Teaching in Creole!

Yslande and Claudy

We are teaching a good number of investigators right now, in fact, last week didn’t have enough time to teach everyone because we were busy with zone conferences so their progress slowed because of that, but this week we’ll be working hard to get them all up and going again. I love my sector; it’ll be hard to leave it behind when I leave in 4 weeks.

One of our investigators, Yslande Meus, was baptized Saturday morning by a Haitian member named Claudy. Yslande is also Haitian and has been investigating the church for about 7 weeks. She had to overcome some difficulties in the process of getting baptized, including repentance and getting sick, but she is very resilient despite not knowing hardly any Spanish. We teach her in Creole and try to always teach with other Haitian members and that has helped her to feel a part of the ward. She has already been assigned visiting teachers who speak Creole. In her baptismal service my companion and I each gave a talk in her native language, she probably thinks our Creole is really bad, but we do it with lots of enthusiasm, so she laughs anyway. She really needed this gospel and so I´m thankful that my companion and I have been able to learn enough Creole to help her accept Jesus Christ in her life. 

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,

Elder Birrell

Nov. 14, 2017- Leadership Council

So this week we had another great week. The leadership council was the best I´ve ever seen and it´s gratifying seeing the progress that there has been in this past 2 changes among the zone leaders. Not too long ago the zone leaders weren´t doing much better than regular missionaries with regards to the key indicators, but now they are over doubling. I´m thankful for the vision that President Meservy has shared with us with regards to the leaders of the mission and I know that having an elevated vision will always be a part of my service in the church after the association I´ve had during these 5 months with President Meservy. Whenever I think the mission is on fire, it always surprises me by doing even better. In addition, our sector has been doing great as well. I think it´s finally gotten to the level of an example sector that we had always wanting but had never achieved given the time constraints. We feel really blessed.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Birrell

Nov 7, 2017- Last transfer in the mission

The last group of new missionaries that I´ll ever receive.

I´m doing well, we´re happy and working hard. Changes were even crazier this time around to coordinate everything, but it all happened and we even had time to have a baptism on Saturday. It was rough because even at the baptism we couldn’t be 100% present because of some issues in coordinating changes, but it was still awesome.

Abraham is a 9-year-old kid who has been going to church for a time, but for reasons of partial activity from his dad and his mom not being a member he wasn´t baptized at 9 but the whole family goes every week now and Abraham had a strong desire to get baptized. It wasn´t all that difficult from our part as they all had a desire to support Abraham plus he´s a super smart kid for his size haha. Plus, we´re working with his brother so he can get the Aaronic Priesthood. His mom will probably be baptized next year because she still needs to get married to Abraham´s dad. 

Abraham and his family

 

This week we also had a meeting with Allan Packer of the Seventy and Dean Davies from the Presiding Bishopric with our whole mission and the Chile Santiago east mission. It was the biggest meeting I´ve ever seen as a missionary and I´m just thankful we didn’t have to plan it (it was going to be in our mission and then it was changed last minute) so it was less stressful. 

I´m so grateful for the association that my assignment has given me with President and Sister Meservy- I really will be forever changed by everything I´ve learned from them and just the people they are on a daily basis. I realize how little of a piece I am in this great work, even just thinking about the work in this mission, but I want to do even better in getting the elevated vision of missionary work that he has to all the missionaries of this whole mission in this change. I've got 6 weeks left and I feel like there is so much to do. 

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Birrell

Elder Halter finished his mission, can´t wait to see that guy at BYU, great missionary.

So these last changes were crazy for the companions I've trained. 

Elder Langtson is now a Zone Leader

the missionary he trained (Elder Holman) is now District Leader

Elder Dussan will be going to the Island of Juan Fernandez

the missionary he trained (Elder Carlos) is now training Elder Swan

I go 4 generations now- kinda cool. I´m so proud of those guys.

Oct. 31, 2017-Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!! Today we had a zone activity to celebrate the day and Sister Meservy made a stew for the zone. We have already started working on transfers with President Meservy so that should help us not have to lose too much time working in our area later in the week. We are loving the work here in Los Olivos and every week we see the progress, we have more people coming to church every single week and more and more people with genuine interest to learn the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and to be baptized in his church.

For my last change I will be staying in Los Olivos with Elder Dolenar as an assistant, but really I wouldn’t consider us office Elders, at least not anymore. We have a lot more time to work now and I can’t tell you how great that feels to be out there working so much. I love the other aspects of the mission work that I´ve been a part of but in this last change we are praying to have a lot of success in preparing, teaching and baptizing converts. We know that we can’t do that alone, but we have plans to give absolutely everything to this change and the assistants will always have less time to teach, but from what we are doing, we truly want our sector to be an example to the whole mission. We´re both sick and tired but loving every minute.

Also this past week we finished up doing interchanges with 7 zones and that was really exhausting, but all in all a great experience. We learned a lot about the missionaries and what they might need to continue progressing, but I personally learned quite a bit from each Elder. They are incredible examples to them and I hope we helped the zones to have an even clearer vision of what the Lord expects of them. So that was pretty much the week. 

Elder Birrell