Elder.... Mundial?

"Thug shots" with our Eagle

Heeeeeyyyyyy,

It´s been a big week here since I last wrote! My name is getting more and more easy to pronounce for the people as more and more qualifying games are being played for the World Cup (Mundial) and Chile keeps kicking butt -- beating England this last Friday! Hahaha. At least 10 times this week when I introcuded myself in contacts the person calls me "Elder Mundial" and we start talking about soccer and how sad it is that Chile´s gonna lose to the United States in the World Cup. But hey, at least my name is helping out the mission work out here!

Also this Sunday was elections for the Presidency so all that has been going on is a BUNCH of fiestas in the streets and communities throughout the area. Trying to get a good night´s sleep with all that going on was pretty impossible... 

BUT, on a related note, I had my first encounter with a Chilean dream revelation/interpretation! The other night I was sleeping and dreaming of mission stuff like being in the middle of a lesson and was sharing scriptures with the investigators and members in all my lessons one scripture in particular -- 4 Nephi 1:11. I have no clue why it was this scripture because I´m not even in that part of my scripture study nor ever used 4th Nefi in my lessons before... but none the less I just remembered this scripture standing out super clear in my mind during the whole night, and when I woke up first thing I did was go and find out what this scripture was that was so profoundly in my mind.    You´ll need to look up the scripture to finish the story, I don´t have mine on me right now to write out what it says, but just trust me when I say it´s a pretty funny endiing.

We came across this "American Truck" sitting outside of the house while we were contacting

I HITCH-HIKED IN CHILE!!!!!!!!

(And not in that <----)

My comp and I also took another adventure out to the new sector that we´re opening and got so incredibly lost! This town isn´t even that big, but we started walking out to a reference house that we recieved who lives out in the couwn-tray! This dude had a road leading to his house that lasted an eternity, going through woods, farms, and just pure nothing. We had been walking for 30 minutes on this road trying to find it when a guy goes driving by in his car and we decided to give up and ask for a ride back into town. Later he told us that he knew the family we were looking for and that if we had kept walking it would have been another 45 minutes until we´d arrive at his house!

Gracias for the support everyone!

PLEASE SHOOT ME AN EMAIL THAT I CAN RESPOND TO!!!! Haha, I want to know whats going on with you all in Gringo-landia (and also who won the World Series)

Les AMO,

Elder CJ Mundell

P.S. -- Oh yeah, I´ve done some missionary stuff too... My comp and I have reactivated two families this week! WOOOO!!!!!!!!!

I FINALLY GOT MY PACKAGE!!!!!! It´d been sitting in the mission office for 3 weeks.... # The pains of living in the southern part of the mission :P

It's been a while... Sorry everyone!!

Christmas time is hitting the missionaries

Teaching investigators got old, so I went for the celebrities! (:

Friends and Family!

Ran into this guy, my old comp from the MTC!

I really hope all is good and well back home and in your mission fields. This week really took a turn for the better and I was able to have a bit more fun with my life out here in the middle of Chile.

But to start things off I want to share my spiritual thought and what little bit of "experience" I have to give as a missionary. The first thing is don´t take the scriptures or your testimony or most importantly your faith, actions, and example to others for granted. Before I started my mission I hadn´t fully read the scriptures (the thing that I will be spending the next 2 years teaching) and now I can hardly put them down or feel like I can´t find an answer to my own problems or the problems of others through inspired scripture verses. Since I have started reading I have found at least one scripture every day that I then can apply in a lesson or just in conversation with my companion or converts or even when contacting in front of someone´s house. The best way, and most effective way, to teach the gospel is through your testimony and relying on the spirit to soften the hearts of those you are speaking with to listen and believe the words we say. I can now say that I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON! It has helped me through lessons where I don´t know what to say except share a scripture that affected me and I feel will help the person with whom I´m talking and often helping through their own difficulties because I work A TON with menos activos and it is my job as a missionary to find out their doubts that are keeping them from keeping their covenants with the Lord, and what I have found the common theme to be is problems in the family, problems with the members, and the biggest threat -- a lack of knowledge and testimony of the Book of Mormon. This book cannot be taken lightly as just another thing that makes us different, it is the material for building our foundation on Christ, a foundation that "if centered on Christ man cannot fall." 

Asado = ENORMOUS BAR-B-QUE!!!!!!!

But now the cool things that have happened!

Right now I´m in this really weird stage in my mission where I can´t really speak english OR spanish that great... So this has actually been happining a lot where I´ll be in the middle of a conversation or lesson with someone and I´ll be speaking spanish just fine and then all the sudden my mind just flips a switch and I start talking in english, words normally but sometimes complete sentences -- for a good minute before noticing or my comp gives me a nudge or the person looks completely lost haha

Asado = ENORMOUS BAR-B-QUE!!!!!!!

Also this past week we put together a big halloween party in our iglesia and part of it was a talent show so we missionaries wanted to do a dance as part of it. This dance eventually turned into this giant Zumba class that day and all of us had our shirts untucked, collars unbuttoned, and were totally exhausted as one of the members was teaching us our choreography to the music from the movie Rio.

And last but not least... I made it into the Chilean hospital for the first time. My blood pressure got really really low, I got light headed, and nearly passed out, with feelings of nausia and all that jazz. But on the bright side I had one of the little girls from the Primary say a prayer for me! The Padre Nuestro catholic prayer that she learned in her school hahaha

And me in the hospital. (P.S. -- They gave me a freaking shot in the BUTT!!!! Seriously!) The doctor had worked in the hospital for 30 years and I was his first BUTT SHOT on a Gringo! Woo Hoo!

Hasta Luego,

Elder Mundell

We gave the dog outside and entire birthday cake

It's beginning to look like Christmas!