July 13, 2009

What it is what it is?

How is the most amazing family on the planet doing? i know that part of that family(me) is down here enjoying life, very very much. but i´m about to get a nice shock here soon, as in tomorrow. today we had changes and i kissed my first kid away(Elder Inzunza) only to find that i will have another. this time though its a real, real kid. as in i´m getting a freshy tomorrow. his name is Elder Hualca and i´ve heard that he is from Peru... so thats the story of my life right now. i´m really freaked out to say the least. i´m not prepared for this at all. i know that much. i know that its going to be a uphill battle the whole change that i´m never going to feel like i´ve won but i´ll work my tail off until the end. I honestly feel really really unprepared right now, like i did six weeks ago when i found out that my comp only had one change. yeah that fear times by about 1000000000000000000000000... the one thing that i´m not worried about is that he will be able to speak spanish. that will be a really good thing, actually that will take about 20 percent of the pressure off of my hands but still, i´m not ready to have someone look and see everything that i do and learn from me. i´m still learning for heavens sakes.. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

ok, well hopefully i can take my mind off of that for a bit and explain how the past week went, it was really good actually we had some quality lessons with members, we didn´t find anyone really new to work with but we were able to continue teaching all of our previous investigators which was a blessing. Oscar again was not able to make it to church and we found out his difficulty, he is a former professional soccer player for a team here in chile and plays soccer every sunday morning!!! dang soccer!! it always takes the best investigators! so were gonna really work with him this week and teach him the importance of the sabbath day and how he needs to observe it.. Jenny an investigator that we found when elder Inzunza and i had to get haircuts a couple of weeks ago, came to church and really liked it, unfortunately she will be undergoing surgery this wednesday so her coming to church anytime in the near future is kinda out of the question. and our other really strong investigator, actually the best investigator i´ve ever had is named Eduardo and he is the boyfriend of a less active member in the ward. unfortunately for us he is going to have to be handed over to a different set of missionaries because he doesn´t even live in our stake!! SHOOT!! but what can ya do? the important thing is that he is baptized right? i´m a little worried that if he is baptized there he is still going to come to our ward but we´ll just have to see, and teach him right and then leave it up to him to make the decision.

we had a few experiences this week that really helped me to see that this work is God´s and all that i am is just a puppet to do the work... elder Inzunza and i were making our way to a lesson when we found that we didn´t know the exact way to get to the lesson. we thought for a second about turning down this road named libertad but then changed our mind and decided to consult our map that we had. when consulting we came to the conclusion that we needed to continue down the main road that we were on and turn later. continuing down the road that we wouldn´t have taken origionally all of the sudden we heard the yells of a woman yelling ¨elderes!¨ it was a less active member that we had no idea she even existed and she asked us to come over to her house and teach her and her daughter and all of her family becuase they were unactive and she wanted to be reactivated and she wanted her daughter to be baptized as well. it was an amazing experience, she told us that she had been looking for the missionaries for the past couple of months but could never find them.. it was an experience where after i just thought ¨what if we had continued down the path and not listened to the spirit that told us to stop and look at the map, how long would she have continued looking for the missionaries?¨ its small little means like that that show me that God is doing this work, He can/will not be frustrated, His ways are perfect and he will have his will done whether we like it or not, its really only our decision to decide if we are going to be the functional tools in His hands or not. what is the purpose of a pen? to write, what if the pen is not writing/not completing its purpose? you throw it away right? WRITE!!! do all you can to be a functioning instrument in the hands of the Lord and i know that if you do it, He will bless you! more than you can imagine. I love Mosiah 2, i think its 17-25 or something like that. it lays the law down! if we complete with the commandments we are immediately blessed, and therefore in debt again, so what do we have to boast? nothing! alright, now that i´m done ranting and raving, i just want you all to know that i love you. i really do, you are all amazing examples to me that i can never forget, keep on keeping on and have a smile on your face, your all together for heavens sakes!!!

Loves and hugs and kisses,

Elder LIVINGSTONE

July 6, 2009

hey family how is life?

Things are good down here in the skinny. There has been a lot changed with new president already, some things for the better, somethings i´m not so sure about but thats not really for me to decide. Its presidents job to recieve revelation for this mission, not me! All i gotta do is get behind him and say YES SIR! and if i do that i´m sure that everything will turn out the way it is supposed to!

We had a a baptism this last week! WOOHOO it was so awesome! Elder Inzunza baptized them both and we (when i say we i mean God) completed a family! It was really something else to be able to see a family be able to see a family embrace after their baptism! I loved it and want to do it more! For that we´re gonna start working A TON with part member families! Hello! Why didn´t i think of that earlier! Oh well, anyhow she gave a killer testimony after her baptism and she has an awesome testimony of the power of prayer and repentance which is way good! It was such an amazing experience to see them so happy! I loved it! We also have some other pics of the whole family before the baptism but i don´t have them and will have to send them next week but honestly, the gospel is here to bless families! I know that! Its something i testify of everyday, i say something like this ¨in my family we are a family of 10, 8 kids and its not easy to be tranquilo with that many kids but with the gospel, everything is possible.¨ you guys are in my testimony every day! Eat it up!

Well i´ve been just a little trunky this week thinkin about everyone being together, iknow that isn´t until this week but i guess i was preparing myself for the trunkiness or something ;) no i know you all are gonna take some killer pics and send them my way so i can feel like i´m there too. No worries!
Elder Inzunza and i are starting to try out a couple of programs to help this ward because it has a little unity problem, that being said does anyone have any good ideas of programs and or activities that their ward has done, or they tried in their mission that helped their wards to unify themselves? I will take any suggestions right about now! ¨shiny happy people holding hands!¨ what an appropriate song to be playing in the internet café right now, thats what i want for this ward and i´m pretty sure this is God sending me a message that one of you has an answer to my problem!

Oh we met our new president this week, that was awesome! He told me that Grandma had talked to him and that his parents were working with Grandma to find the connection between us. How is that going grandma? That was pretty cool to have an instant connection with him. Also heidi and jay he is a former lawer, big time, maybe he knows judge griffiths and can hook me up? Hahahahahahahaha just kidding. Anyhow he is a really good man, i really respect him a lot, he seems like he has had a ton of success in his life and is prepared to take us to the next level. Infact he said that on several occasions. So i´m pretty excited to see what he has in store for us. Another thing that he told us is that he was set apart by Elder Scott(sound familiar) anyhow he said that when Elder Scott set him apart that he(Elder Scott) told him (pres Laycock) that he was inheriting the most obedient mission in the whole world.. that was a compliment that i don´t know if he says that to all the mission presidents, if he does oh well, but really it cool to hear from president because this mission is really really good. I love this mission. Sometimes its kinda lame because i feel like there are a bunch of pharases(is that how you spell those crazy ruly jews back in Jesus´ time?) anyway i feel like there a bunch of scribes and the type in this mission but really its all out of love. We know that when we keep the commandments of God we are blessed and so its good to have a little reminder every here and there. I thought it was neat to recieve a compliment like that from an Apostle. Anyways, not to get proud or anything, it just was cool…

Investigators… we have a couple who are really good, prepared people that we feel extremely blessed to be working with. First of all there is Javiera, a 9 year old daughter of a less active who is currently reactivating herself. Unfortunately she is leaving on vacation this Thursday until the 24 of july but she has a baptismal date for the 26th so we´re all set there. She wanted to do it Thursday morning but we don´t have time to teach her all the stuff before then and have the interview so we gotta wait! Thats how much she wants to get baptized! She´s awesome!

Also there is oscar, jenny, fransisco, jessica, eduardo, the other francisco and his daughter francisca and a couple others that we are teaching but i don´t have time to get into details with them and some of them aren´t really progressing much so i won´t talk about them right now but next week if they are getting ready for baptism i´ll let you know, but if you could pray for them that would be awesome!

Alright i gotta bounce, just so everyone knows we repeated the pledge of alegiance, the star spangled banner, america the beautiful and my country ´tis of thee on the fourth and i thought about all of you at the smoots cookin some dawgs, running, watching fireworks, the parade and i got a little trunky but not for too long because i know i´ll get to enjoy them again with ya´ll! alright i gotta bounce, love you all bunches and bunches and bunches, keep up the good work, keep a smile on and share the gospel with someone. Joseph Smith said that¨there are many who don´t find the truth only because they don´t know where to find it..¨ its our duty to help them find it! When i say we i mean you too!

Love you bunches,

Elder Livingstone

June 29, 2009

Familia!

Como estáis? Sois mis hermanos queridos y os amo! Nice, this week was a really good one, we worked a ton with the members and had a mess of lessons with members which is always a good thing. Unfortunately our ¨sure baptism¨ fell through but we´ve got a date set with them and the water this week so they´ll be saved enough, their names are Gabriela and Francisco Periera. The really good thing that we did with them this week is that we made the mother promise that she would teach her son every night a little bit of doctrine, he has a learning disabilities so it was becoming a little difficult teaching him because we didn´t understand how he learned best and all that yada yada so we are now having her teach the doctrine to him. GOAL!! Two birds with one stone, now she´s going to have a stronger testimony of the things because she is teaching them and he will learn them better because he has someone who knows him teaching him in a way that he can understand! We were super jazzed when we went by one day and he understood the word of wisdom and the law of chastity, yeah I really didn´t feel like explaining that to an 11 year old… haha its all good! One thing that this has really impressed upon me though is the importance of parenting. Really no one knows your children like you, that being said that means teaching your children the doctrine is of the utmost importance right? I´m really grateful now more than ever for the way mom and dad taught all of us, I wasn´t before but that’s because I didn´t ever really realize… the best way to do it, or the best place to do it is in the family night! That’s something that really lacks down here too, its too bad but hardly anyone has family nights, for that elder INZUNZA and I have decided that were making a program to fix that. What we´re going to do is make groups of families that live near each other, about 5 families to every group and one of them will be less active that the other 4 active families have to support and fellowship. The idea is that every week in these groups they have a family night, a big one as a group that is, and that the place in which they have it, who teaches the family night, who brings the game and snack, all of that changes every week. So what will happen is that these 5 families will get to enjoy the benefits of having a family night every week but only having to prepare it once a month! Legit right? I´m super excited for it for a bunch of reasons, 1 hardly anyone has their family nights here, 2 the fellowship between the members SUCKS and is even worse with recent converts and less actives so when we bring investigators to church and baptize them they don´t stay because the fellowshipping lacks here. So with this program we´re going to get some sweet fellowshipping going on!

This week we saw a bunch of blessings, firstly an investigator who has not wanted to get baptized for a couple months because she wants her boyfriend to confirm her decided that she can´t wait anymore (we left mosiah 3 with her, that chapter is a killer). We have a killer investigator named Oscar that is progressing a ton(except he didn´t go to church L ). We´re going to have these baptisms this week (the 4^th of July), there are a few other blessings that I can think of, we got to go to the temple this week, I don´t have swine flu, I haven´t been super trunky even though everyone is going to be getting together soon, I am starting to really understand Spanish… yeah the blessings are far too many to count but i just want to thank all of you for praying for me. I can feel the blessings, i´m not lying I really can.

There is not a whole lot to report on this week to all ya´lls. I love you like crazy that’s for sure, if anyone wanted to take a ton of pictures this upcoming week and then print them and send them to me along with some reeses and a sweet tie that would be cool… haha I love you all like crazy! I´m a little bummed that President Moran is leaving but every good thing has got to come to an end, I mean MICHAEL DIED this week, what?!?! Haha its all good, he now can be baptized without prejudice of his fans. I got a question though, what will he look like in his perfected form? Michael from the thriller movie? I just hope he has his jerry curls and is black again… alright, i´m just rambling now, everybody enjoy these next couple weeks, go see transformers without me but don´t tell me ANYTHING!! Alright I gotta head, love you all, take care and have your family nights!!!

attatched are some pics of berlins( a delish donut like treat)

my face after eating said berlin

and a shot from our house in the morning, i really do like this city, its got some really gorgeous parts to it.

alright love youall, take care

elder livingstone

June 22, 2009

Hello my loved ones,

SWINE FLU!!! Pysch! Got you all worried didn´t I? Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system because down here it is very taboo to talk about ¨the disease that will take over the world¨ or so the chileans think.. To explain myself let it be known that 3-4 chileans have died because of the swine flu and for that almost every chilean has this undescribable fear of the illness. Its quite silly actually, I don´t know why everyone is so concerned about it. Less people have died from this than the amount of people who die from drunk driving in 10 minutes or so. Whats the hang up people? Oh well, you all already know that and know that it´s silly, or do you?

This week has been pretty good, well not really, it was pretty bad from the works stand point. Tuesday we had our devotional with Elder Dickson, newsflash, the man has one arm! Regardless he gave us a very deep devotional about how the roots need to grow faster than the branches, something i´ve heard before from Dad but it´s always good to hear quality doctrine again. The part that really was good during the devotional was delivered by Lawrence Corbridge, that man is a spiritual GIANT!!! He is one of the 70´s that lives in my previous sector and he gave us a quality rundown of a discourse(is that what a paper is called?) that we now are going to use as a lesson with the less active members of our wards. It´s a really huge problem down here in Chile. To the point that yesterday we had 6 elders in elders quorum 2 whom have the ¨name badge¨(AKA me and elder Inzunza) and when they passed around the list to mark off if you are ¨present¨ in elders quorum it was 4 stinking pages long... OH MY GOODNESS!!! Yeah so that kinda got me really down about the whole activity rate here in Chile, returning to where i got off on this crazy tangent, we now have a document called ¨perseverad¨ or persevere the which we will be using to drive the point home to the less actives that we all have hope and it comes through the atonement of Jesus Christ and there is no other way. ¨Any other way is foolish¨ as E. Corbridge put it (see his talk in the November 2008 edition of the Ensign) so that was a good charge on the spiritual battery. The next thing of importance that happened this week is that on Thursday I woke up sick, which was no fun but we worked anyhow, Friday we had our last zone conference with Pres which was even less fun because he´s the man. The part that I really took away from his words was how we know if we truly love someone. It was really powerful because he explained to us that love is wanting to be together with someone for the eternities. Obvious that part is my young ones, but the other part was what made me think, If we want to be together with them for the eternities how do we accomplish that? Taking the sacrament weekly, going to the temple, etc... what does all that mean? KEEPING THE COMMANDMENTS.. every single one of them. It was a huge lightbulb moment because I remembered all the times when mom and dad had nagged me to do this or to do that or had made me promise to stop dating someone who shall go un-named and I remembered that in those moments i didn´t feel like they were trying to help me. I felt like they were just nagging me to nag me or what not but I came to the realization that they really were exhorting me to keep the commandments out of Love, pure, pure love and nothing else. This lead me to think that really if I love someone, my comp, my buddies, my family of course, anyone who I think I love I need to help them to keep the commandments so that I can be with them forever. This is ¨family business¨ as Señor West put it. This is forever and not just a game, I need to take it more seriously, that being said i want to extend the invitation (haha i´m a good missionary and not gonna let you off the hook without a commitment) to really love your loved ones and help them in anyway you can to keep the commandments, start out small, not killing for instance. Should be easy for the rest of you, me however... PSYCH again! But seriously, every moment we have here in this earth is to do the Father´s will, do what Christ would do if He was in our shoes. In that we will find the happiness that lasts. The happiness that has no end. This past week i can´t tell you how excited i was when i opened a letter from Jayson and see Kobe with the trophy, i was stoked! But ask me how long it lasted... a day? Maybe two? Lies.. it lasted longer than that, in fact i´m still happy about it but i know that someday, in a couple of years, maybe 80 í´ll forget that they won the championship. But i can tell you that the atonement has no end, there is no end to Celestial Glory.

Alrighty i´m outta time i´ve seen many blessings this week, for instance i was way sick the whole week and Saturday night i even hit a fever of 101.2 at which time i almost thought i had that swine flu but with blessings, prayers on your part and mine and a little bit of faith i´ve been able to see miracles. I love the mission, i´m bummed i haven´t baptized in a while, this next week promises to have some for the which i´m happy but i´m even more happy that the family is doing good, that everyone is going to have a ball of a time these upcoming weeks together. I expect some killer pics, maybe some sent through the mail too? That would be cool, also if anyone feels the need to send me some reeses i wouldnt complain about that either. Recipes i´m hungry for some homeade food but i gotta cook it so send some easy recipes my way cuz i´m a little bit on the lamer side of the cooking business, meaning i can´t do much, ask Jayson, he remembers ¨what drew can cook¨... alright gotta run, i love you all. Keep in touch and STAY CELESTIAL!!!

Elder Livingstone

p.s. kirk or ty or kev or amy do you understand what that sign said in the pictures that i sent last week? i thought not, thats cuz chilean spanish is RIDICULOUS!!! it says -- drunk, you don´t save anyone!

June 15, 2009

My dearest family!

How are the things going for all of the Livingstone clan and the amazing brothers and sisters in law that I have? I hope that all is well with everyone and that every brother and brother-in-law that I have has a very very special fathers day this upcoming week! you all are amazing! Especially i hope that dad has a very special fathers day, i know he´ll be working hard so he probably won´t even get to enjoy it that much but i have no doubt that he will be well taken care of in just a few weeks here...

Primarily i want to thank all of you for all of your emails and support. Í´m so excited every week to go to the internet and read about all of your lives. You might think that they are boring and not worth writing down but i promise you your stories are great, they are quality, funny, heart warming things to read, so keep ´em comin´!

This week was a pretty good one for the work here in ¨Vic Mac¨. My area is boomin with lessons, i love having lessons to go to all day. Sometimes we get a little down because there is not a lot of time to knock but i can´t complain about having tons of lessons to teach! It´s what this work is all about! So i guess i should tell ya a little bit about who i´m teaching then... The best family that we have right now is the Pereira family, he is a member, their oldest daughter too but the wife and the two youngest children are not. Gabriela is the name of the mother and Francisco is the name of the son who is an age of eligability to be baptized. They were going to be baptized this week, unfortunately he got chicken pox this week and was therefore not able to get into the water and the mom wanted to wait and do it together with him. So unfortunately their baptizm will have to wait until next Sunday (2 weeks from now) because their father is going out of town this week meaning he won´t be there to baptize them... One problem we´ve experienced with them is that he is iliterate and it is really hard for him to understand. It has forced us to really liquify our teachings and make them really simple which is way good for us but at the same time, really hard. I never thought i would say that it is hard to simplify spanish, me being a spanish wiz ya know, anyways its really helped me a lot because simple powerful teaching is the best, teach simple and powerfully with the spirit so they can´t deny it is my new motto!

We also have some other investigators, one named Andrea who is a difficult situation because she has a boyfriend who she wants to baptize her but he doesn´t have the melquisedek (spell check anyone?) priesthood and he doesn´t like the missionaries either. I guess he talks behind all the missionaries backs (us and the missionaries in his own ward too) that we don´t teach with the spirit and that we are bad people, i think we´ve come to the conclusion that he is the one who doesn´t have the spirit as he doesn´t attend church regulary and there is a long list of other things that aren´t exactly lining up.. this is not to say he can´t repent, lets remember who is talking here, but it just stinks being on the other side of the fence, knowing what is going through their heads and i know that they think they´re right, i was there for heaven´s sakes! Regardless that is something we are trying to overcome, unfortunately we haven´t come up with any ways other than to just tell her straight to her face that her boyfriend is wrong and she is waiting in vain...

We have other investigators but mainly we are working alot with less actives right now, its so hard to see people like this, former bishops, former elders quorum presidents that want almost nothing to do with the church. In one case their is a former bishop who is mad at the church and/or God because his mother died.. it is such a bummer to see priesthood holders who have gotten mad at the world over something that at one point they probably gave counsel to someone about. I´ve heard of some elders who tracted a former mission president who is now inactive. I don´t think thats possible but i can promise you if i were to ever find someone like that i would smack them. Why is it that we are so blinded by our own personal pursuits at times in our lives? why is it that we do foolish things like that sometimes. Agh... stepping off the soapbox...

Other than lazy less actives things are really good here. It rained pretty hard yesterday which was good, it has started to get a little cold lately which is no fun. Its a humid cold here which is the worst! I´ll wear a couple of layers of coats etc.. and its still cold! Bah humbug! Haha beyond that life is great, elder Inzunza is the man, unfortunately he gets a little trunky sometimes, most days i mean, but other than that were doin really good, its always in the morning when were studying that he/I get trunky which puts a damper on the day but fortunately 1130 rolls around and we go out to work and i forget all about you suckers at home! Haha just kidding, i don´t forget about you all but i do love to get out and do the work! There is nothing like some good old missionary work to fill the hearts holes!

Well i was really excited because Elder Oaks is in town and word on the street was that he was going to talk to us. We were going to hear from him tomorrow morning but turns out he´s gonna be busy ¨laying down the law¨ elsewhere so instead we´ll hear from a 70 Elder Dickson, i believe is his name so im lookin forward to that! I´ll take copious notes and send them next week! alright, runnin out a time, love you all, take care and keep the faith!

Love elder Livingstone

June 8, 2009

FAMILY!!!

Hello, how goes life? Things are just splendid here in Chile. Turns out being senior comp is not all that fun because its a ton of responsibility but what can ya do? It´s the calling that I have for this change so i´ll just do the best I can and move along next change.

The really awesome part is that my companion is amazing. Elder Inzunza is a great great great missionary. I really respect him a lot for a whole gaggle of reasons. First of all he is the first member of his family, and the only current member. Reason number two being he has a girlfriend of 6 years that he left to come and serve and she has a child that is 8 years old, the both he has converted... Reason number three is that he is 25 years old. This guy is amazing! he´s got such a strong testimony and really is here for the right reason. Oh and I almost forgot, he is a cancer survivor... ha, oops almost forgot that small little detail, really i´m just floored with how amazing of a missionary he is, he is kickin my lazy butt around and we´re doing some great work here, I love him, I can already tell that he´s gonna be a life long friend, it just stinks that he is from here and will never live up in the States so i can see him that often... thats a good little summary of my comp, I believe i sent a pic of me and him last week so that´ll have to do for now.

This last week was a great week, we have lessons coming out of our ears, which i love. because it really helps me to learn spanish and i´m finding that having a latin comp also helps that but the teaching lessons part i really love. unfortunately we didn´t have anyone ready to be baptized this week but we´re gonna work dang hard this week for the investigators that we have to help them prepare. two of them are from a part member family, the mother and the son, the father recently has been reactivating himself due to his own ¨come to Jesus moment¨ as Jay likes to call it, regardless we have a baptizmal date set for them for this sunday but we´re still waiting to see if the father will be ready to do the baptizm. we suggested it to him last week and he is talking with the bishop tomorrow to propose the idea so please if you can, offer a special prayer for Hermano Pereira and his family. They are great people, he is a painter, he has some beautfil paintings but its more of a hobby for him than professional business so he doesn´t take it too serisously but they still come out beautiful!

The experience of the week this week has to be what happened on saturday. alright to give you a little background I have to let you know that i have dejavu every once in a while, like every 2 months or so. what it comes from is my dreams, what happens is every once in a while i´ll have a dream during the night and it will be very very real, it will be so real that i´ll feel like i´ve already lived that moment in my life and it is just a memory, then i´ll wake up and realize that hasn´t ever happened in my life. the cool part is that i´m just foolin myself because that thing will come to pass sometime in the next couple months. alright, now that the table is set and you understand a little more, last month i had one of these dreams where i saw this wierd looking white guy that was speaking spanish to me and we were sitting down on a couch and he was showing me some colorful map that i didn´t understand. THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED ON SATURDAY!! turns out this wierd looking guy is our ward mission leader and that he was showing me some outdated map of the stakes here in santiago. It was cool though because i remember seeing all sorts of stuff in the foreground during my dream like these stuffed animals and a BUNCH of illegally obtained movies.. anyhow i´ve come to the conclusion that dejavu is to warn me of something that is coming in the future because later that day, after we had spent some time at his house we left and went to another sector in the mission for a planned zone activity, and the time worked out exactly perfectly that when we were in the other sector we experienced one of the coolest/scary things i´ve seen in my life. my comp and i were walking down the street in the broad daylight when a man passed us on his motorcycle, he was going pretty fast but all of the sudden we heard the screech of his tires and looked ahead not 20 feet to see two men in the middle of the road with a 9mm pointed at the man on the motorcycle! it was pretty dang crazy. what happened was they yelled at him and told him to get off his bike which he didn´t like. in response to his displeasure in giving up his bike the man with the 9mm decided to pistol whip him in the forhead (pistol whip meaning he held the pistol in his hand and then hit him in the head with the butt of the pistol) which caused the man to start bleeding and comply with what the asailants wanted. the unarmed man took the bike and the one with the pistol started waving it around telling all of us that we didn´t see anything. elder Inzunza and i had already taken the next street and were on our way to the other side of the sector. it was a pretty crazy experience that i won´t be forgetting anytime soon. a lot of prayers of thanks have been offered since then! the crazy part is that within 10 minutes we were back knocking doors again, which lead me to think the following, ¨you know you are a missionary when you´re life is threatened and within 10 minutes life is back to normal.¨

haha well i gotta get outta here before i am struck down for going over my time limit, i love you all like crazy and hope that life is treating you well. enjoy the summer because it is starting to get pretty darn cold here!

LOVEYS!!

Elder Livingstone

June 1, 2009

Hello loveys,

It would appear as if yours truly is now located in a new location with a new companion. The awesome part is that I now find myself with a latin companion. Elder Inzunza is from Concepcion Chile. That is just down the road from here about 3 hours or so by airplane. I´m really excited to work with him because he is going to really teach me to speak spanish! woot woot! the hard part is that i´m in a new sector (thankfully its a little bit smaller) but also the hard part is i´m going to have to shoulder a lot of the responsibility now. Partly because i´m now the senor comp and partly because he has only a small amount of time in the mission. meaning this is his second change. i´m not ready for this at all. i´m actually really overwhelmed right now becuase this is the first time that i´m really going to have to be on the ball, always and lead the lessons. PLEASE PRAY FOR ME. I don´t know why i´ve been placed with this responsibility because i´m not ready for it but I will do what i´ve been called to do to the best of my ability. excuse me if this email seems a little scatter brained, its because i´m feelin a little stressed right now but i´ll do my best to explain some of the past week so you know what has gone on in my life.

This last week was pretty good, we had a number of lessons with members and we actually found a couple new investigators through members. I can´t stress enough the importance of the members in the work(thats you guys!) It is imperative! without the members we have nothing because they help us in every facet of the work, especially finding investigators! one thing that i hope each of you tries to do this week is talk to a friend about one principle of the gospel, it seems difficult but honestly when you think about how happy we are because we have this gospel, it is natural to want to share it with a friend so they can have that joy too. anyways long story short we found some awesome brazilian investigators due to one of the members in our ward and i´m pretty sure that elder Jennings and his new comp are going to teach them this week, tonight even! well it might be hard for him seeing as how they are the new AP´s but i´m sure they´ll get over there sometime soon.

it was a tough last week with elder Jennings because he´s such a good elder and i knew that since we got along so well we weren´t going to be together again, i don´t know why that is the way that it is, i´ve just heard that from various different sources.anyhow we tried to make the best of our time and teach our investigators, tried to keep working hard because we know that is where true happiness lies, helping the others to come unto Christ.

shoot, i haven´t written anything but my time is already up and i gotta get to work. i love you all and pray for you like crazy. keep smiles on your faces, mom and dad will be home soon enough ;)

love loves
elder livingstone