Busy week

Hey Mom!                                      March 23, 2015

How are you and how was your week? From all of you letters and from the family it sounds like everyone is doing pretty good! 

Pdays are sorta boring here. There is a volcano that we can go visit but I don't know how to get there or anything, so until I can figure it out pdays will continue to be boring.

Time keeps flying by and I can't believe it. I just completed 17 months today. It seems like yesterday I just got on the plane with Elder Wallace, and now he is my comp and we are in the home stretch...

 WOW! I can't believe that my time as a missionary of the Lord is going by so quickly. I need to take advantage of this time because it's the time that the Lord has given me to try and grow up haha. The hermanas in my group from the mtc go home in less then a month and I told them that their mission is only 18 months because they have less weaknesses to overcome haha. 

.You are sure right when you talk about satan. He is constantly working. When we sleep he keeps working. I see it now more than I ever did before, I see it with myself, investigators, members, less actives. But the perfect thing to fight him with is the gospel, that is the good thing. How blessed we are to have the gospel in our lives.

Well this week went pretty well. Me and Elder Wallace are working hard trying to help out our sector and also the zone. It can be hard and stressful sometimes to balance both of them, but we are doing it.  We had a mom and a daughter who were planning to get baptized this next saturday, all they had to do was come to church, well the daughter showed up but the mom didn't. So we will keep working with them and hopefully they can get baptized the week after conference.  L came to church again. This time to all three meetings. I think he really enjoyed it. He has come three weeks in a row now. So I think that he is really interested. He asked us about Doctrine and Covenants and so we taught him about it and gave him a triple. He was really happy and excited when we gave it to him. I just hope that this week we can finally put a date for his baptism. He is really prepared and ready for it, he just doesn't think that he has recognized it yet, but he has. We will just keep praying!

Elder Wallace and I are teaching this lady named Z. The first visit we had with her she told us that she just felt like she needs to get baptized and that what we had taught her was true. It was really cool. She came to church and she really loved it. After church she came up to me and said, ¨Where will I be getting baptized?¨ haha, it's not every day that you find people like her, I hope and pray that she can continue to progress so that she can get baptized! 

This week we had a couple zone conferences, president taught one of them and we taught the other. They must have learned something because this is the best week the zone has had since I have been here. We have 15 baptismal dates and they all came to church this last week. So we are praying that we can end this month well and then hit April hard. The work is always going! 

Well lately I have been thinking alot about the atonement and the importance that it has in my life and in the life of our family. I am understanding more about the love that God and his Son have for us and for me personally. He truly has a plan that can help us acheive our divine potential. Now whenever I feel discouraged or sad I just try and think about the Saviour. I know that he felt the same way. But He pushed through it, and in the end he did what God, his Father, needed him to do. I just hope that at the end of my mission, that God can be proud of me. 

 

Elder Wallace and I are having a great time together. He is a good example to me and he is a hard worker. We keep each other on task and focused on our purpose. 

  Please tell all those who I didn't respond to that I'm sorry because I just run out of time so fast! But I love you mom! Keep up the good work! 

Elder Noel

long bus ride and Elder Wallace

Hey Mom!                                       March 19,2015

 Elder Wallace is a great missionary and I am learning a lot from his example and from his dedication to be the missionary the Lord needs him to be. We both have the same desires to work hard and to be obedient so it makes it a lot easier to be a missionary and to get lost in the work.

This week we had a conference with all the zone leaders, assistants, and president in Concepcion, so we had to travel 5 hours on bus on thursday and friday, it was sorta draining, but the conference was really good. I learned alot. There was a speaker named Brother Verdugo. He was a mission president in Argentina and he talked to us about the purpose of our mission and also about the character of Christ. It really made me think more about the atonement and everything that Christ has and will continue to do for us.  He talked about how as missionaries, we need to feel how it is to be rejected because Christ was also rejected. To truly follow Christ we may need to pass through some of the same hardships as he did. We may have to ask, ¨God, why hast thou forsaken me?¨ We may need to feel how he felt as he was on the cross alone. When we have trials, what is God trying to teach us? What is he trying to show me? As he talked I could feel the spirit quite strongly and it made me have a more broad aspect for the work and the importance that I have to share it. Now when I am rejected or when I am tired, I just think of him. How he was rejected, how he was tired, how he was alone.  I learned how important it is for us to truly understand the atonement of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

On Saturday and Sunday we had Stake conference. It was pretty good. We had 3 people who were committed to come to church who didn't show up. But L, he came and he really liked it alot. I really love this guy. I love teaching him. He really understands the importance of what we teach and he understands what it would mean if it were true. He told us that before he wants to be baptized he wants to be 100% sure thats its true. So we are just going to keep teaching him and explain that we can never reach 100%, it will require faith.  But we are going to keep working with him!

I am fine. Thanks for worrying about me but you don't have to. I am on the Lords errand and when we are doing his work we are entitled to his blessings. I love you mom! I hope that you have a great week this week and that the family continues to live the gospel.

Tell everyone hi and that I love and am praying for them.

Take care,
 Elder Noel

Elder Wallace!

These sisters were in our CCM group from Mexico City.  They are heading home soon, we still have 7 months.

And my new companion is????

Hey Mom,                                        March 9, 2015

How's it going! 

Well first off big news..... Are you ready?? Well tomorrow is cambios and my comp is leaving which is sad because we were good together, but guess who is coming?? Thats right you guessed it..... ELDER WALLACE hahaha we just found out this morning that he is going to be coming down here to be comps with me! Haha I was so excited when I heard it I just about jumped out the window! We should have a good time together!  We are going to be zone leaders together. I go to the bus station tomorrow to go pick him up.  I talked to him over the phone and he is really excited. I am excited to learn even more from him than i already have.

But this week was a pretty good week for us. We don't have a ton of people to teach but the people that we do have are really good and I am excited to keep seeing their progression as investigators. It is pretty cool to see.  We should have a couple of people getting baptized in about two weeks. A mom and a daughter. We were going to have them get baptized this weekend but they need a little bit more preparation, as well this weekend is stake conference so that will be cool.

In church we had a man that we found about two weeks ago named L, I talked to you about him in my last letter. He is awesome. He is catholic as far as tradition but he is noticing how the ¨Restored Truths¨ are in our church and he sees how important that is. We have challenged him to baptism but he tells us that he wants to know first and once he knows, then he will find out.  He is a really great guy who could be a great leader in the Church. I hope that he can keep progressing. He has read 1st Nefi, 2nd Nefi, and he jumped and read 3rd Nefi haha. He is doing good!

We also are teaching another mom and daughter who came to church last week but this week they didn't come because she was sick.... They are barely learning about the church.

It sounds like life at home is going well. Thats really cool to hear about Jake and how much his mission has impacted him. Its crazy he is home and is already applying the things he learned in his mission to his life. I hope that I can do the same when its my turn to leave. I can't believe another week has flown by, with each week that goes by I do find that even though its hard, I am going to miss what I am doing. It's hard to think about not being a missionary.

It's too bad to hear about the aggies, and about Stew. He actually marked a big part of my childhood. I don't even know what aggie basketball is without Stew Morrill. I wish the best for him! Tears come to my eyes when I think he won't be there next year! hahah.

Yea the volcano that exploded is called Volcan Villarica. It's actually a pretty famous volcano. There is another one that is closer to me that I can see, but I did see some footage of the volcano exploding and it seemed pretty crazy!

But hey mom I love you! I appreciate the love and support that I get from you and I hope and pray that you have great week this week! I love you! 

Take Care, 

Elder Noel

Temuco Cautin Zone

Cole's Call

Hey Everyone!                               March 2, 2015

 I don't think that I will have time to write indivdual letters this week but just in case I am going to write one big letter. Just know that I did read all of the letters indivdually.

COLE! CONGRATS BROTHA! Thats awesome! I am so excited for you! Alot of prepartion and planning goes into recieving a mission call. Just know that Lima, Peru is exactly where the Lord wants you to be and that June 30 is when the Lord wants you to leave. It will be awesome to have my brother on a mission at the same time as me.  I know that we won't see each other for a long time, but it doesnt matter, cause we got the eternities!! Brush up on the spanish! Peruvians speak really good spanish. So we may not even understand each other when we get back but at least we will be able to communicate a little bit. Thanks for the example COLE! KEEP IT UP!

This week was a pretty good week. We were able to have 5 investigators in church and some of them are preparing for baptism for the month of March so we will see how we can help them out! As for the zone things are not looking as good. We wanted to enter the month with 15 baptismals dates, but we only have about half of that. There are people who have gone to church but have not committed to baptism, so they could still do it this month. We will see what happens, we just gotta keep praying and working!

Last week we found a new investigator named L. He is about 55 years old and he is a very intelligent man, he knows whats going on, anyways we taught him about the Book of Mormon and he loved it! He read the entire introduction and then some of the book and we are hoping that we can put a baptismal date for him for the month of April. The only thing is he is a strong catholic. But we will try and help him out! 

Cambios are next week and I can't believe that this one is almost over. I will be staying most likely but my comp might be leaving. We get along well and we are working pretty well together so it would sorta be lame if he left but the work goes on no matter what.

But hey I love you guys. On the sixth I will only have seven months left on my mission. It sorta hit me this week really hard that time is going by really fast.  I look at the calendar and the months just keep flying by. Its unreal.

But hey I love you all! Thanks for all the Love and for all the letters! I hope that you all have a great week! Take Care! 

Elder Noel