Hello From the South

Hello from the South!

So first off i loved getting those pictures. It was way awesome to see all your ugly faces again! j-k you all look great! When my comp saw the pics of David and Josh he said ¨ellos aparecen como bakanes¨ which Jardin and Dad won´t be able to translate cuz bakan is a word only the Chileans here use which means cool, but in english he said “they look cool” haha. One more comment about the pictures WHAT THE CRAP ARE YOU DOING WEARING MY COAT YOU SMELLY MCKAY!!!! I´ll forgive you this time, but one more strike and in two years you´ll have tha whoopin of a life time boy!

This week was a bit of a letdown at Church. We only had one investigator “REMEMBER” to come to church, and it was the old guy with alzheimer´s....go figure. I don´t understand that haha. Anyways we visited the family that I have really high hopes for afterward. The dad´s name is Juan Pablo, the mom Eva, and their two daughters Maria-14, and Patricia-12, and their youngest son Pablito-3. Ever since we´ve started teaching them I´ve had a good feeling about this family, but they haven´t been doing the things we asked them to do (pray, read, come to church). We had an awesome lesson about how to receive an answer to our prayers or receive a miracle. We used the story of how Nephi, after he had heard the story of the Vision his father had, desired to know for himself and so he asked God. Because he had faith he received a Vision (answer) for himself. When he returned he found his brothers arguing about the vision and what it meant. When Nephi asked them why they were arguing they responded that they didn´t understand the things their father had spoken to them. When Nephi asked them if they had asked God, they said no because God doesn´t make such things known unto them. Nephi chastises them for their lack of faith and quotes something that the Lord taught. (this won´t be perfect cuz i don´t have my scriptures with me) Don´t you remember what the Lord has said, if you believe and ask me with faith, obeying my commandments diligently, surely the Lord will manifest unto thee the thing which thou desirest. (that´s probably way off haha) Anyways Nephi teaches us that we can receive ANYTHING we desire if we first 1. Believe 2. have faith, and something we teach here everyday is that Faith=actions (pray, read the scriptures, go to church), and if we obey the commandments the Lord will SURELY give us the blessings we desire. Afterward I asked if they desired to believe if the things we´ve been teaching them were true. They said yes, and so I challenged and promised them that if they would start to do the small and simple things we´ve asked them to do (pray everyday, read the Book of Mormon everyday, and come to Church this week) they SURELY would receive an answer that this Church is true. They all promised to do all these things, and the Spirit was really strong. The cool part was they had some cousins and an Aunt over visiting and even though we haven´t taught them yet they want to come to church this week too! That´s how powerful the Spirit was last night in the lesson. Anyways we´re really focusing on this family and two other kids that have a baptismal date for the 17th (Estrella and Jason) that the Lord will soften their hearts so they will do these things and receive an answer and have the strength to follow this answer and be baptized. So if you guys could, as a family and personally, pray specifically for these 6 of our Brothers and Sisters that the Lord will bless them with his spirit, I´d grately apreciate it

Anyways that´s the updates for this week stay tuned next week for more from Concepcion, Chile!

I love you all and again thanks for the pics and the emails and the love and everything else!

Elder Tanner Levi Christenson IV (my name would be so much cooler with roman numerals next to it) haha