Speak The Truth, Even If Your Voice Shakes

"Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes"

I might have shared this quote before but it explains how this week of teaching felt.

There is a returned missionary in our ward who just got back from Provo, Utah. He is so much fun because he randomly says things in English. I hope I can do the same with Spanish some day!

This life is like a race. If we run super fast for 80 meters in a 100-meter dash, but stop 20 meters short, we won’t get the prize.  We visited with a family who had been members for 35 years, but when they got promotions at their jobs they stopped going to church because they already "knew it all".  They sat there arguing with us about attending church, saying the church only sees us as statistics or numbers anyway.

As I listened to them I realized the only thing I could do was testify why I went to church.  Even though I was a little intimidated by the family who "knew everything", I told them the most important reason I go to church is because I need a constant remission of my faults, mistakes, and sins only made possible through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  We obtain this cleansing when we partake of the sacrament--weekly repenting of our sins and renewing our covenants with God.

Though it was a little out of character for me, it felt right to tell them they had forgotten God, and at the current moment no longer had a remission of their sins. They did not “know everything” because they had forgotten the reason why this church exists. If they were to die at that moment, they would not be counted among those who fought to the end—they had stopped 20 meters short of the finish line.

My voice shook, my Spanish stumbled, but I felt a power beyond my own. The room was silent and their faces changed.  I spoke out of love for them but told them the truth.

I don’t tell you this to show how cool I think I am. I’m just a 19-year-old band boy :)  I tell you because I wish I had spoken the truth earlier in my life.  When opportunities came my way in school and other situations why didn’t I speak up for what I felt inside?

I’ve realized this is not the time in our world to be wishy-washy.  The opposing voices are too strong for that.  We don’t need to be louder, only more powerful. When we speak what we feel, we will be joined with the voices of heaven.

Thank you for your thoughts and kind support!  I’m glad to be here--even when I feel the need to speak the truth in broken Spanish with a shaking voice.

"We ought to live life sacrificing, singing, and dancing" -Plato

Everything is awesome,

Elder Phillips :P

Didn't know freezers could ice over #missionaryproblems

Slowly Getting Back to Missionary Normal

April 20, 2015

Hola!

Transfer Day--no changes here, all four of us missionaries are staying.  Maybe this transfer we can actually be missionaries!  My sector is normalizing.  We finally had all three hours of church!  The city will take a while to clean up, but my life is returning back to missionary normal.

This experience has taught me to: 1. Listen to the Prophet’s counsel. Many people have to leave their houses in the middle of the night. If you didn’t have a emergency backpack, well, tough luck. 2. Material things don’t matter.  People lost everything, but it made them kinder to each other.  It’s like literally watching the pride cycle in the Book of Mormon!

On Tuesday the two zones got together to dig out one of the chapels downtown.  It’s incredible what you can do with 30 missionaries.  The zone leaders told us the next day we could buy rubber boots and they would reimburse us. Thanks for telling me now!! My tennis shoes would have appreciated knowing that 3 weeks ago :P

I’m happy to be in the driest, flooding mission in the world!  It might not be pretty or easy, but I love what it’s doing to me.

The family we were reactivating moved to Antofagasta (6 hours away) for a job opportunity.  We went over to their house to say goodbye.  They thanked us for our service, that their young little family can go to the temple next year to become an eternal family.  Well, it wasn’t a baptism, but I did help them see the light of the gospel again.  This was the returned missionary father who my first week here sat next to me at stake conference crying. He knew what he had been missing.  It’s been very fulfilling to work with them.

On Thursday there was a conference with Elder Oaks, one of our church leaders, for all of Chile.  The two zones got together in a chapel to watch the live broadcast...but there was no signal.  So someone at the actual conference used their cell phone to let us hear in Copiapó. For two hours I listened to an unrecognizable, muffled voice with occasional laughter through a cell phone.

But we got together the next day to see it, and after two hours they finally got a connection working. Yeah!  Elder Oaks said this year our church is going to focus a lot more on the importance of the Sabbath day, one of the biggest problems here in South America.  In a broader perspective, this whole church and life in general, he said, is based on commitments we make with each other and God.  If our investigators can’t learn how to keep the commitments we as missionaries ask them to do (read the Book of Mormon, go to church, pray) how can they be ready to make an eternal promise with Heavenly Father to always follow him?

I’m thankful I have the liberty to choose; no one can force us to be good or bad.  We create our own lives. I hope mine is worth making! :P

Have a great week. We have a promising week with appointments just around the river bend.  Love you all!


April 13, 2015 (Last Week)

Hola familia y amigos

The rains came down and the floods came up.  But now the floods are drying away so the normal routine of life begins.

Except on Tuesday and Thursday we went to Piopóte, the part of the city that was hit the worst.  One of the member´s mom lives over there so the bishop asked if we could take the 25 min trek over to dig out her house.  I’ve never seen so much mud in my life!!  Trudging through the knee-deep mud, sunken cars, and trash, we made it to the house.  For 4 hours we slopped the mud from the bedrooms and kitchen to the patio where we added it to the stinking pool of trash and mud on the streets.  It was such a relief to finally touch cement floor after we had finished.

I had to get a shot from a truck just outside the swamp (don’t worry mom, it was a legit medical truck).  They asked me all these questions in Spanish I didn’t know how to answer.  They ending up giving me the shot anyway with everyone staring at me like, who is this weird white kid?  It was one of those, yep, this would be easier in English moments. But its part of the adventure!!

Finally we were able to go out and do normal missionary work. The bad thing is a lot of people are leaving the city due to contamination in the air, especially for the little kids.  Our pool of people to teach has shrunken dramatically.  Ahhhh....well, we keep moving forward.

Everything is awesome,
Elder Phillips

Before the Church Dig Out

Notice how deep the trenches are!

Dirt and more Dirt!

These pants will need some soaking!

Cleaned up

Our Kitchen :)

My Version of the Disney Jungle Cruise

Monday April 6, 2015

Hola!

Hope you enjoyed your Easter! Mine was probably a little different than yours, unless you spent it in rivers of mud and dust clouds--then it would be very similar to mine.

We weren't able to do normal missionary work again this whole week due to the flooding, which now is now a stinky layer of mud covering all of downtown, and dust up where we are (explaining the gangsta mask pic).  That would be all fine and and dandy if the mud didn’t mix with the overflowing sewer waters making for a very stinky Copiapò.  It sure has been an adventure! Might need to buy new shoes after this haha :P

On Wednesday we went to downtown to help a lady dig out her house, a 4-hour process.  Standing in the bed of a truck being splashed by passing cars in the rivers once called streets, watching the water lap up on the muddy shores of people's porches, I couldn’t help feel like I was on Disney's Jungle Cruise! Don't judge me, anyone who knows me understands I just can't help loving Disneyland.

Speaking of Disneyland, we were allowed to go to member’s houses to watch general conference (a bi-annual meeting for our whole church on TV). We walked in the house and BAM, there it was--a giant poster of California Screamin ( a mickey mouse roller coaster) from California Adventure.  I freaked out.  I asked the man where he got it and all he said was, "I bought it cause it looked cool."

Even though watching conference in Spanish was a little harder than watching it in English, it was wonderful anyways. Found it interesting how many talks were focused on marriage and family.  And it got really interesting when the Spanish translator started DYING or something during the talk--coughing and gagging.  There was silence until a new voice came on 30 seconds later.  Hope that guy is ok.

I’m eternally grateful for a family who loves me.  I’m glad that in a world so messed up with values, I have my head on straight. I'm grateful for this chance to really develop into the person I want to be for the rest of my life--a disciple of Christ—which is the most important thing I can do with my life. I am also thankful for the opportunity to share this knowledge with others.  And most importantly, I am grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, and the sacrifice he made for all of us.

Enjoy your Easter leftovers!  I will be eating ramen with mayo, ketchup and chlorinated water.  The mission is so weird it ROCKS! :P

Everything is awesome,
Elder Phillips

My "Gangsta" mask

The Disney Picture!

The Jungle Cruise

Mud Mud Mud and Miracles

Hola amigos y familia,

This has been probably the most interesting week on the mission.

We heard rumors that it might rain this past week, exciting news for the driest place on earth.  Tuesday came with some thunderstorms and light rain.  We took photos and played around for a bit thinking it was over.

Not even close.

Rain poured and quickly accumulated.  Wednesday morning we received a call to stay in the apartment and not to leave except for lunch at our mamita's house.  Little did we know the downtown was being destroyed by the overflowing Copiapo River that hadn’t had a drop of water in it for over 17 years.

One fortunate may I say miraculous event was that our Church flooded with water and mud, but only on the tiled floors in the hallways and classrooms.  No mud entered the chapel where it is carpeted.

For our safety, we’ve been stuck in the apartment for 5 days with nothing to do.  We live on a hill on the outskirts of the city--once a bother and now a blessing! We are the lucky missionaries who have water, electricity, and no damage. But we can’t drink the water.  It’s mixed with the sewer water now and to reverse that, its like half chlorine.  Taking a shower feels like I just got done with swimming practice. Luckily the government is supplying bottled water very inexpensively to drink.  There are some missionaries in other areas that have been moved out of their cities for a while because of the destruction.

Outside it’s been a little like an end of the world scenario (not as extreme, of course).  Lines of hundreds of people trying to get gas.  Trash piling up on all sides of the streets.  We went to a mini super market to try and buy bread.  The whole store had been turned upside down with food strewn across the floor and the shelves empty. Everything gone except the beer (that’s a first!!).  I’m still waiting for the zombies to show up haha.

We did the service we could, trying to collect materials for other members and put up refugee locations in the chapels.  Church was cancelled so we visited a few widows to give them the sacrament.

We finally received permission to go down into town again to buy more food.  It was pretty hectic with streets filled with mud and stressed out people.  Goodbye shoes!  They were limiting how much food you could buy and had military guards walking the aisles.  Then was the 45 min walk back through the foot thick mud up to the apartment.  We are all pretty beat from the trek.

Interesting week, right?  But it has given me time to read, think, play with water guns (we got desperate), and see what happens when everything goes wrong.

Conclusion:  we never know what will happen.  NOBODY here thought the dry dry dry river would one day flood the town with water and mud. But it did. The members here who followed the prophets’ counsel to have food storage and financial reserves weren’t only just fine but they could help other people.  We must be prepared for the floods of life even when there isn’t a cloud in the sky.

I’m safe and well and very blessed.

Everything is awesome, SOAKING WET, AND MUDDY!

Elder Phillips

Mud, Mud, And More Mud

Downtown Park

Outside of LDS Church

Inside Hallway at Church

No Mud In The Chapel!

Flooding in the Driest Place on Earth!

View from above

Soccer Field, before and after

March 27, 2015

Hi Everyone!

Don’t know if you have been following the news or heard anything about this but if not, there was a major flood here in Chile.  It flooded Copiapò and a couple other cities.  The mission president gave us time to tell you that all is fine with me.  :)

It started raining on Tuesday and flooded all of downtown.  As of now, its all flooded right now--Lider (Walmart), the new mall, the streets, it’s all flooded!

Thank goodness I live on the hill.  I have water, light, and electricity.  We haven’t been able to leave for 3 days, except to do some service for a couple of the members but our sector of the city is super good.  But for the missionaries in the city of Chañaral--the whole city is GONE.  People are stranded on their second floors.  But president told us that all the missionaries are fine.

We’ve had to stay in because the people have been kind of freaking out.  There is a line 300 people trying to get gas.  They closed the road to go to different cities.  They brought in the army and the president to help with the clean up. Lots of helicopters.  There is food, but the prices have gone up.  Eating a lot of peanut butter! haha

Talk to you more on Monday (if the cyber cafe is open). It’s been an interesting week.  I’ve been very blessed during this whole thing.

Everything is awesome, and super wet,

Austin :P


March 23, 2015

Hola familia y amigos,

Well, it´s official--6 months today.  Not that big of a deal, just wait until my one year mark ;)

The less active members here are really receptive. (YEAH!!!!)  Right now we are helping a family come back to church.  He was a missionary who had to come home for health issues and had a hard time about it.  I was sitting next to him at church when he started crying.  He told me how happy he is for choosing to come back again, to have peace in his heart. Sure, it’s more work and can be stressful, but eternal salvation is worth it. They are going to the temple to get sealed hopefully by the end of the year!

Yesterday we did an awesome ward activity called El Rescate, or the Rescue, where the whole stake and all the missionaries come to a ward and flood the area with visits. Our ward happened to be picked first.  I got paired up with two teenagers who are leaving on their missions soon.  They thought it was weird that I say hello to everyone, and most people I say hi to give me strange looks as well lol

 But I stopped caring about making a fool of myself a long time ago. For those of you who know me personally, you´ll understand (cough, cough...marching band, The Sound of Music, graduation speech, Christmas caroling in Vallenar…) That’s what the mission is--one awkward, fantastic experience. It’s hilarious when you try to talk to someone in a taxicab and they stare at you like you have two heads. :P

So, as my daily quote book said yesterday, "Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes."

And I plan on doing just that.

Have a fantastic week! We are expecting a little rain in the next few days.

PS: the old Spock guy died from Star Trek!!???  That might be old news but I just found out.

Everything is awesome,

Elder Phillips

Moments That Change Us

Hola!

Just completed my first full week in Copiopó. I’m in a ward called Jotabeche, which is on a giant hill on the mountain. Guess my calves will look pretty good in a couple months!

It’s been crazy this week because we had a stake conference and a mission conference with the president.  The four elders from the mission office are staying with us for a few days, so that makes eight elders in one apartment.  I’m sure you can imagine the things that can go on with eight of us here together, especially when it was someone's birthday yesterday.  Good thing I bought ear plugs!

The four of us are enjoying each other in the apartment.  Two of us are Latino and Elder F. and I are the Gringos.   Elder F. has 2 more cambios (transfers--each transfer is 6 weeks) than me. Its fun to be with someone who understands what you are going through.

The apartment was initially pretty disgusting (rotting meat covered in ants, toilets that haven’t been cleaned in...well, never).  Oh, the joys of the mission--I loaded up on cleaning supplies again.  And there is a gold mine in our backyard. I’m serious--all day, everyday there are men mining millions of dollars in real gold right outside of our kitchen window. I might go on a scavenger hunt this week :)

One of the new Elders, Elder W., told me he read my blog before he got here on the mission. How funny is that! I remember reading other blogs before I left, but hadn’t thought about it the other way around.

Our mission president got really deep with us this past conference. He told us the turning point in his life happened in a dark little room, deep in the jungles of Bolivia, when he felt that his mission president was punishing him by putting him in the hardest area of the mission with just 4 members and not even calling him to a leadership position--after he had baptized 30 people in his other area. As he sat there 4 hours away from any other missionaries the thought entered his mind, you can just go to the beach for the next week and literally no one would know. No one expects baptisms in this area and no one cares about you.  Leave in the morning and take the vacation you deserve.

He had a choice to make, one that seemed insignificant at the time, but as he has reflected back, it was a decision that ended up changing his life.  Right there on his sad little bed, he decided to be the person he needed to be and wanted to be--later baptizing 13 people in 3 months and growing the members in the area from 4 to 70.  Of course, missions are not about numbers, but about changing hearts.  And as he set a course for his heart that changed his life for good, he was able to influence other hearts along the way.

All of us come to the point in our lives when we have to decide what kind of person we will be. Pres. Dalton commented that this moment many times comes on your mission, but regardless of when, the moment will come where you must reach down deep inside yourself and choose what course you will take. One looks easier, while the other looks harder--and both reach distinct destinations.

I too have made choices that have brought me here to this point in my life, based on the desires of my heart, my faith, and my wish to be obedient to God. My simple conclusion to life is when I do the things of God, I feel good. When I   don´t, I feel bad. And I love to feel good.  I know my purpose on this earth--to enjoy the beauty of the experience, to cry when needed, to serve those around me, and above all, to become the person I know I can be.  Yes, it takes work and sacrifice, but isn’t that like everything worthwhile in life?

Random, but just now there was a parade of men dressed up as women hitting people with sacks of potatoes.  I have no idea why. Gotta love Chile!

Have a great week!  No spiders here, but one investigator has a pet tarantula. When he tried to take it out to show me, I literally ran out of the house.

Everything is still awesome,

Elder Phillips

The Copiopo River--it dried up 20 years ago!

Just Around the River Bend to Copiapo

Hola!

I may be stretching it a bit talking about a river, I think it dried up a long time ago...maybe just around the highway bend :)

Part 1
So I am in the Internet cafe getting ready to catch a bus to Copiapo (the city just above Vallenar).  It was pretty unexpected but I’m excited for this transfer.  My new companion is a Chileno, and I will be in the city part of the town.  All the church members here in Vallenar keep telling me its super hot and dry in Copiapo.  (mom’s note:  it is a much larger city than Vallenar--about 130,000, and the main industry is silver and copper mining.)

I’m actually sad to leave, but excited to go.  I didn’t know how much I had grown to love these people until I had to leave.  Bearing my testimony at church yesterday I couldn’t help but cry.  Yes, sometimes it was hard, frustrating, and lonely, with lots of days spent walking--but I gave Vallenar my all and after 5 months, my time here is over.
I guess when you give your whole heart to something, you can’t help but love it. There must be a lesson in there somewhere :)

Don’t know if I will have more time to write when I get there, so have a great week!!  Love you all!


Part 2
Ok, made it here!  Took a two-hour bus ride north with nothing but pure desert.  Wow, it really is dry here.  It looks a lot like Vallenar, but the city is bigger and drier.  They have a Lider (Walmart) and a giant food court in the mall.  I had a delicious sandwich today in the food court with my new companion--he’s funny and likes to work, so yeah!

My new apartment has two floors and 4 missionaries.  Haven't met the other two yet.

Honestly, it was sad to leave, but I’m happy to be here. A fresh start, a new mini mission.  Lets see what happens!! As my Grandpa Ray used to say, “A change is as good as a rest.”  Sounds like a plan to me.  And did I tell you that sandwich was super good?

Everything is awesome,
Elder Phillips

Copiapo--my new home!

My new companion and my delicious sandwich!