February 2, 2015

Hey mom! Seven months in the mish today!  Man the time is flying!!!!!!  

This week was rough... I came to the awful realization that I am the unfortunate victim of a parasite and that’s a major cause as to why I’ve dropped so much weight. 

Our investigators are doing pretty good. Juan, the gringo that is here for the next 6 months, SAID HIS PRAYER!!!!  We were very shocked about that.  Also, it was my companions birthday this last week on the 31 of January.  If you want to send him a happy birthday his email is leonardo.villasanti@myldsmail.net 

THE PATS WON!!!!  Sorry... had to get that out.  Their my team!  Otherwise, we’re doing very tranquilo as they would say here in Chile. 

Antonieta is doing awesome!  She bore her testimony this last Sunday and we had lunch with her during the week. She goes to all the activities and she couldn’t be happier!!! :))) 

This week we found a guy named Elvis.  He is trying to find a house and recently went through a lot of rough stuff in his life. He’s open to listening, wants to get baptized but just doesn’t know in which church. So I know this sounds weird but.... Pray for Elvis. Not the rock and roll king but the Chilean.  

English class has shown fruits. Some of our students have expressed interest in receiving the missionaries. I am basically doing what all my Spanish teachers did in school when trying to teach us by incorporating music into lessons to make it more interactive. Last week we did music from Tarzan and this week guess what?!?!      FROZEN. LIBRE SOY LIBRE SOY!!!  It’s going to be a good time.  

Studying this week, I really got into the final months of the Savior’s earthly ministry. He called the Seventy to go and preach to Jew and Gentile and He rejoiced when they returned after a job well done. I guess I can make the Lord of Hosts joyful by doing exactly what those men did thousands of years ago. And I`ll tell ya,  I am having a good time doing.  

Not terribly fun with a parasite, but we’ve already gotten that taken care of so.. no hay que preocupar!  

7 months has already gone by!  It’s going by way too fast for my liking.  

Love Garrett 

January 26, 2015

January 26, 2015 

Well ,this week was action packed towards the end of it. Yesterday, we were really busy and Monday through Saturday were a bit slow. We actually have a lot of work to do within the ward, but with investigators we are moving at a slower pace, but that’s changing!!!  Decent week as far as working with the ward. We got a plan of action put together by the bishopric and the elder`s quorum president to start reactivating the members of the quorum and the future elders who are also less active. We found a couple people this week.  One of which is Juan, the man with whom accompanied us to visit the church. We had given him a couple weeks to adjust to his new life without Mari and Ella, which is something he expressed to us he would appreciate. However, yesterday he called us and expressed he had been experiencing signs of depression and really wanted to meet. Hopefully he'll be more prepared now to listen with spiritual ears and not so much scientific curiosity.  

The missionary bear worked!!!!  We had a family home evening last night with the Muñoz family and their friends!!! I love it when a plan comes together. Elder Oso as the members lovingly call him is making his way through the houses now and is getting consistently better every week. You gotta give it up to him he's a great missionary after all.  

I got the birthday package. I will open it this afternoon when we get home from downtown. Thanks again for sending it.  

This week during my studies I came across something that applies to everyone. In 2 neph 28:30 it reads " 30 For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have." 

We either keep learning, keep applying what we've learned or we say "I’ve had enough" and all that we've learned is kind of worthless. This applies to ourselves in not just our temporal education, but more importantly to our spiritual development.  We should always be striving to better ourselves and be in a learning state. If we complete a few things but not some, if we learn but only up to a certain point, if we only apply what is convenient for us, it is like we haven’t done anything at all.  

I encourage all of you to keep learning, spiritually and temporally. I know there is a lot out there I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out more about it. 

I love you, thanks for your prayers and your thoughts. I truly appreciate everything.  

Garrett

 

 

 

January 19, 2015

January 19, 2015 

Hey mom!  

So this week we had a lot of stuff going on. We had a ward family evening in the Chapel and it was a great time.  We played lots of games and everyone had a great time! I also got surprised twice for my birthday, once by a member from my last ward in Chillan with the coolest shirt ever and the other was on Saturday by the familia Munoz. They told us they had friends they wanted to introduce us to, every missionaries’ dream, and when we showed up it was a birthday party. I was very grateful.  

We did not actually eat birthday pizza. Instead of that , I used some of the money to go buy baking supplies to well... bake cinnamon rolls and snickerdoodles.  Why you ask. the ym and yw in the ward are going to their summer camps and are raising money so we figured we’d help out and donate baked goods to sell. We had a great time and only managed to eat a fourth of the finished products.... it’s really quite ridiculous how good we are at baking.  

 

Today we went and checked out the cemetary and the sepulchers near by. They don’t bury people here.  Everyone gets a slot in the wall.  There are so many.   It’s like the size of 70 football fields of just granite and bones. There’s this huge monument at the very end, and it looked very cool. I’ve been wanting to check it out since I got to this sector. 

We aren’t teaching any new people but Antonietta is really unifying herself in the Church. The Relief Society loves her and so does the rest of the ward.  

Not much time. it took a long time to get all the photos together but I love you and am so thankful for all the support. I had a fantastic 20th here in Chile. I’m really grateful for all the blessings I have in my life. Family, friends, and the opportunity to serve, but mostly for my big brother Jesus Christ, my Savior and Redeemer.  

Love you All, 

Garrett  

enjoy all the photos from this week!!!!

 

 

 

January 12, 2015

Hey mom!  

Thanks for the fantastic birthday wish!  I will be sure to enjoy the pizza :)  

The work has slowed a bit in our sector.  The other elders are on fire though!  I’m super happy for them because last cambio it was kind of the other way around. BUT, we have a renewed desire to work with members to help them help themselves, their family, and their friends learn and share the gospel. 

It has proven to be a slow process but the Missionary bear also gives them motivation.  The kids want him to bring him home to their house but he only comes if you are going to help the missionaries.  

Our investigators are all out of town so we work with a lot of less active people who did come to church. I actually gave a talk this Sunday because most those who were assigned talks were out of town.  I talked about how we are in a fight for our lives. The talk was centered around a scripture found in Mosiah 20:11:  “And it came to pass that

the people of Limhi began to drive the Lamanites before them; yet they were not half so numerous as the Lamanites.  But they fought for their lives, for their wives and for their children; therefore they exerted themselves and like dragons did they fight. 

We are fighting for our eternal reward!!  We are enlisted into the army of God upon our baptism and the end goal is reaching eternal life with our families.  Satan is very clever and in many ways his disguise is not very obvious.  He can deceive us to thinking what is good is in fact evil and what is evil is in fact good.  He is here trying to tear down the souls of men and women and families.  I am personally learning that we need to be more aware and cautious of what we do, what we see and what we hear.  We have Christ on our side.  Nothing is worth losing the opportunity to live with our families forever.  Nothing!!!

Love, 

Elder Watts

January 5, 2015

Well HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!!  

Hope the resolutions of eating better and going to the gym haven’t already died off. If they have, well there’s always next year right?  

But this last week mom you had your b’day. Cumpleañps feliz FELIZ FELIZ te deseamos a ti A TI A TI cumpelañps LILA. Que te cumplas FELIZ! Thats happy birthday in Spanish. I hope you had an awesome birthday.  

Thank you Sister Pickens for the sign you made my mom on her special birthday. 

This last week we had a pretty good week. E Villasanti, my new comp from Formosa Argentina is trying really hard to learn English.  He already knows a lot, so every other day we speak only English. The plan is that by the end of our time together he speaks more gringo than Latino English. As a house we celebrated new years in the apartment with a fantastic view of the fireworks and Chinese confetti cannons in the house.  That was not a very smart idea because we had to clean them up the following morning.  

We are teaching a new family of 5, Gabriel and Inese the grandparents, Mabel the mom, and the two kids Maxi and Fernanda. Maxi and Fernanda are SMART.  They understand everything. The parents and grandparents are slower to understand or act but we have the faith they’re chosen and will progress. 

This week, I also had the sad mark to become 6 months old on the mish.  I left on July 2^nd and Jan 2^nd  has already passed.  One fourth of my time is already gone and it went by sooooooooo fast.  I had the ceremonial tie burning to commemorate the "joyous" day. 

During studies this week I have been trying to enjoy the Spanish Bible I got for Christmas (reading the New Testament).  I have also started Jesus the Christ over again along with it. Very goood stuff.  I would recommend to all.  I love reading the Book of Mormon every day.  I’m really trying to study and not just read the scriptures so the process is obviously slower.  

This is Elder Siaosi. He wanted a picture with me at the Christmas activity the mission held. 

The work goes on and I love it. We will be instituting Ward Home evenings soon in our ward to try to help strengthen it from the inside out. Hopefully the ward likes it because we’re very excited about it!!!! 

Love ya all and KEEP YOUR RESOLUTIONS!!!!! 

Elder Watts

 

 

 

December 29, 2014

Dear Mom, 

Well, I hope the rest of Christmas ended splendidly and you had a great time!  Looks like you got a very white and chirstmassy Christmas after all mom! I’m very happy for you. I didn’t even have the pre-Christmas anticipation that normally precedes the Day. There’s obviously a difference in temperature, but the South American continent in general celebrates Christmas different than we do.  

We went caroling, which was awesome. The missionaries fromm the stake went to the hospital and sang to all the kids and people there. And guess who was Santa Claus?.. yes..me.  Twas two days before Christmas and all through the hospital, lots of missionaries where singing.  They too were laughing, because I almost had a heat stroke. Naaaah just kidding.  It was hot but not that hot. I was very grateful for the opportunity to serve and bring all sorts of smiles to the children’s faces. El Viejito Pasquero was very excited to visit the Concepcion hospital.  The two girls in the picture are a recent convert and another young wwman from the ward that decided to show up and sing with us at the hospital.  Left is Fernanda Recent convert and right is Fàtima. 

ANTONIETA GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  and she’s suuuuper happy. She reminds me a lot of Granda Herwig.  It will be fun teaching her and helping her get with any questions she might have as she studies the Gospel. 

E Del Rosario is leaving, he heads out to Linares (3 hours north and very country area) tomorrow. We worked well together and I will miss some things about him... other things well.... not so much. Naw, he’s a great missionary and I love him a lot.  I wish him all the best and I will be tending the garden he had in our apartment (yes garden in apartment).   My new companion is E Villasanti from Argentina. MY SPANISH WILL NOW BECOME PERFECT!  

New cambio, New companion, new year, new beginnings, new everything.  Lets get to work shall we? :) 

Happy new Year to everyone!

Elder Garrett Watts

 

 

 

 

 

December 15, 2014

December 15, 2014 

Hey mom! 

So, this week was very busy! Lots of activities, lots of lessons, not a lot of time to think.  

There was a number of rehearsals (of which I was placed in charged and directed) for the ward choir ) which was for our Christmas activity this past Friday as a ward. There was also a concert in downtown by some Americans along with some local people (the pianist plays for the Tabernacle Choir in General Conference.  We took our little abuelita investigador Antonieta to the concert and it was a good time. Thursday we stood in one of the plazas here sharing “He is the Gift” with over 600 people. I think there are photos on the mission blog. It was really fun to be able to show people right then and there what it is exactly what we believe in.  It made us all think how easy it would be in the U.S. to share the gospel where you can walk with your iPad and boom, share with people right there through video our beliefs . It’s different here, but we’re here for the right reason.  Then we actually had the ward activity on Friday.  

Despite the variety of activities, we still taught a lot of people. We found 2 more abuelitas (a grand total of 4 now) this week named Inez and Ramona, both by using the “He is the Gift” video form the church. Inez has a member friend who lives 2 doors down and already accepted being baptized.  Inez however had a family emergency and couldn’t go to church Sunday.  Anyways it was really cool to get to know her. We  spent the whole lesson with only her talking (we talked in whispers and REALLY moved our lips because she lip reads.) We left her mostly stuff to read and hopefully (fingers crossed), she takes what she reads to heart! 

We have been having some contention in the house, just different types of people, but I think its smoothed over now.  

Also, got the package from the Primary and Bishop. Please tell them thanks! 

This week I studied the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis, about selling/trading their birthright from something as measly as a bowl of soup. Apply it to our eternal birthright, the chance to live with God, and trading that away from something a stupid as a cigarette and sleeping in not to go to church. Lots to think about.   The Adversary is very smart and he knows exactly what will tempt us to give up our eternal reward.  So grateful for the Atonement! 

lots of Love  

Elder Watts