Cambios

Ill make it short this week.  This week has been really crazy for me and really great in many ways.  First off, I got a new companion! Elder N.  He's super awesome.  He is from Utah and has eight months in the mission.  He is a fantastic missionary and is so excited to work.  We worked really hard this week and accomplished a lot.  He is not a native speaker like my last companion was, so we are both working together more and teaching about equally. 

But anyway, the week started off with the transfers, where the four missionaries in my sector piled in the back of a truck with all their suitcases and headed for the bus station.  We picked up my new companion and the two new elders that are also working in my sector now.  We are still living in the same house, but we are going to move in with the other elders in the nice house next week. 

We have been working a lot more with the members.  We had a correlation with our ward mission leader, Mario, and we did splits two days between the four elders and three members of the ward to go find inactive members of the branch. We are having a lot of success in finding and reactivating, and the work is accelerating. 

Now were are still trying to work as much as we can with the members as well as trying to organize the sector.  There is a lot of work to do and I'm stoked to keep it moving. 

The secret to feeling the Spirit is work.  When we are stagnant in our spiritual progression, I think Heavenly Father waits a bit for us to start moving, and then He blesses us with answers to questions and the blessings we desire.  Work hard.  That's the key. 

Anyways, love you all and thanks for the support.  Go hug someone and smile.  Life is good.  Lets make it better. 

Elder Peck

Crazy Crazy Week

Hey Everyone

Anyway, this week has been super crazy for me and super long.  Big-ish changes in the missionary work for me.

But Ill start with the beginning of the week.  After our PDay, we did an awesome family home evening with M and our friend G.  Tuesday, we went to our weekly district meeting, our last one before the transfers, and we had a Zone Splits, or Gran Intercambio, with the whole zone.  I got assigned to work with Elder S in Renaico.  Elder S is awesome and we were in the same district in the MTC, so we have the same amount of time in the mission. I think they set it up that way just for fun, but it went great and was super fun, because we both speak at about the same level of Spanish.  We taught some interesting lessons, ate lots of cookies, and got some good missionary work done in his sector.  We both knew we were kind of hopeless, which made it more fun I think.  But it was nice to kind of be on our own without our trainers and going and doing missionary work.  I felt more like a missionary than I have up to this point.  It was awesome.

While I was on the intercambio, our mission president came to our sector to make some big changes.  In my sector, we have two elders and two sisters who work this same área.  He came to close the sector for the sisters and until today wasn't sure if he would leave only two elders or add two more elders.  But all I knew was that my trainer and the two sister missionaries would be leaving this transfer and I would have all their investigators with a new companion. And I would be moving houses.  I'm pretty sure I'm moving into the sisters old house, which I'm stoked about because it is way nicer than ours.  And a lot warmer haha.  Its raining a ton now, almost every day, and its getting cold.

Today we got the call from the district leader about who would go where.  Yeah, the sisters and my comp are leaving and I'm staying.  My trainer is going to the zone closest to the beach and will be training again.  I'm staying here with an Elder N.  I cant wait to meet him tomorrow and I'm stoked to see what kind of work we can do here in the sector.  No one really knows him and I think he is pretty new in the mission as well, so tomorrow will be interesting getting to know him and how he works.

Anyway, something I have been learning more about this week is repentance.  I have been learning that the principle of forgiveness and repentance is a gift of God, a true gift to make life better and easier.  We walk around all day with certain burdens, good and bad.  Some we can control and some we cant.  We have all kinds of responsibilities and often difficulties that we cant control.  One thing we can control is how much of our sin we let weigh us down.  When we let the Savior take the load, the other burdens of life become easier to bear.  Performing well in our job, caring for the family, keeping up with school, and other tasks of life become easier to bear when we don't have the weight of past mistakes on our mind and in our heart as well. The Savior has given us this tool to use.  He has already paid the price for use it, and I'm sure He feels sadness when we do not take advantage of it, like if we paid the price of a tool for someone else and they left it neglected in the corner unused.  Use it and feel the weight lift.  Go and sin no more, as Christ said.  I love this góspel.  Christ lives.

Thanks guys for everything.  Que Dios les bendiga....

Mother's Day

Halo

So this week was so great.  On Sunday I had the opportunity to Skype with my family.  What a blessing.  I love my family and I know that families can live happily together here on earth as well as hereafter.  Familes are ordained of God.  They are set up to strengthen us as individuals and push us along in our progress back to Heavenly Father.  A family that is established on the fundamentals, as well as principles and ordinances, of the gospel is one of the greatest blessings someone can receive in this life. 
If your family is not strong or you dont feel a great desire to live with them for eternity, realize that the gospel of Jesus Christ is here also to strengthen families.  The gospel is something real and active that we can use to find happiness and peace here in life and overcome the challenges and problems that come to everyone.

So that was really great.  I dont know if you can tell  but I liked it a lot.  Other than that, I cant really remember what else happened this week.  A returned missionary came to Church here in my sector on Sunday.  He and his father who came also are from Texas, and he served here about a year ago I think.  It was funny to have four Texans in a Chilean congregation of about 25. 

They are installing a heating system in the chapel here, which is great, to replace the wood stove.  And we just got a washer in our house! I cant remember if I already mentioned that.  If so, Im just really excited about it.  We have all kinds of clothes lines inside and outside of our house now drying clothes because we like washing clothes haha. 

Other highlights of the week were an intercambio with my district leader Elder Ricks.  I stayed over in his sector and we worked there for a day.  It went well and I learned a lot.  Also we had a training meeting and interviews with our mission president.  I learned a lot from that, especially about working with members of the church.  Also he helped us gain a little perspective by having us think about our lives after the mission, long term and short term goals, and what our goals are as missionaries as well as young men and women.  It helped me gain some perspective and helped my focus. 

Never forget to love.  Love what you do.  Love those who are around you.  Look for the good in people.  This is how Christ ministered.  Never work against people but work with them.  Keep Christ in mind and remember always to follow His perfect example.  I love all of you and am grateful for your support.  Helaman 5:12.


Elder Peck

Another Week

Hey!

So this week flew by.  I cant even remember everything we did.  But there were a couple highlights for me personally.  No baptisms or super amazing miracles, other than simply the miracle of the gospel and of me being in Chile, but simple good things that make life better.

I had an intercambio, or exchanges, with my zone leader because my 12 week training is about to be over.  Crazy.  But it went really well. It was for 48 hours and with Elder G, a super loud and outspoken Argentinean.  Hes a super great missionary and I learned a lot from him.  He came to my sector and I was in charge of the plans and the work for those two days.  I was a little stressed out because I figured he expected a lot out of me.  It went pretty well.  The plans we made went well and we made some good progress here in the sector. Haha I was a little embarrassed the first day because we had planned to visit Christian but I couldn't remember where he lived.  I knew the street tho, so we went and started knocking doors in that street.  We got to the house that I thought was Christians and knocked.  Someone inside said "Christian!" and I was relieved for a second until a little kid came to the window and said hello.  He said his name was Christian.  The Christian we were looking for is about 40.  Either way we were really smooth about it and introduced ourselves as missionaries and amazingly they invited us in and we taught a really good lesson.  We taught another lesson to a family we contacted the next day and it went really well.  I have never felt the Spirit that strongly in a lesson before.

This is the young man  Elder Peck's baptized during his first week in Chile.
He left for the army after this picture was taken.

Either way, I was relieved to have my English speaking companion back on Friday.  Saturday and Sunday we went to Stake Conference with all the congregations of the Church in the area.  It was really great and I was glad to be able to understand about 90 percent of what they were saying, as they speak much more proper and clearer in talks than they do in conversation.  I guess I know a bit more Spanish than I thought, which is good.

Buses they take every week

Something that I have learned this week is that Big changes require big actions.  Being in charge of my sector with an only Spanish speaking comp for two days stretched me a little I think.  It helped me to see the bigger picture and to grow as a missionary.  I remember before I left the mission president of the Dallas Texas mission taught us that hard is good.  Hard is good.  I love hard things.  I hate them when I'm going through them sometimes haha but I love having done something hard.  Hard is good.  Do hard things, and God will be there to help you out.  Never fear, but persevere.  A lifetime of hard is better than a lifetime of weakness.
Les quiero and keep the faith.

Elder Peck.