Earthquake Frenzy

On a spiritual high as of right now. General Conference came at the perfect time for me... The Lord knows me. I'm not a very intelligent person so its hard for me to remember all the words from the prophets and Apostles during this amazing General Conference but a few things that have stuck in my mind and won`t leave are 1. From Donald L. Hallstrom in the Priesthood session. We should be Priesthood men. Showing spiritual maturity in all things. We should be different because we have the Priesthood... That phrase won`t leave my mind and has changed my perspective on my mission, life, and future. What kind of Dad do I want to be?.... It hit me hard and I'm excited to put it into practice as of right now. 2. Uchtdorf. Are we Sleeping through the Restoration? Get up and do something... Love it. 3. Teach grace.... How as a Missionary can I teach real Grace? Those 3 things and many more hit me hard and I have never felt anything like I did during the sessions this conference. I'm a better man I hope. We were blessed to watch conference in English in our gringo room hahah It was fun... I ate too much junk food, but ehhh I don`t get fat so its okay :)

We were able to invite basically all of Tierra Amarilla to Copiapò to watch our Prophets and Apostles speak. We had 1 investigator who came. Jenny Smith who has a date for the 26th came. I hope she liked it. She is very shy with her feelings. We`ll get it out of her We have a Family Night with her and some members tonight. She is our only investigator who is progressing. We are doing lots of finding finding finding. Lots of street contacts and working through members. Alleen and Ximena also were able to come and they loved it as well. They are recent converts and I am so happy to see their progress. I love our prophet.

This week has been filled with some Bakàn earthquakes here in the North of Chile. The Missionaries in the North are okay. We have the Lord on our side. On Thursday there was a small earthquake in Tierra Amarilla. It felt really cool but gave me scared. All is well don`t worry. Rumors of some bigger ones on their way for Tierra Amarilla. On Tuesday the lights went out in all of Tierra Amarilla. It was awesome having an awesome Family Night under the Candle Light. Gotta love the Mission experiences. In our last District Meeting I had the Elders bring their journals... Missionaries are lazy and we never write in our journals so we did that for a while to catch up on our lives.... We`ll be thankful one day for our journals. 

Cambios were this week All 4 of us are staying here in Tierra Amarilla, I`ll be finishing the training of my kid. I'm excited. He`s a good kid. My MTC companion Elder Butler is coming down to Copiapò. I'm excited to see him again. Our mission is a lot different than others because we are soooo spread out. #NortherChileProbs I had a great intercambio this week with Elder Hotvedt, The other Elder in Tierra Amarilla He is such a good Elder I love learning from others. 

All is good here in Tierra Amarilla. The weather is starting to cool down, jacket weather. Our Mamita still cooks amazing food. I'm still super skinny. Shout out to my friends, Braxton Ipson got called to Columbia, Chance Aplanalp going to The Dominican Republic, and Gavin Smith going to Tia Juana. GO SPANISH SPEAKEN!!!! Crazy that the Sophomores when I was a Senior are headed out in a few months for their missions. Such great guys. I'm lucky to have friends like that. Love you all.

Elder Paxman

Earthquake and Tsunami

We have permission from our Mission President to Email you because Yesterday at about 9:30 pm there was a very big Earthquake here in the North Of Chile...It was a think an 8.3 on the Earthquake scale.. whatever you call that haha. I don´t know how big it was in the News in the States but President is getting lots of calls from worried parents. All the Missionaries are okay. 5 people died where the Earthquake was the strongest in a city called Iquique just south of Arica where they also felt the Earthquake strong. All the Missionaries in Beach border towns had to evacuate to the Mountains but all is good. Nothing happened here in Tierra Amarilla we are about an Hour away from the Beach, We just felt a little Earthquake is all. So ya... Im okay.. Im sure you were all veeeeery worried ;) hahah nothing happened to the Missionaries here. Love yal

Tierra Amarilla Swaggin Out

Well family and friends as much as I hate it, it came. The year mark. That's all I'm gonna say about it. I bought myself a cool red tie... I look hot.. That was random.

Well my good friends the Bolivians Luis Josè and Lizzeth are back in Bolivia for good. I'm not a fan of goodbyes and it was a tough one with them. Like I have said thousands of times before, you learn to love the people so much. I'm going to Bolivia one day to see them... They are good people...

We had some really good success this past week here in Tierra Amarilla. Not only our sector but the others as well. We are going crazy with putting the fechas with investigators. Without a fecha for baptism the investigators don`t have anything to work towards. So we were blessed to put 3 fechas and the other Elders 6 for the month of April. We are  working hard with the family of our recent convert Marianelal, Who lives out in Nantoco. (small town 20 minutes outside of Tierra Amarilla). Nantoco is so pretty compared to T.A. Grapes are a huge huge part of Nantoco and so there are fields of grapes out in Nantoco. I love the ride out there. Beautiful, comparative. So ya we put 2 fechas with her brothers, Jesùs and Juan, They want to get baptized sooooo bad it's just a rough situation because of the money to take a micro every Sunday. They have ZERO money and barely make it through the week with what they have let alone a ride to church every Sunday all 4 of them... It's rough but we are praying for a miracle. They are scheduled for the 26th of April. 

We are also working with the best friend of one of the members in the branch. Her name is Jenny Smith.... Second cousin of Joseph Smith.. Jk... But ya she looks gringa (white) and also her name. She also accepted a fecha for the 26th of April for her baptism. She is 16 and is going to need a little help quitting smoking and also not going out every Friday and Saturday nights until 3 in the morning... But hey... That's normal here in Chile so we just gotta get her on the right path. Her friend Alleen and the members will be a huge huge help with that. We are gonna be praying super hard for her these next few weeks. We are seeing the fruits of our labors here in Tierra Amarilla. 

We have a TON of investigators just not that many that want to keep our commitments. Chileans LOVE hearing the word of God and most think that is sufficient.. Acting is a big problem here but we are working hard with them all to realize it. Silly Chileans... Gotta love em... This past Thursday I went on an intercambio with my Zone Leader, Elder McCusker from Southern California. Probably one of my best friends on the mission, aside from Elder Sargent and Mangum of course. Elder McCusker has about 22 months on the mission and is one of my role models-heroes out here. It was so awesome working a whole day with him. He has a way of teaching and clicking with the people so well. I strive everyday to be like some of these veteran missionaries. I love love love intercambios basically for the reason to learn how to better teach a principal. I can`t really explain it to well of what I learned from this intercambio (change for the day) but I will always look up to my good friend Elder McCusker. 

The assistance in church is going up. We gotta keep it high and those families that come every now and again we gotta help come EVERY week. We have a lot of those families. But we are doing good. Working hard. Trying to be as obedient as possible. I love it. We had a great Noche De Hogar (Family Night) with the church about 30 people came. It turned out awesome. We played bowling.. I beat everyone ;) Still got it ;) and we also played musical chairs.

Chile has all their food-condiments inside of bags... I was squeezing my ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise from a bag and it finally hit me... How weird Chile is for putting their yogurt and milk and EVERY type of food in bags.... Silly Chile... Makes me laugh... 

I have been studying a lot of Spanish lately. I'm trying my best to become as fluent as possible. I love Spanish. Such a beautiful language... I know I didn't think that a year ago in my first few days in the MTC haha. All is good. Go read The scriptures. They answer whatever question you have in life... Love you all. I'm happy. My son is doing great. Better Spanish than I have ever seen someone with 2 months in the mission have. He is a good kid.

Con Mucho Amor Elder Pacman (Following what the Chileans call me)

My pen that lasted me 1 year and finally ran out of ink

Bowling for FHE

Bowling for FHE

Bowling for FHE

Pullay Parade, Completos, and Baptisms

Pretty normal week as a missionary.

The baptism of Evelin went amazing. She has so many fellowshippers in the ward. Our Mamita is literally the BEST with being so nice to the people that come into the church. Everyone feels so welcome because of the members. Few in number but they literally are so awesome. Evelin spent the whole day with Mamita yesterday after church and even went to the Stake Center in Copiapò for a Young Single Adults meeting or something. YAY FOR MEMBERS DOING THEIR JOB! Evelin is great. My Son did a great job for his first ever baptism in his life. He was happy. I was a happy father, we`re a happy family :) Yesterday I had the opportunity to give Evelin the Holy Ghost. I will never forget these experiences. Some of the greatest in my whole life. As I say amen seeing tears run down her cheeks puts into perspective how freaken awesome the church is. I love it. 

At this point now we don´t have much... We are working super super hard but we just don´t have many people progressing... or any.... But is that going to keep us down? NOOOOOO We are using this thing called the list. It's complicated but let's just say we basically have every address of every member that is now living in Tierra Amarilla. Even the ones who moved here without bringing their baptismal registry  from where they were originally baptized... We`re sneaky. So hopefully the work powers up soon! We need people. 

A great sight yesterday in church was having our 2 recent converts, Andres and Luis Josè, BOTH blessing the sacrament together. (The picture is with Luis Josè looking good in his white shirt and tie). I honestly couldn`t keep myself from smiling the whole time seeing my 2 Bolivian friends up there excising their priesthood, and also my other Bolivian friend, Evelin receiving the Holy Ghost.... Great sight in church yesterday. I love converts!!!!

There is this party-parade every year here in Tierra Amarilla. Really quite entertaining watching the Chileans trying to make these big floats to go down Main Street. There were some creative floats but some others that were very...... Chilean.... (2 transvestites pole dancing with little very clothes on). Silly Chileans... I love them hahaha. The parade was right after our baptism and we had to go get our traditional completos (Chilean hot dogs but better than hot dogs) like we always do after baptisms. And so we accidentally walked and took pictures by the parade... The parade is called Pullay.

Sorry not much more big news happening. I'm happy. I turn 1 year old in the mission in 3 days... That's depressing... I don't like thinking about it much. I don't want to come back. But I`ll send some pictures of me burning a shirt following the tradition of the mission. Luis Josè and Lizzeth both go back to Bolivia today... That's sad too. I'm gonna miss my Bolivian friends so much. I'm happy. I guess my package never came.. That also makes me sad. I sent some plaques for Mom, Dad, and Chase and some Chilean money holders for everyone, and watches to Chase and Seth, and also a Soccer Jersey to Chase... I Think the package got stolen. I sent it 2 months ago... That makes me sad... Oh well, worldly things... Love you all so much. 

Elder Paxman