Families

March 21, 2016

Hola personas que quizás entienden Castellano (o no),

This week has been refreshing in the sense that people are opening their hearts. This sector has been very dry with the amount of covenants God’s children have been willing to make with him, but we learned a powerful lesson this week from our mission president’s wife.

Sister Dalton is a convert to the LDS faith, who at 14 years of age had been attending church for 2 years. The missionaries found out she wasn’t a member, and within a week she had all the lessons and was baptized.  A successful story from my perspective, but as she shared the story with us no grin crossed her face.

"I am so grateful for the missionaries who taught me, but they never asked me if my family would have been interested to hear as well. I didn’t think about it either, I was an investigator!  38 years have passed and I’m the only member in my family. I think back to my baptism and during that time my sister had been in a search for a church, but I don’t think I even invited her to my baptism!" she exclaimed with tears rolling down her face.

"92% of children who are baptized without their parents never make it to the temple. I’m the exception, but none of my family are members. You missionaries need to work with the whole family, not just the one. At least try or your convert will spend their whole life dwelling on the lost opportunity...just like I do."

Her words made a big impact on us, so we looked at all of the people we are teaching and made goals to know everyone in the family and the results have been great.

Our investigator was having lots of difficulties with the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, so much that there wasn’t anything we could do.  But this week he called us to have a lesson, and accepted baptism.  This work is real--I don’t do it, God changes people. There is no way I have the capacity to change their hearts.

Everything is awesome,

Elder Phillips

A preparation day visit to a museum

 

Museum grounds

Selfie!

A very old mummy

Ancient life and death

Teach the Gospel Anywhere, Como Sea

March 14, 2016

Hola,

A much better week walking wise :) My feet are thankful for that.

We found out that the lady at the bread place we go to sometimes is a less active member, so we passed by on Monday to meet her husband. "Yes of course you can share with us, but the backroom is filled with flour and dough so we can’t." One minute later we were holding rags amidst clouds of white powder scrubbing away.  Twenty minutes later we were talking about Christ.

A young man from our ward who is serving his mission in Argentina has a 17-year-old brother who isn’t a member. His family is extremely Catholic--saints and all.  We showed him the restoration video in his garage on a TV that right next to it had a 5 foot statue of a local saint I’ve never even heard of.  During the video my eyes kept shifting from the TV to the statue just waiting for them to turn to life and battle it out.  The restored gospel won!  He accepted to be baptized :)

As I will be home in 6 months--yikes, it was fitting that the ward invited us to the homecoming of another missionary who just returned from his mission this week.  I had a great fear it would give me a trunkee attack, but it surprisingly did the opposite.  It made me realize how little time I have left to spend my days making a difference in people’s life for eternity.

Sunday we enjoyed a transmission via satellite from Elder Nelson (president of our church’s quorum of 12 apostles) to all of Chile.  The biggest surprise was that he spoke to us in Spanish. What?  I had no idea he knew Spanish.  His talk was something we heard at the last conference--keep the commandments. It must be important :P

Have a great week, because you all know…

Everything is awesome,

Elder Phillips

The District

Fell asleep waiting to leave for the day--haha

Brainwashed--A Fool For Christ's Sake (I Corinthians 4:10)

March 7, 2016

Hola Familia y amigos!

Stake conference (a large church meeting) in another country is always interesting. It started at 9:00 am and there were barely enough people to fill the chapel.  We sang the first hymn, I looked back and it was all full.  Mormon standard time breaks through cultural barriers. haha

I think this sector has been the toughest I’ve had with people rejecting us.  They must be paranoid about the world because if they find one thing bad on the computer about the church they don’t want to speak with us, disregarding everything good we’ve taught.  It could be an effect of the political repression they experienced a few decades ago.

People tell me we are just brainwashed people trying to brainwash the rest of them.  I took a minute to think about it and that doesn’t make any sense.  Would it be logical for a church that wants to keep a grasp on its young members to send them out all over the world with the goal to exchange ideas with every type of person--educated, poor, radical, convincing, etc. and not be convinced by them? If our doctrine and the church that contains it couldn’t stand on its own it would have crumbled into the pit of ideological ruins long ago.  But here I am in Chile 2016 helping to grow the most important organization that exists in the world. So, if I’m brainwashed with the truth, so be it.

We talked with our young man investigator who also studies with the Jehovah Witnesses. We watched Elder Holland’s testimony about the Book of Mormon and the sacrifices that it took to bring it forth.  "That man speaks with such authority," he commented. "That's because he’s an apostle of Jesus Christ with the same priesthood power as Peter, James, and John. " I said.  Our message sure is bold—and I love it!

Have a wonderful week!

Everything is awesome,

Elder Phillips

A Completo--Hot Dog, Bun, Guacamole, Tomato Sauce, Mayo--Yum!

Reminds me of the river in Lehi's Tree of Life dream

My comp and another elder enjoying pday with me :)

A Hot Day In The Vineyard

February 29, 2016

Hola,

Well, I wish I could say this week went better, but that wouldn’t be all that honest.  A lot of our investigators came home from their vacations and must have had a little too much fun, because they told us they don’t want to listen to us anymore.

It can hurt hearing that from people you know have felt something and have even told you that they feel the gospel is true, and then reject it.  But listening to lots of different convert’s stories, very few accepted the restored gospel at first glance, which gives me hope.  The Lord is mindful of them.

We were able to watch a conference via satellite from Elder Bednar, one of our apostles, who surprised me with his wittiness and his ability to connect with us despite being of the older generation.  He mentioned how we shouldn’t be waiting on an angel to come visit us and tell us what to do. "Think of the people who had angel visitations--Lamen and Lemuel, Saul, Alma the younger. They were messed up! It speaks well of you not to have those experiences, you don’t need them" haha.

I love the gospel because it makes everything click in my head. I’ve spent time thinking about how I would answer my life questions without this knowledge of God’s plan for us, and it leaves me with a giant disconnect in my heart and mind. I really just do believe all of this!  Maybe it is that knowledge that intensifies my heartache when people reject God in their lives.

Thankfully we are having success working with the members of the ward—there is always a silver lining and good things just around the river bend.

Everything is awesome,

Elder Phillips