hey all you loons on the other side of the hemisphere!! this week was SO MUCH BETTER. less stress, with some new policies that the president is giving us! so we were in a meeting with the president and hermana gwilliam this past thursday. we were talking about how sometimes the office life is kind of stressful and we kind of just want to find a way to relieve a little bit of the stress while we work. he said that the only way to relieve stress is to teach and serve other people. so he is making a new policy for the office elders to leave and teach and visit members starting at 6PM!! its honestly going to help us so much because then we dont have to be staying up until like the wee hours of the morning finishing up all the stuff we got to do, and then we can have a little bit more work and find people to baptize while we work with the missionaries. a miracle happened though while we were out teaching though! so we are basically going into a whitewash primarily because the hermanas dont want to give us any references, (stingy?) nor investigators to work with, so we have been starting visiting the members. we went to a members house who just got married to a recent convert. we were talking it up with her, and we told her that our purpose as missionaries is to strengthen the family and help them progress together. she looked at us with sad eyes and said that she has been recently having marriage problems and that she wants to have us come by on a weekly basis to help her and her husband out with the more spiritual side of things so that they can become closer and in christ!! we are literally so excited to be able to help her our, and to help the ward out a little more as we gain there trust! while we were doing the visits with members, they invited us to go to the temple with them to help them do baptisms. we asked pres if we could go, he said yes. we were promptly told that it started at 6 in the morning. with a 20 minute drive from our house to the temple, we got up at FLIPPING 4:30 IN THE MORNING TO GO TO THE TEMPLE. needless to say, i was falling asleep at the wheel (only for a second, dont worry mom). the baptisms were awesome, but silvaggio and i literally showed up back to the office DEAD. we took naps for a sec to try and recuperate from the damage that we did, but oh man never again am i going to the temple at 6 IN THE MORNING. other cool things that we did this week was go to centro in santiago and we explored to try and find a bike shop. we kind of got lost, but it was so cool to get lost in a city and rome around and see all the cool little hole in the wall hipster shops and to see all the different people that walk through the city. we didnt end up finding the bike shop, but it was cool to wander for a a little while and forget about stress for a second! we also had to go to a dealership to get the car examined, and apparently none of the office elders have done that inspection for like 2 years, so there were A LOT of things wrong with the car that should have been fixed forever ago. #tendermercy #wedidntloseouraxelwhileweweredriving #blezzup here are some pics of us climbing cerro chena at 7 in the morning! love you guys!! ekw pics from our pday hike. everyone in this pic has less than 8 months left on their mission
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after mission transfers day last week, we were literally THRASHED. it pushed us back kind of a lot here in the office. i didnt get to do much studying, nor time to just chill out. it was a week of "hey i forgot this at change meeting, can you bring this clear across the mission for me?" or "oh crap i got lost in centro when i was grabbing the visa where the heck do i go??". you can say that i kind of got some gray hairs coming in for me while in this change. there were some cool things that i did find out this week, as well as some spiritual experiences! whilst studying for the two seconds that i had one day, i was in doctrine and covenants. i normally listen to the spanish version and take some notes while im on my computer. i was walking through section 18, and i stumbled across a verse that really struck me. ...if he shall be diligent in keeping my commandments he shall be blessed unto eternal life... this is verse 8, and i completely love it! the whole idea of having to be blessed in order to live in eternal life that god gives us is astounding. if you think about it, you have to be sanctified in some way in order to be in the presence of god, and the only power that is known to man to cleanse our sins in that high of a degree is through Jesus Christ. This verse is saying that if you (in this particular sense, Oliver Cowdry is being spoken to, but applies to all of us) are diligent in keeping the commandments and obeying the demands of repentance, you will be blessed to the degree of perfection that will enable you to have this eternal life that is frequently spoken of in the scriptures, as well as desired for after this life in the life to come. i thought that was amazing! literally, the only way that we are going to be able to be cleansed is through our lord, Jesus Christ! AHHHH, YES, I KNOW THIS CHURCH IS TRUE! another cool thing that happened this week was Jeremy and Stephany were able to be baptized this week! i had the opportunity to baptize them and it was so cool! they were all dressed in white, we opened the font door to the baptismal font, and steam came out of it! but....then i got in and it was about as cold as the arctic tundra. oh my heck!!! jeremy went in first and he almost couldnt get in all the way. Jeremy: "c´mon we just got to do this thing fast i am going to lose my legs" me: "jeremy this is a spiritual experience we gotta do it a little slow." Jeremy: "um i want my legs so lets get this done fast please and thank" stephany did the same thing when she got in. she literally screeched from how cold it was. "ELDER WATTLES I DESPISE YOU AND THIS WATER AND THE HYPOTHERMIA I AM ABOUT TO GET" it was so dang funny jajajaja. sorry for the small email this week...i am going to get some cool pics this week so that you guys can see what i do and so i can give some inspiration to those who need a little! love you guys to the moon and back! ekw we dem bois new specs and trousers jeremy and stephany newest plant child
hey you guys! i only have a little second to write, but oh my goodness this week was PSYCHO. let me explain
im just going to say that this conference was probably one of my favorite general conferences ive ever had. i felt the sprit so much during these talks! i wrote down like 7 questions and they were all answered in the first session. the talks were that good. im thankful to have apostles and a prophet to look out for us while we are walking through the world! so there were changes this week. we were getting all prepped for the new houses we were going to open up, we were organizing routes so that we could drop people off and all that stuff. i went with elder payne to the airport to drop off the dead elders, everything was super chill. we were waiting at the airport for president and we got a call from him. he was asking if we were still in the airport. we replied with a very unsure yes, and he released the biggest sigh of relief. apparently, the mexico mtc changed the flight TO THE DAY BEFORE they were supposed to be there. we sprinted so hard in the airport to try and find these guys, and a couple from the east mission was watching over them in the airport just hanging out. we finally found them and we fed them some food at the airport, and took them home. until change meeting! we snagged the other guys from the mtc in chile, and they came to the change meeting. there was such a huge energy in the room, everybody was screaming and clapping and shouting when they got their new comp. the new kids were SHOOK out of their minds. after that we were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. it was kind of a nonstop day for like 9 hours in the car and getting people places. we were literally DYING by the end of the day. we crashed so hard when we got home, we were so tired. it was a good days work though. some other things that happened: !)my comp was trying to be funny and run in front of the van while it was moving and i accidentally ran over his foot (he is fine) 2) i was driving on a main road and this guy came out of nowhere and hit our van, rolled off the side, and then kept running away from a guy that was trying to kill him with a wooden rod 3) stephanie and jeremy are going to get baptized this sunday!! and i get to baptize them!! its going to be so cool! 4)RIGBY GOT PUT AS AP AND I COULD NOT BE A MORE PROUD COMPY gotta scram though kids. see you on the flip side! ekw hey all you cool cats on the other side of the planet! this week here in the office was BUSY as heck. we are getting ready for changes that are coming up here soon, so we basically have been running around like chickens with our heads cut off. but here is an inside scoop as to what we did this week. 1) so here in the office we move people in and out of houses. what normally happens is the missionaries that leave the mission leave A WHOLE bunch of stuff (clothes/shoes/stuff they bought in the ferria) so president was like,"ugh ok. you guys need to find a place to get rid of the clothes you have gathered up from the houses that you have moved." so we burned the clothes in church parking lot now i know it sounds a little weird, but the fire was really controlled and we had a fire extinguisher close by, dont freak out. my comp hasnt ever gone camping in his life, nor understood the laws of pressure, so as we were unloading the bag of stuff, we threw in an aerosol can into the fire. as the majority of you can predict, it definitely blew up. the only thing is, is that none of the shrapnel hit us. we ended up walking away ok, but all the ward members from the ward activity that was happening thought it was a gunshot and freaked out HAHA. 2)we had zone conference this past week! the only thing that is kind of a bummer is that i deal with all the sound equipment and doing all the computer stuff during the conference (power points/videos/etc.) so i couldn't really participate THAT much. it was stressful to heck trying to set up for it because i had never done it before, but it ended up being all ok in the end! i made a super hipster power point for hermana gwilliam and the mission seemed to dig it. 3) we went to go and meet the new elders in the chile mtc! it was super cool! this new batch of elders seem sick as frick! we drove to the ccm to get their pics taken and to snag their passports and set up the time for when they are going to get picked up. 4) we went to the temple for pday today and it was so cool!! the only annoying this is is that there wasnt enough space in the session that we reserved, so we ended up going to the sealing sessions and helped out with some of the names that they had. it was seriously so cool!! being there and being par of the sealings really made me feel the importance and the power that the temple gives us. there was one couple that was doing the majority of the sealings, and i could just feel the happiness in that room!! i seriously cannot wait until i can get sealed to the woman that i love and have a family with her for time and eternity! this church is the only church that does that!! i have to scram though...wish me luck. this week is changes and i have to drive to the airport and pick up the new peeps in chilean traffic #idratherswallowaweedwhacker ekw me getting attacked by toxic fumes this about sums up what the office is so it looks like the trash on the bottom right corner is burning, but i can assure you that promptly after this pic we used the fire extinguisher to put it out the train we take to get to the temple me and the main bae mate <3333 me and silvaggio
hey all you! i gotta make this email a little short cause i am going to run out of time! 1) so i have been making a lot more home cooked food lately, which is super cool! the office elders are notorious for eating out a whole bunch and just eating trash food. i got a couple of recipes from friends in the mission, and i legit love it! one day, i was making some Ecuadorian food, and i wanted to pack some heat in it ( I LOVE SPICY FOODS ). my comp wanted to come in and help me do a little bit of cooking, so i told him to go and cut some of these peppers that i bought. after he cut them up and i put them in the frying pan....... and then he fetching touched his face and eyes with his unwashed pepper fingers!!!! oh my lanta this kid was literally screaming from how much it hurt him. there was a meeting going on in the office with some elders from around the area, and he was just straight yelling in the kitchen. i had to go in to doctor mode, and try and wash him with some alcohol wipes, and the screaming and crying continued even more. i was rushing around the office to try and figure out what the heck he needed to do to chill out this pepper acid he just put on his face. i found some cream that you use for bug bights, and it helped him A TON. he began to scream less, and then chilled out in the end. after this whole fiasco, he was like, "ok i am going to go and use the restroom." i almost throat punched him and told him to go and wash his hands FIRST!!!! *tisk* this kid. if any o y'all have some sick recipes that dont involve us almost losing our vision, that would be superb! fun fact, i am learning how to play the piano right now! its a process, but elder payne is teaching me when we go on our little breaks and stuff. i am trying to learn "how great thou art" and "i know that my redeemer lives". they are works in progress, but i hope to be able to finish these songs so i can play in sacrament!! also i asked president to buy some french grammar books, so i am going to try and get better at teaching the Haitians that are down here. my goal is to learn the first vision and a couple other scriptures! its going to be fun. we are trying to put goals as the office to go out and teach families in the ward so that we can help out the ward a little bit more. we cant really have investigators out here because its hard to keep them down when we are always busy and stuff...but hey its going to be an adventure for when we go to members houses! gotta scram, but i love all of you so much ! ekw adventures at the santiago embassy excuse me...wig shop you aint that slick! i see you stealin' the lululemon logo and putting it on your window....smh lunch with the fam
hey all you peeps on the other side of the planet! this week was SO much more psycho than the last. let me explain. heiner left me to go and be a zone leader in gran avenida, and then i got to be comps with silvaggio! right as he left, literally everything that could be stressful came into my job and i thought that i was going to drown in the amount of work that i had. I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. if you guys didnt know, i literally love having something to do all the time when i am working. if i am just sitting around, i get anxious. there were elders coming in from bike accidents, i was cooking for missionaries that didnt have lunch, buying plane tickets, LITERALLY ALL AT ONCE. just imaging me running around a church building for like 5 hours straight, and thats basically how my days were this past week. im thankful that i have been able to just do stuff and not sit behind a computer all day! one of the things that has been awesome, is that i have been helping with the missionaries that have baptisms in our chapel. I help set up all the little stuff (projector for videos after the baptisms/lights/table placements/etc) BUT...... there was a huge wrench thrown in the baptism this past saturday. i went to go and fill up the font and put a little water stopper. well, three hours later, it wasnt even halfway full from how slow the water fills in the fonts. the hermanas thought it would be a good idea to throw a fire hose in there and turn it on to try and fill the font faster. i was literally crying it was so funny to turn on a fire hose during the opening in the baptism. i was running back and forth while talks were being said, making sure that everything was going ok HAHAH. during this week, the independence day parties were going on! like 4th of july happens in the states! september 18th is the official holiday, but basically the whole country shuts down for like three days during these parties. the whole office got super hungry during the 18, and we basically had rice and cereal in the cupboards to eat. elder payne and i went out and about to go and look for somewhere to eat and THERE WAS LITERALLY NOTHING OPEN. we walked for a half an hour going around san bernardo in hopes to find a completo stand open, but alas, we couldn't find anything. we literally pulled the most ghetto move, and went to a shell gas station and bought some sandwiches and drinks and ate them for a little 18 party that we had in the office. ha! it was fun though. we all made it fun through our tribulations. we made up for it though during pday. today,we had a little bbq with our district and we watched star wars and princess and the frog. SO GOOD. i gotta scram right now though...love all of you to the moon and back! hope that you all have a sick semana! chao for now! ekw BBQ! my 18 meal i cant even....a fire hose in a baptismal font... little bit of showers...and yep, that's the back of my new ride just nature..spring is here lost again.....
well i mean they arent technically changes on my end of everything. heiner is leaving me and is done training me in the office! its going to be so sad to see him go. i am getting another companion though! his name is elder silvaggio, and he is from argentina. he speaks like freak good ingles, and he has about 10 or so months in the mission. we are going to do a little welcome thing for him when he comes in, because he is going to need to have a nice adjustment to the new office life HA. so some of you have been asking me about the living conditions here in the mission. so like where i live right now, i live in an apartment with three other elders. we live in a little two bedroom apartment, and literally the only thing that we do there is sleep and shower. we only have food and stuff in the office because we literally do everything else in the office. we DO get hot water and an oven and a fridge and all that stuff, the only thing that we dont get is air conditioning. its not the worst thing in the whole world in the winter, but when you get to the summer, its literally like the sahara dessert. sometimes its cool cause then you get to were shorts for p day, but then the rest of the days, you are just a ball of sweat. its awful! some of you have been asking a little bit about the food that is down here too! the thing is that some people think that if you go to a south american country, the foods are going to be like death hot. here, ITS NOT THE CASE. the food here is actually super bland and not that hard to eat. they dont get super crazy with their food here either. the craziest thing that i have eaten here was cow stomach, and i literally almost threw up. its was prolly the grossest thing i have ever eaten here. my fav thing to eat are these things called churrascos, which are sandwiches with sliced stake, tomatos, avocado, and mayo and oh dearest me they are so good. also we survived the 11 of september!! down here it's a holiday where everyone goes crazy, and the police basically turn blind eye to all the crimes. we had to sleep in the office because pres didnt want us to get shot while we were walking home. BUT we had a super good bbq with the hermanaas that are part of our ward. we made hamburgers with homemade macaroni and oh my lanta it was soooo good. i didnt receive any bullet holes nor stab wounds, but! i am still alive! if you guys have more questions, hit me up! i would love to respond to whatever you guys have! spiritual or funny questions! love all of you to the moon and back ! EKW my little chapel food we bbq'd on sept 11th a little something...watching the sun rise in santiago my little casa
Hey all you people out there! This was the first official week in the office and it has been way different from what I am used to. Not even going to lie, its literally the opposite of what people normally think missionary work is. What the office is, in a nut shell, is you are the help for the mission. In my job in particular, I just make sure that people don’t get deported for whatever reason. I book flights, I make sure that visa applications are ok at the end of the day, and a couple other things. When I have free time, I go with some other people in the office to help them with some of the tasks or emergencies that there are in the mission. its totally different, but its cool because this is going to be my calling for the next little while! one of the things that i dont miss from back home is driving with awful drivers on the road. surprise though, because i'm driving all over santiago, and i kid you not, Chilean drivers are THE WORST. any of you who have ever driven with me know that when i drive i get the most awful road rage in the whole world. heiner always has to calm me down when i am driving, going around and doing errands because ooooohhhhh mmmmyyyy. i get so heated. AND NAVIGATION. OH MY WORD. so in our little car, we have a garmin navigation system. some elders needed us to take them a volleyball to one of their activities in the southern most part of the mission. elder payne and i went, plugged in the address to go to the chapel. we made it in like 20 minutes. we plugged in the address again to get back to the office, and the gps took us a completely different and awful way. we ended up going off roading for like 15 minutes in the middle of nowhere trying out figure out how to get back on the freeway, and the thing ended up taking us to an industrial plant that was outside of the mission. payne and i were literally laughing our butts off, and we were also literally so tired that we couldn't even think straight. we pulled up to this yard and a guy walked out and was like,"ummm are you kids lost or something?" payne and i literally burst out laughing because the situation was so ridiculous to try and explain to this guard. he ended up directing us back to the freeway where we could get back home, but UGH. i dont want to drive anywhere until this worldwide gps problem is fixed que fetch. one of the things that i have started while i have been in the office was that i have started reading doctrine and covenants a little bit more in depth, because ive only read it just to read it. going through dc 1 and verse 30 was really awesome! D&C 1:30 And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually now, this scripture has a reference to the restoration, where god gave his authority to his prophets so that they could restore the gospel, but i like the little reference that it makes for the members of the church. it says to all those whom these commandments were given, might have the power to lay the foundation of this church and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness. we as members have the huge responsibility to build the kingdom of god and help his children come back to him. god has given us the ability to be a light to his children, and we should show that light so that we can help others leave the darkness that encircles their lives and bring them into the warm presence of our heavenly father. even though you may be 10, or if you are 60, we have the power to change the course of a human life with the gospel, and edify the kingdom of god! i have to scram now though....but i will see you guys this next week! hopefully i dont get shot because its going to be the "dia de los jovenes combatientes" (september 11th) where we basically just stay inside the whole day because the peopel down here go cray cray, and the police basically turn a blind eye on this day.... so we will see how that goes! love all of you! EKW abandoned station abandoned office kids they spelled ¨karson¨ wrong (close though?) peephole people fellow office peeps (payne/atkinson/heiner)
ok so get this. i am running around the last pday with torres trying to go and visit all the families that he visited during his mission. then i get a call from president. "hey elder wattles. so i have a very strong feeling that you should be on the office team for the next little while. you are going to be my personal secretary, as well as worry about the visas and al the legal things that are going to happen within the mission. you will receive a van to do all of runs to the centro, as well as taking missionaries to and from the airport." i literally almost died. I AM GOING TO WORK IN THE OFFICE? OF THE MISSION?? it was prolly the scariest call that i ever received. get this though. i got this call on wednesday, and president told me that i had to go into the office on friday at 11 at night. i didnt get any time to say goodbye to all the peeps in my sector, but it was awesome though, because we organized a little temple trip with a less active that we are reactivating. literally, jean is prolly one of my fav people in the whole sector. but we had the opportunity to go to the temple with him while he did baptisms for the dead, and it was so awesome! then we raced to the house, i packed all my stuff, and then i went straight to the office. the scary thing about it though was that right when we got to my new house, i had to get up at 4 in the morning to go and pick up the new kids from the chile mtc and i was seriously dying of sleep deprivation #dead. and driving down here is just a joke. and then heiner literally started teaching me right out of the gate. its not THAT hard of a job as of right now, but i think that i am going to enjoy what these next changes have to come! but other than that, ROSIE AND POLETE GOT BAPTIZED THIS LAST WEEK TOO!!!!!!! it was literally the coolest thing ever to see them finally get baptized. i was able to confirm rosita after her baptism, and torres confirmed polete. the whole ward showed up to support them as well, and the spirit was SO strong during the meeting. was able to sing "i know that my redeemer lives" during the baptismal service as a special musical number, and a sister from the ward sang with me. honestly one of the coolest baptisms that we have had! other than that, this week wasnt super super exciting. i am going to let you guys know a little bit more about the studies that i am doing from now until like christmas, cause as an office elder, i don't really have time to go out and do a lot of proselyting. ill give you guys a little bit more updates with the stuff that i am learning and doing over here in the office of the mission! love all of you guys to the moon and back! EKW baptisms from 2 weeks ago! baptisms from last week! last sushi dinner together before he goes home aaaaand all the new office kids (except for the one in the back..he went home to his fam this past week!) heiner is the blonde, he's my new compy
ya its pretty sad to be honest!! this is going to be my last week with elder torres! he and i have literally worked out butts off this change, and its going tobe pretty hard to say goodbye to him, but changes are always super cool! there is some gossip going around the mission, so we are going to see where i get put next!!
but this past week, we were able to baptize three more souls!! i had the opportunity and the blessing to baptize manuel, and it was my first time ever baptizing someone! i wasliterally scared out of my mind becuase sometimes chilenos have like 7 names that you have to pronounce correctly, but luckily he only had 4 names, so i was ok. he left the water literally so happy! we also had the opportunity to baptize gabriela and matilda, who are a mom and a daughter. they decided to come to church and be part of the path of god! gabriela stopped smoking by her self, and put so much strength in order to obey the word of wisdom. so many members showed up and supported our converts as well! too good too grand. other than that, we have been helping our next converts get ready for their baptisms. rosie, jean paul, and paulette are going to get baptized this upcoming sunday. we have been passing by trying to finish the lessons with them and trying to help them out with some of the bigger lessons. a really cool experience though! so we were teaching rosita about eternal families and the power of the temple. she has a kid with no husband or boy friend to help her out, and she had vowed that she was never oing to date again, nor find anyone else to share her life with. after we taught the lesson on eternal families, she kind of realized how important it is to have a family and get sealed in the temple! she then made the decision that she is going to find someone worthy to get married to, and then ask us for help so we can teach this guy and help them get sealed! hahahaha #obramisionalconinvestigadores. gotta scram....but i will see you guys next week with a new compy! EKW |
Elder Karson Wattles
Chile Santiago South Mission apartado postal No. 544 San Bernardo, Chile Archives
May 2019
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