Week 65 - Patience is a Virtue... Acquire it Quickly!

written: 3/28/2022

Week 65

To begin the week we received awesome news! We are now able to finally go door to door to try and find new people to teach!! This was the first week of my mission that I have been able to find like this, and it was really fun!! We got the chance to meet some really cool people in the few days we were able to get out and find, along with some crazies, but hey, still fun! Coolest person we found has got to be an 89 year old woman who at first when she came out to talk to us told us she was a Catholic, and usually they run us off their lawns, but she invited us in. She went on to tell us she had 17 kids and she has no idea how many grandkids or great grandkids she has haha. Then proceeded to tell us she really enjoyed our message and said it all made sense in her head! 

We had a fun branch activity where we made completos and shared a short message centered around General Conference!! We had the activity planned for 7pm and it didn't really start until around 8pm because everything basically starts 30 min - 1 hour later than what is scheduled, no matter how hard you try. Being in Coyhaique definitely is a test of my patience as the people here run on their own clock and they aren't shy to admit it either. They even have a saying "quien se apura en la Patagonia pierde el tiempo" basically "whoever rushes in Patagonia wastes time". Definitely a truth statement, so it is definitely a challenge for me, but hey, I am here for a reason to grow my patience haha. 

This Sunday for a family home evening, I got the chance to try my hand at homemade Oreo Cupcakes along with Javiera. Well let's just say that my cookies turned out much better haha. We may or may not have activated the baking powder and our cupcakes were definitely missing the spongy aspect you would imagine. But hey, lessons learned. 

Quick notes! Last P day I got the chance to try Ceviche, which is absolutely FIRE! I got salmon and avocado and it was awesome!! Definitely going to have to get it again!! Also, this week in a service project we had to enter 20 meters of firewood into a members shed.... definitely was a little time consuming haha. 

Definitely a super fun week and I am super excited for General Conference this weekend! Y'all should definitely tune in!! 

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include: Kickin' it old school... tracting in the rain!; Oreo cupcakes; Ceviche; 20 meters of firewood is A LOT of firewood!

Week 64 - Cooking with Confidence in Coyhaique

written: 3/21/2022

Week 64

Super happy week here in Coyhaique!! We were able to see lots of awesome things this week and continue to see progress in the branch here! 

Firstly, last P day after I had already written my email, we had the chance to go around to a few cool places here in Coyhaique with some of our best member friends, Karen and Moises. We were able to go see a super cool waterfall, take pictures by the Coyhaique entrance sign, and see a few statues in the centro! It was cool to get out and about and see a few things I hadn't seen before. Definitely a fun way to spend P Day!

This week, we had the opportunity to offer more service for our friend Jorge, who I have probably mentioned in every email in my time here in Coyhaique! We just love to spend time with him and he has progressed more and more every week! This week, he even offered to drive us around to look for less active members and people we were teaching and how he is excited for the future and how he is preparing for all the things he has never done within the church! 

This week we began to shift our focus a little in how we find people, as we were not finding too much success with what we had been doing. We are now going around our entire area finding all the old less active members. Let me tell you, not getting one door to open in a day is never fun, but hey, now I know what missionaries of old felt like as they knocked doors the entire day. But it has definitely been fun getting to know more members and spending time with them! Not as much as an effect we had, but maybe just a cumulative effect of the efforts everyone in the branch has done, we had the most people this weekend in church and it was so awesome to see as we had to add more seats to what we had planned because so many came back. The pandemic is kind of calming down, so the church is going to be stopping our online meetings and I think it is actually going to be awesome, as we are hopefully going to see more people attend in person church!

Lastly, this weekend we had an activity where we invited the branch for a little movie night, and although not many people attended, we were happy with how it all turned out and those that attended were definitely happy and motivated! On Sunday we had lunch with Moises. Moises made a deal where he would cook the lunch, and we would make the cookies with Javiera. Moises and Karen did not think we could pull it off since we didn't have a lot of the ingredients and had to find a substitute for basically everything. Well, let's just say, somehow the cookies turned out much better than anyone thought! Fun times!!

I am looking forward to general conference in 2 weeks!! It is crazy how the time has flown by, but not complaining as we are definitely going to hear some awesome talks and inspiration that I know that I need! If anyone wants to know, I am enjoying my mission to the fullest and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else than Coyhaique right now :)

Love, Elder Collin Steele 

pictures include: Enjoying Coyhaique; Who needs chocolate chips when you can use chocolate sprinkles?

Week 63 - The Changing Seasons

written: 3/14/2022

Week 63

Not as crazy of a week as we've been having, but nonetheless, a great week here in Coyhaique!

The weather is starting to turn into fall and we are definitely starting to feel the cold. There are still sunny days and warm days, but we definitely feel the beginning of what seems to be a very cold time. The rain and overcast weather also started, so walking in the rain is fun, throwback to all my fun times especially in Puerto Montt and my firefighter rain pants (definitely will be wearing those in the coming weeks) haha.

We had a pretty cool experience working with Facebook. I usually don't like to work with Facebook at all, but last week when I was sick I decided to use some of the time to send a few messages to people and someone responded and basically said "yeah, tell me what you want" super direct... So I decided ok, I'll be direct as well. I said we are missionaries and we have a message that will change your life. He said "OK, call me when you want". (usually doesn't happen like that). We had a great lesson with him and he even has the desires to be baptized. We will have to see how things go, as we lost a little communication with him over the weekend, but he said he had been super busy. But nonetheless, he was super excited about learning and it was a cool experience for sure.

We continue with the amazing family that we are teaching and they're progressing A TON! We had a lesson with the girlfriend of the member and they began asking us all about temples, marriages, and baptism. She told us she wants to be baptized, married in the temple, and raise her kids in the gospel!! It was definitely awesome to hear and something we hadn't really been expecting, or at least not that fast! The only catch is to be married civilly, they need an appointment, and the soonest is all the way in June. We are hoping to continue working with the kids, they just weren't there this weekend, but we hope to discuss baptism with them as well!! Teaching families is awesome, but definitely challenging (in a good way!)

Things are still going awesome and I'm super happy here in Coyhaique!! Elder Levar and I are excited about what's in store for us and what's to come! Gotta keep trusting the process!! 

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include: Singin' in the Rain... again!; Elder Levar and me; Elder Levar and me with photo bomber, Karen; Elder Levar, Jorge, and me; and Life is good in Coyhaique!

Week 62 - Sick Adventures + Javiera's Big Day

written: 3/7/2022

Week 62

A very great week, with a great beginning, an eventful mid week, and the best finale! 

We started off the week with many lessons and we were feeling great! We had another great lesson with the family we are teaching and they committed to coming to church, had a lot of questions and seemed even more interested than we had thought. The dad also was helping a ton, teaching parts of the lesson, bringing in important doctrinal points and helping us teach his kids even better by explaining things clearer to them. 

Then the eventful mid week... we are thinking it was some hot dogs we had bought from the corner store on Tuesday that caused it all but I woke up every hour Wednesday morning and vomited a grand total of 7 times! NOT FUN! I was sick as a dog Wednesday, Thursday and most of Friday and we couldn't do basically anything. The best thing was to see the members rally around me and be the most supportive people ever!! My awesome friend Jorge, who I have probably mentioned in every email, came and checked in 2 or 3 times a day, always bringing something with him. Sometimes it was bread, other food, medicine, herbs, pellets to heat the house, or just to check on me! He was also texting and calling to make sure I was feeling better as well! Also, Fabiola, Karen, and Javiera were also continually checking in on me, bringing me gatorade more than once a day and always there for me. It was really awesome to see the love shared back with me that I knew was always there and to know they really are super caring and were willing to drop anything to come and help me when I got sick! Finally on Friday I began to feel better and by the afternoon we were able to get out and about a little and I was feeling better. I knew I had to get better for Sunday, so I was thankful how it all worked out. 

And the grand finale!!! Javiera had her baptism on Sunday!! In the end it was about a month's process for her to get there and what a month it was!! The baptism went super smooth, other than the fact that the baptismal font was hotter than your favorite jacuzzi so it was equal parts fun to basically be in a jacuzzi for 1 minute but also very very hot and when I left the water and changed my clothes, the entire lower part of my body was all red, but yeah, worth it. It was also awesome because Elder Petty got to see the baptism along with another sister missionary that had taught Javiera a few years ago!! Shoutout technology. It was also awesome to see Javiera and her mom show up to church on Sunday... they played a little joke on me. I invited them a ton on Saturday night and kept saying how important it was that at least Javiera attend in person and they kept saying they would think about it and they were probably going to have to work... flash forward to Sunday morning and they both said they were both working and I was super sad and then I sent the link to Javiera and just as I sent it, I see Javiera and her mom walk in the door!! It was awesome to see them and I know that they made the sacrifice to not make empanadas that day. I am super happy for Javiera and her entire family, they're definitely like my second family. 

Even though I was sick, it ended up being a great week and everything worked out how it was supposed to. We gotta go through the tough times to see the good in things, always something to learn from every situation!! That's why we always gotta trust the process!

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include: Elder Levar, Karen, Javiera, Fabiola, Me, Moises, and the twins in front, Iker and Christopher; Elder Levar, Javiera, and Me; Javiera and Elder Steele; and our amigo, Josécito