week #48 - Light the World initiative!

How`s it going?! Hope that you guys had a great Thanksgiving weekend! From what I saw looks like you guys had a good time! Well they don`t celebrate Thanksgiving here so I definitely missed out! Holidays here in the mish seem just like normal days, it`s kinda weird.

My week was alright. Every single day this week we had an activity in the church to prepare for branch conference. On Tuesday we had an activity from Elder`s quorum about family history. Since we are counselors in Elder`s quorum we had to help out a lot with that. It was pretty interesting, I learned a lot more about family history work! It`s pretty hard for the members to head down to Santiago to go to the temple. A couple times they do a trip as a branch to go to the temple but it`s pretty hard for the members to make it down to the temple. Then on Friday we had the activity from the missionaries. We did who wants to be a millionaire with questions about the scriptures and stuff. It was actually a lot of fun. Elder Jaramillo and Elder Oliveira dressed up and everything which was kinda funny. There`s a pic of the activity. A lot of the youth showed up and not a lot of the adults. It was pretty much a mutual activity.... But yeah that was the fun/good part of my week.

Not going to lie the rest of the week was kinda lame. We made a list of people who could be ready to be baptized and made plans for every one of them but everything fell.. Also I haven`t been super united with my comp either. He has a lot of different thoughts about the work than I do. He`s also a little different and he knows/admits that he doesn`t have common sense.. We`re good friends and everything but we`re just really different and think differently. But he`s a good missionary and a great guy.

Also this week the new initiative from the church came out for Christmas so we`ve been showing the video to a lot of people. It is a really awesome video so if you haven`t seen it yet you should! It`s called "light the world". The church is doing like 25 days of service or 25 ways in how we can be like Christ. It`s actually really cool! Light the World

This next week coming up are transfers! So we`ll see if I leave from Tal-Tal or if there are any changes this next week. I`ve been here in Tal-Tal for quite a while so we`ll see what happens! Maybe next week I`ll be writing you guys in a new city!

Oh I forgot to write as well about a crazy story that happened to us this Monday. So last Monday we actually went down to Chañaral again to play soccer with the zone. So we got down there in time, this time. We played soccer and had a good time with the zone and then we went to turbus to take the bus back home, everything all good. Then we looked at our tickets and they said 6:55 so we arrived on time but.... The tickets were for 6:55 in the morning! The office bought the wrong tickets and bought them for the next day in the morning. Well we also can`t sleep in the church or anything so the office told us to look for a member or for a hotel. We ended up finally finding a member who let us sleep in his house for the night. He was a really cool dude. His name is Raul Johnson and we talked a lot with him that night. He does harpoon fishing and catches huge fish. He was really cool and it was pretty fun to talk with him. He also has a daughter who lives there in the states, in Atlanta, who is also a member. But yeah we made it back home in time and everything is good now.

Also we are kinda out of money here in our pension. We had to buy our tickets to travel a couple weeks ago and we still haven`t received this money back from the office so we are completely out of money.... I have been living off of oatmeal and rice pretty much haha. Well at least we have our mamita for lunch haha. It`s been pretty interesting but also kinda lame as well. I feel like there are a lot of trials going on right now. But I`ve gotta be thankful for them right?

Well hopefully this next week will be a better one! Hope that you guys have a great week as well! Love you guys a ton!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Pics:

The Christmas decorations are starting to go up!

Friday`s "Who Wants to be a Millionare" Activity!

week #47 - God is a God of miracles!

Hey,

Well not going to lie this week was pretty boring and kinda stressful. We have been trying to work really hard so that we can baptize this month but it just seems like everything is going against us. I feel good about the work that I`m doing and feel like I am working harder than I ever have in my mission but it`s hard because I haven`t seen the fruits. But you just gotta keep working and trying. God is a God of miracles, just have to go with faith this next week that we can have a baptism. I hoping that Kambry and Matias will be baptized soon. They are Yerack and Carlitos`s little brother and sister who still aren`t baptized. Their parent won`t let them get baptized and told us that they have to wait until they are older to be able to decide. Kambry is 9 and Matias is 11. We have been working a lot with them and I feel like now is finally the time and I feel like they`re pretty close to getting baptized.

Tuesday we watched the Chile game with a investigator which was pretty funny. We went to Gielberto`s house because he is an old dude who lives alone and we have permission to watch Chile play if we watch with investigators or if it has a mission purpose. So we just went over to his house to watch it because he didn`t have anyone there to watch the game with him. But it was pretty funny because my comp got pretty into the game. But Chile ended up winning, Alexis Sanchez had some pretty awesome goals. Vamos Chile! Chi-Chi-Chi Le-Le-Le viva Chile!

Also on Saturday the other missionaries had a baptism and my convert, Yerack, baptized! He baptized his girlfriend, Javiera, who I was able to interview. Don`t worry I made sure that she wasn`t just getting baptized for her bf haha. But no she`s super awesome as well and gained a testimony. Also Yerack bore his testimony in the baptism and told everyone that he didn`t convince her at all or talk too much to her about it and that she actually made the decision. But it was funny because that was the first thing that he said when he got up to share his testimony. But it was awesome to see one of my converts baptizing someone else!

Other than that this week has just been some walking and contacting and teaching and just the normal week. We found some good people to start teaching this week as well. We passed our goal of contacts in the street a lot this week as well, we ended up contacting 59 people which was pretty cool as well. Hopefully one of those 59 we`ll be able to teach and will end up member of the church.

Yesterday was also the primary program. It was actually really cool and a little different because there aren`t as many kids. All of them gave like short 1-2 min talks with singing in between but they tied together and lot of stuff and it was really well. They also decorated the sacrament room which was pretty cool. I took some photos after wards so you`ll be able to see. But it was probably one of the best primary programs that I`ve seen, not gunna lie.

The reason I said I might not get my package before is because we only receive packages every first of the month. Ever first thursday of every month the Zone Leaders have leadership training in Antofagasta(in the mission office). And then when the Zone leaders return they bring all the packages and give out the packages to us. So that`s why if it doesn`t get in before leadership training then I`ll get it in January, the next leadership training. Hopefully that makes a little sense haha.

Last week when we ate with the sister in the mountain we had a member bring us up there haha. There`s no way I`m walking up that. It would probably take us like a good hour walking.

Yeah Ping-Pong is pretty popular down here. There are a lot of youth that play so we normally have an activity every week to invite youth and investigators to play. We do like tournaments and doubles and stuff. It is a lot of fun because there are a lof of people who play really well. I have improved a ton haha.

I hope that you guys have a great Thanksgiving weekend! They don`t celebrate Thanksgiving here so send me some turkey! Hope that you guys have a great time in Boise this weekend with the family! Love you guys!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Primary program

Primary program

Primary program

Selfie with Gielberto

The District

Funny pic of Carlitos

Javiera`s Baptism!

week#46 - past week travelling to Chanarel and zn

Hey everyone!

Hope that you guys had a great week. My week was pretty good. Last Monday we went off to Chañaral to play some soccer with the zone. The bus arrived and we were all on the bus ready to go and.... the bus broke... Turbus is the company that we travel in and the most popular here in Chile but not going to lie the buses are really lame, they are always late, and they break a lot. So we had to sit and wait like 2 hours for the next bus to arrive. We didn´t have a ton of time to play soccer but everything went well and we had fun. That´s also why I didn´t have time to write again!

Then on Tuesday we traveled again to Chañaral for our zone conference. So we lost like 2 days of work because of the traveling. I actually like to travel, but I don´t like to lose days to work.

Then from there the week was pretty normal, just walking, contacting, teaching, and finding. It was actually a really good week to find new people to teach. We found some really awesome people that we started teaching this week. It´s crazy how the Lord puts people in our path. You have to always be attent to the spirit to be guided to those who are prepared. The Lord is preparing people every single day. In our Zone Conference someone shared something that changed my perspective. They told a story about someone who joined the church as an adult who got his patricarcle blessing and in his blessing it said that he was prepared to recieve the gospel a long time ago but someone chose not to serve a mission so he had to wait until now. They explained to us how we need to be ready to find those who the Lord is preparing because we pass by so many people every single day. I also don´t want someone to recieve their patriaricle blessing later on in life saying that you didn´t receive the gospel until now because Elder Newkirk didn´t talk to you in the street or didn´t follow a prompting of the spirit.

Friday we actually did some service for Guierrmo. They are building their house out back so we went and help out do some cleaning. We also helped clean out their pool(without water). There was a ton of dust and stuff at the bottom and they also need to fix a few things for their pool. But after Guierrmo invited us to eat lunch with the family which was pretty cool because we were able to teach the family. They are really cool people. Hopefully they´ll be able to progress and go to church and stuff.

Every Saturday in the morning we have been playing ping-pong in the church and it has actually been pretty successful. Through ping-pong we have 2 dates for people to get baptized. We gave as well the other missionaries someone to teach who also has a baptism date. So ping-pong has been successful and fun.

Yesterday in Church was good. We had 4 investigators come to church which is normal for us. There were a lot more investigators who were suppose to come to church but didn´t show up. We need to be more diligent in the mornings before church to go out and bring people to church. We always call people in the morning to wake them up but we need to get out in the streets a lot earlier to look for the investigators to bring them to church. Also next week is the branch primary program which should be interesting because there isn´t a ton of primary, so we´ll see how it goes! And then the week after that we have branch conference, like stake conference.

Sounds like you are having a fun time on your new bike, but here comes winter. Better get some riding in before it gets cold. And while it is getting cold for you guys it has been getting real hot here for us. We haven´t even hit summer yet so we´ll see how things go and how hot it gets.

In the pic that was Yerack with the knife haha. Carlitos is the one next to me with the face paint and military clothes.

Don´t worry I definitely heard about the elections. A lot of people asking me what I thought about Donald Trump being the new president, and I honestly have no clue. I didn´t see anything about the elections. It seems like a lot of people here in Chile wanted Hillary to be president because they think that Trump doesn´t like latinos and that he doesn´t have any experience. But I guess we´ll find out what happens with Trump as president for the next 4 years.

Well today should just be a chill P-day, not too much going on, same with this week. Hope that you guys have a good week! Love you guys!

Love
Elder Newkirk

We had lunch yesterday with an older sister who lives outside of tal-tal in the mountains, so I took a couple of pics.

We had lunch yesterday with an older sister who lives outside of tal-tal in the mountains, so I took a couple of pics.

We had lunch yesterday with an older sister who lives outside of tal-tal in the mountains, so I took a couple of pics.

We had lunch yesterday with an older sister who lives outside of tal-tal in the mountains, so I took a couple of pics.

In Chañaral and the zone conference.

Service in Guierrmo´s house. His house is really cool, super different from normal northern Chile. Reminded me a lot of the states actually. Also his kitchen is outside in like a hawaiian type thing which was also really cool.

zone conference

Service in Guierrmo´s house. His house is really cool, super different from normal northern Chile. Reminded me a lot of the states actually. Also his kitchen is outside in like a hawaiian type thing which was also really cool.

Service in Guierrmo´s house. His house is really cool, super different from normal northern Chile. Reminded me a lot of the states actually. Also his kitchen is outside in like a hawaiian type thing which was also really cool.

week#45 -- heading to Chanarel for a zone activity.

Hey just going to write this real fast because our bus leaves to Chañaral in like 15 minutes! We are heading down to Chañaral today to do an activity with the zone, have another bbq and play soccer! I`ll try and get on a computer down there to be able to actually write you but we`ll see if I have time down there! But I`ll send you the photos now from this week!

Everything is going good here and we had a decent week. It was still kinda just a normal week but we worked really well this week.

The pics that I`m going to send is from Halloween last week. Actually there were a lot of kids and people out trick or treating. This is with the family Becerra. We passed by because we were close to their house and they were all preparing to leave to go trick or treating so we took a couple photos.

The other photo is when we played basketball. Brother Chavez, or Edwin, actually plays decently. But I pretty much just dominated the floor. But it was a lot of fun playing with all the youth. Guierrmo`s kid also came to play with us, his name is Willie. He`s pretty cool as well! 

But yeah it`s about that time for the bus to go so I can`t write anymore right now but I`m going to try to write a little bit more there in Chañaral so we`ll see! but if not just know that I`m all good and that everything is going well!

Thanks for the updates on the NBA. Sounds like it should be a pretty good season! Wish I could watch it! Go Thunder!

But yeah if I don`t have time in Chañeral to write, Love you guys and hope you have an amazing week!

Love

Elder Newkirk