hey all you! dont have a lot of time to write this week, but we had some amazing experiences this past week! so rosita, the Peruvian investigator that we have right now, is going through a lot of hard things. her mom is literally the most anti mormon person in the whole world, and doesnt want a single thing to do with the mormons. she receives a constant harassment from her mum, and has been told that she is going to get kicked out of the house if she gets baptized. we were in a lesson with her and we were talking about the power of prayer, and she was saying that she really does love her mom, even though she is so angry at her. she told us a story in how her mother was going through multiple rounds of chemo therapy to try and battle cancer, and she was praying so hard to heavenly father to let her live. she started crying to hard during the lesson, and the spirit was so strong for the three of us. she said that she feels like the right thing for her to do is to get baptized and to follow god, so that she can try and help her mom into the gospel and let her have blessings as well. literally such a tender moment! she is going to get baptized the 26th of august! also, we were able to baptize danila this past sunday!! literally such an awesome experience! she was a little scared at the beginning, but when she got in the water, she instantly felt like her past life was melting away. i did a special number for her and i sang "i need thee every hour" and she started crying. not saying that i am the best singer in the whole world, but i think i invited the spirit ha! keep praying for the investigators that we have got goin on! we are gonna have three baptisms this next sunday, so just wait! love all of you to death! EKW us and danila at her baptism shenanigans at the park (and a picnic too)
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this week has literally been one of the craziest weeks i think i have ever had on my mission. not even gong to lie. we worked our butts off trying to get the sector progressing and trying to help our fechas out s they work towards their baptism. we actually are going to have one this sunday!! her name is danila and we have been working with her so much. one really cool experience happened with her though. she gave us a call the friday before her interview for her baptism. she was SUPER worried and wanted us to run over there as fast as we could. we run to her house, and she was like,"hey so i have something to telly you guys..." turns out, she got pregnant from a guy that she was with like a month before she started taking the lessons. she got suuuper worried because she really wants to get baptized and wants to join the church, but she thought that we were totally going to drop her off the face of the planet. we opened to alma 36 with her and wow. the spirit was so strong. just being able to talk about repentance with her and the power of the atonement really impacted her. we resolved her doubt, told her that she didnt know any better, and that she could still get baptized. literally the coolest experience that i had this week. other than that, it was just a really good week. rosita has been progressing SO much, and she said that she is committed to be baptized the 26th of august! daila is going to get baptized this sunday. just so many miracles!! i am thankful that god was able to put SO many good people in my life and allow me to help them get closer to him through the gospel. love and miss you all!! EKW bussing around town snow on the tops of the Andes pday food with the crew
hey all you peeps! this week has literally been so psycho for elder torres and i. i cannot tell you how much RUNNING we have been doing to try and get to citas on time, now that our sector is literally the size of china. i have been having a pretty bad cough for the past week too, so we are trying to balance the running part and the "coughing up a lung" part lol.
one of the miracles that has happened this week was WE FINALLY ARE TEACHING THE FAMILY OF SOME RECENT CONVERTS IN OUR WARD. alberto and melody, some youth that were baptized a year ago, have been trying to get their parents to take the lessons from the elders forever. we were at albertos house the other day helping him with some of his math homework, and his mom sat down with us and told us,"you know what, i want to learn more. we went to the mormon church in peru when we lived there, and we were never baptized for who knows why. can you teach us?" we about flipped our lids when they asked us. it is going to be a little bit challenge just because the husband literally works so much, and he has to quit his part time job that he does on sunday, but we are literally so excited to see him progress. the other miracle that happened this week was we were teaching a less active named john, who decided that he wants to come back to the church. we are going through all the lessons with him, and teaching him about the priesthood and the temple, so he can go and get his endowments taken out, and receive the melch. priesthood. we were in the middle of the law of chastity with him, when his mom comes in with her 25 year old daughter and is like,"yo so um. my daughter wants to learn more about your guys church because she wants to have god more in her life, so i want you guys to teach her and her kids so they can have a church. here you go." she sits down literally right in the middle of the law of chastity lesson and torres and i kind of just look at each other and are like "ummmmm so we dont normally teach people this lesson until a little bit later on, but" and then we literally just taught chastity to a girl who has never even heard the term mormon before. it was super awkward, but she liked the idea. we were able to talk to her a little bit after, and she said that she wants to get closer to god and have a legit change in her life because she has gone through so much and want a way to feel happy in this life. SO COOL. well i have to go now kids..i will see you all soon! EKW hey all you peeps on the other side of the world!! literally so sorry that i couldn't write last week...but here i am in the flesh!
to give you guys of a little bit of an update: 1)amaro died and now i am with torres, who is also dying this change 2)they combined the two sectors of las americas, and now my sector is literally humungous. 3)there are more missionaries living in our house and it is still a party 4)i got put as a district leader over 8 missionaries (which is a lot lol) 5)we are going to see a lot of progress here with the amount of fechas and investigators that we have! one of the things that was a spiritual experience this week was when we were able to teach the restoration to rocita and cesia! they are two Peruvians that are super interested in the church, but have had a whole bunch of doubts about the church. we were passed by them the other day and had the impression to talk about the first vision with them, and explain to them that we are always going to have doubts that are bigger than what we can answer. we watched the video with her and cesia, and they were able to feel the spirit so strong. we invited them to be baptized, and they accepted it! it is going to be so good to see them progress. the only annoying thing is that their mom is literally so anti mormon, and she literally hates us. elder torres and i are going to make brownies for their mom so that she likes us a little bit more lol. i have to scram though. here are just a couple pics from this week... lvoe you all so much! EKW sorry to all of you who have been wondering if i fell off the earth. free time as a missionary is so sort. so much to do. this week i am just sending you all some pictures. i am happy and healthy and doing great. talk to you all next week!
EKW ps- thank you to everyone who emailed me this past few weeks! i promise i read every single one of them. i will try and get back to all of you soon! hey all you cool cats! this change is slowly coming to an end, and i have to say goodbye to amaro because he is going home this next monday....literally so depressed. (i mean not really, but im going to miss the heck out of him!) The blessing is, is that i can stay for 11 more months and serve the lord! not a lot of things happened this week...but i will share a spiritual experience with the lot of you! so we were walking down a street in our sector, just knocking doors and trying to see who was interested in listening to us. we received a reference a little while back to pass by a less active that lived on the outer most part of our sector. we thought that we would stop by this alleged Jean. there is a bad stereotype for the less actives here in the mission because the elders pass by to visit them, and they let them in, and and tell them that they are going to come back to church and that they are going to go back to being active, but never do. we had a really strong prompting to go and visit this guy and see how he was doing. we knocked on his door, and out comes this 23 year old guy , with a huge smile on his face. it was jean! we walked inside his house and sat down and talked to him for a little bit about what he has been doing for the past couple years of his life. he told us that he went inactive when he was 13, and he went through a lot of trials and a lot of rough patches with his girlfriend and his parents. he said that two days before we showed up, he decided to pray to God and ask him what the heck he should be doing to feel happy. then we showed up knocking on his door. he said that he wants to come back to church, and that he is over the sadness that he feels. we picked him up for church, and when we went to the chapel, there were so many members that came up to him and started to hug jean crying! it was such a tender experience to see what happens when we turn our hearts to the lord and LISTEN to the spirit and the promptings we are given! we are meeting with jean to teach him the lessons again so he can remember a little better on the doctrine side of things, but we are literally so excited for the decisions that he is making in his life to come back to the presence of god! i challenge you guys to find one way to turn your heart to christ this week and try it out! maybe that means going to mutual, maybe that means lengthening your scripture study, maybe just try saying a quick prayer before bed...who knows??? i love all of you so much! hope that you guys have a fun week this week!! EKW hermana knight and me at the one year lunch last week literally peed myself cause i had legit Peruvian food see you later amaro! (he's been a great companion!)
oh my goodness gracious literally so many things happened this week here in las americas! also, happy late 4th of july to all my USA peeps (sorry this is a day late, I was celebrating my ONE YEAR mark with the pres yesterday) 1) i had a baptism in one o my other wards, los raulies! ayline got baptized after being taught for like 7 moths, and she literally couldnt have been happier!! i also got to see my other converts, pato and fernanda! it was really awesome to see the progression that ayline made from when i left that ward to now! it really made me see the importance of helping your investigators through everything so they can get baptized in the end. people are not going to progress and then get baptized in two weeks. it doesnt work like that! 2) our investigator, Judith, got baptized this past Sunday and is going to get confirmed this next sunday! she finally received an answer that the church is true, and we had the opportunity to baptize her with a lot of support from the ward! now we have to work with ehr even more so that there is a good handoff from us to the ward, and so that she gets more involved in things like seminary and the young womens program. 3) i hit a year on the mission! holla! for pday yesterday, we had the opportunity to go to our mission presidents house (in the santiago east mission boundries) to hang out with him and have a little lunch with the people from my group that all came at the same time as me! i went with elder williams, hermana knight/matos/alvarez on the way there, and then met up with all my peeps in presidents house. we played minute to win it and volleyball! i stole some avocados form their 30 foot tree in their backyard, so i am going to be eating really good for the next couple of days. 4) i got a lot of letters from you guys this week, and i am going to respond to all of you here soon! literally thank you so much for all the support that you guys give me! i can feel your love all the way down here in the arctic circle, i mean santiago. as i hit a year, i am getting literally so excited for this next year of adventures and things to do! i know i am only half way through this huge mission, but i am excited to see where the lord is going to put me....where i am needed! literally love all of you so much! i hope that you guys have an amazing week, and that you guys have some spiritual experiences ! EKW one year and sushi celebration dinner! ayline (from my old area) and her baptism! us and judith! just your typical one year old missionary me picking from that huge avocado tree
hey all yall! this week, i was able to have some really awesome experiences with some of the investigators that i have in las americas. so jesus has ben really progressing lately! we were able to have a family home evening with some of the ward members with him and his girlfriend, and the girlfriend is now super interested in eternal families!! we were able to talk to him about the law of chastity a little bit more, and he was pretty receptive to getting married to his girlfriend, which isn't normal down here. he is still kind of struggling with the word of wisdom with his beer, so if you guys can start praying for him so that he can get baptized, that would be awesome! so we were looking for some antiguos again in our sector and we were able to find two people that were actually looking for us to teach them! one girl was named maria, and she is a single mom who lives with her 3 little girls. we were able to have a little chat with her and she looked at us and was like,"so the missionaries passed by my house millions of times, but i still have one question...does god really exist? i want to know how to start believing because honestly, i am over being in the darkness." you could imagine how hard amaro and i were flipping through are scriptures to find the answer to her question. we ended up showing her the story of ammon when he was teaching the king about whether or not god existed or not. the thing that struck her was the par tin the chapter when it talked about how you have to repent of your sins, and believe that you are going to receive your answer to really know if god exists. she started crying during the lesson and looked at us and was like,"ok. lets start." we are literally so thankful and excited to help her out! ALSO SIDE NOTE, JUDITH ONE OF OUR INVESTIGATORS IS GOING TO GET BAPTIZED THIS WEEKEND, AND WE COULDN'T BE HAPPIER! the other girl that we found recently said that this past week, she was literally thinking about coming back to visit the missionaries and to receive the lessons. we found her, and she was shocked! the spirit is just wonderful !! i have to go now..can i get some prayers to try and get rid of this GNARLY fever i have goin on?? its literally killing me hahaha. Other than that I am doing so so good! love all of you to the moon and back! EKW we went to a catholic cathedral today!! time out marias daughter drew amaro and i while we were talking in their doorway..she even drew my hydroflask! we found a horse next to our chapel we out and about
hey all you peeps! so this week was literally so much fun! i am in love with the new sector and i am loving all the people here even more! this week, we were able to put a fecha with one of our investigators named julia. she moved from chile to mexico, and then moved to the states for literally the rest of her life. she is a 60 year old mom and she speaks perfect english. we actually teach her in english and its literally so hard to try and teach the lessons to her in english. BUT. she has been investigating the church for a while, and she really wants to get baptized, but she has refused the baptismal invitations because she really wants her sister from argentina to come down and be with her while she gets baptized. we talked it out with her a little more, and she told us that her sisters visa is going to coming in the mail here soon!! so put a fecha with her literally so fast, and we couldnt not be even more excited for her to get baptized!! the other miracle that happened this week was that we were able to see 74 people at church and 7 of our investigators showed up as well!!! i literally only have less than a year left, and all the cool stuff is just barely starting to happen...gosh dang it how the time flys by!! we also found this guy named jesus!! and guess what...hes a carpenter!! AND GUESS WHAT. HES FROM JERUS.......nah jk hes from peru actually lol. we have been teaching him just recently and he has been showing a lot of interest in the church!! he moved here from peru with his girlfriend so that they could have a better life and just get away from all the supposed drama that happened between them and their family. an update on them in the near future!! well i got to go...i love all of you so much! EKW kids in my district messing around just a flower living through this bitter cold weather my roommate playing guitar on pday
hey all you people on the other side of the world! this week in the new sector has been psycho, but also filled with miracles! let me explain. what amaro and i have been trying to do is we have been using the antiguos WAY more to try and find the people that want to listen to the message that we have, and it really did work! we have a total of 4 new investigators as of right now, and it has been amazing to be able to find the people that have the interest still to change their lives! its way easier and efficient to talk to somebody that has already heard the gospel than trying to fight with somebody in their doorway for like 2 minutes, and then have no results after. one cool thing has happened this week. so we were looking through all the old phone numbers and stuff on our iphone x (kidding though, it's a flip phone smh), and we found this girl named rocita! so we called her, and she said that we could come by at like 9:30 in the morning. i was literally about ready to say no because i really wanted to do my morning studies vs leaving the house in literally freezing cold weather and trying to find this girl in her house. amaro talked me into it, and so we went to rocitas house, and she was there! her story was that she listened to the missionaries like waaaayyy long ago, and they stopped passing by because she is studying to be an engineer, and was sooo busy. so we talked a little bit more with her, and turns out that she has a very strong connection with her family. we talked a little bit about eternal families to tried to ring her memory a little bit, and the spirit was so strong. she started to cry, and said that she wants to try and learn a little more. literally am so excited to work with her! side note...is has been really cold here and im pretty sure i havent felt my toes in like two weeks, but its ok hahaha. we went to the temple today for p day and there was literally snow on the temple grounds. PSYCHO. also, we were at a members house, and I was standing next to their electric stove trying to warm up a little...but oops, i got a little too close, and burnt a hole in my pants! I was freaking out, and the members were like...it's ok mijo, you have other pants, no? Uhhh, i actually have lots of pants, but they are all too big, this was the only pair that fit me. all the hermanas of the house started chatting, and were like...bring us all your pants, and we will take them all in and make them fit for you! small blessings people....that i happened to be at a seamstress house when i burnt a hole in my pants. we were at this eternal investigators house, right? we were watching the news and how it was going to snow here (fun fact, it didnt, but when we went to the temple, we found some snow in the shave (grass?), so it was fun). we were eating some dinner with them, talking to them about who knows what, and the news caster was in the part of santiago where it actually was snowing a ton. he went up to this little girl and was like,"HEY KID IS IT COLD OR WHAT?!" THIS LITTLE GIRL WAS SO SHOOK AND SCARED OF THIS MAN. SHE LOOKED UP AT THE DUDE AND WAS LIKE,"uh. only a little." AND THEN RUNS AWAY, LITERALLY TRIPS ON SOME ICE, FALLS TO THE GROUND, AND THEN IT CUTS TO ANOTHER PART OF SANTIAGO WITH NO SNOW. (poor little girl, but oh man!) I LITERALLY WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF DRINKING SOME WATER WHEN THIS HAPPENED, AND I SPIT IT ALL ON THE TABLE WHERE MY FOOD WAS. THE INVESTIGATOR WAS ALMOST PEEING HERSELF FROM THE DISASTER THAT HAPPENED, AND MY COMPANION JUST LOOKED AT ME FUNNY WITH A HUGE GRIN ON HIS FACE. literally good times, good times. well i got to go though....hopefully all you have a good week this week! chao for now! EKW snow in santiago some of my disctrict finally married...jk mom, dont worry...just companions just me.. in the snow..happy as can be
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Elder Karson Wattles
Chile Santiago South Mission apartado postal No. 544 San Bernardo, Chile Archives
May 2019
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