Grateful for everything

t was so good to talk with the family this last week! I'm so happy everyone is doing good and is happy. 

On tuesday we had a conference with the whole mission. We watched the christmas devotional and president Videla talked to us. I love the missionaries here. There is always a little lunch after conferences and that's the best time. Eating and chilling with everybody. Oh yeah and that is when I got the package, Thanks so much for that!

We spent Christmas eve mostly with members. I know I've said this before but I seriously love the members here. I've been here about five months but it feels longer. It's almost strange how much this ward feels like home. We spent the night with the Vicharra family. They're super nice to us. We ate peruvian food that night that was way good. I'm not sure about the rest of south america, but at 12:00 is when all the little kids opened there presents. I wish we could've stayed until than because I wanted to see their adorable little girl open her presents but our curfew was at 11:00 :( I think I'll always remember walking home in the hot, summer, chilean, christmas eve night. My first christmas away from home. But feeling such comfort and peace. 

For Christmas we got to sleep in! first time in forever! until 8:00! ha :) The Vicharra family invited us back over to their house to eat breakfast with them. They had a little piano and Jimènez was playing hymns and we were singing. I don't think I've mentioned how good my comp is at playing the piano, like seriously he's amazing. After that we went over to another family to skype.  I was really excited to talk with the fam and as soon as I saw everyone it was like I had never even left. I wish I could've talked all day! oh well. After that It was pretty much just a normal day of work.

We received a reference from somebody on the street to visit a man name hector. They told us that he used to talk to the missionaries all of the time. When we met him he was laying in a bed. Half of his body is paralyzed. After talking to him for awhile we found out that he was baptized in the church awhile back. He was such a nice older man. Jimènez asked if we could sing a song for him. He always asks that, not that I'm really complaining. It's only that I have a terrible singing voice and his isn't a lot better :) anyways he suggests that we sing count your many blessings. While we were singing he started crying. Afterwards he told us he was so grateful how much the lord has blessed him in his life. Someone who has not been able to leave his bed was crying because he was so grateful for what he had. 

I read this talk by Dieter F. Uchtdorf this week. I really liked this one part: Part of our challenge is, I think, that we imagine that God has all of His blessings locked in a huge cloud up in heaven, refusing to give them to us unless we comply with some strict, paternalistic requirements He has set up. But the commandments aren’t like that at all. In reality, Heavenly Father is constantly raining blessings upon us. It is our fear, doubt, and sin that, like an umbrella, block these blessings from reaching us.

I hope everybody has a wonderful week this week! Party hard for new years eve! 

Elder Terry

Christmas week

I can't believe that it's already christmas week! I'm so excited to see and talk with everybody again!

We had a good week this week. On Tuesday one of the kids in our ward had his birthday. His name is howie, I don't know how he spells it though. He lives with his grandma and his grandma told us that he hasn't had a birthday party in a couple of years and if we could help her out with that. So we invited all of the kids his age to his house, and bought a cake and some chips for a surprise birthday party. Howie was so stoked when we showed up to his house with all of his friends and cake. His grandma was so thankful, she told us that they weren't planning on eating cake with him for his birthday because they couldnt afford that. 

Yesterday, we had a really cool experience. One of our investigators has a girlfriend who is a member of the church. They want to get married but the girlfriend said that he has to get baptized before they get married. He feels stressed out about all of that. He told us that he doesn't want to get baptized for the wrong reasons. He likes what we teach and likes the Book of Mormon and wants it to all be true, but he just hasn't gotten an answer that he is looking for. He told us that he reads his Book of Mormon every night and brings it with him to work because he just wants to know if it is true or not. And he's not lying, he has his Book of Mormon all marked up with notes and highlights. Elder Jimènez shared his experience with praying and receiving an answer that the book of mormon is true. Than he asked me what my experience with getting my prayer answered was like. I told him the truth, that I don't have a definite one time miraculous experience where everything came together and I knew everything was true. My experience is that I have read diligently the scriptures and have had many small experiences of feeling the spirit. And they build on each other, until now I can say that I truly do know that God exists and this is his church. Line upon line. 

Kind of in relation to this I have been thinking a lot about a couple of scriptures that I would like to share. The first is in D&C 58:6. 

6 Behold, verily I say unto you, for this cause I have sent you—that you might be obedient, and that your hearts might be prepared to bear testimony of the things which are to come;

The first part of this scripture makes sense, that we were sent here to be obedient. But I didn't understand the second part, What does it mean that ´´that our hearts might be prepared to bear testimony.´´ There is a cross reference to Isaiah 43:12. I really like this scripture. I think that we come to earth to realize that Jesus is our savior, and is our redeemer. His grace and his mercy are real, and he does exist. It's not easy to come to this knowledge because it requires patience and diligence. But he wins our hearts and he gains our trust through big and small things over time. He is always with us always his hands extended for us to come to him, love him, and trust him.  

 12 I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, whenthere was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God.

 Please tell Paul and Luke their big brother knows they are never alone and the Savior is their best friend.  That would be an amazing Christmas delivery from me.  

Like I said in the beginning I'm so excited to talk to you guys this week and see your faces. Have a wonderful christmas!

Elder Terry

My first baptism

Ha the picture with Emma and her date is so awesome! Why are Paul and Luke so messed up?

So I'm finally official in Chile! I finished up all of the visa stuff this week. The whole process was so fun. All the missionaries that I came with went together and we went to a few different buildings and had to be there on time, kind of adventure status. I love the missionaries that I came with, but it was super awesome just to chill with Clarine again for a day. Oh yeah they took my picture for the card and it turned out terrible, I was so mad. I looked so goofy haha. Actually I looked LIKE goofy. 

We had our first baptism! It was amazing. Marisol, all of her family are members except for her. She has a phobia of water but she was so brave she did everything no problem! The best part of the whole ordeal was that her son got to baptize her. Her son is 19 and wants to go on a mission and he was the main reason that she got baptized. The spirit was so strong, everybody was feeling it. Even our bishop, I love him, but he is like one of the coldest dudes in the whole world ha. In his testimony he started crying talking about their family. Me and Jimènez had smiles cheek to cheek that whole day. That night there family went to this concert at the temple together. I know it sounds cheesy, but they walked in all of them holding hands. You could just see how close they felt and how much love they had for each other. Dont get any bright ideas family, we are not holding hands when I get home.  Im just saying, it was really perfect for them.

So this concert was at the temple. It featured Marvin Goldstein and Vanessa Joy. I don't know if they're famous or not but everybody here was really excited that they were coming haha. All of the Santiago missions went. I got to see some more of my friends from the south mission that came together with me. The music was amazing. It was all in English, which I thought was lame since Im now such a master of Spanish ;)

So this week I met up with a lot of people that I came together with to the ccm. It's weird that we were only together for six weeks, but when we see each other it's like seeing your long lost friend. I hug Elder Clarine like hes my brother when I see him.  I'm so grateful that I got to go to the Chile ccm with so many amazing missionaries that are such good examples to me. 

Honestly this week was just so much fun. Weeks like this don't happen much on the mission so I definitely lived it up :) I hope everybody has a wonderful week and enjoys the Christmas season! Ten more days till we can skype.  Merry Christmas everyone!

If you're small, you might be Great!

I'm glad you guys had an awesome Thanksgiving! I had an awesome turkey dinner also.. NOT :) I forgot it was Thanksgiving until late at night on Thursday. We had a baptism set up for last Sunday but things didn't work out so we changed the date to later in December. But we had a good week this week.

On Wednesday we had a conference with a few other zones. The church made a video for Christmas titled, ´´he is the gift,´´ it's not very long only a little over two minutes but it is really good. You might've heard about it already but the church is going to market it really heavy. They bought advertisement in time square, have a youtube take over day where they are the only advertiser, and missionaries in my mission are testing the effectiveness of it and are supposed to talk about this video with everyone and record how successful it was for finding people. Watch it! it's good.

Thursday we had a family night at the church with members and our investigators. It was way fun. We got a good turnout, a lot of people showed up. We had food, played games, and watched a Mormon Message. I know a little crazy right?  It was a fun night with super good feelings.( unlike many of the Terry family home evenings where I timed your long lessons with a stopwatch and Paul literally bawled from how bored he was ;)

So in our ward there are two pairs of missionaries, our sectors are split down the middle. In the other sector there is a kid named Jose. Jose is seriously everyone's friend just because he is so sincere and nice. We had lunch with him and his family on Sunday and it was a blast. His favorite missionary was a missionary that was in that sector for 8 months. I know this missionary, he's a good missionary, but during his time in Dorsal he didn't have the success that he deserved. I could imagine him feeling discouraged about not having any baptisms in his time there. But seriously, this family talked about him the whole time. They love him. Because the missionary was so good to that family, Jose, wants to learn English and live in the United States. Realistically, I don't know if that will actually happen haha but you can see how much this missionary meant to that family. Often times we don't realize all the good we are doing until after. I hope I am planting seed here like that.  I hope I see this missionary again so I can tell him how he really impacted that family. I really like this scripture. D&C 64:33. Have a wonderful week everybody! Can you believe it is already December? crazy.

33 Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.

We all think we are small but guess what?  If you do, then get ready for some GREAT to proceed out of you.  Love you guys.  Dont waste time doing anything but having fun and serving others.  Max said so!