Crazy Week.... Backwards- Email 7/15/2013

Wish i had more time but this is going to be awfully quick! This week has been insane and i just think its almost funny how crazy my life is now. But this week just so you see how strange my life has become, I'm going to go backwards in the week.

This weekend, we found not one but TWO awesome families. Young, professional dads that work in great jobs, so family oriented, young kids, so friendly, open to religion. One is Bernardo and Lourda, and their kids Josefina (11) Emilia (8) and Reinata (2). The lesson was AMAZING and seriously made me so happy to see this amazing family need the gospel so much. They talked all about how they love god and love religion and want to have more love in their home, but don't feel comfortable where they go right now and need something more. Well hey there Sherlock ill help! Seriously it was the most precious lesson ever because all they did was teach themselves about how their family could be eternal and how god has such a special place for their family in his heart. Very rare to see dads here truly be family oriented...to see them love and play with their daughters, everything. When we got in the house, the little girl reinata didn't like us too much, and the mom was like she wont warm up to strangers ever, don't worry its not just you two. But by the end, as Miyasaki (we were on intercambio that day) kept playing with her while i talked and vice versa, by the end she was asleep on my shoulder as i taught the last part of the lesson, and then she wouldn't let us leave the house. the mom said "You two must be something special because she doesn't do that with anyone" it just was so touching to see how she warmed up to us and how the family did too. Like it was one of the best lessons, if not the best, of my entire mission. Crazy how much i love some of these families here in chile. Anyway, Bernardo is a stud. The other family is Billy Topp, but we call him Billy the Kid. Haha to his face we call him that, its so funny. Isn't that the most white name ever? Billy Topp. Like...what?? his grandparents are german (we´re distant cousins I'm convinced) and moved here and got married with a little mapuchita so he looks chilean but has straight gringo name.  Anyway, he is married to Pilar and they have kids Benjamin (7) Laura (5) and Willy (2). Like...just seriously? GET THIS. he even turns his phone off when he gets home because he doesn't want people to interrupt his time with his kids. If that just isn't the perfect thing ever i don't know what is. He is pretty involucrado in an evangelical church but doesn't go anymore because of work, but they feel like they need something for their kids to grow in. Well, HELLO there welcome to the Victoria Primary. Which, by the way, i taught again this week. Im pro now. This weeks lessons? Jumping off the stage and piggy backs with the elders. THere were 16 kids and four elders...haha the biggest disaster ever. ANYWAY, thats golden families Bernardo and billy.

Which brings us to the newspaper and the TV on the weekend. yeah that newspaper clipping is from the Victoria Diario. The daily victorian newspaper. We were in it, i scored 4 points, miyasaki 34 and girsberger 16 (big secret,i suck at basketball). Haha so many members of the ward saw us on TV and saw us in the newspaper. So.......

So that takes us back to wednesday, when we played with "Los Seniors", a 45 and older basketball team. Yeah, we played with Bernardo, Billy, and 4 other men on this team against this other team here in victoria and we beat them 90-75. Hahaha we played basketball!!! It was so crazy. We got invited tuesday night by Bernardo after i contacted him, and then this big spiral of success came from us playing this game of basketball. We had NO idea it was going to be so serious. We thought it was like a friendly game between friends but nope, nothing of the sorts. This was way serious. Like scary serious. There were referees and scoreboards and uniforms and cameras. So yeah, I'm famous. I kept the newspaper clipping and everything, so funny. I wish i had photos of us playing but that day i didn't have my camera. So funny. But HEY we got those awesome families and they are progressing so i think the lord just works a little crazier than i thought sometimes.

I wish i could explain more stuff from the week but I'm so out of time. This morning we also did an activity with the zone, did Yoga everyone together directed by P90X and then had a pancake breakfast, personal study, and then watched a disney movie! I love our mission so much. if its cartoons or animated we are allowed to watch it...so we love it. ANyway, it was a great pday and then today we also got to visit an investigator in the hermanas sector who owns a panaderia and he taught us how to make rally good chilean bread. So its just been a fantastic week.

Anyway, love you all! Great year mark, great year of y life. I bought pizza for my year, and thats about it. Cant believe its gone by so fast. Probably just want pizza next year mark too...mom keep that in mind okay? LOVE YOU ALL!

Elder Tengberg

El Diluvio- Email 7/8/13

Hey there family! Thanks for all your letters and for checking in on me. good to hear from all of you and hear that everything is going well there in Poway and utah. Anyway, its been crazy here like always. this wee we had the 3 baptisms of Carolina, Camila and Cony! It went super well. THey had a great time and they were so happy. We were actually going to do it with a  family in tolhuaca, the hermanas in our zone, but they wanted to get baptized in their own chapel too. haha i guess its a good thing to have investigators that really love their own chapel so much that they don't want to leave it for other ones. there are worse things! but saturday was quite the crazy day. we had the first baptism here in victoria (both cities are actually victoria, its just two separate branches. the other side of the train tracks are Tolhuaca, and we are the victoria branch) at 5:30 and that went amazing. the branch is pretty excited about them. it was really sweet to be able to see how everyone showed up, some of the youth prepared a special musical number for Camila (she has already been going to seminary these past 2 weeks, i think she is doing okay haha) and i got to baptize Carolina. It is just straight up miracle. I mean the branch is just thrilled because its been so many baptisms this month and they just love us, but we really haven't done anything. like the lord just throws them into our lap while we worry about the zone and we literally don't have to do anything. just show up a couple times a week and they assign themselves their own reading, everything. haha they were actually a self-reference too. they called a member they know and told him they wanted us to come by and stuff. so its just so easy and made this whole process so nice. so there are the pictures! and also, it wouldn't be a tengberg baptism if it wasn't with Rainbows! lets be real here. Gotta have the rainbows in there. Anyway, it was super awesome and a great service. They are already inviting two families over this week for noche de hogar, so we will be teaching those families as well. Yeah i guess if i have to teach golden families i can manage....haha thanks heavenly father. he is blessing us so much!

But the best part is that we then had to go over at 7 tot he other branch. This family is one that the hermanas had taught but elder girsberger and i taught them once a week too because they always wanted us to come help them and stuff, and then i know the two sons really well because we always play football every saturday with them, every branch activity they come to ours as well, and we did their baptismal interviews as well. so the mom asked me to baptize her and the little girl asked elder girsberger too. so we still had WET PANTS when we are sitting through this next baptismal service, and then we hadn't thought it out well and had to come back in wet clothes...like under our suits after the second baptism eVERYTHING was wet. wet shirts, everything. like it was so cold. haha it was just a disaster and on both of our butts you just see this big wet mark until about our knees. Anyway, that was 4 for the hermanas so the zone started off the first week of the month with 7 baptisms. great stuff. Thats why this week is "el diluvio" because its just been a downpour of success. now we have some more finding to do and kind of re-start the process but thats perfectly okay. we gotta earn these next ones a little more i think.

Fourth of july was SO fun. we had a conference that day in temuco and the assistants organized all-American stuff, like root bear floats, hamburgers, american music, fireworks (nah jk they didn't have that that would have been sweet) and an american flag. Haha we sang patriotic songs, saluted our flag, it was legit. But then that night too we did a 4th of july chilean style with 4 families from the ward. THAT was the best part of the day. we did everything just almost american but slightly chilean because heck thats me. I'm basically american but i think ill always answer the phone saying "ah-lo" and always say po at the end of everything and always crave an undercooked hot dog with avocado and tomato on it and heaped with mayo. So we had that...coke floats (their blood runs with coke, no joke) and completos. and sang our national anthem for them (sang, but sure as heck not well), did so much. haha they loved it. my favorite quote "Leave it to gringos to put ice cream and soda together...as if they weren't unhealthy enough alone!" well...they make a great point. but MAN is it good.

Also my new mission address is 

Mision Chile Concepcion Sur

Castellon 1063

Casilla 3560

Concepcion, Bio Bio

Chile

If yo sent stuff to the other one before it will still get transferred over but this is the new one now. ANyway, that was my week. I know all you butt-heads wrote me and told me how I'm at a year and all that jazz, but IM STILL NOT! Haha i have three more days as a young missionary. Im still young. Imo not old yet, okay? its going to be a really hard week for me. i cant believe that this thing, this time that I've waited for for 19 years, that i worked so hard to get to, is already a year up. Like its halfway done....and it just breaks my heart. Makes me want to work so hard every single day because it literally flies by. Those first months take forever and it seems like it'll never end, but slowly and slowly it just dissipates and all the sudden your halfway done. haha I'm grateful I'm not going home next month like girsberger, but still scared that my time is coming a lot faster than i thought. Anyway. I love you all so much, i am so grateful for you all. Here are the pictures from this week! i think i explain most of them but if not....sorry. haha

the american flag is me, elder hanes, elder badger and elder girbserger

the other hermanas are in our two zones, hermana porter, hermana henderson, hermana marchant and hermana shelton

the little girl with the float is celeste, she is just adorable

the baptism is with carolina the mom, the middle one is 14 camila, the youngest cony. the lady with the coke filling up the coke floats is rosemary, our branch presidents wife. funniest lady in the world, so funny. "If i cant be tall i gotta be fat so at least people see me, okay??" i about died.

ME AND COMPLETOS!!!!

Root beer floats at the conference, elder townsend behind us and elder kuhn with he great tie

And then the families at the noche de hogar july 4th chilean style! Great stuff. 

left to right is galarreta mi ex companero, esteban, alvaro, celeste, barbara, camila (we are teaching her too), emilio (barbara brother and branch pres kid), camila, carolina, elizabeth and ramiro (baptized last week). Just an awesome july 4th! 

LOVE YOU ALL! Have  a great week, and keep sharing the gospel. They need it.

Elder Tengberg

Hospitals, Firesides, and a few midnight baptisms- Email 7/2/13

WOW. haha i know i say every week that its crazy but this week has by far been the craziest. I literally have slept every night for like 4 or 5 hours, been at the church until after 12 (with permission obviously) and just been all over this freaking mission. Anyway. Starting off wednesday....

Wednesday night at 4 am we get a call from president martinez (thats never good) and he told us the older senior couple missionaries in our ward needed our help. the elder had a stroke last month and was actually in a coma on life support here in temuco for 6 days and its a crazy story, they actually have a blog i think, its elder and sister babcock. They have a crazy story and its a miracle he's alive still. Anyway he fell on wednesday night when he tried to go to the bathroom and couldn't get up, so he got ahold of president and we ran over to help him, and then got to DRIVE to temuco! I let girsberger drive because he had his mission license when he was temporarily in south carolina, but still. We drove an hour to the hospital at 4 in the morning. So crazy. Anyway he is still there right now so we have to check up on him and his wife and stuff but they are doing a lot better. Thats story number 1. 

Thursday and friday we were setting up and getting EVERYTHING ready for our activities on friday and saturday and our baptism as well, and before we left for Concepcion on sunday for conference with president. So we had an activity called "Noche Fogonera" which is fireside. but we took it so extreme. We built a fake fire inside the church, got people to bring gas stoves and toasted marshmallows on them (impossible to find marshmallows here in chile....they're missing out, we had to go to an american type Walmart in temuco to find it!) and had speakers and everything. We even had tents. You can see it in the picture. but basically we talked about eternal families the entire time. We watched a couple mormon messages and just enjoyed being together. We had people share stories and just be together and it was really special seeing people and investigators share in spiritual experiences. Anyway, girsberger and i are going to become professional party planners, i swear. We are getting real good at this thing. Haha people LOVED toasting marshmallows and we made hot chocolate for everyone too. The ward doesn't like how we´re real good at using the ward budget...but hey someone has to do it, right?

Saturday we had two baptisms. Until 10:30, then we had a third. Haha karla and mayerly got baptized, you can see here in the picture that they are just adorable and they did so well. they have a super long story...they are the sister and niece of a member int he ward who is our mamita, and haven't wanted anything until 2 month ago when karla and Alejandra (our mamita) mom passed away. it softened karla so much and just opened her heart to the gospel and eternal families, and I've never seen her so happy and peaceful as that moment. Crazy how Alejandra bore her testimony and said "Two months ago i never thought i would smile again, and how the lord has blessed my family amidst all this trial. we are going to do the work for my mom in the temple and we will be an eternal family". So cool. Later, we were going back and forth between our investigators and going to Tolhuaca, the other branch in our same city that has the 4 sister missionaries in it, to do the interviews with a  family of 4 that are eternigators and are just taking so long. but he had some crazy dream where he finally realized that he wanted to do it, so we just put everything into action. Anyway, the dream he had to cross this river to get to his wife and family and missionaries on the other side (his wife is just dying to get baptized, jus waiting on him) and but the thing is that he had to follow this kid, Esteban, who he had only met once in a noche de hogar the week before with our golden family that got baptized last week. so.....we got things rolling, got permission to baptize him with 2 asistencia from president, Esteban had never been  so surprised and so happy in his entire life, and we got them all dunked. Minus the family, who still were porfiado and stubborn and said its too rushed, we want our family to be here, and we will si o si do it next week. So they will be baptized this week (the four of them from tolhuaca) with our three here in victoria (carolina Camilla y cony). haha going to be really cool! Anyway, thats the work here in victoria.

Im all out of time, but we also did a "rescue of the youth" which was a great idea. Had all the youth gather together of the stake, then go out and pick up the inactive youth in our ward and bring them to the activity that afternoon. huge success. Great idea and should be applied there in Poway!

Still freezing down here. never been so cold in my entire life....but never been so happy and filled with the spirit and so excited to share the gospel with everyone i can. I'm so glad to be out here and so humbled to be having the success as a zone we are having right now, the lord is just pouring out his spirit and we don't even have enough room to  catch it, i swear. but we will just keep trying to find all those elect that he is preparing!

I love you all, have a great 4th and ill be thinking about you!

Elder Tengberg