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

Oct. 24, 2017- Ups and Downs

Name tag picture!

Hey guys,  It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote so sorry about that. Time is passing super-fast and we’re working hard. We’ve had some sad setbacks with some investigators, but also daily miracles so there aren’t any complaints from our part. I remember a week or so back we were lined up to take lots of investigators to the Sunday morning session of stake conference. The Saturday session of stake conference was easily my favorite session of any stake conference of my whole mission. All the talks were spiritual and personal and I think everyone left that meeting full of hope and strengthened faith in Christ. My companion and I talked about the meeting all the way back home; it was the kind of renewed faith and spiritual high that makes you feel like you can tackle any of life’s great challenges. It was as we got back that we began to call all the investigators that had committed to go to stake conference that next day. In those calls, the faith that had been renewed was put to the test as the majority of those we called changed their minds about going Sunday and several others who were progressing towards their upcoming baptismal dates decided to stop investigating the church. We were devastated. Despite being devasted we’ve been trying our best to put into practice the teachings of the stake leaders and President and Sister Meservy.

I hope everyone has a great week, please pray for the investigators here, we’re finding lots of people to teach. The mission is doing fantastic.

Love you,

Elder Birrell

On splits with Elder Ricks