1/30/2017

¡Hola Familia!  Things are going good here!  Every Sunday we would have lots of people commit to coming and nobody would show up, but luckily this last Sunday 6 of our investigators came to Church and we weren´t even expecting 2 of them.  It was so cool to see that many come to church.  They all went to the 2nd class too, but after they all went home.  The 3rd class, (because it was the fifth Sunday) was us teaching which was pretty scary.  I messed up a lot but no one really cared that much so I didn´t really worry about it.  Yesterday was a good Sunday, and it was the Birthday of Elder Saaralinen so we celebrated with the Ward Mission Leader which was fun.  

We had one investigator that is from the Evangelic church, which there are many of them, but basically it´s the church that baptize the same way as us.  Anyway she went to our church this Sunday and brought her Bible to see if we believed the Bible.  What was awesome is that week we had lots of people talk using scriptures in the Bible!  Then later that day we went to her house to teach her more and the craziest debate happened.  She asked us how many God´s we believe in, and we said, The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost.  She believed that there was only 1 God and that they weren´t all separate beings.  So we kept trying to say that the scriptures say that they are all one in purpose but there are 3 different Gods.  We showed how when Christ was baptized there were 3 personages, and it was a really long debate but at the end I just said the only real way we can know that this is true is through God.  Because you could bring someone to counter our scripture and someone to counter that, but the only secure way to know is through God, so she said she was going to keep praying and reading.

I have been learning a lot and it just feels really good to serve the people. My love has really gotten stronger.  I hope to become more and more Christ like in my thoughts and actions towards others.  I would invite you all to do the same, think of others as Christ would.  I really like to think about when he was on the cross and how he still said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."  That is just amazing that he still loved them even while they were spitting on him and mocking him.  Through it all he still thought of them and that they could be forgiven.  I wish I could be more like that, and I´m trying everyday to be better and better.

Also this week we saw the broadcast for all the missionaries which changes their schedule which was a very big change I think for lots of missionaries, however luckily we almost had the same schedule already.  They did say that we don´t need to focus as much on lessons with members which is something we were really good at so that was kind of a bummer, but I learned a lot from the words of the apostles.

Anyways I love you all and thank you for everything you do and have done for me.  It really means a lot, I hope you are all doing well, and I wish you all the best!  Until next week CHOW!

Love,

       Elder Hirschi

Answers:

Have you been able to fix your hot water for your shower yet?

1. Yeah we fixed the water, we just had to buy some gas but it´s working well now haha.

Have you got any postcards or letters yet?

2. I got all the letters and postcards from Christmas which was really awesome thanks so much!!

Have you heard about the changes in missionaries’ daily schedules and p-days being a little more flexible?  Do you think that will affect you guys much?

3. Yeah we watched the video, but it didn´t change a whole lot for us, I don´t think much is going to change.

What has been your favorite dessert you have eaten there or some you have really liked?

4. We have lots of fruit for dessert which is usually pretty good, but I think my favorite dessert has been some of the ice creams.  They have such good flavors and ice cream is just really popular here.  They also have flan and bread stuff with dulce de leche (which is a lot like carmel), and that´s pretty good.

Have you heard much about the fires going on in Chile?  Some people here are praying and fasting for rain or help to put out the forest fires that have been going on in Chile

5. Yeah lots of people have been saying to pray for the south, it was noted as the biggest fire of all time which is crazy.  I also heard that the wife of the son of the guy who owns Walmart paid for a plane to come from the United States to bring water to help them.  Yeah it´s really bad, and our Elder quorums leader´s son is on his mission in the south, and he said he doesn´t even know where he is right now.  So please pray for them if you can!

Besides the people, what has been something you have really liked about the area you are in?

6. I really like some of the shop things there are lots of little shops full of random stuff on the street which is cool!  I like looking through the mall on p-days for cool things, but I really haven´t bought anything because I lost my debit card in the CCM.

Do you do any service projects there for people?

7. We helped some people move and we offer to help people with other things or to teach English, but generally we just ask we don´t really have projects planned for service.