Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Mission Continues
This week was sweet, my Mission President was disappointed with our numbers so he made me go on 2 exchanges 2 days in a row with the zone leaders, where they retrained my companion lol.. But afterwards I just talked with him and told him the desire I had to teach and baptize. And We got to work!!!! We worked so hard the rest of the week I felt like a missionary. They have fetias where I get much of my food because its so dang cheap. A fetia is where all the local sellers set up little stands and sell food, bootleg movies, shoes, pretty much anything you could ever think of. So I was like dude, lets make a stand yo! So we took a table and like 200 pass along cards, pamphlets of Gospel Principles and Pictures of Christ and few Libro de Mormons. And us and the other 2 missionaries walked through about half of the fetia and BAM! we made a stand in the middle of the fetia, which has like 3 to 6 hundred people chilling and walking around it. Then me and the the 3 other gringos got to work baby! WE got rejected left and right man But.... Over the hour and half we did it we got 11 return appointments with people who are interested. Yeah I don't care who you are that was effective. The only bad part was that I was ducking the whole dang time, because they have shade coverings and they are only like 5 and a half foot high lol.. Jessica didn't get baptized but will next Sunday and we had a awesome time at church. We had 8 investigators come! Including a new family we are teaching they are so interested and love to listen to me when I teach its so cool. I won't be surprised if their whole family is baptized in 3 weeks. But I have never prayed so much and so hard when they came to church. Because I wanted it to be good, man as a missionary you have to protect your investigators so much from members lol.... Especially here in Hualqui lol. and ya dad our area is small but, we have 160active members but we have 612 on the member list! In 2 weeks we are having a marathon, 5 other companionship's are coming to help and we are all splitting off with a young man.... And we are visiting all 800 members in Hualqui. That's legit our goal is to get that chapel filled and the other one built, the Church already owns land on the other side of Hualqui. This week Spanish was alot better, or Castellano lol dad and his Spanish spelling hehe about as good as mine though. I started to speak this week alot and they are actually understanding me. I can see in 2 more months the Lord blessing me with the language. Ha we bought stuff to cook hamburgers with on our awesome one stove top oven back at the house, be jealous mom. I am learning to cook wonders on that baby. That's what we are going to go do after we are done emailing. This next week is going to be cool. Alot to do and I was asked to teach the Zone this week, which is really weird because I have only been here not even a month. But I am excited I get to teach in English, and maybe I can rub off some of my crazy tall goofy looking gringo excitement onto some of the other elders. Well I love you all, Emily and Jessica its weird because I miss them alot lol... bums need to write me. Good luck with all the new ward stuff you have to do and have fun with the fantastic Vegas weather! The rain sounds sweet. The temple sounds amazing I miss the Vegas temple so much. I would love a good picture of it too. The members here are going crazy they all have big pictures of the temple in their homes. Well I love you all, be safe and don't waste to much time!
Con amor, Elder Ward
Dad,
This week I had a few really good experiences, I want to tell you one of them. We went into a home to teach, Karen and German they are about 34 and have 3 children they are the ones who came to church. On Saturday night we were teaching them and I had said very little, we had our ward mission leader with us and between him and my companion they wouldn't shut up and let me teach. The whole time the spirit was poking me in the back...ELDER WARD TEACH...ELDER WARD SAY SOMETHING TO GERMAN... and I was fighting because I wanted to obey but couldn't figure out how. At the end of the lesson my comp asked if we could end with a prayer... I said NO! lol I can't remember what I said, I said something about how I loved them and why I was here in Chile. And that we are here to offer the best gift of their lives. I testified and offered a LDM to German, he took it! They said some stuff back to me and I couldn't understand, then ward mission leader taught something we prayed and left. Afterwards my companion said that German had not been interested and was only doing it for his wife until I spoke. My comp told me German said to me that I spoke horrible but somehow my words hit him through feelings and he could understand everything that I was telling him. Then Karen told me it was the same way she felt when God answers her prayers. Then the ward mission leader taught about the spirit.... It was an amazing experience. Even though I am far from perfect, the Lord uses us and makes us capable for the work that he needs done. If only we show our dependability and willingness to serve. The church is true dad... I can't wait to see what happens with them this week. We taught them yesterday after church and they accepted a baptism date on the 14Th next month. So we got alot of teaching to do...
Con amor, Elder Ward
Dad,
This week I had a few really good experiences, I want to tell you one of them. We went into a home to teach, Karen and German they are about 34 and have 3 children they are the ones who came to church. On Saturday night we were teaching them and I had said very little, we had our ward mission leader with us and between him and my companion they wouldn't shut up and let me teach. The whole time the spirit was poking me in the back...ELDER WARD TEACH...ELDER WARD SAY SOMETHING TO GERMAN... and I was fighting because I wanted to obey but couldn't figure out how. At the end of the lesson my comp asked if we could end with a prayer... I said NO! lol I can't remember what I said, I said something about how I loved them and why I was here in Chile. And that we are here to offer the best gift of their lives. I testified and offered a LDM to German, he took it! They said some stuff back to me and I couldn't understand, then ward mission leader taught something we prayed and left. Afterwards my companion said that German had not been interested and was only doing it for his wife until I spoke. My comp told me German said to me that I spoke horrible but somehow my words hit him through feelings and he could understand everything that I was telling him. Then Karen told me it was the same way she felt when God answers her prayers. Then the ward mission leader taught about the spirit.... It was an amazing experience. Even though I am far from perfect, the Lord uses us and makes us capable for the work that he needs done. If only we show our dependability and willingness to serve. The church is true dad... I can't wait to see what happens with them this week. We taught them yesterday after church and they accepted a baptism date on the 14Th next month. So we got alot of teaching to do...
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Service with a smile- Chopping Wood
They have the best cantelope here, and I loved the Papa Fritas- fried potatoes!
3rd week in the field
Thanks so much for the emails! Its so nice to receive emails. This last week has been quite interesting. Our investigator is still good for her baptism next week and we had 2 other investigators at church it was way cool because one of them speaks English so I was able to answer all his questions. We went to a woman's home who has been baptized for 25 years and has a photo album of every missionary she has had over for lunch since! Its way cool she took one of us too. This week was weird because some days we would teach 6 or 7 lessons and some days I felt like all we did was waste the Lords time. I can't get angry with others about what they lack when I can't even change the things I want to change about myself. Well I guess we are leaving I will send few pictures real quick and email again tonight when we are back in Hualqui.
Love Elder Ward
So today has been interesting and we have got alot done, we got hair cuts and did a whole bunch of useless shopping to waste our p day lol... We did service this week and it was cleaning up a back yard and chopping wood with very little tools lol. Lets just say I really got a good work out. My companion has been out for 15 months. One night was way cool we had a neighbor that was selling Papa fritas! or fried potatoes next door, so of course I bought some on the way into our house! It was only 300 pesos (61 cents). We had a cambio this week I went to another area so the Zone Leader could go out with my companion to do a interview for baptism. It was a little crazy because I went to a new are called Chiguayante for the day and night. I was with Elder Pulver, who has been out for 3 months here in Chile almost! lol We contacted all day it was sweet since we both know very little Spanish. If I ever knew that god loves his children it was that day, seeing that me and Elder Pulver survived. lol The next day January 16 was when my senor companion and my district leader were supposed to arrive to pick me up to cambiar back at 11:30 am which is after studies and gives them 30 min to travel about a 20 min bus ride. They showed up at.... 1:30! yay lol They watched the RM so they were late. I understand having fun, but that was dumb. I was really frustrated that day, we were then late to lunch and the family was really mad since we were 35 min late. Lunch that day was disgusting lol it was pizza, Chilean pizza... Pan (bread), tomatoes, ketchup, pickles, onions, mushrooms, olives and ham... and then you microwave it. Pretty much the most awful thing I ate in my life, but I ate it with a smile and asked for seconds!!! take that.. Emily try one of those and tell me how it is!? Church was really good we only had 135 people there because of the election but we had Jessica and Rudolf there!!! and the other elders had a whole family come! Our ward is really good with welcoming to.. Rudolf speaks English so he is kinda my investigator lol I made sure to explain alot, members don't realize how hard it is. He didn't know how the hymns are to be read, whats the white table thing, who are the scary men up front and all that jazz. OH!!! the first counselor of the branch looks like Kayman, but he is a scary man, I think I would rather go in for an interview and report my mission to an Apostle than spend 10 seconds alone in a room with this man. I will get a picture with him whenever I leave this sector in a few months. So Kayman can see! His hair is the same and everything! I am really enjoying my mission so far, I just wish we could work harder, I am doing all I can and it will be so much fun to teach and baptize and show the love of God! especially when I can speak Castellano!! or Espanol, they get mad if you call it Espanol.. So I think I'm pretty much going to be forced to like soccer lol so Cody will like me more when we are all back lol... World Cup Africa 2010!!! yeah... oh elections, dad you'll like this Pinera won, and he already owns half of Chile. he owns LAN Chile, and most of the big stores. I don't even want to get into it, the members are mad, they are like we just elected our own Communist leader lol... their voting is so dumb to, if you register to vote you are then obligated to vote for life and if you don't its up to a 600,000peso fine. Remember I live off of 80,000 pesos ($162.00) a month. Things are either way cheap or way expensive! I would like another sd card to take pictures but not buying one here! No no no way, my camera here is 350,000 mil pesos that's like 700 us dollars. i had to buy a tooth brush because I'm out of the heads for mine and its getting kinda nasty. Oh mom our house is not that bad, just ask Jared you get used to it lol.. and thats cool Tyler Marchant got called to an awesome mission! Have him keep looking at my blog, and dad we had a conference the first week I was here ya six hours of straight Spanish pretty hard to stay awake! lol Well I love you all so much and Jessica and Emily and Melissa email me! I will email you next week so mom send me their addresses! or directions lol.. oh and I'm going to need more journals I'm almost done with my first one and I've only been out 3 months!
con amor, Elder Matthew James Ward
Love Elder Ward
So today has been interesting and we have got alot done, we got hair cuts and did a whole bunch of useless shopping to waste our p day lol... We did service this week and it was cleaning up a back yard and chopping wood with very little tools lol. Lets just say I really got a good work out. My companion has been out for 15 months. One night was way cool we had a neighbor that was selling Papa fritas! or fried potatoes next door, so of course I bought some on the way into our house! It was only 300 pesos (61 cents). We had a cambio this week I went to another area so the Zone Leader could go out with my companion to do a interview for baptism. It was a little crazy because I went to a new are called Chiguayante for the day and night. I was with Elder Pulver, who has been out for 3 months here in Chile almost! lol We contacted all day it was sweet since we both know very little Spanish. If I ever knew that god loves his children it was that day, seeing that me and Elder Pulver survived. lol The next day January 16 was when my senor companion and my district leader were supposed to arrive to pick me up to cambiar back at 11:30 am which is after studies and gives them 30 min to travel about a 20 min bus ride. They showed up at.... 1:30! yay lol They watched the RM so they were late. I understand having fun, but that was dumb. I was really frustrated that day, we were then late to lunch and the family was really mad since we were 35 min late. Lunch that day was disgusting lol it was pizza, Chilean pizza... Pan (bread), tomatoes, ketchup, pickles, onions, mushrooms, olives and ham... and then you microwave it. Pretty much the most awful thing I ate in my life, but I ate it with a smile and asked for seconds!!! take that.. Emily try one of those and tell me how it is!? Church was really good we only had 135 people there because of the election but we had Jessica and Rudolf there!!! and the other elders had a whole family come! Our ward is really good with welcoming to.. Rudolf speaks English so he is kinda my investigator lol I made sure to explain alot, members don't realize how hard it is. He didn't know how the hymns are to be read, whats the white table thing, who are the scary men up front and all that jazz. OH!!! the first counselor of the branch looks like Kayman, but he is a scary man, I think I would rather go in for an interview and report my mission to an Apostle than spend 10 seconds alone in a room with this man. I will get a picture with him whenever I leave this sector in a few months. So Kayman can see! His hair is the same and everything! I am really enjoying my mission so far, I just wish we could work harder, I am doing all I can and it will be so much fun to teach and baptize and show the love of God! especially when I can speak Castellano!! or Espanol, they get mad if you call it Espanol.. So I think I'm pretty much going to be forced to like soccer lol so Cody will like me more when we are all back lol... World Cup Africa 2010!!! yeah... oh elections, dad you'll like this Pinera won, and he already owns half of Chile. he owns LAN Chile, and most of the big stores. I don't even want to get into it, the members are mad, they are like we just elected our own Communist leader lol... their voting is so dumb to, if you register to vote you are then obligated to vote for life and if you don't its up to a 600,000peso fine. Remember I live off of 80,000 pesos ($162.00) a month. Things are either way cheap or way expensive! I would like another sd card to take pictures but not buying one here! No no no way, my camera here is 350,000 mil pesos that's like 700 us dollars. i had to buy a tooth brush because I'm out of the heads for mine and its getting kinda nasty. Oh mom our house is not that bad, just ask Jared you get used to it lol.. and thats cool Tyler Marchant got called to an awesome mission! Have him keep looking at my blog, and dad we had a conference the first week I was here ya six hours of straight Spanish pretty hard to stay awake! lol Well I love you all so much and Jessica and Emily and Melissa email me! I will email you next week so mom send me their addresses! or directions lol.. oh and I'm going to need more journals I'm almost done with my first one and I've only been out 3 months!
con amor, Elder Matthew James Ward
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
So thanks for all the emails they are really nice to get. So this last week I still can't speak Chilean its crazy but its alot better than last week. We worked really hard this week and should have a few baptisms this month. I'm now used to dogs barking and growling at me and being called an old lady by the teenagers lol. But don't worry that's the gangster way to say whats up. I sent some pictures home a few were of our apartment thing we live in and the street we live on. WE live right next to a crazy cemetery its sweet but I still can't get myself to take pictures of it. Our zone went on a really crazy hike, its Brother Prince worthy or even more! It was almost straight up hill through the Chilean forest. lol Me and the tall elder both have asthma so it was definitely kicking our butts, but we made it to the top and it was all foggy and rainy so we hurried down. The only thing is that the way down is just like the way up but its powdery and crazy, we fell and rolled alot. We have good videos lol. its like a 6 mile hike of craziness! Then we had tacos made by our zone leader Elder Lopez, made Mexico style that's where he is from. I'm still trying to learn to like guacamole! ahhh but he is a great chef lol Then we got attacked by rain you have no idea how crazy of rain it was lol. Those are pictures from today lol. This last week we taught alot of lessons have a few progressing investigators. Its sweet I cant wait to understand and be able to speak then this place is going to even more fun! Sorry about all the typos I'm on a junk computer in Hualqui. Oh yeah we rode the train to! Trains are sweet! I'm slowly being able to eat alot of food, but we have had some nasty food and some fantastic food there is no in between. Hot nasty soups with beans and green stuff in the middle of summer... PORQUE? lol The cantaloupe is ridiculously amazing here though. yummy Things are either way way expensive here or way way cheap no in between. But I'm learning the get the best with my pesos! I do think its funny that water is more expensive than soda and juice? Explain that to me.... well pday is almost over and I have some studying to do, well I love you mom and dad and thanks for the emails and all the support and keeping me up to date. Jared and Jessica email me, Emily have fun with your laptop and listen to country music for me, Melissa I love you. Adam thanks for the letter awhile back I have re read it a few times. The church is true!
Love Elder Ward
So my comp is still typing so I guess I'll write some spiritual stuff since my first email is just fun stuff. Well I read Helamen and 3rd Nephi this week learning about our hearts and desires and prayers it is intense. We are teaching alot of people but Jessica is sweet, she is 20 her boyfriend is 21 and is a member, he is baptizing her on the 24th of this month. We also have alot of baptism dates but gotta get these Chileans to come to church. I got told my Spanish sucks by a woman then we taught her a lesson and I spoke well and she changed her mind, but it's true I really do suck, only when I am teaching am I good because the Lord blesses me so I can teach! lol Its why I'm here. Its really weird to see how much the church members look up to the missionaries here, so weird. We had 164 members there on Sunday thanks to our sweet reactivation plan! lol Which includes me bearing my testimony to them about the church and then my companion takes care of the rest! How sweet is that! Now I'm just tired of tying. Bye I love you all!
Love Elder Ward
So my comp is still typing so I guess I'll write some spiritual stuff since my first email is just fun stuff. Well I read Helamen and 3rd Nephi this week learning about our hearts and desires and prayers it is intense. We are teaching alot of people but Jessica is sweet, she is 20 her boyfriend is 21 and is a member, he is baptizing her on the 24th of this month. We also have alot of baptism dates but gotta get these Chileans to come to church. I got told my Spanish sucks by a woman then we taught her a lesson and I spoke well and she changed her mind, but it's true I really do suck, only when I am teaching am I good because the Lord blesses me so I can teach! lol Its why I'm here. Its really weird to see how much the church members look up to the missionaries here, so weird. We had 164 members there on Sunday thanks to our sweet reactivation plan! lol Which includes me bearing my testimony to them about the church and then my companion takes care of the rest! How sweet is that! Now I'm just tired of tying. Bye I love you all!
Pictures of his apartment
Notice that he still loves chocolate milk and chips, and I am not to excited by the propane tank on the floor by the stove or the bathroom. I will say that Matthew has never minded roughing it. He loves it!
Pictures of P-day activities.
Here are the pictures of the hike he said was Br. Prince worthy, straight up the hill and down, even rolling down the hill. He looks like he is having a wonderful time.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Hola Mi Familia
Chile is sweet! the plane ride here was not so fun though. So my trainer is Elder Dustin Denis From LAS VEGAS!!! hahahaha He lives over near the temple he is way cool and we relate alot. I think the lord blessed me with an awesome companion. So mom find his mom lol 8120976 that is his moms number she is studying to be a teacher to... So I'm in a place called Hualqui its not to far from Concepcion and its one of the best parts of the mission everyone who has been here for a while said that all the AP start out in Hualqui lol. Church was way cool we had 150 people at church and 5 investigators there are 4 elders for our area. Our house is pretty junky lol we live in a little apartment thingy. Ha The buses are way fun to! lol We work all day the schedule is different as a missionary here so I'm still getting used to it. We wake up at 7 and by 11 we are out working and at 1 we have lunch at a members home and then we get a nap and at 3:30 we go back out to work til 10, we work all day! lol.. The members think since I'm a huge gringo they need to feed me like a horse lol. I feel like food comes out of my eyes sometimes because they feed us so much I'm having a hard time eating it all! One man got offended but I couldn't finish!!! He made me eat 2 soups and 2 plates and a desert lol. Like on a plate its usually more rice then I'd ever want in my life lol and then not one potato but six or seven whole potatoes on one plate with mayonnaise! The potatoes are really good, plus either a huge piece of chicken or a huge piece of meat of something. We had rabbit yesterday its pretty good. Our area is pretty small because its split into two areas for the other missionaries but we walk everywhere all day lol. We were in a families home that is investigating and I had to duck to go through the doorways so the father was laughing like crzy and they had to measure me and mark my name on the wall. It was a very crazy experience saying I know barely any Spanish lol.. The Spanish is frustrating but i don't let it get me down the people are fun. I will send pictures home next week its hard to take pictures because we are only allowed a small bag because missionaries with back packs are targets lol. Ive already got used to being dirty and having no personal space but I love it here I just cant wait til I know the language, geez lol all I do is testify and contact, that's all I know but hey its enough. We are about to go lunch. We go into Concepcion for p-day, we have until six. They are taking us to their favorite place to eat, the food is amazing here its just huge huge portions, for gringos at least. lol.. oh and its weird coming from the MTC because all the men shake hands then hug then shake hands again and the women kiss your cheek lol.. Well I love you all and be safe and don't waste time lol.
Love ELDER WARD
Love ELDER WARD
