Week 22 - Rain, Rain, and More Rain...

written: 5/31/2021

Week 22

This was a pretty mellow week with nothing popping off the page, but nevertheless still a week filled with some great lessons and of course, rain rain rain. 

I laugh now thinking about saying how crazy the rain was the last few weeks because this week was the week of non stop rain, raining way more than any other week, every single day from morning until night with maybe some breaks in between, but just when we'd think it would be a day with no rain, we'd begin to hear the rain and then it would start coming down in buckets. Luckily, since we are mainly working inside, the rain doesn't affect us too much now, only preventing us from playing basketball in the morning in our allotted exercise time from the government. 

This week I really thought a lot about the First Vision and every time it was shared in a lesson, I instantly felt the Spirit stronger. The power of the retelling of the First Vision is something really special to me and something I've noticed since I've been a missionary. To me, that signifies and testifies to the truthfulness of the First Vision. I also had the opportunity to give a short talk in church and I talked about the power of prayer, which I mentioned in my email this last week, and usually I am super nervous for talks, and this was my first full talk in Spanish, but I was honestly super calm and felt super prepared to deliver my talk, mainly because I continued praying for peace and to know exactly what I should share and say, so that was a great experience!

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include: Me and Elder Saavedra living our best lives!; Goat sighting!; Teaching through technology; My English class

Week 21 - Welcome to Quarantine

written: 5/24/2021

Week 21

My luck ran out and my area in Chiloe is officially in Phase 1 Quarantine. However, it isn't as bad as it sounds. As missionaries, we have a religious permit, allowing us to travel to and from the church throughout the week and all the small stores next to our house are all still open and no permit is required. The only difference as of right now is we can't travel to any members or friends houses and we can't walk around the centro, but other than that, all is fine and well here.

I have been blessed to have some pretty powerful and spiritually filled lessons recently, and I just wanted to highlight one of those in which I felt the Spirit overpowering and was a great experience. We received a reference from a member 2 or 3 months ago for a woman who had received most of the missionary discussions before the pandemic, and before the pandemic hit, she was ready to be baptized. However, since the pandemic, she has been unable to have any contact with missionaries. We tried every week to schedule appointments with her, and every time they'd fall through, until last week. We met with her right before the new quarantine started because we knew we had to help her with technology or we'd lose contact with her for however long this quarantine is. She was wonderful and she pulled out her Book of Mormom right as we got to her house. We talked for a while, helped her with her technology, and after seeing and hearing her beliefs and desires, invited her to be baptized. She accepted!! Afterwards, she was nervous to pray in front of us, but we helped explain how to pray again and we all decided to kneel down in her kitchen as she offered the prayer. As she prayed, she began talking openly with God and she began to cry and I felt the Spirit incredibly strong as she continued. She was so happy that we were finally able to visit and I am so excited to see her progress. 

My little spiritual thought for the week revolves around that little experience this week. Prayer is so important and although it may be challenging in some moments or for some people to understand, we just have to try and open our mouths and talk with our Heavenly Father and tell Him our thoughts and feelings and He is right there listening. I know God listens to our prayers and that the Spirit can testify to us in those moments. Never stop praying :) 

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include: Elder Petty, Elder Martin, Elder Pastene, Elder Gonzalez, Hermana Chandler, Hermana Cartagena, Elder Rex, Elder Cruz, Me, Elder Saavedra, Elder Bennett, Elder Pilpe; Elder Saavedra fryin' up some bread!; and Snack run with an awesome Amigo!

Week 20 - Back in the Game

written: 5/17/2021

Week 20

I'll start the email off by saying my health is back to 100% and I am feeling great! After not being able to do much last week, I knew I wanted this week to be awesome. 

My new companion is extremely motivated to accomplish great things in his last transfer and he is a spiritual giant when we get in the lessons. I am really enjoying every lesson we teach and I am learning so much from him. We work really well together and we are already super good friends as well! We are already seeing lots of our friends in teaching progress and we are excited for the future and what we are going to accomplish. 

My english class for the mission began this past week and it went great! We had around 16 people show up and everyone was participating and everyone was really happy in the class. 

We keep hearing rumors that we are about to be moved to phase 1 here in Castro, which would mean quarantine every day. While I don't like quarantine, because who honestly does, the more I think about it, I know that whatever does happen will be ok and that I can get through it. We have already been used to working almost exclusively in the house and hopefully if we do go to phase 1 it will only be for a short period. Who knows, maybe it will open up doors we never would have found and we will see miracles!

Don't really have much left, but I wanted to end by saying how awesome the Book of Mormon is, and especially the book of Alma. I love reading and studying in Alma. The Book of Mormon is true! 

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include:  Elder Saavedra and Me; Sushi (a new favorite of mine); Sunrise

Week 19 - Health Adventures

written: 5/10/2021

Week 19

This was definitely one of the hardest weeks of my life. I am thankfully finally improving in regards to my health but I was out of commission for almost one whole week. It all started with stomach problems that weren't improving. Finally on Tuesday night, Elder Calderon and I had to make a trip to the hospital. We entered the hospital at around 830pm. They asked me a lot of questions that I barely understood and after some very interesting tests performed on me, they hooked me up to an IV without saying anything. They sat me down in a recliner and told me to wait 2 hours. By the time my IV was finished, it was about 11pm. They came to my recliner with a wheelchair and wheeled me to get a scan of my abdomen and after this, we had to wait 2 more hours. At this point, I fell asleep and woke up at 130am to the doctor talking to Elder Calderon and they had a diagnosis finally. An intestinal infection with gastroenteritis. Yikes. After we talked to the front desk and got everything situated, we had to scramble and call everyone to get a ride back to our house because I was still sick and we were not about to walk home at 2am. Thankfully we finally got ahold of the senior missionaries who were able to take us home. When we were finally going to bed it was a little before 3am. What a night, what an experience. For Wednesday and Thursday we were just in the house, I was sleeping almost all day, only eating some bread, soup, ginger ale, and Gatorade. Finally, my health was on the upswing starting on Friday and I am doing much better now. I am still on a diet, but I can slowly introduce foods back into my eating schedule to make sure my stomach doesn't explode again. 

Other than my crazy health this week, we did have something really awesome happen!! We have a BAPTISMAL DATE WOO! Our amigo Claudio accepted the invitation to be baptized and we have a date for June 4th. We are so excited for him and we have been teaching him for months now, and he really is an amazing person. 

Lastly, I received a new companion this week! My training is officially over and I am going to be companions with Elder Saavedra. He is from Chile and I will actually be his last companion, as he goes home in June! He is really funny, knows a lot of english, and will be a great help in all our english classes, especially with our english class for the mission starting this Tuesday. 

Although very hard, I still am thankful I am here in Chile and I know I can do hard things and that with Christ with me every step of the way, I can overcome my trials and hard times. Don't ever give up!

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include:  IVs are never fun!; Exhausted!; and Me and Elder Saavedra

Week 18 - Lluvia Loca

written: 5/3/2021

Week 18

The weather here in the south of the world is LOCO. This past week was rain, rain, rain, and oh yeah, more rain. We rarely left the house, but when we did we were soaked, and even a large rainproof jacket won't keep every part of you dry, especially with the wind here. But a little bit of rain won't stop us! On Wednesday we were finally able to begin going to neighborhoods and search for members on our list. We were walking house to house, mainly no one answered or they said they were busy, but we were able to hand out a Book of Mormon and begin cleaning the list! We were only outside for maybe 2 hours, but it was a nice little experience of what missionary work used to be like. And one more note, there are an abnormal amount of dogs here and especially in the neighborhood we were in, nonstop barking, and fearing these dogs were going to jump us, but all good, still alive :)

We had a mission advice meeting, and at one point, I hear "and Elder Steele" and I immediately freeze and try to hear what I need to. President Meek said "and something really amazing I read in all of your weekly letters was from Elder Steele. Elder Steele could you tell everyone the 3 words you used and 3 words you added after" and I thought oh no, because I did not remember at all. After a brief second to think, I remembered the main idea and was able to share with everyone what I had emailed. Those words were "go, go, go" and now "stay, stay, stay" and this was in response to wanting to leave the house everyday. My view of wanting to leave the house really has changed and the work has grown exponentially and we are never going back to the old way, only pushing forward. Last april, we had 80ish references from social media. This April, we had over 300!!!! CRAZY! 

This week was relatively slow in the amount of lessons we had and we kept having connection issues or something would come up, but we kept trying and never gave up. On Saturday, we were finally able to have 3 lessons in one day and we were able to have some really powerful lessons! 

Elder Calderon and I along with the other companionship in our sector got to have some amazing food! We got to visit the restaurant where one of our friends in teaching works at along with her boyfriend. I got an amazing burger with guacamole, fried egg, bacon, and a fried onion and finally fries that were cooked all the way through. 

Lastly, a reference Elder Calderon and I received about 2 months ago but moved to a different sector is getting baptized today! Elder Calderon and I knew after the first lesson she was going to be baptized and although we aren't the ones baptizing her, it is just awesome that she made the important decision! 

Even when things get hard, don't give up! Things don't always go our way, but things will eventually be made right if we have faith in Jesus Christ and try our best. 

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include: Rainy day in Chiloe; some of the best food so far! Elder Pillpe, Elder Calderon, Elder Bennett, and Me; Basketball is a great missionary tool!