February 28, 2011

Hey mom!

Yea, so the zone just keeps on seeing miracles, it is amazing. In my whole mission I've never seen a zone steadily progress like ours is now. It's great to be able to see. We had the baptism of Connie yesterday. She has been a member her whole life, well we all thought. But she was never registered officially so in the end we had to teach her/ baptize her again. The coolest part is that her newly baptized husband was able to baptize her. It was cool.

 Yea, it was great to have the chance to see Marisol make the convenant of baptism with the Lord finally.

The difference about the success that we are having is that we are unified in our dedication to the Lord, and we have enthusiasm and follow the Spirit.  Because a missionary can be obedient but be a robot, and that isn't what the Lord wants.  And we have fun doing it.  So it has been a great experience.  The way things are looking we will have a baptism every week this change!  Now we just have to prepare people for after this change too :) 

 Yea, I got the trunky papers, I think it's funny because it says dia de tu liberacion or day of your freedom. 

 Peter just emailed me and said that Clayton is looking for a place for the 3 of us. So Peter is getting home the same day that I am, well the 8th because travel from Africa takes so long.  Pretty cool huh?  Beth will be at BYU too?  thats crazy!   I did get on my BYU site, but I was pretty lost to be honest haha.  After 2 years I don't know how to work the thing, oh well. 

I told Jeff that I had gotten some blueberries and when I got home noticed they were from Santiago Chile, arandanos bluets:

This is funny too, I have no idea what arandanos bluet are, haha.  But the fruit here is amazing, thats one thing I love about Chile.  So Wal-mart will officially be here in like another year.  They already bought one of the biggest super market chains here, Lider, and have turned it into Wal-mart basically.  Every time I walk in I think I'm in Wal-mart.  Pretty crazy how much money and power.

Here is something cool. Today as our zone activity that me and my comp organized we went out of our mission (with permision of course) to Rancagua. It's to the south a bit. We went to Buin Zoo.

It was pretty fun, nice to have a change of pace. It was a nice zoo, had lots of animals and modern.

The missionaries enjoyed it. So that was fun, and we got to go there by train! I've never taken a train before.

 So I liked that. Ok, well only 2 more weeks in this change, then Elder Zeron goes home. Pretty crazy.

Well hope you all have a great week, you're always in my prayers.

Love
Elder DeLong

February 21, 2011

Hey Mom!

This week was really great! I was able to go to the baptism of Marisol and also we had the baptism of Raul yesterday, where President was able to attend with his wife. It was a really great ordinance, a really strong spririt.
 

We have the goal of having a baptism every week this change and the way things are going all looks well. We had stake conference yesterday all throughout Chile, and President Packer and Elder Christofferson spoke to all of Chile. It was a really great conference, Pres. Packer is really funny. And all of our 5 investigators who are going to get baptized were able to attend. It was great.
 
I asked Jeff why he thought they were having such success in teaching and baptising in this new area versus his other areas:

 1). Elder Zeron and I are very unified and we work hard to help out the zone, sometimes sacrificing time in our sector to help them.
2). We have a great relationship with the Bishop and he helps us out a ton with the work. That is key.
3). We are involving the memebers in the work as well, and the investigators feel good going to church.

So those are some of the key things that are going on to help us have so much success. We work hard for the zone and the Lord has been blessing us in our sector.
Yes, most of the missionarys work hard, but a lot are pretty relaxed/lazy at times. 
Miracle, we went to church and one of the members came up to us and said, Elders you haven't visited me for a long time can you come over? We said ok, set up an appt then when we went her grand daughter was there too. She before had listened to the missionarys but wasn't ready yet, now she is super ready. The 2nd visit we put a baptimal date!
Then there is this girl who has assisted for many months but couldn't get baptized because she wasn't 18, she turns 18 the 22 so she will get baptized in March! The Lord just keeps putting people in our path, its great.
 

 
On the other 2 Elders that share the house they are currently living in:
 One of the Elders in the house is from Idaho, the other is from Argentina. 

Currrent companion will be going home soon:
Yea, Elder Zeron has 3 weeks left, crazy.
Jeff, are you back in the area where the sisters in the ward do your laundry?
The sisters do our laundry in this sector too, a huge blessing.
The weather continues to be burning hot, hopefully in March it cools off a bit
Pres. gave me permision to go onto my BYU account, so I'm gonna look at it here in a bit.  onto my BYU account, so I'm gonna look at it here in a bit. I'm gonna have to find a job when I get home (if I can)
Ok, well I send pics of the baptims here in a bit. They were great. Love you mom, hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder DeLong
oh and I almost forgot, I need the addresses and telephone numbers of the Bishop and Stake President. I got my "trunky" papers as they are called and have to fill them out. I need your cell numbers too. And 's it's the Minneapolis International Airport, right? I think that's everything, I forgot the paper,oops. But that should be all.       thanks!

February 14, 2011

Hey mom!
Yea, so it has been a really fun two weeks here in Ochagavia so far (minus the heat!). But our zone has been seeing a lot of miracles lately, this week we doubled the number of baptismal dates! So that was really cool. The baptism for Grecia went really well, her mom and younger brother assisted and went to church the next day and we were able to put 2 baptimal dates with them.

  And yesterday after church one of our other investigators had his baptismal interview with President King!  And he is going to get baptized next Sunday!  And we have this other lady, Connie, who has been a member her whole life but never got registered in the records of the church. So, we are teaching her all the lessons and it looks like she will get re-baptized the 26th, but this time but her newly converted husband who just received the priesthood yesterday.  Pretty cool.  And Marisol, from 2 sectors ago (we baptized her son, Dylan) is getting married on Friday and then baptized Saturday and President gave me permision to go because it's close.  Pretty cool, huh?  And we have other investigators that are progressing really well, so we are really excited.

Yea, Elder Mills is in the sector where I started the mission, in El Sauce.  So that is pretty funny.  But yea, we have council at the beginning of every month.  It is fun.  We just report on the zone and how everyone is doing.  We live in a house, and share it with 2 other missionaries in the zone.

 Haha, Elder Smith's mom contacted you, that is really funny. Yea, he saw the blog before he got to Chile, and then I was his first district leader. Pretty funny huh? Elder Smith is really cool, I had a lot of fun with him and my last district. Tell his mom hi and thanks for sending Elder Smith on the mission. They were the best. Well, I just found out that Elder Mckay got married recently
 
So yea, thats whats going on here in the city of Santiago.  I'm excited for my next few months here, I know we will continue to see miracles.  We can always find miracles in our lives, every day.  And it's important that we can recognize they or else we will get slothful like Lehi and his family and we wont progress in our journey (Alma 37:41) I think thats the right verse, it's some where in that chapter. 
 
 

I love you and hope you all have a great week!

Love
Elder DeLong

February 6, 2011

Hey :)


Well, I guess the news you are most anxious to know is where I'm at and what I'm doing. Well, I'm in the city again in a place called Ochagavia as a zone leader :) Yea, it has been a bit of an adjustment being responsible for 16 elders now. But luckily I have a great companion, Elder Zeron from Honduras. Hes been a ZL since last July so he has a lot of experience.
 But it has been really fun here so far, besides the extreme heat! As I am writing you I'm like over heating, the internet place has no air or anything and is suuuuuper slow. Oh well. So that is the big news. This will be my last sector I think.
The ward is about average size, 70, that assist. We have a baptism Saturday, a 12 year old girl named Grecia (Greece). So that will be cool. And we are working with several others, but always we are in the process of finding new people

 We had council with the President last Friday in his house. All the zone leaders in the mission go to that.

We had french toast for breakfast and than tacos for lunch, yum!!!! Best food I've had in a longggg time. Then we just present whats going on in our zones, than the President delivers to us the vision he has for the mission and then we bring it to the missionaries in our zones. It's a lot more responsibility but its fun. We have a good zone, the missionaries are working hard here.
So yea, I am pretty excited. It will be a lot of fun. I'm going to learn a lot, I already have in my week here. Elder Zeron goes home in 5 weeks, so I'll be his last comp. And then my last comp will come after him, pretty crazy, huh?
 
My last comp was able to fix my mp3, he had to reformat it which took forever! But it works again now so its all good. I'm really glad this will be my last change, I think, because I hate having to haul all of my luggage around. It's a pain.

I ran ino Elder Nielson today, that was fun. He is in a zone near by. He is doing well. It was fun to see a lot of my friends in council last Friday, Elder Mills was there, my comp in the MTC and elder Young too. Fun stuff.
Well to be honest I don't have too much more to tell.
 I did find out that the girl I was teaching in Llolleo, Isabel, has a baptismal date for this month. Pretty cool! I hope it all works out.
 And Marisol, from my sector before llolleo, is getting baptized this month. President might give me permision to go and see it. That would be awesome. So we will see what happens.
I sent you guys the pics from council, they are pretty good. I'll send you a couple more if I can on this slooooooooooooooooooooow pc, haha.
 I love you and hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder DeLong

January 31,2011

Hey mom :)

Yea, we were pretty bummed that they didn't get baptized :/ But we left them alone for a while and will go back and see them this next week, to see if they made the decision to follow the Savior. I hope so.
 We had our young matrimony go to church yesterday and they really liked it. They learned about being sealed and were really excited about that. Now Isabel just needs to make the decision to be baptized and their journey to the temple will start :) So we are really excited for them.
 
 Unfortunately I won't be here to see her get baptized because I have changes! Surprise haha. Yep, my time here on the coast has ended. I'm sad to be going, I love it here, the people the climate. This has been my favorite sector by far, but all good things come to an end. I'm excited to have a new sector, new challenges and people. This next one will probably be my last one Iim thinking. We'll see what the Lord has planned for me. It will be sad to have to say good bye to everyone, thats always hard. I don't like that part of being a missionary. But thats part of the deal. Hard to think I have only 4 months left..I'm gonna keep working hard and giving it my all.
 

Elder Thomas is good, he was a great comp.  He will do a good job leading the sector now.  It will be interesting to see who his new comp will be.  He has had a crazy mission so far, in 5 changes he will have 5 comps.  Pretty rare, but he's a good kid.  I will miss my district a lot, I love them.  We have a lot of fun together and they are some of my best friends.  I'll mis them a lot, but hopefully I go to some of the other friends I have here in Chile
There is still one set of sisters here, one of them has changes.  Nobody else in my district has changes, just me and her.  It's weird to think that I'll be going back to school..it will be hard to get back into the swing of things.  Hopefully I can find what I want to study!
 
Well, the pics that I send now wont have the ocean in them, but I try to keep sending good ones. Maybe greg could send my a short video of Logan through email, thatd be fun. The mp3 player I bought in Dec is having problems, I tried returning it today but they were stupid about it and I had to do this whole long month process. Hopefully my computer genius companion can fix it, haha. I hate Chilean mp3s, they stink.

Well, next week I'll be writing from somewhere different. We'll see what the Lord has in store for me. Hope you have a great week! Love you


Love

Elder DeLong