December 8, 2012

First I will tell you how the office is.  Basically it is completely different from normal missionary work because we are always in the office sitting instead of out teaching and walking all day.  There is a lot to do to run the mission.  A lot more than I had ever really thought about before.  There are a lot of things that have to be done that are just really little things, but if they don't get done then something bad happens.  There are a lot of little things like that.  Also, there are some really big projects that have to be done.  Right now I am organizing all the bills for gas, water and electricity for all of the houses in the mission into binders and creating lists of all the bills in the computer.  So I have to type all the information for each bill into the computer and there are hundreds of bills.  So that is fun.  Whenever we don't have something to do someone calls and asks us to do something more... haha.  It just never ends.  It is definitely different from normal missionary work, but just as important as well.  If the office doesn't run well, then the missionaries can't work.  So its kind of interesting how that works. The people in the office are really cool too.  I get along with the two office elders and the assistants really well, and there are two senior couples in the office as well.   So overall I am enjoying it here in the office.

Also, we are going to have a baptism today of a lady that the office elders have been teaching forever. She couldn't get baptized because she was living with someone, and they weren't married because he was in the process of divorcing his previous wife.  They were finally able to get married and now she is getting baptized today!  wooo!


So, this P-day we decided to get out of the office for a bit.  We went to an art museum that is downtown.  It was pretty cool, but also pretty small.  I actually liked the building it was in more than the actual art.  The building is super old and had art basically built into it.  The pillars of the building are people and there are all these sculptures and stuff on the walls.  It was pretty cool.

December 3, 2012

Well today we had changes in the mission.  Unfortunately I left my sector. :(  Normally I wouldn't be that sad because I wasn't getting along with my companion, but yesterday Janis got baptized !!!  Woooo!!!!  But now I'm not there anymore, so that made me pretty sad to have to leave her and not see her progression in the church.  I never really thought of the connection that I would have with my converts.  It is like she is part of my family.  But you always have to say goodbye in the mission.  I think that is the hardest thing about the mission, is it is a never ending stream of goodbyes.  So back to the changes, right now I'm in the office.  I'm working in the sector that the office is in with all the missionaries in the office, because they don't have time to work in the sector.  I'm going to be helping them with their work in the office and also going out to proselyte with them when they have time.  I'm kind of like the floater in the office.  It's a little weird, but it works.

I guess I will talk a little bit about the baptism of Janis.   It was so amazing to see her progress from nothing, to being a member of the church.  The changes that she has made in her life are so amazing.  She literally changed her life.  She is so happy now, when before she was so sad and frustrated all the time.  She finally can have peace in her life, or a peace of mind at least, even if the tings going on in her life aren't going that great.  I also learned something amazing from Janis, the impact that people can have in your life.  I have talked a little about the impact that we had on Janis, but also Janis has made a big impact on me.  She taught me how to look at life in a positive way when nothing is going good.  I don't know exactly how to explain it.  Just that every person has an impact in your life, and you have an impact in the life of every person you meet, and some that you don't even meet.

I don't really have any more for now, so love you all!

Elder Michael Knapp

November 26, 2012

Hello world!

Well this week has been alright.  So first I am going to start off with a story that happened a few days ago.  We were going to stop by the house of an inactive couple in the ward, but we ended up being really late because we had to go to an interview for someone to get baptized in another ward.  So we were just going to stop by to set up another appointment.  The wife answered the door and we talked for a bit and she said her husband was killing a rabbit.  I didn't really think much of it until she invited us to go watch.  haha.  It was one of those moments where you can't really say no, so we went back and watched.  Thankfully it was already dead when we went back there, but he started skinning the rabbit.  It was kinda gross to watch, but really interesting.  The skin and fur came off, but then there was another layer of skin under that, that holds everything together.  So it just looked like a rabbit with no fur and transparent skin.... yeah it was pretty gross.  The rabbit was a lot smaller without the fur though.  That was kind of interesting.  He was just going to throw the fur away and I almost asked him if I could have it.  Then I thought about it and realized I had no idea what I would do with it, so it would probably be better not to ask for it.  haha.

A couple weeks ago we went to a place to have shirts made for our sector.  They are pretty awesome.  We got them this last week.  The t-shirt says, te maginai?.  Which just means, can you imagine?, basically, but it's more of an inside joke.  It also has our names and a number on the back.

A cool experience I got to have was to give Janis a blessing this past week.  She has been going through a really rough time so we gave her a blessing of comfort.  It's really difficult to give a blessing in Spanish.. haha.  It's just talking, but you have to use a different form of language then we use every day as missionaries, so I'm not as accustomed to it.  I had to think about almost every word I used.  But it was a really neat experience.  Janis is doing really well.  Hopefully she will be able to be baptized this next Sunday before I get transferred.  I think that she will.

Not much really happened this week other than that stuff.  I don´t know if I have said this before, but we get to go to the temple once a year at Christmas time, so we should be going soon.  The temple is in Santiago, but not the part that is in my mission.  That will be a really cool experience.  It's really weird that Christmas is here already.  It doesn't feel like I have been in the mission very long because I left in the summer and well... it's still summer here.  haha.  All the days kind of blur together because we do so much of the same things every day.  I really missed being home for Thanksgiving.  I didn't even realize that it was already that time of year.  The mission is just like a bubble, you don´t hear or see anything that goes on in the world.

Oh, something that is really funny about the people in Chile, is that they all think that the United States is worse than Chile.  But they also want to be like the U.S.... it doesn't really make sense.  It does kind of get annoying when people are always talking about how awful the U.S. is though, but you get used to it. You just have to agree that Chile is freaking AWESOME!!!!  haha.

Well, that's all for now folks.  ¡choa choa!

Elder Michael Knapp

November 19,2012

Well things are going alright here.  Still having troubles with my companion that don´t look like they are going to resolve themselves.  So much fun there,but transfers are in another 2 weeks so I can make it till then.

No we didn't have Janis's baptism.  She isn't totally ready, so we will put it off until she is ready.

As far as the language, you have to learn Spanish or you can´t really do anything.   I feel like I am learning it well, but I just want to know it all already, seriously.  I understand almost everything.  The native missionaries are supposed to learn English, but they don´t care.  I have yet to meet a native that really has the desire to learn English.  Okay I have met one.

Today we climbed this massive hill that is the middle of Santiago.  It's called Renca.  It took like 2 or 3 hours to climb.  It was super hot too, so that part wasn't fun, but overall it was a fun trip.  It was really cool to see all of Santiago.   There is a giant cross on the top of the hill, I will send some pictures.  It is almost the only tourist attraction in Santiago, well, there is one other hill, but not much more.  Kind of lame right?

The other day we met some people that were literally the nicest people that I have met here in Chile so far.  Well, that weren't members.  They were just friendly and we had a fun little conversation that was just that.  Them asking questions about what we believed and us doing the same to them.  It was awesome.  It was such a relief to see that there are still good people in the world.  Sometimes I wonder with how many rude people we meet.  I was so happy the rest of that day.  Just goes to show you, that how you treat someone really has an impact on that person.

I will talk about food again cause I am hungry and I like food.  haha.  We eat with the members for lunch every day.  Normally there is a salad which consists of lettuce (a lot less then what you would think), and tomatoes, and sometimes other vegetables like corn or peas or something like that.  But the salads really aren't salads like we are used to, they just call them that.  There is usually a main course of rice and some type of meat, or soup.  They eat a lot of soup here, or pasta.  Those are the three main dishes that we eat, pasta, rice and meat, or soup.  It's pretty bland, but hey, food is food.  We cook on our own on Thursdays and sometimes Mondays, and if we want anything in the morning or at night.   We don´t really cook fancy at all, like rice and eggs or something super lame like that.  They have this spicy sauce here called aji that is super awesome and we basically put it on everything.

Well, that's all for this week.

Elder Michael Knapp

November 13, 2012

Okay, so this week has been a little more of a downer week.  Me and my companion have not been getting along very well.  Mostly because he tends to insult me when he is trying to help me, but I can take some of the blame too in not being very patient.  But oh well.   It is amazing that how you treat other people can have such a huge impact on how you feel yourself.  I think it's cause your actions reflect your emotions, as well as your emotions reflect your actions.  So change one of them and both are going to be affected.  I know from experience, especially here in the mission, that the way that someone treats you can make you feel so much better or so much worse.  It is so refreshing when we meet someone who isn't completely rude.

Things with the mission work are going pretty well.  We don´t have as many investigators as we have had before, but we are really focusing on the investigators that we do have to get them progressing.  Right now we are really focusing on three people.  Janis, whose baptism is planned for this next week, but she has been having problems with the word of wisdom, so we may have to push it back a week or two.  But she is awesome and still progressing.  We don´t know yet who is going to do the baptism and confirmation.  Her boyfriend left because she told him if he wanted to be there he couldn't do drugs anymore.  A man named Juan that is super awesome.  He loves the Book of Mormon and learning about the church.  And a girl named Francisca   She is only 12 but her mom is an inactive member who served a mission and everything.  She is amazing and the girls in the ward really made friends with her this past Sunday.  It is great to see people progressing in the gospel and the change that it can have in their lives.

Lets see... I don´t know what else.  I guess I don´t know if you all knew this, but we don´t speak English at all, except with the president's wife cause she doesn't speak Spanish.  It's because there are so many native missionaries that it would exclude them if we spoke English.   I don´t know why, but the native missionaries don´t really have a drive to learn English.  They know it could totally change their lives, but they just don´t do it.

I had my mom send me the weekly weather forecast cause we have no way of knowing what the weather is going to be like.  It is really nice to actually know how hot it is.  It feels so much hotter than 87 degrees.  Wow.  But we can never cool down either.  There is no air conditioning anywhere.  It is also humid here.  It was funny when I first opened my scriptures here, the pages started to curl up because of the humidity.  So yeah, that doesn't help how hot we feel either.  I'm jealous hearing about your big snow storm there.

I don´t really having any more for now.  Love you all!

Elder Michael Knapp

November 5, 2012

Hey ya'll!!!  so another week has come and gone.  Well... not much has happened... hmm...

This week has been lots of work.  ¡estamos sacando la mugre!  Yeah for those of you that don't understand, that means, we are taking out the trash.  Kind of a weird phrase in missionary work considering we are actually bringing people to baptism, but still.  Think of it as we are taking the trash out of people lives?  Yeah, let's go with that one.  haha.  We have been working really hard.

It is really hot here.  I am jealous of all of you that have winter right now.  It has been like 32 degrees Celsius this past week.  I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, but it is really hot.

This past week Janis finally decided she is ready to be baptized.  She will be baptized on the 18th!  Woot!  Finally!  She is so awesome.  We had a family night with her and another family from the ward last night and it was so much fun.  I'm so excited that she is finally ready.

Other than that, it has been fine here.  Me and my companion argued a bit, but what do you expect when you are with someone 24/7, and you are outside boiling for most of the day.  haha.  But we are cool now.  Not really anything else to report.  I guess I will talk a little bit about random stuff here.  The most common street food is completos/italianos.  It is basically a hot dog with diced tomato (lots), palta... (I don't remember the name in English ..), oh yeah, guacamole (lots), and mayonnaise (quite a bit),  and ketchup and mustard if you want it.  Pretty much every place has completos.

One more random fact is that the people always greet each other by giving besos, a kiss on the cheek.  Except for one man to another, unless they are family.  It is really funny because the girls always try and give us besos, but we can't as missionaries so we always have to say, "disculpe, solo podemos saludar con la mano como missionaros", or sorry we can only greet you with the hand (direct translation is kinda odd), but yeah.  So we have a lot of really awkward situations with that.

All the new missionaries going out is crazy.  They are opening an MTC-like place here for our mission alone to handle the new missionaries.  So they will leave straight from the U.S. to the mission to be trained.  They are doing that in a lot of other missions too.  That is their first plan to be able to handle all the missionaries.


That's all for now.  ¡Chao!

¬Elder Michael Knapp

October 29, 2012

20 years old!

Wow, I'm not a teenager anymore.  How weird is that?  Seems like just yesterday that we were all back in junior high or high school.  Those were some really good times, when we didn't have to worry about anything but school and stupid drama that was usually our own fault anyway, haha.  But we are all grown up now. How weird is that.

Well, this week was definitely .. different.  It started out amazing.  I was in a trio with Elder Metcalf (my old companion) and Elder Soto (my new companion).  It was so amazing the energy and excitement that was always there.  We had an amazing week with all the teaching and contacting that we did.  It was also weird how much success we had when we had so many other things going on.  We lost about a day and a half, if not two days, worth of work because we had so much stuff going on.  One day, I had some post training in the mission home and Elder Metcalf had a conference with all the missionaries that were leaving.  Another day, Elder Metcalf had an interview at the mission home, and then on another day we had to take him to the mission office when he was leaving.  It was crazy.  But we had more success this week than any other week so far.  It just shows how much potential there is.  Friday, Elder Metcalf finished his mission here in Santiago.  It was really sad to say goodbye.  He became a really good friend of mine.  I will always remember the things that I learned from him.  Saturday was my birthday!  Woo!  It started out really good, with opening my package from my mom. I had luckily gotten the package on Friday when we took Elder Metcalf to the mission office.  Normally I wouldn't have gotten it until the next Tuesday.  After that I kind of forgot that it was my birthday until the night time.  Haha.  But it was still a really good birthday.  One of the members baked a cake for me on Friday too. :)  Not much else happened.  Just a lot of teaching.  We found a lot of new investigators too.

One new investigator we found by a member of the ward who invited her boyfriend to come listen the lessons with us.  There are so many opportunities for missionary work as members.  Please, please, please, always be looking for them.  They are there, you just don't realize it.  Also, I am going to recount an experience that Janis (an investigator) had.  She went to church one Sunday a few weeks back and not a single person talked to her.  She knew people at church, she sat with them the time before when she when to church.  We told people to go talk to her and all they did was say hi.  She felt horrible after that experience and almost stopped letting us teach her.  I want to share a little of what I learned from this experience, because I didn't know this before my mission either.  There are people that go to church all the time that are investigators, that stop going because of the members.  I just have a little bit to say about this.  WATCH FOR THOSE PEOPLE IN CHURCH, and go and talk to them.  Become their friends.  It doesn't matter if they are dressed weird or not like everyone else, because let me tell you something, a lot of people don't have dressy clothes like we wear to church.  Something that I read in a talk said, those who really understand the Atonement and its significance will do all they can to share the gospel. All I have left to say is, please, watch for these opportunities, and have the confidence to act.

A little bit about my new companion, his name is Elder Soto and he is from Peru.  He is super awesome and an absolutely amazing teacher.  I'm so excited to get to serve with him and learn from him.   Everything it good here with me.  I'm happy and we are working hard.  Hope you are all well!

¬Elder Michael Knapp

October 22, 2012

Well here we are again.  So we had changes today, but all is basically the same with me.  I am still in the same area and Elder Metcalf is still my companion, but we are also in a trio with Elder Soto!  Woo! Elder Soto will be my companion in 4 days when Elder Metcalf leaves. :(  But Elder Soto is awesome and I am glad he will be my companion.  We already know each other because he was in the other companionship that lived in the house with us.  I am sad to see Elder Metcalf leave because I have really enjoyed being his companion, but I am just grateful that I was able to be his companion at all.  It wasn't a normal thing that we were put together because it cut my training and the training of another missionary in half.  (If you didn't know, after the MTC there is a program in the mission field where your companion teaches you for another 12 weeks, or 2 transfers, for 1 hour every day.)  I will still be finishing this, but with Elder Soto, normally you do it all with one missionary.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that Elder Bednar was coming to the mission and was going to have a conference with us.  He came on Saturday and we had a 3 or 4 hour conference with him.  It was absolutely amazing!  It was kinda funny because everyone was exhausted after the conference because the Spirit was so strong.  It really takes it's toll on you.  I just want to share one experience from that.  First, the whole conference was basically on the importance or action of faith, and faith in prayer.  Elder Bednar gave us 2 talks to study beforehand, one of them was, "Ask with Faith".  It is an absolutely amazing talk on faith in prayer.  I highly recommend that you read it.  One experience that we had during the conference was when a missionary said that she had received an answer to a question that wasn't even talked about in the conference.  Elder Bednar then asked us to raise our hands if we had received an answer in the same way.  Almost every single missionary raised their hand.  Elder Bednar then said that this manifestation of the Spirit is more powerful than even the parting of the Red Sea.  For a moment I thought, "No, how could this be more powerful that that.  That was mind blowing, this is just an answer to a question."  I didn't believe what he said, but as I thought about it I came to realize that what he had said was true.  Almost every person in that room had received revelation, personal revelation, to a question that they had.  How amazing is that!?  As I thought about the phrase, "seeing is not believing", I realized that this experience we had was so much more powerful than the parting of the Red Sea.  Laman and Lemuel both continually rebelled after see angels and miracles in so many moments, because they only saw with their eyes.  It is these moments of the Spirit that build our testimony and help us to continue forward.  We don't have to see something in order to believe it, or know it is true.  I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true.  I know that it is true, because I have felt it for myself.

Okay, my mom wanted more info on the earthquake.  It was really small, only like 5.9 or something like that and lasted like 15 or 20 seconds.  There was absolutely no damage from it.  Anywhere.  Yeah, that is basically all.  It freaked me out at first because, well because it was an earthquake, but other than the adrenaline it really wasn't anything, I'm not scared of earthquakes now or anything.

As for the cats, I forgot to say that they moved.  The mom took the kittens one by one and moved them.  It was actually really fascinating to watch.  I also have a video but I doubt I will be able to send it through email.  So we don't have them anymore.  It's for the best cause I would have been really sad if they had died.  It's better that I don't know anymore.

Other than that, not really much to report here.  Hope you all are safe and well!

¬Elder Michael Knapp

October 15, 2012

Okay, first off... WOOOO!!!!

Yeah, I don´t know... haha.  But this week was pretty good.  I don't really remember much of what has happened.  I have been super tired this week so it has all kinda blurred together.  I guess I will start with the fact that there was an earthquake (how do you spell that?... In Spanish it's terremoto o algo así), but yeah.  That was really fun.  We were in the house studying and all of a sudden it started to shake.  It wasn't really big, only a 5.9 I think, something like that.  But it was quite an adrenaline rush.  It was only like 20 sec. long, so it wasn't even a very long one either.  There was no damage or anything like that.  Oh, a few papers fell off my desk, that was all.

Lets see... not much new with my investigators today either that there is to talk about.  This week I had about 3 or 4 people share experiences or miracles that they have had in there lives.  I will say a bit then recount the stories.  It is really amazing how in tune with the Spirit that the people are here, it seems almost an inherent trait that they have.  It's really amazing.  One lady and one man told us almost the same story, that they were really sick laying in bed and they saw God standing by their bed.  You could put this off as they were just hallucinating or something like that, but the Spirit that I felt as they told us makes me believe that in the very least they saw an angel.  I don't know, it really is just so amazing.

I had my first intercambio this last week.  Sorry, I don't know the word in English, maybe... exchange? no sé...  But anyways, it was fun.  I was with Elder Cambroni, from Mexico, who is also new.  More new than me, which was weird because I was the more senior companion, so I got to lead the sector for the day.  It was good to learn from him.

Not really much else on my end.  Just keep letting me know what's up in the world.

Love you all!

¬Elder Michael Knapp

October 8, 2012

Well, What did you think of general conference?  I will tell you what I thought of conference.  Well first I will start by saying that I listened to the entire thing in Spanish   Now this was good and bad.  First of all it was bad because i couldn't understand about a third to half of it.  But at the same time, I learned just as much as I would have if I had listened in English, if not more.  The reason for that is, because it was in Spanish I had to give all my focus the entire time.  And because I couldn't understand everything that was being said by the speakers, I was able to listen to what was being said by the Spirit.  Just to give an example of how little I really understood, my mom asked me about a one of the talks and I have no idea what she was talking about... haha.

Here are a few of the things that I learned anyway.  First, is the importance of family, (wow i couldn't think of how to say that in English for a little bit).  Here in Chile almost everyone lives with a lot of family, grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, everyone.  Family is very important to them.  But one thing they don´t understand is that their family can be together forever.  As I listened to conference it really just struck me how important families really are.

Second, is how to be happy in life.  There were many moments where I felt like the speakers were saying that the key to being happy in life depends on you.  It has nothing to do with what you have, or anything else.  Your happiness in life depends on your attitude.  If you want to be happy, change yourself, not what's around you, and as you change yourself you will find your surroundings changing as well.

The third thing that i will share is another thing about how to be happy with your life.  If you can´t find anything good in life, in a day, in a moment, then you aren't looking hard enough.  Take the time to enjoy the life around you, the small things.  I had a moment like this one day here in Chile.   I had had a terrible day.  We barely taught any lessons, no one wanted to talk to us, and so we walked.  And walked.  And walked.  But at the end of the day, we saw the sunset, and it was so beautiful.  I felt in that moment, happiness.  I had had a terrible day, but it wasn't because the day was terrible, but because I was too busy thinking of all the things that could be, and not the beautiful things around me, of the love that Christ has for each person that rejected us, or the opportunity I have to serve my Lord.  These small moments in life pass us by in every moment, we just have to stop and look.

So now all you girls are going to go serve a mission?  haha.  That was a big announcement.  I really enjoyed watching the faces of everyone in the conference center, and then realized that I was making the same face, staring at the screen mouth hanging open.  haha.  I think it is absolutely amazing that they made this change.  For the boys it won´t make a huge difference, but enough that there will be a lot more young missionaries.  For the girls, I think it is amazing that now there will be more sister missionaries.  They have an amazing spirit and can do a lot that elders can´t. There are always more people that need the gospel then there are missionaries to teach them.  We always need more missionaries.

Everything is basically the same with me here.  The food is not much different from the US, the culture is also basically the same.  The Spanish, I don´t think that I will ever be totally comfortable with the language, but I am learning.

Just a little side note, if you are going to write me a letter you should email me because the mail takes about three weeks to get to me.  I got some letters 3 or 4 days ago that were dated like... 12th of September or something like that.  So you can send it through the mail if you want, but it is pretty slow.  I don´t know what else to say right now... I had thought of some things last night but I forgot... yeah..  Hope you are all doing well!

¬Elder Michael Knapp

October 1, 2012

I´m starting to lose track of the days... They are blurring together into walking, teaching, and contacting.  haha.  But I guess that's what life is as a missionary.  So... today we had a zone activity where we played fútbol and ate a bunch of food and stuff, it was fun.

So with Gabriel we still haven´t challenged him to be baptized, because every time that we are about to, his mom comes in or says something that just totally kills the Spirit.  We are still teaching him, but he also hasn't really read any of the Book of Mormon, so we are trying to get him to do that right now.

Janis has had a lot of good experiences.  Not yesterday, but the Sunday before, she had a bad experience at church because no one talked to her and she didn't feel welcome at all.  But we had a member come to a lesson with her last week and convince her to come to church yesterday.  She had an amazing experience in one of the classes, they talked about eternal marriage and the types of things or blessings that it can bring into a home.  It really helped her to see what she can have if she decides to follow the law of chastity and be baptized.  We had a lesson with her later that day and it was so amazing.  She really wants to have an eternal family because family is all she has.  I think she will come around eventually and decide to do what she knows is right.

We had an experience this week where we were going to an appointment with Janis.  While we were walking there we saw her in the street going to the doctor because she had been sick.  We decided to go to her house anyways and try and share with her sister, because we have shared with her once before.  When no one answered the door we went and contacted this woman that was just standing on the sidewalk.  Her name was Jakylin (spelled something like that) and we started talking to her. She said that she had had the worst past couple of days and she explained a little of what had happened, it really kind of had been pretty horrible.  We shared how much God loves her and how she can receive blessings in her life, and things like that.  She then told us that she felt so much love and peace and joy when we started talking to her.  She basically said that she was feeling the Spirit.  At this point we were pretty pumped cause YA!!! she feels the Spirit!!! Woot!!  We talked a little more about the doctrine of Christ.  After that she told us another story, that earlier that day something had told her that everything was going to be alright (cause she was super depressed), that God would send two angels to send her a message to tell her what she needed to do.  Now at this point, I don´t even know how to describe it, the Spirit was so strong.  We shared more about the restoration and Joseph Smith and gave her a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet.  Then we went on with our day.  This testified to me that the Lord really does prepare people to hear the gospel.  It is truly amazing the Spirit that is in this work.  I really don´t know what to say about this experience, but to testify of the Spirit that I was able to feel.

We also taught a lesson with a new investigator name Isabel.  She didn't know anything about the life of Jesus Christ, or really anything religious for that matter.  It was really interesting to teach her because we literally had to define and describe every religious word that we used.  It was a good experience and a good lesson.  She seemed really interested and I hope she continues to want to learn more.

There is a lot of reactivation work here in Chile. In my ward there are about 800 members, but only 100 of them are active.  It is really sad, but it is the truth.  We teach some reactivation stuff, but mostly we try to just find and keep new members.  Mostly because we can´t find the non-active members.  A lot have moved and we don´t know where, things like that.  For that reason, we mostly just teach new investigators.

That's all for this week. Oh, I think I forgot to say that we named the cat Cajóna, because Cajón  means 'a drawer' in Spanish, so... yeah.  The kittens don´t have names, they all look the same as the mom except one that is black.  Love you all!

¬Elder Michael Knapp

Sept. 24, 2012

Hey All!

I will start by answering some questions that my mom asked that might be interesting for you all to know.  We do both tracting door to door and just talking to people in the streets, but generally just talking to people in the streets in between teaching appointments.  My Spanish is coming along alright.  Poco a poco.  I am understanding a lot more than I was last week, but that still isn't much.  It is really hard to learn new words too because we don't have the same kind of study time as in the MTC, but its coming along.  And lastly, no my feet don't hang off the bed.  haha. We have normal twin sized beds.  Not all Chileans are short, just most of them. ;)  So although the beds are normal sized the doorways aren't always normal.  Needless to say, I have hit my head now many times.

The 18th (their Independence Day), was just like any other day, we tracted, taught, all the usual stuff.  The only difference was that night we went to the activity that the ward was having.  They had food and drinks there.  They were just dancing so we couldn't really do anything but sit there and watch, but it was still fun.  It was really interesting to see all their different dances that they have.  It was nothing like any dance that we have in the US.  They pretty much only did their native Spanish dances.  At one part they had some Brazilian music where they did some line dances (those were really entertaining to watch cause they're totally not like how you would think of a line dance being.)  But that was all for the 18th. Oh wait, we got pulled (literally pulled) into two houses by drunk guys.  Inside there was just a bunch of drunk people sitting there wondering why in the world we were there.  It was pretty funny.  We just kinda talked for a minute or two and they found a way to escape.  Their Independence Day is like our Fourth of July mixed with Thanksgiving; they eat a ton and all the family gets together like Thanksgiving, but then also party and all that fun stuff.

We we had a surprise on Saturday.  On Friday a cat got into our house through an open window.  We didn't know it was there until Saturday morning when I went to put my socks on and reached into my sock drawer.  I felt something super soft and it freaked me out. I couldn't actually see into the drawer because there was a thing in the way so it only opened enough to put my hand in.  I jerked my hand out and like 50 thinks flashed through my mind of what it could be.  But then I moved my sock out of the small opening and there was a cat...  Needless to say I started screaming in English that there was a cat in my drawer (I only say I started screaming in English because we only speak Spanish so it was funny).  So all I could see was a little cat face and so I moved some more stuff and "THE CAT HAD BABIES IN MY SOCK DRAWER!!!!!" Yeah the cat had babies in my sock drawer.  5 I think, maybe 6, but yeah.  So after a while of discussing what to do we finally decided to make a little home for them until we could find someone who wanted them.  So outside of our apartment we made a little house and have been feeding the mom.  It's pretty crazy.  So yeah, we have like 6 or 7 cats now!

We haven´t really had many progressing investigators lately.  I hope that we will be able to commit Gabriel to baptism today.  He was the first person that we taught my first day here in Chile.  We haven´t been able to teach him for a week because of the holiday.  We do have one investigator named Janis.  She is super awesome and has a testimony and wants to learn more.  After we taught her the law of chastity she broke up with her boyfriend and the were separated for a week.  Then they got back together and they are planning to get married, but not until next year.  It's really frustrating because she was progressing so well and then he came back into the picture and now we don´t know what to do because she can't get baptized as long as she is still breaking the law of chastity.

I can't think of anything else at the moment that is worth mentioning....  Oh a little side note, I am allowed to write emails to people who aren't family, so if you want to email me my email is william.knapp@myldsmail.net.  But, just so you know, I don´t have an unlimited amount of time to write, so if you do write me I may not respond immediately.

Okay I think that's all for today.  Love you all, hope you are doing well!

Elder Michael Knapp

Chile Week 1: Sept.17, 2012

¡HOLA!

Well my first letter that is actually from Chile!  I must say it is extremely difficult to type this because the keyboards have some different keys on it... haha.  So lets see.... so far we have done all the normal stuff I guess. Contacting, teaching, baptizing, you know... the kind of stuff that awesome missionaries do. ;)

Well I guess I will start with my companion, his name is Elder Metcalf.  He is from Kerns, Utah.  He is currently in his last transfer here so I will be getting a new trainer after 6 weeks.  It's too bad that he will only be my companion for one transfer because he is awesome.  He is so energetic and happy all the time and just loves the work.  I have been having such a good time with him here. He also has a crazy good memory with people.  I don't know how he does it, but he can remember everything that people have told him.  I don't know if it is because he has just had so much practice with it, or if he can just do that, but either way it is super helpful.  I want to be able to remember like that. But yeah, I feal very blessed to have him as my companion.  Oh and I just found out that his birthday is tomorrow! woo! He is turning 21.

Let's see... so I guess I will talk about Chile a bit then.  So far it has been cold and cold.  It warms up a little during the day but not much.  It is still pretty cold outside right now at noon.  Well, my area I'm in right now is called San Pablo and my sector is Lo Prado.  I don't really know how to describe it here.  It's really odd... everyone kind of lives in tiny little dirty houses, but then inside they have these nice plasma tvs and stuff.  It's really odd. So I guess you could say I'm serving in the "suburbs", but it's not like it is in Utah.  It's a whole lot more ghetto.  Take a house, get rid of the yard, make the house about the size of your kitchen and living room, tack on a small bedroom and a bathroom and that's about it.  Oh and add a nice computer and tv.  haha.  Sounds awesome doesn't it?!?!  No, I really love it here it's great.

Let's see... so we have this mission wide goal where each companionship has to get 140 contacts every week, it's like 20 per day.  Well last week the first two or three days that I was here we didn´t really get that many contacts because I was scared to talk to people and my companion couldn´t do it all.  So we had to get a lot yesterday.  So insead of the usual 20 for yesterday we got 55... woot!!!  Yeah I have been talking to people and asking if we can teach them and I can't even understand what they say to me. It's awesome!  Oh, something different in our mission, we don´t wake up at 6:30 in the morning, we wake up at 7:30.  I like it, but that means we also go to bed an hour later.  So it's still the same amount of sleep, but just an hour later.  In my apartment the ceiling above the shower is too low so I have to hunch the whole time.  It's great fun.

So about my investigators, we taught one guy who is about 19 or 20 years old, his name is Gabriel.  He is really cool and really wants to learn more about the gospel and has all these questions.  I think that it would be a really great to have him baptized.  But every time we teach him his mom comes in half way through and basicallly asks us to re-explain everything we just taught again.  So that is really frustrating.  We were going to ask him to get baptized this last time, but his mom came in and totally killed the spirit so we didn´t do it.  We also taught this other man Juan (everyone here is named Juan I think) and we commited him to be baptized in October.  That was really cool.  We also have some other investigators that have stopped letting us teach or are gone, that my companion was teaching before that I don´t know.  Hopefully we will be able to continue teaching them after the holidays.

The Independence Day of Chile is tomorrow.  So we haven´t really been able to teach anyone because of that.  Basically just making contacts for the next week.  So I am going to be eating tons of food tomorrow.  Which I'm kinda glad for cause we haven't had much food the past couple of days.  It will also help that today we will go buy some food that we will be able to eat in the morning and night.  We didn't really have anything because we hadn't had a p-day to go shopping yet.

I love the ward we are in.  The people are so nice.  I think that hispanic people in general are just so much nicer and happier.  That's what it seems like anyways, probably not completely true.  There is this one family that we had lunch with yesterday that is super fun and nice.  The other trio of missionaries that we live with had a baptism yesterday.  His name is David, he is awesome.  He is deaf, so we have been learning sign language from him.  So not only am I learning Spanish but I am also learning Spanish sign language, interesting no?  I like it, but I would like it more if I knew Spanish already, haha.  I am also teaching English classes.  So a lot of fun stuff has been happening.  Lots of members are attending the sign language and English classes, which is good because we get to know them better. But we are hoping to get some investigators to come to the classes... We tell everyone that says something in English to us that we have classes, but still no one has come. Oh and a lot of people yell hello at us just cause we are from America, it's fun.

The elders that we live with in the trio are Elder Wright (another newbie), Elder Soto (from Peru), and Elder Baldwin (he is like 6 foot 6 inches or something like that and from Arizona).  They are awesome.  We are always laughing and having fun in the apartment.

The food is alright.  Nothing I have had has been super amazing or super bad, just kind of bland so far.  Lots of bread and rice.  We had soup one day while it was pretty hot outside, that was weird.  Cause in the US we only have soup when its cold, but here they have it all the time.  In Chile they eat a small breakfast, a massive lunch, and then what they call once, which is kind of like dinner.  But we aren´t allowed to each once, so we eat lunch and then by 9 we are starving, it's kinda fun.  I'm not sure why, but it really is.  As for transportation, we walk....a lot...  yeah.

Well, I love you all.  All the way from Chile!

¡Cuidense!

=Elder Michael Knapp=  :D


For sending mail and packages they say the mail is great.  Do NOT use Fed Ex or anything other than the US post normal system.  ONLY the normal US post, otherwise it gets stuck in customs and we have to pay like 100 bucks to get it out.  The address is just the mission office address.  It should be up on the blog.

Pres. & Sister Essig & Elder Knapp

Pres. & Sister Essig & Elders Knapp & Metcalf

From the Mission Blog that I found interesting:

Chilean Money
Chile has some beautiful money.  The numbers on the bills can be a little intimidating, but I was told you take off the last 3 zeros and then double the number.  That gives you the amount the bill is.  Bills are called “mil”, they also have pesos.   For example there is a 20000 mil bill.  Take off the last 3 zeros, which makes it  20 and multiple by 2 and you get a bill that is worth about $40 in American.  Here is a list from Sis. May, the former mission president’s wife to give you an idea of what you may see.

CHILEAN MONEY/Dinero using Bills and Coins/ Monedas

These are approximates, round off for averages
One mil means 1,000= $2.00
½ mil, or 500 coin= $1.00
100 peso coin= about 20 cents, less than quarter
50 peso coin= about 10 cents, like a dime

You do the math for the other tiny coins, less than 1cent!When you see prices, we usually just double them to get the idea of what they cost in dollars. For example:

Hot dog/completo= 1,200. or $2.40
Soda drink=750 or $1.50
Sandwich =1,600 or $3.20
Pancito/Little bread=200 or $.40
Bus ride=380 or $.76
Metro=420 or $.84
Meal Mamita/Comida 1.800=$3.60
Treat/candy=100 or $.20
Cone/Helado=600 or $1.20
Ruby Tuesday meal=6,400. or $12.80

Things are not cheap for Americans like in some countries. The largest paper bill is 20,000 and approx $40.00. Sometimes they look at it like you just handed them a $500 dollar bill, and they are not used to seeing those much and don’t like to make change!
No one is really used to tipping here, so you can just leave something VERY small and they still like that.

MTC Week 8: Sept. 5, 2012

Hey Everyone!

Okay, so I only have 5 days left here. WOOO!!!! But also no wooo. haha. It is so exciting to be able to finally be able to go out and teach people but I'm also really scared because, well lets face it, I am not going to be able to understand anyone when I get out there. I don't know if I have said this yet but Chileans are one of the fastest dialects of Spanish in the world. But it will be so fun and I am so excited! So I am leaving Tuesday morning, and guess when I get to Chile? Wednesday morning! So pretty much I'm going to be sleeping for 25 hours. haha. Okay not that much, but only because I will be walking from one plane to another in Atlanta, so close to 25 hours. Oh, I'm also looking forward to another summer when I get to Chile :), even though I have gotten so white from being inside all the time here in the MTC so I will probably fry when I get there.

Okay, now to talk about what I have been doing here in the MTC. I have forgotten to say this in the last two letters. So two weeks okay from this last Sunday I had to sing a solo in church. Sorry to all my family that always tried to get me to sing in church, but they really didn't give me much of a choice. haha. But it was kinda funny because like 2 days before that Sunday I got sick and could barely sing the song, (I sang, Come Thou Font of Every Blessing). But I still got up and sang during sacrament meeting and thankfully didn't crack or anything like I had been during practice. But that was a really fun experiece. I am really glad I got to do that.

It was cool on Sunday, for the devotional we got to watch the video of the "Celebration of Life", the 85th birthday celebration for Pres. Monson. It was really cool and I would recomend you watch it. I thought it was really good but maybe because I haven't heard real music like that for 2 months. haha. But it really was good.

Well my spiritual thought for the week is from the devotional that was last night. The speaker said "The Lord will answer your prayers in your own language." She was refering to the challenge of learning a new language, but I think it means more than that.  How the Lord knows each of us so well, that when we pray with faith, He will answer us in a way that is personal and unique for each one of us, in a way that we will perfectly understand. I know this to be true from my own personal experiences. God does hear and answer our prayers.

--Elder Michael Knapp

MTC Week 7: Aug. 29, 2012

Well, sorry to say but this is going to be a shorter letter this week. I don't have very much time today. So... I only have 2 weeks left here. Weird to think. I can't wait to get out and serve the people in Chile. I am really excited  Though I would be lying if I didn't say that I was also very nervous. I guess that means I need to have a little more faith that the Lord will take care of me.

Well, since last Wednesday not much has happend. I have two new teachers now and they are pretty good. Not quite as awesome as my last two teachers, I don't really think anyone could beat them, but they are still good. Not much else is new really.

We get our travel plans tomorrow! That's exciting. We should be leaving to go to Chile on September 11. So only one more P-day here in the MTC. So all you that haven't written me yet, do it before next Wednesday, so I can have your adress so I can actually write you back when I get to Chile.

I guess I will just share a spiritual thought and be done. I learned a lot of things last week. It was probably the most spiritual week of my life. It was amazing and I will never be the same because of it. "There is nothing too small to pray about." I truly believe this is true. The Lord is standing with his arms open, always waiting for us. One of the ways we can come to him is through prayer. The Lord with strengthen you, comfort you, and always be there when you need him. When we pray we can have the comfort, that help that we need. I want you all to know that I know this gospel is true. I know Christ lives and loves us. I'm not one to do something that is hard that I don't want to do. A mission is hard, the hardest thing I have ever done. But I want to be here because I KNOW that it is true. I love you all.

--Elder Michael Knapp

MTC Week 6: Aug. 22, 2012

Well, this week was pretty awesome. Sadly I forgot to write in my journal this week so I don't really remember what happened those days, cause writing in my journal is the only way I am able to actually tell you all that is going on here. But I have everything from the other days and it is some awesome stuff so buckle up. Actually it probably was only awesome to me and you will just be really bored... So buckle up! ha-ha.

On Friday of last week I wrote this is my journal:  So today was proabaly the best day in the MTC that I have had so far. It started off with an amazing class with Hermana Breedlove. She is one of my teachers, she served in Panama and is basically awesome. Sadly she will be leaving us after this week to go to a different district because her hours got changed because of school :( so now we are losing both our teachers. But she was so much fun that day. Usually she just seemed annoyed with us when we goofed around, but that day she was laughing and making jokes with us. It was great! (I think it may be because she got a boyfriend or something.... but who knows. maybe she just finally decided she likes us.) Well, after that class we had class with Hermano Sheide, where we beat the top record in this game we have been playing with him the whole time we have been here. As his final district, after teaching here for three years, we have the top score. That's alot of districts that we were able to beat. After that we had one of our zone resource teachers, who was also our first investigator, come teach a lesson to one of the investigators we have now. It was AMAZING. That is the kind of missionary that I want to be. She invited the spirit so easy and cunstructed the lesson perfectly for the investigator, and she did it all right on the spot. It was awesome.

On Saturday I started getting sick, that has been no fun. I have a nasty cough but that's pretty much all I still have.

Lets see.... today is our last day with Hermano Sheide. It is very sad but at the same time I am so grateful that I was able to have him as a teacher. He has definately changed who I am, and will be as a missionary and a person. So now on to talk about yesterday. You know how I wrote that Friday was the best day I have had in the MTC? Well I would have to say that, that has now changed. Yesterday I cannot even really describe how amazing it was. I learned yesterday how much the Spirit can teach you. I think this is one of the most important things that I have learned while being here, how to recognize the spirit and follow those promptings. Yesterday I especially learned that. Yesterday I also had the opportunity to hear from an Apostle. Neil A. Anderson came and spoke. It is the first time so far in the MTC that one has come. It was really cool. I was able to be in the 4th row and it really was amazing. I will mention some of the points he gave in his talk.

1) Follow the prophet
2) Do your duty
3) Trust in the Lord so that He can make you an instrument in His hand
4) Let the Lord shape your back
         -Whom the Lord calls the Lord qualifies
         -The Lord will shape the back to bear the burden set upon it
5) Smile, enjoy yourself
6) Love the people you serve
7) Never ignore a prompting from the Spirit
8) Become converted to The Lord Jesus Christ

"I know that I am weak, but in Him I can be made strong."

I will never let my mind doubt that this gospel is true, that Christ lives and is the Savior of the world. It is true.

-Elder Michael Knapp

MTC Week 5: Aug. 8, 2012

So... another week has come and gone. Well I guess I will first just start by saying I'm sorry if I ever sound negative or sad or anything in these letters, cause I'm really not. This place is amazing, and this time has been the most amazing and uplifting time in my life, but because it's always amazing it becomes the norm. So because of that, the bad things or my struggles are the only real "new" things in my life, so I tend to talk about them more in my letters. I will be more positive from now on though.  :D

With that being said, my district is awesome. It's really interesting because normally I would never be friends with probably most of them if not all of them, but we have bonded so much that I don't think it would be possible to stop being friends even if I tried. We are able to have a lot of fun together now.

So in each room there are enough beds for 6 people right? But there are only 4 desks and 4 closets. Up to this point we have only had 4 people in our room so it hasn't been a problem... I'm sure you can guess where this is going, ha ha. So we are getting new roomates today. It kinda stinks that we will be crowded in there but I'm not all that bummed out about it. It will be fun to get to know some new people. It will be really funny though because they aren't going to know any Spanish and we are going to be only speaking Spanish. I guess that will help them learn faster, but they are definately going to hate it for at least the first week if not the whole rest of the time we are here.

It is amazing how this place has become my home. I never really thought that I would feel this way here. I guess I always just expected it to be like those first couple of weeks. I think one of the biggest reasons why is because of the amazing people that I am surrounded with. Two of those people are our teachers, Hermano Sheidi and Hermana Breadlove. Hermano Sheidi went to Lone Peak and his dad is actually football coach at Lone Peak. It's kind of a funny coincidence. He is one of the most amazing people I have ever met and probably the best teacher I have ever had. It's weird how close and attached I have become to my teachers and my districts. It is going to be really hard when we leave. But Hermano Sheidi is leaving (not teaching here anymore) next Wednesday. He has taught me so much about missionary work and the gospel. I will always be thankful for what he has taught me. But enough about that.

So on Sunday we went to a video of the talk called, "The Character of Christ". It was a really cool talk and made me really want to study about Christ's life more. I would encourage you to do the same. To really study the life of Christ and think about what you can do to become more like him. During the devotional yesterday I had a really cool experience. There is a painting that the speaker showed, it is called "The Rescue" by Joseph Turner. The speaker applied this painting to missionary work which was perfect. But I think that it can apply to more than that. Before he spoke his wife said a few words and she talked a little bit about the importance of member missionary work. This painting applied to that almost even better. If you see the painting you will notice that it a small boat going to try and rescue a rather large ship. Even if you don't think that you can do much, that you're just one person, what can you possibly do. With the help of the Lord and with the testimony you have you can resue them. After the devotional, one of the elders in my district talked about the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15 (the speaker also spoke of it as well as the parable of the lost coin and the prodical son). The elder said that we are the sheep (as most people think), but as the shepherd goes to look for that one lost sheep, what do the other sheep do? Do they sit there and do nothing? Do they even realize that there is a lost sheep out there? Do they even go and look for lost sheep? I promise there are many more opportunities out there to help others than you think. Do all you can for the people around you and I know you will be blessed.

Through the strength of the lord we can do all things.

--Elder Michael Knapp

MTC Week 4: Aug. 8, 2012

Hey everyone, so I have officially been in the MTC for one month now. It's so weird because it only feels like I have been here for like a week at most, or more like a day. But really it does only feel like I just barely got here.  Hmm....that seemed a little redundant...oh well. So there isn't really much new with me here. Every day here is pretty much the exact same, wake up - study - eat - teach/study - eat - teach/study - eat - study - sleep. It's probably not a good thing that I am only half way through my time here and I already really want to go out to Chile and teach people. It would probably help to know Spanish first though... haha.
No my Spanish is improving incredibly fast. Not to mention that our teacher is pushing us super hard. We have already learned as much as the district that is leaving in 5 days. We don't have quite as much practice with it obviously, but we have learned it all.  Now we just need to practice speaking it more. We have been still playing the game where we can only speak Spanish, but it has been getting much easier. We can basically say anything we want to now, even if we may have to do it in a very round about way sometimes.

Lets see... things with my companion are going well I guess. They could be better but it has definately improved some. He is very socially awkward and has a really hard time with Spanish. Last week I kind of blew up on him, not yelling or anything because it takes alot to get me to that point, but I was just done with him and was a little harsh with him. Since then though I have been better at dealing with things with him. I think I just needed to release some of the built up anger and frustration. He has been improving quite a bit with his Spanish and has been actually able to teach parts of our lessons now. It has made an amazing difference. I think my companion has finally broken out of his shell because he has been being really weird/crazy lately.  It's kinda freaking me out a little bit... but I guess thats better than him not saying anything all the time.

Last week we were in TRC (where we teach members lessons) and we had this lady that was from Chile and she was so hard to understand.  It kind of freaked me out because of how little we were able to understand, but I guess that's why we have 4 more weeks here. She just spoke so fast.

Oh, I forgot to say I was talking to one of our zone teachers and she went on her mission to Santiago North too, so I was asking her tons of questions about the weather and stuff. She said that it rains a ton during the winter but otherwise has about the same weather as Utah does.

Well I think that is all for now...

"Your testimony has the power to defeat the adversary, so DON'T BACK DOWN." (quote from the devotional last night.)

-Elder Michael Knapp

MTC Week 3: Aug. 8, 2012

So first of all yes I was able to go to the temple last p-day.  I thought I had written about it but maybe not.  Anyway, I will write about it again.  Both today and last week we got to start off the day with the temple and I have to say that there isn't any other way to start off the day then being in the house of the Lord.  It is truly an amazing experience.  Did you know the temple has a cafeteria in the basement of it?  Well it does and it has absolutely amazing food.  So much better than here at the mtc anyway.

So last week after p-day wasn't very great.  Thursday I was feeling pretty sick and so it was really hard to have a good atitude.  We also started playing this game to learn Spanish, that has been horrible.  So this game is that we aren't allowed to speak any English all day.  We start off with 5 cards, and for every English word that we accidentally say we lose a card.  Now it wouldn't have been all that bad but some of the guys in the district were just being really annoying about it.  So we have been playing this game for almost a week now.  At first it was just kind of annoying, but as it continued for those first couple of days I can't even describe how it made you feel not being able to speak English to anyone.  The only way I can really explain it is that I felt lonely.  I think the worst part of that was that I felt lonely but I was always surrounded by people, people I couldn't communicate with.  It was one of the hardest things I have ever experienced in my life.  Also one of the hardest aspects of it was that I couldn't sing.  For those of you who have been around me a lot, I am constantly singing.  but now I couldn't.

Then Sunday rolled around and everything changed.  The day started off with some amazing personal study,  sacrament meeting and priesthood, then I went to choir with 2 guys from my district.  It was ablsolutetly amazing.  I have truly missed singing in a choir, being able to make such beautiful music with a bunch of people that I have never met. It is the love for music and what we are singing about that brings us together.  It was truly amazing to be able to experience that again.

Yesterday for devotional we listened to a pretty awesome talk.  He talked alot about trusting the Lord.  God has an eternal perspective on our lives and knows what is best for us.  When we trust in Him and follow Him he will lead us where we need to be and to what is best for us.  At the end of his talk he quoted Pres. Monson, "Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies."  This reminds me of when in 1 Nephi, Nephi says that God doesn't ask man to do anything that he does not give him the strength to do.  I know that we can accomplish all things when we trust in the Lord.

Go forward with faith,

Elder Michael Knapp

MTC Week 2

So this last week has been really good.  I will go in order of what we did the different days and then I will talk some about the things I have learned.


On last Thursday I had the opportunity to do early morning service.  At first I was not happy to have to get up 30 min earlier than how early I was already getting up.  However, after going and doing the service it was absolutely amazing how good I felt.  The spirit that came when I was serving my fellow missionaries (even though it was only cleaning one of the buildings that has classrooms) was just amazing.  It was also really nice because I got to go vacuum the whole building by myself.  It was so nice to be able to get away from my companion for a while.  I like my alone time but I haven't gotten any since I got here so it was just nice to be alone with my own thoughts for once.


On Saturday we went to play volleyball in the sand outside for gym time and it was soooo hot outside.  Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but the sand was like a thousand degrees and it burned like crazy,  but we played anyways.  Even though you couldn't stay still for more than like 30 sec, we put our socks on which raised the time we could stay still to a whopping 1 min.  Woot! It was pretty funny to watch everyone as they burried their feet in the sand and then moved as little as possible during the game.  It deffinately wasn't like any other game of volleyball that I have ever played before.  But it was... fun?  haha.


Sunday was amazing.  Sundays in the MTC are like Christmas (if that makes sense....  because it makes you feel so  happy and you feel the Spirit so much.)  You just learn so much and the Spirit is so strong all day. And then to cap it off you get to go to devotional and then to listen to one of the old recorded talks or watch old church videos after that.  The devotionals are always good.  This last Sunday the theme of the talk was the song, "Come Come Ye Saints".  It was the kind of a talk where he was just saying, "It's gonna be really hard.  If you haven't had a freak out time on your mission yet, you will eventually.  But just keep pressing forward.  Serve others, and serve the Lord and you will be happy.  You can overcome anything."  That was paraphrasing of course.  Just kind of a pump up talk.  Then after that my companion and I went to see an old talk that Elder Bednar gave at the MTC like 10 years ago.  It was amazing.  It was about recognizing promptings of the Spirit.  The whole point of the talk was to answer the question, "How do I know if it's the Spirit or if it's just me?"  He told a couple stories of how he figured out the answer for himself.  One of them was when he was at a church meeting that he had to be at instead of going to his son's championship basketball game.  He saw a man whose son was on the opposing team walk in, he also had to be at the meeting.  Elder Bednar knew he had to stay, but he really wanted to go see his son, so he took the guy whose son was playing against his and went to the basketball game.  He felt really bad afterwards because he thought that he had not done what his calling required him to do and instead, did what he wanted to do.  A month later, the son of the man who he took with him to the game died.  When he talked to the man, the man said that he was so thankful that Elder Bednar had taken him to see the basketball game because it was one of the last times he was able to see his son play.  Elder Bednar finished the story by saying that he didn't feel a strong spiritual prompting telling him that he needed to go to his son's game with the man, but he knew it was by the Spirit that it happened.  He then answered the question he posed at the beginning of the talk by saying, "It doesn't matter, quit worring about it."  Then he made a promise.  He said, "If you will be a good boy, or a good girl and honor your covenants and obey the commandments, your steps will be guided, and your mouth will be filled by the Spirit and you cannot go astray."  I thought this was an amazing lesson that if we have faith and we press forward obeying the commandments and fulfilling our covenants, we will be guided by the Spirit.  We may not always know right away or even ever if something happened because of the Spirit.  But don't worry about it, because if you are doing all the right things you will be guided to do what the Lord wants you to do.  I know that this is true.


I love you all.
Elder Michael Knapp

MTC Week 1

July 18, 2012

So my first week here in the MTC has been amazing.  It truly has oppened my eyes to what missionary work really is.  I always kind of looked at the missionaries as just going around and just convincing other people to get baptized.  I have come to realize in this past week that missionary work is not just about getting people baptized (although that is an important step)  but that it is about inviting the spirit into the lives of other people, and letting the spirit change them.  Missionary work is about bringing others unto Christ.  As I have discovered this I have been able to feel the spirit so much more.  I know that it isn't me that is going to convert people, but its the spirit of the Lord that is going to do it.  Pretty much this whole first week every talk, devotional, workshop, you name it,  every single one has been about faith in Christ.  It has caused me to realize that is a major part of missionary work.  If we can have faith in Christ he will give us what we need to be successful in teaching. 

My companions name is Elder Willoughby.  He is from Alberta, Canada.  He is a little bit socially awkward most of the time but overall he is a good guy, and we get along pretty well. My district is really cool.  At first we didn't really talk to each other much, but as the week has gone by we have all become pretty good friends.  There are 4 girls in our district as well, but they are leaving in 3 weeks to go to the MTC in Guatamala.  So they won't be here much longer.

Learning spanish has been really hard but it is going fast too.  It is really fufilling to to be able to speak so much already.  It is amazing how quickly I have been able to learn spanish with the help of the spirit here. 

Well I have a little bit more to say but I am out of time today so I will write it in a letter and send it.  Love you all, hope you are doing well.

Elder Michael Knapp

Before I leave

Hey, this will probably be the only post that I (Michael) will actually post on this blog.  Before i leave i just wanted to put a short post up here thanking all you that have influenced my life, and thank all you guys for being so awesome!  Now i am off for the next 2 years, so...  good luck, have fun, and all that stuff.  As a parting word of wisdom that I have recently learned, whatever happens, or whatever the situation may be there is always something to learn that can make you a better person.  Well I will see you all again in 2 years!