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 acĂ  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!