10.29.12

 

Things this week were pretty darn good. we were able to do a lot better at teaching people and finding people. and to top it all off we had a baptism!!! the 16 year old named eduardo that weve been teaching for a little while finally got baptized :) he was nervous. but God did his part to help him. the night before his baptism he couldnt sleep and was having nightmares n stuff, so he decided to open the Book of Mormon and read from it. so he opened to a random page and he read a verse where the Lord is talking to poeple that were captured and enslaved, and he says something like "be comforted because tomorrow i the Lord will free you from captivity" and he read that and said he just fell right asleep. so that was cool to see. but he did scare us, cuz like a half hour before his baptism at 5, we went to his house to go get him, but his mom came out and said "he`s not here. he went down to his aunts house near the plaza" and he doesnt have a cell phone so we couldnt call him so we started thinking maybe he got too nervous and decided not to do it. mostly cuz that same thing had happened to elder Ford before in a nother sector, so he was like "oh no!! not again!!" lol so we went back to the church and waited for him to show up. meanwhile all the members started arriving and were asking where he was. but he finally arrived at 5:17 much to our reliefe. and the baptism went smoothly after that. and I did the confermation sunday. he said he felt great. we did too. elder ford hadnt had a baptism for like 6 months too, so he was really happy.

this week the grandpa of the familia Oportu died. he was a recent convert to the church of about 2 years and had just recently recieved the melquizedec priesthood. and always had us or someone come over on sundays to give him the sacrament. he had been sick for awhile. but all the family was pretty shook up by it. and he had said he wanted the viewing to be held in our church. which was pretty problematic for the rest of his family that are almost all protestants, but most of them came, with the exception of 2. and at the viewing our branch president spoke, then our mission president, then the stake president. it was a very spiritual meeting and i think all the people there were impressed and unerstood alot more about the plan of salvation afterwards haha

other than that, everything is going good. its starting to get hot here now and im getting a bit sunburnt :p but im enjoying all the sun i can get haha today were going to Valle hermoso again to visit some members and converts of mine. it should be fun.

Love and miss you all,

Until December,

Elder Jared Philpott

Eduardo's Baptism

 

10.22.12

Things are going good here. We had a few people in church this week. 2 of them were people we just met this week. which is actually a pretty neat story. So it was like 9:45 at night and we have to be in the house at 10, and our appointments had fallen through, so we decided to do some contacts, but its kind of hard that late at night, and after a while of no one letting us in, we decided to just go back to the house, but after we said that we both got the strong impression that we should contact one more door. and there were a couple infront of us and i was like lets contact this one on the left but then i just felt strongly and clearly that i should contact the one beside it. so i was like "um nevermind, how bout this one instead." so we go and knock on the door and a woman in her 30s answered the door and we introduced ourselves and she just let us right in so we talked a little bit about the restoration, and told her to read the pamphlet and pray about it then said a prayer with her and got out. then we came back a couple days later at night again, and we got to know her some more and found out that she was having a hard time choosing whether or not to get a divorce from her alchoholic husband and started crying telling us about what was going on in her life, and that a couple of nights ago she had a bad day and had just got done praying to God for some help and guidance when she heard a knock on the door and found us 2 missionaries there. So that was a really cool feeling knowing that we were the answer to someones prayers and that we were actually where God wanted us to be at that exact moment.

so that was pretty much the highlight of my week. the only other thing that happened was when we were going to go on a mini cambio to a place called Coleumu and ended up getting on a bus that goes to a place called Coliumo so when it started going the wrong way we wondered what was up, but neither of us had been there before so we just sat on the bus the whole time then called them later cuz we didnt recognize anything. they told us we were on the wrong bus so we just rode it back to Tome... it was really dumb.

but life is going good here. i cant believe theres only 8 weeks left here in Chile.

thanks for the letters :) i miss and love you all

until december

Love

Elder Jared Philpott

 

10.15.12

This week was alright. nothing too special. the only interesting things that happened have to do with animals haha. first my comp anion almost got rammed by a giant goat. lol our investigator that is close to being baptised has 3 goats that run around his property. and we saw the first 2 go running by really fast so my comp followed a little bit to see them and didnt see the 3rd one that was coming from behind running fast, he barely saw it in time to jump out of the way lol i was laughing pretty hard actually.

the other one was when we were hungry so we both bought these little pizzas and were eating while we were walking. then i noticed that a gate thats not usually open was open, and the dog that was usually inside barking at us, was outside and saw our pizzas and started following us and like jumping up and trying to bite our pizzas, so i just started walking a little faster and put the pizza up to my mouth to eat it and the dog just jumped at my face to bite it but i just barely dogged it, and luckily didnt get my face eaten lol

other than that i really cant think of anything interesting that happened.... its still cold. i wish it would warm up already. last night we played cards and ended up playing indian poker and betting little chilean candies for money. then we went to bed and i accidentally unplugged the bad warmer the peruvian missionary uses, and he was all mad at me this morning cuz he said he "died of the cold" lol so i plugged it back in and let him sleep in a bit.

but anyways. thats boutr allthats going on here.. thanks for the letters!

cant wait to see you all in a couple of months! :)

till then

love

Elder Jared Philpott

 

10.8.12

This week was good. a lot of work, but good. first off. i have a new companion! Elder Ford from Utah. hes a really funny guy. we have a lot of things in common and have almost the exact same sense of humor. so theres never a dull moment. and hes a really hard worker, so we get a lot done too.
this week we went to teach one of our investigators that we met by doing service. we were clearing out weeds behind an old ladys house, which is like right behind where he lives. so we were talking to him one day and he really wasnt showing any interest and just wanted to talk about stuff. then he tells us, "um yeah you guys should just leave the plants back there how they are.." and were like "i dont know. i think the lady wants us to finnish it all"

"no. you really should just leave it..."

"whys that?"

then he points at this one plant in a pot he had growing in his kitchen and was like

"well lets just say if the cops find me with this plant ill go to jail, and i have a few more of them growing back there..."

so needless to say, we're not visiting him much now.. haha

General Conference went good our investigator Eduardo went to both sunday sessions by himself. he really liked it and loves learning about church doctrine. so we should be seeing his baptism here soon.

after the frist session sunday a family invited us over for pizza. well, chilean pizza.. haha but it was good and brought some back for some of the other gringos in the gringo room watching it in english. the lame part was that the satelite kept going out all the time so we couldnt see or hear anything for like 3 minutes at a time.

but i still learned a ton from all the talks. the talk that Elder Holland gave is almost exactly the same talk he gave when he came to the MTC to talk to us. i think its good that he gave that message to the whole world. it was just as powerfull if not more, two years ago. especially being in the mission.

Thanks for the letters everyone.
Love,
Elder Jared Philpott

 

10.1.12

Things are good here in chile. just heard this morning the cambios. turns out, my companion got transferred to curico, and im staying here. and Elder Ford is coming to replace him. MY FIRST GRINGO COMPANION THIS YEAR haha it will be wierd to to talk in english with him. but itll be good to get used to talking in english again before im on the airplane back to the united states.

other than that nothing new has been happening here. the good news is tht this week was much better numbers wise. and we now have someone that is progressing and could be baptised this month. so i excited for that. itll be the first baptism here in quite a few months. the ward here is nice though. actually its a branch. but its big enough to be a ward already. the members here are cool though.

today i went to my old sector in valle hermoso to visit some converts and members there. they gave us a nice lunch and we sat around laughing and talking about stuff and people. it was really nice seeing them all again. they all say i look skinnier than when i left here, but i dont see it.

sorry the letter is soo short. but my companion has to pack and say goodbye to people. so we gotta go now :P

but thanks for the letters. i enjoyed reading all of them. and will see you all in a couple months anyways :)

until then

Love

Elder Jared Philpott