Chillin' in Chile: April 11, 2017- New Responsibilities

Elder Birrell, Elder Heaps and Elder Langston

The Easter package got here this week and I am already a sweet Korean barbeque pork jerky addict WOW that was good. M y comp loved the chocolate covered almonds. Yes, we will be traveling assistants, but they haven’t had a car in this mission for a long time but for the special circumstances of a new President that may change so we´ll see.

So I didn’t have time to write a letter last night. I was constantly on the phone from 9:40 to 11:00 and then running like a crazy man all morning in the office helping out the new missionaries but here’s a quick summary.

Elder Santos, President and Sister Videla and Elder Birrell

So yesterday we were officially called as Assistants (Elder Santos and I) and the work started immediately. It’s been amazing being with Elder Santos these past two days. I can truly see why he was called to this assignment. Yesterday we were able to start proselyting at like 5:00 pm in the sector Vespucio. We made the most of our time and visited everyone we could. I´m confident that as we use our time diligently we´ll be able to get a lot done in our sector.

Today we had the opportunity to greet the new missionaries and help give them some capacitation (orientation). The problem today was that President Videla and his wife had a problem and left, so we had to take the position of them and also take the position of us. If what I’m saying doesn’t make sense, it’s because I’m spent already (and technically it’s my pday haha)

Just a quick thought: an investigator that we were teaching in Lampa, whose name was Adrian and he was one of a kind. He probably understands the doctrine about as well as we do (He´s read the Book of Mormon twice, Jesus the Christ twice, even the manuals of the church he´s read and on top of all that he has a strong testimony that these things are true. The problem is that he has strong depression and many times he´s been on the verge of baptism and something happens. Basically before being baptized he wanted to be sure that he could truly endure to the end even with his depression. His worries also stem from him not being as well received by members in past wards that he had attended. The guy truly has a different kind of personality that makes it really hard for anyone to relate to him, but the whole time we taught him I thought of the scripture that says if we don’t have charity we are nothing. It doesn’t matter how well we know the scriptures, what we’ve done in the past, how great we are at teaching, or how strong our testimony is, if we don’t have charity these things are not accomplishing their ultimate purpose. Charity is the pure love of Christ and maybe we´ll never quite reach that level, but I personally know I need to be much better.

We have a long week ahead of us so I´ll let you know how it goes next week!!!!

Love,

Elder Birrell