Nope THIS is the hardest thing I've ever done...

My new area is great. It’s so quiet, its weird, there’s not a single stoplight in the entire city and like 5 or 6 cars in the street at a time. But its loaded, the houses are some of the biggest in Chile. They would kind of be smaller homes in the states but they’re big for here. And the streets are all gringo names. I guess the city was established by gringos like 50 years ago. So they have like a street called 4th of July. Ha, Kinda of cool. But at times it's a little boring being alone in a little city just you and your comp. I used to always see my zone and stuff but we live 4 hours from the zone leaders and 2 hours from the nearest missionaries. Yeah its pretty far inland, before I left, I tried showing my converts the boys where it is and couldn’t find it on google map ha, goes to show how small it is.

My Companion is from Peru and one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met haha. He’s unbelievable quiet like he just flat out doesn’t talk. It’s rough not going to lie. First time being senior comp. I’m like leading the lessons and talk almost the whole lesson. But it helps me with my Spanish I’m getting faster and faster. He has two more transfers than me and is 25. But easily the quietest person I’ve ever met. Like one time this less active lady was like so what are you thinking you just look at me and don’t talk?... And he didn’t say anything ha, but then other times he'll teach and stuff and he does a good job. I feel like each transfer I find my self saying "Nope THIS is the hardest thing I’ve ever done" Ha but its good to always be stretching my abilities.

Oh, and our sector hasn’t had a baptism since 2011. Crazy, But the branch is super strong. There all rich so just about all of them have been to the temple and are endowed which is rare. Its cool to have rich members the because there’s this one guy who loves football and we are kinda buds, but has peanut butter which is crazy expensive, just for me at his house ha, its cool. Oh and then cooking has been kinda cool but I’m already tired of it haha. We had tacos and french toasts and rice.. Can’t remember what else. But this week I think we're going to try some pasta stuff and whatever else we think of.

Christmasy huh? It’s finally starting to feel like Christmas here there are a few houses in my sector with Christmas lights. It’s weird that there won’t be snow this Christmas but I think I like the heat more. Still haven’t gotten my package but I’m hoping soon, at least one of them! I hope I at LEAST get one before Christmas! But we will see. Yeah we can skype for Christmas I’m hoping to find someone cool to spend Christmas with and skype at there house but if not we will just do it at a Cyber.

Anyway I don’t have too much time this week because we got to get to work quick. But I love all of you guys and will talk to you next week. OH and that lessons sounds awesome, our president just taught a little about that a while back. Its interesting thinking faith and fear cant exist like darkness and light.

 Anyway, Love you all, take care and talk to you next week

#missionaryforlife

I got My First Transfer! And Im SENIOR COMP!

Yeah, the mission is starting to fly. Every week seems faster and faster. That’s awesome you got to teach about the story of Jesus Christ, ya we kinda of do that everyday, now you have some insight on what we do :) It’s awesome huh?
Whoa an apostle went to the nativity? Ha now next year everyone is going to be looking for apostles... pretty sweet. Did you take some pictures of them? Could you send me them? Sounds awesome, I wanna see. 

So some big news! I got My First Transfer and I’m a SENIOR COMP! I’m going to this tiny little mining town called El Salvador. My first time traveling in the mission. My bus leaves tonight at one in the morning and I get there tomorrow at like 9 or 10 I think. But one cool thing is because it’s a little town they only have a branch, and I’ll be part of the Branch Presidency, I think. Not 100% sure because the assistant told me I’ll be helping run the branch, but then another missionary told me he just came from there and the missionaries don’t really run it. But we will see. Also heard that its one of the nicest pensions or apartments in the mission and that I can drink the water (FINALLY I hate buying water!) You people who live in the US are lucky haha. but I'm absolutely stoked. Its gonna be an adventure. Oh and we don’t have mamitas, so I have to wash my own clothes and make my own food everyday… what a bummer ha. 

The one crappy part is that I’m leaving my first converts and less actives that I helped get to Church. They’re awesome when I bore my last testimony here, the mom of Alanoca ( I'll point her out in the pic) She started to cry and she says I better come back. I told her if you guys pick me up, we will hang with her and her family the whole time you guys are here. Would be perfect, they game me a sweatshirt and another investigator gave me this cool Chile hat and then we went to taco bell today with our investigators ha. It was sweet but still sucks saying bye. 

What else... nothing too exciting this past week, we found a couple new investigators this week but mainly were just working with our old ones trying to get them to progress. But I’m going to have all new investigators, so I guess its elder Ruiz worries now ha. 

My package still hasn’t gotten here which sucks cause now its going to be a little while until it gets from Antofagasta to El Salvador... But it should be soon.  I don’t know whats up.  I feel fine, I’m not sick anymore and have been taken care of myself. Nothing else too exciting, but ill send you a bunch of pictures when I arrive in Richville ok?

LOve you guys and hope everything’s been going good. Take Care!

Elder Farny

I forgot it was Thanksgiving until nighttime

Glad you like the pictures, I’ve tried to take more, we just don’t take our cameras around with us cause its ghetto where we are at. Sucks you guys didn’t have snow at the cabin, but still sounds like you had fun. I wasn’t really paying attention to the date, so I kinda forgot it was thanksgiving until nighttime. My package still hasn’t arrived, but I think that it’s here and the zone leaders just have to go get it. But thank you for the package!! I know ill love it when I get it, haha. 

The house is already set up huh? It’s weird seeing the Christmas trees and stuff here and no snow.... just doesn’t seem to fit without snow haha But I hope you guys have fun at all your parties. We have transfers this week and this time I'm almost positive I’m leaving which sucks because the family of my recent converts is where I want to spend Christmas. But Ill find someone cool to spend it with. 

This week was both good one and bad. Monday night, I was sick and all day Tuesday I had to rest and take medicine our mission doctor gave me. I was coughing up blood and my whole body hurt. But the medicine helped quickly and we got back to work Wednesday. Wednesday we did splits with missionaries from the sector right next to ours, and I was with this new missionary named Mcconkie and we went to teach one of his investigators who was about to get baptized. So we get there and we met her niece who wasn’t a member but who had been to church a few times. We asked if she wanted to listen to the lesson she said ya and said the opening prayer and at the end of the lesson she goes I want to get baptized. I was like sweet haha second time that’s happened to me. So she got baptized Saturday. The investigators from our sector aren’t really like that ha, they’re making all these excuses and stuff.  We’re still teaching them and were going to see what we can do. We have like 10 potentials right now so we will see. But the work has been good.

I’ve been thinking lately and really I haven’t been too homesick. I just have no reason to be ya know. I feel like even if I was at home, there wouldn’t be anything more important than doing what I'm doing right now. And it’ll help me be who I need to be when I get back. And like you said, it’s amazing meeting people in the ward and having them become my best friends. Like this investigator who speaks English, we are like buds already and we just met. Crazy all the people you meet. 

Well, this is probably my last week in this area, so next week Ill let you guys know what’s up. Hope all is well at home, love you guys and Happy Thanksgiving!

Elder Farnworth

Our members are pretty strong here, it's awesome.

Sounds like things are going good with you guys! Its great here as well, even though we had the family that we planned on baptizing this saturday not show up at church, we brought five other people to church. Two of them are awesome, this girl who is 19 who speaks english and her bro whos 17. There dad just died and during the lessons they told us they liked our church more than all the others they've been to which was awesome.  It's sweet speaking english everytime we visit them. Also, yesterday we set up a devotional with the whole ward and taught them how to help our investagators and recent converts feel more comfortable. It turned out really well. Our member are pretty strong here, its awesome.

Other than that nothing else has really been different. They don't know what thanksgiving is here and I dont think were doing anything, so it'll be just a normal day. But I'll have to make a recipe that you gave me, I'll make something sweet for me and my comp. I keep having dreams that I'm with you guys. I had a dream that Mom moved here for two years and had her own little house and spoke spanish. And we visited you like everynight... haha weird huh? Anyways that's about it, I'lll let you know when we have a set baptism, I'm praying it's soon.

 

Love you guys and thanks for everything.

 

Elder Farny

 

                *Here are some pictures of the Antofagasta that Zachary sent. 

We're staying busy and working hard..

I’m glad to hear everything is going good. This week was a good one. We’re staying  busy and working hard. This week was more about teaching our investigators and getting them ready for baptism. We had 5 investigator at Church, and 5 less actives. And this week we found 6 new people to teach. Included in those 6 is a Grandma who asked us to baptize her during the first lesson with her. So that’s a good sign, haha. The works good, it’s just getting hot. Oh and then these other two girls we found is a cool story. So I was choosing where we did contacts on splits not this week but last week. And we were walking and I felt like we should visit this house. So we knocked on it and those girls that I told you about who were more into us than our message answered. So I thought the feeling I had was nothing. But turns out the house is two parts, so we tried the lower half and found these two other girls who are super interested and after teaching them asked us to come back and all the stuff. It was a cool experience and I hope we can get them baptized soon. Anyway other then that, we're just working hard.

Thanks for all the support from everyone and keep me updated on life in the U.S.

Love ya!

Elder Farny

It's been a tiring week...

This weeks focus has been finding new people to teach. It's been a tiring week, every night I come home absolutely exhausted. The other night we taught our recent converts and I almost fall asleep during the lesson. I've never been so tired in my entire life. Its all been good though, everyday we comment about how for some reason people just let us in. Our numbers of contacts are low, but the number of new investigators is always high. Its awesome, so hopefully this Sunday, we get poeple to church and by the end of the month we have baptisms. 

The spanish is good, but I wanted to get better. Still just getting used to the different ways to say things and learning the chilean slang and what not, but its good. Im trying to think if anything too excited happened this week. Oh ya crazy story. So we did splits and I went with this new Elder from Utah who speaks a tiny bit of spanish. But we were doing contacts and this family let us in. It was a family of four, the mom and two girls, 19 and 18 then one of like 12. So we started teaching but the whole lesson they just kept telling us how good looking we were and stuff. We couldnt even get through the lesson it was so bad, so we just invited them to church and left,haha. That's all thats really happened, we're just teaching our investigators right now but hopefully we will have some baptism dates soon. Hope all is well in the US and I hope Mitt Romney wins tomorrow.

Love you guys,

Elder Farnworth

I gave my first talk in Spanish...

Nothing too big happened this week, but it was a good week of finding new people. We found 7 new investigators. We’re teaching three families now which is awesome, but it’s been a little rocky with each one having certain things keeping them from going to church. Like work or just being too tired in the morning. Ha Sunday I gave my first talk in Spanish. I got up and started off apologizing if I speak strange, and gringo and made everyone laugh, then my talk went well. I was able to speak and say what I wanted to say and I even got a few compliments after. Other than that nothing to big has happened. Oh, one of the families on Thursday told us about how they were struggling big time with money and they were struggling to feed their kids. So we ran around the whole ward and collected food for them and now they like love us and want us to come by and teach them about our church every day. Its awesome, I'm excited. I hope they get baptized. It'd be an awesome story.

Well that’s about it thanks again for all the support I wouldn’t be able to do it without all of you. Con Amor De Chile

Chua,

Elder Farny