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