Wow I can't believe it's Monday again already!  To be honest, it was another challenging week, Elder Nuttall and I are trying to figure out what to do to better our sector but, it's been hard.  I've been thinking about it and I've realized that I've been looking for the magic idea that would fix everything, but I don't think there is one.  We just need to keep working and the success will slowly but surely come.  There have been times when I look back on the week and don't think that I've made much of a difference, but I realized that there have been a few little things that happened.  We were only able to find our baptismal goal once again (my compainion convienently just told me last week that we're not supposed to mention people by name for some reason so just forget that I did that haha) but we were able to visit our other eternal investigators who are usually harder to find and I feel like they are starting to progress more.  We're also starting to focus on helping a less active member, who has a son on a mission, to stop smoking and get active and get sealed with her son in the temple when he gets back.  And another less active family who hasn't come to church since they moved down here from Viña del Mar, we have a Noche de Hogar (family home evening) with them tonight.

We also had stake conference this week and our stake presidency also got reorganized haha.  Two Seventies and our Mission President came down and we had our Zone Conference with President Rappleye.  He shared a lot of really great stuff.  He talked about whenever we are feeling down or have a bad day, read D&C 122, which really helped me.  It talks about how everything that goes wrong in life is for our benefit.  I thought about Joseph Smith and how he probably felt a lot like I do sometimes when no one would listen to him, he probably felt like he was wasting him time, but like it says, no one besides Jesus Christ did more for mankind than him. During stake conference every talk was about member missionary work.  They told every family to have a family home evening and talk about who they are going to invite to listen to the missionaries and then do it.  What they are wanting now is for the members to invite, and the missionaries to teach.  Personally, I love that idea because we are having a really hard time finding right now.  We're really excited to work with that.

They actually do have Halloween down here, we're having a stake activity on the 31st for it, it'll be interesting to see how it is here.  I'm really good on everything down here, I've stayed dry when it rains fine, luckily it's starting to warm up more, today is really nice.

Have a great week!

Love, Elder Dower

Well this has definitely been a challenging week.  We had some great plans set for the week and basically they all fell through.  It was really frustrating to not be able to teach very much this week, but it ended pretty well. We weren't able to find our investigator with a baptismal date until Friday and he wasn't able to go to church this week, which means he has to attend three out of the next four Sundays to be baptized on his date, hopefully things will improve this week.  On Friday, we had an intercambio with our Zone Leaders and Elder Covington came to our sector with me.  I learned a lot from him, he is a really good teacher and reaching the end of his mission.  It's weird, it seems like every time we have an intercambio, we can actually do things because we were in a house teaching almost all of Friday.  We also had a really great experience this week.  On Tuesday, we contacted a girl while knocking doors and she said we could come back on Thursday when her dad would be home.  We went by on Thursday and he was just leaving and told us to come back Saturday.  When we went on Saturday night, her mom answered and invited us in.  We talked for a while and she told us that her daughter was in the hospital. At first she didn't really want to listen to our message, but by the end, she said that she felt a lot calmer after we taught the restoration.  I'm really looking forward to teaching them this week.

Even though it's been a tougher week, I've learned a lot and come a long ways.  I've learned a lot. I have a lot of work to do and every day I find a new weakness, but that is the beauty of the gospel, that we can continually improve on our weaknesses. It's amazing to think that I boarded a plane for Mexico three short months ago and I already have made so much progress. I really know that I am in the service of the Lord and He is helping me.  I will try to take some pictures this week to send, I keep forgetting.

So it's supposedly summer today, but all of a sudden it doesn't seem like it because it snowed yesterday!  The weather has been really weird the past couple days, we've had rain, sun, and snow all in one day within hours of each other.

Have a great week!

Elder Dower

This week has been really great!  We taught more lessons this week I think than we have in any other week I've been here and Victor has a baptismal date for the 23rd of November, which is really exciting!  We decided to put it out there a little further so we wouldn't scare him and so that he'll have more time to attend three sacrament meetings in a row.  It's really great to see a change in him, each time we teach him, he's more interested and participates more in the lesson.  Other than that, nothing else huge has happened.  I've noticed a huge improvement in my teaching and speaking spanish this week, it's really nice that I can actually joke around with people in spanish haha. Last night we visited with Hermano Luco and his wife.  He is working here, building a school for people who never finish high school and his wife, who lives in Santiago came down to visit him and leaves today to go back home.

So some really good news is that the temperature is warming up a lot, but the bad news is that the wind is starting.  Yesterday when we were walking around the wind was so strong at times we couldn't really move.  Also with the change in temperature a lot of people are getting sick, I've had a little cold the past couple days but today it's a lot better.  On Saturday I got to give a priesthood blessing to an 8 year old member, which was really great.

No, I haven't gotten the package yet, apparantly it takes a lot more time to get down here in Punta Arenas, but I would bet it's gotten to Osorno by now

Have a great week, Love ya!

Elder Dower

Holy cow this has been a great week! The biggest blessing was getting to watch all of Conference in English!  It was a very different experience than before the mission, every single talk gave me something that I can use to work on in my life here and helping the work progress as well. I'm trying to think of which talk was my favorite and honestly can't think of them.  Both of Presiden Uchtdorf's talks were great. The one on the first session of Saturday was awesome, he talked about why people join and leave the church, which really helped me out. I loved the one in Priesthood session that said "You can get up now" I felt like was just for me. He talked about how we aren't expected to be perfect right away, we're here to learn from our mistakes and continually improve.  I also loved Elder Bednar's talk about tithing, how we get small but significant blessings from paying tithing, I applied that to missionary work as well.  I've been blessed and am going to be blessed with other things that will help me become who I need to be throughout my life.  Conference was a huge blessing because we felt a little more connected to the rest of the world for a couple days. It was cool to think that I was watching the exact same thing at the exact same time as you all.  We were really sad when it ended.

We also had interviews with President Rappleye this week on Tuesday.  Every other transfter (6 weeks) we have interviews.  It was great to be able to talk to him and get advice from him.  I also learned how to sew from Hermana Rappleye while I was waiting.

As far as the work goes it has been a slow week.  We tried to challenge Victor to a baptismal date but his mother answered for him and said that he wasn't "ready" yet.  We decided that we didn't really explain it very well and are going to try again this week.

Well I am officially done with my first cambio of the mission and am halfway done with my training.  It's crazy, it's gone by so fast! I will be in this same sector for at least the next cambio and I think the one after too.  Our district leader, Elder Carranza goes home tomorrow, so my companion, Elder Nuttall is going to be our new district leader.  I'm exited to take what I've learned from my first cambio and Conference and go into the next one.

Thanks for the stories from your mission. My companion and I have talked about how each mission is made specifically for what the missionary needs. Your mission prepared you for the rest of your life, and mine will do the same for me, I can already tell. I look forward to working that much harder this next cambio to better the work here.

I knew you were going to be worried when I said I was a little sick.  I'm fine! It was just a little stomachache, I've had them a lot before.  The food and water are fine.  I had a lot more problems with them in Mexico, I think by the time I got here I was adjusted.  It sounds like the house you found would be ours.  It's a pretty good house for down here, the bathroom just needs a little work haha.

The weeks are starting to blur together, it really doesn't feel like I've been out for this long, I'm really loving being a missionary right now, especially after conference. Like you said, missionary work was a big theme of conference, especially from the members.  I've really seen how much it helps when we have members helping us out.  They can do things we can't.  I challenge you all to take Elder Ballard's counsel and pray to know who you can share the gospel with.



Thank you for all of your prayers.

Elder Dower

Wow, it's funny that it's going into fall back home, because it's spring here.  It's really nice that it's warming up and I only really need to wear a sweater most of the time.  It's been a great week for us here, the work is starting to progress a lot more.   I started out with my first intercambio with Elder Carranza, I was really nervous because I couldn't speak English for 24 hours, but it ended up really good for me. He's going home next week and had a lot of good advice to give me. The best news is that we finally have a progressing investigator!  I mentioned the less active member we have been working on whose kids burned down their car, we've been teaching one of her sons and he said that he's prayed and recieved an answer that the church is true! We're really excited and hoping to put him with a baptismal date soon.

I'm really excited for General Conference this week! We are going to watch it live, but because of the time change it's going to be 3 hours later than usual. I'm pretty sure we're going to have it in English too, which is a relief.

I've been pretty good, yesterday and today I've had a little stomachache, which is annoying, but I'm fine.

I'm really excited for this week, it's going to be really good, talk to you later!

Elder Dower

Hola!

This has been a really slow week with the 18th and everything going on but it was fun nonetheless. I realized that I forgot to mention something last email, last Sunday I gave my first priesthood blessing! We visited an older lady in our ward, Hermana Donatti, and just talked to her for a little while, just as we were starting to leave to our next appointment she just started crying about how her body is in pain and she can't really do anything anymore. She asked us for a blessing, we always ask who they want to do which part and usually people have Elder Nuttall do the blessing and I anoint but this time she asked me to do it, which was pretty scary because I had to do it in Spanish and when you do blessings and prayers, there's a different form of "you" that you use that we don't really use very much.  It ended up working out though. The same thing happened Thursday night.  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we were supposed to visit as many people as we could and then go back home before it got dark, especially for us because we have centro in our sector which is where all the bars and strip clubs are and borachos (drunk people).So Thursday we were in our house and the sister missionaries in our sector called and asked if we could come give Hermana Marlene a blessing. Her husband came back and she's been having a hard time with theire relationship and everything.  She asked me to give the blessing and commented on how much better my spanish was. It was a testimony builder to me that when the Lord needs us to do something, He can use us to do it no matter how weak we are, He can work through us.  We've had the opportunity to give a lot of blessings here because the two of us make up half of the Elders quorum along with the bishop and ex bishop (who has been out of town in Peru), so we've had to do a lot of the things that normally the members would need to do.

So since today is my companion's birthday I realized I haven't mentioned much about him.  Elder Nuttall turned 22 today, it's pretty funny, he's three and a half years older than me.  He went to West Point (the Army acadamy) before the mission and has been working on some paperwork to get back in after.  I think he also went to the same high school as Chelsey and Jessica. He's been a great trainer!

Like I said last week, we finally got the house cleaned up. Some of the elders before us didn't take very good care of it so we get to clean up after them. Next week I'll try to send some pictures of it.

Tomorrow I get to do my first companion exchange with our district leader, Elder Carranza.  He's really cool, he's from Peru so doesn't speak English and this is his last cambio in his mission so he goes home in two weeks.  To be honest I'm a little apprehensive to not be able to speak English for 24 hours, but it will be good for me.

Ariel and Leslie finally came to church for the first time in almost a month yesterday, which was really exciting.  One of our less active members who we've been working with has been struggling.  Her kids aren't into the best things and on Tuesday they were smoking in her car and set it on fire, it's sitting out in front of her house still.

It's been a great week, the time keeps flying by and I'm getting better at everything, little by little.  We're still trying to get more investigators but we're keeping ourselves busy enough without having to knock doors too much, which makes me happy.

We live in a house behind a house behind another house.  It's kind of funny but pretty common here. We do our own laundery and so far I haven't made any of my shirts pink.  Like I mentioned before, we eat lunch with a different member each day of the week, so I have cereal in the morning and make sandwiches in the night for dinner so I don't really have to cook much.

I'm very happy!  The members here really are awesome. The Spanish is coming along slowly but surely. I can pretty much understand anyone who isn't Chilean.  The Chilean accent is the hardest to understand because they speak so fast and don't always complete their words.  I can say more or less what I need to, but when they respond I'm kind of at a loss haha.  Transfers are every six weeks, and I'm not sure how they work. I'll be in this sector for at least two transfers for training, after that I could go anywhere. Usually we stay down here in Punta Arenas for longer since it's so much farther from everything else.  My companion was in his first area for 6 months, and I would love to be here longer. I want to be here when I'm more comfortable with the spanish.

It's getting warmer here, but the wind has started.  The wind gets very strong here during the summer and we can hear it during the night and it sounds like the house is going to fall down haha.

I love you all and miss you tons.  Thank you for your prayers.

Elder Dower

September 17, 2013

I'm just writing a quick email to let you know that I'm ok haha.  Today we got to take a trip as a zone to Torres del Paine, which was really cool, but we got back late and don't have much time to write so we're going to be back tomorrow and I'll write more.

I'll just answer a few of your questions really quick.  Number one, we have a different member scheduled each day of the week to have lunch with, which is fun because they're all great.  We have a tiny ward here, we usually have about 25 people each Sunday, including the four of us misionaries but we have a really nice chapel not too far from our house, about a 5 min.  Number two, no I have not seen any penguins, apparantly very few missionaries get to see them but I am hoping to be able to, keep the prayers up for that!

I'll be back on tomorrow to say more, Love you!

THE NEXT DAY

The activity yesterday was great I'm gonna send a couple emails with pictures from it after this. Unfortunately it took up all of yesterday and we're still trying to recover and get everything done like laundery and writing but hopefully we'll get back to normal after a while. Tomorrow begins the Chilean patriotic celebrations, which is pretty much like the fourth of July but a lot crazier.  We're only supposed to visit members or investigators and if not, we're supposed to be in the house, so I'm really excited that I might get to relax a tiny bit, which we don't really get much of.

It's been an interesting week, not much has happened. Both me and Elder Nuttall feel like we really need to get back into everything now that everything's cooled off from the zone activity.  We only had 21 people at church this week because a lot were gone for the holiday. But 2 of our less active members were there again and are doing really well, the other one had to be in a parade, which they have with all the schools for the holiday so she couldn't go, but her husband came back a couple days ago and I think they're doing well.  We had a couple lessons with Ariel and Leslie, which were great.  I think we're finally getting more into they're doubts about the church, which is great because we can take care of them. Leslie told us that she has prayed about the Book of Mormon but didn't feel anything, which is a very tough doubt to answer because it's basically what we promise everyone, that if they pray they'll feel an answer.  I'm thinking it's because she doesn't really have much faith that she'll get an answer but we'll see how everything goes, I'm optimistic.  We got a new investigator this week named Alejandro.  He's another eternal investigator that the Hermanas have been teaching and gave to us to try.  He believes and has a testimony about everything, but hasn't been baptized because he's not married (I've noticed that's the case with a ton of people here) so we're going to work on that.  I'm really looking forward to the next week.

I'm starting to get a lot more used to life here. We're hoping to be able to really clean the house this week which will be really good because we've been too busy and haven't had a whole lot of time to do it this week.  I also need to get more organized and settled in.

Hope you all have a great week, thank you for your prayers.

Love,
Elder Dower