BIRTHDAY WEEK!

So last week I don´t know if I mentioned my haircut outside of the photos I sent. But believe you me it was the scariest experience of my life! I could hardly understand what she said let alone respond. Nevertheless, I was able to get my hair cut and the lady did a nice job. This experience taught me that you can indeed get a haircut and only say one word the whole time. I just told her "poquito" when she got to the top to make it a tad shorter. The other thing that Elder Rice and I did was buy a soccer ball and I am learning to juggle it every night in the room.

On Wednesday we taught our second lesson to Mercedes and it went really well! We committed her to baptism on the 10th of August. She pretty much told us she wanted to be baptized. She´s a golden investigator. That night we taught David

the plan of salvation ending. We used our visuals and he was really engaged. Then when we talked about the three degrees of heaven we hit the lights to explain to him about the telestial kingdom. Then we turned on the lights but used my umbrella to block the light (thanks for making me take one mom) to explain the terrestial kingdom. Then I put the umbrella away and we talked about the celestial kingdom. In that moment the spirit was so strong and we were able to tell him that if he wanted to live with his family there that he had to keep all of God´s commandments including tithing. Then we asked if he would be baptized and he said YES!!! It was the best feeling ever. I can only imagine what that is like with a real investigator. Thanks dad for the awesome FHE lesson back in the day that helped me think of this one.

Last Thursday we got to go to the temple which is always awesome! That night we had a different teacher then we usually did. Hermano Spolman was going through the temple with a family member that was about married. His friend taught us a lesson about how to teach about... TEMPLES. We taught another district that night and I feel like we did really well. They gave us some solid feedback. Thursday was a really nice head clearing day.

Friday started off pretty darn good. I came into class and there were two notes on every desk from the Hermanas. They were the nicest notes ever and they just started the day off right. I was super productive in writing all the words I didn´t understand down. We taught Carolina the end of the plan of salvation. It lacked the flare that we had with David, cause I couldn´t turn off the lights, but it was still a pretty good lesson. That night we taught David about faith. At one point in the lesson I felt prompted to ask him what some of his goals were to exercise his faith in Christ. Not only did he say baptism was his goal but he said he wanted to be sealed to his wife (who is already a member) in the temple!! That led to a really cool discussion about temples and we were able to use what we learned the night before in our lesson.

Saturday was a cool day. We taught Carolina about the Word of Wisdom and she´s still 100% on board with being baptized. I felt like we had a really solid foundation with her! I felt pretty confident going to this lesson anyways because the week before she said "praying in the morning is more energizing than drinking coffee." I made sure that she remembered that in the lesson. Good thing I´m getting better and listening! That night we learned about how to teach using the sermon on the mount as our example. I  think that trying to teach like Christ is a pretty solid goal. It was a cool lesson. I love Hermano Spolman!

Sunday was also an awesome day! For one it was my birthday and two it´s a Sunday. We had a sweet lesson on setting goals. There was a devotion by Elder Oaks as well that talked about learning what it means to become a missionary. There were some awesome tips and challenges there. I also started to take notes on the sides of Preach My Gospel. I learned a lot on Sunday! The other cool thing was that the MTC President from the Santiago West Mission came to speak and he actually lived in Georgia for a little while. I talked to his sons after the Fireside and they said they lived in Roswell. And I was like NO WAY I´M FROM POWDER SPRINGS! They new Tyler Weeks and a few other people. I asked the older one if he had ever met Rachel Densley at BYU and he was like "does she have red hair?" So that was a definite yes! So that was really exciting for me.

Yesterday day was kind of an off day. It started out alright but things weren´t really clicking. Finally at night Hermano Spolman talked with us about sharing what we learned with our companions. While the other companionships were teaching Elder Rice and the Hermanas and I had a really awesome discussion about we learned in personal study that morning. The day definitely ended really awesomely. Oh and we have perfected our end of the day hand shake thingy as a district and it´s the coolest thing ever! Just saying.

My Birthday Cards!

I love all of you guys and I want to say thank you for all of the birthday emails! I just want to share some quotes that I heard this week that I think are really amazing. So the first one is "You either have to endure the pain of discipline or endure the pain of regret." That was by Hermana Gilbert. I love this quote because it is very true. Being disciplined in the moment can be tough but it is nothing compared to the pain of regret that can stick with you for a long time. The second quote is "Until you write it down it is a dream not a goal." That was by Elder Gilbert. Write your goals down! If you have a dream, right down how you are gonna make it happen and make it a reality! You can do it. Goal setting is awesome stuff and it helps you reach your full potential. The last quote kind of goes along with the previous one and it´s just something that my district leader said. He said "never say I wish I did always say I did." That´s from Elder Jensen. I leave you guys with that thought! Love you guys. You are the best :)

WEEK 3!

So a lot happened last Tuesday after I emailed all of you guys. So we went out shopping and we went to an Elpaca store and Elder Rice got a little Elpaca shoulder bag. It turned out that the lady who owned the store was a member and asked us to pray with her which was pretty cool. We had this one stray dog following us everywhere. There are dogs all over the place in the city. Also on Tuesday we got the news that we got to keep all but one of our Teachers, which was really exciting! The last thing that happened was that we had to switch rooms. It kind of stunk to say goodbye to the roomies cause they were awesome. Now we are in a room right next to the MTC President. Our new roommates are definitely different from the old ones but I still like them fine.

On Wednesday not much happened outside of the new Elders coming in. I was super stoked to see Elder Kelly and in my excitement at lunch, when I first saw him, I yelled "PATRICK." It´s gonna be hard to call him Elder Kelly. He makes the morning soccer games even more fun though.

Thursday Elder Rice started making our plan of salvation kit. It´s pretty awesome. I sent you guys a picture of it. It ook a few days to get it finished though. The best part about Thursday though was this lesson on inspired questions. Hermano Spolman talked about it and then he just had us practice in English. One person in the companionship acted as the missionary and the other acted as themselves a few weeks before we came out here. I was the kid about to leave on a mission. Elder Rice and I talked for a little while and then he asked a really simple question that really opened up our conversation and we connected even more as companions. The spirit in that room just got stronger as everyone bore there testimonies with so much love. Then Hermano Spolman had us listen to a talk called "Missionary work and The Atonement" by Elder Holland. I encourage everyone to listen to that talk. That was the most spiritual night so far on my mission. I mean I can hardly describe how it felt in that room.

Elder Shell & Elder Kelly

So Friday was a pretty solid day. It was the first time I played soccer with Elder Kelly and I scored! and I might just be joining the good ole intramural team when we are back at the Y. We got to use our plan of salvation kit with David and he was more engaged than usual but still not our best lesson.

Saturday we had to play kickball which is kind of lame cause you don´t get to do much but Elder Rice and I had fun base coaching and he scored a home run and batted me in so that was awesome. We taught our new investigator Mercedes for the first time! We finally were able to use everything we learned about how to begin teaching and a quick 5 minute restoration lesson and it went really really well! We committed her to read 2 Nephi 31, to bring her son to the next lesson and taught her how to pray in one visit. Later that day we taught part of the plan of salvation to Carolina using our set and it went way better than with David.

Chilin' & Having Fun!

Sunday was relaxing. I prepared my talk on the Holy Ghost but didn´t end up speaking. We listened to an old devotional about preach my gospel from Elder Holland and it was great. Then during family night we watched How Rare A  Possession. Sundays are awesome cause you just get to study. Elder Holland talked about how important it is for missionaries to study and be converted themselves. On Monday we pretty much just planned lessons all day., Then we finally taught David at night and had to scrap our finale to the plan of salvation of awesomeness because David had a huge issue with tithing and didn't want to get baptized because of that so we had to reroute.


Now I´m emailing you and I just have to say how much I love all of you. Life here is busy but I am learning so much, the spirit is always so strong, and I love what I am doing!

Love you guys,

Elder Shell

Week 2!

So my email last week was really long and I apologize for that. I´m still getting used to things and I´ll try to be better this week so I can have some time for personal emails.

On Tuesday after I emailed we got back to our usually class schedule. That night Elder Rice and I taught The Restoration to David and it wasn´t too shabby! The best part of the day was when Elder Christensen stood up before we had District prayer. He just bore his testimony about how everyone here is special and we shouldn´t make fun of others when they do or say something goofy. It took a lot of courage to say that and I was instantly humbled. I´m finding a new found love for every person here because of him.

Wednesday was a pretty good day but I was beginning to get sick. Our lesson with Nimia went pretty well. She said we did a good job of teaching Nimia and not a lesson. We also went to the temple which was great but kinda rushed. I´m just glad the session was in English.

Thursday and Friday were pretty hard days. Friday I was sick and out of it because of a combination of dayquil and sickness. I was pretty positive in the morning but couldn´t understand anything in the first lesson. From there it went South, and the second lesson was even harder to understand. On top of all of that our investigator decided to drop a bomb on us about not wanting take the discussion anymore. I´m just thankful that Elder Rice was on his A game during that lesson. I finally found a quiet spot and said one of the most humble prayers I have ever given. Learning a language is certainly humbling. After I prayed, almost immediately my thoughts were cleared and all of these doubts that were in my head went out the window. I felt an overwhelming feeling of love from my Heavenly Father. Our last lesson that night couldn´t have gone much better and I am so thankful for that answer to my prayer and confidence booster. The power of prayer is real people!!!

View from my room. Santiago Temple

Saturday was a great day! I was finally starting to feel better and everything was just awesome. The only thing that made the day even was our "Christmas discussion" with Hermana Abarzua. We were going to read the account of Christ birth with her and go from there. In introducing our lesson I didn´t know how to say birth and Elder Rice looked to the chapter heading of Luke 2 for help. He saw the words "Jesus es..." and assumed the next word was born so he read it. Let´s just say that it was not birth or born and if you want to know what it is just check out the chapter heading for Luke 2 and in the English version it says "He is..." and then read the next word. Our teacher and I were laughing pretty hard for the next few minutes.

Sunday is certainly a day of rest. There is not much more to say about it other than that. It is a spiritual charge up and I love it! We talked about repentance all day and the atonement. I love talking about the atonement of our Savior. It´s such an amazing thing and it is real and it is the only way we can get back to our Heavenly Father. At night we had a fireside and Myself and a group of 5 other Elders sang "we´ll bring the world his truth." It went pretty well! I love singing! then the temple President spoke to us about the restoration. My favorite part of Sunday was the overwhelming confirmation from the spirit about why I am here. I know why I am here. I want to bring everyone the same joy the atonement of Jesus Christ brings to my life. I owe my Savior everything and 2 years is the least I can give to him.

Yesterday was a great day! The language was coming a long pretty well. I was speaking a lot more and really picking up on what our teachers were saying even though they were talking one hundred miles per hour. Elder Rice and I committed Carolin (the investigator that dropped the bomb on us) and Nimia to baptismal dates! WOOT WOOT!!! Pretty much everything about yesterday day made me happy until we had to say goodbye to the two weekers that left this morning! There are some really awesome Elders about to hit the field and I wish all of the the best of luck!

One thing I learned from this week is that I really need to work on being patient with myself and have faith. The great part is that in Preach My Gospel there is a section called Christ Like Attributes and it has scripture upon scriptures about all the attributes of Christ. I encourage all of you to study each of those attributes and pick on one every single day to try to improve on.

I just want to bare my testimony that I know that this Church is true! I know that this is where Heavenly Father wants me to be right now. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that through him Heavenly Father restored the gospel of Jesus Christ. The proper priesthood authority is on the earth today. We have a Savior that loves us and he atoned for our sins. Because of this we have the opportunity to repent and return to our Father in Heaven and that opportunity is AMAZING! I love this gospel and I know that it is true. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

First Week!!

Well, I am officially a Missionary and life here at the CCM is crazy! I never realized I could be so amazingly tired and happy at the same time! A lot has happened this week so I guess place to start is from the beginning. So the flight down to Chile was pretty uncomfortable not going to lie. The seats seemed to be stacked right up against each other and I was like "there is no way I am going to be able to sleep." I was right. I maybe slept like three hours on the nine hour flight but hey I can´t complain. The guy next to me was 6´7. I can´t imagine what that was like for him. When we finally landed, getting through customs and immigration was a breeze. They didn´t ask me anything. So it seems all of that time I spent memorizing those phrases was a waste. Oh well! So when we first got here we finally got our nametags and we had a little bit of time to settle in and get our stuff into our rooms. After that, we ate lunch and it was right to work. We went to class and we started learning about our objective right away. Most of Wednesday was learning about our objective. We actually memorized it that day and then probably talked a million other things that I can´t remember. I think we went over the missionary handbook and the other language materials we got and then it was go go go.

Alright so I´m going to start trying to give this email some structure. So now I´m gonna talk about Thursday. Thursday we finally got to meet our assigned companions and my companion was Elder Rice! Which was really cool cause he and I talked a lot at the airport and rode to the MTC together. I guess it only makes sense that we are

District 3!

companions since we are bunk mates. Anyways, we are in District 3 and our District leader is Elder Jensen! He is a super cool guy and definitely a great leader. He and I get along really well. His companions is Elder Farnsworth and he is a fun guy too. The other set of Elders in our district is Elder Huber and Elder Christensen. Both of whom just continue the trend of awesomeness. It´s kind of funny that Elder Huber is in my district because he and I were friends at BYU and he was in my philosophy class. The Hermanas in our district are Hermana Rhoads and Hermana Christensen. They are super fun! They never fail to make sure that all of the boys have snacks for class. Anyways, back to what happened on Thursday. Thursday we had a lesson about asking investigators questions and they actually had a guy on the stage role playing with us and he was completely in character. We would ask him questions and then a translator would talk to him and then he would reply and they would translate back. We asked question after question after question and he finally told that his young son was sick. And one of the Hermanas said "I am so sorry. I know how you feel my mom is sick as well." In that moment the spirit was so strong. The connection that we felt with that investigator was so real. I want to be able to connect like that with all of our investigators. It taught me that we as missionaries talk to much a lot of the time and we just need to sit back and ask questions and let the investigators thoughts and the spirit drive the lesson. We finally went to classes that day and we worked on introducing ourselves and we watched the district and began to learn to pray in Spanish. We also started learning to bear our testimonies in spanish as well.

Friday was all about making goals and planning. I guess I should take a second and talk about all of our teachers. So we have Hermana Carliosa and she is just a bubbly ball of fun. She is always smiling. She plays the role of one of our investigators Nimia. Our second teachers is Hermana Cabrera and Hermana Cabarsua. Sister Carbarsua speaks like no English so it is really hard to communicate with her sometimes. In fact on Thursday I forgot to mention that we did some lesson planning and she tried to help us plan and it was the most frustrating thing because we could not understand a thing that she was saying and Hermana Cabrera had to step out for some reason. Anyways our third teacher is Hermano Spolman. He is a pretty relaxed and fun guy. We like to call him Hermanbro Spolman. So Friday morning we taught our first lesson already! It was the scariest, hardest, and most frustrating thing that I have ever done. We had so many thing that we wanted to say to her but we were really struggling to convey our thoughts. However, I could feel the spirit in that room and eventually we were able to teach her a little bit and set a return appointment and it was super cool. The second lesson was with our teacher Hermana Cabrera who plays our investigator Carolina. I wish I had enough time to tell you about our investigators. That was our best lesson that day. We were actually able to talk to her a little bit and teach a pretty solid lesson for how little Spanish that we knew. I was pretty pleased in the progress we made in just a few hours was pretty awesome. Then that night we finally taught David and it was like silence for about 20 minutes. We just could not find the words that we wanted to say. It was really really frustrating. But then that night during companionship planning Elder Rice and I said a prayer and we immediately just felt better. I know Heavenely Father answers each and every one of our prayers and believe me there are many.

Oh I forgot to tell you about something that hit me really hard earlier in the day. We had a fireside and the guy speaking said something that I liked. He said that you are only going to be here for two short years but the people that you baptize will remember you for a lifetime. Saturday was great and to be honest I don´t remember a whole lot about it. It was just learn, learn, learn, and a little bit of a break from teaching. We did a lot of language study and and some companionship study and we got feedback on the lessons that we taught. The main thing that all of the people said was to get to know the investigator. I just laughed and said "Believe me I would, but it seems that my investigators speak a different language than me."

Elder Shell & his new comp, Elder Rice

Sunday was just amazing! Talk about feeling the spirit the entire day! We got to see a fireside that was from last week that was recorded in Provo. I saw a lot of Elder that I regonized from BYU. Elder Danneman seemed to be hogging a lot of camera time during the choir segment but it was sweet to see him. Elder Cook gave a great devotional. The thought that he said that stuck out the most to me was that we are a missionary from the moment we are set apart not 6 months out when you are fluent in the language. Even though sometimes I feel inadequate I know that the Lord qualifies his missionaries and that in a way I am already being an effective missionary. Testimony meeting was incredible. I was happy that I got to bear my testimony. I don´t think that I have ever felt the spirit that strong in my life. It was incredible. Elder Jensen gave us a great Sunday school lesson on Faith. Elder Quorum was pretty cool and then that night we had sort of an FHE type thing. Sunday was very relaxing.

Monday we did more teaching! We only had to teach Carolina but it was the best lesson we gave yet! I was so excited that we were able to follow up on our commitments with her and get to know her even better and share a message with her. The gift of tongues is real people. I can understand most of what our teachers say when I am really, really focused. I can even give some simple responses which I am pretty pleased with considering it has only been a week. Today is P-day and it´s like any other day but we get a few hours that we can walk around and stuff and now I am emailing you! I absolutely love my district. We are already ridiculously close! They are the best. I never thought that I could be so busy in my entire life but I am so happy! I love being a missionary! The power of prayer is real and I feel the spirit everywhere I go. I love all of you! Sorry my thoughts were so jumbled! I wish I could have written some personal emails this week but it´s a learning process! I guess this big email will have to be a lot shorter next week.

Love you guys,
Elder Shell

I'm Here!

At the airport

Well hey there family! I made it down to Chile just fine and the past 24 hours has been a blur. So when I got through security there was only like three people at the gate after I exchanged my currency. The exchange rate from US Dollars to the peso is ridiculous by the way. I feel rich! Anyways like I said for the first half hour or so there were not a lot of people. Then all of the sudden there was a flood of people in black suits and that could only mean one thing. The connecting flight from Salt Lake had just gotten here. There were tons and tons of Elders and Hermanas. I was pretty surprised because I did not expect to see so many. I think there is like 38 of us in total. However, I didn´t see either of the familiar faces I was expecting to see. Finally a little past 9 I saw Hermana Sampson and shortly after Elder Hubert!


The flight was really long and I hardly slept. And Dad they did not
only feed us dinner but they gave us breakfast as well. I think the reason I couldn´t sleep was because I was so crammed in there. I felt bad for the 6´7 elder who had the middle seat. Now we are here at the CCM and already learning things at one hundred miles an hour. Some of the Elders and Sister are in a different building than the one that we are in. That includes Hermana Sampson. Elder Hubert and I are still in the same group and stuff though so that´s fun! I think that my companion is Elder Rice but I´m not 100% sure though because they haven´t officially said that stuff yet. But hey and I share a bunk bed. He is a really funny guy and I like him a lot already. I´m out of time! Back to class. Love you guys lots talk to you soon! Love, Elder Shell