Wow! What a Week!!!

So I´m going to ask perdón (forgiveness) because I am exhausted today and I will explain why but if my letter doesn´t make a lot of sense it´s because of that!

Today we went on the BEST hike I´ve ever been on! I mean I have only gone on like two... But this was incredible. I took a ton of shots with a really nice camera that someone lended me so I will send a lot today if the time permits and I invite everyone to see the blog where my mother dearest will put them. We climbed up the tallest hill in the Santiago valley if I am not mistaken and it was just the most beautiful view from up there. You can see the Andes like a wall in front of you and basically have a 360 degree view of all Santiago. I can´t believe how pretty it was. It was perfect since we just had a big rain and wind storm from Saturday to Monday so that took away all the smog (because there is normally a ton) and the Andes got a good amount of snow. Today was a bluebird day and just gorgeous. I loved it. I love nature!! Where are my Utah mountains?! It´ll be good to be home haha. 

We had a spectacular week. My comp had a great idea of talking to two people every 30 minutes. Instead of thinking about how many people we were going to talk to every day we decided to break it up into something small, like 30 minutes. The first day that we did it we didn´t even get a block away from our house before finding two new people to teach whom we also visited on Sunday and we were able to meet the whole family and teach them all! It was incredible. Our day went from having nothing to too many things to do! It was great!! We will do it this week and see how it goes!

The Haitian convert in our ward recieved the Priesthood this last Sunday which means he will now be able to baptize his friends!! We are pretty excited about that and so is he.

We finally got a less active man, Omar, to come to church! We have been doing service in his house forever and finally last week we sat down and had a serious talk with him and his wife. On Saturday when we did service he asked us if we were going to go to his house to get him for church and we obviously said of course! Then he invited us to eat breakfast with him before hand. He went and the bishopric was quick on their feet and asked him to teach a class on the segund and third Sunday of next month! That will be a huge blessing for him and the ward!!

The four of us missionaries gave talks this Sunday. I will be humble and say that it was probably one of/if not the best talks I have ever given in spanish or english so I was very content for that. I will end my little with the little story that I based my talk around. You may or may not have read it on lds.org but if not here it is!

¨As illustrated by the following tale, we all sit by a “pot of stew.” A man sought out a respected old sage and said, “O wise one, I would like to know what heaven and hell are like.”

The sage led the man to two doors. He opened one of the doors, and the man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water.

The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms. Each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The wise man said, “You have seen hell.”

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew that made the man’s mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons strapped to their arms, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The man said, “I don’t understand!”

“It is simple,” said his venerable guide. “It requires but one skill. You see, they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves” (author unknown).¨

With much love,

Elder Gunnell

They Took the Wrong Black Guy!

So we have been meeting with quite a few Haitian people lately. They are incredible. They are so humble and fun and good-hearted. This last Sunday our only Haitian convert, Melsince, brought 5 friends with him! We had been meeting up with two of them but he brought us three more to meet! It was great to see them all walk in. They are so willing to accept the Gospel and they just can´t get enough. Anyways we went to go get David from his house so that we could go to a family home evening last night. He is one of them that we met a couple of weeks ago and will be getting baptized the 23rd of this month. He speaks decent spanish and understandable english so with those languages we can understand each other. So we went to his house to go get him and as we were headed down the street where we take the bus we realize that he doesn´t have his bus card and neither does my comp so we split up real quick. We went to our house and he went to his to get their cards and we only live like two blocks away. We waited for him in the same street where we were before and he just never showed up. One of the other Haitians who lives with him was coming down towards us in a very hurriedly manner and tells us that David was taken by the police and that he was going to the police station right then to see why and to take him out. So we quickly went up to his street and sure enough he was gone and there was quite a commotion with what had happened. We didn´t know what to do at that point and had other people waiting for us at the bus stop to go to the family home evening so we just headed there. Later that night we talked to Melsince and he told us that they were mistaken and took the wrong person and that David was okay. In the end everything was alright but it was definitely something unexpected!! Haha.

We finally got some rain and it is getting a little colder! It´s great!!!

I hope all is well and that you are all enjoying the spring!

Elder Gunnell

Fall is Just Around the Corner

It`s starting to get a little colder finally!!! There were actually a few raindrops that fell today! I am excited for the cold again. I am tired of the heat. 

I will have to agree with those who wrote me saying that conference was great! I completely agree with that. I certainly loved it. I could really feel their messages hit me and I am excited for the next six months that we have to study and listen to their talks again! I know that those were the messages that God wanted us to hear so that we could be safe and protected in the next six months. Especially with the world heading where it`s heading. There were so many talks that I just loved. I also really loved the messages that talked about marraige:) I don`t know why that would apply to me in the next 6 months... But I mean we just have to obey the prophets and we`ll be good right?! Haha.

I´m having a technological fight with the computer right now trying to put all the talks on my iPod. The computer is currently winning. I might need to take a ¨How to use a computer for beginners¨ class when I get home cause I don`t remember how technology works. So if my letter today is a little lame it`s for that reason.

My comp is hilarious. We get a long great, he makes me laugh and man it`s good to laugh again! Laughing does good for the soul (see Proverbs 17:22 for a scripture that backs that up haha) and so it was a good week. We didn`t get a lot of work done because we had quite a few meetings and things to do but it was still a great week! We invited the zone over to our house on Saturday morning to do a big `ol breakfast before conference. We made buttermilk pancakes, scrambbled eggs, and sausage (the closest thing to sausage at least). It was a blast! We also made home made corndorgs the other day just to see how they were. They turned out delicious!

Today we had another great opportunity to go to the temple:) haha I love it so much. It`s marvelous. I can`t wait to go back into Logan! Speaking of temples did you see the Prove City Temple?!?! It is GORGEOUS. I couldn`t believe it when I saw it. I love it. I love it so much.

Things are well here, I am happy and excited! Thank you for all your support and letters!

Elder Bayler Gunnell

It's Already Easter!!

So I´d like to ask forgiveness for not writing an email last week (sorry mom)! 

Things went well the week before but there just wasn´t much to say! At least I didn´t feel like there was much to say so I wrote some more personal emails!

Anyways a couple big things have happened this week! My comp headed home yesterday! He is now relaxing in Brazil with his family so a big congrats to him for finishing his mission! This week is a little weird because the new missionaries won´t get here until next week so we haven´t had transfers yet! All the companions who had comps that went home got paired up with eachother so currently I am with one of the zone leaders from Colina, Elder Clarine from Arizona. We are spending the first part of the week in my area and the other half in his.

Today we had the most wonderful opportunity to go to the temple!!!!! I think the last time I went to actually go do temple work was last year in May or June... So it´s been awhile. It was great. I had forgotten how pretty the Santiago temple is inside. It´s beautiful. Who wouldn´t want to be able to spend time in it?! We set up another appointment to go next week, the week before GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! I´m so excited!

It´s still hot as ever here. Fall started already but everyone has been telling us that summer is going to last a long time this year so we will be sweating for a little bit longer. We have been able to find some new people to teach. Sadly we find a few people and then we never find them again or they decide that they are done with us. Just gotta pick the wheat from the tares. I´m hoping that next week I get a comp that is ready to work so that we can turn this area around!

If you haven´t seen the new video from the church ¨Hallelujah¨ I would recommend that you watch it and share it! It has a really powerful message and we have had really good results by showing it to people here. Actually I love showing it!!

Love you all! Have a good week! We´ll talk to you later!

Elder G

Happy Birthday Momma Gunnell!!‏

It´s my marvelous mother´s birthday this week so everyone love her to death like she deserves!

So this week I will just share two things! One is from what I learned with Elder Bednar and the other is an experience I had this week!

To start off I´ll share something that Elder Bednar taught us. He gave us an example that really stuck with me. He started talking about objects. Just any kind of object. A glass, his scriptures, the flowers. They all need an outward force to be moved or to do anything. He then explained that our scriptures are the same thing! They are an inanimate object. They need an outward force to make something happen. And what is the common mistake that we all make? We all go to the scriptures TO BE ACTED UPON. Or, in another words, we go to the scriptures and tell them, ¨Hey, we are all unanimated objects and we want YOU to act upon us, okay? We are just gonna sit here and read and whenever you are ready give us something that we need to know or something we should do just give us a heads up. Por favor.¨ We´ll to be waiting a real long time if we do that. We are children of God. The power to act is WITHIN us. Thankfully we don´t need any outward for to make us act or move. We can decide and do for ourselves. What we need to be better at is us ACTING UPON THE SCRIPTURES not the scriptures acting upon us. We need to take something with us to the scriptures. We need to be the outward force that makes them move. For example: someone makes a quick comment that was rude and made me feel bad. Now I go to the scriptures and say, ¨Listen up scriptures, so and so said something that hurt my feelings and I want to know how I can forgive them and forget. What do I do? How do I do it?¨

The other thing I want to share is just to never give up! If we are doing our part things will work out! I was in an interchange with a different Elder and we were doing contacts on our way to a Family Home Evening. I kept getting these little promptings that I needed to go knock on the door of a house here or there or talk to a person over there. It happened about 7 or 8 times and every time it was a complete and total shut down. Not one of them wanted anything to do with me or the Church or God and frankly a few were quite rude. I was not enjoying myself. We decided that no one on this street was going to want to talk to us and the family home evening was going to start in about 15 minutes so we decided to just head straight there. As we were walking I looked to the other side of the street and saw a pretty looking house with the door open, once again I got a little feeling that we should go knock on the door. I told myselft, ¨you´ve felt this same little feeling with the last 7 or 8 people you´ve talked to. Why is it going to be any different this time?¨ I decided we were going to give it a shot anyways. We cross the street and start talking with a woman. At first she is very timid and hesitant. And before you know it she is inviting us into the house really wanting to know what our message is! We had a wonderful lesson and at the end she told us all the things that she is struggling with and all the things she needs and wants in her life (that never happens)! The Elders in that sector went by her house two more times that week and she and her daughter came to church this last Sunday (we are in the same ward but different area)!! A little side note: when she saw me the very first thing she said was, ¨Why did God send you to my house?¨ 

The moral of the story is that sometimes we don´t understand all things. Sometimes we ask ourselves why do I have to try again if I have already failed? Why do I have to go through this trial after going through so many others? It´s because God loves you and he wants to teach you something and help you be an answer to someone else´s prayer! But if we don´t keep moving forward in faith maybe that someone won´t be able to be blessed by us. Don´t ever give up and suffer with joy!

I love the Gospel and the happiness it brings. Have a splendid week!

Elder Gunnell

 Under our sink. Gross!!

It was a very successful week!‏

We had THE BEST meeting of my mission, no I take that back, of my life this week. Elder Bednar and his wife were in Argentina last week and called a meeting for all of the missionaries in the South America South area of the world. Which consists of Argentina, Chlie, Paraguay and Uraguay. Thanks to the miracle of technology we were able to see it live via transmission. It was sooooo uplifting, fun, spiritual, funny and just incredible. I could not believe the way Elder Bednar taught... Or better said the way he interacted with us! It wasn`t just him up their talking like in General Conference, it was like if we were in a circle and just chatting and learning from one another which was soo cool. One of the things I really liked that he told us at the very beginnning was this, ¨Don`t write down anything I say.¨ So what does everyone do? Start writing it down then he goes, ¨Hey! What did I just tell you guys?! Haha stop doing that!¨ And he is up there laughing a little bit then he goes on to explain. He explained how Nephi wrote two plates. The small plates and the large plates. The small plates were consisted up of revelations, prophecies, and spiritual things. The large plates were made up of the secular things. Wars, problems, who was upset with who and things like that. He told us how he wanted us to write on small plates. He was like if you write everything down that I say and write everything that happens here that would be wonderful! You can go home and show your family that you were in a meeting with Elder Bednar and you`ll be able to tell them exactly what happened but when they ask what you learned what are you going to say? So he taught us to only wirte down the whisperings of the Holy Ghost. The little impressions. And write on small plates.

I could write two pages on the spiritual whisperings and thoughts I had but I won`t share it all. I think that is why I loved the meeting so much. He was the one who had prepared to be able to prepare us to be able to recieve the Holy Ghost and feel the promptings and he just helped us guide the conversation and keep the thoughts flowing.

We had time to ask questions (well the missionaries in Argentina had time) and someone asked a realllll good question. He asked, ¨Elder Bednar, how do you prepare for a meeting like this? How do you know what you need to teach?¨ His answer was simple yet inspiring. He told us that when he walks into a meeting like this that he truly has no idea what is going to happen during the meeting. But he said that doesn`t mean he is unprepared. He told us that he had been preparing for that specific meeting 40 years ago when he was studying the scriptures. He had been preparing for that exact moment for years. Line upon line, precept upon precept. He explained to us that he was not born with all the knowledge of the Gospel nor with good teaching abilities. That he had been and is working and studying constantly to be able to be prepared so that when he is moments like that or in meetings he can call upon the Spirit and the Spirit bring all things unto his rememberance and his mouth will be filled with the precise words in the precise moment.

I just wish you could have all been there to see it. He was soo good with us. He was also soo dang good at making us laugh! And feel the spirit and realize that we feel the spirit so much more than we think! And that things are okay. That this is not our work nor his, it`s the Lord`s. He was the greatest example that living a live centered life is a life of pure, true happiness.

He is, without doubt, a true servant of the Lord. I was not in his presence but I could feel it just as strongly. He is one of my all time heroes. I love this Gospel and the joy it brings! Let`s share it with everyone:)

Love,
Elder Gumball

Zapadores and a Baptism‏

So my mother dearest and a few other people asked that I describe a little bit about where I am at! And since I don´t really do it all that often I decided that this time would be a good idea.

My new area is in a fairly poor part of Santiago but it´s not terrible. We are a little bit out of the way and they aren´t much buildings. Yes, there are some sketchy parts where we are at but nothing has happened to us so there is nothing to worry about! The thing that is most rampant here though are the drugs. It is so sad to see. There are quite a few people who get addicted to drugs that it becomes more than just something fun to do or something to do with friends while they are all hanging out and what not. It literally eats away their conscience and over powers them. They become slaves to the drug. I see people but it´s almost as if they were just shells. Their eyes are just blank... They don´t think or act they just do. And the worst part is they can never get enough of the drug. They always need more. It is just so sad to see so many people like that. I mean I´m not saying that out of 10 people 9 are like that because it isn´t like that at all! But I have never seen such a high quantity in my life. It´s very sad and we try to talk to tell them we can help but the majority of the people here know the missionaries and they just kind of avoid us. 

That was the negative part! We also have some incredibly and truly wonderful people in our ward that are always so willing to help and do anything that we need. I do love the ward! It is small and a little unorganized but I can´t complain. We are finding new people to teach and that is great. I think the hardest part here is to find new people because so many people have ideas about who we are or what we do and they just shut us down right from the start but there are other people that give us one chance and learn that we aren´t like they thought and then end up loving us and inviting us to eat and start going to church and everything and that is fantastic because then they tell all their friends and hopefully introduce us and it just works out great! But that is the hardest part so far.

We had a beautiful baptism this last Sunday! There were quite a few road blocks but Rosa really wanted to get baptized and was able to accomplish that goal this last week! It was a very good experience for all who were there and quite a few members stayed after to help. She is such a sweet person and will be a light to her family and hopefully bring them back to Heavenly Father. She has a very long and hard story but is loved and cared for by a few sisters in the ward.

We are already ending February so make it a good week!

Cuídense

Elder Gunnell

 Nobody is going to be getting in to our apartment with this gate and all the spikes on the walls.