GENERAL CONFERENCE and transfers coming up this week!‏

For those of you who don´t know there will be a world-wide conference held this upcoming weekend and I would suggest to all of you that check out conference.lds.org because we will have the wonderful opportunity to hear our beloved Prophet and his Twelve Apostles give us advice and counsel in these difficult times. I know that we can find help and peace in these messages no matter in what circumstances we may be found in. We would do good to listen and ponder on their words knowing that the world will get more and more difficult as time goes on.

I love this church and know that our leaders only want what is best for us. By listening and heeding their counsel, peace and true happiness CAN be found. We are so very blessed to live in these days when their messages can be transmitted live and in many languages. Let´s take advantage of our grand blessings and set aside a very small portion of time to be able to listen to what they have to say to us.

I know that God is our Father. He loves us. He is closer than we realize. He wants us to succeed in all that we do whether it be being good parents, a good child, finding and having success in a job, or help us get out of a hole that we have dug ourselves in to. Because of his pure love for us he has called worthy and noble men and women to transmit His messages to us. He will never abandon us in our times of trial nor in our times of happiness. ALL can benefit from this Conference and I invite everyone of you to join with us! 

I love you all and thank you for all the letters of support! I hope all is well and that we all learn something from this conference! Let us prepare ourselves and have a desire to listen and apply their counsels!

And if you have questions about the Apostles, how they are called and what their roles are, take a look here!

https://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/calling-an-apostle-of-god?cid=HP_MO_9-28-2015_dPTH_fPROP_xLIDyL1-B_&lang=eng

Have a marvelous week!

Love always,

Elder Gunnell

P.S. Transfers are next Monday so I might be with a new companion or in a new area!

Time to get the dead cat off the roof! Jk... Turns out it`s been there for awhile.. It just fell apart. Gross.

Multi-zone conference, earthquake and tsunami, September 18th‏

I feel like I have a lot to say but I will most likely forget it all, I´ll try to do my best!

Last Wednesday we had a conference with the whole mission which was awesome to be able to see all the missionaries that I´ve been able to get to know while I´ve been here. It was also an eye opener because a lot of the missionaries that I did know have already gone home and there are a lot of new missionaries that I´ve never even seen before. Everyone says that´s what happens when you have been in the mission for about a year.... Oh boy it`s going by fast. Anyways in our conference Presidente Viñas gave a surprise visit! He is the seventy in charge of the South America South area. Anyways he stopped by and our President gave him and his wife some time to talk to us. His message was very very powerful and I took about a million notes. It got me excited to work again cause I was kinda getting down but what he said helped a lot! It turns out that he will also be speaking in General Conference! I´m sure his talk will be wonderful. I´m so excited for General Conference.

The next thing that happened was that same day but in the night time around 7:30ish. We had an earthquake! But not just one of those little earthquakes that happen all the time, a real earthquake. The epicenter happened up in the North and had the magnitude of 8.4 on the Richter scale. For as strong as the earthquake was it didn`t do as much damage as what would be expected but it did cause a tsunami which, yes, did cause quite a bit of damage. There were quite a few people affected and it took out the city that was on the beach so please keep them in your prayers. It still isn`t quite warm enough to be sleeping outside and they need shelter! Here in Santiago we didn`t feel it as strongly as where it hit but wow it was still strong! I knew that earthquakes were strong because of the other ones that always happen but it was still crazy! The whole house moved up and down and left and right and it sounded like thunder! The other thing that was different from the other ones is that this one lasted for like two minutes (at least it felt like it haha) without stopping. It left us feeling dizzy and motion sick. Luckily we didn`t lose water or electricity in our part but there were other parts around us that lost them. The cellphone towers were down so we couldn`t communicate with very many people and when we could it was a really bad signal. So that night we didn`t end up leaving the house again! Haha and all night there were reprocussions, actually, since wednesday I think we have had at least one or more earthquakes every 24 hours including a pretty strong one last night. So that was quite the experience! I´m glad nothing happened here but please pray for those affected in the North!

The 18th of September was a BLAST!! ¡Lo pasamos rey bien! We were at the church activity from 11 in the morning until about 5:30-6 at night then went to a little party of some less active members and their family until 10. At the church we just played all sorts of games all day long. We ate empanadas, choripanes, BBQed meat and meat and meat, salads and desserts. Soooo much food! I tried not to eat a lot so I could play more games and not feel sick. It was such a good time. We all snacked on a few things in the morning and then around 2 we all sat down and ate a lunch together. While we were there the whole ward sang happy birthday to me in spanish AND in english! Hahah it was impressive! They said they had never sang happy birthday to an Elder before and so I better feel special haha. The members are so awesome here. The second counselor and his wife made me a birthday cake and brought it to me in the morning, such sweethearts.

 Even Miguel swung by to wish me a happy birthday and give me a little gift! He also brought a little video that my family sent to him to show me. Thank you Miguel and family for that:)

Then in the evening when we went to the other family they had made me an icecream cake and all sang to me! Someone recorded it so I´ll tell them to put in on facebook. Haha it was soo funny with them. I´m gonna miss this place if I leave. There are some people here that I´ll never forget. All in all it was an absolutely amazing birthday. I think I´m going to celebrate my birthday in Chile every year because it was so dang good. And no we didn`t do much misisonary work that day... Haha but the other days yes!

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! Pray for those who were hit by the tsunami!

Over and out,

Elder Gunnell

Baptism!!

We had a baptism! What? Haha it was kind of a surprise baptism and I don`t remember if I said anything about it last week... But a member had lost his church records about two years ago and so we had the chance to reteach the lessons to him and get him baptized! Haha it was actually really funny because I had never taught all the principles that we as missionaries have to teach all in one lesson. It was fun! We had a lesson with him on Wednesday, the interview on Thursday and the baptism on Saturday! Him and his girlfriend even went out and bought us ties for doing it. What sweethearts.

We had our interviews with the Mission President this week (we do them every other transfer). Like always it was wonderful. He is such a sincere guy and I like him a lot. Also! I ended up having to teach our whole zone for a little bit while the other two district leaders were in their interviews with the Pres and his wife. Which was kinda fun! I made a story and turned it into a madlib kinda deal where we replaced words and verbs with things they said and then read the story! 

This Wednesday we have a multi-zone conference (nice, I don`t have to teach!). Because it is the week of the 18th we are going to do everything together as a mission so that we can celebrate the 18th with our wards and the members there. Speaking of the 18th I am sooooo excited!!!! Our ward is doing a party from 11 in the morning until who knows when. Until everyone leaves! We are gonna have so much food and so many games! Man I´m pumped. It will basically be like the fouth of July in the States but without fireworks. I´m a little sad this will be the last 18th that I´ll be able to celebrate but I guess that means I`ll just have to come back sometime in the future!

I had did an interchange(is that a word in english) with one of the missionaries in my distrit. He is Chilean and a very cool kid! He came to my area and my comp went to his. It was a good time! But we stayed up way too late talking.

I feel like there was a lot more to say but I´ve forgotten everything.... Sorry! Haha

Also I forgot to mention a happy birthday shoutout to Kui! And Grandma Rinderknecht!

We`ll see you next week! Nos vemos la próxima semana!

Elder Gunnell

Time flies when you´re busy!‏

It was a VERY fast week! We had things to do everyday! Also I´ve never done so many family home evenings in my mission. It´s like every other day we have something planned. We have projects in the house to help the owners make it look better and we have service projects all over the place! I love doing service so I´ve been seeking out every opportunity that I have had!

This week we did a wonderful family home evening in the church. We invited Veronica and her family to come to the church with us. Before had we had set up the church so that we could be able to teach about the principles of the Gospel like faith, repentance, baptism, the sacrament, holy ghost and persevere to the end but we also did it in the form of a tour because she had never been inside the church before. So for example to talk about baptism we went to the baptismal font and we had a picture of Christ when he was baptised right there and talked about it. In the primary we talked about faith and how important children are and how they are taught faith from a very young age. We went to the sacrament table to talk about the sacrament and the atonement that Christ did to make it posible for us to return to him no matter how many times we mess up and fall.

It went soo well, way better than I thought it would! She also loved it and now all her little kids want to do is come so that they can go to primary haha! They didn´t come last week but they had some problems over the weekend. This week for sure. I hope. At least that is going to be our focus. 

We are also helping reactivate a family who have a daughter of eight years old (Juan, Flor, and Anto). They are progressing a lot and invited us to eat lunch with them this last Sunday! They also were going to come to church but got home really late from their nephew´s birthday so..... We´ll see if they come this next week!

It was a bummer because we had invited nearly 20 people to church but in the end only a few arrived... It was a bummer but nothing to get down on! It happens a lot and it won´t get better by complaining about it so we´ll just keep inviting them for next week!:)

My class went well! We have an awesome district(the best in the zone I say). The only sister missionaries in the zone are in my district which is a bonus because they are dang good missionaries. We are also designing a t-shirt for our district which will hopefully be getting finished up here soon!

We are also in the process of painting our house and we are hoping to finish that today so that it won´t be so ugly. Oh! I finally got a new mattress and a new bed frame!! My bed fram use to be bent, it looked like a smiley face. I started waking up really sore so then I took it off the frame and stuck it upside down on the ground and jumped on it for a bit hoping that it would straighten out a little, which it did... Kinda, it turned into a frowny face. I slept like that for about a week to no avail. So I just took away the whole bed frame and put the mattress on the floor. It was a little better but I had an awful mattress. But I now have a new mattress and bed frame:) hallelluya!!

Think that´s it for now.... Have a marvelous week!

Elder Gunnell