Well, today we hiked to the top of el Cerro Renca, where there's a huge cross. We woke up at 5 AM to go hike it before the sun came up so it wouldn't be so hot. We went with Elder Villagrán and Elder Huaratapayro. Elder Villagran had hiked it before... but he decided it would be faster to go straight up. It was a lot steeper than I think anyone thought it was going to be. And I'm not sure we're going to be able to walk tomorrow, especially Elder Kelson with his almost, but not fully, recovered knee. We'll see what happens. We are pretty much dead now. And we already took a 45 minute nap.  I'm hoping to send pictures, but we'll see. 

Last week we ran into a guy who was on his way to a funeral, wearing jeans and a white collared shirt without a tie. He was a little drunk. He stopped me and asked me for my tie. I kept telling him why I couldn't give him my tie but he just kept asking. I think he was partly joking, but also partly serious. "Ya po hijo, déme tu corbata." We saw him again the next day and he told me he still needed my tie. "Ya po hijo, necesito tu corbata." 

Sunday was bittersweet for us. We were planning for Mari to get baptized next Sunday, but she didn't go to church yesterday, so it will have to be changed to the next week. We have changes next Monday, so it's possible that one of us or both won't be here for her baptism. 

However, after almost two months of working with them, Eduardo y Sandy came to church. We were very happy. Sandy is a member. They are two Peruvians that love to have us visit, but struggled to do the things we asked of them. However, two weeks ago they started reading the Book of Mormon. And Eduardo is actually pretty excited about it. We will hopefully be doing a tour of the temple with them this Saturday. We did a family home evening with them the other night, and they fixed us food from Peru. It was really good, and a lot spicier than Chilean food. 

The other day we saw God working in the life of Mari. She told us that for a long time she had felt like we were trying to sell her something, and then she realized we weren´t selling anything. We visit people all day trying to give them a free gift.  She had a cool experience reading the scriptures. The word and idea of obedience really stuck out to her. She realized that all of her life she has run from obedience, telling people that she's only accountable and obedient to God... but she really wasn't obedient to Him.  Although her blood pressure went up when we first extended a baptismal date two weeks away the first time, this time she told us she realized she could be ready and that she could also stop smoking, where before she really didn't believe that she could.  It has been cool to see the huge change in her life already. She's a lot happier now and has a lot more hope. 

Last night we had a cool stake activity. The stake president felt impressed to have a meeting for all the members who had been baptized in the past two years. They sent out invitations and everything. It was a really spiritual meeting to help them feel more comfortable and strengthen their testimonies. There is a huge push to work with recent converts by both the missionaries and the members to help them feel more comfortable in the church.

We forgot about Thanksgiving until Friday, but I guess we kind of had a Thanksgiving lunch... if you count eating a dry rotisserie chicken and some mushy rice as Thanksgiving. Haha. 

I hope you're all enjoying the cold weather... because it's not even close to being cold here. 

Elder Garrett

 

Bienvenidos a la nueva casa de Renca 2.2...

This week, we moved into a new house. We no longer live with Elder Villagrán y Elder Huaratapayro. We still see them almost every day at lunch though. We found this house about three weeks ago or so. Missionaries had been looking for a new house for months here, because the apartment we lived in in the Huamachuco 2 was 30 minutes away from our sector on foot.

The house is very new and clean and too expensive, but with the amount of missionaries that will be coming to our mission soon, President said to sign the contract right away and we moved in two days later. It's right in our sector and the mission bought us almost all new stuff.  So pretty sweet, right?

They will be turning the mission home into housing for North American Missionaries at the MTC here. The mission home will be able to house something like 40 missionaries. I believe they'll be coming straight here. Our ward will be gaining another set of missionaries, so it will have 6. A branch in our stake will have about 5 sets... 10 missionaries... in a branch.  Pretty sweet.

This week, we had a lot of members in church. The attendance was about 130. That's pretty sweet.

We finally set Mari with a baptismal date. She's been investigating for 4 months and really would like to get baptized. She just needs to stop smoking. She was the first investigator I met that first day in Chile... a little more than 2 months ago. We are praying for her a lot. She is recently divorced, and we just found out that her boyfriend is a less active member... and he told her she should get baptized, so it helps to have that support, because some of her family doesn't support her.

There is another investigator named Giselle that has met with the missionaries for probably over a year. Her mom wouldn't give her permission to get baptized, but she has decided to get baptized on her 18th birthday, when she no longer needs permission. That's in three weeks, and will be really awesome.

We are in a different place for internet today, and I can't send any pictures... sorry.

I'm assuming Thanksgiving is coming up... so enjoy.

Thanks for your support.
Elder Garrett  

Muchos intercambios

Hola.

Bueno.

Elder Kelson has gotten better very quickly and we are walking faster and taking less taxis. His bike is still a little messed up, and we haven't had much time to fix it yet, so we have to take the Micro (bus) to the sector every day.

Elder Kelson is district leader, so we did a lot of exchanges this week. On Wednesday I worked with Elder Huaratapayro in my sector. I directed the sector. Then again on Thursday, I worked with Elder Estiva in my sector, directing it again. Then on Friday, I went to another sector and worked with Elder Lawson. We arrived in Chile at the same time, two months ago yesterday. I was very happy that I was able to read a chapter from the Book of Mormon, understand it, and explain it to one of the families we taught. AND, they understood me. It was a very happy moment for me.

We have an investigator that was going to get baptized back in April, but then she moved out. She recently returned, and we started teaching her again. She seemed to have forgotten everything and returned back to the person she was before. The first time we met with her, she asked us why we believe in God if we can't see Him.

We've taught her about four times, and we can visibly see the changes in her already as she is recognizing what she knew several months ago. Her attitudes and language have changed. She committed to going to church, and told us that she knows she needs to get baptized. It's amazing the change we've seen in her in only two weeks. Her boyfriend and her little sister also told us they'd like to be baptized.

Last week we had a great experience I think I forgot to tell you about. We have an investigator named Mari that has been taught for probably four months now. But we've had problems helping her stop smoking and getting her to church. Seriously, every week for four months, something popped up on Sunday. We stopped visiting her for two weeks, and when we returned last Saturday, she realized how big of a difference the message we bring has in her life and committed to going to church, and she went last Sunday, and loved it.

I don't have much more time, so I guess that's about it.

Les Quiero
Elder Garrett

There was... a little accident this week... involving a bike, a cement post, and a bus. Don't worry, I'm alive.

So I was riding my bike really fast, and I hit something and the front tire popped up and I lost control. 

Ok just kidding.  It was Elder Kelson, and I was on exchanges, so I didn't even see it happen.

So the front tire pops up, and when it hits the ground again, it was turned, so the bike swerved really sharply, directly into a cement post. So he hits this post with his knee, and flies off his bike about 4 meters. A bus was driving by at the time, and it stopped and all of the people ran out to ask if he was alive or not. He scraped up his arm a bit and messed up his knee. They called every member they knew that has an auto, and one of them came and picked them up. A doctor told him he would not be able to walk for at least 15 days. 

It was a miracle that he didn't get hit by a car or hit his head. 

He was not even able to get out of bed to walk to the fridge or the bathroom all that day.  

He was given a priesthood blessing. And guess what we did the next day? We took a taxi to our area and worked for about 3 hours, walking around without crutches. The next day we got crutches so he could walk a lot faster and more comfortably.  He is improving rapidly.  It really is a miracle. 

I'm running out of time now. We're going to make some cheese empanadas...

We've been told the mission is probably going to increase from 200 missionaries to 280. That's going to be nuts, there will be wards with 6-8 missionaries.

I've been here for two months now. Time flies really fast when you are always really busy. And there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything we would like to do. I'm feeling more and more comfortable with Spanish. It's crazy to think I started learning it 4 months ago, and now I'm speaking it almost exclusively all day. It helps that I live with missionaries from Guatemala y Perú.

Voy a comer empanadas de queso.     

Elder Garrett