It's Cooooooold!!!

 Last pic I took from Santiago

 Fire hazard? Probably not.

This is what happens when you give missionaries a house... They don´t clean. I took all this just off the stairs. It was gross. Yes mom, I got all the stuff under the stairs too! I went crazy cleaning! It was even prettier in person!   I made a resolve to never complain about doing chores again. Mom I´m sorry I ever complained.

This our zone, really small compared to the other ones I have been in!

It´s not that it is colder here than Utah, because it´s not! It´s that our house is the same temperature inside as the temperature is outside! That´s our problem. This morning it was soo cold! I was wearing a pair of shorts and sweatpants with some wool socks on my bottom half and up top I had a t-shirt, thick sweatshirt, and my fleece jacket! But now the temp isn´t too bad outside. The house just kinda stays cold always... And we are just starting winter! Should be an adventure!

This week was a little bit of a bummer, or I guess it was just a little slower than what I was hoping. This Thursday was a holiday which means everyone headed somewhere because they just took Friday off too so then it was just a super long weekend for them! Also in this area there is something called La Persa. Which is basically where they close off a street every Saturday and Sunday and there are just a million little shops they all set up. It´s like that place we went In Hawaii in the parking lot of the Hawaii stadium and they were just selling all sorts of stuff. Well that´s the same thing they do here! Every single weekend!! So EVERYONE goes there to buy things or to sell. It´s also hard because there are some investigators that sell there and they say they can´t keep the sabbath day because if they don´t sell on Sunday they won´t have enough money. That is going to be a challenge here for sure.

I was able to go to the temple!!! Every year we as missionaries get to go do a session and I got to go Friday!! It was the first time that I did a session in Spanish, I didn´t think I was gonna understand anything but to my surprise it wasn´t too bad at all! It was such a wonderful time. I made a promise to never let so much time pass without going to the temple again.

I´m really sorry but this is all I´m going to write because this keyboard is a pain and takes me forever to write! Have a wonderful week! I´ll try to be a little bit more informative next week! Haha:)

Love,

Elder Gunnell

 Look, I'm on the street of United States

Also check it out! I sat in some gum! Haha

New Sector, New Companion!!

Woohooo!! So I finally got moved which was fantastic because I was getting sick and tired of packing up my stuff and waiting for them to come get me and then getting the call that told me that I would be leaving the next day then unpacking everything and doing it the next day! That happened from Friday to Wednesday but that´s not important because I am here!!!!:) I am completely lost once again but I love it. I love new things, people, and places. My companion is Elder Ibarra, when I heard his name I was so pumped I was thinking I was going to have my first Latin companion and I was so excited!! Turns out... He´s from Washington... But he is one of the coolest kids I´ve met on the mission. We are going to have some good times together I´m sure! His parents are from Mexico so he actually already knew Spanish which will help me a lot. I am so happy and excited to be here! So we got here Wednesday night and by Saturday morning we already had an activity planned for the ward and for their friends. Saturday morning we went and talked to the bishop and said yes! It was announced in church on Sunday and so now the date is set and we just have to finish up the details! We are going to do a movie night and watch ¨Meet the Mormons¨ (thanks again to Miguel for buying it and bringing it to me, you´re the best) but we are trying to get the members motivated to help us out, we are going to make invitations(super cool and pretty haha) and give them to every family with the goal that they invite one of there non member friends to come and watch a movie, converse, and eat sandwiches and treats! We will do it the 5th of June so hopefully neither of us gets changed before that.

I am so excited!! Just for it all! Haha

It was really weird in church because there was only 80 of us... Compared to my last ward it is super small! In Elders Quorum there was six of us(including us). Wayy different but it´s all good! Hopefully we can get some baptisms here and bump up membership.

I would tell you about our investigators and what not but I don´t remember all the names of all the people we have visited up til now so sorry.. But we are working with a family! The mom doesn´t really want to be baptized but she really likes that her daughter, Fernanda, goes to mutual every week and she likes the good things the church teaches her! Fernanda is actually inviting one of her amigas to come to mutual too so that is awesome!! The biggest challenge with them is that the dad, Ruben, is a semi driver and is always out of town on the weekends. But I know God can work miracles, I´m hoping the best for this family!

Another huge difference is the house... Oh man oh man oh man our house... HUGE difference from my last house... Or in better words in my 5 star apartment. But whatever it´s awesome I don´t even care that it´s a stinky house, that´s not why we are here as missionaries and it just gives me more motivation to leave as early as possible! Haha but no it really isn´t terrible just not nearly as fancy but that is to be expected. We live in the same lot as some members because there is a second house behind their house so we have to pass on the side of theirs.

When we got there, their dog tried to eat me. That was fun. We don´t have water pressure... It literaly drops out of the shower head and the water heater always turns off on me, I have bad luck. It is always so cold in the house!! Even it is hot outside I still have to put on a jacket inside! I don´t know what´s up with that. And once again it has a bad smell but whatever! It´s all good!!:)

Gigantic shout out for TYSON and his MISSION CALL to the Ecuador Quito North Mission and for his birthday last week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhh!!!

Over and out family and friends. Til next week. 

Love always,

Elder Gunnell

P.S. I´ll work on snapping some pics this week!

Week after Mother's Day

So I´m keeping this one short!

First of all I really was thinking about how blessed I am to have the family I have. Each one of them is incredible and I love them to death. I don´t know why I got so lucky to be in a family of such good people but I really truly am so grateful. I loved seeing you all yesterday. I felt like we could just pick it right up from where we left it! It was a blast and I love you all. 

I also got thinking a lot about the temple Saturday night because we took some investigators and did a little tour with them. The sister missionaries that are in that mission do the tours and part of the tour is when we actually get to enter into the first doors of the temple. After being in between the first and second doors and when everyone is all quiet they let a couple people at a time enter in the second set of doors to be able to feel what the temple brings. I don´t know if it was a better experience for our investigator, Viviana, or for me. It was pretty good for her because she began to cry and felt the spirit very strong. She didn´t want to leave. Later she asked us when she could be baptized. And we decided together that the 24th of this month would be the day. It was really neat because we had set baptism dates for her before but she never felt ready but this time she ASKED us when we could do it. The problem is that when she went home that night she got home to a party that her sisters had started with some friends. This made her decided that she might return to Boliva this week instead of at the end of this month. So in the end, she may not get baptized here but I am sure she will in Boliva and that is the important thing. Being in the temple was a really cool experience for me because it´s been awhile since I´ve been in and because here in Santiago there are millions of people, hundreds of buses and cars, and they are all going in a million directions. There is always so much noise and it never seems to stop. Night or day. Going in to the temple and being in such a peaceful place really helped me to appreciate the blessing of having a temple and gave me a second to relax and take a breather. I felt the spirit so strong. I felt that I was doing the right things. I felt like I never want to be unworthy to enter such a special place. I´m pumped for when we, as a mission, have our trip to the temple to go do a session!

 This is Viviana and us! The temple was soo very pretty at night, all lit up and white.

Supposedly I am supposed to be changing areas today but they still aren´t sure. If I got today it will be around 6 or 7 but we will see. I´m pretty sure that sometime this week I will be moved but I don´t know when! Haha. I am excited! And a little bummed, the members in this ward are wonderful and it has been so sweet to be in the heart of Santiago. I love being in the city with all the buildings, even if it makes the work a little bit harder, so I don´t know if I´m ready to go back to an area with small houses and without tons of buildings but I am stoked to have my first latin companion!! I´ve been waiting for this for eight months!!

We decided to have a more relaxed P-day today and we made homemade pizzas!!!

We bought all sorts of stuff and just loaded it with ingredients. I also made some yummy sauteed mushrooms and onions! Put some oregano and other spices in the sauce and man was it the best pizza that I´ve eaten in Chile!!

 Mmmmmm sooo tasty

 We made two huge pizzas... The two of us finised half of one of them... Good thing we have dinner tonight with a couple investigators! Guess what we´re having? Pizza!!

Thank you to all of those who sent me a little something in my package that Miguel brought to me. I loved them all! Thanks for the letters too! I still can´t believe that Miguel came and met you guys without even telling me but it was a fantastic surprise!

Love,

Elder Gunnell

The Week Before Mother's Day

Alrighty so it´s been an interesting week! But to start off with the best news that I´ve heard in awhile, Adela went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead for the first time!! I was so excited when I heard that! I was told that she loved it and that she is going to try to go more constantly from now on. She also sent me the sweetest letter that I got in our last district class (we have like a mail system kind a deal in the mission so that we can send letters to converts or families and what not). I was so excited when I got it! It was honestly so nice. So that was the best thing that happened this week I´d say!

This week was slow. Really really slow. Friday was a vacation day and nobody went to work or was in the streets. I thought that it would be a super slow day for us but it turned out to be the best day that we had this week! We had a new high in lessons! We had 11 lessons in just one day! And that has never happened in this area for us. But other than Friday we had some really bad luck.

Saturday we had four appointments and they all fell through. Yipppeee! Haha but we had our stake conference this weekend so Saturday night we were able to go to the adult session and it was sooo good!! Both adult sessions of Stake Conference that I´ve been to have been so spiritual and strong! It was really good because we were able to bring one of our investigators, Oscar, with us! The members have helped us so much with him and are always calling him and inviting him to do things and come to church and everything, if it wasn´t for the members I think we would have lost him by now. I believe that he will join the Church but I don´t know when yet. He had a baptism date in March but it´s okay, I have faith he will take the step!

Then Sunday we had the general session which also was wonderful! Thanks to Miguel being in the US we didn´t have lunch (Because we were supposed to eat with him) but since he is such a pal he asked a friend, Sebastian and his wife, to make us lunch. We had a very good time with them and laughed a lot which was nice since the week was so slow and I hadn´t really been in the laughing mood, but they brightened the day quite a bit! It was a needed break! Later we had eight appointments and I was really thinking that we were going to end the week strong but it didn´t turn out how I wasn´t hoping. Only one of the eight appointments actually worked out... Huge bummer.

Anways it´s okay that we had a slow week! Now I want to work harder to be able to have a better week this week! Hopefully we can get a lot done because in the following week we have a lot of stuff going on so it will be a little bit more difficult!

Happy birthday shout out to Grandma Debbie! I hope it is wonderful! And I hope that all the mother´s out there have a fantastic mother´s day, especially my dear Momma Gunnell.

Love always,

Elder Gunnell

It's beginning to look a lot like fall

To say the least, we have had a lot of changes in the mission this week. How things are going to be done, how district classes will be taught, how our studies will be and other things along those lines. One of the bigger changes is that we now have 11 zones. We had five and now we have 11. So all the zones got smaller and so did the districts. In our zone just about all the new district leaders have never been a district leader before! And going with that, Elder Richards got called to be a district leader! So now I am companions with another leader haha

He had a leadership meeting on Wednesday so I had splits with Elder Terry, from Springville Utah, and we went to his sector. We just spent part of the day there but it was fun!

Oh! I bought some turf shoes and a ball so that in the morning I can juggle and practice a little bit so I don´t lose everything. We go run to a park that is super open and has a big parking lot in the center and lots of grass around it so I can juggle and do a couple little drills while Elder Richards does sprints and things like that cause he likes to run! So I´ve been digging that, although I´m frustrated that I´ve already lost my touch so much. I can´t even keep the ball in the air for five minutes without it falling at least once, so I need some help there. 

Friday we actually had a super good day! We were just about able to get a lesson everywhere we went! In total we had nine lessons! It was a surprise and a tender mercy from the Lord I´m certain. Then Saturday and Sunday were equally as good!

Sunday was a big day too! After church we had ward council and the sister missionaries from our ward had two baptisms. Oh, side note, a new sister named Sister Palmer got here this last week from Rexburg Idaho. She already talks better than I did when I left the MTC and she has a latina companion so she will learn very fast! Anyways they had two baptisms so we stayed for those and then after we didn´t have time to eat lunch cause we had too many appointments. We went to a young couple with a little baby boy (they are married!!) that we met last week. We taught them the Plan of Salvation, it seemed to make perfect sense to them and they showed their desire to get baptized so we planned a baptismal date with them! The 7th of June. It´s a little ways off but I´ll take it. I´m really excited to work with this family!

After all of our lessons we were tired and hungry because we still hadn´t eaten or taken a break so we called Miguel and asked if we could visit him and make pancakes at his place. He said okay so we went over there and made some tasty pancakes and homemade syrup with him and two friends, Fabian and Sebastian. As I was cooking I managed to break a glass jar full of powdered sugar and a different glass mug. Sorry Miguel. All in all a very good week!! Really slow at the beggining but sped up at the end.

Oh! Also Elder Richards gave a very good talk on Sunday!

Today we were in the Plaza de Armas and there were a couple people singing in the pavilion so we went to check it out and as were listening a couple of guys came up to us and started asking us where we were from and things like that because one of them was from Utah and another from Idaho. They said they were here for a wrestling tournament and everything. And I was like what in the world are a couple of guys doing here in Chile for a wrestling tournament and how did they get invovled in that? Turns out it was the US wrestling team... That´s how they got involved in wrestling tournaments in other countries! Haha so that was pretty cool to talk to them. One served in Alabama but spanish speaking so he said he has kind of been able to guide them around haha

I hope you had as good of a week as me! Til next time!

Elder Gunnell

Another Six Weeks

So today were transfers! We found out Saturday that both of us would be staying which wasn´t much of a surprise! It should be a good six weeks because we have been able to get to the area more and hopefully we can have a little bit more luck!

Let´s see what happened this week......

Oh to start off we had splits with out district leaders. This was actually the second time but I went to their area again and once again I feel lucky to be in the city with a fancy ´ol apartment and everything. One of the reasons being they had forgot to buy gas so we had to shower in cold water which wasn´t as bad as I thought but I still like my warm showers! Haha I am spoiled here. Also in the morning for our exercises we did all sorts of dumb P90x type of junk which left me sore for like three days. I really gotta get going on that so I don´t stay out of shape haha. But that was Wednesday.

Then Saturday came a long and guess what! Elder Oaks came to our mission!! We had a conference with him in the morning! It was wonderful, he is so full of energy and taught with so much power. And he made quite a few jokes so we all got a good laugh too. We got to shake hands with him and his wife and Elder Zaballos and his wife and another seventy. I felt so ready to go after that conference. It´s amazing the kind of the spirit that his has. It seems to just radiate from his body. 

After the conference we had one of the most successful Saturdays, if not THE most successful saturday of my mission. Every where we went we were able to find someone. Whether it was a new investigador, less active, or someone we had already been teaching. We didn´t even have time to rest cause we were bouncing from lesson to lesson! We found a new family too!! I was so excited!

Then Sunday came a long and in the morning the second counselor called and told Elder Richards that he would need to give a talk if the ward mission leader didn´t show up to church. Elder Richards went into a frenzy for 20 minutes trying to write a ten minute talk. When we got there the bishop told him don´t worry about it because there was a counselor from the stake who would take care of it, he calmed down a little bit afterwards. Then the funnest thing happened!(a little sarcastic) We went into our Gospel Principles class and one of the counselors in the bishopric came up to me and said, ¨Hey the teacher hasn´t shown up so can you teach the class?¨ I was like yeah sure that´s fine! So he handed me the book and sent me up front and told the class that I would be teaching, I was thinking it would be like the plan of salvation or something like that but to my wonderful surprise the lesson was on Abraham and the covenant that God made with him and his people. So that was a blast:) Hahaha I think overall it went decent but it would have been fine if I had had like 5 or ten minutes to at least look at the lesson to see how deep it went and such but oh well!

After church we had ANOTHER day just like Saturday! Full of lessons and finding people! We found a mother and her daughter who had got to know missionaries like two years back. And the daughter had invited a friend who is really interested! I´m excited to see what progress they can make.

Today we went for a little walk and were doing a little shopping for Elder Richards. I spoiled myself with two donuts from Dunkin´ Donuts and a hot chocolate! And then Elder Richards made a peach cobbler which was mighty tasty!!

That was my week! Hope you all had a wonderful week too!

Love always,

Elder Gunnell