Loving the Work! (Nov. 21, 2022)

Hey everyone! Another week down here and I can't believe how fast the time is going by. There is so much happening and for that I'm probably gonna write quite a bit, so if you wanna read it go for it, if you don't I don't blame ya cuz I probably wouldn't read it all. Lot's happened so I'll do my best to explain it all. 

First of all this morning me and Elder Holman went on an awesome hike up this mountain here next to Chimbarongo and it was gorgeous, we got pretty lost on the way up bushwacking up a steep mountain, it was pretty miserable but we're ight. We finally ended up on a trail and had it going down. At the bottom we had 3 absolutely terrifying pitbulls come at us and they had me cornered at a fence and my loml guapo compañero Elder Holman had a big old brick in his hand and he straight up saved my life from these nasty dogs. I can't truthfully explain this story over an email, but I'll just say that ol Elder Micheli was one scared boy. Another crazy thing is there is a druggy here that hates us. We have been teaching his mom and she's been progressing well, we teach her in her little yard and we were in a lesson with her and her son shows up outside her fence and just starts yelling at her demanding money and food and all kinds of stuff, super bad, long story short he starts flipping out about how he hates us and how we're bad when he sees us on the streets and that he wanted to beat us and rob us. So we were held hostage by this dude for a bit until his mom handed him a bag of stuff and he took off with it and she could hurry and let us out and we could take off the other way. Crazy stuff haha. There's always wild stuff happening it seems like, Chimbo is dope like that. 

This week was full of success and challenges. We had some super high incredible moments with miracles and then some more difficult moments. With that being said, this was probably my favorite week of the mission, I have just been feeling so much more love for the people and the work. I've been starting to feel like I want to do all the things in the mission work rather than doing it because it's just what missionaries do. I've really been able to feel that difference, and also a huge difference of just trusting and relying on the spirit. I honestly love Chimbarongo and serving here, I am finding the most joy of my life here and I can just truly feel myself growing spiritually here. The difficulties are people having their agency and doing all that we can to help bless their lives and I know that this is exactly what people need and lot's of the less actives are choosing not to follow it and it's been hard at times to handle that when we are doing everything we can and people just don't accept it, but then at the same time it gives us more motivation to work even harder. 

An awesome story from last week was when we found our new friend Pablo. We felt super strong Monday night that we we're going to find someone ready for the gospel in the week. So we prayed super hard that night and even more the next morning to know where to go, in our daily planning we had the spirit very strong and were both prompted to go to a place that was pretty far but we knew it was the spirit. So we looked and there was a grey point of a guy that lives over there and he had been taught like 9 months ago. When we got there all the direction said was house #14 and so we started looking and down one street there was a guy sitting in a car and I just said "That's him" and just somehow instantly knew, so we go up to him and ask if he knows a Pablo Fernandez and sure enough that's him. Such a miracle! He asked us what took us so long to find him and that he's been wanting to change his life and wants to be baptized. It was CRAZY! More to the miracle is that he had no idea why he drove out and sat in the road at that specific time, but he just did and we could find him. Later that week we found out there was no way we could've found where he lives on our own. We know God placed him in our path, it was incredible. We have really learned to trust in the spirit and to follow the council that it gives us. This was an incredible experience that we'll never forget. Moving forward with Pablo is he just got a job and doesn't have a lot of time and has been pretty nervous about being baptized and couldn't come to church yesterday so the truth is we have a lot more work to do with him. However, we know that he was placed in our path by God and we're going to continue to do everything we can with him!

Anyways there are always lots of crazy little things happening and miracles every day big and small, I have a ton of pictures and videos and I'm more than happy to share more of my mission with anyone who really just wants to hear about it from me. Just write to me on here or on messenger and I'd love to catch up a little bit with everyone! I figure that's probably enough to share with you guys this week, I hope you're all doing good and remember just how much your Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ Love you!

Elder Micheli

Chile Rancagua Mission