Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Week 14.... Christmas Day and the power of prayer!!!

Feliz Navidad from Chile
Hola!! 
How was everyone’s Christmas? I hope it went really well. Christmas here was not the same, but it was still really good. My first Christmas in the mission was really fun. 
We spent Christmas Eve at the house of my Branch President, who is super rich, and we had a huge feast. We ate so much food. It was so awesome!
  

 That night we had a super spiritual night. We watched the video, HE IS THE GIFT and then we all bore our testimonies on the video. 


This Christmas was by far the best Christmas for me to remember the true meaning of Christmas. The Birth of Jesus Christ, Our Savior and Redeemer. I have a bigger testimony of our savior than I have ever had before. I am so grateful to be out here serving and building my testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ.

 Christmas day was super fun.... I got lots of good stuff!!

 
 


the cyber cafe...getting ready to Skype!
Skyping my family was by far the best part. It was so good to see everyone. I won’t lie, more than a few tears were shed. These were not tears of sadness; these were tears of complete and absolute joy. Immediately when I saw my mom, I burst out in tears. Ya, you can all laugh at me, but it was honestly the best Christmas gift I have ever had!!!
 It was so good to be able to talk to them and bear my testimony of the things I have been learning. I was able to share Helaman 5:12 and then Mosiah 3:19… by far my favorite scriptures right now. It was so weird being able to bear my testimony in English. It was so cool. Honestly, I was feeling the spirit super strong in that moment. It was super awesome. I really loved talking to my family, but as soon as the phone call started, it ended! 



 After that I had to refocus myself, and refocus on the work that we needed to do. I thought I was going to be homesick the day after Christmas. A lot of missionaries say that the day after Christmas is the worst day ever. I thought for sure that I was going to have a hard time. But I didn't have a hard time. I just refocused my mind on the work. 
I love the quote in Preach My Gospel that says the cure for everything is WORK!!! That is so true. When you work you don’t think about your family. That is what I have been doing, just working hard and focusing on my investigators. 

This week was super fun, full of activities and parties. It was a great week!! I want to hear about everyone else’s!! How was your week?? Hope you all had a great Christmas!!
Christmas night....
 Chilean Monopoly with Elders Cox, Sotomayor, and Ehlen
So, for my spiritual thought this week: I want to share an experience with you that actually happened today. So last night, I realized that I hadn't gotten my carnet yet. A carnet is the ID card that you need to have to be legal in Chile. You have to have it or you will be deported from Chile. So as new missionaries, we have 3 months of a traveling visa and then after that you have to get your real visa. So I tried to go to the PDI but it was closed every time, and things just kept happening that it didn't work out. So last night I called up to the mission office and they were so mad. They told me that I was going to have to pay a big fine, might get thrown in prison, or possibly be deported, because I have been illegal for over 30 days. I was so scared. That was last night at like 10 p.m. I immediately began to pray. I prayed that nothing would happen to me. I really wanted to stay here and continue serving my mission. I didn't want to go to jail. So I prayed this morning, I woke up and continued to pray all the way to the PDI. When we walked in there, this guy starts talking to us. He then takes my passport to another room and looks at it. I then say another prayer and hopes he doesn’t notice that I am illegal. He then walks out and calls us into another room. He then begins to talk to us. He looks super mad at first. Then he starts to speak and he is super nice. He notices we are missionaries and so we start talking to him about the gospel. He tells us that he has been talking to the missionaries and we talk to him about Jesus Christ and it was really awesome. He didn’t even notice that my Visa was expired by 30 days. It was the biggest miracle that I have experienced thus far. 
My testimony grew so much in the Power of Prayer. 
I testify that God hears and answers our prayers. If you will go to God in your time of need, he will answer you and bless your life. 
I am no  longer illegal...and get to stay in Yumbel Chile!!!
(at least until next transfer)

I love you guys so much hope you have a great week. Feliz Navidad and a Merry Christmas!!! And this week… HAPPY NEW YEAR!!                                                                                                                                                              

Monday, December 22, 2014

Week 13.... Feliz Navidad!!

Our Christmas Day Skype
I can’t believe this week is Christmas!!!!! I hope all of you enjoy it. First Thing is first!!!!! FELIZ NAVIDAD and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I love you all so much and hope all you have a great Christmas. Always remember the True meaning of Christmas... CHRIST!!! 
For those of you that haven’t seen, go watch that video that was put out by the church about Christmas. That video is so spiritual. I don’t know what it is called in English, probably something like. "HE is the Gift" in Spanish it is "El es la Dadiva" This video is amazing!!
We have been using this video so much to contact people. We get into people’s houses and show them this video and then talk to them about Christ. It has been awesome. I encourage all of you to go watch it!!!  

He is the Gift (click on link)

As far as this week went for me, it was a super busy week. I had to say goodbye to Elder Cardoso. It was super hard to say goodbye to him. But on Tuesday, I got a new companion, Elder Sotomayor. He is from Lima, Peru. He honestly is so awesome. I thought it was going to be hard to have a companion that only speaks Spanish, but it has actually been super fun. He and I related so much that first day. He is such a fun kid. 
This cambio is going to be a great one. Elder Sotomayor has 10 months in the mission, so he has been helping me to become a better missionary.
 

  This week we have had so much success, we now have 8 baptismal dates… 4 of them from the same family.... The family of Niko, that 11 year old kid I have been talking about. 

It has been a super good week. My confidence has really improved. My Spanish has really improved because all I do is speak Spanish now. I am really loving this cambio already and it has only been 1 week. I feel like it is going to go by so fast. 

So in our house we have us 4 missionaries: Elder Ehlen stayed here with me, and his new companion is Elder Cox. Elder Cox is from Kaysville, Utah. He is super cool. So we have a bunch of awesome missionaries in Yumbel. 
Elders Sotomayor, Boyer, Cox, and Ehlen



Funny story this week, so I was at a house of a recent convert and her son is 20 years old. He is a pretty big kid. He challenged me to an arm wrestle. I looked at him and thought I was going to destroy him. When I arm wrestled him, I got smoked. I looked at my arm and started to cry... no haha. I told him that in 1 month that I would challenge him again and I would waste him. I have lost everything. So, since that day, Elder Ehlen and I have been working out hard every day, and doing arm wrestles every day. We got buckets and filled them full of water. We work out every day now. I will beat him in 1 month from now... hahah. It was super funny but super sad for me. 




 
 


So for my spiritual thought this week I thought I would share this scripture: 2 Nephi 32:3 "Angels speak by the power of the holy ghost wherefore they that speak the words of Christ, I said unto you "FEAST UPON THE WORDS OF CHRIST" for behold the words of Christ will tell you all things that you should do".
 I challenge all of you to feast upon the words of Christ. Honestly that is the thing that has helped me through my mission. No matter how happy, or how down I am, I can always find answers to my questions in the scriptures. The scriptures really are a blessing. I wish I would have discovered this blessing before my mission. I hope all of you can discover this blessing and daily feast upon the words.

 I love you all so much!!!! I hope you all have a great week this week. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I hope Santa can make it to your houses and maybe my house all the way down here in Chile :) 
 Always remember the true meaning of Christmas…. Christ.
He is the gift to the world. I am so grateful to have him as our loving Savior and Redeemer.
Enjoy being with your families this week.

Love you guys!
 
(Elder Boyer's testimony in Espanol)

Elder Boyer

Monday, December 15, 2014

Week 12....Diligence, something about a Sloth...and a goodbye to a good friend!

Hola, From Chile!


This week was such a crazy week. It was so packed full of events, I don’t even know where to start. I think I will start off with my spiritual thought. So this week I had to say goodbye to my trainer, Elder Cardoso.
the first day we met

our last day together
I am so grateful for him. He has really helped me make amazing changes in the 3 short months I have been with him. I will forever be grateful for him. On his last day, he shared a scripture that changed his mission, the scripture is D&C 107:99-100 it says "Wherefore, now let every man learn his duty and to act in the office in which he is appointed, in all DILIGENCE. He that is SLOTHFUL shall NOT BE COUNTED WORTHY to stand, and he that learns not his duty and shows himself not approved shall not be counted worthy to stand even so amen." This scripture has really been and will forever be a scripture that will push me through life. A lot of times when we are just exhausted, lying down and sleeping seems more interesting than reading the scriptures. This applies to everyone, not only missionaries. After a long day of work we should always be thinking and doing the work of Christ. We should always be working towards becoming more like Christ and bringing others unto Him. If we ever get slothful in our duty, we are not worthy to stand before God. This scripture is going to help me so much throughout my mission. The days where I have no energy and I am completely exhausted, I am going to remember this scripture, and remember that I need to work with Diligence so I can be worthy to stand before God at the last day. I love you all so much. I hope you can all remember your duty to bring others unto Christ and always remember to work with Diligence and never be slothful.

On Wednesday, we had our mission Christmas Conference. I got to go to Concepcion. It was so awesome. I got to be with everyone in the North half of the mission. So, I got to see a lot of my friends from the CCM. It was a really fun conference. 
President Bluth and Hermana Bluth are the best. They gave each one of us a bag of treats and a book full of amazing talks about the atonement of Jesus Christ. It was such a great Christmas gift. During the conference Hermana Bluth read a Christmas story to us in English. It made me think of home and the nights I used to spend with my family reading Christmas stories. In the book there was snow on the ground. It was super weird to see, because here it is about 85 degrees. It doesn’t even feel like winter. Ha-ha. But seriously, it was such a good conference. We also got to do a Christmas skit. Each zone in the mission did a skit. They were super funny. My zone was by far the best skit. We did a dance to the Mariah Carey song "All I want for Christmas".  It was super funny. It was a dance battle between the missionaries and the “flights” (Chilean gangsters).  I wish I could send the video, but it is too big to send. It was so much fun though. It was so good to catch up with everyone from the CCM. Everyone has changed so much. It was so good to see them.

Yesterday, Sunday, I had to say goodbye to Elder Cardoso. It was super sad. I am really going to miss him. It was actually a really hard goodbye. I am so grateful for everything he has done for me. He has helped me so much. Before my mission, I prayed that I would have a good first companion to show me how the mission works, and that is EXACTLY WHAT I GOT. He honestly changed my life. Without him, I would not be where I am right now. He seriously blessed my life so much. It was such a hard goodbye. I have many great memories with him!






Right now, I am actually in a trio with Elder Sheffield and Elder Ehlen.  Cambios are tomorrow. I can’t believe I am starting my third cambio here in Chile. It is so crazy. I haven’t met my companion yet, I will meet him tomorrow, but they called me and told me I am staying in Yumbel and I will be companions with Elder Sotomayor, he is from Peru. I am so excited I am getting a Latino. He is going to help me with my Spanish so much. I am super excited to meet him. But ya, this week was super good. It was so full of activities. 

All of our investigators are the same. They are super good and receptive, but when it comes to Sunday something always blocks them from coming to church. We just keep working hard and are getting more and more people to teach. We are going to try and get more people to come to church. The good thing is we still have that 11 year old kid named Niko who is doing so good. His parents don’t want to do anything with eh church, but he has come to church every week. If he keeps coming he will be baptized at the end of next month. We have been working really hard with him. He is by far the best kid I have met in Chile. I think he will be my first baptism. Pray for him please. He is so close, we just need him to attend the church a few more times, and he will be good. 


Me & Niko

Anyways, that all that has been happening here in Yumbel. I will email you next week and tell you more about my new companion.
 Love you all have a great week, Christmas is so close. I can’t wait.
Love you all. Have a great week.

Stay classy!

Elder Boyer 
Hasta la Vista, Elder Cardoso!!

Monday, December 8, 2014

Week 11..... Humility!!!




So, first thing is first, I have to apologize for last week. I had no time to email because I was traveling with Elder Cardoso to his old districts. We went to Angol, about 3 hours south of my sector. I only had like 30 minutes to email, so that is why I didn’t email. 
 Anyway, this week has been super great. I can’t believe time is flying so fast. Elder Cardoso leaves next week. I will be done with my training. It is so crazy. 

How was everyone’s Thanksgiving? I hope everything was great. Thanksgiving is not a thing down here, so me and the other gringos in my house made some potatoes and cooked some chicken. It wasn’t much, but at least we celebrated it. 




Christmas is coming up fast. This week we are going to have our mission wide Christmas conference. I am excited to see everyone from my district. So as far as work here in Yumbel, it has been really hard. This week was by far the best week we had. We got 10 baptismal dates. We were expecting everyone to come to church. All of our investigators said they would be there. We showed up to church yesterday, and not one was there. We were super sad. We felt like we have been working so hard, and they were doing so well. We went to their houses to pick them up and they didn’t even answer their doors :(  We did get one little kid to come to church. Let me tell you about this kid. His name is Nico. He is by far the best kid in Chile. We found him about a month ago. He is 11 years old. He has come to church 3 times. He keeps telling us I want to be baptized. Baptize me. We can’t baptize him unless either his parents come to church, or he comes to church for 3 months. As of right now, his parents don’t want anything to do with our church. We keep visiting the kid and he really wants to be baptized. Yesterday was fast Sunday, we told him to bear his testimony. With no fear, he stood up and bore his testimony. It was so awesome. I love that kid so much. He is really going to be awesome. Other than that, our week was pretty normal. This week is going to be a crazy week. Wednesday is the mission Christmas conference, Thursday is our ward Christmas party, and Saturday I say good bye to Elder Cardoso. It is going to be a crazy week. I can’t wait.

 For my spiritual thought this week, I will share this quote. My mom sent me a Christmas package with a bunch of quotes. One of the quotes is this, "Being HUMBLE means recognizing we are not on the earth to see how important we can become, but to see HOW MUCH  DIFFERENCE WE CAN MAKE in the lives of others"                                                                                                                              *Gordon B. Hinckley

That quote is so awesome. I don’t know if you have noticed, but I have really been looking and studying the topic of humility. If there is anything I wish to change in my mission, is to be more humble. I now know that if we are humble and becometh as a child, we will be blessed. God will be there to help us. If we can put all of our trust in God and give all our heart, might mind and strength, we will be the person that God wants us to be. I love you all so much. Have a great week. 

Elder Boyer

Our Thanksgiving Feast



Monday, December 1, 2014

Week 10.... Thanksgiving, gringo style!


Wow this week was a good week. I kind of missed home because of all the fun you guys had this week. I heard and got all the pictures from Thanksgiving It sounds like you all had a blast. I really missed thanksgiving. They don’t celebrate down here in Chile, so we didn’t have a big feast. There are 3 gringos in my house right now so we kind of celebrated. Haha, of course I still did grandmas tradition and colored a picture. I will send the pictures to you guys next week. In my last package I got, my mom sent me some instant potatoes, so we cooked some instant potatoes. Also we cooked a few chicken legs. It was really low key, but it was still fun to have our own little Thanksgiving in our house. We then went around and said all the things we were thankful for. It was a really fun day. I am so glad that everyone had a good week. I heard that you all received my letters. That was really fast. Everyone needs to write me back. It is a lot easier to go into detail in the letters. I am so limited on time in my emails. If you want more details write me a letter, and it will be a lot easier. That really only took like 2 weeks. Right now I am actually traveling with Elder Cardoso. This week we only have a half hour on the internet. Elder Cardoso is down to his last 2 weeks here in the mission. So on your last 2 P-days you can go visit your old sectors. So right now we are actually in his old sector, Angol. We had to wake up at 5 this morning to take a bus here. We have spent all day talking to his people and investigators he had here. It has been fun. I can’t believe that time is flying by this fast. He leaves in 2 weeks and then I get a new companion. My training is almost over… that is so crazy. 


This week we also had Stake Conference, so I got to see President Bluth. It was really good to see him. We had a great conference. I also got my Christmas packages. I was so excited so I went and opened the boxes. I saved the letters and the presents for Christmas, but I set up the tree and the 25 day Christmas calendar. Oh my heck, I was also so excited to eat Grandma’s fudge. I had to sneak a little piece of that. The rest I put back. It really made me think of Christmas. I can’t believe Christmas is almost here. It is so crazy. I am so excited to Skype all of you. I am still trying to find out where I am going to Skype you guys. The internet in Yumbel is super bad, so we might be going to our Branch President’s house to Skype. That would be super sick. Well, that is all the time I have for now... but I love you guys. I will write more next week. I don’t even have time to send out a big group email so I am super sad. Love you all have a great week.

Elder Boyer