Family Nights

Hello everyone! 

We had a pretty good week, before I forget I wanted to ask what is going on in the Ukraine. I have seen a few messages and it looks like something is going on. How are Will, Madsen and Nolan? 

We found rats in the house last night. 

I am doing really well. We are working hard trying to get things rolling here in Lonchoche. My companion says, “hi” and wants to know how you are all doing. 

The work is really difficult here; but I have felt multiple times that I can really make a difference here. We just need to figure out how. Chile has a really interesting history with the church. There was a huge boom in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Even though the baptismal tally was high, there wasn´t much retention. I think largely to a lack of experienced priesthood leaders. This became very clear yesterday as I talked to a 3 time branch president who had apostatized. It was very interesting to hear his thoughts, because he claims to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon but saw some things differently with the administrative side. You can see that the adversary is working very hard here on all levels. There are not a lot of people who are married either. It is tough to change from a place like Utah where the Church and family structure are so strong, to a place where they are not. 

We are starting to have family nights and are having the members fellowship less-active members. We also want to re-teach the basic doctrines to the members so that they can have the Spirit more in their lives, and have desires to share the gospel. I am really beginning to learn what it means to work with members. 

A few weeks ago we were having a lot of success. We had church attendance up to 46 from the previous 28. Right when we were having this success, we faced some challenges. The attendance took a major blow and now we are working to re-build. I really think something big is going to happen here in Chile, but it is definitely challenging.

I love you guys tons! I hope Claire’s tests went well this week and the Leprechauns showed up this morning. Luckily, I wore me green sweater today!