Note from Mom:  I'm posting 3 emails at once. My computer was broken, so I got a little behind.

July 28, 2014

As it turns out, I wasn´t supposed to Skype you (oops). (Note from Mom: We had an unexpected 5-minute Skype with Connor the day before, after he lost his wallet.) I called the assistants when the financer didn´t answer his phone, and he said we could call. What he meant, and what I misunderstood, is that Elder Biggs was supposed to call, not me. The financer, the assistant, and President Obeso all called me individually to tell me I wasn´t supposed to call you.

For those of you wondering what I´m talking about, I lost my wallet yesterday. It had lots of important stuff inside, including my personal debit card, the debit card of the mission, my Chilean identification (a HUGE pain to replace), my California driver’s license, and my temple recommend. I thought I had permission to call my family, but Elder Biggs (part of a senior companionship) said that his phone doesn´t reach the United States, so I called with Skype (because my family needed to block the debit card before losing all my savings).

Today, we went to the caribineros—Chilean police. (Speaking of which, you ought to look up photos of caribineros online. They look really military and they make a lot of money.) My wallet was there, but the debit cards and money was not there. I think there were 6000 Chilean pesos and $100 US dollars inside :(

Starting this week, I´m going to train a new gringo named Elder Strait (Ithought it was Elder Strike, which would have been a much cooler name, but I suppose Elder Strait will have to do). We´ll see how it goes.

-Elder Connor Christopherson

* * * * * *

July 21, 2014

Maia, I heard you had a funnel cake. Those are SO yummy :D The usually sold them at our marching band competitions :) Chile has something similar called calzones rotos, but the funnel cakes are bigger and better :D

LaRee, I talked with a librarian this week and we talked about family history. She says that it´s helped a lot looking for people on Facebook and asking if they have the same ancestor. You´re able to send messages to people even if you´re not "friends."

The man we’ve been teaching is doing really well :D He´s really humble. In Sunday school, I think he´s the only one who studies the material before the class, so he gets so excited and you can tell it´s just revelation after revelation with him.

We´ve been studying the Old Testament, which has a lot of stories that you don´t really hear that often but that are really awesome. Elijah called down many miracles. I especially like the story when he challenges the priests of Baal to call down fire from their false god. It´s epic! I wish we could do stuff like that in the mission but the world´s a little different now. Back then miracles were more well-known and common, like in the New Testament when there´s a pool which an angel touched every once in a while and the first person to enter the water after the angel touched would get healed. If something like that happened today, it would be all over YouTube. The question in that day wasn`t if there was a god, the question was who was this god and what did he expect of us. They already knew that manna would fall from the sky and that they were being guided by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. What they doubted is who to worship. It`s funny how the trials are different in different time periods.

I´m learning so much about the importance of expressing love for one another. You can´t just love people, you have to let your love show. I´ve been bad at that lately.

We´ve done a lot of service this week outside of Panguipulli (gui is pronounced "gee" where the g is like the g in "goat." Two l´s together in spanish is like a" y" in English (unless you´re from Argentina in which case you pronounce it like "sh.") There´s a really nice family that has a lot of space to clear up of fallen trees and long thorny vines. The thorny vines (called Mura) cut me a lot and I look like I got in a fight with a cat. Part of the family is a young couple. He was telling stories from his mission and realized I had heard several of these stories before. I think he served in the same mission as Brett Brushke (Paraguay) with the same mission president.

I love you all very much :D

-Elder Connor Christopherson

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July 14, 2014

Well, another hard week, but that`s how one grows. Is it bad if I say I have a hard week? People tell me I shouldn´t, but I´ve got to contrast the many wonderful weeks I`ve had with some tough ones, right?

I´m learning this week so much about the importance of prayer.... like, really, it´s something I need to do more frequently in my head before making decisions because it helps so much. I´ve been painfully humbled and I´m understanding more and more of my own dependence in our Heavenly Father. I want to improve how meaningful my prayers are by asking questions, specific questions, and by devoting more of my prayers in gratitude. Before I was doing about 50% 50% between thanks and asking for blessings (for me or others). I´m trying to improve.

It was hard to find Rolando this week. We kept showing up to his house to find no one there, then on Friday we found him and we ate turkey neck. It`s a bit boney, but it was yummy too. We sang lots of hymns together. I love Rolando! He is so easy to make laugh and he´s very humble in the way he teaches (sometimes he accompanies us in lessons).

We also got to attend a mission call opening of a guy named Felipe. He lives about 15-20 minutes from Panguipulli in bus and was baptized a little over a year ago. He is always willing to put other plans aside to accompany us as we teach. There were a lot of people in their house for the opening, several of them who were not members. It ended up being like a devotional, with prayers, hymns, and several testimonies (they asked all the missionaries and returned missionaries to bear their testimonies). I used the opportunity to teach about the Restoration and I bore my testimony that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ really did call Joseph Smith to restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness. It was really cool :D Felipe was called to serve in Peru, but I don`t remember the name of the city.

Love you all, :D

-Elder Christopherson

Nice job with the skunk, Dad :)

This was a hard week for me. I won`t list more than a few things because the list would go on for a while and I don`t want this email to be a downer. We had a lot of appointments fall through and it`s kinda our fault because we waited too long to call members to accompany us. We had some drama amongst some Elders in our district and had a big inventory. It`s being resolved. I lost my camera :( I hope I find that, because I didn`t make the back-up I`ve been wanting to make this week. There`s drama with an the owner of our old house in Panguipulli and I think it`s going to cost the church a lot of money. I guess this week I`ve just been so stressed because we`ve had a lot of things that I said I`d do that I didn`t do.

The other week I was going to talk about a man I've met. He`s really great. He was once active at church, but he and his brother now have serious drinking and smoking problems. He was already in the process of returning to the gospel as I arrived in ¨Panguipulli. He and his brother live in VERY humble circumstances. The kitchen, bedroom, and living room are all the same room. The only other room is a bathroom. They have no running water (just a little natural stream behind their house) and no electricity in their house. He attended church and attended choir practice and accepted a church calling. We passed by him almost every day, and more than once we found him reading the Book of Mormon or the Liahona by candlelight. He`s just been so happy to return to church. He gave us some of the most humble soup I`ve ever had. The Lord blessed him for his diligence and he got a job a little less than a week ago. He`s been so great. Then, on Saturday, we passed by to find him and his brother pretty bad with an almost empty carton of wine on the table and a few empty packs of cigarettes. We tried passing by again on Sunday and it was worse. I really want this guy to progress and be happy. We`re doing all we can to keep being loving and patient.

Happiness comes from living the gospel. Endure to the end with faith.

Love you all!

-Elder Connor Christopherson

June 23, 2014

Where do I start? I`ll start with before the transfer. Our last week-and-a-half in Colón felt like jumping out of an airplane crash. We had very few appointments, and the ones we had fell through. We had one family of investigators tell us never to come back, along with a family of less-active members who also told us to never come back. The ward members are really sad that they`re taking the elders out.

A recent convert, Manuel, who isn`t well known by the ward because he only attends sacrament meeting, had to go to the intensive care unit over the weekend because water was getting around his heart (he already has to go to the hospital 12 hours a week for dialysis). There was a big fire in our sector on our last day there. We had a little extra time before an appointment, so we passed by that direction. As it turns out, the fire was a house burning down... Manuel´s house. There were tons of firefighters, policemen, and spectators. Right in the middle of it was Manuel and his mom and his aunt (it`s his aunt`s house). It was totally black inside of the house. Needless to say, his week was a bit rough. And I thought OUR week was difficult.

My new companion is Elder Petrovelli. He`s from Argentina and it shows in his accent. They pronounce their "y" like a long "sh". (ie: How shoo doin´? Shesterday I saw shoo shelling at shour pet shak.) Something like that. He thinks a lot differently than I do. He acts and works differently too. Our strengths and weaknesses are very different. He didn`t do too well in school, but is really good at soccer (fútbol) and was paid to play in Argentina. The World Cup is absolutely huge for him. He`s really up front about things. He asks people right away if they`re going to come to church (which is much more effective than I`d think) and he gets along well with people. I`m learning a ton from him. It`s a good way to analyze the way I do things in comparison and really see why I do certain things as opposed to another. I´ll change that which doesn`t have a good reason.

And our investigator with a baptismal date just almost kissed me. She`s twelve. She just saw us in the internet café and when she shook my hand she started moving in close, but then noticed that I wasn`t, so she backed and stayed composed. That`s very normal in Chilean culture to kiss friends in the cheek (women and women, men and women, but not men and men). It`s always awkward explaining to people that we missionaries can´t. Several of them get offended. Just one of those things.

I love my new town, Panguipulli! The branch is absolutely awesome and I`m now part of the branch choir. We go from house to house, family to family, and almost none of our appointments or plans fall through. It`s very different from working in Puerto Varas.

I`m out of time and I still have a ton I want to say. I love reading all your emails. I absolutely HAVE to talk about a guy named Rolando next week. Pray that he finds a job. I love that guy.

Tommy, I'll try my very best not to stab myself with utensils, but I can't make any promises.

 

I love you all :D

-Elder Connor Christopherson

 Connor's new home, Panguipulli, a picturesque tourist town on a lake.

 Panguipulli, Chile

 

Happy Father`s Day and Happy Birthday, Maia, and congratulations on graduating high school!

Ha ha ha! The photo of you two (Mom and Dad) at the bike race is funny. You look like you`re from different worlds.

Lots of stuff to say and I have less time than usual to say it.

¡CAMBIOS! I`m leaving Puerto Varas, and Elder Dennis is to. They took out the elders so the hermanas are now in charge of the whole ward. The members are all pretty bummed that they`re losing missionaries. A lot of them are taking it as a sort of punishment, but there are fewer missionaries entering the mission than leaving, so they needed to close some sectors. The hermanas will have a whole lot more work to do, and they`ll get to teach a lot more.

Puerto Varas has been tough in that we didn`t teach many investigators, and not one ended up coming to church. We showed up to a lot of appointments just to find empty houses and several addresses that don`t exist. The members are strong in testimony, but everyone in southern Chile works really long hours and we`ve found it difficult to work with them (which was our goal for the transfer). Even our lider misional (ward mission leader) only had correlación (I have no idea what that`s called in English) a few times, when it should be weekly. I hope that the hermanas get to teach more, now that the size of their sector has doubled. Missionary work has changed in every part of the world because the world is more wicked and there are a lot more distractions. It CANNOT work without good member/missionary coordination.

Oh! I was going to say where I`m going. I`m going to a place called Paguipulli (I think that`s how it`s spelled). People tell me it`s a pretty lake town like Puerto Varas. They say it`s very beautiful and very tranquillo (which is kinda like calm, relaxed, or tranquil).

Mundial started this week! We got permission to watch the first 3 games of Chile because it´s more productive inviting investigators to watch the game with us than to try teaching people who want to watch fútbol (soccer). Chile won against Australia 3-1. YAY! During a fun game we had a fun discussion with some of the Chileans who wanted it to be very clear to us that America does not mean the United States. America is North, South, and Central America. The United States is just the United States. It bugs the rest of America that we call ourselves Americans  instead of United Statesians. (In spanish, the word for someone from the United States is estadounidence, which would translate to something like Unitedstatesian). Just interesting.

I told a little gnome looking man he was a hypocrite the other day. I never thought I`d do that to someone in the street, but I realized that some people just can`t understand unless their bubble gets burst. He specifically told us that everyone should be a certain way, and then told us exactly why he wasn`t doing those things. I understand better why Christ was sometimes so harsh to the Pharisees and Sadducees. It`s why Abinadi had to be so harsh with the priests of Noah. I think Alma never would have considered that what he was doing was wrong unless he was confronted with a prophet like that. Alma had been living in a culture of wickedness for so long, he was probably numb to it. He needed a wakeup call. The people with real intent will be grateful and will change. Interesting lesson of the week.

I love you all!

-Elder Connor Christopherson

​

You've got to be careful with forks.

Oh, goodness. I didn`t shave that morning.

During lunch, I tried to dramatically slam my face on the table to show frustration, but my hand hit the fork, which turned on it´s fulcrum and the long end pointed right at my eye. I`m glad I was wearing glasses or I think I would have really lost an eye. When everyone told me it was bleeding, the obvious first thing to do was leave the mamita`s house to get my camera and take pictures. The long end of the fork wasn`t sharp, so I think the bleeding was just the pressure if the metal pressing against my skull that caused the bleeding. It`s not one puncture, it`s kinda several tears that line up with the fold marks. Just something to make my mom feel like I`m safe and secure in Chile :D Love you and hope this made you laugh :D

 

Hola!

So, there`s a family in our ward, the Cortez family, who were the first people baptized in Puerto Varas. Every one of them is really strong in the church. One of them owns a frutaría (a place where they sell fruit). He`s basically consecrated to the church and has such a happy family. We showed the agenda missional to them and they loved it and at the end of the lesson, they all put their hands together and said "Uno, dos, tres, EXITO!!!" Which means "One, two, three, SUCCESS!!!" they put all their hands up at the end. They`re such a united happy family! Shows what happens when you live the gospel correctly.

This same hermano always gives us free food. I feel like I`m stealing, but he always wants us to go in and take what we want. That`s where we do half of our grocery shopping.

The other week, we grabbed a carton of thirty eggs. We still had about two hours before we needed to get back to the house, so I put them in my backpack (because it`s huge and always has extra space :) We almost got back to the house late because we had an awesome lesson with Jesús and María José, but in my rush I cracked a few eggs. When we opened my backpack, we found lots of egg inside and I had to throw away some of my now destroyed books. Thankfully, my book covers for my scriptures protected the most important stuff. In total, seven eggs broke in my backpack. We ended up cleaning my backpack by filling it with water and swishing it around several times. It`s kinda cool filling up a backpack without it getting wet on the outside (because it’s waterproof). After we had it dry off by the fireplace.

Thanks for the hump day package :D We ate several of the Reeses in our last district meeting. I`ve got to ask President Rappleye permission to read the book, but I`m pretty sure that will work fine.

When I saw the gloves you sent, I thought, "Wow, these won’t help me at all! Don`t my parents know that it`s wet here and that I can`t use these absorbent gloves, even if they look very warm? I`m grateful that my parents love me so much and send me stuff, but this won`t help me." The other missionaries commented similarly and we laughed. It took 2 days for me to notice the little tag that said waterproof. I didn`t really believe it, so I took it to the sink. I was so amazed that I could let lots of water run on the glove and it didn`t get wet inside! It took a while to dry the outsides off after, but my hands will stay dry inside. Thanks a bunch, Mom :) Sorry I doubted ;)

You asked about Elder Dennis. He`s from Manti. He`s very smart and way into all sorts of science and technology. He`s never complains and is always finding ways to serve (he makes me grilled cheese sandwiches :) We get along well. I`d be such a disaster if I didn`t have an organized companion like Elder Dennis in my first transfer as a district leader. We`ve established that within 10 years iPhones and iPads will be replaced by glasses that produce a 3d image to work with.

I love the work. I love being a missionary.

Oh! One more thing. I asked the other week about preach my gospel. I said specifically to everyone: “I want to hear about what you’re learning in Preach My Gospel and how you have applied it. :D” No one`s answered my request :/ Someone told me that they were indeed reading Preach my Gospel, but that`s not what I asked. 1) What are you learning? 2) How are you applying what you are learning? Pray that the Spirit guides you and pray to know who you can invite. "The field is white, all ready to harvest."

I love you all so much :D Thanks for the many emails :D

-Elder Connor Christopherson

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.

Lots of cool photo from you guys today :D Tommy with snakes and sacred groves, my mom and aunts with space shuttles and people killed in toxic volcano gas (Pompeii).

Happy Birthday, Dad :D :D :D :D

To everyone: I want to hear about what you`re learning in Preach My Gospel and how you have applied it :D

I love love love working in Puerto Varas. It`s lovely here and we`ve got a good view of Volcán Osorno when it`s not raining.

Hmm... What happened this week? We had our first Viernes Divertido (Fun Friday) activity. I don`t think it would have worked if it weren`t for the Relief Society President inviting her extended family and neighbors. It was basically them who attended. There were also a few young men that made it much more fun. Now the members of the ward are much more aware of the activity and are more excited about it, so I think we`ll have much more attendance next time.

Our bishop is really good! He tries to have a short meeting with us after church every Sunday to coordinate. He understands the role of the members and he understands our role. He told us that we shouldn`t worry about the activity and that the ward mission leader needs to handle it and delegate to the other organizations. He said we should just show up and everything should already be ready.

The bishop also wants us to focus a lot in the Missionary Agenda program, where we follow up with all the members to help them with their missionary duties. Elder Perry was absolutely right when he said that times have changed and that people don`t just let strangers in their door now (at least not here or in the USA. Hermana Lopez served in Venezuela before all the missionaries had to leave and she said the people were so nice and just let you in their door and asked when the missionaries could visit again. Even the disobedient missionaries in Venezuela were baptizing a ton because the members were doing their part.) This work depends on good coordination between members and missionaries.

Of course, Elder Dennis and I have also been doing our part to find people as well. There`s one crazy guy who we`ve run into a few times. He says that we talk with his twin thinking it`s him and that he drinks, but his twin doesn`t. He gave Elder Dennis one of the creepiest hugs I`ve ever seen and I was worried he was going to kiss Elder Dennis, but thankfully he didn`t.

Elder Dennis actually got lots of hugs yesterday, because there was also a drunk guy who came to talk to us, to "have more faith in God." I was going to just teach a one minute version of the Restoration, but he kept interrupting us. We were going to leave but something stopped us. The drunk guy was with a friend, who we noticed wasn`t drunk. He actually got very interested in what we were teaching and I taught him for a good 40 minutes while Elder Dennis was distracting the drunk guy. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Elder Dennis received many hugs. The man who wasn`t drunk asked if we could come and give a blessing to his sick niece, and we got a phone number. Hopefully we`ll find them today in the afternoon.

There are many drunk guys in the streets, especially at night. You can tell if they`ve been drinking a lot when the whites of their eyes are yellow. Kinda nasty.

The sisters in the other ward had a baptism the other day. It was really good and her family came, even though they haven`t really supported her in her decision. Hopefully they start to get what Veronica´s actually doing and start to listen to the missionaries. I`ll get to do the confirmation next Sunday.

Salvation only comes through Christ. We ought to follow the teachings he`s sent through prophets, scriptures, and the Holy Ghost. It`s a good thing to do. What more can I say?

Love you all,

Elder Connor Christopherson