Week 78 - Operation Llanquihue

written: 6/27/2022

Week 78

What a week! The highlight was definitely the baptism of Marcela on Saturday!

This upcoming week I complete 18 months on my mission and it definitely feels like I've been out for a while but at the same time it feels like just a few weeks! Either way, I'm enjoying every moment to the max!

Marcela's baptism went great and what made it even better was Thais, the recent convert, gave a talk! She talked about faith and bore her testimony and I loved seeing the support she had for Marcela. I knew Thais was a little nervous but she did such a great job. They've become friends and I know they're going to be there for each other in this new journey together. Speaking of Thais, she is amazing!! She participates in EVERYTHING and has become an integral part of the branch. She's going to have her temple recommend interview this week and likely will receive a  calling as well. I'm super excited to see what the future has in store for Thais and Marcela. 

We had another miracle this week, this time in Frutillar! We went to a service in the countryside with a family where the wife is a member and her husband has been in teaching for a while. They've been wanting the husband to get baptized to also be able to baptize their 8 year old son. After the service, we talked directly with the husband and asked him how he felt about the church and baptism and he said pre-pandemic he was ready and he still feels ready! We asked him if he wants to be baptized and he said yes! We are hoping his baptism will be this week or next week at the latest. The reason it is so important to me that he gets baptized is what the domino effect it will have on the family. He will be able to baptize his son, he will be able to be sealed to his family in a year and he will be able to raise their newborn son in the gospel. No better feeling!

This week we were trying to have a lot of Family Home Evenings to be able to get to know the members and to also ask for references and help in finding because with two sectors it can be difficult and time flies. We tried sharing short powerful messages and inviting them to think in just one person. We received a ton of references as a result! We are excited to see what the future holds for these references and are hopeful they will turn into teaching friends. One of the family home evenings we went to had a ton of food and I was in food heaven. They had homemade sopapillas, pancakes and syrup, cookies, kuchen, drinks and more! It was a perfect way to end the night and week, as it was our last visit on Sunday! 

I have been focusing a lot on faith, and I've been mentioning it in my emails but it's just something really important to me recently and I've been able to see the Lord's hand a lot. I know big things are still in store! 

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include:Loving life in Logo Llanquihue; Fun with the District: Me, Hermana Nalwalker, Hermana Glenn, Elder Quezada, Elder Morris, and Elder Jara; and Enjoying great food with Hermano Andrade

Week 77 - Life Isn't Perfect!

written: 6/20/2022

Week 77

It was a wonderful week! While it wasn't all rainbows and butterflies, I think it was pretty great! To end the week we got the best news, no transfers for my companion or me! I'll be staying in Frutillar and I'll be staying with Llanquihue along with being Elder Jara's last companion! We are super excited to continue working together, we expect big things to happen and many miracles. 

Speaking of miracles, Thais got baptized on Saturday!! After less than a month of knowing her, she was able to enter the waters of baptism Saturday and she was confirmed on Sunday. It has been a joy to watch her progress and to see her be so willing to change for the better. I know God has big things planned for her!! Funny little moment, as we were filling the font with the help of a member, I began to notice that the water was a little to high but didn't think too much of it and 20 seconds later I began to see the water seep into the hallway and that's when we scrambled to find the keys to shut off the water. The bathroom and part of the main hallway got soaked but thankfully it is tile and not carpet like most chapels I'm used to in the United States! Using many paper towels, the problem was fixed after 20 minutes. After that, 0 problems haha! I feel super blessed to just be a part of Thais' journey because after all, she was the one who came looking for us! We are also super excited for our upcoming baptism this Saturday and are hoping and praying all goes well! 

This week I also had to get my 4th covid vaccine here in Chile. Every time I get the vaccine it knocks me out the next morning. I was hoping it wouldn't happen and I was even preparing with tons of water, Gatorade and medicine. Well, I woke up the next morning and I remember just telling my companion "yeah nope I'll be sleeping you go do your own thing for now" and I was on and off sleeping until 4pm! Not fun! But thankfully it was just one day and the next day I was perfectly fine! 

On Wednesday I was able to experience probably the rainiest moments of my mission, and that's saying something knowing how much it rains here!! We had to travel to different sides of the town and I was even prepared with my rain pants, boots, waterproof backpack, I had the works! Yet after being in the torrential downpour for 1 hour straight it didn't matter! We were spending the entire night and next morning drying all our things with heaters and doing the best we could! But in the end, even after getting rejected by a less active member seeing us in the rain, we were able to have a great meeting with a recent convert and help him get excited about the temple and paying his tithing. In the end, it all worked out, even if I was soaking! 

The ups and downs are a part of the mission and just a general part of life. Most of my emails contain some ups and of course some downs. Life isn't perfect and it isn't easy. But it's definitely worth it and everything is there for us to learn and to grow! Nothings going to stop me! 

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include: Baptism day for Thais; Lunch with Elder Jara, Me, Elder Quezada, Elder Crowton, Elder Pastene, and Elder Morris; Saying "see you later" to Elder Pastene; Enjoying good food!; Trying to dry out, just about everything, from the rain!; and Best investment ever for my mate!

Week 76 - Faith is the Key

written: 6/13/2022

Week 76

Not too crazy of a week but it sure went by fast! I try and take advantage of every moment! The time goes by even faster with two sectors so we really have to take advantage of the time in each sector. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays we are in our area Llanquihue and Monday, Wednesday, Friday in Frutillar with Sundays switching off. The good thing is I wasn't suffering too much in the cold as it warmed up a tiny tiny bit (still cold haha) but the rain wasn't too bad (although as I am typing this it is raining pretty hard).

This week we were focused on our two awesome people who are preparing for their baptism. We finished the lessons with Thais and are basically just waiting for her to have her interview and baptism! In one of our lessons with her we were going to talk about Russell M. Nelson and we were going to explain who he is and how important it is we have a living prophet. We started by saying that we have a living prophet and he is 97 years old. Before we could say his name, she said "oh yeah, I already know, I follow him on Instagram. I followed him over a week ago" what?? Never seen that before, she is awesome! She continues to just absorb and understand everything we teach! We talked to her about a mission and she said she is going to be thinking about it! It would be so awesome to see her serve a mission. 

We were seeing a ton of progress in our other person with a baptismal date and we went over the interview questions and the way she responded to the questions showed me just how prepared she was and how she really did understand. However, she sadly didn't make it to church yesterday and we are going to have to change her baptismal date. But things happen and we know things will work out the way they're supposed to. We'll just have to keep praying for her and everything will work out. 

We had some awesome family home evening this week and we got to know a lot more families. For the majority of my mission I have always loved talking with members, really getting to know them, but I see that now I love it even more and I just always want to learn more about them and know them better. And when we're at church my companion has to pull me away because I'm always talking and getting distracted with time! I just get really excited and my goal is to talk to everyone and if someone is new or I didn't say hi I try and accomplish that before leaving the church. 

This week I was also able to do exchanges with Elder Quezada in a place called Fresia. It is a super small area about a little over an hour away from my area. For those that don't remember, Elder Quezada and I were companions for 2ish weeks in Puerto Montt in November. We had a great time and we were also able to meet the Papito of the missionaries. I had heard a lot about him from Moises (awesome member from Coyhaique) and we had awesome conversations with the Papito. Elder Quezada and I went out tracting and we couldn't even feel our feet but we kept going and we ended up finding something really interested in the gospel and we were also able to teach a family from Bolivia a super powerful lesson 1. We ended the night playing basketball with a large group of teenagers in a gym! It was an awesome time!

Hoping for a great week, that our baptism with Thais happens and that more miracles can be seen. I made it a big priority with my companion that we are going to keep growing our faith and we need tons and tons of faith because with all this enthusiasm, the work in specifically Frutillar is tough, so we need faith to see miracles like in Llanquihue. My favorite saying goes hand in hand with faith, and if you read my emails you definitely know "trust the process" and trusting the process isn't easy, but with faith it's possible. Just knowing eventually the things will workout and if we put in the effort everything will be OK. I know miracles are coming to Frutillar. 

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include: Lunch with the Papito in Fresia; Always need to drink a little Monster on exchanges; P-Day pizza; A little souvenir

Week 75 - Awesome Week... Where to Begin?

written: 6/6/2022

Week 75

Where to begin??? This week was jam packed and with two in person sectors we have been super busy, but I don't think I'd want it any other way! 

Last P Day we had a family home evening planned with Elder Vargas, an area seventy that lives in Frutillar! We arrived and had planes to get to know him and his family and share a message. As we got there, he asked us if we were hungry and proceeded to pull out a ton of really nice carne (meat) and we ended up having a little barbecue! What's funny is that morning I had mentioned to my parents how much I missed good quality meat such as steaks and my dreams were answered! He also loves basketball and he showed us all his guitars and his drum set. A super cool guy!

Throughout the week we had some great lessons with Thais, our miracle from last week! As we planned for one of the lessons we planned on focusing on two commandments she needed to know before baptism. We thought at first just one of them and really focus on it but we remembered how quickly she's absorbed everything else. Well, it turned out that she not only had read about the two commandments we were going to teach but also almost every other commandment and we ended up teaching a ton. We kept asking her what else she knew and she told us she even knew about family home evenings haha. She said she has 0 problems with any of the commandments and is willing to follow them all. She has accepted every invitation and is even going to be trying to invite her mom to listen to us too!! She is amazing! 

This week we had our final interviews with President and Hermana Meek, crazy they're already finishing their mission. I received great advice and I'm going to miss them for sure! A few other quick notes, we tried door knocking in Frutillar Bajo, the richer area and heavily German influenced part of Frutillar, with 0 success but even as the rain was soaking us I was having the time of my life and I kept telling my comp how much I love being out here knocking doors in the rain. Why? I don't know, but I've just had so much energy recently to work! Last note I'll make, yesterday my companion and I were able to dedicate a tombstone. Well my companion was the one doing all the talking but I was there. We read scriptures, said a prayer and led a service. It was for someone my companion contacted on Facebook who isn't a member and soon we will teach them the Plan of Salvation. It has been a crazy awesome week! This is only a small part but I don't want to bore everyone haha! 

Yesterday we had a special Stake Conference and I was able to reconnect with a lot of people near and dear to my heart from Portal Del Mar! I loved seeing them and being able to take photos with some of them! They will always have a place in my heart.

I am having such a great time, I've never had this much energy and joy in the work. I am so pumped and I'm trying my best not to let the cold and rain bother me and I'm just trusting the process! 

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include: Hermana Glenn, Elder Morris, Elder Quezada, Me, Elder Pantene, Elder Fugal, Elder Boysen, Elder Thomas, and Hermana Torrez; Grilling meat with Elder Vargas; Hermana Patricia and her family from Portal del Mar; Andrea and her family from Portal del Mar; Cool wall art; Preaching the word just like King Benjamin; Trying my best to stay warm! (My Pink Polka Dot Blanket worth every dollar!)