Family Missionary News

Wesley's cousin, Hannah Wilson, was called to serve as a missionary in the Guayaquil, Ecuador mission.  She reports to the MTC the end of August.

Wesley's cousin, Cameron Jeffers, was called to serve as a missionary in the Madrid, Spain mission.  He reports to the MTC the end of September.

Wesley's cousin, Mallory Peterson, just returned home from the Pachuco, Mexico mission.

June 08, 2015 Batuco, Chile

Zona: Colina

Sector: Batuco 1

Comp: Elder Cuadrado 

Hola Hola!! I am here in Batuco starting my 3rd change here! Woooot!! I now have a companion.. Elder Cuadrado from Buenos Aires, Argentina!! He is mi Hijo. I am training him and dang we had a great first week! My companion has so much excitement to work and everything its great! He is improving so much! Here in chile we use the word ¨cuadrado¨ as obedient. like this missionary is cuadrado. EVERYONE makes jokes with him name its pretty funny. Elder Cuadrado is Cuadrado. haha .. He is a great companion I am super excited to be his companion and work!

We did a bunch of contacts and we have a list of new people to visit this week. We hope to have at least 3 new investigators this week. This last few sundays a family of 3 has been coming back to church. The Castillo family. They have been inactive for yearsssssss! They have been coming the last few weeks and have really been able to realized all the blessings they have been missing out on. 

Right now we are working hard with a couple who are expecting to have a baby girl soon. Orlando y Corali. We are trying to help them understand the importance of marriage because they arent married yet. Orlando is less active and Corali isnt a member but they both want to have a strong family and love learning the gospel. They commited to go to church this next sunday! 

Tonight we have dinner with Ivania and her family, She is the girl that I baptized a month ago. Her family is buying a bunch of papa Johns pizza!! I havent had pizza since before the mission!!!! Whaaaaaat!! I am so excited!! I dont want to sound trunky or anything but I just really miss american stuff!! Everything is so expensive here. I miss american milk and my moms pastas and american cereal! and Pizza and Burritos! And the beach! haha  

But the mission is an awesome experience. I am so thankful for the time I have here and all the families I get to serve. 

I love you guys. Until next monday! 

-Elder Brady

June 1 2015, Batuco, Chile

Zona: Colina

Sector: Batuco 1

Comp: To be determined...

Hola Hola!! 

    I am in my 10th cambio now! Wooooooot!! I have been called as trainer once again. This is my 4th ´hijo´ in the mission. I am still waiting for him.... he comes tomorrow from the CCM. Not sure if its a gringo or latino but i am excited for whatever happens! So this change I will be district leader and trainer haha. This last cambio has been hard. The work is really slow here in Batuco. It is difficult to contact people and recieve referencias. We talk to almost 200 people every week but we havent seen many fruits coming from it. We just found a new investigator this last week, I hope he can progress. He is a big time vegetarian... its interesting our conversations haha. We were able to have a baptism the last change...her name is Ivania, she has progressed alot and is preparing to go to the temple for the first time and do baptisms for the dead. Her dad is not a member and her mom and brothers are inactive but she her brother to go to church last sunday! That was cool!

    I am teaching violin lessons now haha and we are going to start an inglis class, i am excited for that. I am sure we will be able to find alot of new investigators though it. This last thursday we went to a members house to celebrate a birthday party... well when we got there we didnt know that a boy in the family was celebrating his birthday but they shared the news with us and we joied in. This family is very active and very humble.  The party remimded me of what true happiness really is.This birthday get together was for a boy named Santiago and he just turned 14. Just his small family was there and us. There were no presents or anything big. There was a small cake and small plate of rice that i ate in 4 bites. They arent doing well financially but they were all just happy. I felt so happy and just a warm feeling inside... I dont know how to describe it. But it was nice having a reminder like that.. that we can find happiness in simple things and always in our family.

    We were able to go to the temple a couple weeks ago and that was awesome!! In our mission we are allowed to go once a year nothing more. It was a really neat spiritual experience. We have to do a sleep over the night before because the busses dont pass by our house early in the morning. So we ended up with 6 missionaries in a house. 6 missionaries are 2 matresses and a few blankets oh man it was terrible!! Yes we did have permission to do that. It was crazy haha.

   I have 9 months more in the mission! Time is passing so fast. It always passes fast especially if you work. The mission is hard. It is very hard. It stretches you and makes you do things you have never done before. Its full of ups and downs but it is amazing. It is such an awesome experience to be an instument in the Lord´s hands bringing people to repentance and seeing them happy. And seeing the conversion in ourselves as missionaries. The mission is amazing.

Love you guys

-Elder Brady

May 11, 2015 Batuco Chile

Zona: Colina

Sector: Batuco 1

Comp: Elder Fernandez

Wow this week has been crazy! We didnt do that much this week. We were able to go to the temple this last thursday and that was an awesome experience. I was able to attend a baptism of Elder Dirkmaat. My companion and I sang at the baptism it was really neat. I really dont have alot to say but i have a lot of photos!

April 27, 2015 Colina, Chile

Zona: Colina

Sector: Batuco 1

Comp: Elder Fernandez

Man this week has been insane we worked so much. Our investigators are progressing and we leading our zone! I am now District Leader. We just had a baptism yesterday. Ivania was baptized and her family went and supported her it was really neat. We are trying so hard to prepare another family but they have a lot of work to do. The man in the family has to get a divorce so that he can get married to the girl he is living with right now. They have the desire to do it all and be members but yeah its alot of work. I will write a longer email the next time. 

I love you guys! 

Elder Brady

April 13, 2015 Colina, Chile

Zona: Colina

Sector: Batuco 1

Comp: Elder Fernandez

Man this change has gone by soooo fast! We have done so much this change we have been having between 30-40 lessons every week! We have done sooo much. We have one investigator named Ivania who should be baptized the 26th of April. and We are trying to prepare 3 other families: Fam. Mella, Fam. Mimbella and the Fam. Venezuela. But we have a few problems with work schedules and law of chastity problems and plain lazyness but things will improve! This last Sunday an inactive member came to the church for the first time in 8 years! He used to be the branch president but went inactive. We had a awesome lesson with him about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and what taking the sacrament means. The Spirit was really strong in the lesson. 

We had a concert in church this last Saturday. 2 sister missionaries and us 4 elders played piano violin and sang for a group of about 70 people. It turned out really well. We had a huge amount of investigators and less actives there, it was pretty sweet. This next week the Sisters planned a dessert night with everyone so I am gonna try to make some cookies from the cookie mix stuff. Hopefully everything goes well. Measuring utensils just dont exist here. Everyone just puts in what they think is the right amount haha.

President gave us permission to hang out with the sister missionaries today for our zone activity. Oh man it was so fun and for once things werent so competitive haha. We played frizbee and volleyball and a few other games it was a blast! President said that we are his test group and if things go well he is going to allow the Elders and Sisters to do sports and stuff together on P-Day so that should be fun!

 I have been studying alot about the sacrament and atonement again. I am just so thankful that because of Jesus Christ we can start again, become better people and learn, progress and just be able to return to our Heavenly Father. God has to keep laws and one of them is that no unclean thing can enter into His kingdom. God is just and merciful. Just because He will always keep His law but merciful because He has sent His Son to take upon Himself all of ours sins, pains and afflictions. We are all imperfect but through Jesus Christ and His Atonement we can become clean but also transform our lives. No one will be perfect but that doesnt mean we can try to be. The sacrament is a huge part of the Atonment of Jesus Christ, in fact when we dont take the Sacrament we are litteraly taking the Atonement of Jesus Christ and throwing it in the trash. Its like saying to Jesus, ¨yeah so you paid all my sins and unleashed this huge potencial for me but I dont care. None of it matters to me, Im better off by myself. Theres more important things that I have to worry about.¨ The Sacrament is a time to remember what Christ did for us. Its a time for introspection. We renew our baptism covenants which are to take upon ourselves His name. To keep His commandments. To remember Him. We cannot partake of the of the blessing of the Atonement without partaking of the Sacrament. But also there are many who cannot partake of the sacrament. There are so many here who are discouraged or have a long repentance process ahead. With the help of the Bishop they can get on the right track. Because of Jesus Christ everyone can start again. I know that that is true. We need to get things together and in order. It is so much better to repent, as difficult as it may be, because by doing so we can return to our Father. If we were all perfect there would be no need of the Atonement. 

-Elder Brady

March 30, 2015 Colina, Chile

Zone: Colina

Sector: Batuco 1

Comp: Elder Fernandez

Man this week has been awesome! We were able to have a less active attend church with us this last sunday. But none of our investigators came to church which was a bummer but it just means we have to work a little harder. We have 6 investigators with a baptism date and 4 others that we are trying to teach. Man we have seen so many miracles in our sector. Last week our office called us to give us a reference and this that this person is the niece of a stake president in our mission and that she was going to church for a little and that she wants to get baptized! We called her and we actually have our first appointment with her tonight! We are super excited but she lives soooo far! We will have to bike at least an hour. 

Elder Oaks is coming April 18th to talk to our mission! I am so excited and right after that we get to go to the temple finally. The mission is so fun and im so blessed to be able to be here with my cousin. We have been hanging out every P-Day today we all went and climbed a mountain before the sun came up so that we could see the sunset. Its just so much fun! 

Things are progressing so well here in the mission, I am so thankful to participate in this work.

I forgot my camera cord today so i will have to send fotos the next week.

I miss you guys!

-Elder Brady