Proud Parents!- Email 10/22/2012 & Pictures!

Wow. What a week. Haha seriously we are having so much success that its honestly ridiculous. I am going to try and type as much as i can as fast as i can, so forgive me if there are spelling errors or other bad stuff!

First off, i tore one of my shirts. haha i rubbed against a barbed wire fence....oops. But i just felt so ridiculous the rest of the day. i looked like some homeless boy that the church sent out to teach. Haha oops.

Second off, one of the ladies we are teaching has a dog that had puppies. i about DIED. seriously, these puppies are the best things ever. So of course i took a Lion King picture with one, and elder ramirez and i were SO close to adopting the other one for our house. We cant have pets, but our member we live with can....thanks dad for teaching me those loopholes! Im definitely the son of a lawyer. Haha but we didnt because it smelled. But either way, we were almost proud parents!

big shout out to MARY FOR HER PAPERS GOING IN!!!! Ah! so exciting. I am so proud of you Mary and you are going to be an awesome missionary. It took me 19 years to prepare and decide to go on a mission. It took you 2 weeks. Youre incredible. I was reading in Matthew this week about when Christ called the apostles and in matthew 4:20, it says they "instantly dropped their nets and followed him". Thats what youre doing mary! You got the green light to go, and INSTANTLY you made the decision to follow him. That kind of faith is what the Lord needs right now, and he will use that faith to work miracles. I am so proud of you! My guess is Taipei, Taiwan....or chile concepcion south. what? it could happen!

So our two favorite golden families, Paolina and Valentine and Juliana (the two kids) and then Hector and Cecilia, are making progress like its nothing. Seriously, i am absolutely in love with these families. I cant wait to come visit them and just watch their lives progress. First thigns first, Paolina and her kids..

So she told us a little bit more about what happened before we came. She said that her pareja (no one is married, they all just live together in Chile) were having really hard problems with money. Then, some stuff started to get better but THEY didnt get any better. They were still just as bitter and miserable and nothing improved. The night we knocked on her door, she realized that money wasnt the problem in the family. In her words, "we needed something more". and then we knocked on the door! so cool that God used us to bless one of his daughters. Now, as i have seen this incredible change in her family, i have been so touched. Honestly, i look as Valentine as a little brother. This perfect little kid is just such a stud. The other day we left them reading, and he highlighted the entire thing and read it TWICE. haha he wore a white shirt and tie to church (no one besides like 5 members wear church clothes) and was waiting for us outside when we came by before church on sunday. As he talks to us and answers EVERY question we ask, (mind you he is 10 years old), Paolina is always just in tears because she is seeing this incredible change in her kids.  These sweet kids are reading, preparing, and coming to know God. As Juliana, the 8 year old girl, knelt down to pray the other night at the end of our lesson, I was just like WOW. this is seriously incredible. The gospel can change us so much if we let it.

Now hector and cecilia. Seriously, they are every missionarys dream. They are the most perfect investigators that have ever walked the earth, im convinced of it. I seriously love them so much its insane haha. WE ARE GOING TO MARRY THEM! They accepted a baptismal date for the 17th of november, and we are helping them plan a wedding for the 16th! How insane is that? They are so faithful and are so ready. It is so cool to see the faith that they have. After we left the other day after challenging them to baptism/marriage, we realized how crazy that is. Two 19 year old boys who dont know squat come into your home and tell you that if you get married, and get baptized, that you will be blessed. We ask them to make the BIGGEST decision there is in life to get married, and they do it. how ridiculous is that?!? Haha i just cant even imagine. It is such a testament that they are not listening to us, but listening to the spirit. I sure as heck know it wasnt my spanish that convinced them. Although I would say my spanish is now about even with a 7 year old...HOORAH. Big improvements.

So thats the golden families of Arauco. We have 2 other families that we are working with, and i have high hopes for them too. but they couldnt come to church this past week so it may take a little while longer. Cristian couldnt get baptized last week because his uncle died Saturday night and they left to go visit them. But this upcoming Sunday (our branch president prefers baptisms after church) we should baptize Valentine, Cristian, and Juliana. Paolina wants to as well, but obviously cant because she isnt married. She says she wants her kids to get baptized and that when she figures out with Freddy what to do that she will follow suit. We really think that the kids getting baptized could be inspiration for him.

Funny story of the week. Everyone smokes. The other day we were playing soccer with a little kid and he was like "aw man, gotta go light up". uhhh WHAT THE HECK? youre 11. It caught us so off guard and then we watched him pull out a pack of cigarettes, and then a grown man light it for him. Haha WOW kind of crazy.

Ummm thats basically it. Haha I am just so happy and seeing so much success out here. Its honestly insane. I love the chileans so much (although i cant understand many still) and am just living the dream out here in Chile. I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Tengberg

Bautismo...numero dos! Email 10/16/2012

Hola familia! Wow, what a week. Seriously, we had so much success this week and i cant even comprehend it. It was definitely a hard week and i had some down moments, but it is crazy how much success we had. First off, thanks all for your emails! I am glad you all are doing well and thanks for the updates!

So dont have a ton of time today becase we had to go to concepcion for a return and report meeting wiht all the elders that came in the same week as me. Which was SO fun by the way. i got to see elder watt and elder white and elder long, all my buddies from the MTC. It was seriously a blast. I had SO much fun and we all just laughed the entire time about all the stupid stories that we have experienced. I realized how incredible the success we are having in Arauco is, and i am super grateful for that. We laughed about all the stupid stuff from the mtc, and just were cracking up. Missions sure are funny, and our spanish still all sucks.

Other than that. We had 9 investigators at church this week, and that was missing 7 others that should have been there. We are teaching 4 families right now, and while i know better than to assume i know what the outcome will be, i have a ton of faith that god has sent us to these families to help them in some way. Haha our attendance at church was 60...9 of which were investigators. We are working hard, thats for sure.

So the big miracles this week were with Paolina and Freddy, who i think i mentioned last week. Paolina was the one who prayed to have help and then we showed up. we had a really hard time finding them in their house again, but finally saturday night we were able to make contact with them. We invited them to church, and while Freddy isnt really interested, Paolina was interested but just scared to go. So we were like...well Paolina if you feel sick, where do you go? hospital. If you feel spiritually drained and need help...where do you go? Haha church! So finally we got it through her head that she needed to go. She went with her two kids, valentine and juliana, and had an amazing time. on the way home, her son Valentine who is 10 years old told her that he wantd to get baptized in that church, and it touched her so much. so they all 3 have baptismal dates now! We are really working hard with Freddy to try and get him to change with his family, and i think he will change with time. We shared some really personal experiences wiht him and it seemed to resonate, so i think he will take some initiative to pray and read and really find out for himself. I think we will delay the baptismal dates of the other ones so they can all get baptized together, but we put them so he would realize that he needed to change because his family wants too as well.

Another investigator, Hector and Cecilia, are quite possibly the two most prepared investigators of all time. THey have two kids, hector junior and Elena, and they arent married (but want to be, and commented our church would be a perfectplace to do it). We found them about a week and half ago, and they have been golden ever since. They have read EVERYTHING we have given them, were ready on time before we got there on sunday, and have just been pure golden ever since. They love the church so much, and said "we cant wait to come back". haha seriously we are doing NOTHING here in Arauco, God is just preparing all of the people for us! He does all the work and we just work hard to find the people that he already prepared. Its a great system. What else...

Johan got baptized this week! I attached the pictures of Johan at his baptism. I took more but the pictures take forever to send so i cant really send more. I got Machete`d from shardae and mom (like when someone chastises you) for not sending enough pictures...or something like that ;) haha so ill try to send more. Johan is just insanely smart and his brother Cristian is getting baptized this sunday as well. They are such great kids and we really think they will be the avenue through which their family comes back to church. In his confirmation, the branch president blessed him that he would be able to serve a mission in the future. How incredible would that be??? Seriously, i imagined him serving a mission and i just realized how incredible this work is. It can change you SO much if you let it.

I am so happy family. This is by far the hardest thing i have ever done, but there are few feelings like seeing someone´s life change - dramatically and forever. I have seen god work miracles that i didnt know were possible, send us to homes that i didnt know existed in this town, and answer prayers in ways i never would have thought. I have such a strong testimony that when we give a LITTLE bit more, god gives us a TON more. Such a strong testimony. I honestly am so grateful every day that heavenly father has blessed me so much and put so much confidence in me. I love the gospel and love this work more and more every day.

Also, the other picture is of a political rally sing...the size of a house. Literally, the sign is bigger than the house. Hahahahaha i was laughing so hard when i saw it. The only person i could think of that would do that in the US would be shardae...love you sis :)

Ciao familia!

Elder Tengberg

BAUTISMO!!!!!- Email 10/8/12 & Pictures!

Ahhh family! I am going to type as fast as i can, because i have so much to say and just not enough time. We have seriously seen so many miracles this week. i am seriously amazed every single day at the hand of the lord in this work. There are insane difficulties, and problems all the time, but i know this is his work and i know he uses us the way he needs us.

First, conference was great! One of the pictures i sent is from the saturday session of conference in the morning. Our goal was to get more members to conference on saturday....2 showed up.

The other is the baptism we had sunday! Story later.

Haha so first thing first....only andrew and mary will appreciate this, but the other day i was singing and elder ramirez asked me what song i was singing, and i thought for a second...then realized it was the NBA JAM THEME SONG!! hahaha i was singing the THEME SONG to a freaking Wii game. I started laughing so hard. Andrew, i miss you man! Hopefully you read these. If not, you smell and i hate you.

P day was awesome last week, i got to go to the beach. We played frisbee and layed down, and it was so sick. I got a little bit trunky because i all of the sudden had this crazy desire for a board and brew sandwich, but it was so great. How many missionaries get to lay on a sunny beach on p-day?! granted, i was in jeans and a t shirt, but HEY its the fact that i was there that counts. So that was great.

Okay so we have 2 more baptismal dates for this month, Johan for the 14th and his brother Cristian for the 21st. The story behind them is REALLY cool, and has strengthened my faith so much. So...it starts about 4 weeks ago, when i first got here. We got a call from someone in the branch that said that a less-active was in the hospital and wanted a blessing. besides being scared out of my MIND giving a blessing in spanish, all i had to do was the anointing part. Even that was so funny in my mind though. People here have crazy long names (like Jose Antonio Vega Uribe Torres-Barrueto), so it felt like i was reading off the roster for the CHilean soccer team as i tried to start the blessing. really hard. but anyway, elder ramirez gave the blessing part and he said some interesting stuff. like why she had this trial, and that it would be the way that her family would come to the gospel. Turns out,  as we visited her a couple of days later, she hasnt been to church in 20 some years and none of her sons are baptized. the kids are CRAZY smart though. As we have been teaching her, i have been so touched to see the lords hand in their lives. So many times we get angry with Heavenly Father for our trials, but fail to recognize that there is such a bigger purpose at hand than just giving us difficult things. Now, two of her three sons are being baptized, she has been coming to church, and she has been fully healed. The gospel is true!

WE HAD A BAPTISM YESTERDAY!!!! woooo!! In the picture, the little girl is Reinata. The mom is Karina, the one i wrote about i think. Karina is going to wait a little bit longer so she can be a little bit more prepared, but this week we saw a miracle here too. We were kind of feeling down when karina told us that she wasnt ready yet, and my faith had kind of just been sullen. But sunday morning, i listened to monson´s priesthood talk again (in english so i could understand) and i was just on spiritual cloud9. I was SO happy. Then we get a call from Karina that reinata is throwing up and cant get baptized. So we just say "we`re on our way" and head over. The poor girl is like WHITE, and is just laying in bed so sad. We testified of the power of blessings, the power of faith, and that this is the WHOLE reason this restoration happened - to restore the authority of God to baptize, to give blessings, and to do the lord´s work on earth again. Thats what the WHOLE purpose was! She said she had faith that it would work, so we gave her a blessing, and afterward, she had color in her face, sat up, and told us she was going to go to her baptism. WOOOO!!!! Haha we were so stoked. It was just such a testimony to me of faith. When we put our will in the will of the lord, he shows us miracles. Sometimes, we just dont trust ourselves enough to put it there.

Thats all i really have time for, but other miracles happened too. Another family, a lady Paolina, said when we came to her house that her husband and her had some really hard times, and she was about ready to give up. She said she had heard before that god answers prayers and sends angels, but never thought it would hapen to her. but then she said that she KNEW, with tears in her eyes, that we were sent to her to help her. We havent gotten a chance to talk to her again, but i just feel so honored to see that the lord works miracles, but that he allows me to witness it all. Not for a second do i think its myself. I feel so unworthy all the time to see the changes that he makes! Its so incredible. I love this work so much and am so excited to keep working harder and harder, helping more and more. Once i can speak the language...i know my ability to understand and love people will just be so much better. Cant wait for that. But for now, i just bear my testimony and try my hardest to show my love through my actions. Its a good thing it doesnt matter what i say or do, because God has it ALL under control and just works the miracles himself!!

Love you all. Thanks for your emails.

Until next week! Ciao!

Elder Tengberg

 Completos... yuck!

 Brady's Apartment

They tried to get more members from the ward to watch conference on Saturday and 2 showed up. They are trying!

 The baptism of Reinata!

 Exhausted on his first day in Chile

This little girl is Aurora, a daughter of a family in the ward

 Aurora's little brother, Maxi

 P-Day at the beach!

Saving souls!

Counsel Me Not- Email 10/1/12

Family,

What a week! This will be a shorter (not short, i type fast) email because i only have a few minutes left. Haha i had some comuter problems so it took up a little bit of my time. ANYWAY.

It was kind of a tough week. I was starting to get down on myself because i thought i would be better at spanish by now, i just wasnt as excited anymore, and i kind of was just focusing on myself. But i had some really good experiences that i would love to share and hopefully might help some of you not to make the same mistakes i did!

First thing, people who think about themselves are never happy. I learned that this week from personal experience and from looking at others. This week, we visited a recent convert who stopped coming to church, and for an HOUR, i couldnt say a single word because she was complaining. She was complaining about how the missionaries didnt visit her enough, how the branch leaders were bad, how no one caredabout her. All i wanted to say was "have YOU visited any of the other inactive members of this branch?" like i felt really bad for her because she has had some really difficult experiences that truly are sad, but they were nothing that merited that kind of behavior. She was so miserable because all she cared about was herself, and what was in it for her. It made me think of the savior, and a talk given by Elder Bednar called the Character of Christ. He highlighted a whole bunch of events in the new testament that show christs dominating character trait - the ability to be selfless (turn OUT) when the rest of us are selfish (turn IN). Immediately after the garden of gethsemeni, where he has just taken upon himself EVERY sin of mankind, he still turns out. Just imagine that! He is currently feeling everything we have ever felt. Like think of your most sad, most depressing, most sinful moment, and then times that by everyone on the earth. I know i would be feeling a little bit overwhelmed with even just all of my moments at once, and certainly not be in the mood to help anyone. But as the guard´s ear gets chopped off by Peter i think, the savior immediately turns to this man and helps him. This little bloody ear was NOTHING in comparison to his own problems he went through, but the savior turned out. We dont do that. Until I can learn to be more christlike, i certainly will be unhappy just like this poor lady was.

Another thing on that note was Jacob 5:22 in the book of mormon. The master of the vineyard (christ) says something along the lines of "Counsel me not. I knew it was hard ground, and I have nurtured it for many days to bring forth good fruit". Thats us! He puts us in hard ground, makes us deal with difficult situations, and does it all because he loves us. he just wants to help us, and thats why he gives us these trials. We cant counsel the lord and complain to him that we have all these hard circumstances, because he KNOWS that we do. he knows that! HE does it to allow us to grow, and to cultivate qualities that are good. If it wasnt for these circumstances we couldnt grow.

I am out of time, next week i will write more. Sorry! I need to figure out this computer situation and not get computers with problems.

Also, why did i play lacrosse?? Most useless thing ever here. I suck at futbol and they always stick me in the goal because i cant do anything else. Haha i try and explain lacrosse and they just look at me like im stupid because people throwing a ball aroudn in nets DOES sound kind of stupid when you think about it.

Haha i love you all so muhc, thank for your emails. Sorry this was short, i will figure this out next week and write more! LOVE YOU ALL!!

Elder Tengberg