Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Final Words

We got to skype with Zack yesterday for the final time and it was WONDERFUL to say we will see you in a few days. He did not write an email yesterday but he did want me to post this scripture. He sounds great and we are sure looking forward to Friday:) Thank you to all for your support!




3 John 1:13-14

13 I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee:
14 But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.

Monday, December 4, 2017

Cool Week!

This week was pretty awesome, we’ve been working hard out of our carpeta de area and we’ve actually found some pretty good people out of it! We found a record from the year 2000...17 years ago...I was 3 when they taught her...and we decided to go by and she still lives there!! And decided to start listening to us again!!! It was awesome!

Cool story this week---so yesterday we had just gotten home from lunch and a member calls us and tells us "Hey we were having a meeting and this guy randomly comes in and asks in front of everyone what he needs to do to be a member of the church...could you guys come and teach him??" We were like uh yeah we will be there in 5 seconds! So we went and talked to him and he said that he just passed by the church and had a strong impression to go in and talk to who was in there. So he did! So we taught him a bit and set 2 lessons with him for this week. He’s super awesome and is willing to do anything in order to "feel the spirit again in his life" which is perfect because whoever goes through with these teachings will be able to have the spirit forever! So we are super excited for him!!
Oh another cool moment this week, was when we literally had knocked doors all day...in the heat...it was miserable...and it was like 95 degrees at night and we decided to start heading back home but I felt like we needed to go up some stairs to an apartment we were by. So me and my companion went up...and we went up to the very top...and we walk over to a door and I was like "yo elder, I have no idea why I felt like we should come up here...but let’s find out." So we knock on the door and this guy came out, looked at us and said "yeah come in" it was so shocking!! Like that never happens! What the heck, you cannot tell me that that wasn’t the spirit!! So we teach him and his sister who are from Venezuela and left because of the dictatorship and everything there. It was a cool, cool experience.

Also, we found a record of this family who had been to church a bunch of times and the last thing on the record said to not pass by...it was weird...so we decided to pass by anyways...and this guy came up and started throwing mad fire on Mormons! Like what the heck!! So we start asking him questions and we started trying to find out what had happened. We could never find out what had happened but we stayed there for like an hour talking to him and talking to him pretty dang directly. When we finally started to bear testimony and he looked at us with something different in his eyes...his voice turned a little different, and he just totally changed after we bore testimony and we invited him to read the Book of Mormon and he said he would do it. I feel like sometimes missionaries are scared to be direct about what we do, express to somebody the real importance of this gospel and then just testify of these things...and sometimes just that will open up someone with such a hardened heart...when they see what we really think about this. So we really had some great experiences this week.
Hope you all have a great week!
Love you all-
Zack

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well I’m going to start out apologizing because I was ready this week to send you a ton of photos because I have like a ton to send...and I brought an adapter and everything today but as we were walking through the city I realized that I didn’t have the most important thing...my camera...so yeah I’m not able to send pictures today. I guess you’ll have to wait a whole another week ha-ha I’m so sorry.
Anyways this week has been a pretty good one. We actually had a thanksgiving feast! We had district meeting that day and I arranged everything with everyone that everyone was going to bring something different for our feast. We ended up having pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, juice, and we bought a turkey and it actually turned out pretty good! It was funny though because we did it at like 11am and we all have to eat lunch at members houses at 1pm so lunch was pretty difficult that day...that same day for lunch we ended up eating meats and potatoes. I was dying, it was hard to eat it all!
 Oh funny story! So this week a member invited us over for dinner at their house at like 8:30 so we went and they served us guatita!! Or in English, sheep stomach! Haha my companion hated it but I actually liked it a lot, I ended up asking for second’s ha-ha. Do they sell that in the states?? There’s so much stuff here that I love that I doubt they sell in the states.
Okay, so the work went pretty well this week. I have many stories but I will be home soon and I can tell you then. Haha  I want to leave you with something I have been thinking a lot about this week. Being Thanksgiving week I have been thinking about gratitude and why we say thanks in our prayers. So what I’ve learned from the scriptures is that we say thanks to acknowledge the blessings we have and give credit to God in a way of humbling ourselves, but the interesting part is that it is more important to show our thanks in the things we do. Almost everyone says in their prayers "we thank thee for this day", yet do we really take full advantage of that day to do Gods will? Alot of times we say it and don’t even think about it afterward and pretend like it’s our day, when really we already acknowledged that it is not. So I’ve been pondering on this a lot this week and I would like to extend the invitation to everyone including myself,  to really think about what you are thankful for in your prayers and then show it in that day and in what you do! I hope everyone has a great week!
Love-
Zack



Monday, November 6, 2017

THANK YOU!

Wow! What a surprise getting all the birthday wishes in my email! You are all so awesome!
THANK YOU!!!!
Alright so I’m leaving Chiloe this week!! I’ve been here for 7 months already ha-ha a long time...but this week I’ll be heading out! I’ll be going to a city called Valdivia...its sick because if you look it up...this was the epicenter to one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded, fun ha-ha. I’m stoked though! I’m actually going to be with a Brazilian that I already know and he’s a super cool kid! I’m going to try to learn Portuguese with him ha-ha we’ll see how that goes. But yeah I’ll be moving down to be district leader for the last 7 weeks of my mission which will be nice to not be zone leader anymore. I’ll be leaving on Wednesday and my birthday is on Friday so I’ll know like no one ha-ha so I probably won’t be doing anything for my birthday, oh well ha-ha. Not a big deal. Anyways so today we went on a super sick hike; I’ll send you some pictures of it right now! And pics from Halloween and stuff…sorry I do not have a lot of time to write again but I love you all! Thank you so much for the birthday wishes! I feel blessed to have all of you in my life! Have a great week!

Zack






Crazy Week

So we are in Chaiten right now again, we didn’t really get to do much today because everything’s closed for bad weather. It rained all last night super hard, but oh well...Anyways we had some funny experiences this week! Stuff that legit like I tell people here and they just say "That’s definitely an Elder Walden thing...that doesn’t happen to anyone else..." So First thing...getting on the boat to Chaiten, we had to board at 6 and we were supposed to get there at like 10. Well the boat didn’t dock until 8:30...and we ended up getting to Chaiten at 1:00 in the morning. Then we stayed up talking to the other Elders for awhile because they never get to see people. So I am super tired today because we still woke up at 7:00am...wooo haha.
 Okay so this week we had to make an emergency trip to Ancud as well for some stuff that we had to drop off to the Elders...soooo we get there fine and on the way home we buy some bus tickets for a bus that left at 7...and then as we were waiting we were told it would get there at 730...then they told us 8...then they told us 830...finally a bus gets there so we ask the conductor if that was it and he said yes so we get on...and they pull out and they’re on their way and we realize that our seats don’t exist...so someone tells us we should look on the first floor of the bus...so we go...still don’t exist...then we ask someone where the bus was going and they tell us "Santiago..." We had already been on the bus for like 10 minutes so we were like far away from the terminal...so we told the bus driver just to leave us where we were...so we got off...hitch hiked back to the terminal...got there...and the bus we had waited an hour for had just passed by and we missed it!!!! Gosh dang it!!!!! So we ended up explaining the whole thing to the terminal jefe and he hooked us up with some free tickets on a bus because he felt bad for us and thought it was really funny what had happened to us...but hey that picture I have of that sign that says Los Angeles was where that bus dropped us off, so at least I got a cool picture!

Anyways another cool experience was when I went with Elder Clements on an intercambio for a day and we went down to take a taxi up to the sector and we waited there for 15 minutes and I was ticked because that’s a really long time and empty collectivos (taxis) were just passing by without stopping! Well after like 20 minutes an Hermana that I had never met before came out of nowhere and said "Hey elders I’m a member of the church and live right there, and my mom is 95 and is sick and dying, could you come real fast and give her a blessing?" So we went, gave her the blessing, left, and got a collective (taxi) right away...I guess she was praying and looked right outside and we were right there waiting for the taxi, almost magically, I guess God had a different plan for us ha-ha. Now I know why we didn’t get a collectivo right away. Also 2 of our citas fell through that day, which stunk but it ended up being a blessing because we ended up teaching this one investigator we found a few weeks back for like 3 hours...because she wanted to know everything and had so many questions and she wrote down every question she had and the answer and was crying during the lesson and now she wants to get baptized...it was awesome. So definitely a blessing that our other cita fell through and we could be there for more time. Also after that we went and knocked some doors. After because the other cita had also fell. And then we realized we had to do some stuff for the zone in centro...so I said "Ok, we were going to talk to 2 more people in their doors and then we will go do that" Because it was getting late...well we knocked, and knocked, and knocked and NO ONE ANSWERED!!! Literally no one...so we got bothered again and we almost just left...but we decided to not let God down and talk with at least 2 more people...well right after that we knocked a door and a guy came out...named Rodrigo...and it caught me off guard because we had just knocked for like 2 hours without anyone answering...so we talked to him for a bit and he invited us in! And we taught the restoration and he told us that he doesn’t go to any church...but believes in God and he feels like what we teach could definitely be true! It was awesome! He said that whatever we said, made him just feel really good inside...so it was awesome! We also figured out right there why no one was answering their doors...if 2 others answered their doors...we would have left and never would have found him. But God wanted us to find him specifically. It was awesome! I also gave a talk yesterday because everyone think I’m out of here in a week...because I’ve been here for 7 months...but who knows ha-ha, I also gave the class yesterday...woo ha-ha go Chile! Have a great week!!!!

Monday, October 23, 2017

Penguins!

Hey it’s going pretty great this week actually you guys will love it...we went on a paseo and we took a ton of photos! I personally didn’t have my camera because I’m not sure where my charger is (typical Zack) but like everyone was cool and took pictures for me and they’re sending them to me! We went to like this super gorgeous beach and we went and explored these rocks and stuff.  It was really cool... one of the coolest things I’ve seen! And then from that same beach we took a boat out and saw penguins!! Like legit penguins!! It was so sick. So anyways I’ll send of those pictures...Well we've had some cool experiences and what not this week but like I don’t have much time so I’ll tell you guys about them next week when I have more time! Anyways love you all!!
---Zack




Monday, October 16, 2017

Great Week!

Hello Everyone!
This week was a good one! We had an awesome experience yesterday. We were contacting all day because we didn’t have any appointments, which is actually my favorite thing to do, I love going around and knocking on doors. This time though no one was answering us or when they did answer us they would just tell us how much they didn’t like the church and then close the door. Pretty tough day, but we kept at it….trying  creative ways to contact and what not. Then we went to go visit some futures(?)  that we had found in our (?) and we had a prompting to go down a street and then I saw a house that had our same street number so we decided to knock it. We did and we contacted her and she just seemed like a really happy lady and she invited us in! She continued to tell us how the missionaries always used to pass by when she was a child and her parents got baptized but she never did because she didn’t understand why it was important but how she loved going to church and wants to go again and how she even thinks that Joseph Smith is a prophet. It was awesome! We explained why baptism was important and she totally understands now and  wants to get baptized and go to church. She was super prepared! She is also great friends with a ton of people in our branch! It’s so awesome, we’re stoked to start working with her! And she’s got like 3 kids that are interested as well! Such a blessing!
Anyways it was a pretty stellar week, I’m so happy!  A lot of investigators have fallen and it’s taken quite a bit to help them back up but slowly and surely it’s been coming through, and in the process we have found a lot more who are really ready. I might not be here to see all the fruits of the efforts we’re doing, and see all the baptisms but I know that because of the work we are putting in now, these family’s will choose the follow the gospel. And I feel so honored just to be a part of this change they are making in their lives. A successful missionary is not a missionary that gets a ton of baptisms but one that helps others make changes in their lives in order to follow Jesus Christ. So I’m pretty happy right now to see those changes in our investigators. Anyways I hope you all have had a fantastic week!
Love-
Zack

Monday, October 9, 2017

That is ALOT of chopped wood!

Anyways this week was super crazy!!! We had zone conference this last week and usually we get a sheet that tells us what’s going to happen and who’s speaking when and what’s at what time for everything. Well this time we didn’t get ANY of that so we were majorly in the dark. So we started to prepare some stuff to talk about just in case we had to talk with the zone but as we were doing that, Sunday night, the APs call us to tell us that we’re going to talk about something else. So we throw away that idea and started to prepare the other stuff. Monday night...the night before the conference the APs are staying at our house and I tell them "Hey it’s weird that usually we have time to talk to the zone but this time we have like assigned stuff to talk about" and they say "Wait you guys will have an additional 30 minutes to talk about what you want with the zone too..." This was at like 11 at night...so we stayed up until 2 the night before the conference to prepare everything. Then at the conference, the lunch gets there late so we are all waiting and then they get there and they realize that there are no plates in the church building...someone had like taken them out or something so while everyone is waiting we had to book it and go find like 24 plates and what not. We went past like every members house that we knew to borrow plates in the matter of minutes...it was impressive and booked it back and served the food. Oh my goodness it was crazy...we were running around like people on fire. Stressful but it ended up being a great zone conference. Then the week was pretty calm after that...just normal stuff, like citas and what not. Teaching is going well.
 Today we went to this beach here on the island and it was sick. So beautiful! OH and we cut a bunch of wood for this lady yesterday and she said we were doing it bad so she came and taught us, it was super funny, I think I took a video. I’ll try to send it ha-ha.
Hope everyone has a great week! Love you All!
Zack

**Sorry the video would not load....too bad because it is great hearing Zack in the background speaking Spanish and laughing:)



Monday, October 2, 2017

Loved Conference!

Hello everyone-

I am totally fine now, not sick anymore but everyone is getting sick here so I wouldn’t be surprised if I get sick again pretty soon. We are between seasons so we have some days that are really cold and raining and then the next day there’s like sun but it’s still freezing and then it’s like hot and then it’s hot and raining and yeah, it messes you up ha-ha. The weather is super bipolar.

 Super funny this week, this one investigator of ours like found me on Instagram and was like "wow! What happened?! You used to be like tan and like skinny and now you’re like fat and pale, what the heck happened?" I was just like wow thanks haha I think it’s time to go on another mate diet or start fasting more;) ha-ha Yeah so anyway Conference was really good……I loved it! Conference was fire! Pure fire! I think they really stepped up their game or something this year because I was really impressed with the talks, the images, the choir and everything! Big shocker when Andersen announced Elder Hales death...like everyone knew but the missionaries, so we were all like shocked when we heard about it. Looks like next conference we’ll be receiving a new apostle to the quorum. Absolutely loved every single talk ha-ha it’s hard to pick a favorite.  I got something out of every single one for every single investigator, so I’m pretty content.
Anyways it’s been a pretty normal week. We have zone conference tomorrow which has me all stressed out and everything because President usually tells us what’s going to happen a week early and this time he just threw it on us all last second. I just hope it turns out well, there are things though that have yet to be planned and we’re going to do it tomorrow, so it’ll be interesting ha-ha we will see! And we prepared stuff for the zone and everything but we got told yesterday that we aren’t going to have time to speak but we have to give messages on like these certain subjects...so last second, so it’s been pretty stressful. It was cool though because like this last cambio I’ve just been running around stressed just trying to fix everything and it has been hard. But in a conference talk this weekend, from Uchtdorf I think it was? I don’t remember too well, don’t have my notes with me, but he said "sometimes people run so hard and so fast that they forget where they are going or why they are even running" And it was like a huge palo for me because I feel like that’s been me these past couple of weeks, just going so hard that I feel like I kind of lost the reason why I’m here and what I really should be doing. So this week I will be trying to find a good balance between my duties, citas, and just enjoying talking to people on the streets, and focusing on personal happiness, companionship happiness and others happiness. I mean if we aren’t happy how are we going to help others be happy? As missionaries we invite others to COME unto Christ, not GO unto Christ, it’s important to remember that we need to be with him in order to do that and he is not in stressful, angry environments, he is in the calm, happy ones. So that’s personally something that I will change after watching this week’s conference together with many other things...What some things you all got out of conference? What’s something that impacted you or made you want to share it with somebody else? I’m interested to hear people opinions!
Thank you to all those that wrote me this week! Sorry I did not have time to get back to all of you but your words and support are much appreciated! I love you all-

Zack



Monday, September 25, 2017

Rough Weeks

  ** Zack sounds like he has had a couple of rough weeks and I am sure he would love words of encouragement. Please drop him a quick email--I am sure it will brighten his day:) His email is zachary.walden@myldsmail.net--------Thank You!!**
9/25/17
What’s up guys! So today was sad...there’s this thing in the mission called the carta Moroni and it’s legitimately the card you get from the mission so they can send you home. You have to fill out this thing about where you live, what plane you’ll go on and what airport and everything.  I got that today and had to fill it out, it was pretty sad. The mission is coming to an end too fast.

So this week was like a pretty interesting week! So the Pamela that we've been working with for like ever has just like lost feeling and doesn’t want to progress at all so we had to drop her. We had a weird lesson with her on Friday basically with her just telling us everything wrong that’s happened in her life and how it’s the churches fault and got like mad at us. It was pretty sad, her heart was like way hardened...I was like ready to leave and Elder Faught asks her randomly "Sorry I wasn’t here but how did this whole thing with the missionaries start?" So she told him everything and started crying saying all the good things that have come of this. It was such an inspired question. So we don’t know what’s going to happen with her. It has been a difficult week with our investigators.

But good things happened this week too. We found some new investigators and we found some old investigators from me and Amaya that we thought had moved but we found them and they are super stoked to hear the gospel again! And we’ve been passing by this family that already knows the church is true but never went to church so they couldn’t be baptized.  They struggled with going to church and they were losing the testimony they did have because of it so this week we went by and I made them the promise that if they read every day that week and prayed as a family everyday they would have the energy to get up in the morning and go to church. And they did it, and guess who came strolling into church early yesterday? THEM! It was awesome!!! They told me that their baby had started crying at 8 o’clock in the morning and it forced them to get up haha but it was awesome!!! They loved church!! And all the young women were like super good with her daughter and everything! It was awesome!!! It just made me so happy! And this week we’re going to do a family home evening with them and another family and we’re going to make pancakes with peanut butter and syrup! I’m so excited ha-ha. So like this week had some terrible moments but the good ones totally outweighed them!

Hope everyone is doing well! Love you all-

Zack

9/18/17
Well this week wasn’t the best week I’ve had in the mission. We were like super busy and I was super sick until like Wednesday. Literally last Tuesday we had to go home on a bus and I had no medicine or water and I was stuck there for 7 hours...and my fever spiked so I got like freaked out  ha-ha I was legitimately dying. I felt so terrible. That night I prayed that I would not die, that’s how bad I felt. It stunk because the next day I was doing pretty bad too and the storm was pretty bad as well so Hermana Isom told me to not go outside and to stay inside all day due to my illness, so we had to cancel a bunch of citasL And then everyone went out of town for the 18 of Sept, it is Chilean Independence day here...so like all of our investigators left and no one came to church and then one in the morning woke up on time and we called her and told us she didn’t want to go...which hurt. So ya it wasn’t like the greatest week I’ve had in the mission ha-ha but hey today we went and made these things called "calzones rotos" in the church building with the other missionaries and also played some soccer and what not which was pretty fun. And now we’re at a members house because no ciber is open, and we are writing from their computers, and they’re doing like a BBQ and what not! So that’s super fun as well! So we’re just going to work our tails off this week and put in some major work! We’re ready to do it! Anyways I’ll try to send some pictures. Have a great week!
Love-
Zack
 

Monday, September 11, 2017

Last Two Weeks:)

9/4/17
jaja langostas...que cuicos noooo...rae cuicos. ando acà comiendo cazuela y andan con la langosta nooooo, que humillacion me dan.... Ay whatsup guys!!! Hey so first of all cambios are this Wednesday. And just so you guys know this entire time I’ve been in Chiloe I’ve been with the same companion Elder Amaya. But they called us last night and he’s going to leave. This will be his last cambio in the mission, but he’s staying in the zone to open up a new sector so I’ll get to see him before he goes home. And we’re about to have a ton of baptisms so it’s cool because he’ll be able to go! So we’re stoked, and I’ll get a new companion, which will be Elder Faught! In Punta Arenas we were in the same district so I know him pretty well. It’ll be awesome! And another cool thing is that Elder Clements is coming and he’ll be my district leader here! That’ll be interesting! Ha-ha I don’t know if you guys remember but he was my companion in the MTC.  So he’ll be my district leader and I’ll be his zone leader haha it’ll be awesome! I’m stoked. So yeah cambios were pretty exciting. So anyways, La Antonia was baptized this week! WOOOOOOOOO!!! After over 9 months of going to church she was finally baptized!!!! It was awesome! And her dad came!!! And loved it! Then he came on Sunday as well!!!! It was so awesome!! And he was super interested! Looks like he’ll be an investigator pretty soon ;)  I’ll send pictures later of the baptism, I can’t now because we’re in a different cyber and it’s got viruses so I don’t trust it...but yeah it’s been a pretty good week! Oh and Elder Braggs! It was a great conference and it’s cool because he chooses 2 people to interview every conference and he chose me as one of them. So I went in and he was like "Well I saw you were from Simi Valley so I wanted to tell you that I know Brother Sheranian and we’re super good friends!" Then we started talking about the mission and what not and I told him some spiritual experiences I’ve had and what not...then we ended and I asked him "Hey do you know an Eric Golberg? And a Jo Cosby?" And he went on and on talking about them ha-ha it was awesome. Then I told him that my parents are really good friends with them and asked if he knew them and he was like "OH!!! Adam and Pam!!! OF course!!! You’re their kid?!?!?! What a small world!!!! How awesome!!!!" So he totally remembered you it was awesome, so he told me he would take a picture and send it to you guys. He’s a really awesome guy, he gave a really good conference also...then at the end he asked me to share my spiritual experience with everyone, it was great. It was a good time, I learned a lot. So yeah I’ll be staying here so I'm stoked, because right now me and Amaya have formed a plan so that Chiloe can become a stake, different ways a doing than what they’re doing now, and I think it’ll work so I’m excited to be in the "primicias" of that. Did you know that Chiloe is the oldest district in all of Chile? That needs to change ha-ha. Anyways have a great week!!

Email from Elder BraggJ
Adam and Pam
Just a few hours ago I was able to give a big hug to Elder Walden down in Puerto Montt!  What a fantastic leader he is and what a blessing he is to President Isom.  He is happy, healthy and working very hard.   He is such a popular missionary because of his positive and kind nature.   I asked that he be one of the interviews that I have with a few missionaries as part of each conference.   He shared a great story that I had him share later in the conference.

We reminisced about Simi Valley and our mutual friends - in particular Jo and E Golberg and the entire Sheranian family!   I remember being with you in one of the greatest days ever in the LA Temple!

What a treat it was today to be with your sweet son.   These are the 5 Star days!

Thank you for preparing such a great young man to serve the Lord way down here!

Un abrazo!

9/11/17
Ya Po!! I have a new companion! He’s super cool! His name is Elder Faught, super great kid! And he’s like wicked smart, especially with like scriptures and what not, so we make a pretty good team. And Dad, his Dad went to USC, thought you would like to hear that ha-ha-- Another Trojans fan!! Anyways, it’s been sweet with Elder Clements in the zone too. We eat lunch with them every day so it’s super chill.
 So anyways there’s been like a major cold front in Chiloe, or in Castro at least and man it’s been so cold...so cold that I got totally sick...chuta...and tomorrow we have leaders meeting so we had to take a 7 hour bus ride today...man that was miserable. I just slept the whole time and now my body is like super sore and I feel horrible. But hey we’re spending the night in a place called La Union, and then tomorrow we’ll go to the conference. And here we’re actually staying with my kid! Elder Shumway!!!! I haven’t seen him since I trained him. It is sick being with him again! (No pun intended). But yeah, and we’re more up north and it’s like hot here!!!! I’m so jealous of the missionaries here!!! We’re there suffering in Castro and they’re on summer vacation here! Its funny ha-ha.

Anyways this week has been pretty cool, we’ve seen some cool miracles, like despite the sickness and the cold we’ve been working our tails off and we’ve seen the benefits! We’ve been seeing some good progression in our investigators which is good. Oh something cool!!! So Pamela, our investigator, like really wants to get baptized but has a hard time with some commandments and going to church...but she likes loves Elder Amaya because he’s the one that like found her. She told us a while ago that she made a covenant with God that she would get baptized by Elder Amaya. But she was going off the end of the mission...but she didn’t understand the whole cambio thing too well....so like we knew he would leave before then and she probably wouldn’t reach her goal. But Elder Amaya was to Quellon! Only like an hour away! And still in the zone! So if she gets baptized he can still come and baptize her! And we realized how much of a miracle that was, like literally God is giving her another 6 weeks to make her goal. Like it firmed my testimony in that God inspires President with the Cambios...and that God always keeps his side of the covenant and is very merciful with his children. So that was awesome! Anyways it was a pretty good week...hope you all had a great week as well!



Monday, August 28, 2017

Crazy Storm!


Hey what’s up guys! I’m writing you this week from Puerto Mont because we have the conference with Elder Braggs tomorrow .Looking forward to it, it should be great!
 
So this week has been awesome. The storm was pretty awesome, we just put ourselves in our rain pants and rain jacket and just went to work. We got worked on pretty hard. One part of the island got so wrecked that it got cut off from Chiloe and made its own island! It was cool. They called it a catastrophe, but we were fine just a little wet. The whole time walking in the streets that day, getting pelted by rain coming in at rapid pace we just always looked at each other and said, “Only in the south of Chile”. Ha-ha it’s a good time!

So anyway this week we learned from an investigator how to make Milcao, it’s like a southern Chile thing. They’re super good. It’s a lot of work to make but hey at some point I’ll teach you guys. We ended up making like 70 so afterwards we went and gifted them to a bunch of people. So anyways also the girl from my story last week, our investigator, is going to be baptized this week because her parents couldn’t go last week so we ended up moving it to this week. We’re still super excited! Yesterday we had to go to get the signature from her parents, it was awkward but we ended up talking a lot with them about the church. It was chill, now we get along super well with them. I was sick all week which stunk, I didn’t sleep for 3 days because I had major sinusitis and couldn’t breathe at all. It was terrible, but now I’m a lot better, just a little cough, but it was tough with the weather and everything this week, but its chill.

We’ve had some good lessons this week! We’ve been teaching that family of 7 and man it’s crazy. We’ve decided that we can’t teach them like regular lessons, with video and scriptures and folletos and what not, but we have to teach them like a primary class. So this week we started to print out little games and stuff and then relate them to the gospel and it’s been a lot more effective, and now they love when we come over and they’re all super excited to get baptized! So yeah it’s been a pretty good week, nothing to complain about. Baptisms this week and many more to come, I’m dreading the cambios though because I might be out of here and I don’t want to go, I want to be here for the baptisms of my investigators! But we will see, I hope I stay though. Anyways have a great week!!
Love-
Zack 
 
Photos from this week:
1. Elder Amaya’s birthday at the mamitas
2,3,4. Baptism this week but the font drained itself right before...so we had to fill it up in like 10 minutes, so as they started, we went and had the great idea to use the fire hose ha-ha and we were throwing buckets and everything...then we had it all good and then it started automatically draining itself so we had to do their baptism like super-fast, it was funny ha-ha
5. We had McDonalds today with the gringos from the zone!!!!



Monday, August 21, 2017

Amazing Week!

Aug 21, 2017

Haha so weird that Matts married now! I told like everyone this week that he was getting married and everyone was like super happy and excited for him! I’m glad people liked my toast, I want to apologize because I had no idea what to say. I totally winged it and that was my first try and it was super hard to speak English! I am so sorry if I sounded like a retard.
 Hey it’s awesome because I’ve seen some miracles here this week also, woo it was SUCH an amazing week. Anyways I’ll save the biggest miracle for last. So first of all its been raining literally all week and tomorrow there’s going to be one of the biggest storms in the history of Chiloé. They’re expecting winds up to 160kmph! It will be crazy! We will have to be in touch with the President because if it is actually that fast we won’t be able to work because every house is made out of tin here so like roofs tend to fly off and kill people, it’s happened before. So that’ll be interesting. Also we taught some pretty powerful lessons this week about temple work and what not...we made a powerpoint for it and everything and literally the 2 investigators we showed it to cried about what we were telling them. It was awesome….. but they still didn’t go to church on Sunday. So we gotta keep trying!! But we still had 8 investigators in church so we were pretty happy about that! The Lord is blessing our efforts!
Anyways BIG Miracle we saw this week...first of all we have an investigator named Antonia and she’s 14 and has been going to church for like 8 months and she’s shared her testimony in sacrament meeting and everything but she’s been weird about the whole baptism thing. So last week we got real serious and asked her what it was that she needed in order to take that step and we found out that it was her parents that didn’t like the church and told her she couldn’t be baptized. We had never really talked to them before, met them a couple times, but never really talked to them because they like avoided us. Well we had one of those "capilla abierta" this week, it’s like an open house but with the church building and the whole branch is there and what not and we do tours. So anyways we were there and this was the first one we had ever done in Chiloé...and we were like in charge of everything...it was a lot of work. At one point this couple walked in, so before the tour starts I started talking to them and they were super cool. We made like pretty good friends and then the tour started so I left to go help in other parts and then Antonia found me and told me that I had been talking to her parents. I didn’t even realize it was them! So I was like frick! Let’s go! We’re going to do the tour with them!! So we went and joined them in the tour. Well during the tour we got to the young women’s room...and in that room randomly all the young women just started bearing their testimony about Antonia and how much she has progressed and how big of a testimony that she had, and Antonia went and hugged her dad crying and told them "I just want to be baptized so bad! I know this is true and all I want to do is get baptized!!" The spirit was so strong, I was legit crying, and I never do that! And her parents just said "We will talk about that at home!" Well after the tour I went and was talking to the dad and I got to explain to him what we’ve been teaching and a little bit about what exactly we do as missionaries, then they left. Antonia stayed to help clean up and everything and she told me that she was super scared because she had never like born testimony to her parents and had never begged them like that and she was scared what their reaction would be. Well the next day in church...after Sunday School she asks us "Hey could we do a baptismal interview?" We were like wo wo wo hey what did your parents say?!?! They GAVE HER PERMISSION TO BE BAPTIZED!!!! Wooooo!!!! And she wants to do it as soon as possible!!!!!!! We have the interview today and she gets baptized this week!!!! Literally the capilla abierta opened her parent’s heart up to the gospel and gave them the chance to know a little more and feel what she had been feeling for 8 months!!! She so stoked, we’re so stoked, and it’s awesome...it was a major miracle. You don’t understand how happy we are that she’s going to get baptized this week!!! So yeah that was a major miracle we saw, thanks to the spirit and the young women in our ward. I know it was an awesome experience for them too because they got to bear such testimony to non- members and experience the mission work. It was awesome, and without their help, she might not be getting baptized. The power of a testimony is real, and can change people’s hearts. Thanks for all your love! Hope everyone has a fantastic week!

We're Killing it!

August 14, 2017
Oh my goodness it’s so nice having a heater and warm showers and what not again...you don’t know how much pasta and stuff we’ve made this week hahaha. We’ve missed being able to cook. So this week was a super good one, we’ve had some major spiritual lessons this week. Elder Amaya and I teach really well together, we're killing it too, we’ve got a lot of people that we’re teaching and almost all of them want to be baptized, so we are super excited, just working towards achieving that. Yesterday was kind of sad because we had the time change, like day light savings and we had to wake up an hour earlier because of it and it was pouring rain. Our church starts like way early and all of our members flaked that were going to pick up all of our investigators. So yesterday we ended up waking up super early, to be able to leave early and we walked all the way to the investigators houses to wake them up and take them to church and it turns out that out of the 5 houses that we committed to go to church only 1 of the families was awake and went with us...and it was only because she had gotten drunk the night before and never went to sleep. But she came to church anyways at least with her kid and husband...but she was drunk so it was weird haha. I am hoping next Sunday goes a lot better. We did our weekly planning and made some killer plans though to get them to understand the importance of church and everything. We’re working on a powerpoint right now for 1 investigator that loves her kids and actually lost one a few days after having it and her only desire is to be with ALL of her kids forever and a lot of other churches tell her that the kid is gone and what not. But as we know, she can be sealed to him and be with him forever, and she is still his mom. She’s awesome, she loves us and the church, but she hasn’t gone yet because she always sleeps in and can’t beat "sabanas" (sounds like satanas in spanish) but yeah so were making a power point of family history and temple work, because that’s how she can achieve being with her family forever and be sure that she will be with her child after this life. We made a pyramid of the things she needs to do in order to receive those types of blessings. And the last thing on the pyramid is wake up early and go to church, then we have that scripture in Alma 37:6 that says that from small things come great works, and we’re super excited to teach it. It’ll be such a good lesson. So we’re trying new things! We can’t let people let go of such big blessings just because they’re tired in the morning!!! That’s just silly! Anyways, it’s rained a ton this week. Like a ton! And I still haven’t bought an umbrella so it’s been interesting, and I don’t want to buy one either because it’s super windy so it’ll break in like a couple minutes haha. Anyways that’s been my week in a nutshell, still finding, still teaching a ton, and just working on that whole baptism part. The people are here! We just need to help them understand the doctrine a little better;) Anyways have a great week everyone! Love you all!

Monday, August 7, 2017

We have HEAT!

Well this week was GREAT! A lot of administrative stuff, which kind of stunk but we still did a lot with the little time that we had. So first of all, we finally moved yesterday!!! Woo!!! We were living in a house of 4 for like over a month...too much time, like it was fun and all but we didn’t have any space at all, nothing stayed clean, and we lived without fire, or any form of heat, or a stove to cook on for like 2 and a half months. So we were more than happy to move ha-ha. We had two houses to choose between and we finally prayed and made the decision yesterday and chose one from the same owner as the other house. But it’s got a fireplace, a stove, and a gas heater, and its super nice. So almost all day yesterday we were packing up and moving everything to the other house, a lot of work but hey we’re finally all settled in and it feels so good!! I’m so happy! I can finally make food!!!! I’ve been living off Top Ramen and bread with peanut butter for a while now haha. So yeah we’re pretty happy about that.
 
Anyways we also had the leader’s conference this week, which was good. President changed up how we did it so it was pretty good. We stayed with the APs the night before and it was super fun. Hmm what else happened this week...Oh! This week I had to travel all the way to Quemchi...it’s like a little place on the side of the island, because someone was getting baptized there so I did his interview. And I totally left my umbrella there which stinks. But it was a cool little city! Super pretty and super small. Oh also!! Paula didn’t go to church but 3 of her kids did!! We got a member to go pick them up in the morning and 3 of her kids were all ready to go so they went and it was awesome!! They all loved it!!! Had a super good time and got along with everyone there!! So we’re excited about that, we’re hoping that they all come next Sunday.
 
 Good news! So Pamela was acting weird for a while and like didn’t want anything to do with the church so we kind of left her alone for a little bit because she was just resisting...but her son is baptized so we passed by on Sunday and took him to church and everything, but it was cool because yesterday she called us saying she had things to talk about. We were afraid she was mad at us because we hadn’t been passing by as often...but she actually like apologized to us and told us that Oscar just seemed so happy when he got home from church and she wants to start over again and go to church and everything and work towards baptism again. So that was a major surprise and a repented heart! We were super happy and thankful that she has softened her heart again! Anyways, hope everyone has a great week! Chao Chao!
 
Love-
Elder Walden



Monday, July 31, 2017

Time is Flying!

So a little bit from this side of the world, nothing much has changed, we’ve had a pretty normal week. So we’ve got another Californian living in the house! He’s pretty cool and we actually get along super well. He’s Mexican so he already speaks Spanish, he’s a lot like Danny. He’s from Santa Ana, like close to Anaheim so not too far! But yeah, right now we are in Puerto Mont...We have to travel so much...tomorrow we have leaders’ conference, so later we will be going to Puerto Varas and then off to Osorno. But it’ll be good! I’m excited!
Today I found a super cheap wallet made out of cow hair! It’s sick! So I bought it. But yeah, and I actually ran into a Hermana from my ward here in Puerto, because I was trained here. It is fun running into those people because back then I didn’t know how to speak Spanish and now I speak pretty fluently so they’re all like "Elder Walden?! What the heck! You’re not even the same missionary anymore!" Its funny ha-ha. I like being able to know Spanish, it’s fun. You guys should look into if there’s Spanish tutor jobs at BYUI and what I need to do to do that, because I would love to make a little money speaking Spanish.
 Anyways, it weird, it’s already week 2 of this cambio! I’m in my 14th week with Elder Amaya! So weird! It’s weird because we started our missions together basically, we were in the same zone and saw each other every week, but almost didn’t talk because I didn’t know how to speak Spanish very well, but we never imagined being together. And now we’re in our 3rd cambio! It’s interesting how the mission is. Anyways, this week we finally got to pass by Paula. And we taught her about the restoration with her 7 kids, and it was awesome! They all told us that they want to be baptized ha-ha now it’s the whole matter of getting them to church...That’s the hard part.  I’m super stoked because we have like 10 people with a baptismal date right now in the sector but only 1 counts because no one ever goes to church! It’s just tougher because our ward starts at 9am and that’s like an hour and a half earlier than any other branch! Anyways, the work continues to move forward.
Hope all is well at home with everyone! That is awesome that Quinn and Josh are home! The mission is flying by too fast-
Love you All-
Zack 


Monday, July 24, 2017

Staying in Chiloe!

It’s weird that I’ve only got 5 months left, that’s such a short time!!! 3 and a half cambios! By the way we have cambios (exchanges) this week and we’re staying another cambio together!! Ha-ha this’ll be my 3rd cambio with Elder Amaya! But that’s actually exactly what we were hoping for ha-ha so I’m cool with it; this sector is awesome so I’m stoked to see some more miracles here. So it’s been frustrating because we have 3 people in the sector that want to be baptized and have a date and everything but they don’t go to church because they sleep in!!! We legitimately go to their house and everything in the morning and they don’t answer and then they always feel really bad when we visit them afterwards and then they do the same thing the next week! They have such strong testimonies, just can’t win the fight with the bed in the morning. It’s frustrating. But we’ve been teaching this one viejita named Rosa and she is awesome! She always gives us food and what not and she finally came to church this Sunday!!!! And she loved it and wants to come more!!! Woo!!! We are super excited for her!
So anyways, due to the fire in the house, we’ve been living with these other missionaries for a little bit, and one of them is leaving in this cambio to go somewhere else, and the other one is going to train. A gringo! From California!! Named Elder Cueva’s. Literally Elder Cave and I am stoked! I’ll have a newbie from California in the house!! It’ll be awesome, so anyways that’s been the week. Not a very exciting week --- just getting stuff ready for the cambios right now, nothing too interesting is going on. Hope you’ve all had a great week!
Love-
Zack