Well, one more week down, and with it a transfer ends as well. Elder King left early this morning, and I am now with my new companion. Actually, also in my new sector. Sadly, they took me out of Dorsal 2. Another Elder will be opening and training. I´m now further north in the mission, having spent all of it up till now more south. I´m in a zone called Quilicura. The ward is Lo Campino, but just like Dorsal, there are 4 missionaries so I´m in Lo Campino 2. I´m with an Elder Webb from Arizona, who has a few transfers less than me. He´s a good Elder, and we should get along well. Quilicura is the rich community of Santiago, and supposedly our sector is the richest of Quilicura. It does have a kind of poor part, but most of it is really rich with a lot of really nice apartment buildings. That means it´ll be tough because the richer the people, the less receptive they are. I had heard before that Quilicura is tough and that the best way to work here is with the members. Kind of like the States I guess. But Elder Webb told me that we should have a baptism of a 9-year-old boy in two weeks and his father two weeks later. The mom is a member, recently becoming active again. Hopefully, we can have a lot of baptisms here. Even though Quilicura is though, when Elder King was here in another sector, he had the most success of his mission. So there is a lot of potential.

I was really sad to receive the news that I was leaving. I´ve come to love Dorsal; the members are great, and I love them all. Last night we spent some time with one of the families that we have really come to love and they us. It being my companion´s last day they had purchased a cake to send him off. Later in the night, after receiving the transfers, I called them to say what happened. I talked with Brother Canales, the dad, for a while, then he passed me to his wife. She started crying, which got me crying a little as well. Actually, I had a feeling that I was going to leave even though it was more likely that I would stay. All day yesterday as Elder King said goodbye to someone, they would then turn to me and say, "Oh, we´ll be seeing each other." Every single time it happened I got a knot in my stomach and thought "I hope so." Something inside told me that I would be leaving. Unfortunately, it was right. I really didn´t want to leave. But even so, I am way excited to be here, to know a new companion, new sector, members, etc.

One of the reason´s that I´m really sad is that I left behind a family of 4 that should get baptized in September. The family of Moises. He´s progressing very well, although we don´t know why he didn´t go to church yesterday. They suddenly had to leave somewhere Saturday, so they might not have returned in time. But Friday we met his mom, and she´s really receptive and very nice. She said she´s been wanting to meet us and listen some. She asked us to pass by Saturday because she has a lot of questions. But then they had to leave. But they’re a great family, and they all can be baptized. There´s the mom, dad, Moises, who is 16, and Marcelo, who will turn 8 September first. I´m sad I won´t be here when they get baptized. But the important thing is that they get baptized.

Speaking of baptism, Eliana got baptized yesterday!! It was a huge miracle. I already mentioned last week about what happened. Wednesday, two weeks ago, we taught her tithing, and Word of Wisdom, both of which she accepted. She had to stop drinking coffee, but we gave her a package of Ecco, which is like coffee made with grain, which is healthy so we can drink it. That Sunday she didn´t go to church. We didn´t hear from her till Thursday, when suddenly God put us in her path, and we ran into her in the street. She said to call us Friday to get together, but Friday she didn´t pick up the phone at all. Or Saturday either. So then our hope, which had picked up Thursday, was lost. But then she showed up to church yesterday!! During the Gospel Principles class we sat next to her, and she suddenly said "Well, I guess I´m not getting baptized today. I didn´t come last week and showed up late today." But we told her that she can, she just has to decide to. Elder King said, "Look, the font takes four hours to fill, Elder Mangels (another Elder in the ward, who was a DL) can do the interview, and we can have the baptism at 5:00. She decided that yes, she wanted to. So she and Elder Mangels did the interview in the bishop´s office, we started filling the font, and she was baptized!!! It really was an unexpected miracle.

More good news. Last week in a zone conference I was able to talk to Elder Nicholas, an old companion, who is also in my previous ward, Carrión. I took advantage to ask him about some converts. Unfortunately, many are inactive. But Tomás and Nicolás still go. And Nicolás recently received the Melchizedek Priesthood and is the 2nd counselor in the Elders Quorum. Yea!!

Well, that´s about all I have time for this week. Have a great week!

Elder Murdoch

Members in Dorsal 2


Members in Dorsal 2


Diego, Eliana's son


Eliana's baptism

Well, another week gone. Today starts the last week of the transfer.

Moises is doing great. We visited him a few times last week. He has a baptismal date for August 29. Thursday we left him the homework of reading 1 Nephi 8, about Lehi´s vision of the tree of life. Friday when we returned, he explained the whole chapter to us. He is really smart and understands everything. He even understood right away that his baptism in the Catholic church wasn´t valid and he needs a new one. We took him to an activity in the church Friday. Unfortunately, they got behind schedule, and we had to leave before it even started in order to be in the house in time. He left with us so didn´t get to see it either. But he wasn´t at all upset. He loved it even so. He loved the church building, having thought that it was going to be really small. And a lot of people greeted him, and he found a couple friends. Unfortunately, when he woke up yesterday he felt sick, so he wasn´t able to go to church, even though he really wanted. But he will get baptized soon. He´s great. For only 16, he´s really smart and spiritual. Probably more spiritual than any other 16-year-old I have ever met, including myself.

Thursday we had a Zone Conference with President May. We talked a lot about a new plan that the church mission department came out with. For the next few weeks we´ll be having several training meetings where we will be learning a lot about the new plan. There will be several changes. One of these will be that interviews with President will be every three months instead of every six weeks. Plus Zone Conferences will also be every three months. Supposedly this new way of doing things will give President more time to work with the missionaries and train us better. It should help the mission a lot.

Well, I had a couple more strange food experiences this week. The first one was a cheese that someone gave us with bread. But this wasn´t just any kind of cheese. This was pighead cheese. That´s right. They take the fat off of the pig´s head, and somehow make a cheese with it. The taste is really weird, and it looks even worse. The other was in an activity that the Priesthood held on Saturday. They cleaned the church then afterward had a "mariscal", and ate "mariscos." Mariscos means shellfish. All sorts of shells with meat inside, crab claws, and other weird stuff. We were supposed to eat with the bishop´s wife, but when we got there the bishop said she wasn´t there and he was supposed to take us to the church to eat. I had eaten mariscos before, and didn´t like them, so I didn´t want to. But we went and I suffered through it. Then the bishop´s wife called wondering where we were. She had left for a few minutes but then returned and was waiting for us. So afterward we went there to eat, which was a lot better.

Well, that´s about it for this week. Some pretty interesting experiences. Some fun, some not.
Have a great week all!

Elder Murdoch

Mariscos (shellfish) Some people love it but I hate it! And the Sanchezes. They are like my second family.

Well, another long rough week. That makes 3 now. One problem is that my companion, being DL, had a leadership training meeting Thursday and Friday. And he went on his end of the mission temple trip with President. And Tuesday we had divisions. So I spent almost all of the week with another Elder, and most of that time in another sector. Thursday and Friday I was with Elder Deardon, who has one month here in Chile. He´s from Boston, where Dad served his mission. His wisdom teeth have been giving him problems, so they decided to yank ´em out. Friday morning we went to the dentist, who took out 2 of the 4. Afterwards the office drove us home, and we rested the rest of the day till our companions got back from the training. He´s a great Elder, and I feel sorry for him. This Friday he has to get the other 2 teeth yanked. Bummer.

Adela now has 3 months in the church. And she knows more than half the other members. She´s just eating up all the books. She´s finished the Book of Mormon, and is reading parts of the Bible, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and other church books like Our Heritage. Also, she got her hands on a book by Joseph Fielding Smith called Doctrines of Salvation. She´s crazy!

The other day we visited her, and she told us about a program she saw on the National Geographic channel about plural marriage. And you bet your bottom dollar that they talked a lot about us. And it was obviously all false. I don´t know where they pulled all of it out of, but it was kind of interesting. She told us 3 big things that are completely bogus. First, they said Emma found Joseph with another woman. And, supposedly Brigham Young said that atonement, or to receive the forgiveness of sins, means that one has to murder. WHAT?! And finally, they said that we (Mormons) practice arranged marriages, which really has nothing to do with plural marriage. Pretty interesting. Kind of frustrates me how they talk about all that stuff that they don´t even know. But it really just helps strengthen my testimony, because if this wasn´t the true church there wouldn´t be so many attacks against it. Fortunately, Adela already knows about polygamy and knew that it´s bogus, so it didn´t affect her any. But it´s still pretty stupid how they do stuff like that.

Eliana is doing a lot better. Wednesday we passed by to teach her. We talked about the priesthood and priesthood blessings. Then we gave her son, Diego--aka Diablito (little devil)--a health blessing and her a blessing of strength and guide. It was really great, and he was actually really quiet that night as well as the next visit Friday and in the church yesterday. It was as abrupt a change as night and day. She has a baptismal date for the 15th, Elder King´s last day here. She wants to do it, but still has a lot of doubts or maybe one big one that we haven´t been able to discover. We´re going to go tomorrow and try to see what we can do to help her.

Here in Chile there are a ton of Peruvians and many in the church. Of course, all Peruvians, in and out of the church, know each other. One member, Sister Dora, takes care of a 7-year-old kid after school until his older brother picks him up. The little boy is named Marcelo, and his old brother, who´s 16, is Moises(Moses). We had met both before but never could teach them. The other day Dora told us that Moises would like to meet us and know more about the religion (knowing that she is Mormon). We went by, and he is amazing! He has more faith than almost any other 16-year-old I´ve met here. He talked about how he always prays and talks with God. He said he sins a lot and feels bad so he repents and asks God for forgiveness; but the problem is that we always committ the same sin again. He has few friends in school as Chileans are really racist against Peruvians. Actually, they treat him pretty badly in school. He really needs the church. We´re going to take some other young men to his house to help him find friends. We also want to take him to an activity at the church this Friday. The church should be able to help him a lot. I´m excited to help him.

The other night we visited the seminary/Gospel Principles teacher, Sister Canales.(She is the sister of Sister Manriquez, Eliana´s friend, and lives in the apartment right next door) She and her husband served the mission in the South of Chile, in Osorno, and they´re great. While there, she talked about a family that lives in the apartment below them. They´ve been having some problems lately. He lost his work, and she´s going through depression. Also, they´ve had some weird experiences in the house. We´ve met them before, but they weren´t very interested and said if they wanted us to come they´d talk with the Canales family above. The wife´s name is Janet, and we visited her with Sister Canales. We ended up giving her a blessing and gave a blessing on the house. (Chileans are pretty suspicious, so we give a lot of dedicatory prayers.) It was a good experience. She started crying and said that she really needed it. I think it helped us gain their confidence a little. Sister Canales invited them to an activity this Friday and to church Sunday. Hopefully we can start teaching them.

Well, I finally pulled out the Rockport shoes this past week. My other shoes, the Eccos, are in bad shape. Actually, one has a huge whole at the end, and with the rainy weather here, my foot is always wet and cold at night. So I started wearing the Rockports, and my feet have been dry all week. Yes!!

Well, that´s it for this week. Things are pretty tough, but that just means that it can only get better from here.

Elder Murdoch

Well, another rough week has passed, but the sun keeps shining further down the road. Last week wasn’t horrible, but not great either. The worst was that no investigators came to church yesterday, even though we had committed several. But we were able to find some more people during the week that should come this next Sunday.

We visited Margarita and Gonzalo a couple times. Saturday we went really deep into the importance of baptism, and Gonzalo accepted a baptismal date. Margarita was a little more hesitant, saying that she wants to do it but that when she feels ready she’ll tell us. I think she’ll do it; we just need to help her understand the importance of having a specific goal. Gonzalo actually was going to go to church yesterday; but when we passed by to pick him up, the gate to the apartment building was locked, his cell phone was off, and they didn’t come when we yelled. We’re going to have to do something different next week so that he goes.

Eliana returned last week. She had been in the South for about a week because her mother passed away. We taught the Plan of Salvation. But, as always, there was a big problem. Her son, Diego, is 7 and really rowdy. He always has a ton of energy. I think he has ADD or something. And the death of his grandma can’t be a great help either. Anyway, with all of those factors together, he was a big pain--making a lot of noise, arguing, not showing respect for us, his mom, or Sister Manriquez (Eliana´s friend). It was a tough lesson, and the Spirit was not there at all. She did tell us that she’s been reading in the Book of Mormon, so that at least is good. We might have to try to set it up to teach her somewhere else where Diego isn’t. We’ll have to see.

Several weeks ago we did a street contact with a woman named Patricia. We taught her a little, but then two weeks ago when we passed by she was busy and said the dreaded "I’ll call you." She was really great, but we kind of lost hope. Then Friday night she called and wanted us to come. We went yesterday, showed "The Restoration", and she accepted a baptismal date for August 29. She is really great. She also had read a little in the Book of Mormon. And she gave the closing prayer. The problem with her is going to be Word of Wisdom. She drinks coffee, and probably tea. Plus, she and her husband are both cooks, and yesterday had a bunch of food they had recently bought for an event they’re hosting, and there were several bottles of alcohol. We know it is to serve to the guests, but we’re also afraid that they might drink a little too. That’ll be the big test with her.

Patricio, who got baptized three weeks ago, finally got confirmed yesterday. He hadn’t made it to church for the past two weeks, but yesterday he came and got confirmed. The bishop did it, and it was really great. I hope he can keep learning and progressing.

We visited the Olave family the other day. (He’s the Brother who destroyed his knee playing soccer.) He’s getting better really fast. They said that the doctors are really surprised that he’s progressing so well. He just uses one crutch now, walking quite fast, and can take a few steps without the crutch. It is amazing how fast he’s improving. We all know that someone has a hand in it.

Well, they’re predicting another earthquake, this one in the North of Chile. They don’t know when or how big, but they say it’s coming. "They" are a couple of professionals, one from the US. I don’t know if I believe it. How can they predict this one but didn’t know anything about the last one till it happened? I guess we’ll see, but I don’t think so.

Well, that’s all for this week. We’re going to play soccer with the whole zone soon, so we have to go get ready.
Hasta luego.

Elder Murdoch

Wow. What a week. Actually, not much happened. A lot of appointments fell through, so we did a lot of walking and a lot of playing by ear to see where to go next. We were able to find a couple of investigators that we had lost contact with, and we found a new one as well.

Friday we had an activity at the church, then afterwards a couple of appointments fell through. We found ourselves at 8:00 pm with 0 contacts. I haven´t said much about contacts up till now, but we´re supposed to do 20 contacts every day, 10 every missionary. There´s a promise from Elder Ballard that if we do it we´ll double our baptisms. So there we were 2 hours before returning to the house, and we didn´t have a single contact. So we started talking to people in the street and knocked a couple of apartment buildings. In one of them we found a lady, about 50-years-old, named Rosa. She let us in and we shared a little with her. A couple of years ago she listened to the sister missionaries and even went to church a few times! She accepted a baptismal date for August 15th. The problem with her will be that she smokes, so we´ll have to help her drop that. But she´s really great.

Venus has been out bright this past week. It´s been pretty cool to be able to see it, but now it´s dropping lower in the sky.

Well, the other day we had lunch with the same member who in the past has given us seaweed and octupus stomach. This time, though, there wasn´t anything like that, and lunch was really good. The dessert, on the other hand, was a bit different. It was something I´ve had before, but never so much. Also, it never is seen in the States as far as I know, but if prepared right (which it wasn´t on Friday) it´s pretty good. It´s called......Rice with milk. Yep, that is what the name says. A bowl of rice with milk poured in, sometimes with a tiny bit of sugar. It´s not too bad, just a little different.

Saturday morning, for the first time in three weeks, we went and played soccer. It was way fun. Having been out of commission for three weeks I didn´t do very well but not too bad either. I got three goals, and the best is that my arm didn´t hurt at all. Yeah!

Well, kinda short today. Not too much happened. Hopefully more happens this week so next Monday there is more.
¡Ciao!

Elder Murdoch

Finally we had a week that went slow! Last week seemed to last a little longer. The bad part is that it was a rough week. A lot of real important lessons fell through. On top of that it’s been really cold, and Tuesday it rained, making it almost impossible to do anything except visit the members. We had very few lessons the whole week and didn’t get too much done.

Eliana wasn’t here this week. Her family lives in the South of Chile, and her mom has been really, really sick. Last week she got worse so Eliana went to visit her. Saturday night the mother passed away. We imagine that Eliana will be returning this week, so we’ll be able to teach her again. We’ll definitely teach her the Plan of Salvation. Hope we can help her. She is really interested and really wants to be baptized.

Patricio wasn’t at his house when we went to pick him up for church yesterday. We waited, but no one came out. So we went without him, and he didn’t get confirmed. During priesthood he showed up. He had gotten in a fight with his little brother (they live with an uncle) and spent the night outside of the house. We don’t know where. So he’ll have to wait till next Sunday to get confirmed. The bishop here, as is encouraged in his leadership manual, likes to "get to know" investigators before the baptism. I say "get to know" because he technically can’t interview them till they’re members. But he has to be with us during, so we visited with him and Patricio. It was great. The bishop encouraged him a lot to finish his studies, find work, get to know members, etc. I think it really helped Patricio realize that he will be loved in this ward. It was great.

A while back, Elder Rasmussen and I contacted a lady named Margarita and her 13-year old son, Gonzalo. Later, Elder King and I passed by once and soon after lost contact with her. The other night we found ourselves in the street, all of the appointments fallen through, with nothing to do. We started wandering, talking with people, trying to find someone to visit. We showed up right outside of the departments where she lives. I looked up and noticed the living room light out, and right then she showed up in the bedroom window. She saw us, waved, and asked if we wanted in. We had nothing to do, so we accepted. Turns out she had a question she wanted to ask us and was happy to see us again. We helped her with the question, teaching a lot about the Holy Ghost and how He can help us, "creating a hunger" as President May says, and then explained that the way to receive this Spirit and the blessings is through baptism. It was a great lesson. Tomorrow we will pass by again to teach more. We’re glad to have found her again.

My elbow is slowly improving. It feels a lot better, although is a little sore still, and I can’t use it with too much force. I can’t support myself against the wall, and pushups are out of the question. *sniff* But I’m without the sling right now, and it feels great. It should keep healing pretty well from here.

Well, the World Cup is now over. The final match was yesterday. It was kind of an upset. Germany was playing really well, as well as Holland, and everyone expected one of them to win, and Spain would be 3rd. But it ended up the other way. Germany was 3rd, Holland took 2nd, and Spain won the first place. I thought Spain would win, but wanted Holland. Although at the beginning I was rooting for USA and Chile. They both made it to the second round, but then got out. Well, there’s always 2014. Then I’ll be able to watch it.

Well, last week was a big trial, but this week will be better. We have several people to teach, and are way excited. It should be a good week.

Elder Murdoch

Wow! We just finished up a very short and very busy week. A lot happened last week, the last one of the transfer. Including a lot of wasted money and time in traveling to the doctor, Elder Limburg; to a clinic to do X-Rays; back to Elder Limburg with the images; to the clinic to drop them off and later to pick up the report; back to Elder Limburg with the report; then to an expert on arms. He had me get another X-Ray then looked at it. The final note is that there is a fracture in my left elbow. Fortunately, it’s not broken or displaced, and the fracture is not too big. He gave me a sling and told me to take Ibuprofen and go back this Thursday. So, it’s not too serious. At times it starts hurting pretty bad, not just the elbow but also the forearm and wrist; but I take an Ibuprofen and that helps with the pain. I hope it gets better real soon. I hate being half crippled. Luckily, I can use my arm for some things but not all. The other day at lunch the sister gave us chicken, and she had to cut mine for me. How embarrassing!! I hate not being able to do everything on my own.

We are now starting a new transfer, the last one for Elder King. Nothing happened with us. Actually, the four of us in the ward all stayed here. Elder King is finishing the mission here. The next transfer will be really interesting to see if I stay here one transfer more or if they send me somewhere else and bring in two other missionaries.

Yesterday was a great 4th of July, even though I almost had forgot about it. Patricio was baptized. He was excited for it; it was something he really wanted to do. He’s really quiet and shy, but afterwards a lot of people welcomed him to the ward and made him feel really welcomed. They even invited him to a Family Home Evening, which I think he went to. It was a great baptismal service with a lot of people there to support him. We had asked an RM, recently off a mission one month, to baptize him. It was great!

Last week I talked about Eliana, friend of Sister Manriquez. She is amazing! A golden investigator. She went to church yesterday--the second time--and actually arrived alone, without Sister Manriquez. In a lesson last week, we taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we were talking about baptism she asked, "What does one have to do to be baptized? Like, what are the requirements?" It’s something that she really wants to do. Her problem is that feels that she lacks the faith to be able to do it. Since then, we’ve been studying a little more about faith, looking up scriptures, etc. to be able to help her. She definitely will get baptized in July, either the 18th or 25th. She’s really great. Oh, and we discovered that Diego, her son, is 7. He turns 8 in October.

The other two Elders in our ward gave us a great referral the other day. A recent convert in their sector has a friend in ours who went to the church with her. His name is Pedro (Peter), the same as his dad, and the mom is Ivonne. We passed by to visit Pedro Jr., but his mom came to the door. We did just a normal contact, and she rejected us. We walked away then decided to go back and ask for Pedro. That time the dad, Pedro Sr., came to the door and let us in right away. Turns out that when Elder King told her that we offer service, she understood that if she needs help she can go to the church to ask. (They live like one minute away from the church.) She is Baptist, but doesn’t go to church. The dad believes in God and Jesus but isn’t part of any church. Pedro Jr. is 16 and likes what he saw in our church. When we were talking about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ blesses families and listed blessings, they were astonished. They said that right before we showed up they were talking about how they’re not very united as a family and there’s too much contention. They said they hadn’t gathered as a family to pray and converse for a long time before we showed up. The spirit was really strong, and at the end of the lesson the dad said, "God sent you two here. I know it." They accepted everything we taught and committed to read in the Book of Mormon and pray about it and Joseph Smith. They are a great family. I’m sure Pedro Jr. will get baptized, probably Pedro Sr., and possibly Ivonne.

The other day I had another interesting lunch. The same sister who gave us seaweed a few weeks ago decided to be creative again. She brought us out a salad with lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, etc. and something white, hardish, and with mayo that Elder King took to be potatoes. But when we ate, it was more chewable than potatoes should be. We soon learned that it was "Jibia", a part of "Pulpo." Well, Jibia doesn’t have an English translation, but it is the stomach of Pulpo, which is octopus. Which is to say: I ATE OCTOPUS STOMACH!! Needless to say, I did not enjoy it too much. At least I ate all of it anyway. Elder King, when the Sister left the room, put his in a napkin and in his pocket. Later he threw it away. Hahaha!

The other day, when we were teaching Eliana, there was a small tremor. We were in an apartment building on the 3rd floor. I felt a little shaking and looked to the side to see if my comp was moving his leg, but he wasn’t. Then it got a little stronger. It was just a small one, but it lasted a good little while. Startled me a little, and Eliana jumped up and ran out the door. Fortunately, it stopped and everything was okay.


Well, I’m about out of time. The last week was a full one, and I hope to have more of those as this transfer progresses.

Ciao!

Elder Murdoch





Patricio Baptism


Almost Dead (?) Shoe