Goodbye Elder Santos

Elder Birrell with all the new missionaries and their trainers

This weekend Elder Santos was able to say that he was “Santos en sus ultimos dias”, reflecting his pride of being a member of the church. He’s now in Brazil, happy with his family probably having a barbeque and celebrating the return of Calvin Santos. I’m so happy for him and all the wonderful things that await him.

Merservy family saying goodbye to Elder Santos

On Sunday night I received my new companion, Elder Dolenar, who was the zone leader in Los Andes. He’s a great missionary, a hard worker, and I feel like we’ll do a lot of good in this mission. It’s already doing pretty well as we saw the mission high for baptisms in one week (in my time in the mission). We’re excited and President Meservy is giddy. We’re going in the right direction and this week will be important in determining if we can keep this progress up. We’re all super grateful for the success the Lord is giving the mission.

Last week we had the wonderful opportunity to teach someone truly prepared to receive and accept this message. We taught her in the house of the bishop and it was so awesome how perfectly the gospel and the plan of salvation helped her to feel immediate relief and to find long lasting direction in her life. We’re excited and optimistic about what we can do in our own sector. I just want to give my all to this mission!

Have a great week!

Elder Birrell

Sept. 20, 2017- Emily is a missionary!!

The Elders in our district

It was several years ago now that President Thomas S. Monson stood at the pulpit in the Conference Center to announce that instead of at 19 yrs. old, worthy young men could serve at 18 years of age. Like everyone, I remember looking around to see if everyone had heard the same thing I had. I remember thinking how great that would be for so many young men who “wasted” a year waiting and others who ended up not going because of the wait. However, this announcement did not affect me personally since I knew I would graduate almost being 19 years old. President Monson then continued the announcement saying that worthy and willing young women could serve at 19 years of age instead of 21. Yesterday, as I listened to those prophetic words once again they took on new meaning and I’ll admit even brought emotions that I had never experienced while listening to that announcement. Those words will forever change Emily’s life and it is exhilarating to me that my own sister has responded to the call to serve as a full-time missionary in the Alabama Birmingham mission. In total, I think 39 months will pass without us seeing each other due to our respective missions, but that’s okay, this is more important and I am convinced that families can be eternal. I’m so proud of her as her older brother and I’m positive that she will be a much better missionary than I am (she always tends to be better than me) and that makes me so happy!! She will love her mission.

So this week we celebrated the 18^th of September. It is the celebration of the Chilean declaration of independence from Spain. A huge holiday here, bigger than the 4^th of July in the states. It really wasn’t too crazy in our sector since there aren’t many Chileans. I did take some photos of the celebration, but not nearly as many as last year.

18th of September celebration

Our 18th of September meal

With the celebration of the 18^th of September I realized that Elder Santos and I have been together a really long time. We’ve been together for Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, 4^th of July, both of our birthdays, Brazilian Independence Day, the Independence day of Elder Santos state (in Brazil), all of our sibling’s birthdays, the beginning of Emily’s mission and the end of Elder Santos’ mission. These 4 changes have been completely unique on my mission and although they’ve been crazy and stressful, they’ve been incredible and I have Elder Santos to thank for that 100 percent. I wouldn’t have preferred anyone else to open 2 sectors, start with me as brand new APs, send off one mission president and to welcome another, Calvin Rocha dos Santos will not be just an ex-companion to me, but rather a friend for life. I think above all things, he taught me to never be ashamed of being spiritual. We’ve spent a lot of time with other missionaries these 4 changes (transfers) and Elder Santos was never afraid to just be spiritual, share testimony, share a personal story or share his love for the Savior. That’s something I will always admire about Elder Santos.

I'll miss Elder Santos

On top of Cerro San cristóbol today with the Chilean flag

Tomorrow we’ll spend all day planning changes (transfers) so I’ll find out who my new companion will be. I’m excited to see what these next two changes have in store for me and to see what we’ll be able to do to serve. I love this work, and I love the Savior who makes this work meaningful and I’m ready to continue serving Him.

Happy birthday, Mom! I know it may not be your favorite since Emily just left, but I hope you at least get to enjoy it with Cam and Dad and that you can have the peace that all is well. Love you.

Love,

Elder Birrell

18th of September celebration

At the 18th party

Office missionaries

We invited some missionaries over to say goobye to Elder Santos

Sept., 12, 2017- Have an eye single to the glory of God

So this week I had to drive quite a bit because of some emergencies that happened with missionaries and other things which included trips to the rich parts of Santiago that I really had never see up close including seeing the tallest building in South America many times. That all did take away some time from the work, though.

So I´ve been thinking this week quite a bit about a certain scripture in D&C 88:67. It says "And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things." I thought of what that really means to have my eye single to the glory of God and how that applies to us as missionaries. I think it happens to all of us that we begin to focus on things that are good, for example baptizing people, or trying to be leaders in the mission, and for some reason or another that becomes the focus and not having our eye single to the glory of God. 

One of my good friends in the mission to me is a great example of that. He is as diligent as anyone and obedient and always trying to do what God wants him to do. For the first 15 months or so that work wasn’t really showed by lots of baptisms. In two transfers before he hit 15 months in the mission he trained for the second time and opened a new sector. He worked harder than ever in his mission those transfers but they weren’t able to baptize anyone but they had one investigator (Haitian) that was going to be baptized, but he moved to a different sector in the same zone. In February he was made a Zone Leader in that same zone and he moved to the sector where that Haitian was living. He and his companion baptized him and since then that same Haitian has been the key to them baptizing 6 more Haitians. He told me that many times we just don’t see what becomes of all the good we do. In this case he did, but it´s another reminder to always have our eye single to the glory of God. Things just work out.

I think I told the story about a woman we found in Dorsal (Elder Ortiz) and I when Elder Ortiz offered to pick up a bag of stones and in turn she gave us some mineral water and told us to visit her. Anyways we had a hard time finding her again, but we did with Elder Dussan and we even did a more significant service in her house my last Saturday there (I sent pics). I shared that story because for the little act of service that my companion offered, she began offering us all kinds of service including to give us a television. The lesson was that we should go about doing good just like Jesus did. She also went to church my last Sunday in the ward to hear my goodbye talk in Dorsal.

Anyway, her name is Elizabeth de la Cuadra and this past weekend she was baptized and confirmed as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

You never know what´ll happen because of the good you do, many times you´ll never know. Let´s always do good because I now know how many souls will be blessed.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Birrell

We have Arizona´s in our sector and we´ve been good about saving money up to this point of the mission. That’s a week’s consumption between the two of us. I´m already sick of them

Elder Langston, Elder Birrell, Elder Holman

We have Arizona´s in our sector and we´ve been good about saving money up to this point of the mission. That’s a week’s consumption between the two of us. I´m already sick of them