Elder Blotter - June 14th

Hola Familia!!
 This week we had one out of 6 come to church today which wasn´t the coolest buuuttt it was amazing!! Our investigator that came to church had never come before. One of the Sisters in our ward gave a really powerful talk on the Holy Ghost and the spirit was so strong in that chapel!! Our investigator started crying and everything!! But the really scary part and everything was half way through the talk, our investigator got down on her knees and started praying!! She´s Evangelical so that's what like they do in their church.  Me and my companion didn´t know what to do!! We just looked at each other for a second and just sat there until she got up off her knees and sat back in the pew. But what was really good was that after Sacrament a lot of our members came up to her and met her and welcomed her, which was way awesome!! Were going to put her with a baptismal date today and she´s getting to the water, heck yea!! I think if all of my investigators here did that I bet they´d feel the same so yea, ha ha. Glad to hear your  box garden is doing well sounds like a blast with everything hope everything comes out good and ripe. Glad to hear YC will be good this year for y'all. Hope I'll be able to help when I go home that´ll be fun and share my experiences because I love the mission.  Its really helped me understand people and what people really need and how much the gospel can really help people.

The birthday cake was really really rich and delicious.. And no that was their house ha ha! Again It has been raining here all week! It stinks that it has been but I guess that's just life for now. Transfers are tomorrow and it should be really interesting on who goes where and if I'll be moving areas this time. Don´t know for sure but we will see. My Spanish is good and  I understand people and talk pretty well also. The Latin missionaries and also people I talk to some of them say I talk very well for a short amount of time I have been here and I don´t really have a gringo accent which is awesome! Ha ha! The only thing the Latin missionaries I´ve talked to said that I just need to work on my constructing of some sentences. My Mission President is talking about the accent in Spain which is a lisp.  When people from here talk they have a lisp in their Spanish. I didn´t get a flu shot because I had already received mine in the MTC and I asked president about if I needed one and he said no so yea I am OK. I think I have a growing cold sore on my lip and I am sure it´s going to be really distracting to the people here when I contact them because its bruised over so its black so yeah. I love you and miss you tons!! 

Love, Elder Blotter

Elder Blotter Photos - June 6th

Some Church members in Valdiva helped Elder Blotter celebrate his 20th birthday. He also sent some pictures of the Valdiva riverfront. It looks very wintry there, which it is right now since they are opposite of us in seasons.

Elder Blotter - June 6th

Hola Familia, 

I don´t have a lot of time but I will write a short note.  Nice to hear that the weather is great for y'all. Wish I could get a little of that nice hot weather, its pretty chilly here but its all good.  When it doesn't rain or when it rains like a drizzle it's actually pretty warm and calm. But it rained really hard for like 3 days this past week which wasn´t the coolest.

My week here in Chile has been good!We have a lot of Investigators but again none of them came to church!! GAhh!! I guess that just mean me and my companion aren´t doing something right in our teachings. Church this week was really great. We had a very good testimony meeting. It was very very spiritual. An older gentlemen and his wife went up and bore their testimonies. The spirit just filled the room when he bore his testimony. A lot of little kids gave their testimonies along with a mom and dad and their little daughter all bore their testimonies because they went to the temple this past week to be sealed together as a family.  It was so amazing to hear that experience  they had because the mom is pregnant and the baby will be born into the covenant now! It's always a good day to listen to the members of our ward they are really good people and have really strong testimonies. Not a lot of crazy stuff happened this week just moving a lot in the work. Its great to hear when people accept baptismal dates and understand the gospel and how its necessary but sometimes it only hits their hearts not their spirit totally so we just gotta work towards that. 

I´ve put in pictures of Valdivia and a photo of me and the Familia Barrias they surprised me on my birthday with a cake it was way good!!! 

I love you all and miss you very much!! 

Elder Blotter Photos - May 31

Elder Blotter's Zone celebrated his 20th birthday with him this week.  The other pictures we're not sure about but assume one is a Zone activity.  Not sure about the sweater modeling.

Elder Blotter - May 31st

Hola Familia!!! Thanks for the birthday letter and the package last week.  As you saw I received the first one and love it very much!!! I am still waiting for the second so will just see when it comes. My Zone here in Valdivia actually surprised me this past Friday with a Chile made brownie cake with a Spongebob card with a little note from all of them with candles! It was really nice of them to do that for me I have photos of it that all send in my family letter home. That's way cool to hear that the guys back home are preparing to graduate soon! We´ve had more success this week with finding new people and challenging them to baptism and also coming to church. Sadly none of our investigators came to church and we even called some of them and they said they´d come!! It frustrated me a little but it really frustrated my companion. We just gotta keep working hard and find what they need in order to feel comfortable to go to church. I´m glad to hear Heidi is actually enjoying her Singles Ward and people are being nice to her and that she feels happy!  I hope her job is going well and everything. Its gotten really really cold here lately and isn´t the funnest when rain comes but that's just life here in the winter time in Chile. One crazy experience from this week's teaching I´d say is when we found 2 new boys one who is 14 and another who is 23 and they live together with their dad. We taught them the 1st lesson and at first the 14 year old Jorge tried to challenge us with question like who is God to us and we answered perfectly right back at him.  It was so awesome because after that he humbled himself and really got interested and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he´d read what we gave him and he´d pray, it was way cool!! The work is well here in Chile, just hard sometimes because people don´t humble themselves but then when they do they really feel the spirit. I love it out here I wouldn't change places with anybody.  I love you and miss you very much!!
Love, Elder Blotter

Latest Photos from Elder Blotter

We sent Rob a package for his birthday which included this Easter tie and some  of his favorite snack foods, as he is demonstrating.  This was the first package we sent him and we were nervous it might not arrive safely without being opened, but it arrived okay.

Elder Blotter - May 25th

HOLA FAMILIA!!!
Sorry for the small letter of last week I know it stunk but I was rushed cause we were going bowling but I have a whole lot more to tell this week!!! I will start from Tuesday! I received my first package from you.  Thank you very much, I love it!!!! I have used a lot of the cocoa packages lately cause its really cold in our house because we have no wood, quank!!! And I love the tie, that was my favorite thing out of all of it!!! We also had conference that day and it was super awesome!! My mission president and the APs really focused on the Vision of Baptism in the very first lesson to the last lesson and it was way awesome!! Me and my comp have really focused on the Vision and we have 6 people preparing for baptism!!! Way, freaking, awesome is this!! The work has been really strong lately this week and people want to hear us so its been a really good teaching week!! Later that day me and my comp were tracking in the street and we got stopped by a drunk guy and he told us both that we were beautiful people, ha ha!!! It cracked us up so bad! and then later that night we contacted a woman and her daughter and they both looked at me and the mom said I had really beautiful eyes, so a compliment to mom and dad for having a son with beautiful eyes, ha ha!! On Wednesday I made friends with some dogs in a part of our sector and they followed us for a while but my comp tried to scare them away but when he tried they just came right back so my comp lost that battle! ha ha! Later in the day we got cat called by "Snakes" Blah! Very disgusting I tell you what because if you don´t know what snakes are, these girls that are like 12 to 20 or so in age and they cat call on missionaries like us and say things I´m not even going to repeat ha ha!!! Thursday I watched a fire hydrant explode and then a guy who drove a taxi take his car through it and wash his car that way!! Freaking crazy Chileans ha ha!!! Later that night when we were walking home we said Hola to a man and he said "and here I find two great saints" What a great way to end the day!! ha ha! Friday I helped clean a combustion for my mamita with her husband and it was way dirty but it was a good learning experience. Later that night we went on divisions with our mamitas husband and another member of the ward where I go with one member and my comp goes with the other to visit investigators and less actives and what not.  We were not allowed to knock doors with members or do street contacts so it´s quite a bit different.I learned quite a bit from it and learned a bit more about the members. On Saturday it was a random holiday in Chile because I guess they just have like these random holidays, like every month. So we ate really good at our mamita's house that day and we ate Artichokes which was way cool I never knew they knew what those were!! and then also I introduced peanut butter to my mamita with apples but she really liked it. And Sunday when we were walking to church my companion almost got hit by some drunk Chileans who didn´t know how to drive and he wanted to throw a rock but I stopped him which was good so yea ha ha and then later that night me and my comp got called pretty which again BLAH!! no thank you ha ha!! and then randomly my mamitas husband and another member started to talk to me at church about the show Lost and what was happening it was really funny!! So yea that's my crazy week!! Today I´m going to get my hair cut and get some food!! I love you all and miss you very much!!! I´m sending some photos of me with my box and my new tie. I love you all!!
Love, Elder Blotter