September 5, 2016

 

MIS AMIGOS!

I hope everyone is doing well, because I am doing GREAT! So many great things are happening in Chile!

Right now the city that I am in has been cut off by protestors and nobody can enter or leave, it is really fun. It really is a blessing because now nobody can leave their houses and WE CAN TEACH THEM ALL!!! The Lord works in mysterious ways, sometimes through service opportunities, sometimes through the members, and sometimes through a bunch of angry chileans. The work is truly amazing. 

This past couple weeks have been a great learning experience for me. The work has been pretty slow recently, but Elder T and I are beginning to see miracles. When we put our complete trust in the Lord, everything works out. This past weeks I have seen the love of God in many different forms. I have seen it in families, in service, in the members, and most of all in the food. Completos and empanadas my friends, completos and empanadas. 

Enjoy the photos and remember to trust the Lord. Move forward with faith in all things and he will prepare the way before you!

Elder Boyack

Excerpts from his family letter:

Right now I am writing from outside the protest. IT IS HAPPENING. We left early by bus this morning to have a district p day and as we were exiting S we were stopped. The roads are now being controlled by the protestors. We passed through their rock barracade and trash can fires just fine, but we are not sure just yet if we will be able to return. It is an adventure.

WEATHER. I don't understand. I am warm, then freezing, then burning, then perfect. It has warmed up, but it is still pretty chilly at night.

THE DISTRICT. My district is awesome. This Tuesday was the last district meeting of this transfer. We had our district meeting in C were the sisters are, and was great as usual. Then we ran, literally RAN for our bus. We almost misssed it. The whole district was running across the desert, literally, but we made it. We all headed for D de A to have a SECTOR INVASION. This is when alll the missionaries of the district focus and work in one sector for the afternoon. We had tons of fun, ate spaghetti, walked through more desert, and had a lot of success. I was with Elder C. He is chilean and hilarious.

FOOD. This week we ate very well. One day we were doing service and were running out of time for lunch and then we got a surprise call from a member telling us that they had bought us empanadas! They were delicious. We also had more empanadas in Diego. COMPLETOS. I will never eat a "hot dog" again. This week we had 2 types of completos. Normal completos and Sympathy completos( this will be explained later on). Every Saturday and Sunday we eat with the members and it is very "rico" as they say. PASTRIES. I don't know where they come from, but people keep giving us bread and it is like manna from heaven.

THE ACTIVITIES! We are continuing to have success with our activities and it is awesome. Our english students increase each week, and our choir is now at the unbelievable number of 9!!!This week we had a "Noche de Hogar" with the entire branch. It was awesome. We played fruitbowl tipped over, and had about 4 young men(non members) attend. They thought we were going to play sports. haha. We are also having more success with or sport activities. I can see a great young mens group building. Currently we have 0 young men in the branch. Side note, we almost fit the entire branch into one car, that was fun.

SERVICE. This week while we were with an Investigator we heard an alarm sound 3 times. She told us that this means there is a fire. The next morning as we left to work, I had the impression to go visit one of our inactive members as we were on the way we passed a house that was completely burnt. I asked the family if they needed any help and they did. They went and bought some working jumpsuits and we put it on over our proselyting clothes and got to work. This family lost everything in the fire. Everyone survived, but all their things were destroyed. We took everything out put it in a truck and drove about 30 mins outside the city we everyone dumps trash. As we were throwing out the flooring we noticed that one of the pieces had a dog on it. The poor little guy didn't make it out. We are going to keep serving this family, and hopefully will turn into a great teaching opportunity.

THE WORK. This week was hard. "It's simple, no." and "We don't want to meet with you anymore," were unfortunately popular phrases this week. Satan is trying very hard to discourage me, but he is wasting his time. TENGO ANIMO. I have never felt so driven to work in my life. This might be the most "unsuccessful" sector in the mission, nothing is going to stop us. This week we ate with the Branch President and his wife, they are amazing, we talked about difficult times and what we can do to overcome them. It was awesome and now they are excited to work with us and motivate the rest of the branch. I know there are people here ready to receive the gospel, we are going to find them and baptize them. Vamos adelante con fe no mas. Los milagros van a venir.

The "sympathy" completo was a completo bought for us by our investigator after he told us he doesn't want anything with the church.