October 21-October 27, 2025 Week 17 Centinela Branch, Talcahuano Chile

 Hola! How are you doing? Hope y'all are doing well!  Hope y'all are getting in that Halloween spirit in 

I wonder what my friends and fam will be doing for Halloween in  

We were visiting the two recent converts in the branch, a mom and a son - Maria Jose and Mario. Mario was watching SpongeBob, and I was glancing at the TV and watching a little bit- and the title (which is the title of my email) is a quote by Patrick that I've been thinking about all week (shoutout my favorite brother Tanner he says this a lot )

Highlights/ Summary

-Last pday had a activity of the zone, played some frisbee and had a picnic, that was pretty fun

-Had a third intercambio with Elder Ren, here in Centinela

-Had another intercambio with Elder Leguizamon 

-Friday had multi-zone conferencia, was very fun but a little bit repetitive spiritually. the theme was salvacion de almas (salvation of souls) , and I can sum in up in one word: bautismo. But it is always fun to meet more of the missionaries. 

-Did a service project in San Vicente, another ward in the stake, with the Elders from San Vicente. That was a lot of fun, a got to use a crowbar to demolish a deck. Than ate some fire compleados 

-Gave a blessing to one of the hermana in our zone, well not me, but 4 of us Elderes had to go because you can't be alone with hermanas. Which was pretty lit. it was Elder Macais and I and the other Elders from Centinela (Elder Bobadilla and Elder Leguizamon). It was crazy we went from one of the most ghetto areas in the mission to one of the nicest. 

-Give a blessing of health to a baby, he was very cute- dang this week we gave 3 blessing - lit 

-The Centinela Branch got a new branch president. one of the Hermanos we know very well and eat at his house every week - shoutout President Cornejo

*Friends we be teaching*

Alejandra- she works a lot, so we can't really teach her that much, but she came to church! so she has real interest, so that's always great to hear

There be others, but they aren't progressing or having that much interest, but we shall keep trying 

Spiritual Thought (or essay, we shall see)

This one comes from one of meals at lunch with a member. He likes to complain a little bit, and he was complaining about his calling. So I called an audible, with the help of the spirit and switched our lesson. 

I read a little bit from a talk called, "Participate to Prepare for Christ's Return". This is a very good talk. I recommend it. My favorite mother quoted from this talk during her farewell talk. But he talks about our calling are for us to prepare for the second coming and to help us to be more Christlike. Jesus could, if he wanted to, come down here personally and do all the things he called us to do. But he wants us to learn. That's why I'm here in Chile, because God trusts me to do His work and He wants me to learn. (and don't worry I am doing a lot of learning. my head hurts- but that's mostly from the Spanish ) But we learn the most about Christ when we are serving as He would serve. 

My favorite part of the talk is this, "We engage in God’s work not because God needs us but because we need God and His mighty blessings. He promises, “For, behold, I will bless all those who labor in my vineyard with a mighty blessing" 

But, to sum this up. Callings and serving and ministering in the church are to help us to learn and grow and then ultimately become more like Christ.

Well, another Essay from Elder Christensen. Hope you guys have a good week and a Happy Halloween! 

ps (i wonder what they do for halloween in  vamos a ver)

October 14-October 20, 2025 Week 16 Centinela Branch, Talcahuano Chile

Another great week, but as the title suggests it all blurred together like every other week . It all makes sense now why every one and their mom was telling me I had to write in my journal a lot in my mission.

Highlights/summary 

-pday played some fire ultimate frisbee, big shoutout to the Elderes de Talcahuano

-Tuesday the Elders of the Centinela watched the reorganizing of the first presidency- shoutout President Oaks 

-Wednesday I was showering and saw the most massive bug I've seen in my life in the shower

-Wednesday had district counsel

-Friday Elder Macais and I did yard work in our house for like 3 hours in the morning, like trimming hedges and the branches and all the stuff- our house looks really nice now

-Friday intercambio with Elder Winter in Centinela- he's also another missionary in his 2nd transfer- Learned that day that I can actually speak some Spanish now

-Saturday had a service project removing grass for a guy in our ward 

-Sunday had stake conference, where the theme was the temple 

*Friends we are teaching* -

We are teaching a lot of people these days which is pretty lit

-a young man named Aaron. he's from Venezuela. he's pretty lit

-a boy named Alexus. his grandpa is an inactive member

-a woman named Sandra and her son Matias. we found them on the street

-a woman named Alejandra whose brother and nephew are recent converts 

-and had a bunch of one time lessons from which we got dropped (happens)

Be unfortunately it was stake conference so the chapel is was like 30 minutes so nope of them came to church rip

Spiritual Thought

Elder Kevin Brown 

"Brothers and sisters, a testimony of Jesus Christ was never meant to be a temporary gift. Nothing about it is temporary—not the giver, not the gift itself, not the deliverer of the gift, not who the gift is about."

I liked this talk a lot, if you haven't listened to it go listen to it. But these 2 years are a gift for me to invite others to come unto Christ, but also for me to be fully converted to Jesus Christ. And that is pretty much the #1 of the mission, which is pretty hype. 

Well, hope y'all have a great week. Feel free to email me, and ill respond like 7 weeks later I promise 

Nuestro amigo llamado Aaron

District Centinela 😎🌾❗️

Tengo hambre 😋😋😋

Garret found this bug in his shower

 

October 7-October 13, 2025 Week 15 Centinela Branch, Talcahuano Chile

 Hola

Another week in the books - hope y'all are doing great! This week was good. Lots of fun stuff happened, but not a whole lot happened in the obra misional, so this email may be short for once in my life

*Summary/highlights*

-Last pday we finally when to the beach, which is a big deal because I have told my mom like 3 other times "oh yea for pday we are going to the beach as a district"  and she said this time "I'll believe it when I see it" - take that mom- we finally went as a zone and that was lit

-played some ultimate frisbee at a park near the beach

-Blitz (where all the missionaries in the zone work in one sector) in San Vicente Wednesday with ELDER BOBADILLA 

-Intercambio with ELDER BOBADILLA in the other side (and better side) of the Centinela on Wednesday

-District Counsel Thursday, and interviews with President 

-We went to the temple Friday  and an endowment session

-Saturday had like a 2-3 hour service project hoeing one of the members yards. And after ate a lot of food at the members house.

-Sunday gave a talk about miembros en la obra misional

-Other than those things ^^^ the days were pretty much the same- lots of street contacts and all that good stuff

Elder Bobadilla

Elder Bell