FIRST BAPTISM!!‏

Well I don´t really know where to start! We had a baptism, a recent convert went to the temple for the first time and did baptisms for his dad and a few others, some of the women got baptized for his sister and mom, transfers came and went and I am still here in Catemu with Elder Bennett!

It was a crazy week for sure! But I feel really good about it. As you can see in the picture I had the opportunity to baptize Adela. It was a very special feeling when she told me that she wanted me to baptize her. I felt honored. And it was something I don´t think I will ever forget. The whole baptismal service was really cool and we felt the Spirit very strongly. Adela´s mom came and one of their neighbors/family friends that Adela invited. Her mom was crying and Adela was a little teary eyed for sure. I don´t know why it all happened the way that it did but I am very glad it went how it went! Just about all of our plans fell through and we were running around during church to remake the plans and just when we thought everything was good they would fall through again and again. But God was watching over and everything went really well. The messages that were said by Elder Bennett and another sister in the ward were marvelous and really to Adela and then the President of the Branch and the Relief Society welcomed her and those were both very supportive! It was a fantastic experience and I am so glad that I didn´t get transferred because now I get to spend another six weeks with her and another family that we are focusing in!

When we went to Adela´s house last night to talk about her baptism and give her a brand new Book of Mormon with our testimonies in it, she was so happy and excited and there was a difference in her! After about 10 minutes the neighbor/family friend happened to come over and told us how she absolutely loved the baptism, that Adela and I looked like angels, and that this Sunday her and her husband(probably not husband because no one here is married, but for lack of better words) are coming to church no matter what! And we have never even talked to her or seen her before but the Spirit that she felt there was something that she says she wants to find again.

We have a goal for Adela to go to the Temple the 7th of February with the Branch so we will see what we can do! The hardest part is after the baptism because it´s when Satan starts attacking but I know she is strong enough to stay faithful in the Church.

I don´t know if I have talked about another family that is absolutely awesome but their names are Nelson(dad), Cecilia(mom), and Patricio(son, 14 years). They aren´t married either so that will be our goal before we put a baptism date on them. But Cecilia and Patricio have come to Church twice so far and have absolutely loved it. Nelson hasn´t come because he works for 14 days then is at home for seven. Patricio is a future missionary if you ask me. Cecilia loves the church and always takes notes and asks questions in class. They have already seen one baptism and say it is super pretty. Patricio is going to start participating in mutual here soon, hopefully, and things are going well! We have been helping them paint house of Cecilia´s mom which has helped us win even more trust.

Yesterday we went to their house because Cecilia has a tumor and is going in for a big operation today. She will be in the hospital until at least Friday. Which means we are going to try to see if we can go visit her on Wednesday when we are in San Felipe. But anyways we went to their house because she asked if we could give her a blessing. We explained what the Priesthood is and how it works and how we have the Priesthood then we gave her the blessing. After the blessing it was just completely silent for a little. The Spirit was very strong again. And we told her that we are here for her and so if she needs anything to just let us know. We told her that we would check up on Patricio while she was gone because Nelson doesn´t get home until Wednesday and that he can call us whenever. She was crying and said thank you tons of times. I am super super excited to see the progress in this family and I really think that they could be a light for the city of Catemu!

I think that´s the majority of what I wanted to tell you all! We just had day FULL of the Holy Ghost yesterday and I have big expectations of what we can accomplish in the next six weeks!!

Love, 

Elder Gunnell

Midweek pictures

Here is me fixing an iPhone!

I made a comfy bed out of our desk cause I was wayy tired one day, it wasn`t too shabby!

Sometimes I think about skiing... Also recipes: Ham salad sandwiches, potato salad, funeral tatoes, homemade donuts. Love you mom:)

We are praying for a baptism!‏

I have a lot to write about this week and I only have an hour to write so I´m going to talk in general and not in so many details!

We have finished all the lessons and teachings with Adela and she is still headed for her baptism this Sunday. A day before our transfers! As long as everything goes well (which I believe it will) I will have my first baptism!! I´m very excited! We are going to the temple with her this Saturday to do a little tour and so she can feel the Spirit that is there on the temple grounds.

I am writing today, and so late, because yesterday we did our zone activity and we went and toured a mine! That was pretty cool I´ve got to admit! Then we also had a bbq there but we were there for longer than we thought (and when you have 20 missionaries obviously everything is going to last longer) so we didn´t have time to use internet! Then as fast as possible we had to get to Santiago because today we had to come to Santiago and get our visas, well to start the paperwork for the visas. That´s what we have been doing all day. It was basically waiting in line all day. So nothing fun there. But it was cool because we got to walk around the heart of Santiago for awhile!

I actually got to do one of the things I love for a member! He had a broke iPhone and I told him awhile ago that I could fix it for him if he wanted. So he bought all the stuff and we went to their house to eat lunch and I fixed he iPhone for him real quick! That was fun to do again, and I haven´t forgotten how to do it yet! Haha and that same lunch I made a whole ton of crepes and we did a little crepe bar thing which was delicious and super fun!

I had splits with Elder Diaz and Elder Vernon and they were both in Los Andes and very hot but a ton of fun! It´s always cool to get to know a different area and see how different missionaries teach. I always learn a lot.

We had a family that finally came to Church and they loved it! They are excited to have us come back and learn more so I´m very happy about that! 

Ohhh!!! Funny story!! I went to make a contact one day and it was just a normal looking man and I was riding my bike so I pulled over to the side of the road and was like, ¨Hey how´s it going? How´s your day?¨ and he just walked right passed me so I decided to turn around and try again like maybe he didn´t hear me or I don´t know? So I caught up to him and said the same thing, ¨How are things? How´s your day going?¨ Yeah whatever things like that and then he started yelling things like, ¨Why am I important to you?! Why do you want to talk to me??¨ and I was just thinking oh this is a perfect opportunity to share what missionaries do and talk about Christ and his love for all of us so I was just about to go deep into that and I said, ¨well...¨ and he started shouting, ¨Go away! Go away! Go away! I am going to punch you!¨ and raised his fist!! He was really gonna do it! So I was just like, ¨well nice to meet you, gotta go! Bye! Have a fantastic day!¨ and I left. So I never thought that something like that would happen in my little city of Catemu but it did!

I don´t know how these transfers are going to go this week! But we will see! I know that the President knows best so I´ve got all my trust in him!

I think that´s all I´ve got for this week! Pray for Adela so she can get baptized!

Love,

Elder Gunnell

 

January 6-12, 2015......that's all I got for a title

We are already in week 5 of this change! Two weeks and I might be headed off to a different area! This change with Elder Bennett has gone even faster, now we are just way good friends and we just laugh, joke, and have good time all day. Which has been really helpful when we have a bad day we can usually cheer eachother up! Haha it´s way funny but it is also cool to see our unity when we teach or when we are talking about the needs of our investigators. After lessons one of us will say, ¨wow that was exactly the thing I was going to teach too.¨ so that´s for sure a little testimony builder of listen to the Spirit and teach with unity!

We´ve been having a little bit of heat here and I think I´ve started to miss the thing called AC in a house... But like it´s okay cause we have a fan. It works really well to blow hot air to other parts of room! One day all of our appointments fell through in the morning so we decided that we deserved a watermelon to cheer us up and to fight off some of the heat. So we went and bought a huge watermelon and each ate a half! It was so good! Haha and that was our lunch.

I feel like there have been some big things happening this week and that we are on the verge of more! An old man, named Victor, that was baptized the week before I got here, 4 months ago, told us that he was going to stop going to church and basically just stop being a member because he believed that the church was making him sick. Ever since he was batpized he has had problems with the help and told us that last week when he was in the church he felt really bad but as soon as he left he felt good. We listened a lot to what he was saying because we wanted him to just talk so we could figure out how to help him. We told him how we wanted the best for him and we want to help in any way we can. He got a little teary eyed and said that he wanted the church to be true and that it wasn´t making him sick but it was the only thing he could think of. After more talking and scripture he said that he would come to church this week(yesterday) one more time to see if he felt bad again. Well he came and we had a super spiritual Elder´s Quroum meeting. After the meeting I started walking over to him and he just gave me a big ´ol smile and I asked how he was and he just said he was fantastic, that he felt great! Then to make it even better we are going to the temple on the 24th for a little tour and for the members of our branch so they can do temple work. This will be his first time to see the temple and if everything goes according to plan he will be able to enter and do baptisms for his parents!! He is very excited. We set up an interview for next Sunday for his recommendation and we are going to print off the names this Friday! I am so happy that the Lord answered our prayers and that Victor could feel really good in the church and now is very excited for the temple!

Now some news on the Adela. She is still progressing and we are still headed for her baptism on the 25th! She has come to church seven times now and is making friends which is fantastic! We had the great idea of having a family (that we always eat lunch with) invite Adela to come eat with all of us too! We thought it was a good idea because Adela has two little girls and the mom of the other family, Bethy, has a little boy and girl and both Bethy and Adela are seperated. It was a lot of work on Bethy´s part but she made it happen and Adela absolutely loved it! So we are making some big progress there that I am very pleased with! We showed her the baptism font this week at church too. She doesn´t have any support from her family which kind of scares us because we don´t want her to go inactive, so it is really important that she has a lot of support from the members of the branch. The other problem is her ex-boyfriend... He is very very very disrespectful and knows that Adela will be in the Plaza every Sunday to come to church with us... So every week he comes to talk to her which she doesn´t like and this week he was realllly mean to her and she started crying... Usually we are only in the plaza for like 10-15 minutes because the bus comes that frecuently but this week something happened and we had to wait 50 minutes so the whole time her ex-boyfriend was talking to her and doing all sorts of things... It was bad and we didn´t know what to do and I felt sooo bad. This week I think we are going to tell her that if she wants we can meet her at a different bus stop. I don´t know, we´ll see. It is just super sad and all she wants is to do the right thing and be the best mom for her two girls as she can. 

Oh a quick little thing that touched my heart yesterday. There is a kid name Luis and he is 19 years old. He is a less active member but has been coming for the last 3 or 4 weeks which is awesome! He is having problems with his records in the church like his baptism and stuff. Because he wanted to get his patriachal blessing but couldn´t cause something was wrong. But after like a month of searching he found his orginal record. Now we are just waiting for the Church office in Salt Lake to authorize them so he can get his blessing and work on his papers for his mission! Well anyways after the church we waited for him so we could ride the bus to Catemu together. While we were talking we got talking about how we had to wait 50 minutes for the bus and if he had to do the same and if he was late for that. Then he told us that he walked. He has been WALKING from Catemu to Llay-Llay and back for four weeks to go to church. It´s more than an hour walk one way... I wanted to pay for his ticket but I don´t have money still cause I lost my wallet and Elder Bennett didn´t know if it was allowed or not. We are going to find out and if we can´t help him, we are going to walk with him because that is a long lonely walk. I feel bad for him and what a sacrifice. Today we played basketball with him and he invited some of his friends. They hadn´t ever gotten to know the missionaries or Mormons so it was way fun and I think we had a good first impression because asked us if they could take pictures with us! It was way fun!

The week was great and I´m excited for this upcoming week and what it has to offer! Keep it real back at home and where ever else your found!

Love,

Elder Gunnell

P.S. Thank you grandmas and grandpa for the Christmas money(I will use it when I have my card again, probably to buy cooking stuff...)! And Kunane I got you package, thank you so much!! We have been enjoying ourselves! Maybe a little too much! Haha

 This is what happens after you haven`t been in the sun with a low collar for 4 months....

2015!!!

Wow it´s incredible that 2014 already finished. It was a big year I´d say. Time just keeps marching on and there is nothing we can do about it other than take advantage of every minute! I hope you each had a wonderful New Years! I´ll quickly tell you about ours. After 6pm it was just like a free day and we could do what we wanted but we had to be in our house at 11 so we just decided to visit people until like 8:30 and afterwards we wanted to find a place open that we could buy empanadas or completos. The problem was that every place we went to was either closed or full of people that were already a little drunk so we opted to just head to the house. Haha and I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies (using that silicon cooking mat you sent me and it works very good! I love it!) then we made our plans for the next day and got in bed at 11! Haha reaaal exciting I know! But it was good, we just talked about the year and a couple of highlights of every month which was cool to think back on! The next morning we had to go to San Felipe for our District class and in the morning there was absolutely no one in the streets... They were all knocked out I believe. When we got the the Plaza, where we take the bus, there was like ten people there and all drunk. They all asked us for money for a cigarrette or another drink. It was a sad sight. A night that everyone gets excited for just so they can be out of their minds the next day... Then we had to wait like an hour for the first bus to come. Usually they start at 6:30 but that day they started at like 8:30. So that was our New Years but it wasn´t a bad one! Only one more left!

This week we have made some very good progress with one of our investigators named Adela(25 years old). We found her and her mom(about 50 years old) a couple of months ago with Elder Anderson. Recently, two or three weeks ago, her mom didn´t want to have anything to do with us. So we had been teaching just the daughter (both are named Adela so it´s a little confusing) and she has made some incredible progress. And I mean incredible! When we first started teaching she didn´t understand hardly anything and never read or said prayers. Her eyes were always sad and heavy, she never had energy, had kind of a negative vibe, and didn´t have a job. She has come to church six times now, went and bought highlighters so that when she reads the Book of Mormon she can mark the things she doesn´t understand so that she can ask us, prays every morning, night, and before meals(with out the steps we wrote down for her so she wouldn´t forget), has more energy, has a job, is more patient, and the most noticeable has the Light of Christ in her eyes. There has been a change in her heart and it shows in her appearance. It is so amazing! I don´t even know how to explain it! She is doing what the Lord asks and he is blessing her. AND those around her. Early this week we were in a neighborhood and we saw the Mom of Adela(the other Adela). She was talking to her brother and had two big bags that looked heavy so we chatted with them for a little then asked if she needed help with the bags. She was a little hesitant because she had told us that she didn´t want anything with us but in the end said yes. So we grabbed her bags and walked to her house(well the bottom of her hill) which was pretty far. We talked the whole time and I think it touched her heart a little that we would help her even though she didn´t want to take part in our lessons. Yesterday we went up to visit Adela(daughter) but her mom answered the door, told us that her daughter wasn´t there, and asked us if we could come in anyways. Obviously we said yes!! She started off by telling us the differences that she has seen in her daughter and that she feels like she is missing something in her life. So she told us that she started reading the Book of Mormon and praying on her own and that she wants to take part in our lessons again!! Ahhhh! It was a tender mercy from the Lord. The Light of Christ is real and it is something that Adela(mom) has seen in her daughter. And then a little act of service was needed and just like that she wanted to be apart of the lessons and the church again! I am so excited for her and her daughter. Her daughter has a baptism date for the 25th and we are going to work very hard so that she can be ready for that date!

We hiked a pretty big ´ol hill(mountain) today for P-day, here it is.

the wind was so strong that I could lean like this and not fall! (Kind of a joke, I did fall but the wind was super strong)

Thank you for the love and emails, things are well here! And still pretty hot haha and I hope everything is fantastic there!

Love,

Elder Gunnell

I`m getting a headstart for tomorrow! We had a bbq and I did the grilling and just helped prepare!

 The food I cooked for the BBQ

 Selfie, other missionaries from Llay-Llay and all the food from the bbq, sooo much.

 I went on splits with Elder Bigelow(from Ogden) in San Felipe and a view from a house we visited! The sunset was so pretty!

 We were in the middle of a field and I decided to snap a pic

 Look close at the road sign, we are headed to Vegas!