, so being out there and just teaching people is super fun. People just stop judging if they have never heard of the mormons before haha

Saturday, we did a service project for a member (needed help with her garden) and Hermano Altermirano comes out with his iPad mini and tells us he needs to show us something. It was a video clip from the show "Pawn Stars" on History channel. Oh, that clip was holarious! There was a guy that was trying to sell a Book of Mormon from the 1850´s. Goodness, some people dont know much about our church... The lady who put the price on the book told the main guy "This is the most valuable book that I have ever priced for you". yeah lady! You got that right! That book has your salvation written all over in it!

Sunday, we found a new way to do contacting. Because Chile doesnt have Air Conditioning units, everyone goes outside to the parks to chill and drink a ton of alcohol. So we decided to take advantage of that! Haha, Dueñas just looks over to me and says, "Im going to teach that punk over there a lesson!" So we did! We taught the entire restauration. After we said our goodbyes we realized that was suprisingly fun! so we started going over to groups of people in the parks and just teach them about the gospel.

Monday, another hot day. We go out to go park contacting and no one was there. I guess they probably learned haha. I also got to meet the "Punk" of Nocedal. Just this kid named Thomas that all of the missionaries hate. He doesnt get along with anyone, and tries to irritate the missionaries as hard as he possibly can. The only thing that has never happened in that sector is a gaming missionary. Once I started talking to him, we could not get him to quiet down... Holy cow. Im the only missionary in existance that has managed to talk to him. I got him to commit to going to church, but let´s see how that turns out.

Yesterday was crazy. Lots of divs... Elder Anderson got his info back from the doctors for his back, and he has a ton of preherinas in his spine. He only has about 5 months left on his mission, but he might get sent home super early, never to come back. He spent the day under house arrest and talking with the President to figure out what he should do. I feel so bad for that kid.

well, that just sums up the week! Love you all! Keep up the good work!

Elder Faber

November 5 email 

Joshua and his new companion, Elder Fernelius.

Well... Here I am. In a new sector. I was in Nocedal for about 3 months, and now I'm in a sector called Condell. To give you an idea, it is the smallest sector in the entire mission. Better said, its the smallest sector in South America. You can walk about 7 minutes slowly from one border to the other border, and it takes less than 30 minutes to walk around the perimeter... Seriously, its small.

So the past couple of days I have doing a ton of farewells. It was super saddening to leave everyone that I had just started developing relationships with. I really hope that everything will go well there. I have a baptismal date on the 15 of this month, so I will be heading over there to see that happen. I'm seriously going to miss the people in that sector.

But! For Halloween, we went trick or treating! That was super fun. Only a few people actually answered their doors, but it was still super fun. But there were a couple of sketchy cars on the road so we had to sprint home at around 10.

Other than that, I will miss everyone

Love,

Elder Faber

The Bishop who took such great care of him.

The excellent chef's from Nocedal.