July 11, 2011

Hello hello!

Alrighty, so I don't have too much time this week. I'm sure you won't mind since we'll be seeing each other before too long. Today we went to visit my old sector Lican Ray to say goodbye to some people there. Saying goodbye isn't fun...I love these people so much, it's going to be hard to have to leave the mission. Can't I stay another two years??

Nancy and Jorge were confirmed yesterday! Jorge will be ordained a teacher next week and later this year when he turns 16 he'll be ordained a priest. Vilcún is growing rapidly! This weekend we'll be having three more baptisms! A good way to finish up the mission, I think :) The people getting baptized are named Daniela (16), Renee (14) (they're daughters of a member that haven't been baptized yet - they will be the first young women here in Vilcún), and Luis (24). Luis is the boyfriend of one of the members here named Dina. At the end of this year they should be getting married! Last week in one of our appointments they told us they had a surprise and they pulled out their engagement rings - I'm really excited for them. Luis should be ordained an elder by the next stake conference and then when he completes a year as a member he could be branch president! Vilcún is such an amazing place - I wish I could stay more time here.

Llaima hasn't been showing any signs of life recently - it did errupt a few years ago but nothing too serious. We almost had a volcano in the middle of the gospel principles class, though! One of the gas heaters had a leak in the hose that we didn't know about and in the middle of class it burst into flames, haha. Without thinking I jumped up, ran across the room, reached in and flipped the switch to cut the gas flow. Luckily it didn't explode! That wouldn't have been very pretty, haha. We called the stake president and the church should be bringing new stoves this week. Have no fear, Elder Vincent is here!

Our stove - if you look closely the burn marks look like the north and south american continents

There's always something new to see or learn each week, and I definitely saw something new this week. Everyone knows which is Anderson's Second Coming painting, right? (if not you can look it up on google) I saw that painting in the house of an investigator family! Elder Torres and I were looking at the pictures and paintings that the family had on the walls and before sitting down to begin sharing something with them we saw in the stairwell a familiar painting: it was the Second Coming by Anderson! They told us that they had bought it from a street vendor in Temuco and had no idea that it was from the LDS Church. How cool is that? The mother and one of the daughters came to church with us on Sunday as well, so looks like they were prepared a bit before meeting us, haha.

Well, we've got to get back to Vilcún. We're a little backed up because some of the visits in Lican Ray went longer than expected. Looking forward to seeing you all! But not too soon! Haha. I'll probably be able to jump onto a computer at some point next Monday, but if not I'll see you all soon! Don't forget to bring the red carpet to the airport! Hehe...is joke. But seriously...:)

We made cinammon rolls with Daniela and Renee

I wanted to grab its horns

Newborn lambs! They do poo....my hand is a witness

Mario has a new puppet

Love,
Trevor

July 4, 2011

(sing the tune to the star spangled banner while reading this)

Oh say can you see, the ice on my pillow. Oh how my face sticks to it, I might just throw a fit.

Frost in Vilcún!

I'll just leave it there so that I don't destroy the national anthem anymore, haha. I'm glad to hear that you've all had an enjoyable holiday! We've had a good one here so far as well - we had a zone activity with a barbeque, soccer, frisbee, the works. I was the only one with a flag, haha. In the morning I realized that I had a version of America the Beautiful by Wayne Burgeron (excuse my spelling errors!) so I safety-pinned the flag to my shirt and put my jacket over it, and when we got to the chapel I had Elder Torres put the song on full volume at the part where Wayne plays really high and I unzipped my jacket Jim-Carrey-in-Bruce-Almighty style. Everyone got a crack out of that, and then we all sang the national anthem. Cool day!

Flag of Champions!

Jorge and Nancy's baptism went really well on Saturday! We filled a van with members and investigators from Vilcún and drove over to Temuco. Jorge actually brought his uncle who said that he wanted to be baptized as well, so we'll be more than happy to help him out with that! I feel blessed to be able to work here in Vilcún - it's amazing! Something happened on Sunday morning that had never happened to me in my time as a missionary - Jorge got hit by a car on his way to pick up his uncle to go to church and they rushed him over to the hospital in Temuco. Nancy just about had a heart attack so she was hospitalized here in Vilcún as well. So they weren't confirmed yesterday, but the bishop from Temuco went to the hospital and visited Jorge - no serious injuries. They should both be back home today so we're going to go see them. What are the odds of something like that happening!? I'm just glad they're both ok.

Baptism of Nancy and Jorge

Jorge and Torres

Nancy and me

Not this weekend but the next (the 16th of July) we should have another baptismal service for the daughters of a member and also the boyfriend of one of the members. It'll be a good way to finish up the mission :) There are so many great people here in Vilcún that are prepared to recieve the gospel in their lives. I really wish that I could stay a couple months more to work with them and see their testimonies of Christ and the gospel grow. It's going to be hard to leave this...well, leave the being a missionary part. I'll still continue talking to everyone here through facebook and stuff, hehe. It's a huge blessing to be able to communicate so easily with people on the other side of the world. One day you'll have to come back here to visit with me. Maybe when the Concepción temple is dedicated.

Last night I was reminded of living out in the country in Virginia. There is a member family here that lives just outside of Vilcún in the country and their son turned 13 yesterday so we went out there to make some brownies and celebrate his birthday. There are no street lights or anything on the way out there, so we were walking in almost complete darkness. Really the only thing that could be seen was the sky and stars - there wasn't a single cloud! I was reminded of walks in Virginia when there wasn't any noise from the city or anything, just the silence of nature. I'm just amazed at how all of this could be created.

Llaima from Vilcún

Well, that's about all for this week. I had better get some pictures attached before my time runs out. Have a great week! Love you all!

Love,
Trevor

June 28, 2011

Hooooooola!

Wow, last week went by really fast. Elder Torres and I are having a great time in Vilcún - the people are really receptive and love the things we teach them. This weekend we'll be having a baptismal service for Nancy and her son Jorge. This last week somebody from one of the local churches told them that we didn't believe in God and that what we had been teaching them is false, but Jorge stood his ground and told them that he knew it was true and that he wasn't going to change because of lies that they told him. Jorge has had a bigt change in his heart since he started coming to church and learning with us, and he realizes it. He's very excited to recieve the Aaronic Priesthood in a week or two and is very determined to magnify whatever calling he is given. I'm excited for them.

Last week my testimony of the Book of Mormon grew even more - one of our investigators, Jimena, that is also preparing for baptism tells us that every day she reads and has a spiritual experience. She told us that she had a doubt as to whether or not there were people on the earth still alive from the times of Christ and when she opened the Book of Mormon to read she read 3 Nephi 28, which talks about the three Nephites that were granted the blessing of staying on the earth until Christ comes again just as John. Jimena is fighting the addiction to cigarettes, but is making great progress and will be baptized very soon. I'm so grateful that the Lord has helped us find so many great people here in Vilcún.

Yesterday we had the last conference with President and Sister Swenson. They are leaving the mission tonight or tomorrow - the new mission president is President Martínez from Los Angeles, Chile actually. Many missionaries already know him; I've seen him briefly a few times. I'll probably see him two times before I leave - a conference in the next three weeks and for my last interview. So I won't get to know him too well at all. President and Sister Swenson are confident that he'll do a great job, though. We'll see within the next couple of weeks if he wants to change any rules, haha. Won't matter too much for me if he does, though.

The whole mission in white

Posterity of Elder Torres and me

It continues to get colder in Vilcún! The other day I found a surprise - my shower soap was covered in a thin layer of ice! We're grateful to have a gas stove to heat up our study room, haha.

Torres with his coat on backwards

cooking lunch

Well, that's about all I've got for this week. I'll look forward to hearing from you next week!

Love,
Trevor

June 20, 2011

Hello, hello! What's your name! (that's what many Chileans will yell at you if you come here)

I keep forgetting that you all are in summer right now! Down here it gets really cold in Vilcún - we can actually see the Llaima volcano very clearly from the town. It hasn't snowed here yet, but it has rained quite a bit. I've actually started to go and work in the black shoes that you sent me about a year ago because my other shoes just have too many holes to be working in them while it's raining. At this point it's not really worth the trouble to buy a pair of boots - I don't have the money to do that either! Haha. But it's ok, I've got enough to last me for the last month. I mean...for the next two years! Didn't you hear? Missions are now 4 years for missionaries named Elder Vincent. It's a pretty cool new rule (that sounds cool if you say it out loud), I think.

Llaima

E'Torres, Jimena, Mario, me, volcano in the background

My water-proof socks (our table hadn't arrived yet)

Last week we had our last training meeting with President Swenson - he leaves on the 28th of this month! So I'll be about two weeks with the new president (probably won't even meet him), and then I'll skidaddle. After the meeting President Swenson and Sister Swenson will take those that are leaving in July and August out to dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. It's been awhile since I've been in a restaurant like that! Yummmy, haha.

This week was amazing here in Vilcún. Elder Torres and I are really excited to be working and we do it very well together, so I'm happier than ever. On Sunday there were 24 people in church, 12 of which were our investigators (Nancy, Jorge, Luis, Natalia, Jimena, Mónica, Carlos, José, Daniela, Renee, and two of our neighbors that accepted an invitation last-minute)! Five of them have baptismal dates for July, so we'll probably be duplicating the number of members here in Vilcún in July. The people here are amazing - almost everyone lets us in (sometimes they think we're catholic missionaries or JWs haha) and is excited to hear about what we teach them. I really could not have asked for a better way to finish the mission.

Funny story:
About an hour before church yesterday Elder Torres and I decided to go out and visit some people to make sure that they were ok to come to church and everything, and we got into a house of some people we met a few days before...they had lunch on the table waiting for us! Apparently they had been waiting to celebrate father's day until we arrived! I felt bad that we had to pretty much wolf that food down and then RUN across town to open the doors of the house/chapel so that the people waiting outside for us could get in. Elder Torres didn't even have time to change into his suit, hahaha (I changed before we left just in case, played out well), so he went to church in just slacks and jacket.

Loading the car with stuff for the house

Donuts for the ride to Vilcún

The house-chapel in Vilcún

View from the second floor of our house

Hermana Herminia made lunch for us in the office

I am absolutely loving the last assignment I've been given out here. If I could I would extend my mission to be here longer. But as always it is what the Lord wants that is more important that what I want (Alma 29:1-3).

Well, that's about all I have time for this week. I'll get some pictures attached this week. Love you mucho!

Freddy, Carmen Gloria (pregnant!), and Darleny

Cutting down weeds to harvest potatos

Burning weeds and cutting up my companion

Getting a taste of farm life

Gotta get lunch somehow!

I'm Vincent, Elder Vincent

Love,
Trevor

June 13, 2011

Hello there!

I'll have to make this quick cause I'm really short on time. We got back late from our P-Day activity and I don't have too much time, haha.

Vilcún has been AMAZING! The people here are so receptive and nice. This last week we got into 25 houses! Those are different houses, we returned to many of them more than once, so we were inside houses a lot. It is very cold here - it's close to the Llaima volcano. It rained just about every day all day this last week - perfect for me and my holey shoes! I'll have to see if I can get my hands on some boots or something. Or maybe I'll just use my black shoes that aren't dress shoes. If I polish them nobody will notice, right? Haha.

My companion, Elder Torres, and I get along fantastically. I've known him since I got to the mission so there wasn't a period of get-to-know-you things; we just got straight to work! It's been really great.

There are about 15 members here in Vilcún so on Sundays the leaders and their families from the Ñielol ward come out to support us. During the week they'll also be having the ward missionaries come out to work here in Vilcún - I'm glad the ward is excited to help out here.

This last Sunday we were able to bring seven of our investigators to church (Nancy, Jorge, Mario, Jimena, Luis, Margarita, and Ana) - we know we'll be able to bring many more this week! One of our investigators, Jimena, that had accepted a baptismal date couldn't come because she found her cousin dead in his house on Sunday morning. That was a hard hit for her because they grew up together. We were able to see a tender mercy in that situation, though. Just a day or two before we had taught her about the restoration and left her a chapter in the Book of Mormon to read: Alma 40. Perfect for what she needed in that moment. She told us that she read it and found some peace and comfort. Jimena is really excited to have us come back this week to visit her.

Today we went out to the country side to visit some investigators that I taught in Padre las Casas who are now living out here (Mario and Jimena). They are working on a farm, so we spent the morning helping them out take care of the cows and pigs and then we harvested some potatoes and cut weeds down in the field to burn them. Good old manual labor!

Shoot, I've got to get going. I'll send pictures next week. I love you all! Take care and be good! Enjoy that warm weather! It's freezing here in Vilcún, Chile! Until next week!

Love,
Trevor

June 5, 2011

Hey!

So I don't have much time - we're busy taking care of all the elders and sisters that are leaving on Tuesday and on top of that we've got to get back to our sector to say goodbye to some people, so I'll just drop a quick note to let you know about my cambio.

I'm staying in the office!

Just kidding! Haha. Nope, I'm leaving

So I'm going to be sent down near Temuco again to a little town called Vilcún. As far as I know there have never been missionaries in Vilcún - it's part of the Ñielol ward in the Temuco Ñielol stake, and once in a while the missionaries from there have gone out to the town, but it takes an hour to get there so it's not the most efficient use of time for them. Anyway, so President Swenson was going to send me there to train (which I was REALLY excited about), but then he realized that Vilcún should be a branch within the next few months and so it wouldn't be the greatest idea to have the weight of that fall onto the shoulders of a new missionary. So now I'm going to open the sector with another missionary that go there at the same time as I did: Elder Torres from Santiago. We're already good friends so I'm really excited about it. As of right now there are about 15 members in Vilcún, and President Swenson has given us the assignment of getting the attendance up to 50 people. There is only one less-active person there, so it's going to be pretty much all us working with the members there to sky-rocket that place. I'm SO excited! The bishopric from Ñielol will be traveling out to hold meetings in a house (where we will also be living) which will start at 4pm, so it's going to be INSANELY easy to bring people to church. I couldn't have asked for a better set-up for my last 6 weeks. I'm just itching to get down there! If you have a map of Chile Vilcún is north east of Temuco. I learned the other day that Vilcún is mapudungún (that's the mapuche language) means ''lagartija'' in spanish, which means ''lizard'' in english. So I'm going to the town of lizard!

Other quick note - I bought a new camera this week, so I'll be able to send pictures and stuff. I have a bunch from this last week, but no time to send them.

Alright, we've got to run. I'll write as soon as I can. Tomorrow I might have time after our consejo meeting with President and I'll try to write, but if not I'll just send a letter next MONDAY. That's right, my p-days will be changing back to Mondays for the rest of my mission.

Alright, talk to you later. Love you!

-Trevor

May 28, 2011

Greetings.

This week was really busy for us - it was the last week of interviews, so we were traveling through the north of the mission doing meetings and intercambios with the missionaries of those four zones (Talcahuano, San Pedro, Coronel, and Lebu). Both Tuesday and Wednesday I stayed in my sector, Hualpencillo, while Elder Rubilar went and worked with one of the companions in their sector. It's always fun to work with the missionaries that have a lot less time than I do because I get to see they're learning process and I get to learn things as well (you're never too old to learn something - that's a life lesson, haha). Elder Rubilar and I have challenged the entire mission to challenge at least three people to be baptized each day, so when we go out and work with the younger guys it's fun to see them overcoming the fear of doing that. On Tuesday I was with an Elder Palmer (who is now Elder Laurito's companion) - in the 4 hours that we were together we were able to challenge about 5 people to being baptized, two of which accepted the baptismal dates! So that was a good experience. We would have been able to put another one with an investigator named Scarleth, but right as we were heading over to her house with a member we got a call from the elders in Centinela saying that they had been playing soccer for a ward activity and one had somehow split his leg open to the bone. So I had to cancel the lesson and run over there to take him to the hospital. It was about a 1 1/2-inch gas that did, indeed, go down to the bone. Apparently he had slid into something that opened it up. So we took him to the hospital and waited until about 1 in the morning until he was done getting stitches and stuff. So we got home really tired and then had to drive down to Coronel in the morning for a meeting at 9am. It takes about 45 minutes to get to Coronel, so we left the house by quarter to 8. That night we worked with the elders in the sector of Lota Medio: Elder Jackson and Elder Allen. I worked with Elder Jackson and my companion with Elder Allen - they're good missionaries. Elder Jackson took me to an investigator they are teaching named Dog. Or at least that's what I understood his name was, haha. He's a man who is flipping his life around to live the gospel of Christ; he's got great faith and has just about conquered a smoking addiction, so it was nice to meet him. Dog's friend, Leo, showed up near the end of the visit, and we challenged him to prepare for baptism as well...he accepted! There's great people in Lota (which is the exact center point of Chile). So we got back to the house in Lota after a tiring day to find that there were no extra mattresses or blankets in the house...haha, what luck! I think I woke up every 40 minutes that night, and by the next morning I was more tired than I was when I went to sleep! Luckily I wasn't driving down to Lebu the next morning, so I took a nap - it's about an hour and a half from Lota to Lebu. Depending on how fast you drive, of course.

Interveiws with Lebu went really well. For the two weeks of interviews we've been teaching about being self-disciplined when it comes to planning. Usually what happens at night is a companionship will get home tired, hungry, wanting to sleep, etc. But planning at night helps the work be more efficient, and on top of that you already have everything fresh in your mind when you get home, so it's easier to think of productive things to do. So what we did to help teach self-discipline was have each missionary hold his/her hand straight up in the air for as long as he/she could. There were three rules: 1. You can't lower your hand. 2. You can't support your hand on anything. 3. You can't talk unless you are participating in the discussion or answering a question. They were to keep their hands up for our entire training, which lasted usually about 18 minutes. During those 18 minutes we would have them add things to their hands, like their triple, the bible, and their backpacks. Some zones were really impressive, and some just dropped like flies, haha. But it was a good exercise to illustrate the principle. Anyway, I kind of got side-tracked there. After the meeting was over we did an intercambio with some elders from Lebu (there are two companionships): Elder Gibbs and Elder Lamoreaux. We finished that up and then went up to Curanilahue so that I could say goodbye to some converts. That's also what we did this morning. Seeing all the people that I taught and saw get baptized just filled my heart; they've progressed a lot. I can't explain how much I love these people - they really are my family and I'll miss them.

That's enough talk about leaving, though. I've still got ages left in the mission :)

This coming week we'll start working on the cambios with President Swenson. He has told me that I'll get to finish the mission..er...continue working forever, back out in the field. That is, working in a sector all day every day. So I'm excited for that. I've wondered about if he'll ask me where I would like to go, and I don't think I would be able to choose! I love every part of this mission - I feel blessed that I was able to see each part of it. So I think I'll just leave that decision up to him and the Lord if he does ask me. I'll be happy to go wherever I'm sent.

Well, I think that's about it for this week. Oh! You asked about the protests. There are actually a lot of different reasons why there have been protests. It's kind of disorganized, I think. They're just like, ''Oh! There's a protest! Let's go complain about this!'' And then other people say the same thing and then it all just gets mixed. From what I've seen, though. The topics are about some hydroelectric dams that they are going to make in the south to power the bigger cities (it won't lower the price of electricity for everyone so that's why they don't like it), something about the government not wanting to give the students some kind of public transit discount, and various other things. Personally I don't think much will come of the protests just because stupid young kids get involved and start throwing rocks and junk at the police and then just randomly attack them. Not the smartest thing to do. But I'll stay out of it.

Anway, I'd better get going. Thank you for the letter! It's good to hear from you! Love and miss you tons!

Love,
Trevor

PS. Pictures included are of me saying goodbye to converts/friends in Curanilahue.

Familia Medina

Gerardo, me, Jocelyn (Yoshi), Javier

Hna Morales, me, Paola

Me, Angela, Kamila, Oscar

Me, Fabiola, David, Fernand, Agustina