Follow God's Plan

Sector- Batuco, Chile
Companero- Elder Pereira
Carta #37

Wow! that talk you gave sounds super good!! haha those stories are pretty sick!! I miss going on campouts so much!!! How are the fires? did they all stop? hahah our house didnt burn down!? And bobbys finally back home! That's cool! now he can finally get back into surfing! haha that looks like a sweet fhe at the beach! that's super cool..I miss the beach and surfing ha.

But this week has been cool! Something cool is that Wes is in my District!!! and were gonna do exchanges so he gets to come with me for a day!!! WOO! thats gonna be super sweet!! haha Its so weird seeing him on the mission haha When he got here he was suppeerr nervous and I could tell his first weeks were gonna be superr hard for him ha. And what was the first thing I said to him? Hahah I said dude the mission suuckkss..Your gonna die. Hahaha no just kidding I told him that it sucks at first but you get used to it, and when you start to see the blessings its all worth it. haha And I can call him and everything so its super cool!

This week also we taught marriage and the law of chastity to a couple that has to get married. And there doubt about getting married was they were afraid seeing all the divorces that they don't want to get married if they're just going to divorce anyways. So I testified to them that when they as a couple do what God wants them to do, and make sacrifices to obey the commandments, that their love will be strengthened and they will be more unified and even though they have problems they will be able to pass through them with confidence in god. And those are the blessings we get. And I asked them if they trusted in God, and they said yes of course, and I said then obey his commandments and your marriage will be so blessed. It was super spiritual and they have put goals to get married. I swear my purpose on the mission is like try to convince people to get married and follow god haha because that is the best thing I testify of. So its cool and we hope that they can get married before their baptismal date of the 15th of June so they can get baptized the day after. We´re praying for that!

Oh and we were playing basketball today and one of the missionaries tried to dunk it and his ring got caught on the rim and ripppeedd his finger it was bleeding sooo much and we could see the bone it was sooo disgusting. He had to go to the hospital and everythinggg hah he broke his finger and ripped alll the skin off to the bone soo gross!

I love you guys!!!!
Elder Nate DIrkmaat

English Class Miracle!

Sector- Batuco, Chile
Companero- Elder Pereira
Carta #36

Wow!!! Those fires look supperrr sketchy!!! Hopefully they dont get close to our house!!! Are there people in our ward that got their houses destroyed!! that just happened here in viña del mar and sooo many houses got destroyed!! and like the next week it happens where we live!! sketchy!!! haha but every-time there are fires the waves are suupperrr good!! because its offshore winds!!! so that's pretty sweet!! haha Gosh I miss surfing so much!! But thats so cool how bobby got to see Emily!! hahah she was super surprised!! haha she told me that when she saw my car she got soooo home sick!! hahah because we had so much fun times in college with the car!! hahah so funny!!

So I had a pretty funny experience this week! So we were in my house eating lunch, us four missionaries and there's two soccer teams here in Chile that are like super popular called the University of Chile and Colo Colo and Im a fan of the University of Chile. And in front of our house there's a bus stop and there was a group of like 15 colo colo fans that had their flags all their jerseys and were singing the Colo Colo song and everything and all the colo colo fans are super like gangster ghetto hahah So I didn't realize how mad the people actually get here when your from the opposite team before this so I made the stupid decision to put on my University of Chile jersey and walk outside and start chanting University of Chile hahahaha and they got soooo mad and they started to throw rocks and they came up to the gate of our house and like wanted to fight me! so I just closed the door and we stayed there till they left on the bus! hahaha I never realized that they get sooooo mad if your from the other team!! I thought it was just a joke, like it is in the United States hahah but apparently not! It was a good learning experience though!!

But this week we also had a miracle!! We started teaching English classes and we got like 15 people to go every time now!! and from the English classes we are having so much success having people get to know the church and they're actually coming to church!!! And we met this one guy named Eduardo and his wife Diane and they came to the English classes, then they started asking about what we do as missionaries and we gave them a Book of Mormon! and he took it and we asked if we could visit him in like two days. So we went two days later, he let us in, and he told us that he read ALL of 1 Nephi!!!! I was like whhhaattt no one everrr reads! haha and then we taught him the first lesson about the restoration and he understood everything and was telling us how much sense it makes that there's prophets right now in these days because God has always called prophets and we put him with a date to get baptized the 15th of June!!! Him and his wife!! Hes so amazing and it was an answer to my prayers because We have a ton of investigators but none of them have been progressing towards baptism so I was praying for something to happen in their lives or someone that we could find that is prepared to hear the Gospel. And like 3 days later we meet him and he went to church on Sunday and in the Gospel Principle class he was answering alll the questions and everything! it was sweet!!

This experience definitely grew my testimony on how God answers prayers if we have faith and work towards what we´re asking. It has been a good week and we keep on working! I got a little home sick cuz we talked on Sunday but whatever Ill be homesick if I want to as long as I still work hahaha Thanks for the Email and take care of our house so that it doesn't burn down! thats super sketch!!

haha I love you all!!!
Love,
Elder Nate Dirkmaat

Teaching English

Sector- Batuco, Chile
Companero- Elder Pereira
Carta #35

Wow sounds you guys had a hard time putting that new kitchen sink in!!! hahah but it looks pretty sick!!! where is Digueno Middle School? I don't even know the middle schools at all hahah all I know is that he has to go to LCC or hes gonna be a looooseerr hahah cuz LCC is where its at haha!

Wow mom it sounds like you have a toonnn of responsibilities all the time!! your working and volunteering for everything!! haha how do you do it allll!?

Haha and that sounds like a greaaat day surfing I cant wait till I can surf again haha that's gonna be the best! I miss it so badd the beach is only an hour away, haha maybe ill go for a quick seshhhhh just one ;) hahah

This week has been good! We had a ton of success this week and that was such a miracle!! We started to do English classes because everyone here in Chile wants to learn English!! so we started that up and through that we got like 4 new investigators but we definetely need more people to go to the classes becasue only like 5 go right now. But it was super hard to teach english for the first time because they asked all these questions about the grammar and I never even think when I'm talking english so it was super hard to explain at first but I have started to study more for the classes so that I can explain it better ha. And we go to the ¨fería¨ every saturday and advertise our free English Classes. The feria is like a street fair that seriously everybody goes to! So we are hoping to have more and more people go every week! The other missionaries told us that through their English classes they got like 5 baptisms so I hope that its successful!

This week we had a family home evening with a family that the daughter is only a member and the rest of the family like the missionaries but they don't have any interest in the church or anything. But we got them to do a family home evening with us and it was super cool. We played a game where you put the name of a famous person on your forehead and you have to go guessing who it is and stuff. But then after we shared a message about Heavenly Father. We shared the mormon message "Earthly Father Heavenly Father" which talks about the relationship that heavenly father has with us... and the spirit was there sooo strong and afterwards we all talked about what we thought and we taught what the video was teaching and you could feel the spirit there super strong. After, they agreed to start participating in the lessons and stuff so I hope that we can make progress with this family!!! it was cool because there's like 8 people in the family that arent baptized and they were all there that night which is super hard to do so it was really cool!

We also have an investigator that really wants to get baptized but she is living with her boyfriend and they have two kids together. That is like the biggest problem in Chile is that no one ever wants to get married haha and even people who have been living together for like 20 years dont want to get married. But she really does not want to marry her boyfriend becausae she says that he was always mean to her and stuff but she also doesn't want to leave him. So the situation is super annoying haha We have been trying to convince her to try to make things better to improve the relationship but she is so stubborn and does not want to forgive him for how mean he was in the past. Even though he is trying to be better now. So its super hard but were working on her!! haha that is pretty much what is happening in Batuco!! Its a great sector and we have great investigators!! I hope that you guys have a great week!!!

I love you guys!!!
Love,
Elder Nate Dirkmaat