Hey there folks!

This week we have been focusing a lot on working with members of the ward and it has paid off a ton. Between us and the Elders in the ward we had together 23 lessons with members which is like a record for me! It is so amazing to see the members working hard to befriend the investigators. We as missionaries can do a lot to help these people but it's the members that really make them progress and stay in the church!

So Friday there was a ward activity and at the end they had a dessert competition. I decided that as part of the ward we needed to make something to put in the competition, so over the course of three days I spent my morning "exercise time" making cupcakes (please don't tell my mission president!). But in the end it turned out good because we won first place in the competition! Hahahaha! They gave us a super official looking certificate and a chocolate bar. Totally worth the effort. 

This Sunday we were sitting in the church waiting for our investigators to come and in walked Andrea and Jonathan and her brother Fernando and THEY WERE ALL IN CHURCH CLOTHES! It was so cute because last week Fernando (who is 12) came and he loved it and he saw all the young me in suits and white shirts, and so during the week he made Andrea take him shopping to find a suit so he could have one too in church. I seriously cannot describe the feeling of seeing the complete family come or of seeing them so happy to be there. I think it was one of the happiest moments of my life to be honest. 

After church we visited them and we talked a lot. They described the happy feelings they had received in church and how they were already seeing differences as a family. Andrea told us that she was so grateful for this chance to have the gospel in her life and how she wished she had grown up in it as a kid. We talked to her and invited her to be baptized the 29 of October and she said "I don't know, what time will it be at? Because I wont have a lot of time at 4:00, but if you guys can do it after then yes!" She is so great and I love her so much. Sometimes you meet people and in 5 minutes you feel like you've known them for your entire life. Thats how I feel about Andrea and her family. There is seriously nothing like being a missionary! 

Love you all!

Hermaña Wittwer

This week has been full of MIRACLES!!

So first off my comp: She is awesome. Tuesday all the trainers and trainees got together and Pres. Harris taught us a little and assigned us our new companions. My new companion is Hermana Pancho. She is from the Philippines (wait what??). She is one of the first people from there to come to Chile so its really cool that I get to train her! Luckily she speaks fluent English so we can communicate good. We have been having a real good time together! I was always afraid to train but turns out it's actually a blast. The only down side is that we have to study 4 hours every morning...

side note: the meeting was in the mission office and I went with hermana Goodman. We were going to take a colectivo (taxi) but then i said "Hey we have time lets just walk!" The only problem was that I had never been there. And she had never been there. But I thought I could find it alright (I temporarily forgot that I have zero sense of direction). The place we wanted to go was about a 20 min walk from where we were. We got there 1 hour and 30 minutes later haha. 

This week we found the most golden investigator ever. We got a call from a member who told us that her daughter in law is waiting for the missionaries and that we need to visit her. So we did. her name is Andrea and she is married to a guy who is inactive. She loves the church though and wants to be part of it. In our first lesson with her we taught about the restoration and set a date for her baptism. And then she came to church the next day!! The only real hard thing is that her Husband also wants to come to church and everything but he only works one day of the week and (thats right, you guessed it) its sunday. But we are going to try to change that and see how we can help him there.

Last week I talked about Helena and her husband Marcelo and son Julio. They are doing great!! Julio is in a rehab center but we are trying to see if we can send missionaries there. Marcelo and Helena both came to church this sunday!!!! it was amazing to see them there. They are both so genuine and so great. They are a little hesitant to accept a baptismal date but I think this week we are going to be able to help them change that. 

Basically I love my sector right now. Baquedano is Zion. We are a branch right now but we are working so hard and I think that by the end of this year we are going to be able to be a ward :)


Love you all!
Hermana Wittwer

Well this week has been great! We have taught lots of lessons and found lots of new people, but I want to tell you about one special family.

Monday we got a call from a Member who gave us a reference. The reference's name is Helena. She is in her 50s and is going through cancer and has a son who is addicted to drugs. We visited her and she is amazing. She is super positive and ridiculously receptive to us and has told us that she needs us and wants to have the gospel in her life. After so many half hearted investigators is felt so nice to find someone broken hearted and humble! We talked to her the first day and set a day to some back.
The next visit we arrived to find her son and husband there ready to hear us too. They similarly expressed feelings of need for the gospel in their life. We talked a lot about who God is and that he loves us and we offered Julio (her son) a Priesthood Blessing. He readily accepted and we came back the next morning with the Elders.

Friday morning when we came by to give Julio the blessing he told us that he had been reading in the Book of Mormon. He told us that after talking to us he felt better and that he intended to read the books we had given him. We aren't going to be able to teach him because he is going to a rehab place for a while but he is going to be reading and we are going to send other missionaries to teach him. Meanwhile we will be teaching Helena and her husband.
And this miracle all happened because a member was willing to talk to her friend and then to send us to them. This General Conference many people spoke on missionary work and I want to add my testimony to theirs that Missionary work isn't just for the "missionaries", its for every single member of the church! We cannot work without you guys!

I'm sure every single missionary in the entire world has already said it but GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS AMAZING. We invited our investigators and members to write questions before the conference and then listen and they would receive answers, then I realized "hey wait, I should do that too". So Sunday morning before the conference I wrote a ton of questions (including some that I didn't think would be answered) and every single one was answered perfectly. I felt the spirit so strongly during this time and I know with absolute certainty that these are men called of God. If any of you weren't able to see any of the sessions Go watch them right now!!!
Also luckily I got to watch the conference in English which was a blessing :)

So we have changes tomorrow. And terrible news. I'M GOING TO TRAIN. Aaaaahhhhhhh! Im super nervous and I feel like I'm still new in the mission, but President thinks that I need to train so thats what I'll do I guess! I don't know who I'm going to be training yet but I'm going to find out tomorrow. Hopefully someone who knows Spanish... Wish me luck!

Hermaña Wittwer

Well folks, September is the weirdest here. Some days it's so super hot that I think Im going to die. And some days it decides to be rainy and windy and freezing. And some days it decides to be all of them. Luckily I live in my sector for a change, so if we are dying because the weather has changed drastically, we can always go home and change super quick! 

This week we have been working a lot with our investigators to decide who we should keep teaching and who we need to drop. I hate dropping investigators but there are a lot of people here who will let us in their house to teach them but who aren't willing to change or cumplir with their compromisos. (mom put those words in google translate because i don't know what they are in English). My method is that I will never drop an investigator unless I feel like I have done absolutely everything I can to help them, but after all is said and done it is really all up to them...

Miracle of the week: a member of the Rama here said to us "Hey i have a reference for you guys. I don't know who it is but I passed a house the other day and I felt super strongly that the missionaries need to visit there. Go contact the house some time after 7 this week." Ummm... yeah ok sure. So we went. And we found Carolina. She is so  super great! She invited us into her house al tiro and really liked what we taught. We left her with a Book of Mormon and she was pretty excited to read it. My companion and I both felt super strongly that she is special. I'm so grateful that the members here are in tune with the spirit and ready to act on the impressions they receive, however random they might be sometimes!

Also there was a activity with the stake here for Independence Day and it was AWESOME. All the wards had a part of Chile to represent and had to do a dance about their region and luckily we got Easter Island. As missionaries we couldn't dance, but we still dressed up. We got to help do everyones hair and make flower necklaces and all kinds of fun stuff. Basically Chile is just the second best country in the world... (don't worry, I still know where my loyalties lie, USA!).

Anyways love you all and hope you're all as excited for General Conference as we are! Until next week!

Hermana Wittwer

(Ky has been out for 8 months as of today!)

 So there is a story in the Bible where are the Israelites had to put blood on their door so their first born child wouldn't die. Similarly here in Chile there is a law for the 18 de Septiembre (Independence day!) that everyone has to have a flag of Chile visible in their window or outside their house. I think the punishment for not doing it is immediate death but Im not sure.

Anyways yeah this Sunday was Independence Day here in Chile! What does that mean you might ask? It means that every one is partying and nobody want to talk to the missionaries. All week. But hey its alright we still managed to find plenty of people to visit!

One person we found this week was Mariela. We were walking down the road when a car pulled up next to us and a man shouted "Hey are you guys missionaries?? You need to visit my house! I live around the corner and my wife is there, go visit her right now if you can!" You bet we practically ran there. Turns out they are new here in the city. They are members of the church but haven't gone in years, and Mariela actually served a misión. We talked to her for a long time and she told us about how even though she doesn't go to church she still knows its true and still wants to be part of it. She told us that she has done lots of things she shouldn't and just doesn't feel ready to go back. We testified of the love that God has for her and of the reality of Jesús Christ and repentance. This is my favorite part about being a missionary, being able to testify of truths and seeing it change people. And the greatest part, Sunday she came to church!! And the didn't come alone, she came with her two kids. It was so special to see how happy she was in the church.

There are a surprising number of return missionaries here who have fallen away from the church. They make me more sad than anything else here I think. In the misión I have honestly grown so much in my testimony and I absolutely KNOW that the things I am teaching are true. I know that after an experience like this there is nothing that can ever pull me away.

So the 18 itself was a Sunday and because it was a little super dangerous outside we had to be in the house unless we had an appointment. And all our appointments fell through so we had to be inside the house. All day. With absolutely nothing to do. And the worst part? We ran out of gas in the morning so we couldn't even cook! Not that that stopped us, we just made a lot of experiments in the microwave. Some turned out good and some we fed to the stray dogs haha.

Anyways now that the festivals are over its time to get back to work! I am loving being a missionary and I am really truly happy to be where I am right now :)

Hermana Wittwer

This week we had the baptism of Yuyunis!! She is an angel. Her mom Catalina was inactive in the church but is now going regularly and stopped working Sundays! Her baptism went really great, there was about 20 people who came to support her from the ward which was awesome. There was a scary moment when we couldn't find the keys to open the doors to see into the baptismal font but after about 10 minutes of looking and trying every key that has ever existed we finally found the right one. She was super happy after the baptism and really loves being part of the church. 

HOWEVER something very unfortunate did happen this week. Hermana Barreiro and I did service and cut someones grass with our weed wacker thing and afterwards we took the machine with us to lend to the elders of Donihue. We flagged down a colectivo (a taxi like thing) and put the machine in the trunk and happily headed out to the church. When we got there we got out of the colectivo and walked about 20 ft when I suddenly realized that we were missing the grass cutter. And at that point our colective was long gone... We asked a few people what we could do to get it back and they told us we need to call the line and ask. However, if we had been paying enough attention to know what line it was we wouldn't have forgotten our machine... We know it was orange and there are about 9 orange lines with about 200 colectivos each so we will see what happens there. Oops!

A quick explanation of a few pictures: We like to do Family Home Evenings with less actives here which consists in a short lesson, food, and a game. My favorite game is la papa se quema which basically ends up with all of us looking like clowns with face paint. So if you see a lot of pictures where we all look ridiculous thats why!

This week we had a LOT of appointments planned and we had a LOT of appointments fall through. But its ok because it gave us an opportunity to look for more people and we found 6 new investigators this week! I love that even when things seem like they are going bad, they are actually going good, just in a different direction. 

Anyways love you all! Bye until next week!(unless I don't survive the 18 of September...) 
*editors note-Sept 18 is Chile's independence day*

Hermana Wittwer 

PS shoutout to my mom and awesome family for sending me the BIGGEST CARD IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!

Well this week has been full of lots of interesting events! Here are a few:

Awkward story: we were outside of a house of a less active yelling "Halo!" and waiting for them to open the door. They were obviously home but nobody was answering. I was talking to my companion about how in Centinela (my old sector) there was a recent convert who NEVER answered the door when we came by (to this day I still have never seen him) but it had become a tradicion to pass by his house once or twice a week to see if he was home. So for 6 months I passed by this house who knows how many times in hope that he would one day answer. A few seconds after I had finished telling my companion this the man walked around the corner of his house and said "oh hi sorry I was piling wood so I couldn't answer." Which means that he heard everything we said. Haha Im pretty sure he just answered us because he was afraid we would pass by every night for 6 months until they came out to talk to us! We set a date to come back and visit him and his family. Hopefully he answers the door faster next time haha. 

Weird story: Well our Indi investigador Cecilia (the crazy lady) is progressing slowly but is progressing! We decided that the best course of action for her would be to watch a movie about the life of Christ to help her understand more his role (also to help her stop talking and listen a little bit haha). In the opening there is the scene where Jesus calms the storm and an apostle says "What manner of man is this?" At this point in the movie Cecilia turns to us and says "Oh wow this is probably what you guys say about me!" Uuuuummmmmmmmm... not quite. At the end of the film Cecilia turned to her 6 year old daughter and asked her what she had learned from the movie. The daughter innocently replied "That Jesus died for us and then was resurrected?" Cecilia then said "No you understood it wrong. What the movie was about is this: (insert crazy explanation that has nothing to do with Jesus Christ)". HOWEVER at the end of the lesson we asked her to pray and she prayed! Progressing slowly but progressing :) 

Sad story: We found an old investigator named Daniela. She is about 25 and has a son and is super amazing! She was meeting with the missionaries about 3 years ago and she loved the gospel. She received almost all the lessons and had a date to be baptized and was looking forward to it when the missionaries suddenly stopped visiting her. When she talked to us she told us how she really had had the desire to join the church and she believe in it all (she even told us the history of Joseph Smith) but that when the missionaries never came back she felt really abandoned and deceived. She told us that she would still love to be part of the church and would like to receive us but that she had since been baptized in the Evangelist church and that she didn´t want to be baptized again. She also told us that the other missionaries had bought clothes from her mom but never came back to pay for them either... Ah it made me want to hunt down the old missionaries and slap them in the face! We set a date to come back and visit Daniela another day and I think that as she goes learning more she will start to have more trust in us and will be able to progress mucho.

Awesome story: YUYUNIS CAME TO CHURCH AGAIN AND WILL BE BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY! She is the daughter of Catalina, who was baptized as a kid with her family but stopped going to church right after. They are both so great and have so much desire to be part of the church. We had a family home evening with them and a family that lives super close to them and it was fantastic. They became fast friends and Yuyunis became best friends with the daughter of the family Gomez. However the next time we came around to teach Yuyunis she wasn't home because she was out playing with her new friend so that backfired a little haha. However (if everything goes good this week) next week I will be sending you all pictures of the newest member of the Rama Baquedano :)

Anyways love you all more stories to come next week!

Hermana Wittwer