February 23, 2015 Cerro Navia, Chile

Cerro Navia

Sector: Galvarino 2

C/ Elder Wilcox

Hola Hola!! This week went by slow but it was also very good. We found another family to teach from a reference that we recieved from our office. We went and passed by and it was awesome. We didnt teach any lessons but we talked and got to know them and we shared a little scripture. We used Ch. 10 ¨How to begin Teaching¨ in Preach my Gospel.  We havent been able to visit again with them for quite some time because they have been having their house redone. We plan to visit with them this Friday so that we can invite them to church! 

    I had an intercambio with my district leader and that was a lot of fun I learned a whole lot from him. He is also from Chile so he helped me learn some chilean words and stuff it was fun.

    I told one of my favorite Hermanas that her Lunch was ¨La Raja¨ and I dont know I learned that It has two different meanings... Yeah Im still learning a great deal of Spanish.

    I have been trying to study a lot about the atonement and how we all need it. President Spencer W. Kimball talked about the woman caught in adultery. He points out that there is no evidence that the Saviour forgave the woman right on the spot, but said `Go and sin no more.´ President Kimball says that the Saviour directed her to go and abandon her evil life, start her repentance and change. Brother Brad Wilcox has a famous talk called `His Grace is Sufficient.´ He talks about the samething about how throught the atonment we can be changed. Perfection is a process. In His book he made an example out of the the priests blessing the Sacrament that I really liked. The Sacrament Prayer has to be perfect, but what happens when the priest messes up the prayer? - He gets another chance. The prayer still has to be perfect in the end. But the priest still gets another and another chance to get it perfect. Through the atonement of Jesus Christ we can change. We can become perfect step by step. I really enjoy studying the Atonment. 

    Some books that have helped me understand the Antonement are of course first the scriptures, but also a few authors have helped me understand it a little more and from many points of view. ¨The Miracle of Forgivness¨ by President Kimball, ¨The Continuous Atonment¨ by Brad Wilcox, and ¨The Infinite Atonement¨ by Tad R. Calister

I love you all. Thank you for your prayers letters and support.

:) Elder Brady

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

—Isaiah 53:3–5

February 16, 2015 Cerro Navia, Chile

Cerro Navia

Sector: Galvarino 2

C/ Elder Wilcox

    This week has been Super!! Claudia was baptized yesterday! It was so cool to help this family come into the church. Claudia´s kids are looking forward to when they will be able to be baptized. Claudia has two kids- Javiera(7) and Francisco(3). It was such a neat experience that we had yesterday. Claudia has grown so much in this gospel and has made many changes. The ward has taken her right in. I was able to get a photo with her and Jose. Jose was less active and we helped reactivate him and then he helped us find Claudia. Yesterday was such a happy day. 

    We have been teaching like crazy. We have so many plans coming together and its been awesome seeing them work. We are trying to teach a part member family right now. A man recently became activated and has many goals and wants to be an eternal family but his wife and daughter are not members. Bishop introduced us to them 2 weeks ago and we had our first visit with them this last monday. We just talked and got to know them and shared a little message. We invited them to church but had a vacation planned this last weekend but they commitied to going this Sunday that comes. We are super excited for them. The wife doesnt seem to have much interest but said shed be willing to go to church with her family.. so thats a good start!

    Being a missionary is so fun. We have so many rules but there is soooooo much you can do and many ways to do it.

I love you all. 

-Elder Brady

My Missionary Commission

by Elder Bruce R. McConkie

I am called of God.
My authority is above that of kings of the earth.
By revelation I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is my master and He has chosen me to represent Him--to stand in His place, to say and do what He Himself would say and do if He personally were ministering to the very people to whom He has sent me.
My voice is His voice, and my acts are His acts; my doctrine is His doctrine.
My Commission is to do what He wants done; To say what He wants said; to be a living modern witness in word and in deed of the divinity of his great and marvelous Latter-day work.
How great is my calling!

 

February 9, 2015 Cerro Navia, Chile

Cerro Navia

Sector: Galvarino 2

C/ Elder Wilcox

    This week went well! We finnished teaching our investigator Claudia lesson 4. Now we just have to do lesson 5- we plan to do that tomorrow and thursday! Friday she has her interview bautismal and this Sunday is the big day! We discovered that she sometimes has desires to smoke when she is stressed. We have been working very hard trying to help her keep this commandment. We let her know how much satan is going to work at her this week and that she needs to stay strong and always pray and read the scriptures. She is really excited for her baptsim. Her kids LOVE church. They have so many friends and are learning so much.

    

    Our Bishop helped us find a family that is part-member. The members in the family are inactive but want to return to church. The wife and daughter are not members but have a desire to know more about the church. We are really excited to be able to teach and help them.

Right now we have a family that we brought back to church. They have attended twice now. We are super excited for the progress that they have made. 

    

    This ward has been progressing so much! We have a MTC planned for the members where we are going to teach them how to teach the gospel to others. A week after that our ward and all the missionaries in our zone are going to do a sector attack where we all go out to find the less actives and teach and invite them to a fun activity night that we will have the following night. We have been planning and preparing for this for a while now. It should be very successful.

    

    I love this ward I am so thankful that I was chosen to be here. I have seen so many awesome changes and progress in this ward.

- Elder Brady

February 2, 2015 Cerro Navia, Chile

Cerro Navia

Sector: Galvarino 2

C/ Elder Wilcox

This week has been really slow. My companion has been recuperating from a slipped disk so we have been having to take it slow and leave a few hours everyday. Its fine but I hate it also. I don´t feel like i am reaching my potential. I was thinking about how its going to be when i go home and that i am just going to feel guilty because I wont have so much to do like i do here in the mission. I will just feel super lazy. But anyways the work here in the ward is progressing little by little. We reactivated a man about 45 yrs old. We are super happy is is coming back to church. This week we have 2 families that we want to see back in church this sunday. Hopefully we can help them. We want to share with them Elder Jorg`s talk that he gave in the fall of 2013 - https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/approaching-the-throne-of-god-with-confidence?lang=eng .

We think this could help them and of course we will always follow the spirit and let it guide us in our lessons.

We have an investigator who is going to be baptized the 15 of this month. We just taught her the Law of Chastity last night and this next Wednesday we are going to teach her the law of tithing and fasting. We had to resolve a few problems that she had, a cause of the apostacy that our stake patriarch was giving in Gospel Principles class Sunday. There is so much pride in the church here sometimes and people just get in stupid arguements over who has better knowlege of the things of the gospel. This happened in church with our patriarch and a member and they ended up talking about things that were far from true and had nothing to do with the class. But I informed the Bishop and he is going to talk to them both and help us talk to our investigator so that she doesnt have a bad understanding of things. She is progressing so well. She is golden. Her kids love the church and I am excited. I can see them both growing up to serve missions. I dont know if this is my last sector but if it is I will be able to leave it knowing that I made a difference and I am content with that.

I have been thinking alot on how much I have grown in the mission. I remember before the mission I was just so prideful and lazy and didnt even know half of what I thought I knew about the Gospel. I remember the Stake President asking me what the word seer meant and I could not explain it to him but only that I knew that profets are seers. I was just so ignorant before. I am still progressing but it is amazing to see the change that I have made in myself. The mission is not easy at all. It is boring many days doing the same stuff over and over. All the responsibilities are sometimes difficult to take care of. But the changes that we make in these two years can last forever. They will give us so much experience to fight the problems that will will have down the road. Our character is changed for the better. The mission is amazing. Everyone should do it.

- Elder Brady