Week 5.... My First Baptism!!!

Elder Sheffield, Roderigo, Marcia, and Elder Boyer

HEY!!!! How is everyone doing? This week was a pretty good week for me. Probably one of the best weeks I have had here in Chile. This week, I have really improved my ability to speak in Spanish. It is so hard to learn a new language, but with the gift of tongues, I know I will be able to do this. This week we had a ton of activities because it was Stake Conference. On Wednesday, we had a talent show night with the Ward. It was fun to see everyone's talents. On Thursday, we had a movie night. We made some popcorn and watched Ephraim's Rescue. For those of you that have not watched this movie, I suggest that you do. It is such a good movie. One thing that really helped me this week came from this movie. Ephraim goes around the handcart company and is giving everyone blessings. The people are immediately healed by the power of God. One of the ladies comes up to him and says,"you must be a Holy man." He says "I have more doubts than I know how to count." The lady looks at him confused and says "Then how is it that you do so much good?" Ephraim says, " I TRY". I think that is so awesome. A lot of times, we have hard times, and a lot of doubts, but I know if we continue in Faith, and continue to try... The Lord will bless us. That really helped me this week when I struggled with my Spanish. The rest of the week was a good week though. Oh Yesterday, I got to baptize a Sister. She wasn't my investigator, but I got to baptize her because I am still in my training. I was so excited to get to baptize her. I was so nervous at first though. This sister was scared of the water, so I had to get in right on the first try. I was stressing saying the baptismal prayer in Spanish. When I finally got in the water and started the prayer, I felt so good. The spirit was so strong. When I pulled her up out of the water, the smile on her face was so amazing. I realized that this is what I am going to be doing for the next 2 years. Bringing people to this gospel and bringing happiness into their lives. It was such an amazing experience. I can't wait to have one of my investigators baptized. We are getting really close. We have to keep working with the people here.

 We have some really good investigators....

Anyways it was a great week. It is amazing the miracles that happen while you are on your mission. You really begin to see the power of God. It was such an amazing experience. This week was such a good week for me. I had no clue Spanish was going to be this hard to learn. I thought it would just come easy. I am working so hard. I am improving little by little. This week I gained a lot of confidence. I still feel pretty lonely at times, but I always look at the positive side of things. Things are just going up hill though. Anyways, we had return and report last week. I got to see all my buds from the CCM...it was sick!

Have a great week. I love you all.  

Elder Boyer

Return and Report Luncheon

Week 4.... No Pain, No Gain!!

This week was a good week. I think I am finally getting used to things. I finally feel comfortable with everything. Honestly, each day that goes by, I love my mission more and more. I never thought a mission would be this hard. I always thought before I came out here that we would work so hard, but we would see results of our hard work. Right now, Elder Cardoso and I work hard everyday...

 ....we try to be exactly obedient so we can receive blessings, all of our hard work hasn't paid off yet. Elder Cardoso and I will find a good family, and teach them the first lesson, they seem super interested, and then it will fall through. It gets super discouraging. We work so hard, and aren't seeing results, it makes for a hard time. I know if we continue to work hard and stay obedient something good will happen. I never thought a mission would be this hard. The mission is so full of up and down emotions. I feel like a teenage girl sometimes... haha. I can have a super high moment where I feel on top of the world, and then an hour later have something happen that puts you in the dumps. That's a mission though. I just got to work through the hard times. I honestly love my mission though. I am changing so much. I love the quote that Nike has. It is "No pain, No Gain"... that quote is so true. 

I applied it to missionary work and life. If we aren't having hard times, or being discouraged, we aren't gaining. The times we feel the most pain are the times that we gain the most. I think that is why I have improved so much out here, because this is honestly so hard. I have already had experiences that have forever changed my life. I am only 2 months in, but I feel like I have improved so much since I left. I don't think I have ever been so happy in my life. My advice to you this week is when you are having hard times, turn to the Lord and he will lift you up. We must experience misery before we can know happiness. When times get rough, don't turn AWAY from God, turn TO him. His hand is always outstretched.

 2Nephi 20:4. Remember God is waiting, and wanting to help us. Turn to him and he will reach out his hand and lift you up.

 Remember " NO pain, No Gain"!!

 I love all of you so much. I hope all of you are doing great. Have a great week. Also if you have time send me some pictures I love receiving pictures. 

Love you all so much.
Elder Boyer

Mi Casa

Elder Hernandez, modeling the kitchen

Breakfast of champions...

Our Dining Room...

                                         

Our Study Area

                                       

the map of our area...

The Bedroom

My closet....

The Bathroom...

Ummm, so there's this...

                                                     

Our Laundry Room.... ;D

Lunch time!!

     

Roasting mallows with these Elders!

Week 3.... 2 months DOWN!!!

     

" Invite all people to come unto Christ"

I cant believe that today marks 2 months since I started my mission. Time is seriously flying by. I didn't think the mission would go by this fast. Honestly it feels like just yesterday I said goodbye to everyone. I am loving the mission more and more each day. The more I learn the language the more I love it. This week has been a super good week. My confidence in Spanish has really grown. Weeks previous, I was super timid to speak to people, because I knew I sucked. Now, I realize that if you speak, the people respect you more and help you with what you are trying to say. This week I tried to talk to everyone. I felt so much love and appreciation for everyone I talked to. I was so happy. I am now actually able to understand and talk with people. It still is super broken Spanish, but I can get by. It is amazing how fast it is coming. So a little about my area. I am in an area called Yumbel. It is a little town, with not that many members. I think we have 10 members in the whole city. Actually take that back... I think we have only 5. The other 5 are the Bishops family, and they drive an hour to come to church from another city. There are no priesthood holders, so they had to call a bishop in another city. It is super weird going to church and only having like 15 people there. Yesterday in church, I gave a talk. I was super nervous, because I didn't know how my Spanish was going to be, but when I got up there all my nerves went away. I started speaking with the spirit. I spoke probably the best Spanish I have ever spoken. It was super cool. Everyone came up to me and said, I thought you couldn't speak Spanish... haha... I told them I couldn't. haha. But ya, our area is super crazy. In Yumbel it is like a business to have a church, so I swear everyone has their own church. They are all either Evangelical or Catholic. They have meetings in their houses. It makes it super hard for missionary work though. A lot of people reject us because they say they already have a church.

Elder Boyer and Elder Cardoso

 Elder Cardoso and I keep praying for people to teach. Most of our time is spend contacting people. I hope we can start to have people accept our message. Actually, a cool story: So we were on a cambio (splits), so I was with Elder Dominguez.. but we were contacting a bunch of people. The last house of the night we stopped at this house. Out walked this teenage girl. We asked her if we could  come in and teach her mom. She said yes, so we went in. They were by far the best family I have seen since being there. They were so prepared, and loving. They had 8 people in the family. 16, 12, 9, 7, 4, 2. They were so loving. We taught them about the first lesson, and how we have a God who loves us and the blessings that come. We taught about the Book of Mormon, and we asked if they would read it. They were so excited:) They said YES!!! They were super excited to learn more about Christ and his teachings. During the lesson, I was showing the little kids pictures of Christ, and my family. It was so awesome to see the happiness that we were sharing with them.

 I hope that we can continue to teach this family and bring them the happiness that this gospel brings. It made me so excited to do missionary work. When you have success like that, it gets you so excited to go out and do more work.

 I am learning so much here... I love it!!  I have learned so much about the Gospel. I never really liked reading before, but now I love reading talks, and books that teach of Christ. I read some great talks this week if any of you want to read them: (click on links)

"Feed My Sheep" by Elder Jeffery R Holland, 

 "Character of Christ" by Elder David A. Bednar

"Power of Prayer" by Richard G. Scott

 They were talks given at the MTC so they are directed to missionaries, but I think everyone can benefit from them. I advise all of you to read them. They have all made me want to become  a better person, and missionary. I hope you can get the chance to read them, they will change your life. I love all of you and hope all of you are doing great. Have a great week!!!

Sounds like all of you had a great week!!! I love and think about you all of the time. 

Love, Elder Boyer

Elders Boyer, Sheffield, Cardoso, and Dominguez



Here are some pics that I took, walking around Yumbel:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dogs are EVERYWHERE down here...most of them have rabies and fleas!

 

All dressed up for P-Day



(Tyler didn't give any info. on where this gorgeous water fall is located....
he just sent a lot of pics of it!)

Bumped into Elder White... an Elder from my District in the CCM

Week 2... Conference Weekend!!

This week was such a good week..... Conference weekend:) 

LDS General Conference October 2014 (click on link)

I hope all of you watched conference, because there were so many good messages. It is amazing to watch conference on your mission. I felt like each talk was based towards me. The spirit was so strong while I was watching conference. I hope you all experienced the same thing. We got to watch conference at the church in my area. The church is a little house.

We plugged in one of the member computers to the TV. I think we had 5 people show up to conference. haha no one here are strong members, it makes it super hard. As missionaries we do everything here. Anyways we watched conference in Spanish. I didn't understand it very well, so I made them turn on the English sub titles. I then was able to read what they were saying and it was awesome. For Priesthood, I was able to watch it in English. Not going to lie, the English language is the best. Hearing the voice of the Prophets is where most of the power comes. When you watch it in Spanish it is another guy translating it. The Power is not the same. I was still grateful for the talks that I did get to watch in English. Watching conference made me miss home. It was zooming around and showing the salt lake temple. I was like I was just there a few months ago. I am really starting to love my mission though. The first week here I was so lost. I could not understand the Chileans at all. For those of you that don't know, Chilean spanish is one of the worst spanish in the world. They speak so fast and cut off half their words. When I got here everyone was attracted to me because I was white. I had a bunch of drunks come up to me and start spitting off spanish.  I  just looked at them and had no idea what they were saying. My companion just laughed at me. Now I am really starting to understand it. I can understand most of what is being said. Speaking is a different story. I still need to work on my speaking, but is getting better each day. It is amazing the spirit you feel when you are at someones house. It is the coolest thing when you love them at first sight. Some times we meet people and I genuinely love and care for them. When you have this love the spirit then begins to speak through you to the people. That is when we have our best lessons. Elder Cardoso and I are working hard. We were both new to this area, so we didn't know anyone. We did a lot of contacting to get to know people. Now we have been here for 2 weeks everything is starting to get better. We have 2 baptismal dates, so I am so excited. We will see if they follow through. I really love it here. I am honestly loving it so much. The city of Yumbel is a really small city. They have a lot of land out here. Being here really makes me appreciate what I had back at home. 
I really miss you all so much. Elder Cardoso has been asking a lot about all of you, so I keep looking at the pictures I have on the camera. I miss you all so much. I hope you all watched conference. It was honestly one of the best conferences. I think that is because I am on my mission. I hope you all got something out of it. What the Prophets say are literally coming from God.  "Wether by my voice, or the voice of my servants it is the same" I love that scripture. When the Prophets speak, just imagine God speaking to you. It makes the messages so much more powerful. I hope you all improve a lot from watching conference. I thought a lot about all of you as I watched conference. This week has been a tough week for me. I got home sick a lot, but as I pray and work harder I am beginning to love it out here more and more. 

Have a great week. Love you all! 

Elder Boyer