January 26, 2015

Weeeellllll so i got two MASSIVE letters to respond to! so bear with me... haha

First, Tell sister Kenney that because she taught us how to sing really has helped so much and idk i just am so greatful for the opportunity i had to learn from her. (hey put that story in the Ensign so i can be famous for something:)) 

Wow thats so sick that micah is home! weird how fast time flies....i litterally feel like he just left! CRAZY!! Now hes gotta just get married quick to keep the tradition goin;) haha 

hmm wow scotts science project is interesting! good to know because currently i am trying to revive our dead lawn down here so maybe ill buy some sprite to put on it hahah we will just see. 

The Cabin.....holy cow....its INCREDIBLE!! i cannot even imagine how it will be to actually be in there...so much space...so nice...haha itll be such a difference from here haha but a good difference:) 

no still havent gotten the picture book, we will see tommorow. but ill just keep on waiting:) oh and the hair stuff is the crew little cup of cream stuff ha but if you sent the blue tube i will gladly still use it:)

HA thats so funny to remember that when we would travel and go to churches in spanish countries i couldnt understand a thing and it was sooo boring ha but now to think that i could understand absolutely everything is pretty cool:) i have been trying lately to focus more on the sacredness of sacrament and studying a lot about it and it has really made that ordinance so much more meaningful. I have a whole new apriciation for the sacrament and everything with it. 

WOAH! rachael cant be going to dances?! that is just not right....shes too young!! ha so odd to imagine her there....creepy....hahahahhahah just kidding ahah thats so good that she went. TELL RACHAEL TO EMAIL ME ABOUT THE STORY!!! i need to hear it!!!! 

AS for me, everything really is great! i absolutely love the food, and the culture is so cool. we eat tons of rice and chicken or sometimes potatoes but for some reason it never really gets old! so im still lovin it! i have also gained some odd love for sea food! it is soooo good! cant believe i never liked it before!! THe weather is a little rough... super hot all the time (but hey, i am using sunscreen;)) yeah elder silva and i are great! we are thinking though that next week we might get changes..but hopefully not! THe spanish is great! i dont think much about it anymore and i think in spanish and dream in spanish and so i just am working on growing my vocabulary ha but it truly is a miracle that i learned it so fast! haha i will be talking to members that dont know me and they tell me that they thought that i am close to ending my mission because my progress in spanish so i guess its going good:) 

hmmm a typical day, so we wake up at 7:30 and run to this park and do our work out until 8 then we come back and shower and eat breakfast, and at 9 we starts personal study, at 10 companionship study, 11 language study, and we leave the apartment at 12:30 and maybe have a visit with someone before lunch or just contact people, and around 1:30 we have lunch at a members house (there is a lady in the ward that makes a lunch calender for us) and then from 2:30 until 10 we are meeting with people or contacting all day. and we get back to the apartment and Plan for the next day for 30 minutes then i write in my journal for 20 minutes or so then get ready for bed and at 11:30 go to bed. 

That is a typical day for me! its pretty chill! at first it was odd to not have dinner, but with all the soda and bread the people give us dinner is the last thing on our minds haha litterally you cannot get people to bring water out. it is only soda....so sick of it ahhah 

So this week was just a nother chill week with lots of new investigaters! we have been just trying to get new people to teach! some cool people we met is this guy from Haiti and he is soooo chill and seems really interested haha but idk the work is going great!! 

Love you guys:)

Elder Collins

January 19, 2015

SOOOOOO no letter from you guys this week..... soooooo hopfully all is well! first of all with the business side of all this, stillhavent recieved the picture book :/ secondly, the mission came out and said to not send anything here thru DHL, to only use the post service. Because if you use DHL i will never recieve it. also use The most recent adress to send stuff that i told you guys:

Chile Santiago Este

Cristóbal Colon 6824

Las Condes

Santiago Región Metropolitano

Chile

Please make sure that everyone knows to use this one please:) because if it is sent to the old ones or the CCM i will not recieve it...

So this week was just pretty chill, we did a lot of contacting and idk not much to say! but one cool thing was i had my interview with the president, and that was sweet and i had him laughing pretty hard, so  hopefully i impressed him;) hahaha Also another thing was that yesterday we were walking from appoitment to appoitment and i kid you not, there was a preacher or two on EVERY single corner preaching their stuff its was NUTS!! Elder silva was surprised on how many there were and he leans over to me and said "I feel like im Joseph Smith" haha (in english) idk why but it was just so funny hahaha but really though it was like the videos of joseph smith with the preaching ha. 

Still loving everyday out here! i keep realizing that when i get lost in the work the time FLIES!! and its really getting better and better everyday. Im so greatful for this oportunity to serve a mission here in chile. ALso im so thankful to have the family that i have and the lessons that i learned growing up so i dont have to learn them now like others. But its all good!!:)

Love you:)

ELder Collins

ps, idk if its possible but could you send me my Line Of Authority?? THanks

January 12, 2015

HHHEEEEELLLOOOOOO mi hermoso familia!! 

Que bueno que stephanie fue aceptada a USU!!! Im pumped for her, now she can finally start studying what she really wants to do and also better her japanese!! ANd for rachael, haha obvioiusly it is a lot of cleaning, we run a 5 star restraunt! its gotta be shiny clean!!:) but one thing that i learned about working there is that you are going to be tired and in a bad mood often while working, so the best way to change that and be different from the other average employees is to ALWAYS have a genuine smile on your face and be laughing! I know how dificult that will be but the way to do it is find so much joy in the little stupid things and just always be giddy about the little jokes. If you do that your bosses are going to recognize it and have so much trust in you! and for scott...SHOOT bro! thats so rough!! hopefully he is learning from those mistakes bevause that isnt going to be cheap to fix that and what happens if theey say we cant have horses anymore!? that swould be sad!! but its all good, what happens happens, and its all for a reason:)

Im pumped to see pics of the finished cabin!!! its going to be amazing i know it:)

UMM i could use more of that hair stuff, a new head for my toothbrush and the charger for it, ummmmm idk thats all that is on my mind:) and no still havent recieved the picture book yet, hopefully ill get it tomorrow! 

Sad to hear about jeremy, Hopefully he doesnt get in the flow of things at home and will really prepare to come out because this is the best thing that he could be doing in his life. ANd It will be amazin to see how the lord could bless him through his service:) ill be praying for him.

OOOKKAAAYY, so for my week, 

This week was pretty slick! so first of all i got to do divisions twice this week which was sweet to learn so much in such a little time! but first of all i was with ELder Workman, and we were in my area and we call that day the day of miracles. Let me explain, so first of all we have new parts of our sector that i have no idea anything about them, and so we had lunch at a house in that area with Familia Navarete. During lunch she had told us that she is the Stake relief society president and that she had a meeting there that night ahha but anyways after lunch we left and went to visit people but NO ONE was home or could have a conversasion so we ended up doing a TON of contacting, (backstory, so on tuedsay in Zone Class we learned that the Sister Missionaries aparently sing in all their lessons and some of them sing when they contact people!? they are nuts....) so we contacted this one lady and after about 5 minutes of talking she straight up told us that she wants nothing to do with us and that we should respect her decision......but in my mind i remembered what the sisters said about singing in contacts....so i just out of no where asked her if we could sing for her and she was surprised and was like SERIOUSLY?? and i just said SÍ POR SUPUESTO! and she was like yeah, but not out here in public because she was embarassed, and she invited us in her house and then we sang and afterwards it was just silent....and she told us how thankful she was and how now she feels so calm and a peace to her soul (it definately wasnt our singing that helped her, cuz we arent the greatest singers, THe holy spirit touched her soul) and everythign changed, she had this light to her and practically begged us to come back and visit her and all this stuff. MIRACLE!!! then following that we were just walking contactin again and all of the sudden we hear a lady calling for us and so we talked to her and turns out she is the 1st counselor of the stake relief society and didnt know where Hermana Navarete lived (the same family that i had found their house that day) and so we walked her there and when we got there we talked with them for a bit then as we were leaving Brother Navarete told us to hold on so we waited and he came out with two suits, and told us to try them on....we were a little confused but we put them on and then he started marking them to hem them to us because he is a tailer and then afterwards we asked why he was doing this and he just told us that he was just giving us them! they are practially BRAND NEW!! it was the coolest thing!! THe people are just so humble and will allways help us in any way possible!!!! SO that was the second miracle that we ran in to the lady who needed to find the house of the President and our reward for being in the right places at the right time, following the promptings of theh spirit were new suits for free:) THE DAY OF MIRACLES!!!

THe second divisions was with ELder Gowdy and he is from ALPINE! i rembmber seeing him play football and all that and so we got to know each other reallygood and now we are buds, he goes home in february but he is the coolest guy! and what are the chances that He becomes my Zone Leader his last change!! such a  small world!!!!!!!!:) 

THat was pretty much the great part of my week, and i learned soo much and am so greatfull for all the great things that have happened so far in my mission and also the hard times, because its in that hard times that i learn and grow!:)

Love YOU ALL!!!:)

Elder Collins

January 5, 2015

No way that you saw him in the airport!? that is soo cool!! my comp was just so shocked and jealous of you guys haha super cool though:) 

scott and jethro are cleaning the offices?? really?? they are going to make straight bank! but that is a lot of work with just them....hopefully it works out!!! oh and rachael is working at costa finally!!! lemme tell you, i still have the whole entire costa line memorized and its pretty funny how it is fried into my brain "hi welcome to costa vida, what can i get for you today?...flour, whole wheat, or corn tortilla?...Rice and beans?....black pinto or refried?" etc! haha i actually had a dream the other day that i got to eat a raspberry chipotle chicken quesadilla ahah man i relaly miss it:) but good for rachael! she better be the hardest worker so she doesnt ruin the collins name;)

So about your calling, I understand that it is probably really tough....but idk, for me at least, seeing the people down here that go inactive because the ward just doesnt have a calling to give them is common....so idk, there is a reason that you have the calling you have, and the lord knows yoour capabilities and what you can do. So i would just say be grateful for the calling you have, and to try to make the best of it!:) i know thatll be hard, but its really all that you can do ha Keep on pushin:)

THis week for me was a good week! so as you guys know our ward lost two elders, so now there is only 4 of us, so our sectors got changed. Now our sector is twice as big and so we have tons of work to do now to get to know it! But Our big goal this week was to get as many people to church as possible and so we litterally invited all of our investigaters and Less actives and we didnt have the greatest turn out..but 2 investigators came and 3 less actives came for the first time in over a year and a half. So Itwas a huge step in the right dirrection!! we are going to keep inviting people to sacrament because litterally its there in the chapel that people are converted and feel really apart of something so good like a family. Idk sacrament is powerful:)

To answer your question about what i do on p days here it is, so first we get up and do our excercize and shower, then we do an hour of personal study followed by an hour of compañionship study. Then we are free to do what we want, so first we always go and buy our food for the week for the first hour then we either clean up the pension a lot or we go where we asked permision to go(every friday when we do our weekly planning we also have to plan for pday where if we want to go somewhere outside of  our ward we ask president for permission) Then after we finnish what we wanted to do we just chill in the pension or go play soccor until 5 when we go write for an hour and a half to finish off our pday. then starting at 7 we work in the sector until 10 then plan for the next day, write in journals, eat a bit, and go to bed by 1130. Elder silva and i love to go on hikes, for example today we hiked up this huge mountain up to this massive virgin mary that is there and it was pretty cool! ill send some pics! we planned it with Elder Pile so i was able to see him a gain which was super cool:) 

But for new years we just had a normal day other than we had dinner with a family in our ward(the same family that i skyped at) and we had tastey sushi:) but that really was it this week!! loving it to death out here! and am just so excited for the next 20 months:)

Love you all!

Elder Collins

All of this was first some service we did for some less actives:)

also The birthday of Tomas Sanmartin, foto con su tio Vladmir(presidente de quorum de elderes)

Hike up to the virgen mary, some selfies with her;) and elder silva doin some harcore confessing;)
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December 29, 2014

Hey so skyping was great! loved being able to see you guys!! Crazy because i didnt get homesick at all, afterwards i had just more energy and excitement to work haha but for elder silva he was a mess...so it was a rough day but now its all good:) Yeah that story about conner is super cool! i could just tell that he is trying to change and be better and i know that he will continue to better himself:) 

wait so where is scott at? if you guys are on the sabbatical where is he?? but that is definately something that i will definately miss is chillin in the open water just relaxin....ohhhh that is the life:) i think i have still yet to see a whale.....lucky you guys!!!:) 

So about christmas here.....IT IS SO LAAAMMMEEE!!!! What they do is they stay up all night (but thats a normal thing) and at 12 the parents tell the kids to go in a nother room because "El Viejo Pascuera" is going to come then they put the presents out and the kids come in and open them all until like 1 in the morning ha. There is just no anticipation and just is pretty lame ahahha

Yeah THat is most definatly my favorite part of missionary work, is to be able have that feeling on a daily basis. I really hope that by the end of my mission i will be able to look back and know that i truly gave it my all. That is really my only goal. And everyday is what matters to acheive my goal. 

Hey so today was changes, and no ha i didnt change! thank goodness!! I was wanting to stay in this ward and even better i still have Elder Silva, But Elder Pile(my ccm comp) changed and is now in Puente Alto(super ghetto) also a bunch of other people in my zone changed, only the people in my Apartment are the ones that didnt change. Oh and my new Zone leader is From alpine! he went to lone peak and i remember him! he played football and i was a sophomore when he was a senior. Elder Gowdy! super cool to have him for one change as my ZL:) because he comes home in february. 

Spéaking of people going home, so Clara Labbe (my neighbor) is moved to byu yesterday and i gave her a letter for rachael and a little note for the family, (its in the same envolope) She should text you soon and figure out a way to get it to you. She lives in Eagle Mountain. So not far:)

So for christmas we got tonss of gifts from our converts and some wardmembers so that was super cool:) New socks, ties and a shirt and rootbeer, Drpepper, mugs ahaha randrom stuff:) 

To wrap things up, as you know i confirmed Jackie a member on sunday. That was the neatest experience. Before hand i was a little nervous but once i laid my hands on her head everything just went away, and the spirit just put words in my mouth and afterwards elder Silva told me that that was the most amazing confirmation he has ever heard because he said usually they have the same thiungs to say but with this one it was just straight the spirit and she was crying, i honestly dont remember what i said but it was from the lord and whats important is that she remembers it:)

Love you guys!

ElderCollins


Chrismas dinner at the bishops house:) also the gifts, and last but not least the elders that are going home that are my best buds. sunset from the bishops house aswell! (he is pretty well off for people down here in chile)

December 22, 2014

So turns out we do get to write today....hahaha and not on christmas! oops 

I will just be short because i can be more elaborate when we skype on thursday!! so this week jaqueline was baptized!!! it was so cool!! it was elder silvas first baptism(well being in the water) and it was so beautiful. She was more than ready, she has been an investigater for over a year! 

Oh and sebastian told us that he didnt want to be baptized anymore....it was a moment of shock because i was on divisions with another elder and we visited him and the first thing he said when he opened the gate was that he didnt want to be baptized....so idk how but i just handeled it so good and stuff and got him to accept to be baptized on a later date! so hopefully the next time will come through:)

oh and our mission changed the whole way we are doing things, like when it comes to doing our numbers we arent going to count practically anything...the area seventy said they want us to not count lessons or progressing or any of that and only count baptisms, people with date, people in church, and new investigaters. so its a little weird...but its still gonna be cool i guess haahah

anyways i got the christmas package! i love it!! the first thing i did is cook me up some rice a roni:) great decision to send me that:) ahha elder silva loves the elf ears he thinks its the coolest thing ever! oh and the santa hat is awesome! (a little tight on my gigantic head, but its still awesome)  i am going to wait to open the other two until christmas morning! so im excited, oh and in the package you said that there is another gift you are sending? idk if i understood that right, but maybe i will get that next week ha we will see! 

anyways merry christmas!!! 

Talk to you guys in a few:)

ELder Collins

Merry Christmas!

Feliz Navidad!

Feliz Natal! (portuguese)