week #57 miracle baptism -- more hard work this week!

Hey!

Well this week actually went really well! A lot of crazy stuff happened in my week and quite the miracle as well! Hope that you guys had a great week as well!

So to start off this week that happened, we had a new investigator attend church this Sunday. She is a friend of a recent convert. She´s 14 and her name is Geraldin, but we call her "Cielo"(which means heaven in Spanish). Because I´m pretty sure she was sent down from heaven this week because she got baptized Saturday! So let me explain the story!
So the first time that we´ve ever met Cielo was Sunday when she came to church. She is a neighbor of a convert and they are practically sisters. She just got back from a 1-2 trip to Perú for vacations to visit family, because she´s from Lima, Perú. So her friend invited her to come to church so she came. Then like Tuesday and Wednesday we went to go a visit her, (She lives out in La Chimba so we have to do quite the trip to go and visit her), but she wasn´t home Tuesday or Wednesday. So on Thursday we decided to try out our luck and head out there with our zone leaders to teach her and also to do her baptism interview. So we went there Thursday morning and we finally found her. We taught her, got to know her better, then we just sent her to a baptism interview with Elder Lozano. After like a hour in the interview she came out and told us that she was going to baptize this Saturday! It was awesome because as well when she lived in Perú she was attending church there and was close to getting baptized but then moved to Chile and didn´t get baptized. Then on Friday after mutual in the church we finished teaching her everything and she got baptized on Saturday! My comp baptized her by water Saturday and I got to baptize by fire on Sunday! On top of the baptism this Saturday we had what they call "Noche Blanca" or "White Night" where all the missionaries bring their investigators to baptize in the stake building. So Cielo was able to participate in the "Noche Blanca" and it was a great experience because there were a lot of people there and all the missionaries were there!
The Lord blessed us a ton for the work that we have been doing. I have felt like this whole month of January we have just been getting rejected and just things haven´t been going too great. But when we do our part the Lord will always do his part! It was a pretty big miracle that happened this week but we were able to baptize in the month of January. The goal of the mission is that every companionship can baptize every month! So we were able to baptize in January!

Other than that this week we were just full on trying to prepare Cielo to get baptized and do everything for her. But she has already progressed a ton! She is already really close with the young women and has already started doing her personal progress! She is awesome!

Also on Tuesday we had interviews with President which was cool. Now with the mission President we will have interviews every 6 weeks which is kinda cool. It´s always good to talk with President!

Then on Sunday we had a "Capilla Abierta" which is "Open Church" in the ward "Caliche" where they open up the church building and do tours and teach people what we do in the church. We were there pretty much the whole afternoon on Sunday. So what happens is that there are a few members that are in a couple rooms around the church that are prepared to share a couple things with the people that come into the church and what the missionaries do is just go out in the street the whole time and just bring people from the street or from their house to go to the open church activity. It was actually pretty fun. We just all went out their and started talking and walking with everyone in the street to bring them into the church. It actually worked quite well and we got quite a few people to go into the church. It was funny the first person we brought to the activity was a old drunk guy in a wheelchair. At first we went up to him to invite him to the activity and told us no that he didn´t want to. Then we told him that there would be soda, he looked up at us and told us "yeah, let´s go!" I was with Elder Prada(Zone Leader) during the activity so he took the wheelchair a we walked him to the church. So that we pretty funny but we actually got quite a few people to enter and all the missionaries in the zone were helping so we actually got quite a few in there to learn more about the church and everything. It was actually a ton of fun and I enjoyed it a lot! I took a few pics there in the open church that I´ll send as well!

Well on to this week we are pretty much on square one again to find new people to start teaching and everything. So this week will just be a lot of hard work and also some more baptism interviews for the sisters! There are 4 sisters in my district, and it seems like the sisters baptize a ton! But the investigator usually gets to choose who they want to baptize them and idk why but usually the DL gets to baptize them haha. That´s fine with me!

Already the superbowl next week! Crazy! Well I honestly don´t care about any team that´s playing in the superbowl. Sounds like it will be a little lame...

Vacation time has been quite hard for working as a missionary because like I said before. But just gotta keep working and the Lord will always put people in the path that are ready to accept the gospel! But no we can´t go to the beach. We can only go to the beach if there is absolutely no one in the beach which is literally impossible. so maybe when it´s winter time again we´ll be able to go to the beach lol.

TGI Friday´s was a little expensive like 15 bucks.... but it was definitely worth it! and I´ll probably be going again!

Well I´m out of time once again! Hope that you guys have a great week! Love you!!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Capilla Abierta

Capilla Abierta

Capilla Abierta

Capilla Abierta

Noche Blanca

Noche Blanca

Noche Blanca

Capilla Abierta

Capilla Abierta

Capilla Abierta

Capilla Abierta

Capilla Abierta

Capilla Abierta

Capilla Abierta

week #56 - Another busy week spreading the gospel!

Hey! Sounds like you guys just have had a week full of work and snow!

My week was pretty good. It has been blazing hot here this past week and they are saying that there is a giant wave of heat that´s going to pass through this week so that should be fun. The weather says 80´s but it is definitely a lot hotter than that because the sun is super super strong here in northern Chile. Even at night it´s pretty hot. I've just been sleeping in g´s and I still sweat at night. There have been a few nights where I have woke up just dying of heat lol. We need to ask for a fan from the office so that they can send us one. We have a couple ceiling fans downstairs but we don't have anything upstairs when we go to bed.

But this week has just been walking around in the sun. Like everyone here in Chile are on their summer vacations and have been traveling, going to the beach like every day, or just lazy and don't want to receive us. It has been pretty difficult thanks to vacations. Normally more people are home and with the family during breaks or vacations but here everyone is just go go go. Not a lot of people have a lot of time.

We tried pretty hard this week to try and find more people to teach and that are ready to receive the gospel and be baptized! But all the receptive people that we have been finding are missing something so that they can get baptized(mainly need to get married). But we just need to go forward with faith to find someone that the Lord is preparing because I know that he is! Right now we have to plant the seeds and find the people that are ready to be harvest! I love working in the Lord's vineyard but sometimes it get's hard but the mission is awesome! But it is a little hard for people to get progressing here in Chile because they aren't that good with keeping their promises. For example this weekend we found an old investigator that was listening to the missionaries before, that we invited to come to church. He said that there wouldn't be a problem and that he wanted to come to church and would be waiting for us to pass by in the morning to come and pick him up to go to church. So we passed by yesterday and he came out and told us that he was waiting for a friend to go to the beach for the day so he couldn't go to church...... So that's the main problem that we have is just with the people keeping their promises.

But this week we just have to go out there and work hard like normal to find more people that the Lord is preparing. Like you said there is a reason why I was sent here to spread this wonderful message about the gospel to the people here in Chile. One thing that I have learned a lot is that God sees us all the same and that there isn't anyone better in the sight of God. Everyone is exactly the same in the eyes of God. One concept that sometimes it is hard to have because everyone is here on this earth to learn and to grow and to make it back to their Heavenly Father someday!

No we haven´t been able to contact the girl that we passed by last week to go to church. She has been in the beach or been leaving to go to the beach or do something so we haven´t really been able to talk to her. I feel like she was just talking the talk and doesn´t really want to walk the walk.

Yeah La Portada is pretty cool. There isn´t a ton to do out there, just take pictures. We took a bus that heads out there. It´s like 30-45 mins away from our sector. But yeah that´s where they take all the new missionaries to take pics.

We have P-days until 7pm then we get out and start working again. President Hinckley said that there doesn´t exist a P-night.

Yeah I´m waiting for the gift to share with you guys what it is. So you´ll just have to wait!

Well I´m out of time this week to keep writing(even though I didn´t have really much else to say)... Love you guys a ton! Stay safe in the snow!!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Pics:
We went to TGI Friday´s today for P-day with a group of missionaries! I felt like I was back at home! It was pretty american there!
The sister missionaries of my district had baptisms this week! After I did the baptism interviews the grandma told me that she wanted that I baptized the girls so I was able to baptize this weekend lol! The benefit of having sister missionaries in your district!

week #55 - Visit to La Portada - continue working

Hey! ¿como están? Espero que hayan tenido un gran semana!

Well everything´s still going good for me! I´m still with my comp Elder Robles for another transfer here but it´s all good just got to get out there and work!

This week we actually had a pretty great week! We found a few new people to start working with this week. We found 10 new investigators to start working with this week. There are a couple of them who are actually really good and should progress quite well with our visits. So we should hopefully have some baptisms coming up soon! This week we found a couple, Jose and Isel, who are really awesome. They came to church this Sunday as well. But like the majority of the problems here in Chile is that they aren´t married... Like usual.. They´re great! Let´s just hope that they´ll get married! We also found a couple more people who accepted a date to get baptized but they didn´t come to church this Sunday so that slowed down there progress just a little bit. That´s probably one of the hardest things that we have to deal with is bring investigators to church on Sunday´s because a majority of the people are used to not going to church and doing other things on Sunday like going to the beach or just sleeping. So it usually takes a little so that people come to church. As well with the new converts. That´s why President has been talking a lot about the importance of the Atonement and the Sacrament and how us as missionaries need to teach these things better so the people can understand how important it is to go to church on Sunday.

Well... The splits this week didn´t really work out like we planned them to. Either we couldn´t go the split because something came up or the members couldn´t because of work or something that came up as well... I had to do quite the interviews for the sisters this week so I had to go to their sectors to do baptismal interviews which took a little of our time to work. Also this week I should be having some more interviews to do! Well the sisters in my district are definitely working! haha.

Actually we did splits with a couple YM sunday morning to go and get some investigators to bring them to church. There was a chick that we started to talk to in the street Saturday night who we invited to church and said yes and that we could pass by in the morning to go to church together. So I passed by with Nicolas, Bishop´s son, to bring her to church. We passed by and knocked on the door. Then like 3 people came to the door that wasn´t her... 3 of her family members came out and they were all sleeping... They got pretty mad at us haha. But Christina, the chick that we talked to, was sleeping with her baby. Whelp she didn´t come to church and now I´m pretty sure the family is a little mad at us...

They called a new ward mission leader but we still don´t know who it is yet.. Next Sunday they´ll announce it! But this ward is full of returned missionaries so it should be someone who knows what they´re doing so it should be good!

Yeah Elder Villegas is going home this week. He´ll be home tomorrow! It was pretty funny, he called me Sunday afternoon with a phone from the mission office and we talked for a little. He´s a great guy and we laughed quite a bit! I was making fun of him because he´s dying and going home. He was there waiting to have the last interview with President and told me "it´s time to confess all my sins" haha. He´s great and told me that he´ll email me when he´s home so we should stay in contact!

I put out a couple rat poison to kill it because my comp said that he saw a rat running around and we had some poison in the house so I put some out. But I really wasn´t expecting to find a dead rat in the morning on the floor haha. Speak of the devil another cat pooped on our porch again and when we were coming home at night I couldn´t see and I stepped right on it and tracked it inside so the house smelled pretty bad for a little bit... Stupid cats...

It´s definitely fun to get out there and play some bball. And actually today for P-Day we left out with a member and went to La Portada. That giant rock in the middle of the ocean. It was actually pretty cool and we had some fun out there with him. We had to do a little walking to get there but it was fun! His name is Luis, he´s 22, and preparing to leave out on a mission this year. He has also been leaving with us to visit people. He also tagged me on Facebook with a photo as well. But he´s fun! We also went out and ate at Subway for lunch today. Oh how great is Subway. It´s been quite a while since I´ve had Subway. The Subway here is like in a super rich part of Antofa and we hardly go there but we thought that we would hit up Subway today for lunch. It was a good choice. There isn´t a ton of fast food here like there is in the states like McDonalds and Subway and stuff. There are a lot of people that sell things like completos and hamburgers and stuff like that but not like fast food fast food.

Yeah I took out some money because I got a card from Grandma and Grandpa Oldroyd that they were going to give me 50 bucks in my account so I took out some money. But I bought something that should be pretty cool that should get here by next month so you´ll just have to wait and see! I bought it through a member and they are shipping it to their house.

Well hope that you guys have a great week and a good week snowboarding! Sounds like there´s a lot of snow! Hopefully there´s a ton next year as well!😉 Have a great lazy day as well without work! Love ya guys a ton!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Reminder about family scripture study Mom!😘

Pics:La Portada that we went to today and Subway!

The Zone La Portada!!

week #54 - Leadership council -- Read the scriptures!

Hi!

Well this week was a pretty good one. Not too much happened but we talked to some pretty good people this week that I hope will progress in the future. Just working the normal this week with talking with people in the street, teaching, walking, just the norm. This week we actually left with a lot of members. We reached the mission goal again of 14 lessons with member! The members here are pretty cool. There are a lot of RM in the ward or people that are preparing to serve missions so we have a lot of people to work with. Also our former ward mission leader was really awesome and did a lot for us but he just got called as Elders quorum president, he was Bishop´s son who got back from the mission like May 2016, so we´ll see who our new ward mission leader is. Also this week we should have even more members who are going to leave with us. We´re going to do some splits this week to get even more lessons in.

Tuesday we had leadership counsel which was really cool because it was my first one. Normally leadership counsel is only with the Zone Leaders but President invited all the District Leaders and future leaders so I was able to see a lot of other elders around the mission. Also the Trio from the CCM got back together after a year in the mission which was pretty cool. I also saw Elder Fernandez and Elder Abalos who I was with in Tal-Tal. Also my Papito(trainer) Elder Villegas who´s going to finish the mission this next week. It was the last time that I´ll get to see him😭 haha. We also got a huge change in our daily schedule. President changed a few things so now the schedule is pretty different. We still get up and sleep at the same time but we just have a different schedule to do our studies and planes which is a little weird to get used to but this schedule should help that we can be more productive. Other than that leadership counsel was pretty cool we talked a lot about the atonement and repentance. Teach repentance and baptize converts. We are also focused a lot in John 6 about the sacrament and how Christ should always be in the middle of our lives because he is the bread of life! Our President is also focused a lot on that we our our own agents and we can make our own decisions and that we won´t always have people there telling us what it wrong and what is right so we have to make a lot of decisions for our own. Sometimes I think that it´s good but sometimes it´s bad, the rules that we have and everything about the mission feels really flexible.

Other than that this week was pretty chill not too much happened. Just a rat died in our house and a cat took a dump in our front porch and it smells pretty bad out front... But other than that just working hard with my comp. Things with my comp are alright. We don´t get a long too well and he´s a little lazy. I´m pretty sure we are late to like everything and always leave late and stuff. I always try to help but it seems like my comp doesn´t really care too much about anything. One of Trenton´s friends told me before the mission that you are only as good as your comp is and it´s so true. You could be the best missionary in the world but if your comp isn´t good then you really can´t do anything. So I´m hoping that there are some transfers this next week! haha

Today for P-day we played B-ball as a zone. Our team went undefeated! I drained a lot of 3´s and that´s pretty much why we won haha. Our team was pretty good but there are a few other gringos in the zone that play really well also. We also went to the mall and ate some KFC. There´s also a TGI Friday´s in the mall that I want to go to one day before I leave but it´s a little expensive haha.

Actually in our area we don´t have a mamita or papito. We eat with the members every day of the week which is actually really nice because we still receive the same amount of money every month but we don´t need to pay a mamita to cook food so we´re pretty rich 😎

Sounds like there have been a lot of storms passing through! Stay safe!! But sounds like there should be some pretty good snow this season! I definitely miss the snow!

There are quite a few different sodas here in Chile that people drink but yeah Coke is the main one!

You should definitely get into a good habit to read the scriptures everyday. I have definitely learned a lot by doing it and now I can´t start the day at all without reading or doing any studies. It´s really important so that we can go into the day enlightened. There was an apostle that said if we start the day with a prayer and scripture study then our day will go a lot better and the things that we read or revelation we receive will help us through the day or in parts of our day. Read your scriptures!!

Love you guys! Hope you have a great week!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Thanks for the sports updates! Vamos OKC!! Boooo Jazz

District meeting with the Zone Leaders this week!

The dead rat in our house that we found in the morning...

NEWKIRK NUGGETS. They were on a sign outside of a negocio!😂

Elders Jennings, Newkirk, Wild

Elders Abalos, and Newkirk

Elder Newkirk y Elder Villegas

Elder Fernandez y Elder Newkirk

week #53 Happy New Years!

Happy New Year´s!!

Well our new years went pretty well. Don´t worry I´m pretty sure that you guys had a better one than I did haha. But actually some members invited us to their house new years eve to a bbq which was pretty cool. There was a ton of meat, a ton... But we had to be in the house at 9 if a member didn´t invite us to their house but gladly a member invited us! So we had permission until 10:30. We went back to the house and just hung out pretty much because the neighbor´s were having a huge party next door and the music was pretty much shaking our house. Let´s just say that I didn´t get a ton of sleep that night... But it was good we were actually able to see a few fireworks from the window of our house as well. But yeah not a ton happened.

This week was a pretty slow week there wasn´t a lot of people willing to listen with all the parties and stuff going on. A lot of people told us that after the holidays we could pass by or call them. The people here just like to party so it was pretty interesting. A lot of just walking around this week.

We didn´t have a baptism this week either. We are actually pretty dry with investigatores right now. There aren´t a ton. We have to start to find more people and just talk to everyone in the street. But yeah the work here has definitely been quite slow but this week should be a lot better. Church this Sunday we made a list with a lot of members that are going to leave with us this week and we are almost booked like all week to leave with members which should be really good.

Speaking of church there wasn´t like anyone in church this Sunday with it being new years and at 10am... haha. It was even hard for us to get up and get going on Sunday because we didn´t sleep a ton haha. The attendance was like 48 people when there are normally 80-120 members so there weren´t a lot of people. But we did have a couple investigators in church. Enriquez and Jenny came to church again with their kids and Bastian that got baptized Christmas. They are really cool and awesome! But it sucks that they aren´t married.... But everyone else was just sleeping or the people that were awake were the people parting all night and we still awake and super drunk. We had a ton of drunks like all day New Years shouting at us lol. But we are the only ward in our building so we just have the same time at 10am.

Everything´s going good with Elder Robles. He´s a little lazy and I have to put some batteries in with him sometimes but everything going good. We just need to work a little bit harder and smarter. But things are going fine.

That´s good that you guys made it home nice and safe! Sounds like you had a pretty chill New Year´s as well!

That´s sad to hear that Uncle Fred passed away. Grandma was telling me that his health wasn´t doing so good. Prayers will be sent to Aunt Marilynne!

Trust me be thankful for the snow! I miss the cold and snow!! I´m dying here with the heat.....

Well hope that you guys have a great week! Love you!!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Spider that I killed on the wall. I told you they were decent sized!

New Year´s Eve dinner!