Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Despiertense- Email 8/5/13

Well....interesting week. Im in this period where you start to realize that there is so much that we do but that there is so much more that we need to do. I know most of you wont understand what I'm trying to say but its just all in my head and I'm trying to get it on paper so have patience. Haha my sector is doing pretty well but we still have some work to do. But real fast we will just start there!
Nicole Elegida has just disappeared off the planet...elder miyasaki saw her the other day and apparently she still wants to get baptized this saturday the 10th and is super excited but we have not been able to find her so i have no idea whats going on there. her grandpa is sick so I'm sure thats why, but its just frustrating when there is lack of contact with people because you cant help them come closer to christ! But i would be surprised if she doesn't get baptized this week or this next week the 17th. And that would be with....

Bruno and Kati! Bruno and Kati are just about the most faithful couple ever now. So cool. On wednesday we passed by and taught the law of chastity because they aren't married. And they were like..."well, your right, we are living in sin and we don't want to do that anymore." So we asked them to give us their carnets (chilean ID) and we went to the municipalidad and we took out an hour for them to get married. So now they're getting married tuesday at 9 in the morning because they let two 20 year old boys choose it. haha no thats just the only time available, BUT WE ARE HAVING A WEDDING! Haha isn't that so cool? And we will be here for it too. We are going to marry them and then they will get baptized on august 17th. We are just so excited and cant wait for them to be a part of that. They have a ton of faith and are so sweet. So thats bruno and kati. Bruno worked all night saturday night and came to church sunday too so its just ridiculous..they really want to follow the savior. There are some people here that are just so faithful and really have such strong desires to do the right thing. For all the crap we go through, there is some really special stuff that happens too.

Oh, I'm with Elder Rico right now too! he is from Colombia so we are super happy together. He served in coronel too so we talk about there, we are cruising right now in victoria and we have already become good friends. He does the insanity workouts every morning and i tried ONE morning to do it with him and then i was like NOPE and went back to eating pan amasado and getting fat. He goes home in less than 3 months so he has to get skinny, but I'm just living the high life still. Woooo! Anyway, all things are good here in victoria. I really really love it, love our converts, love the branch. We actually have branch conference this week and our goal is 100 people, like double the normal, so its going to be really cool. We have activities every night, and are trying to just flood the branch with animo. Anyway, thats victoria.

And then there is consejo. Thats like council i think, but its the meeting all the leaders of the mission have with president every month. basically it was just like "You guys are all an embarrassment." haha and i wish i was kidding. The mission baptized 93 in june and 46 in july... a huge drop. our zone baptized most in the entire mission which is great but it was still sad. He started to ask about our goals for august, and what we are going to do, and then he snapped. Well it was all planned but it freaked us out. He asked one of the zone leaders (actually the coronel ZL) what their goal was, and they said 15, and he said "No lo va a lograr". "you aren't going to reach it." And we all were just like uhhhh...what? And he proceeded to ask every zone, and said "I promise you, right now, that none of you will reach your goals. I promise you. In fact, ill sign it. Ill SIGN it. Give me a piece of paper and i will sign it and promise you that this month, none of you will reach your goals." We were all just like WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON??? But if anyone has seen MIracle, the movie about the hockey team and the part where the coach says there a bunch of losers and they don't deserve to wear the us jersey, they can imagine what the response of is a bunch of 20 year old testosterone missionaries...one missionary who served in the military said "President, with all due respect, you're just a man. I have faith in my god, not you. I looked in the eyes of multiple captains who said i would never make it back alive, who said i would never live again. And i will never forget the look in their eyes when i walked away with my rifle on my shoulder. And i will never forget yours when i come back here with 2 baptisms as a zone." it was SO powerful. It inspired us so much, so i guess it worked. The idea was just "i promise you will never reach your goals if you KEEP living like this. You aren't being good enough missionaries and aren't obedient enough. We cant keep doing the same thing and expecting different results." it was really good actually because it really made us wake up and realize that those results are truly terrible. 

We have 238 missionaries in the mission...and 46 baptisms? I know numbers aren't everything, but sometimes we let ourselves be complacent in life because its the normal, and we forget that we are really here for a heavenly father who NEEDS his kids to come back to him. I realize finally that every person i see needs to hear this message, because if they don't hear it from me they may never hear it again. like they have a father in heaven who wants them back and unless they follow this plan they aren't getting there. But it just really inspired me so much I love the work, and love the gospel.

Les quiero mucho,

Elder Tengberg

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