Connor in Puerto Varas

 

This Thursday marks 1 year since I was set apart as a missionary! I think I get back near the end of May 2015, so I think I`ve already passed my halfway point. You can`t show that too much, because when people hear that you have more than a year in the mission, they think that you`re going to get "trunky" (which is a term all the Chilean members know).

This week was so rainy and windy! 

Hermana Paxman and Segura continue being superstars. They have awesome investigators and their converts stay converted. They`re ward has a lot of leadership problems right now, so that`s a huge accomplishment that their retention is so good. They`re really obedient and they`re always thinking of creative ways to serve. Honestly, sometimes I feel so below my potential when I see their example. I try to improve.

Colón has been dry on investigators, but we`ve done a lot of work to find people. We contacted a lot more people in the street than usual and were surprised to have some really great conversations. We set about 5 appointments for Saturday but every single one of them fell through. At that point, every appointment that we set all week had fallen through. It was a bit discouraging, but then Sunday went fantastically. We taught some wonderful less active members and we had an appointment with people we found on the street and the appointment didn`t fall through! They`re a young family of 4 and they were receptive and actually listened (typically the people we teach talk way too much and try to teach us rather than hear the message). They`re in a tough situation and have to move this week. They still don`t know where they`re going to move to, but they can`t pay in their current house.

There was an activity on Friday (Viernes Divertido) but not very many people showed up. As it turned out, Chile played against Egypt that night. We cancelled the activity and we were the last to leave. As we were locking the gate (at about 7:23pm), 3 youth came and asked if they came too late. One of them wasn`t a member and it was really sad that we had to tell them that the activity was cancelled. Next week, we`re going to start the activity at 7:00 even if no one shows up, just in case.

We got confronted by a dog that really tried to attack us. That was really surprising because usually they just yap and then run away the moment you pretend to pick up a rock. This German shepherd came at us behind a truck, and I could see it sneaking it`s way to get close to us. The moment the dog noticed that I noticed, he sprinted for us, so I made myself look big and prepared to kick it if it got closer. It was kinda really intense. We backed up and thankfully nothing bad happened. Just a little experience of many many many experiences that we have during our weeks.

One last cool experience.  I didn`t bring rain pants for proselyting because I thought it looked pretty clear that day. We were on the other side of our sector when it started raining. I really didn`t want to have to go back to the house just to get rain pants. It would waste so much time and I wanted to use every moment to find people, even though the chances of finding someone was very slim for that hour. We prayed that the rain would stop so we could work, unless it was some kind of lesson that I needed to be more prepared with my rain pants. Almost immediately, the sun came out. We turned the corner and there was one of the clearest rainbows I`d ever seen. I remembered the covenant that the rainbow symbolizes. It didn`t rain again for the next 5 hours. It started raining again just after we arrived to our house. Independent of this experience, I know that God answers prayers. Sometimes it`s something obvious, and sometimes not, but we should seek diligently for the answers to our sincere and humble prayers. As we seek the answers to our humble prayers, we will see the hand of the Lord more plainly in our lives.

Love you all :D

Elder Connor Christopherson

Sorry I haven`t sent many photos. I might be able to send one or two in a few minutes.