Elder Hoose in the Chile Santiago South Mission: Week of April 4

That's a lot of watermelon

On Saturday one of the other missionaries in my apartment was asked to be a zone leader. I was surprised, however, that my companion wasn’t called to be a trainer or a district leader but he is being transferred to another sector. It looks like we will both just be normal companions this change. We spent the day at the stake center watching General Conference (in English). I have never enjoyed General Conference so much. The words of the prophets and apostles of the Lord are so inspiring, uplifting, and full of valuable counsel. I took lots of notes. I hope all that couldn’t watch the conference will read it either on the internet or in the church magazines. Sunday we also watched conference and spent the rest of the day saying good bye to people my companion was going to miss

On Monday I got my new companion. He’s a young missionary from the group just after mine. He’s a great guy with a lot of desire to be obedient to the mission rules and to work hard. He is my first Gringo companion, and I’m a little worried my Spanish will suffer but he does speak Spanish very well. The other new missionary in my apartment is a friend of mine from my last zone, and he was in the same group as my companion and the other missionary in the apartment. That puts me with the most experience out of the four of us with only five and a half months out. It also puts three Gringos in the house with one Latino – oh how the tables have turned!

We have been working with a less active family whose two daughters have come to church several times but not consistently, and the father came to church for the first time in years just a couple weeks ago. The mother has always been more stubborn, but today she said she would come to church before I get transferred. Her husband joked that I could get special transferred next week, so she would have to come this Sunday.

We have also been working with a man and woman who are living together and have a child together. They want to be baptized, and the guy would like to baptize his girlfriend. That can’t happen unless they are married first. We talked to them about setting a date to get married and everything was calm and they opened up a lot to us. We also invited them to come to church on Sunday, it was a great lesson.

We spent some time contacting members from the list generated by the program I talked about before. We didn’t have much success. I’m used to that but my companion isn’t used to the constant failure and negativity. It’s obvious that he is getting frustrated. I am also a little embarrassed I have had some trouble finding my way around the sector – everything looks the same to me. I did apologize to my companion.

This week has been tough, but missionary work should be tough. You’re not working hard enough if it’s easy. I know we are being blessed for our work and obedience, though – we are teaching more, finding more, and working constantly. It’s exhausting, but rewarding.

As missionaries we are supposed to study the scriptures two hours every day. Sometimes we have meetings or service opportunities in the morning when we would normally study, but we are to study two hours every day regardless. That means sometimes we are out working less, but it’s interesting that even though we spend less time outside working but we’re finding more people to teach.