Chao, Chillan!

Hello everyone!
Well as you can see in the title, cambios were today, and I'm getting changed! More on that in a bit. But first I'll relate about what happened this week. Which once again, I'm sorry to say is not much. But here goes nothing.

  Well this week not too much happened. We have been seeing some progress with our investigators though, which is good. So we've been seeing a lot of progress with Sonias sister, Karla. She's really understanding a lot better, and she's came to church the past 3 weeks. I'm pretty sure she'll be baptized on the 8th. Another person were teaching is john, who we found kind of recently, but he also is doing really good. He understands really well. We're also teaching Ruth and Jorge, who are doing pretty good, but it's costing them to go to church. They just need to commit to going.
  But apart from that nothing exciting happened this week. But we did have a ward talent show, which turned out pretty good. We even did a little number, which we recorded and I'll show you when I get home.
  But yeah, so today I learned I'm getting changed! I'm going to the zone Penco, which is like 20 minutes away from Concepcion. I hear its pretty cool there, it's located by the beach. But I'm becoming the senior comp. My comp actually came in the mission with me, and I've heard he's cool. So it should be good. I actually didn't really want to go, nor was I expecting it. especially cuz we're teaching a lot of good people right now, that I know are gonna get baptized. Karla for example. But the worst part is that Sonias out of town in Santiago, so I won't get to say bye to her. But the Lord just has diffferent plans for me. So I'll let you know how everything goes next week! I've got a day of saying bye and packing, and tomorrow I travel.
  Well I'm gonna make up for this short email by putting on some pictures.
  So there's one of the Tsunami in Dichato taken from my comps camera. In the pic you can see 2 houses, and in between theres some orange and yellow tile on the wall. thats where his house was.
  Theres another in the snows, one of the zone, and another of the snow.
So there you have it! Have a great week, the church is true, love you all!
Elder Ryan Mayberry

Good week!

Well I'm sorry about the mistake of not sending the email last week. I did it and everything I guess I just forgot to send it. Que tonto. Yeah, well this week was pretty alright. We had some touger days, but there were also good points too. So yeah, I'll put on some of the fotos from the trip to the snow, it was a lot fo fun. (Next week, forgot the camera!)

  So actually not too much happened during the beginning of the week. It was pretty normal. But later things got more interesting. So on Friday my comp went to Concepcion for a leader meeting, and I stayed here with a new missionary, Elder Dastrup. It's pretty interesting being with someone brand new. So that was Friday.
  Saturday was pretty tough but rewarding. So at like 4pm we went to give tours of the church. The first guy we talked to was super drunk. It was funny, he did the normal drunk guy stuff (kissing my hand for example), and then he said I was beautiful because I had one eye, an eye on the side of it and a nose in the middle! It was way funny. That same day we did more tours, and this guy just growled at me as he went by. So that was also very funny. So it was 9pm on Saturday, and our appointment with Sonias sister fell (Sonia went on vacation to Santiago). We hadn't entered into a house all day, so we decided to say a prayer and do some more contacts. So we pray, knock a door and they let us in! It was soo cool. And they were a pretty good family.
  Then Sunday was pretty normal. Karla (Sonias sister) came too! So she's basically the only person we have who is progressing more. The rest are progressing but just haven't come to church yet.
  Well that's actually all that happened this week. Today we met up in the church and watched Toy Story 3! It was good but we only had it in spanish, It'd probably be a lot better in English. But it was good nonetheless. We also played some soccer with some kids from the ward. Also a lot of fun,. And now here we are.
  Sorry this leters so small! Next weeks already cambios! So I'll know if I stay again or move on. But this weeks gonna be good. I love being here, I love the work. The church is true.

Elder Ryan Mayberry

Don't Worry!

Well I made a mistake last week, I guess I just forgot to push send on this email! So here's last weeks big email...

  You may have been getting worried about me, we just got back from a long P-day adventure, which I'll talk about more in a bit. But this week was a really good one, with one of the coolest experiences I've seen here in the mission. Yeah so here goes...
  Well, basically this week was a normal week here. We've been working hard and finding success, we're getting people who are actually in their houses, and are there for the 2nd appointments. But yeah, we've got a couple people progressing better, but none have gone to church yet. So that's where we are, we've got good people we're teaching, they just gotta go to church. But, I'm short on time, so I'll basically tell you about the coolest person ever, and the coolest experience ever!
  So it's Thursday night and we're giving tours of the church to people walking by. We're about to stop and this girl is coming up real fast and we try to stop her but she just keeps going. She takes about 5 more steps, stops, then comes to us saying, 'I have a questions for you guys. I've been interested in your church for a long time, I'm kind of in a search for God.' So we start giving her a tour of the church. Her name's Leslie, she's like our age I think. Anyways, she had gone to a church, one that respects Saturday as the day of rest, but she said thats no big deal and can change. She actually got like excommunicated from her old church cuz she had a kid. But yeah, we go up to the picture of Christ getting baptized, and she's like 'Oh yeah, baptisms so important' and all this stuff. So we put a baptism date with her for the 8th of august. So the tour goes really well, she asked questions like, how long does it take to get prepared for a baptism, and stuff. Just like Golden questions. So we're leaving, and she kind of seemed like she was just gonna say that she had been raised in a church and it would be hard to change. So we bore testimonies, and she's like, you know, I really never have felt like I've fully gave myself to God through the other church. So she said she was gonna pray about it. We got her direction (address I mean), and she lives in the sector next to ours! We share a chapel wth another ward, and she perains to the other ward! In our minds we were both thinking NOOOOO. It kind of hurt a bit. But anyways, we told her we would be there the next day doing more tours if she wanted to come by.
  Next day, were standing outside the church, and sure enough to our left comes walking Leslie. Both of our hearts kind of jumped, cuz she came back right on time the next day! So then we taught her the restoration, had her doubts (but thats not a bad thing), but she realizes they can be cleared with prayer. But then she told us about how on the way home from talking to us yesterday she prayed and knows she's gotta get baptized!! SO then we finished the lesson, it was a good one, and we invited her to church. She said she'd come.
  Sunday rolls around, and we're waiting outside the church, and sure enough here comes Leslie in a taxi! She went to the ward where she should be, but it turns out her best friend is a member of that ward! We've got another appointment with her today where we're gonna pass her over to the other elders.
  She is someone totally prepared by the Lord. It's so crazy how the Lord prepares people. It just kind of stinks that we won't be teaching her.
  Well thats the highlight of the week (and of the past few months). But today we went to the snow! I took some pics but didn't bring my cable, so next week I'll send you them.
Love you all, the church is true!
Elder Ryan Mayberry

Fun in the snow!

Elder Mayberry had so much fun in the snow, that he ran out of time for an email,  this photo was forwarded by a missionary mom.

Doing a great job, Elder Mayberry! Love you.. 

11 months old in the mission!

  That's crazy! I'm 11 months old in the mission. One more and the months will be dwindling down. It's so wierd to think about that. Well this week was pretty good, and really eventful. So here goes nothing.

  On Monday...not much happened. Your average P-day.
  Tuesday was good. We were doing contacts and got into this guys house, he was reall nice and humble (lived in a very humble home) and he was watching some pastor on the tv. and out of nowhere he starting crying! Some weird stuff happens on the mission. Also, the other night I had a spiritual prompting to knock this door. Well she said we could come back another day, so we wet back and she was just golden! But we found out she isn't from here, and it was her last day there on Tuesday! So that was a bit of a downer. But then we went to Sonias house, and she had her baptism interview. Which she passed!! So that was really amazing.
  On Wednesday we got a random call from a ward missionary telling us to go over to a new converts house. Not sure if I told you about her, Hermana Flor. She is really strong in the church but can't go because she had to take care of here 99 year old dad. Well on Wednesday he passed away, so that was sad.
  On Thursday we did some contacts and we talked to 2 ladies who were super dura. In english that would be hard, but they're like stubborn. But yeah, that was interesting, it usually is.
  On Friday we had a surprise conference with the new president of the mission. (We got there late, its a longer story). Anyways we had a short little conference in Concepcion. But it was really cool. His spanish is really good for not practicing for 30 years. But I could really tell that he was called by the Lord to serve here. But it looks like there's gonna be some changes to the mission work worldwide. We got a small glance but we'll know more for sure after interviews. Then Hermana Humphrey afterwords talked to us about how good Toy Story 3 was, she trying to get us trunky I guess. So then we were waiting in the terminal to go home, the Uruguay / Ghana game was on. And all of a sudden 2 guys starting beating this guy, I guess he was robbing. But it happened right next to us, it was pretty intense.
  Saturday was an incredibly weird day. We did a contact with an atheist kid, and he let us in and we talked to his family, who were all atheist (that doesn't happen much here in Chile). But it was super wierd! One, they were really rich. It was a masive house (which is probably like a normal sized house in the states) but it really didn't feel like we were in Chile for a bit. Wierd. Then we talked to a guy we talked to the other week, and he may or may not have been high. A weird day overall. And we talked to Sonia and she picked me to baptize her.
  Sunday was really rainy and windy. But after the church we had the baptism! It went really well. I love baptisms, I'm just so glad I can be a part in the marvelous work. Her sister came and watched it, so that was cool. A funny thing, our rain coats got locked in the church for a couple hours, so we got pretty wet. But other than that, this week was a very good and eventful week.
   We've got a couple more investigators were teaching, and were working on getting them to church. But that's about it that happened this week! Sorry for typing errors, this keyboards dumb. But yeah, I can't believe time is going by so fast. But have a great week everyone, I love you all. The church is true! And in case you were wondering, we've walked 88 miles in the last week and 3 days. ¡Harto caminando!
Enjoy!

Elder Ryan Mayberry
Pictures included!
Me and Elder Findlay:


Me, Elder Findlay Sonia and Karla (her sister):


Me and Sonia.

It's been a good week!

Hey everyone! Well this week has been pretty good. We had a lot of stuff go on this week. I think this email's gonna be all over the place, but here goes...

  Well on Tuesday we had a good district class. We learned a lot, especially about the Atonement, but more on that in a bit. Well I'll tell you about the progress of the investigators in a bit. But one of the highlights was on Thursday.
  On Thursday we had the Zone conference, where like half the mission meets up and the President and the assisstants talk to us. But it was just spectacular. It was President Chavez's last one with us. But the assistants gave an excellent presentation of the Atonement. And us as a mission are all trying to increase our understanding and testimonies of the Atonement. I will tell you right now its amazing, I've learned so much this last week about all that Christ did for us. I've learned a lot from talks, for example I would highly reccomend the talk from the last general conference by Elder Scott. A lot of things he says I had never thought of before. I know that Christ is my savior and redeemer. I love the Atonement. So that's my consejo (advice) for this week. Anyway, that was Thursday. A cool note, I got a letter back from chad! He's doing good it seems. So on Friday was the big Chile game, which they lost but still classified for the next round. Parading in the street still applied.
  On Saturday we had an activity by the missionary work to help get the ward excited to work in the missionary work. It went pretty good. We watched a movie about it, and a cool little thing, when we pushed fast forward you could still hear the voices. The cool thing is that I can understand spanish at 2x speed! haha. Well the activity went pretty good.
  Another random thing. Elder Findlay got a package, and inside was a pedometer! (one of the things that keeps track of your steps, it also converts it to miles too). So we've been using it daily seeing how much we walk. For example, on Friday we walked 7.5 miles, and on Saturday we walked about 10 miles. So were gonna figure out to see how far we could go in the 24 months if it was just spent walking (we could get pretty close to home is what were thinking). So thats neat.
  Sunday was good, Sonia came to church again. Well now I'll talk about the investigators. Sonia is doing excellent. She is doing really well. She's gonna have her baptism interview this week, so she may be getting baptized this Sunday! I'll tell you if she did or not next week. The rest of the people we have are progressing kind of, but havent been going to church. So were seeing what we can do with them, but were working on finding new people too. But I'll be keeping you posted. Elder Findlay and I are getting along really well, working hard too. Today we went and played some soccer, which is fun. All this mundial (world cup) just makes me want to play, haha.
  Well that's basically what happened this week. Next week should be pretty good. I love you all, I love this work and this gospel. Its true. Have great weeks! Heres some pictures!

Me with President Chavez,

My Comp  Elder Findlay with President Chavez,

and a pic of Concepción

Inside Zone Conference

Elder Ryan Mayberry

World Cup!!

 Well as I'm sitting here in the internet cafe the Chile team is playing vs. Switzerland, and its kinda hard to concentrate on this letter, haha. But I'll try my best, but a lot happened this week ¡CHI-CHI-CHI-LE-LE-LE VIVA CHILE! That's the cheer they shout here. And Chile just won again! They're doing pretty good it seems. Well now that the games over I can concentrate a bit more on this email. So a lot's happened this week.

  So last Monday me and Elder Grant went to the big market that sells a bunch of souveniers and bought some stuff, cuz he left Chillan for Chiguayante. So I bought some cool stuff there, then we said bye to the ward members. On Tuesday we went to the bus terminal, and I had to wait for my comp to get there. So then my comp got here. His names Elder Findlay, he's from Washington, and he's really cool, we get along really well. Something interesting, the last sector he was in was Dichato. Yes, that's the place that got utterly destroyed by the tsunami, and he was there for it. He had to run for the hills, lost all his stuff, so that's pretty interesting. Oh, and while at the terminal I got to see Elder Viana, who was with me in the house in Talca, so that was cool we gotta catch up.
  So this week was pretty good investigator wise. Well it actually had its ups and downs. We found a couple new people, and a lot of the investigators we have are remaining the same, like Anibal and Alex. But Sonia is progressing a lot, she went to church again this Sunday! But unfortunately, we talked to Cristian and he said he's going out of town for an unspecified time, Ugh. So that was a bummer. People are celebrating in the streets because of the game, haha. Well, actually that's all thats happened.
  But things are going pretty good here in Chillán. The world cup is in full force though. To show you how intense it is here, for example, people go to work the days that Chile plays, but everything is put on hold for the game and everyone stops working. At schools, the kids still go, but the schools are buying plasma TVs to show the students, and they watch it during school hours. And today, we went to go do some of the Visa stuff for Elder Findlay, but they wouldn't let us in, they were watching the game. haha, so it's a bit ridiculous. But it's also pretty cool. The parading in the streets has started.
  Well sadly that's the email I have for you. Probably half was about the world cup, haha. But things are good. I like my new comp a lot, we get along and teach well together. I'm still the junior comp if you wanted to know. Well to make up for it I'm gonna put on some fotos.

Photos:
1)Our zone before cambios

2) Me on a dinosaur

3) The statue they have to missionary work inour sector, haha

Love you all, the church is true.
Elder Ryan Mayberry