Hi everyone!  

I´m glad you´re doing well!  This week, we´ve seen tons of miracles! First off, we have two baptisms this Saturday: Benjamin, and Dilan. Benjamin is 12, and Dilan is 13. Both are miracle baptisms. Benjamin has been an investigator FOREVER! His sister is a less active member, and she´s his legal guardian, so as he is under age, she has to be the one to sign the baptismal form. The sister missionaries had tried time and time again to teach him and prepare him, but his sister would never give permission for him to get baptized, because she felt like he still didn´t know enough about the church. However, we´ve only been teaching him for a little more than 2 weeks, and when we went to talk to his sister, she signed the baptismal form immediately!!! It just shows that everyone has their time, and that the Spirit will soften the hearts of the people, when it is God´s will that something happens. The other young man is Dilan. He lives with a part member family, and so he had already heard quite a bit about the church, but as we were preparing him with the lessons, and began planning his baptismal interview, he told us that he probably wasn´t going to get baptized, because it´s likely that his mom can´t come to the baptism. However, he agreed to have the interview anyway, and afterwards was super animated and ready to take the step of baptism in his life!!! This week, we also ran into a lady who is a member of the church, but her family aren´t members, and she was the mamita to the missionaries for several years! We also met by coincidence a woman who said her son goes to the LDS church. When she told us his name, we realized it´s one of the hermana´s converts, that´s now super strong in the church, and acompanies the missionaries frequently! So that was really cool to see!  In answer to your question, the other Elders that live with us are from Bolivia, and Peru. They´re cool as well, and definitely help to improve my Spanish. ;)   I hope everyone has a great week!

-Elder Checketts

Hey, everyone!

This week, we were blessed with the baptism of a fourteen year-old girl named Catalina. She was thoroughly prepared by the hermanas (sister missionaries) that were here in Chañaral before us. It was a beautiful experience for her, and for her mom, Zunilda, who is also a member, but has not come to church in several years. 

At the baptism, the Spirit was extremely powerful. Zunilda, who was normally telling us about something bad that happened during the week, had a complete change of perspective, and she mentioned how touched she felt to be part of the baptism of her daughter. In showed simply but powerfully, the change each one of us can have if we simply let the Spirit into our hearts. 

This reminded me of a scripture that I love:

´´I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.´´ Doctrine and Covenants 82:10

The Lord has promised us His Spirit if we simply accept Him and His teachings in our lives. I also love the fact that the Lord doesn´t limit us and our potential. He wants us to be as happy as possible. This not only became a realization when we saw the change the Spirit made on Zunilda, but also something I´ve seen with the loss of the Spirit any time I´ve had an argument with my companion. The opposite is very true as well: that we bacome extremely limited in our potential if we DON¨T allow the Spirit in our hearts. 

´´No estáis limitados por nosotros, sino que estáis limitados por vuestro propio corazón.´´ 2 Corintios 6:12

This scripture is one I´ve shared before, but one I love, especially in Spanish. The scripture is a little different in English, but the literal translation is, ´´Ye are not limited by us, but rather, ye are limited by your own heart.´´ I love those words, and are the ones the I reflect on again and again each day to see if I have done my part in the work of the Lord. Am I limiting myslef today? And how can I improve upon that? 

Overall this week was a good one, and I learned a lot. I hope all of you have another great week, and I´ll write you next Monday!

- Elder Preston Checketts

Hey, everyone! 

This week has been great, here in Chañaral!  The town is really peaceful, and right next to the sea, surrounded by mountains.  

I had the unique opportunity to visit one of Uncle Bart´s converts here in Chile!

When I entered Chañaral, I was really excited to be able to contact several of the people taught by Elder Vance, when he was here several years ago. I made sure not to forget the name Jorge Rojas, that he told me to contact, if I ever made it here. So the first thing I did when I got here, was ask the branch president where Jorge lived, and went to visit him. Unfortunately, when I passed by, he was working, but his wife made sure to tell him that I had passed by to see him. The rest of the week we worked as usual, with the hope to visit Jorge the next week sometime. However, during sacrament meeting on Sunday, during the opening hymn, the man in front of me passed me this photo:

Jorge was super excited to hear that Elder Vance was doing well, as was his sister Deisy, that got baptized at the same time as Jorge, but is not currently living in Chañaral. But upon the request of showing Elder Vance that he´s also doing well, we took this picture:

​Years later, and here´s Jorge, his mother, his wife, and his oldest son, who has since returned from a mission in Guatemala. It was super cool to be able to visit this family, and talk about his conversion, and all that has happened since the missionaries first knocked on his door in 1988.

In other news, my companion and I have a baptism this Saturday! It´s a 13 year-old girl named Catalina, whose mom is a less active member. Catalina was taught by the sister missionaries that were here before, and she has a lot of desire to be baptized and follow Christ. 

As well, today for p-day we took pictures of Chañaral from a local lighthouse. hope you enjoy :)

 

​Hope everyone enjoyed the photos, and I´ll let you all know how the baptism went!

-Elder Checketts

Hey, everyone!

This week was certainly eventful, with transfers that we really didn´t expect. My companion, Elder Burgos, and I are leaving Vallenar to go to a little coastal town between Antofagasta and Copiapó, called Chañaral. It stinks that we weren´t in Vallenar for very long, but I´m excited to start working and looking for more people in Chañaral. We prepared a lot of people in Vallenar, but the baptisms did prove to be more difficult to obtain. Nonetheless, I feel that we had a lot of success, and I´m excited to do the same here in a new part of the mission.  We're opening a sector together in Chañaral.  Beforehand, there were four hermanas in Chañaral, and President Ferreira decided to take them all out, and replace all four with Elders. So the whole city is being "white washed."  Chañaral isn´t as green as Vallenar, but it´s right on the coast, so that´s good :)  I´ll write you all to update you on Chañaral.  Have a great week!

-Elder Checketts​​   

Here are some pictures from Vallenar:

(From Preston's mom:  PJ didn't have time to write a public email this week, but he sent a picture of his area, that I'll attach below, and I'll share a little of my letter as well... AND, this past Friday, Feb. 17th, PJ hit his 1-year mark!!!  Crazy to think that it's been a year already!  The time has flown by so fast!!!  Also, He FINALLY got his new debit card, after several months & re-sending it twice!  So, he was able to go buy some new dress pants for $6.24 US dollars!  And it's funny, because the clothes that we bought him right before he left, all fit just fine, but several months ago he said that he had lost about 16 lbs!  So I wonder if he's lost more weight, since it sounds like his pants were getting so baggy! Hahaha!  At least he looks well & healthy in all of his pictures!  :))  

Wow, I`ve already hit a year!!! I can`t believe it either!!! About the pants I bought though... They were dress pants... because the ones I got from Mr. Mac are HUGE!!!! They`re clown pants, I swear! So I needed something that fit better. ;)   

Anyway, hope you have a great week, and I`ll talk to you again next week!  We are still working with those interested people!  We had several that accepted baptism immediately.... but they didn`t come to church :(  We`ll keep going!  Oh.... and today, we had a water balloon fight as a zone!

Talk to you later!  

Love, PJ

(I also asked PJ about a mural that he said he painted on the side of a school building in his first area (Alto Hospicio), for a service project, that he didn't mention until just a few weeks ago).  This is what he said...   I didn`t have my camera that day. For one, because we were in the sketchiest part of the sector, and I didn`t want paint on it either. But the mural was of hills and a sky, with kids playing and trees made out of the kids hands. Sorry I don`t take more pictures. I should do that more often. Or at least tell you guys more about what I do :)  (He's never been one to take a lot of pictures, or go on & on about details or brag about his accomplishments, etc., so we have to ask him lots of questions to get details...hahaha!)  

Here`s the picture of Vallenar from my sector:

Hey, everyone!

Hopefully you all had another good week, and that everyone is still enjoying the snow for me :)

As for my week here, we found several new people who are interested in our message as missionaries, and have commited to getting baptized. Today, we also have an investigator who is returning from her vacation in Peru, and will hopefully be getting baptized this week. 

However, this week we also had planned the baptism of Michael and his dad, Cristian. Cristian has been investigating for a long time, but is also investigating another church, and still isn`t sure as to which one he should join. For that reason, his and his son`s baptisms have been postponed, but we are going to keep working hard with him, to help him understand the Restoration of the gospel, and help him to undertsand that he can recieve his own answers through prayer. 

Also, It`s crazy what a mission does to your teaching skills. Before my mission, if someone told me 5 minutes before a class to give the lesson, I wouldn`t have been able to do it.... or we would have read the entire Book of Mormon as my ''class.''  But now, its commonplace and natural.  Lots of times, the teacher for gospel principles doesn`t come, so we have to do the lesson without planning.... and in Spanish.  It really keeps you on your toes ;)

That`s about all that happened this week, but we`ll be working hard with Cristian, Michael, and the other investigators that are progressing rapidly, to get them ready for baptism. Hope you all have another great week, and I`ll update you next Monday!

-Elder Checketts

Hey, everyone!

This week, we were looking for lots of people that are receptive & can be baptized soon. We found lots of people who were receptive, and commited to come to church. On Sunday, only one of those people came. The kid that came to church is named Michael, and has lots of real intent for a 14 year old. His desire to be baptized as soon as possible really animated us, but throughout the entire week, I was feeling really overwhelmed and pressured to be a better missionary, to find faster, to teach more effectively, to be a more consecrated Elder, and so on. As I was pondering this opposition I had felt the entire week, during church, the branch president got up to bear his testimony with the congregation. He started by saying that he had been thinking a lot about the apostle Peter during the week, and went on to share the story of when Peter walked on water. He explained that many times we are like Peter. We start a project or a task, with the faith the we can acomplish it with Christ`s help, but as we begin to examine the problems, we lose faith, and begin to feel like we are drowning in pressure and expectations. The branch president explained that when that happens, Christ is at our side, extending us His hand, and promising us that we can feel His relief and His peace, if we would just have faith in Him.  And that He will help us back up, and even during hard times, we don`t have to feel like we are sinking. As he explained this, the Spirit touched me powerfully, and I distictly felt that I had been losing faith, that I had begun to forget that the Lord will empower the laborers of His work, and will not permit that we drown in our efforts, as long as we don`t forget Him. That`s what I specifically learned this week, and wanted to share with all of you.

But in other news, today, being p-day, we went to the beach that`s not far from Vallenar:

I hope everyone enjoys the pictures, and I'll make sure to send more of Vallenar next week!  I'll write you all next Monday!

--Elder Checketts