Dear Family
Sometimes I feel those quotes about us missionaries sound sooooo much cooler than we really are, and sometimes I don't think I´ve made such a difference here, but I also know that the success won´t always be seen until years down the road. We´ve gotten to know some great great people here that have made a difference in my life, I just hope that I've made a difference in theirs and that´s definitely a source of anxiety for me to think that not all are going to persevere until the end, but we gotta keep on fighting anyways.
It rained for the first time in months this week and it rained hard. It has been cooling down, but still there are random days when we work with short sleeve shirts, but the mornings and nights are always chilly. We´ve been trying to find new people to teach cuz our current investigators, although really good, aren´t progressing as fast as we´d like, but they're doin good. They just need to keep on working and getting rid of bad habits and make better decisions. The area we´ve been working in has a lot of old people, that means a lot of traditions that have been in place for a long time. It´s been a bit frustrating, but we´re working and going to work harder. There´s someone there that will accept the Gospel, I just gotta go find them. I´m not going to lie I´m a little bit bored of Talca , and it´s not the same in the house without Elders Jorgenson and Mayberry, but I don´t want to leave at the same time. Our house is one of the nicest in the mission, and the members here are great. I´m just ready to move on, but at the same time I´m a little nervous at where I'll be put if I change this transfer. There are some areas where the previous Elders have left the house just wrecked and nasty, so hopefully I won´t go to an area like that. Winter is also comin up and that means Rain. The areas closer to Concepción get hit the hardest, so I don´t know if I’m ready to get to know Concepción just yet haha. All in all things are going good. We had kind of a hard week because of mini-cambios (having a different companion for a day) and other complications. I don´t know if I already told you guys this but we had to move to another chapel because their re modeling ours, so that´ll be a bit harder to get investigators to church, but we had 5 yesterday, so it wasn´t too bad. Our problem is we´re having a hard time getting new people to church. We´ve had more or less the same people coming to church for about a month, so that´s good that they´re still coming, but we need to get some new people there. We found a few really promising people, including a woman who told us a bunch about her family and life, and she sounds tailor made for this gospel. She moved, that same day, and so didn´t know her address yet, but gave us her phone and told us to call her that night for the address to her house. We called and...it was the wrong number. Hopefully we´ll be able to find her again by some miracle.
Our recent converts are doing good, especially Ivonne and Maria Isabel. Ivonne went to the temple on Saturday even though she couldn´t enter, she wanted to see it. She wants the Bishop to bless and present her son in Sacrament this month, and has asked if it´s possible if her boy could someday be a missionary haha, these are the questions that we love to hear. Maria Isabel has really clicked with the youth in the ward and is loving Seminary, her sister Patty is doing good too, she´s just a little bit of a punk sometimes when it comes to reading the scriptures and praying, but she´s attending all her classes in church every week (which she wasn´t doing at the beginning when she got baptized) Anyways it´s been really great to be a part of all these people´s lives and their families.
Paulina wasn´t able to be baptized cuz she made the dumb decision of inviting her ex-boyfriend back into her house. Apparently her two year old daughter missed him tons and she felt bad cuz she was always asking where her dad was, and so she invited him back to have more time with his daughter. Apparently she didn´t understand how serious is the law of chastity, so we had to talk to her about that and now she has to make a decision. Our zone leader interviewed her and said he saw a big change in her that she really wants to be baptized, she just has to either marry the guy (but he doesn´t want to get married) or tell him he needs to find somewhere else to live. It´s a big mess, and a tough situation for her. Pray for her. Whether it be the strength to tell him he needs to go, or that they can work things out and get married.
There´s not another time in my life where I´ve felt so many mood swings- joy, peace, energy, fatigue, anxiety, disappointment, and frustration are all things that I can feel in one day. It´s crazy. So I’m just going to keep working working working haha. I know this work is so important and wonderful, but it´s hard to always think about that when people tell you ¨no¨ all day.
Please never think that I´m miserable here haha far from it. I love being a missionary. I love you all so much and thanks for the pics you all look great, especially the little ones. They´re definitely growing up.
Your favorite son/brother ;)
Tanner
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