The House of Requirement and the Right NOW Promptings - October 13, 2014

Monday I mailed some letters home and got to look at this huge cathedral in the central of Independencia. It was massive but they were doing construction on the outside but the inside was cool looking. We also hate Peruvian food and it was delicious. We also got some killer ice cream. It was a fun p-day. The only bummer was we got a call from Marcela and she said she needed help paying her water bill and wanted us to talk to our bishop. She`s only been an investigator for a week and she`s never gone to our ward or anything. We couldn`t really do anything to help her out and I felt really bad. Apparently she called a lot of people in Renca 1 as well. I just really hope that she isn`t investigating the church to try and get financial help. At the same time I feel so bad that she can`t pay for her water. That kind of took some of the wind out of my sails Monday.

So Tuesday right before dinner we were at the house of a man named Arturo. I had just called for the first time and the rule is you call three times. They say everytime you yell three times your wife gets prettier so I make sure I do it. But after the first call I felt like we needed to go see Denise and I felt like we needed to do it right then. I don`t know if it was a prompting of the Spirit or not whenever I have a thought of something good to do I just do it. So I skipped out on the last 2 calls and left right then. Maybe Heavenly Father was trying to see if I`d listen but I went right then and we found Denise at home. We talked to her for a minute but she didn`t really have time for us to teach her because she was taking care of her sick sister. But we had enough time to talk to her and find out that her sister is a member of the Church! So that was pretty cool. Who knows, we may have been able to get a hold of her anyways but I felt like I did the right thing by just leaving the first house. That night we had a lesson with Alex and Carola and we watched a video on temples. It was such a cool lesson! I really felt like Alex understood a lot and it was a great end to the day. 

Wednesday morning we were doing a contact with a guy our age named Thomas but then we saw two people helping this girl walk who was crying. We asked if they needed help but they said they had already called a taxi. We continued to talk to Thomas for another few minutes but no taxi came. So we asked if we could call another for them and they said yes. So we called the taxi company we use and then about a minute later a different taxi came by so we flagged it down. We called the taxi company to cancel and they were pretty ticked. Elder Ortiz was on the phone so I don`t know exactly how the conversation went but the lady said we can`t use them anymore. They didn`t seem to care that it was an emergency so that was kind of a bummer. That afternoon we contacted a reference named Noè. He`s way cool and I think things are promising there. That night we couldn`t get a hold of Marcela but Chano pulled up just as we were knocking on his apartment and we had a great lesson with him. He`s so close to being more active in the church I know that if we just give him a couple more nudges he`ll be there because he`s awesome. 

Thursday morning we had interviews with President Videla. It was awesome! It was cool to talk with him. We also had area book checks and it was really helpful for me to see what I can be doing to use it more effectively. I learned a lot during that and I actually found out I was doing better than I thought I was doing at updating it and what not. We got to visit with the less active Bernarda that afternoon and she actually mentioned she might take her grandaughter to church one of these weeks! That was super exciting to here. That night we also got to take to the Araya Teyo Family for my first time ever! They are a part member family and it`s been a while since the parents have gone to church but we talked with the Dad, Simon who is 13 and a member as well, and their daughter Amanda. She`s the investigator there but they`re awesome and I`m excited to teach them some more and get them back to church! They`re way cool. 

Friday was crazy. We went to see this contact named Ines and her husband Alejandro opened the door. He didn`t really know us but he was like come on in. So while we were waiting on Ines he just puts on this travel video of Bolivia. Apparently they have traveled all over the place. It was a really weird visit and we hardly got a word out the entire time. Towards the end he asked us how old we thought he was and we of course guessed super low jokingly. He said "I`m 72 but you can`t tell can ya" and proceeded to tell us how he was in great shape. Then he lifted up his shirt and began to beat on his chest and stomach. That was a fun visit... 

That afternoon was really lame and really the whole day had been kind of difficult. During dinner I was reading the Liahona and the thought came to me that I should go upstairs and update my little money spending chart that I keep. Again it was a you need to do it right now thought. So I stopped mid article and went upstairs to do that. I have no idea why but in the process of recording my spendings and counting my change to make sure I knew how much money I had I just relaxed a lot and felt way way way better. I really like budgeting my money and what not and it really relaxes me I guess but I know more than anything I was blessed for being obedient to the promptings of the spirit. 

Saturday I started my fast and I just gotta say I love fasting. We got to teach one of the coolest contacts that I`ve had. His name is Jose Luis and we`ve been trying to visit him for weeks and it was way cool to finally sit down and get to know him a bit and leave a quick message. Then that night someone Elder Ortiz had taught with Elder Nelson (our AP) was getting married. They were less actives and we had permission to go to the wedding. It was kind of fun to see a wedding in Chile. It was way cool that our mission President gave us permission to go to it. Our Zone leaders were there too because the wedding was in their chapel. It was cool afterwards because I got to go on companion exchanges for an hour with Elder Hyer. It was awesome. He said some really nice stuff about me to his recent converts that we visited and it boosted my confidence a lot. Afterwords we stopped by the wedding reception really quick. Elder Nelson gave a little speach and then we left. I thought being in a wedding reception would be difficult while fasting with all the food and what not but it was like the easiest thing ever to say no things when people offered me stuff and I felt really good afterwards.

Sunday was great. Alex loved church and we had some awesome lessons. Carola couldn`t come because she was sick so that was a bummer. After church we went by the house of Zoila. We tried to find her house last week for like over an hour. We finally got her address from her and I swear we walked down that same street like 6 times last week. But this 7th time we found her house super quick no problem. I decided that her house is the house of requirement and that you have to walk by 7 times before it appears That afternoon we visited with Maria and her husband Alejandro who has dimensia. He was doing really well that day so it was cool to talk to him a bit more than usual. Afterwards we ate once with the Valencia Jara family and they are just fun. It was a ton of fun and we got a reference! They`re seriously the best. Always good for a laugh and always willing to help with the work. Didn`t really get to have an actual lesson that night but we got to talk to a few people and it was a pretty good night.

So real quick I have some quick funny stories from this week. So the first was Elder Ortiz. We had the hat of Juan Sepulvida because he left it at the stake center during general conference. We were going to return it to him and we walked past a group of pidgeons. One of them wasn`t too fast and couldn`t fly that well and Elder Ortiz proceeded to chase it all over creation trying to put the hat on the bird. It was just fast enough to out fly him. The other story was when two of these dogs were play fighting. Elder Ortiz walks over there and jokingly says I`m gonna play with them. Well as he gets close the dogs notice him and decide they really do want to play. They proceed to chase him all the way down the sidewalk. I just about died laughing. His face was hysterical. I had my own not so smooth moments this week as well. One day there were these set of stairs on the sidewalk where the ground elevates a lot out of the blue. I decide I`m gonna run up the stairs. So I sprint up the stairs and then at the top I went to do the Rocky thing at the top. I started jumping and as I went to put my fist in the air and found out quickly that I was under a tree branch cause my hands made solid contact. That was kind of embarassing... Fun week. 

The quote this week is one my mom sent me a while back. "Nothing spledid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance" Bruce Barton. I love this quote. Have confidence in yourselves. No matter your circumstances believe that you can do something special. Love you all!

Elder Shell

 Pictures from the wedding!

Weekly Email Conference Issue - October 6, 2014

Last week after I emailed all of you our monday ended with a killer weekly planning session and a visit to Alex and Carola. Nothing special but super productive and got each other on the same page. We made some changes and Elder Ortiz had some awesome ideas for how we could help out some of our inactives.

Tuesday was pretty cool. We went to see Bernarda and ended up talking with her sister Marta who is also a less active. We´re looking at reactivating and baptizing an entire family there. Hopefully we can get a hold of them when they´re all there. That night we had a lesson with our new investigator Marcela and her son Richie. We decided to ask Fernando Ponce, an RM in the ward who served in Colombia, and his mom to come with us to the lesson. Marcela doesn´t want to go to our ward because the only place she is familiar with is Renca 1. So we figured that a lesson with some members would help out a bit. The lesson was super killer. It was such a blessing to have Fernando there. While he was talking about the Book of Mormon I had another strong witness that the Book of Mormon is true. I had been reading we need to keep praying to strengthen our testimonies on things and I had been praying this past week to be able to strengthen my testimony of the Book of Mormon. I don´t know if we taught a perfect lesson to Marcela but it sure was exactly what I needed. I can´t describe to you how powerfully I felt the spirit there. The Book of Mormon is true people! Marcela is still aprehensive to attend our ward but she´ll come around.

Wednesday started out with district class. I learned so much and it was super super helpful this week. I learned a lot about working with the bishop and making specific goals in specific categories to do so. That afternoon was kind of crazy. We finally had our money for the month so we had to do some shopping. We tried to do it quickly but all the atm´s were out of money in the first super market and only one worked in the second. We finally got what we needed and go to go visit with Maria and Juan. Maria needed help writing a recipe in English for a class. I helped her with that and tried to help her pronounce the words. It was quite entertaining. It´s really difficult for them to make some of the sounds we have in the English language. We ended up running out of time and just leaving a quick scripture so not the best visit but I´m glad I got to help her out. That night we met with Alex and Carola and taught a lesson about the organization of the ward and the different priesthood offices and what not. It was kind of a rough lesson. I didn´t know exactly how I wanted to go about teaching it because we had taught it before and Alex was a little sick and not paying a whole lot of attention. On top of that we had already eaten dinner and then they made cumpletos and insisted that we eat them. I felt sooooo fat. The other bummer was that we couldn´t get a member to come with us for our lesson with Marcela the next day. 

Thursday was kind of funny. We had some appointments and I wasn´t planning on going to visit one of the people that was in our plans for the day because we weren´t gonna have time. However, later that day I felt like we should swing by anyways and atleast make an appointment for another day. As we turned into a street we´ve walked down so many times the dogs started going crazy outside of this one house. A lady came out and said "Are you looking for me?" We couldn´t turn down such an easy contact and started to talk to her. Turns out she was an inactive member of the church that we had no idea lived in our ward! Her name was Petronida. We talked for a while and she was super nice and she said we could come by the next day. At the end of it Elder Ortiz and I had already forgotten her name. Elder Ortiz asked her what it started with and she said "P". After a few seconds of thought he said "Pancrasia!" That´s Spanish for pancreas. I busted up laughing and so did she and she said not quite. It was super cool that the spirit guided us over there to find her. AFter that we had a lesson with Catalina. The niece of Bernarda. It had been forever since we taught her but we found out she had kept all of our commitments! We read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon and she seems to really pay attention and understand. We left her with another commitment and she says she´ll say the pray next time! That night I had an idea to give Marcela a tour of the church and I was super pumped for it. The church was supposed to be open so we went and got her and went to the church and there were a ton of people waiting outside. Marcela got to talk with some of the Relief Society sisters and they invited her to sing with them which was good. But after waiting for what seemed like forever the keys never came and we went back to Marcela´s to teach her. We taught about the Book of Mormon some more but I think she struggles to pay attention a bit. We asked a lot of questions about what we just read and she couldn´t answer really any of them. I feel that she´s gonna progress slowly. It ended up being a good lesson though because she really opened up to us and explained some of her problems to us. 

Friday we got to talk with Maria Rojas who has the husband with dimensia. She has kids staying with her right now so she´s doing super well. We went to visit a contact named Felipe and we ended up finding his mom. She was super cool and gave us a better time that we could come back to share with him and the family. She tried to do the little kissy thing on the cheek goodbye and I awkwardly kept her a hand shake away and explained we couldn´t do that. That night Alex and Carola cancelled on us for like the first time ever so we tried to visit Brandon. We ended up talking with his mom for a long time because Brandon wasn´t there. All of his family was there but him. By talking to his mom I think we figured out part of the reason why Brandon doesn´t read and keep our commitments a whole lot. His mom respects the church but she doesn´t like it a whole lot. So that´s gonna be a tough problem to deal with. 

Saturday and Sunday were conference and they were amazing. I had been praying pretty hard the days beforehand to be able to understand conference and learn a lot. Heavenly Father answered my prayer in a little bit in a different way than I had expected. They had a classroom in the church with an English session! One of the only stakes in our entire mission that does that. I learned so so so much from conference and it was such a blessing to be able to see it in English. The next time though I´ll be ready to listen in Spanish. I loved some many of the talks and couldn´t pick a favorite if I tried. A lot of the talks got me thinking about my parents. They´ve truly been such good examples to me in my life of truly diligent members of the church and always strong in the gospel. I really received a stronger appreciation for them during the conference as I realized that did pretty much everything that they said parents should be doing. My favorite quote from conference was "Decisions determine destiny." It´s so true. This life isn´t made up of big decisions. It is made up of little ones every single day. Whether or not we decide to do the little things is so important. Reading our scriptures and praying every day is essencial to making other good decisions and knowing what we need to do. I loved how they talked about getting a personal witness that this is the true gospel. It´s true that the testimonies of others can only carry you so far. A testimony isn´t a one time thing either. It´s a process of a lifetime in which we will constantly learn more as we search and ask diligently for answers. We always need to be trying to strengthen our testimonies because if it isn´t getting stronger I promise you it will get weaker. Make the right small decisions everyday it makes the biggest difference!

Love you all,

Elder Shell

Wait, that doesn't look like the right street - September 29, 2014

It`s kind of tough when you have only been in an area for one transfer and you have to know where everything is at. The reoccuring thought in my head this week has been "wait that doesn`t look like the right street..." Yes we have gotten lost a few times here this week.

So Tuesday was sort of a bummer because we were supposed to have an appointment with Rut and she is super awesome but she called during lunch to cancel. She said that she was gonna be gone the whole week and that we could meet next week. That was kind of a bummer because after getting lost all morning I was looking forward to an appointment I knew for sure how to get to. With a chunk in our schedule the thought just kind of came to my head to go see if the Quijara family could go visit Alex and Carola that night. Sure enough as we were swinging by there house she was like by the door and we talked to her and she said that she and her husband would love to go. So we went about our day and we were able to get a hold of Bernarda and Catalina so that was a huge blessing to be able to talk with them for a while and share a scripture. It was kind of silly of me because we were talking with Bernarda (less active) for a while and I never asked if Catalina was there. Elder Ortiz asked before I went to share a scripture and it turned out that she was there.... We could have taught the Plan of Salvation if I had thought to ask if she was there earlier. It was cool just to be able to sit down with them though. That night we had our lesson with Alex and Carola and the Quijara Family on missionary work and service. The Quijara family are ward missionaries and it was cool to be able to show to Alex and Carola that every member can be a missionary. It was a great lesson. I`m glad the spirit guided me to get the Quijara Family to help us out. I`m so thankful that they were willing to come. 

Wednesday was district class and I we got two more brand new guys in our district! Elder Cagle is like 6`6 and super cool. It`s kind of funny because his companion Elder Corronado is like 5`8 or 9 and super skinny. Elder Bird is Elder Keller`s companion. He`s a good guy I was suprised at how much he tried to participate in district class! It was awesome. Elder Cagle is in the other district and Elder Bird is in mind. I forgot to mention that Tuesday night at like 10:30 we got a call from Elder Bullock asking us to teach in district class since we were the only companionship that kind of knew each other. We taught about making goals and why it`s important to the mission and what we need to be focusing on. I felt like it went pretty well and I felt like I did pretty well with my Spanish during it. We also had a lesson on working with the Bishop and I got to practice with Elder Macedo and I learned a ton from him. We had a cool addition to the end of district class where we wrote down all the problems we were having and then we helped each out by giving suggestions and what not. Elder Macedo had some super awesome ideas that helped me out. I realized that a lot of the other people are having the same problems that we are having. It was super helpful all the way around. That afternoon we met with Luis and taught him the first lesson. It was kind of tough because I don`t know how much he is really understanding or if he`s even really listening. Seems like he zones out a lot. We are gonna have to ask a lot more questions and speak up a bit. He`s pretty old. That night I had a really tough lesson with Alex and Carola. We had to kind of make it super clear that he couldn`t get baptized on the 18th and that they needed to get married and everything before. I could tell that he was dissappointed but they`re still willing to do everything and they`re just so awesome. My only worry is that I`ll leave before the process finishes up and some of the other missionaries that come a long don`t help them finish everything up so he can be baptized. He`s so ready already. 

Thursday morning was super cool. He were planning to see if this guy Angelo was in his house but I accidentally walked to far. It just so happened that when I realized that and turned around we were at the house of Humberto and through the fence I could see him sitting there. So I was like lets see if we can teach him. Sure enough we got to talk with him and get to know him a little better and just live him with a brief lesson of the Plan of Salvation just emphasizing that we can live with our families for eternity. He is 86 and has quite a few children and grandchildren and his wife passed a way a few years back. It was super cool at the end. Elder Ortiz helped him pray and his prayer was so sincere man it was awesome. So after that we went to lunch and got lost again. I walked down a block to far and we took the long way there. Then I was walking behind Elder Ortiz in a narrow part of the sidewalk and when we went to turn I saw to little to late a freshly poured block of wet cement and stepped right in that sucker. My first thought was shoot I have cement on my shoe. The second thought was I need to tell the worker guy what happened. The third thought was how do I say that in Spanish. Elder Ortiz just kept walking because he didn`t see so I just kept walking and didn`t say anything. I felt terrible. I saw the guy turn around when I stepped in it and I`m sure he was really angry. I wish I could have thought quickly enough to apologize. Oh well things happen sometimes I guess. That day Elder Ortiz had a meeting with a guy in Providencia which is where the Temple and the CCM are. I got to grab some scripture cases there so I could keep my spanish scriptures in good condition. It felt weird to be back there. We stopped by the CCM for a second to use the bathroom and it was just weird. I saw Hermana Cariola though and got to talk to her for a second. It was cool to be able to do that all in Spanish. That afternoon we helped Luis by filling up the tires of his wheelchair with air. Elder Ortiz and I took turns pushing each other on the way back just to make sure it worked alright. That night we finally got to sit down with Brandon and read the Book of Mormon with him. He`s been really lazy about reading and praying and coming to church. We gotta figure out something fun to do with him to get him excited. 

Friday we found a new investigator in the morning named Marta and taught her a short plan of salvation. Lunch that day was hilarious. The Hermana during lunch was looking at a picture of Elder Princes family. She was like "You`re mom is soooo pretty. You`re dad is... nice. You`re like your dad." It was so mean but just the way she said it was pretty funny... After studies we were gonna go see Zoila and I could not find her house for the life of me so we walked for forever and eventually gave up. That night we went by Alex and Carola`s and they weren`t there at first. We gave them a quick call and they said they would be there in 30 minutes so we went and printed off some stuff for coordination the next day and then headed back to Alex`s and Carola and had a quick lesson on Obeying and Honoring the law of the country. It was pretty short and sweet and to the point. There isn`t a ton we can teach there you just gotta do it. 

Saturday we had coordination and it was super awesome. Afterwards we had some super tasty tacos. That afternoon after weeks of not being able to find a lady named Maria we finally were able to be able to set down with her and teach her the first lesson. At first Elder Ortiz and I were a little bit on a different page because he didn`t realize we had already taught a summary of the first vision but the lesson ended really really well and she is willing to put in the work to see if this is the true church! It was cool to be able to talk about what went right and what we could improve on after that lesson. That afternoon we got to see Patricio and Brian for a second but they had to leave before we could teach anything. They said they were gonna be at Church but they didn`t show up :/ That night we had once with Alex and Carola and shared a scripture with them. Alex said he had to work the next day and couldn`t go to church so that was kind of lame.

Sunday we had an awesome church. Carola showed up with Felipe and her two neices without Alex. Gospel principles was a super awesome lesson about the atonement. We had lasagna for lunch and the members remembered that I like juice more than soda! They`re awesome. I accidentally said the wrong family name in the prayer before dinner so that was pretty awkward. I said the familia Quijara instead of the familia Valencia Jara. Oops. We did a ton of walking Sunday and weren`t able to find anyone home which was a bummer but we were able to finally get a hold of our reference Marcela at night! She went to a different ward for church today! I learned a lot from Elder Ortiz in that lesson about why it is so important to get to know someone before you really teach them because you need to understand what their needs are and what we need to teach. It was a really good way to round out the week. 

Today we had a soccer game Renca zone vs Independencia. After a long grueling game we pulled out the W so that was pretty fun. I was playing the whole time so no pictures... sorry mom!

The quote for this week is "Eventually every man is backed up to the wall of faith. It is there that he must make his stand." President Ezra Taft Benson.

Also an awesome talk that I heard on Elder Ortiz`s mp3 player is a BYU devotional in 2009 from Elder Holland called "Remember Lots Wife." I encourage every one to read it. It talks why it`s so important not to live in the past and to trust that the future offers more for us. 

Love you all,

Elder Shell

Finally nailed it! 

Front of Elder Shell's scripture cases 

Back of Elder Shell's scripture cases 

Pictures with the Sepulvida Family before Elder Bullock left for Cerro Colorado 

Sick, National Independence Day, a New Companion and OH MY! - September 22, 2014

So last week after I wrote all of you we had a super awesome weekly planning session! It was literally the best one we had. We knew exactly what we needed to do this week. And on Tuesday we went to Zone Conference in Quilicura. We literally live the farthest out of everyone from the Zone Conference so it´s always a crazy trek to get there and back. The conference was awesome though. We learned how to work more with the Bishop and how to better utilize the area book. We had lessons in just our zone from Elder Larson and Elder Ortiz on diligence and obedience respectively and both of them did a killer job. We had some relay races with all of the districts and sadly both of the districts in Renca placed last in their heat and didn´t get to go the finals...So after all of the games we heard some from our medic missionary Hermana Duffy and President Videla about some of the changes in the mission. I´m sure it was super awesome but I started to feel really rotten as far as being achy and cold and what not. Because of that I had a hard time really paying attention and trying to understand everything. The coolest part of the conference was hearing the testimonies of the missionaries that are leaving. They are so awesome. The conference lasted until 7 and we probably got back around 8.  On our way home we had a funny experience. Elder Ortiz pressed the button for the bus to stop and I guess the button had already been pressed because the busdriver lost it and yelled some stuff at us before we got it off. I found out later it went like this, "*Swear word* I know how to work the door. I heard the button the first time." We had some good laughs about that one. Anways so got home took my temperature and sure enough I had a fever. Called and cancelled appointments, took some medicine, and went to bed. In the night I woke up with another fever and my stomach was killing me. Took some medicine and went back to bed.

On Wednesday I woke up and I could tell I didn´t have a fever anymore which was good but I still felt pretty rotten. Around 10 I started to get yet another fever but before I took medicine or anything I fell back asleep and woke up feeling better. Luckily after that no more fevers. I found out from Elder Bullock that the reason my stomach was killing me was probably because I had minor food poisoning. There was an entire zone out with food poisoning the day after the conference. So yeah double the sickness double the fun! Right? Not really. I just laid around all day and studied as much as I could and wrote some letters. 

Alright so Thursday I woke up and felt way better in general. Went to the activity at the stake center for the 18th which is their National Independence day. There were all sorts of crazy relay races and inside the cultural hall they had every ward selling empanadas and completos and papas fritas (french fries) to help pay for the kids encampment this summer. Elder Bullock and I spent about 3 hours in the kitchen cooking empanadas and fries and that was super fun but afterwards I think I was tired of hearing "PAPAS FRITAS" over and over and over. One of the families in our ward went and got me a gatorade and that was lifesaving. I felt so much better drinking that. I love our ward. So at night the performances started and we started watching the dances. Our ward did an Island dance and they were seriously the most entertaining to watch all biases aside. It reminded me of doing the haka as a kid and watching my sisters and mom hula! The National Dance that we saw a ton of is called the Cueca. One day I need to learn it for fun. Anyways, after the performances a dance started and the zone leaders decided it was time for us to bow out gracefully so we didn´t have to sit through the torture of good music and no dancing. So we went back to the house. Oh but before we left we were throwing the football and these two girls came up to me and one of them was like "Can my friend take a picture with you?" I am not even supposed to talk to the opposite gender alone and all of the other missionaries were 10+ feet away and I just quickly was like "nope sorry we have a rule." It was really awkward. I don´t know why they singled me out like that. Elder Macedo joked that if I had done it they would have put it up on facebook saying "Me and My Boyfriend." Probably true...

Friday we had another killer day planned. I had a super awesome scripture study reading Helaman 5. Seriously like one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon. Super super good stuff in there. When we left the house in the morning, we were almost to our first appointment of the day when we got a call from the zone leaders saying they were on their way to inspect our house. So once again we returned to the house where we spent so much time and spent the morning there. Then on our way to lunch we get a call from Elder Larson saying it was gonna be at 2. We were almost there so we went to Elder Larsons and Elder Princes house and Elder Bullock had to inspect their house. Then we finally got to lunch at 2 with Bishop. It was super fun but it lasted until almost 3:30. Afterward we had to go pick up our laundry because we had been sick. Then we went to the taxi place and they had nothing so we treked it all the way back to the house. We started language study at 4:20. It´s supposed to start at 2. Then we left the house at 5:20 to go see Luis. He was there on the 18th which was awesome and it was good to visit with him. It was just a little frustrating because the member lady that takes care of him was really being a distraction. We were trying to share a scripture with him and she kept changing the subject and what not. After we left there and decided that we were gonna try to eat dinner with one of our appointments so that we didn´t have to go back to the house. We went to visit the less active Maria Sepulvida and her dad Juan who is a recent convert. When we got there luckily they had food. They gave Elder Bullock an Empanada and a half each. Then we talked with Juan for a bit. Then we talked with Fernando and had a super awesome conversation trying to motivate him to read and pray more. He´s such a stud. He recognized that he felt different because he wasn´t doing the little things and promised us that he´s gonna be better. He´s gonna be mission ready in a few years no doubt. We were getting ready to leave and then they made us sit back down and stuffed more meet down our throats and by the time we finally left it was time to head back to the house. 

Saturday in the afternoon we had to go to Cerro Colorado with Elder Ortiz and Elder Pope for Elder Bullock to do some baptismal interviews. At the second house they asked me to teach Obey and Honor the law which I have never taught. I was tanking pretty hard I´m sure but then some people came over and distracted everybody and Elder Ortiz picked up where I left off once we regained everyones attention. He saved the lesson and transitioned to his part and everything was all good. That night we were really tired and we just visited with Alex and Carola after dinner and finshed out the day there. Dinner was super late too because we didn´t get back until 7 from Cerro Colorado. 

Sunday morning the transfer calls came. I found out that Elder Bullock was leaving and going to none other than Cerro Colorado. He´s still gonna be my district leader! What the heck?! And Elder Ortiz came here to Renca 2. He has literally served in every ward in Renca except for Jose Miguel Infante and that´s a branch. It was kind of a weird transfer but I am really excited to work with Elder Ortiz. Having a Latino companion is gonna do wonders for my Spanish and he´s super funny so I think we´ll get along great too. I can tell he´s a hard worker so we will be able to do some awesome stuff here I think. So Sunday was pretty normal. It was sad for Elder Bullock to say goodbye to Alex and Carola. Carola cried a little bit which was really sad. And now we are to today. Transfers were kind  of crazy but now Elder Ortiz is all settled in and I´m writing you guys. This week was kind of hard and it wasn´t too fun being sick but I really loved the 18th and I´m excited to see what my second transfer has to offer! 

Elder Shell

 Couple dancing the Cueca

Crazy Week Five! - September 15, 2014

So today has been kind of crazy and I don´t really have a ton of time to write much for my weekly email so I apologize.

Alright so last Monday was p-day was the zone activity and you guys already heard about that. The rest of the day after that we didn´t really have time to do anything but grocery shop and go to an appointment with Alex and Carola. We didn´t even have time for weekly planning on Monday because everything went so long and we had to do it Tuesday morning. The appointment with Alex and Carola wasn´t anything special we just shared a spiritual thought and ate once with them.

Tuesday I was exhausted. My entire body was sore. I haven´t legit played sports in the longest time.  So in the morning we had to do weekly planning and what not because of how crazy things got on Monday so morning was another morning in the house... Not my favorite thing in the world. We went out with a member in our ward named Fernando to teach Sebastian but he wasn´t there! GRRR. Fernando came with us to a few back up plans but we got nothing. Sigh. After that we went to the church to see if we could chat with the Bishop and the Secretary for a second but no one was there yet. Then we went to go pick up Fallon for our lesson with Alex and Carola but then she couldn´t come because she was sick. Probably for the better because I was dead that night. I don´t even think we ended up teaching. I was so out of it. After that we tried to plan really fast and get to bed early. That was a good life choice right there. I woke up feeling like a champ Wednesday.

Wednesday I really just focused on trying to keep a prayer in my heart throughout the day. That morning I kid you not I just thought please let us teach someone. We have been trying to get a hold of this guy Juan for forever and we finally got to teach him that morning. We got to teach him and his wife. We taught the Restoration. It wasn´t my best lesson and it was kind of hard to get them to just read the introduction to the Book of Mormon but at last they finally said they would read it. Kind of a tough crowd if you ask me but I´m so thankful that we could teach that morning and that Heavenly Father answered the prayer in my heart. That night we got to teach Alex and Carola about baptism and Fallon was able to come with us. It was so cool to have a recent convert in a lesson with us helping to teach. Super good day. We also got to talk with bishop that night and get the low down on some less actives. It is really good that we are getting more involved with him. He is a super cool guy. I like him a lot and I think he´s gonna be able to help us out a lot. 

Thursday was the most dreaded day of the week. The 11th of September is a sketchy day in Santiago. A long time ago on this day a military take over started and a lot of people died. Because of that every year the young people get all angry and use that fact to do some bad things. So we had to be in the house by 6 that night. No one really felt like talking to us that day. I can´t really blame them. So Elder Bullock and I got back right at 6 and ordered some pizza made a fort and hunkered down for the night. It was pretty chill that night. Just wrote some letters and nothing really happened near us so that was really nice. The scariest thing was that the power company cut everyones power at 10. I heard some stories on Saturday about places where it was at peaceful but nothing super bad happened this year so that´s a really good thing. I think the extent of it was burning tires and some maltov cocktails. However you spell that... 

Friday we had district class because they canceled zone conference. I guess we´ll have that this week. I did super well with my Spanish on Friday so that was good. I really tried to keep a prayer in my heart again. And I actually got some super awesome contacts that day so again Heavenly Father answers the prayers in your hearts so always have one. That night we had a cool lesson with Alex and Carola about following the prophet. Alex is really quiet when we teach but I really think that he is taking this stuff super seriously and making a lot of changes in his life. It makes me really happy. That night Elder Bullock told me that Alex actually had not been progressing before the start of this transfer and they were thinking of possibly dropping him but then all of the sudden he has started doing really well. It just made me feel good that maybe I am atleast doing something. We walk around a lot and aren´t really teaching much and sometimes it is frustrating but it feels good to know that we are atleast doing something right. 

Saturday was crazy. I was up from 5:30 am and ate breakfast and then went to a service project all day. We just painted and we didn´t eat squat. It was pretty far away too. We had to hurry back and we barely made it back in time for the adult session of stake conference. It was a crazy day. Our mission President was there and there were some awesome talks. But still no food. At the end of the day we were exhausted and we just chowed down once we finally got down to the house. Still a pretty awesome day. 

Sunday morning was all miracles. We were running late to stake conference and then as we are practically running there some members drove by and they were able to give us a ride to conference. We made it right on time. Then that morning we had tried to call Alex but he didn´t answer so we were scared he woulnd´t make it to stake conference. But right after the sustainings Alex and Carola and Felipe and Catalina and two of Carolas nieces came walking in. And Alex was wearing a blazer and a white shirt and khakis! I have never seen him at church in anything other than jeans. It was the coolest thing every! I was so happy. I didn´t get to listen much in that conference I spent most of my time with Felipe giving him paper and colored pencils to draw so that he wouldn´t be all over Alex. That was a bit exhausting but worth it because I think Alex really liked Stake Conference! We also found some less actives we can visit during lunch that day. The daughter is active but the mother and step father aren´t active so more people to teach! Boo ya!

Today we got to hike Cerra Renca. It was tons of fun and I ran into Elder Farnsworth! We got all the way to the top of the mountain where the cross is and well you´ll just have to read the description of the photo to hear about the Chilean flag story. I will expound a little bit about how one of the Elders had brought an American flag and while they were singing the Chilean National Anthem we started singing ours it was super fun! Very exhausting and kind of a crazy morning but super fun. Kind of a crazy week but lots of good things are happening and I´m happy! 

Love you guys so much thanks for all of the support. I forgot my other journal at home today so I don't have a quote to give ya but the gospel is true sooooo live it! 

Elder Shell

 La Feria on their street

More at la feria 

They built a fort on Sept. 11th since they had to be inside early 

Selfie in the fort 

Chillin' in the fort 

Deciding to hike up to the "Renca La Lleva" sign 

Elder Shell and Elder Bullock and the view! 

The District and the view 

 Elder Shell and the flag of Chile in the background

Made it up to the sign! 

 Elder Shell and Elder Bullock with the sign

Elder Shell and Elder Bullock victory pose 

The view of Elder Shell's area from the sign 

The sign itself 

They could see the tallest building in South America 

Look at them Andes! 

The cross on their hike 

Elder Shell had to take another picture because some kids

climbed the cross and nailed the flag of Chile to it 

Elder Shell and Elder Farnsworth from the MTC

Week 4! - September 8, 2014

So I am over half way through my first transfer and this week was really interesting. Last week after we finished p-day after I emailed all of you we went grocery shopping, ate Chinese food, and then slept. It was just sort of a rainy lazy p-day. It was nice to relax a bit though. The only disappointing thing was there was no sesame chicken at the Chinese restaurant. All of our appointments that night just kind of fell through. Weekly planning was good as always though.

Alright so Tuesday morning we had to leave at 7:50 to go get Elder Bullocks criminal record. After that we went and got haircuts and then we didn´t get back until around 10. After that we needed study time so personal study was from 10 to 11 and companionship study time was from 11 to 12. After that we realized we had to take our laundry over to the lady that does that for us and she lives super far away. By the time we finished all of that it was already 1 and it was time for lunch. Lunch was from 1 to 2 and then we have language study from 2 to 3. It wasn´t until 3 that we did anything proselyting related. I did a lot better with speaking Spanish on Tuesday though so that was good. We also went to see one of our contacts Sebastian and he was there! We got to teach him and just really give him a brief of synopsis of the Plan of Salvation. He´s feels pretty lonely so hopefully we can keep meeting with him and help him out. That was about it for Tuesday cause nobody else was home. That night we did have a super cool lesson about Eternal Families with Alex and Carola and they are getting closer and closer for our marriage commitment lesson! 

Alright Wednesday we had district class in the morning. WE had a super fun activity about working together. We had all these different activities like a three legged race and standing up with your companion with arms linked back to back and then running together and you had to get up on the stage. The latter is what Elder Bullock and I did. We got way behind because Elder Keller and Elder Ecan dropped the egg in the egg toss so we had to wait five seconds. Then the hermanas fell down laughing in the three legged race. The leap frog leg was fine but by the time we got to Elder Bullock and I the other team was on the stage trying to stand up. He and I got up in a hurry back to back with our arms linked. He just ran and I ran backwards as we got to the stage I continued to run backwards as I leaned forward and Elder Bullock lifted up his legs (like in the picture) and then I jumped up backwards onto the stage! We quickly stood up and as soon as we did the other district touched there cone! We were so close to making a comeback... But hey it was still fun! This was all to demostrate that we have to work together with members. After that we had a testimony meeting and talked about how the atonement has affected our mission. It was an awesome meeting and the spirit was strong. To end the district class I finally got my packages in the caja feliz and that was awesome! Thanks mom for everything you´re the best! After that it was back to the grind. WE taught the recent convert Juan Sepulvida and he is doing really well. Other than that we tried to get Brandon to go to seminary but he didn´t :( But besides those two things it was just a lot of walking. Still though the morning really carried me through the day.

So on Thursday morning I had an awesome personal study in Alma 48. This is the chapter talking about Captain Moroni. This was kind of interesting that I was there in my reading because Hermana Thomas talked a little bit about this chapter in District class. I love verses 11-13 and 17. It describes the kind of man that Moroni was. Every man should try to be a Moroni man. I can think of many men in my life that I consider to be Moroni men. I want to pattern my life and be the kind of priesthood holder and the kind of man that they are and that Moroni was. My future wife and family deserve a Moroni man in their household. Every household needs a Moroni man. That morning Elder Bullock and I also were talking about college and I went to say "School starts two weeks into January" but for some reason it came out "School starts two weeks into Germany." I couldn´t believe what I had just said and we both just started cracking up. I don´t Spanish but I am forgetting English as well... I don´t really know what language I can speak right now lol...Also that morning we got to help a family in the ward move. The husband was in a rough motorcycle accident and they are moving in with his dad so that he can be taken care of. During the move we saw a HUGE spider! That was kind of scary. I´m just lucky I choked down the scream that almost came out of my mouth... That afternoon we got a phonecall and found out that Elder Prince got bit by a dog and had to get shots and what not. Poor dude had a rough day really. That night we had a lesson with Alex and Carola and it we just shared a scripture and just tried to get a read on how they are doing. It was cool to serve in the morning and overall I felt better about Thursday because I felt like i did better despite all of the lessons that fell through that day. I won´t even last them because there were quite a few.

Friday we had to go to the Zone leaders house so they could meet with Elder Bullock and the other district leader. We were over there all morning again. We didn´t get to work a single morning during the week. It was kind of frustrating. But in the lesson they talked about how we are shifting our focus to trying to focus on strengthen the ward and focus a lot on less actives and retention. That night at dinner I made a checklist of all the stuff we need to do with the members and how to get some projects that will get us more involved with them. I´m sure I´ll start talking about them more in depth as they start happening. We really are in desperate need of investigators we can visit consistently. Our sector is so so so slow right now. Yet another day of a lot of walking and no teaching. 

Saturday was more walking and we started our fast after lunch. I really felt like I was fasting with a purpose this week. Thtat night during dinner (even though we didn´t eat we have to take an hour for rest) we really got moving on some stuff. WE cleaned out the area book and our map and wrote down all of the names of people that live in our sector that we don´t know. We did a lot of productive things and I felt good. That night we met with Patricio and Fallon and read 2nd Nephi 4 with them. I love that chapter. It´s really beautifully written. It was definitely something I needed to read right then. After that, we talked about our youth family history project. We want all the youth and new converts and less actives to get involved in a family history project. Find names of their ancestors to take them on there next youth trip to the temple. We want Patricio and Fallon to start a bit early to help the youth and be able to bear their testimony on it. That lesson was super awesome and Fallon says she wants to help us with Alex and Carola the following Tuesday.

So Sunday was amazing. I felt like I had the most productive fast in my life. I truly feel that if we fast with a purpose and do it the right way of starting and ending with a prayer that Heavenly Father will bless us. We talked with everyone that we needed to talk to in the ward including the secretary, and the Bishop. After church we had a fun lunch with the most fun mini golden retreiver in the world Perry! He´s a blast. That night we had another member lesson with Alex and Carola with Hermano Paraguez. It was on the Law of Chastity. It went super super well and the spirit was so strong. When we asked them if they could get married, we found a little bump in the road... Carola has to get divorced from her old husband still. They have been separated for a long time but never got an official divorce. However, they said that they are willing to work on it so that they can get married! THEY ARE GOLDEN. Seriously it was an amazing lesson. Week ended great. 

Today we had a zone activity and we played fútbol (soccer), basketball, and football. It was a ton of fun and a bit exhausting. We got to eat hamburgers though and that was pretty sweet. 

I read a talk this week that is called "Grateful in Any Circumstances" by President Uchtdorf. It was absolutely AMAZING! I encourage all of you to reread it because it has some great stuff. Here are some of the quotes that I really liked from it 

"Could I suggest that we see gratitude as a disposition, a way of life that stands independent of our current situation? In other words, I am suggesting that instead of being thankful for things, we focus on being thankful in our circumstances"

"How much of life do we miss by waiting to see the rainbow before thanking God that there is rain?"

"Being grateful in times of distress does not mean that we are pleased with our circumstances. It does mean that through the eyes of faith we look beyond our present-day challenges."

"True gratitude is an expression of hope and testimony. It comes from acknowledging that we do not always understand the trials of life but trusting that one day we will."

"Endings are not our destiny!"

"Gratitude is a catalyst to all Christlike attributes! A thankful heart is the parent of all virtues."

I really needed to read that talk this week and I absolutely loved it. We all need to work on not just being grateful but on making gratitude part of our nature. I also had a huge testimony builder of fasting this week. As we humble ourselves through fasting we are blessed. The Lord blesses those with humble hearts I know that to be true. I love you all!

Elder Shell

Pictures aren't working for this week... 

Week Three and a Baptismal Date! - September 1, 2014

So Monday last week after I emailed you guys I went on an adventure! We went to the Plaza de Armas to have lunch with some of the Hermanos in our Ward at Burger King. We had to get permission to go an everything it was super exciting. Honestly Burger King here is a bit ridiculous. It´s like 10 dollars for a combo! After lunch, we hopped on the metro to go to San Pablo so we could mail letters back home. That´s right family! You will finally get some letters soon! So that night was super awesome and we worked hard and I had accidentally made an appointment the night before with Claudio for Monday at 6. Well from 6 to 7:30 we are supposed to do weekly planning and it just kind of spaced my mind the night before. It was no sweat though because we just flipped the schedule around and worked from 6 to 8 and planned from 8 to 9:30. So went to to our 6 o´clock appointment with Claudio and he wasn´t there... But since we were out we just continued on as planned. We went to visit one of my contancts who is named Herna. While we were at her house, a lady was walking to Hernas house. I thought it was Herna because she looked familiar and it had been a while since I had seen Herna. I asked her if she could chat for a few minutes. She said sure and much to my surprise her she quickly got her kids from Herna´s house and proceeded to walk to a different house. I realized that this was an inactive lady named Bernarda that we had talked with a few days ago and thats why she looked familiar and she had said she was super hard to get a hold of. So it was a miracle alone that we got to visit with her. We also got to meet her nephew Brian who was super cool and he sat and we had a quick lesson with them! It was super cool. I know that we had no idea why we were out at that time but it was no coincidence that we were in that exact place at the exact time we needed to in order to talk with Bernada and her nephew Brian. We were able to set up another appointment for Sunday and we left feeling great. I really have a testimony that when we are just trying to do what is right that we will be guided by the Spirit and that most of the time we won´t realize until after something happened that the entire time we were being led by the Spirit.

Tuesday was kind of a sad day. We went to see a contact named Lorenzo and his grandma opened the door and said she wanted to talk with us. She proceeded to tell us how she was baptized in our church but that she doesn´t go anymore. It was a really sad visit because this ladies life has just been consumed by doubt. And it all started with a doubt of one thing. Because she let that doubt consume her and not act in faith and pray to her heavenly father she has just completely consumed by all sorts of doubts. She told us that she feels sorry for us and stuff but honestly my heart was breaking for her because everything in her life is a doubt. Finally we just left her with our testimonies that we know that the church is true and that if she would just pray to her heavenly father with all the sincerity of her heart that her doubts could be put at ease. This experience just reminded me of a quote I love by President Uchtdorf that says "doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith." This is seriously some of the best advice I have ever gotten. Whenever you have a doubt about anything just pray and your heart will always put at ease and something will always help resolve your doubt. After we talked with her I was reading in Alma 24 at dinner and there was a scripture that really stood out to me because of this situation and that was Alma 24:30. That night we went and had a short visit with Alex and Carola and shared Helamana 5:12 with them. That´s probably my favorite scripture in the Book of Mormon. We also talked with Fallon for a bit and she´s doing great.

Wednesday was a really rough day. Nothing seemed to work out and about all we did all day was sweep fallons patio and play with Martin for a sec while we visited with Fallon for a second. We were obedient and worked hard but I was just kind of in a slump and it was just kind of a hard day. But hey they happen!

Thursday was an awesome day! We worked really hard and our numbers were so much better. So a couple of weeks ago I contacted a guy that turned out to be drunk and didn´t want to talk about God at the time because he was drunk. We ended up running into him again last week when we went to the house of a lady on our ward list and he quickly turned us away. We saw this same guy on Thursday out in the street and this time he came up to us and he was drunk yet again... He chatted with us for a sec about how he was a musician. Then this girl was walking by and he decides to call her over and he points to me and says "this is a good looking guy." Then he pointed to my companion and says "This is a good looking guy" and then he pointed to himself and says "And I´m a musician." I was trying really hard not to laugh cause I had no idea what he meant by that but after a couple more seconds the girl politely excused herself and we went to end our conversation with the drunk guy who´s name is Guiermo. But he said nope come into my house for a second I want to pray with you. We said ok and when we went inside we met his mother. His mother is the inactive lady that we´ve been looking for! Then we walked into the next room and he said "and this was our angel." When I walked into the room, I saw a guy who had a severe mental disability. I will admit that I was a bit taken by surprise by it and I feel bad for that cause he was a super awesome guy. He didn´t have much control over his arms and they were constantly moving but when we went to say hello he was so sweet and asked us how we were and shook our hands. That was about the extent of his ability to communicate with us. Then Guiermo asked if I would pray with his family. I said of course and proceeded to offer a prayer. During that prayer I felt the spirit so strongly and I felt so much love for these people and I knew that they needed to hear the gospel. This was a really good experience for me to have and it is a little bit weird but it touched me. As we left Guiermo said "Thank you for blessing me and my family." That made it worth it. That night we met with Hermano Paraguez and just bounced around some ideas for how we could work better with the members because that is something Elder Bullock and I want to work on. 

Friday was awesome! We had a conference with a member of the seventy named Elder Viñaz. We talked about the atonement and it´s significance in our missions. It was a super awesome think to be able to just sit there and think about and to hear others experiences. Now I didn´t understand everything Elder Viñaz said but I heard what I needed to hear and thats for sure. We also talked about Baptisms and prospective elders. He put the numbers up on the board for the number of baptisms in our mission over the past two years and the number of baptisms of men over the age of 18 and the number of baptisms that became elders. I did the math and figured out that only 23% of our baptisms the past two years have been men above the age of 18. And I did even more math and figured out that about 12% of those men above the age of 18 became elders. That means that only 2.7% of our baptisms become Elders. That lesson really just inspired me that not only do we have to do better about teaching men, but we also need to stick with our converts after baptism and focus on reactivating men in the ward who can become Elders. Every house needs a priesthood holder. 

After that conference we had a crazy experience with this guy in the park. He called us from across the park and came over to talk to us. This dude was definitely drunk and who knows what else. He proceeded to tell us that he was telepathic and that he was reading my mind and I was a troubled young man. And then he told us about how he couldn´t read or write but he had is mother write for him and he had written this ginormous book that he called "The Book of life." And he told us that he had power in his hands. It was kinda weird and funny at the same time but it was for sure uncomfortable. I tried to tell him in the nicest way possible that we had an appointment (cause we did) and we would love to talk with him another day. He proceeded to tell Elder Bullock that I was a bad spirit. Which is kind of funny because a little bit earlier when he shook my hand he told me it was an honor. This dude was all over the place. Finally we said our goodbyes and went on our way. 

That night we taught Alex and Carola the word of wisdom and... THEY SAID THEY WOULD LIVE IT! They are so getting baptized. Friday was a super awesome day with just a little bit of everything. Oh yeah! I got a letter from my dad and Kirsten too and they were FREAKING AWESOME and super motivating so thank you! No package though :/ I´m sure it will be here this week!

Alright nothing really happened until Saturday night but Saturday night was amazing. We went and visited with Patricio and read the Book of Mormon with him. After we finished reading he said that his testimony was increasing every time we read with him but he felt guilty. He said that he should be reading more. This poor guy has to work all day, go to school at night, provide for his family, and go to a lot of medical exams that are going on with his son Martin but he is right. The thing was is I could totally relate to him. It´s tough to do those little things like reading your scriptures and stuff when life seems so busy BUT they make the BIGGEST difference ever. This is something I have come to have a really strong testimony of out here. Right before we went over there I was reading in Alma 37 and I knew exactly what scripture I needed to share with him. I read Alma 37:6 which says, "Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise." And I just bore my testimony to him that I know if he can just find a little time in his day to read he will be blessed imsensely. The great thing is that the reason he has that guilt is because he has the desire to grow closer to Heavenly Father and do what is right. I told him that Heavenly Father knew that and knew his heart and would help him to find time to read as he prayed for help. I felt like a really connected with him right then. That was a moment where I truly felt like I was being guided by the spirit because I didn´t know what I was going to say but I just knew I needed to read that scripture with him. It was no coincidence either that I decided to read some more of the Book of Mormon at dinner either. 

Alright so Sunday morning was awesome and church was great. We went to see Bernada and Brian that night but they weren´t home. Bernardas daughter told us to come on in anyways. WE asked if there was a male above the age of 18 to make sure that it was cool for us to be there. She ran and got her boyfriend who´s name was Juan Pablo. Her name was Catalina. We just explained that we had to verify that there was another man in the house and told him he could stick around if he would like or go back to doing whatever. He decided to stick around. We also got to meet there little 2 year old. I don´t remember his name but he was fun. We taught them the first lesson and it was super awesome! The spirit was soooo strong. Unfortunately Juan Pablo had to leave for a few minutes to take care of some business with there son and he missed the first vision. But both Catalina and Juan Pablo were so attentive the entire time which is rare for such young adults. We asked if we could meet with them again the next Sunday and they said YES! So now we have 2 more new investigators and maybe next Sunday we can meet with all 4 of our friends in that house and have a lesson with three investigators and a less active! That night we had a lesson with Alex and Carola with Hermano Paraguez. WE finally had a member to help us teach! That morning in church it was the fifth Sunday and for third hour we talked about tithing. WE had planned to teach the law of chastity that night but we knew Alex might have some questions about tithing. So we were ready to teach both lessons. 

Once we got there he did indeed have questions about tithing so that is what we taught. At church during the lesson I was trying to think if I had any testimony building experiences with tithing and then I realized something major! After I had finished up my second semester at BYU, I had a lot of unpaid tithing from my job out there. It wasn´t the easiest thing to do but I knew I needed to pay it. I paid all of the tithing for the paychecks I received second semester. At this same time I was looking for a job to try and save up a little bit more money before my mission. I didn´t put two and two together at the time but after I paid my tithing I had 3 members of our ward tell me that I could work for them and help me out. That was seriously one of the biggest blessings in the world and it meant the world to me! I told that story to Alex and I think he really understood that the blessings for following God´s commandments are real and that they are different for everybody! Hermano Paraguez was a HUGE blessing during the lesson. He helped explain things a ton! And he practically taught him about the fast offerings and fasting. I mean it was seriously a killer lesson. At the end Alex asked "Do you have to pay tithing before you are baptized?" Right when he said that the thought popped into my head ask him to be baptized! I knew we were waiting for the law of chastity lesson for that but I knew I had to ask then. I did some quick math and my head and I knew he had to get married and stuff so I decided a month and a half would be a safe date. I knew the 18th of October was either a Saturday or a Sunday. After Hermano Paraquez and Elder Bullock explained the answer. I asked Alex if he would be prepared to be baptized on the 18th of October and he said YES! The spirit in that lesson was so strong. And afterwards while we were eating once with them Hermano Paraguez just kept killing it and inviting them to ward activities and everything else. He really connected with them. Our ward mission leader is amazing! Sunday night was just an amazing way to end the week and I invited my first person to be baptized!

The quote for this week is by Boyd K Packer. "True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior." I love all of you guys a lot! Have a great week!

Elder Shell

His trainer attempting to read the Book of Mormon in Portuguese 

Elder Shell attempting to read the Book of Mormon in Guarani 

A quote by Elder Shell, written for him by Hermana Rhoads 

They found maple syrup! 

Letters from Sister Shell in Brazil and Dad!