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