Week 21

This week has been amazing! I can´t remember if I wrote about last Sunday, but I´ll write about it anyway. Last Sunday, Elder Hill and I were contacting all day, looking for new investigators. Toward the end of the day, with about 2 hours left. It began to pour rain. We were in our suits and had no umbrella, so we scrambled around and tried to get into a house. We were rejected by about 15 people. Obviously, that was frustrating. I was a little upset and I don´t think I hid it too well. After a while, I felt this peace come over me. It was pouring and my suit was soaked all the way through, but I felt at peace. Even when we were continually rejected and left in the rain, I realized that it was okay. I realized that, although we experience really, really tough times in our lives, we can still find peace. When we endure the trials that we experience with patience and with faith, the Lord gives us peace and hope, and then He blesses us beyond what we could´ve imagined. At the end of this week, after experiencing that Sunday, we are teaching 14 people with a baptismal date. 14 people who have the opportunity to absolutely transform their lives and the lives of their families. 14 precious souls that have the opportunity to make their first promise with God. 14 brothers and sisters who have the opportunity to receive a remission of their sins. 14 children of God who have the opportunity to take the first step to returning to live in the prescense of their Father in Heaven who worries about them constantly, who loves them more than we can comprehend, who has prepared the way for them, who gave His Only Begotten, who lifts us up and pours out blessings to all, who wants nothing but the absolute best for us. If this week is not a miracle and that experience not a perfect example of the fact that obedience brings blessings, I have no idea what is. Another example could be the fact that, just a few months after being baptized, I found the love of my life, Micaela Morgan Wright, who is the closest thing to perfect this world has to offer. Que tengan una buena semana y que Dios les bendiga!

Chao,

Elder Reynolds

Week 20

This has been a great week. We have 8 people who have set a goal for baptism! Maribel is doing great, but was out of town this weekend. Victoria Mendez and her mom will not be baptized this coming week because she is still doing her best to quit smoking. She has all the desires in the world to be baptized, though! We are doing our best to help her overcome her addiction. She really is doing all that she can to do God´s will for her and I know He will help her achieve her goal. We had a baptism on Saturday! Her name is Viarly Fuentes. She is 18 years old and has plans to serve a mission! It was great to see her take her first step to accomplishing that goal. She was being taught by the other missionaries here, so that is why I haven´t written much about her, but I do know her because she has been helping us teach lessons to other investigators. I found a great scripture in the Book of Mormon this week. It´s 1 Nephi 21:14-16. It´s about how Christ knows us and loves us. We are written on the palms of His hands. He knows each and every one of us by name and is always there for us. He died for each and every one of us, individually. He did it for you, personally. You were on His mind when he was suffering. You are what kept Him going when He drank the bitter cup. He did it all for you. His love is perfect and eternal. We will never understand it, but we can do our best everyday to show Him what He means to us. I was told today that I will now be a district leader! I´m really excited about that and the opportunity I have a serve the missionaries that are serving by my side. A lot of times, people think that missionary work is all about those who aren´t members of the church, but that´s not true. It´s about the members, too. They need strengthening just as much as anyone. It´s also about serving other missionaries. It´s not easy being away from all that we know and love, even with the knowledge and faith that we have, but when we have other missionaries who are willing to sacrifice and be there for us, it makes it a lot easier. I look forward to doing that for others. I was recently told by my grandmother that she wants to be baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Lord promised me that He would take care of my family while I was gone and He has done nothing but blessed my family beyond what I can even imagine. I´m proud to have a father who has the priesthood authority to perform the ordinance of baptism. It is humbling to see my eternal family grow by one more, especially to see a woman who has done so much for me and loved me and sacrificed for me my entire life. She has not only done that for me, but for my entire family. She truly is one of the greatest examples on this planet for me and I can´t even begin to explain my emotions at reading about her desires to be baptized, nor can I explain the joy I feel to imagine her taking that step in her life. I love you, Grandma! I´m so blessed to have my family and my wonderful, beautiful, amazing, intelligent, funny, nearly perfect, spiritual giant of a girlfriend named Micaela Morgan Wright. Have a wonderful week, everyone!

Chao!

Elder Reynolds

Viarly Fuentes, Elder Reynolds and Elder Hill

Week 19!

This week has been great! At first it wasn´t, but that changed towards the end. At the beginning of the week, there wasn´t much going on. We weren´t having too many lessons and we were doing a ridiculous amount of walking. I´ve seen myself change as my mission has gone on. Early in my mission, when there was literally nothing happening, I really got down because we weren´t having success. Now, I know even more than I did before the importance of the message we carry and the fact that God only requires of us everything that we have. If we do everything we can for Him, He blesses us. This time, although we weren´t having much success, Elder Hill and I did our best to keep working hard and to have a good attitude about it. The Lord blessed us for our efforts yesterday. We were going to visit and old investigator of the church who wasn´t taking the lessons anymore, just to see if he had interest still. Fortunately, there was no exact address, so we took a guess at which house it was. It wasn´t his house, but we found who the Lord was leading us to. Her name is Maribel Carrasco. She is about 30 or 35 years old and just moved to Coronel. She is currently looking for a job. She has had a rough life. She has had two children. Her youngest died at an early age due to an illness, and her oldest, who was 15, recently passed away due to another illness. Needless to say, her relationship with the Lord is a little strained and has trouble feeling His love for her. She may not know it, but I know the Lord loves her because I felt and feel that love for her. He loves her so much. That´s why we found her. He knew she needed to feel His love. He knew that she needed what we have. We have the answers she is looking for. We have the peace and the hope that she needs, and the Lord used us as tools to answer the needs of His beloved daughter. Now that, is a humbling experience, and that is a miracle. Other than that, Victoria Mendez and her mom are doing great! They are on track to be baptized the 26th!!! Thank you for all who sent me happy birthday messages! You can stop, though. I´ve decided to stay 22 forever. Have a wonderful week everyone! I love you, Micaela Morgan Wright!!! Be good ;)!

Chao!

Elder Reynolds

Week 18

This week was pretty rough. We faced a lot of rejection and didn´t have too many lessons. We learned recently that there are one of three reasons that we experience little success in the mission. 1. we aren´t being obedient 2. we aren´t communicating as a companionship or 3. it´s a test from God. I know that my companion and I are being obedient, but many times we don´t communicate as much as we should, so we tried to improve on that this week and are continuing to improve. Even after we tried that, we still didn´t experience much success, so I´m almost positive that we just experienced a really rough test this week. It´s really easy to forget about all the many blessings we have in our lives and focus on the negatives when we experience tests like that. It´s also really easy to forget that tests are a part of this life and are necessary for growth. We are here to be tested. We came here to learn and to grow. Without tests, we can´t do that. I know that the Lord never gives us tests that He knows we can´t overcome. We can always overcome them if we trust Him. Like Elder Holland said in the conference this past weekend, "if the bitter cup does not pass, drink it and be strong." With Christ and through Christ, all is made possible. Related to that, I want to share a story. There was an olympic runner named David (I think) Redmund. He trained all his life to run in one race. When that time came and the race started, he looked to have a chance at winning. However, during the race, he injured his leg and collapsed. For a short time, he stayed on the ground. After a few seconds, he got up and began hopping toward the finish line. As he was doing so, his father ran onto the track, put his arm around him, and helped him finish the race. As they hobbled toward the finish line, many ran up and tried to stop them, but they were determined to finish the race. As those trying to stop them ran up to them, David´s father motioned them to leave as he yelled "he is my son." This is like our lives. Many times, the race is going great for us, but we inevitably fall. We make mistakes, people reject us, and we don´t have the success we were hoping for. But, thanks to the Atonement, we have a way to pick ourselves up. However, like this example, we cannot finish the race alone. Once we rely on Christ to pick us up, we can´t let go. We have to hold on, because without Him, we cannot finish the race. We will experience obstacles, like those who attempted to stop David and his dad, but we have a Father who can help us overcome all, who is always ready to remind us that We are His son/daughter. This General Conference was amazing and I hope everyone had the chance to watch it. If you didn´t, you can listen/watch/read it at lds.org. I know that the leaders of this church are inspired by God. I know that Christ is at the head of this church. It (along with my family and the love of my eternal life, Micaela Morgan Wright) gives me strength to share this message everyday, no matter what happens. I hope everyone has a great week!

Chau!

Elder Reynolds

Week 17

This week has been crazy. To start off the week we had nothing. We basically walked all day everyday. It was a little disappointing. We also didn´t have any investigators come to church. But, we kept working. As the week went on, we had more lessons and the Lord lifted us up, like he always does. We are in a period right now where we are having to let a few investigators go, which is never fun. I´ve gotten really attached to a few people and families and it´s really disappointing to see that they aren´t willing to continue progressing and doing the things that we ask them. However, we have a few investigators that are making a ton of progress. One investigator, Victoria Mendez, told us yesterday that she had told her dad that she plans on being baptized! Her mom is meeting with us too and has great desires. They´re a really great family. Another investigator, Raquel Ortiz, is also making a lot of progress. We had a lesson yesterday and she basically taught us. We left her with a pamphlet on the Plan of Salvation and she had studied it to the point that we hardly had to teach her anyting new. She has two little boys, Vicente (3 years) and León (1 year). I may have already written about them. She has all the desires in the world to continue learning about the gospel and to exercise her faith. There were three temblores yesterday. It was really weird. One was actually a 5.9. I´ve experienced them before, but never that strong or that many in one day. After the first two, we knocked on someone´s door that Elder Hill felt we should visit. She opened the door and told us to come in. She seemed to have been waiting for us. Her name is Maria and she has a daughter named Josefa, who is 6. Maria recently had a stroke and has no power in her right arm. Her mother also was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Basically, she is having a really difficult time right now. I felt like it wasn´t a coincidence that we had knocked on her door because Elder Hill had felt drawn to it and she agreed. She knew that the Lord was answering her prayers. It´s amazing to see the Lord at work, to see how He uses other to bless His children. I know that He loves each and every one of us. All He asks is that we exercise our faith so that we can bless us beyond our imagination. I exercised my faith and was baptized and I found Micaela Morgan Wright, for example. I know that as we do what we can to show our love for Him and for His children, we can receive His many blessings that He wants to bless us with. 

Chau,

Elder Reynolds

Week 16

This week has been interesting. The 18th was the Chilean Independence Day, so it was hard to get a lot of work done because hardly anyone can be found outside or willing to receive us all week long. Their Independence DAY is one day, but the celebration is a week long deal. We had a party at the chapel that was a lot of fun. We did a bunch of crazy, traditional Chilean games and watched some of the members dance La Cueca, which is the national dance. They apparently teach it in schools. It´s a big deal here. I had a really interesting experience yesterday. One of our investigators is a veteranarian and invited us to help her with something. We drove to a little farm about 10 minutes outside of Coronel, where there was a cow waiting for us. We helped her load some siringes, so that she could inject the cow with some kind of drug. While she was doing that, her truck rolled down a hill and crashed into a fence because of the strong winds, so in addition to injecting a cow with drugs, we helped her pull her truck out of a fence. It was one of the most interesting experiences I´ve had here, right behind a group of teenagers that got onto a bus with us and had a rap battle for about ten minutes before leaving the bus. Victoria, the veteranarian, is making a ton of progress! She went to church the last two weekends in a row and we have been having really powerful lessons with her. She didn´t come to church yesterday, but called us to apologize for not coming haha. She had apparently stayed up until 7am working on a school project. She has a wonderful family. We also found a new family to teach! It´s a couple named Guillermo and Carolina and they have 3 daughters in high school. We´ve only had one lesson with them, but they are a great family and I really look forward to watching them grow. Elder Hill is doing well. He still really struggles with Spanish, but he is improving. It´s really fun to train. I´m doing my best to make sure he has a great experience here. Thanks to Sister Avery for the email and thank you for understanding the time constraints I have. I hope you know that you and your husband have had a major impact on my life and I am beyond grateful for all that you do for my grandmother. Also, I´m amazed every week to hear about everything you are doing, Micaela. I don´t deserve you. You are such an amazing person and are a great example to me and to those around you. I love you! Have a great week everyone!

Chau,

Elder Reynolds

Week 15

Feliz 18 de Coronel, Chile! There is nothing going on today in this entire country that doesn´t involve empanadas and asados. There is literally a Chilean flag flying outside every house here. I´ve heard this holiday is the 2nd biggest behind Christmas, so I´m pretty excited to see what Christmas is like here because they´ve been celebrating the 18th since last month and the celebrations will go all through the rest of this week, at least. Everything is great here in Coronel. Lienturl Astolfo Torres Carrasco was confirmed a member of the church this Sunday. It was amazing. After his confirmation, he stood up with tears in his eyes and hugged me and thanked me for all that we had done for him. He doesn´t know it, nor would he understand, but he has taught me more than I could ever teach him. If I don´t have anymore success for the rest of my mission, seeing that man change into who he is today and seeing his family there with him along the way justifies every single day of my mission. I had another really great experience. My companion and I (Elder Hill, "my son," is from Utah and is 18 years old; he speaks 0 Spanish, so that´s fun) were walking to a lesson and a really drunk man, smoking a cigarette said "hola, élderes." We stopped and talking to him for a while. It turns out that he had been baptized when he was 16 (he was probably in his early 40s now) in Camilo. He talked to us for long time about his history. He is divorced and he has lost his entire family, likely due to his drinking problem. He asked me "what would you say if I told you I was going to go home right now and kill myself?" I asked him "why would you?" I then bore my testimony of the plan that Heavenly Father has for each and every one of us and of His incomprehensible love for us. I told him that he can change what has happened in his life with the help of Christ. I pulled out a Book of Mormon and handed it to him and told him he already knew what to do with it. He looked at me, began to cry, and hugged me (he also kissed me on the cheek, which brings the amount of times I´ve been kissed by drunk men up to double digits). I wrote my name and number down on the front page of the book and he thanked us and walked home. I´m not going to list all the things that had to happen for us to just so happen to be in the right place at the right time to talk to that man, but I´ve thought about it and that experience was nothing short of a miracle. I know that the Lord used my companion and I to save that man´s life. A miracle is a natural effect of celestial laws. Obedience brings blessings, and miracles. Another example: I found the gospel, began living the commandments, and now I have Micaela Morgan Wright. That´s a miracle coming from obedience. Have a great week, everyone!

Chau!

Elder Reynolds