Arica: New Comp & Teaching in English

Hey Everyone!

This week was a week full of changes! The biggest change was that my first companion, Elder Aleluya, left for Calama and was replaced by Elder Sepulveda! Elder Sepulveda is awesome and I am continuing to learn tons in the mission! Elder Sepulveda is from Chile from a city called Temuco. He's super energetic and we're working alot right now on motivating the members to do missionary work!

Another change that we had is that they started to do a renovation of our chapel. It's fomé (Bogus) because we now have to walk almost a half hour to church and it starts at 3 in the afternoon. The walk isn't that bad but we lose some proselyting time during some of the key hours of the afternoon.

One of the most interesting things that happened this week is that we started to teach a man from Maryland! He only speaks a little bit of Spanish so we're teaching him in English! It's a little bit wierd but He's accepting everything, reading the Book of Mormon, and wants to be baptized!

Some Chilean Stuff: We've been eating alot of fresh bread here. It's super cheap and we can buy it fresh from literally so many places.We can buy a round for about 25 american cents. Super Cheap.

Spiritual Thought: 1 John 4:18

I'm pretty sure I've shared this scripture before but it's one of my favorites. With this scripture I leave a challenge. I challenge anyone who reads this to have perfect love for  your friends and family and share the gospel! You can change a life and have an eternal impact!

Love you all tons!

Elder Walker

Arica: PICTURES & New Companion

Hey Everybody!

This week was crazy! I'm officially done with training (not done learning though!) and I said goodbye to my papito! He got on a bus this morning to Calama and we said our goodbyes; Somewhat sad, but also super exciting. The baptism this week unfortunately fell through. It was hard for my comp because the next day we got a call saying that he was going to Calama. My new companion is named Elder Sepulvera and is from Chile! I haven't met him yet but I'm super excited! Another Eldder from our pension, Elder Swett, also left this week for Vallenar. It's super sad t see two elders that have had such a big impact in my life go, but to quote my ninth grade English teacher, Mr. Reeves "Variety is the spice of life!"

It's hard to believe that I already have 4 and a half months out in the mission. In the mission you blink and it's already gone! I'm working hard to change who I am to become the best missionary possible out here! One of the greatest things about the atonement is the power that we have to fall on our knees, repent, then stand right back up again and have more strength than before.

--Spiritual Thought--

Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk in Santiago to the missionaries of Chile. We watched it by broadcast. One of the things he talked about was the meaning of "asking with a sincere heart and real intent". Our main purpose as missionaries is to invite people to come to Christ. We invite them to read the Book of Mormon, to come to church, and to ask God if these things are true. They need to have this real intent though. Elder Oaks talked in great detail about this and many other things. The thing that stood out to me though, is the word COMMITMENT. When we have real intent, if we recieve an answer to our prayers, we will act on that answer. For our investigators, that action is often baptism. If we don't have this commitment to act though, why would we recieve an answer? What good would it do us? When Lehi recieved a DREAM in the Book of Mormon, he had the commitment to act on that prompting. He had the commitment to recieve grand answers. It's that kind of commitment to the Lord that I am trying to develop on my mission and that we all should strive to develop in our lives.

--Some Chilean Stuff--

I'm like super addicted to empanadas. I think I have a problem. No, but seriously, the empanadas here are super delicious. Every empanada comes with half a hard boiled egg inside, lots of delicious meat and sauce inside, and an aceituna (It's an olive, but with the pit still inside and WAAAAAAY more potent). We can buy them fairly cheap here, and I can't describe how much better they are than a dollar burger at some fast food joint in the U.S. THEY ARE SOOOOO GOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!

Love you all!

Stay Frosty,

Elder Walker

Arica: Last Week of Training

Qué honda!

This week flew by super fast!

So I'm going to open up by saying that yes my toe is fine and no one should be worrying about it. I'm walking normal again, well as normal as I used to. I still trip a lot, especially when going up stairs, but that's irrelevant.

This week we had companion exchanges with the district leader. I packed up some things and went for a day to his sector. It was super cool because for exercise in the morning we went running on the beach. His sector also is the center of the town so there is tons of activity and there are many wierd things going on all the time. When I got back I found out that while I was gone, one of our investigators took the initiative to be baptized!!!!!! Super exciting! We're preparing here and her son for their baptism this Saturday!

There is a scripture in Hebrews 4 that talks about the word of the lord being sharper than the sword. I use this when I'm talking with investigators about the importance of coming to church. When we put ourselves in the church, we are changing, or maintaining our desires. Goals are the key to life, that's also what I'm learning.

Other than that, for P-day today we rented some bikes and rode them along a trail by the beach to some caves. It was super cool! I'm super sunburned though. Like SUUUUPER sunburned. 

Oh, before I forget the most important part of this week, THIS IS MY LAST WEEK OF TRAINING!!!!!!!

Yeah, that's about all for this week!

Stay Frosty,

Elder Walker

Arica: First (hopefully only) Visit to a Hospital

Hey Everybody! This week with Elder Walker we'll be finding more about hospitals in Chile and what not to do with your feet!

No but really. So my toe had been having a little bit of trouble, the nail was ingrown you see. I called to the mission nurse and asked if I could take some anti biotics for the minor infection. She said I had to first send her a picture. Long story short, she may have freaked out a little bit at the picture and sent me to the hospital. So here's what happened.

We went on Wednesday to the clinic and worked for a couple hours trying to get all the insurance stuff figured out. We met with the doctor and he set an appointment for the following day. 

We arrived Thursday and they have me remove ALL OF MY CLOTHES . I then had to put on the typical surgery gear. It looked like I was going to have my appendix removed or something. I went into a wheelchair and was wheeled into the sanitary zone and literally layed down on an operating table. The doctor shot some anesthasia into my foot and began to cut. I hate needles. Nuff said. He then stitched up my toe, during which I learned that you can stictch through the toenail! Who knew?

We had two days sitting in the pension. If I didn't have my guitar I would have gone crazy. Today we went back and he took the stitches out. Let's just say that my career as a foot model probably won't take off anytime soon, haha....ha....ha.....

While I was in the operating room my companion found some golden investigators though! The Lord works in mysterious (and sometimes foot model career killing) ways!

We watched conference this week too! All the missionaries from our stake joined up at the conference center. They even had a gringo room where all of us from the U.S. got to watch in English! 

Things super awesome from conference:

• 'I can teach you to dance, but you have to hear the music' -- This was probably my favorite talk from conference. It used many references to music.
• Elder Bednar quoted my favorite scripture when he said 'Perfect love casteth out fear'.
• The father of one of my friends, Elder Sitati, spoke in the last session.
• I learned that I need to get married. Like every talk told me that. Especially the morning session Saturday.
• Elder Holland started to talk about st. george and I couldn't even contain my excitement.

I love you all so much! Read your scriptures!

Elder Walker

Arica: Earthquake, Floods and Baptism

Hey Everybody! Greetings from the mission under the sea!

No but seriously, this week was suuuuuuper crazy! I'm gonna give you guys the story from my point of view, I'm sure that you've seen what's going on in the news.

THE STORY:

We were teaching a family home evening with some members in our ward (last monday). It was super awesome! It happened to be Hermano Diaz's birthday, so we were just eating cake and minding our own business. All of a sudden, the lights went out. We went outside of the house and all the lights in the entire city were out! We got a call from Elders Swett and Giadach (our zone leaders)  telling us to immediately return to our pension. Hermano Diaz gave us and the Hermanas that work in our ward a ride back to our pensions. We then sat around for a couple hours in our pension because it was only 8:30 and we don't go to bed until 11:30 in our mission. We peered out the window into the black abyss that was Arica for a couple hours. You could see sirens in different parts of the city. That's one of the cool parts about our apartment, we're on the fourth floor and can see forever. There was also a fire in part of the town.

The next day we found out that it had been flooding in the south and that's why we had lost power. We didn't really know the extent of what was going on. This day we didn't have any cell service but we had power.

The following day we found out the extent of the things that were going on. Apparently rivers had just taken out cities in our mission. One of the cities to get hit the worst was the city of Cheñaral, which pretty much doesn't exist any more. The significance of this is that my companion spent his first six months in the mission in Cheñaral and is super worried for all the people that he knew there.

We spent a greater part of the week worrying for the missionaries and wondering what was going to happen in the mission. We finally got a call from the president (through our zone leaders) telling us that all the missionaries were fine and that there wouldn't be any huge changes in the mission. Other that that, we haven't really had ANYTHING happen in Arica. Wait, I take that back. We had a 6.4 earthquake in the middle of the night. I slept through it...haha...not sure if that's a good thing.....

Now onto the more important part! The part where we had a baptism! 

His name is Pedro Choque! The hermanas found him in the street and started talking with him! About a month and a half later he got baptized! We were super stressed because we had to teach the lessons very basically and were worried that he wouldn't be able to remember them. He passed the interview and everything went through without a problem! He was super excited after the baptism and says that he wants to keep progressing forward!

Here's a scripture about baptism taht I like -- Mosiah 5:8-10

Love and miss you all so much!

Stay Frosty,

Elder Walker

Arica: First Zone Conference

This week for P-day we went to a museum of mummies! The mummies of chinchorro are some of the oldest in the world! 8000 BC! It was super cool and the museum also had the progress of civilization from then until now of arica!

This week we had conferencia de zona also. President Dalton, his wife, and the assistants to the president led us in activities that will help us to become better missionaries in everything that we do!

Other than that, not a whole lot happened this week. Spanish is progressing and I'm learning tons!

Elder Walker 

Arica: Highs and Lows

Hey Everybody! Que Honda en Los Estados Unidos?

This week was full of ups and downs. In the mission life there really are the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. 

Some things that happened this week:

• We had a baptism planned for last week but our investigator, Humberto, ended up moving out of our ward boundaries. Sad because we didn't get to baptize him but I know the missionaries in the other ward will do a good job as well.
• We had a Family Home Evening with one of our investigator families and the Father said that he knew that the church was true %100 percent! We're working with them on baptism. The hard part is lots of people think that baptism is a huge deal and that they have to be near perfect to be baptized. So we're working right now on that.
• I got really sick Sunday. Like to the point where I was throwing up. Not fun. We had to go back to the pension. The cool thing though, is that my companion and I shared stories with each other between my trips to the bathroom. I feel like grew as a companionship, so count your blessings right?
• This week for P-day we went down to the port. Sometimes I forget that we live so close to the ocean. We took some cool pictures....but I forgot to bring my memory card to the ciber....so next week I'll send them.
• We have 4 baptisms planned for the 28th of this month! My companion and I are working super hard to prepare the people, so keep us in your prayers!
• There are tons of people here with Arsenal jerseys. The first time I saw one, I said something like "yeah! go arsenal!" Then I saw like three more the same day. Turns out, people here are crazy here for Alexis Sanchez

Spiritual Thought: Alma 7:11-12

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

 12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

Christ really knows each and every one of us. It's amazing the changes that a person can make in their life if they just humble themselves before Christ and accept the atonement! I'm learning so well on the mission that I have so many weaknesses and that I can be made strong through Christ! I know that there is no way that I could do everything that I need to here without the power of Christ's atonement!

Love and miss you all!

Stay Frosty,

Elder Walker