Families make the missionary VERY HAPPY!

Do you want the good news or bad news?? Read in the order you want...

BAD:

Well, the unfortunate news I have to share is that my kid, Elder Haws, chose to go home. It was a wild week filled with interviews with the mission president, phone calls home, and his stake president even called us directly on our cell phone, and it turned out that Elder Haws was just feeling overwhelmed by all the troubles of home and being away that the decision was made. The positive hope I have is that I insisted and gave him probably a thousand different reasons why he needed to come back out after his short time home and finish his mission. So for now I´m in a trio, but it looks like I´m going to receive a new comp who is a youth from another stake that is preparing to serve a mission so I´ll still kind of be a dad and he´ll have the chance to serve a mini-mission with the Maquina Mundell! ;)

GOOD: 

This week was a gold mine for finding awesome families! One family of 4, and another of 8!!!! The family of 4 was a real miracle because the dad has been inactive for the last 18 years after being baptized when he was 10 years old and so his wife and 2 daughters had no idea that he was even a member... But he is a truck driver and one of our most active, faithful members is a mechanic who repairs all the broken machinery and it just so happened that this dad remembered the face of the member and asked him, "Hey, Remember me?! I remember you... Are you still active in the Church of Jesus Christ?" The member was surprised for a moment, then answered "Of Course!", and invited this guy to receive the missionary lessons again. The next day we passed by with the same member and found this perfect little family just WAITING to receive the restored gospel in their lives! Then the next day they all went to church AND LOVED IT, and now it looks like they will all be baptized this 29th of March! 

That same Sunday after church we went out to re-contact some contacts that we had met a few days earlier and set up some visits but almost all fell through... ALMOST ALL, but not all. We found a family of 8 (but just 6 were there) waiting with the door wide open for us to come by at the time we had set up with the mom a few days earlier, having no idea how big her family was! We taught about the importance of Baptism and found out that none of the children had been baptized and the parents were baptized in other churches when they were babies. After explaining the importance of salvation and the commandment of baptism for the remission of sin, we invited all 6 of them to be baptized this April and every single one said YES!!!! 

I truly don´t think there is any greater happiness I get on the mission than teaching a complete family and inviting them to become an eternal family!

On top of these 2 big families, I´m also teaching a Mom of 30 and her 12 year old son; The husband of a recent convert; and whoever else will listen to me! Haha

There´s a lot of study time on the mission, so now on top of reading the Book of Mormon, I´ve also started studying the Bible and have seen a huge improvement in my teaching abilities as I´m more able to relate to people and their understanding.

OH. MY. HOT DOG! They´re called "Cumpletos" and are like a hot dog on steroids!

This whole training thing.... it´s harder than I thought

So I think I´m going to just ask you guys to read this one

I don´t think I knew just quite a training consisted of... Hahaha I kinda missed out on that part of my mission and now to be put back into a training environment I have no idea how to do it, and do it right/good. I wanted to be the coolest dad, but it´s been hard to establish a real strong relationship with my kid. I already knew this, but I´m not exactly the best at first impressions. So I´ve tried just setting an example of hard work and obedience -- hopefully the relationship will come with more time together since this is his first real time away from home. His name is Elder Haws, from Sandy, Utah and is part of the young generation of missionaries (18 years old). He came really prepared, speaks spanish very well for someone who only has a week in the mission field, but is experiencing a bit of trouble with home sickness, depression, sleep deprivation, and very strong thoughts of returning home. About a month and a half ago his mom told him that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was going to need to start chemo therapy and he hasn´t been able to handle this tragic situation very well. It has troubled him deeply and pretty much every moment of the day he is just weighted down with so much sadness that I don´t know how to brighten up his day... I´ve shared my experiences and counsel but it doesn´t seem to have much effect, he told me that he is so bogged down by the whole dilema that it is hard for him to focus on the mission.

Today we had a very powerful interview together with President Martinez and after talking with him for a good long time, and calling his parents, it´s looking like he has set his mind on going home. The last thing I would ever want, and now I´m starting to find myself thinking of whether or not I´m doing a good job as a first companion to help him work through this hard time.

On a related note, I would really like it if you guys could pick out a few of your favorite conference talks of all time and send them to me to print out and read, in addition to any real powerhouse missionary talks/divocional talks that you can think of. As well as looking for another one that focuses on the Atonement, Trials, and Faith that I could share with mi hijo.

Thanks for the love and support, hope all is well back on the home front

Much love,

Elder Mundell

I´M PREGNANT!!!!! HAHA

Well, with this last cambio just ending the news has come in, and it looks like I´ll be a Dad in the next cambio and receive my first hijo! I´m going to be training a newbie missionary -- Woo Hoo! I´m hoping he´ll be a gringo so that I can still kind of fake it like I know what I´m doing and saying hahaha but pretty much it´s going to be my responsibility to teach him the ropes of how the mission works and set the example of obedience, diligence, and fun for the rest of his mission. 

   It´s been a great week! We had 2 more baptisms this week, found a bunch of new people to start teaching (including the families of both women we baptized), and we had a miracle man walk into church Sunday from out of nowhere saying he had never been baptized but had been investigating this church a while back and now knows it to be the true church of Jesus Christ and wants to be baptized! Really the only bad part was that I spent all last night in the bathroom throwing up...

My comp, Elder Miller is going to be bumped up to zone leader in this next cambio and is going to my old sector, VICTORIA!!! So I´m loading him up with a bunch of letters to give out to the members over there.

The rest of my week will be described in photos:

1)  We went to lunch last week and realized that our new branch president looks JUST LIKE Steve Carrel!!!! Haahahaha

2)  This is how I look like during district meetings...

3)  Found this little piece of home in the streets of Chile! Who´da thunk...???

4)  Our awesome investigator of gold who got baptized, Lorena

5)  Going to lunch in the country side, when this happened

6)  Other awesome lady who got baptized, Sandra

7)  This hole was HUUUUUUUUGE!!!!!!! And they´re my favorite pants...

8)  My old zone from this cambio

Love you guys!

Elder Mundell

OLÍMPICOS?!?!

I had no clue the Olympics had started?! I went over to Maria´s house (the abuelita convert) to watch a Mormon Message video with her, when I turned on the TV and saw Snowboarding!!! Sooo... I got super trunky and wanted to stay there and watch it, but I was on an exchange with one of the Assistants from the Mission Office and had to be on my best behavior haha.

This week was a little slower than normal... Even nothing really changed in the way that we had been working, other than the fact that out of the 7 days of the week 5 of them were with exchanges -- which was a pretty lame. I always give my companion a hard time about how much he doesn´t love me and wants this cambio to come to an end the fastest possible, but the truth is that I love the guy and we´ve seen a lot of really great things happen in our time together. I would say we compliment each other because I´m the stupid, good at joking around with the people and he´s the spiritual giant who has THE VISION TO BAPTIZE! So i´ve really enjoyed the chance to be able to learn from him, even though we have the same time in the mission. From the looks of it, Elder Miller´s going to be leaving the sector and I´ll be receiving a new companion next week. But before ending this cambio, we´ve got 2 more baptisms of our best investigators -- Sandra y Lorena. Now the hunt is on to find more people to teach once they´ve been baptized. BUT the best part of baptizing, comes from the lessons afterwards and their love for the missionaries and the gospel and how much they want to share what they´ve experienced with their family! Now the daughter of Lorena has a baptismal date in March! Oh yeah, and now we have one more house that we can use the bathroom when we´re super far from our house, without any shame!

I can´t really think of much more that´s been going on... I´ll make sure to be super nuts in this next week. Just so you can see how much my socializing skills have changed, I set the goal to talk to 200 people this week. That´s got to bring with it some stories! :D

Hasta next Sabado!

Su hijo/amigo/hermano

Elder CJ Mundell

BUH-BUH-BUH-BAPTISM!!!!!

Yup! You guessed it! We baptised our famous abuelita this week! Everyone has been talking about our 93 year old convert, how she magically showed up to church the Sunday before her baptism, and how right after she was baptised she just started cracking up in the baptismal font! I thought that I was happy when I was watching her walk down into the water, but turned out that she was even happier! Which is really great because I really don´t know how much of our Gringo Spanish she understood, but after teaching all the lessons with the photo book she always insisted on knowing when her baptism was. When we told her that it was at 5, she was like "In the morning?! Okay, I´ll be there at 4:30!" She is the funniest old lady too, every time she sees me she just starts laughing. And somehting good that came out of her baptism was that now we´re going to start teaching her grandaughter who has a FAMILY OF 5!!!!!!!!!!

Our entire house has been super sick this past week. The Hermana Misioneras in our district "cooked" us pizza that wasn´t very cooked at all, and gave us all... Let´s just say "stomach problems"... Hahaha

The worst one affected was my comp who was confined to bed all day yesterday (hence the photo).

Thats really about it! Lorena and Sandra are the next 2 to be baptized this 22nd and they´re both golden.

Enjoy the pictures!

Un Abrazo,

Elder Mundell

My sector EXPLODED... Literally!

You´ll never believe what happened... There was a huge explosion and fire that lasted all night and the following day in the supermarket next door to the church. But to the surprise to us and the people watching the giant flames tear down this huge store, the church was untouched. Hooopefully we can use that as some spiritual "firepower" to prove that this is Christ´s true church...

The amazing things just keep on happening here in my little pueblo. This sunday we had all 3 of the women that I talked about in my last email come to the church and are super excited about their baptisms! We even had an even cooler experience happen with Maria (the abuelita with 93 years). We went out to go look for Lorena, another one of the women who is being baptised the 22nd, but after calling her we found out that she was already on her way and didnt need to worry about going to get her. So instead we climbed up the biggest hill in our sector to go to the house of the member who had been helping us teach the lessons to Maria. But she had had a change of heart and didn´t feel like going to get Maria in her car because she didn´t think she understood everything we had been teaching her and that we shouldn´t baptize her this week. But after talking a little sense into her, we got her to drive us to the house of Maria, but she said that if she wasn´t ready to leave right when she knocked the door that "Too bad, so sad". We found out that she was still sleeping when we drove by so we left.. then at the start of the 2nd hour of church, MARIA JUST SHOWED UP! This 93 year old woman knows the importance of the church so much that she woke up and walked from her house to the church (about a mile and a half -- with giant hills) just to be there. When we asked her about if she still wanted to be baptized this weekend, she pretty much told us "Well DUH!" Hahahaha, so we have her this weekend and Lorena and Sandra the 22nd. And we have even more planned for March now, which include a family of 6 with 3 sons who could possibly serve missions, and a young couple who is going to have their first child in 4 months.

My sector has taken a drastic change for the better and we are finding a TON of great great people.

And since today was P-Day, I went to Concepcion and blew a good chunk of my christmas money on the missionary essentials --- Shoes (brown ones of course to rock the Latin style) and ties.... Lots and lots of ties haha

Elder Mundell

Miracles happen as a result of Faith!

My Comp is a STUUUUUD!!!!!! Hahahaha, Or at least we just work really well together. This week we found SO MANY good investigators! 2 brothers, Felipe (17) and Diego (20), that 1 is "Atheist" and the other is a very faithful, level headed guy who doesnt go to any church! We were in a spirit-packed lesson when my comp asked the "Atheist" brother, Felipe, to pray and ask God if: 1) He existed, and 2) If he could be forgiven for his sins that he has committed in his life up to this point. He knelt down and offered the best prayer I have ever heard an investigator offer and then afterwards when we asked how he felt, he went from saying that he never felt anything from praying, "that he thought he was just talking to air," to now he felt a physical change in his being -- like he felt loved and happy. AND THE BEST PART IS...... He likes to play Basketball!!!!! Which means I finally have someone to play with and he said hes going to invite his friends one night to play basketball at the church -- MORE YOUNG INVESTIGATORS!!!! AND NO MORE FÚTBOL!!! 

-- MIRACLE # 1

This led me to thinking of a talk from Elder Holland (The Ministry of Angels) that I had recently listened to that day, and a scripture that he used and I later read in my personal study of the Book of Mormon -- Moroni 7:36-38. Which says that if Miracles happen as a result of ones faith, and there will always continue to be miracles on the earth so long as we have the faith. That if miracles have stopped, it is only because our faith has stopped. So looks like Elder Miller and I have got the faith!

We have been working very, very hard to progress with one investigator over the past month and have just been hitting a brick wall every time. But this Saturday there was a Dance that the youth were putting on at the church that night to raise money for EFY -- With the theme "80s Night"! I dont know why, but my comp and I suddenly got the idea to invite her to the dance, and lo and behold SHE LOVES 80s MUSIC! Who woulda thought! So she went, we did a tour of the chapel, and she loved it! She couldnt come to church this Sunday but has committed to come every Sunday following and looks to be preparing to be baptized the 22nd of Feb!

-- MIRACLE #2

In our hunt for more investigators that could progress, my comp and I decided to go through the Area Book and look for old investigators in the sector that we were going to contact that day. We came across one name, called the phone number, and she told us to come by the next day. We went and had an incredible lesson with her about the Restoration and she has committed also to start coming to church starting this next Sunday! The even more amazing part of this story is that she told us how the missionaries that she knew 3 years before had passed by 2 times, and each time was at a moment in her life where she needed help and peace in her life. This was the 3rd visit that she has had with missionaries and in the same way it was at a crucial time in her life. She told us how just 2 weeks before she had had a dream that the missionaries passed by her house with 2 bags of clothes and told her to choose out whatever fits. What could that mean??? BAPTISIMAL CLOTHES!!!!!!!!!!! Hahahaha, obviously we are taking it one step at a time, but she is another awesome investigator who we were blessed to find in this past week!

-- MIRACLE #3

All is good in the Hood

Elder Mundell

7 Months!!!!

The mission has taken a turn for me in this last cambio. After receiving the latest cambios, hoping that I would be put into any sort of leadership role so as to break the chain of laziness and stagnant pace of my mission, I received a very humbling message that I was not going to change in any way. In fact I stayed as junior comp, with my senior comp being another missionary from the same MTC group as me who is also serving as the District Leader also. His name is Elder Miller, from Independence, Missouri. Something very, very interesting about my new companion is that he was a member of the "restored church" (an off-shoot of the Mormon church who believed in the Apostleship being passed down in the lineage of Joseph Smith rather than ) up until he started having doubts of his church and its authority and was baptized a year and a half ago.

I say the mission has taken a turn for me because of how my mission president had the wisdom to humble me by not giving me what I expected and desired -- a leadership role. I remember what he told me when I first got to the mission field that I would be a leader and felt that this was now my time because in this last cambio almost all of the current leadership finished their missions and went home, leaving the young generation of missionaries to begin receiving these positions. And, admittidly at first, I was upset and dissappointed that I was not included in this rising group of young leaders. But as I pondered it out in my mind I came to the conclusion that I still needed growth and began a very interesting theme of my scripture studies. WHICH ON A SIDE NOTE, I FINALLY FINISHED READING THE BOOK OF MORMON IN SPANISH!!!! But as I finished, I started again really looking to study the principle of ACTION. That great power that we have been given from the creation of the world to ACT and not be ACTED UPON (2 Nep 2:14, 16). I have learned a lot from this theme and am still learning more and more every day how I can, and how God expects us, to ACT for ourselves without being told or directed to do so.

Even though I am still junior comp, and felt like I was slowly fading into the background of lessons or contacts or other parts of my mission, I realize now that it was only like this because I was allowing this title of Junior Companion work me over and become passive rather than acting in my calling and authority to be a missionary -- The same calling as any other missionary out in the field at this point. As I pondered this reality, I broke through this mental block of inactivity and have embraced a much greater role in the companionship regardless of title.

I hope that I can express my love for every one of you and your efforts to stay firm in the faith, and constant followers of our Savior and Redeemer. I know now from looking back, that I wasnt ready or prepared to leave on the mission when I did, but now there is no doubt in me that it is what I needed at this point in my life. I NEEDED TO BECOME CONVERTED. I know that every day my testimony grows more and more every day, and that with that, the power behind my words become stronger and stronger as I live the same principles that I am teaching others to live as the Holy Ghost testifies of these simple doctrinal truths. I have learned that if I boldly testify of what I know to be true, the gospel principles of Christs church remain and lead people to search more and find out for themselves if what these 20 year old kids are saying is true. I HAVE CHANGED MY MISSION, AND THE MISSION HAS CHANGED ME. LET IT CHANGE YOU TOO.

Elder CJ Mundell