Elder Newkirk Chile Antofagasta LDS Mission Blog: 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