That was condemning

Gunnar
August 26, 2013
Angamos, Chile (Elder Said)

That was condemning

So the biggest thing that happened this week was our zone conference with Elder Viñas of the Seventy. The Conference started off pretty normal with a few talks from President and Sister Dalton. Then Elder Viñas came to talk about the Atonement. It was really, really cool and I learned a lot of stuff. He talked all about how we can know if we are truly forgiven of our sins and what is required to enter in the celestial kingdom. Then came part 2 of Elder Viñas talk. 

To keep things short, Elder Viñas used the phrase "We need to eradicate the old vision from your minds". Basically what happened is that the majority of the missionaries, especially those that are almost done, are sitting thinking that they have done their entire missions incorrectly.

(Elder Viñas addressed the way missionaries approached the work previously was wrong minded and they needed to realize this. Mission work is not about baptize, baptize, baptize. It is so much more and that was lost over the last few years. It is good to know Gunnar picked up on that early on and consequently he feels pretty good right now, unlike some of the other missionaries.)

But life goes on and the missionaries are finding ways to deal with it. I have other things that I need to deal with. You remember how back when I started my mission you sent me an email telling me about the different types of missionaries that there are i.e. bro, give up, etc. Well I have realized that I am surrounded by Martyrs (Self-righteous types). It is funny, really annoying, but funny. 

(No matter what you do in life you will always meet the Martyr types; they are annoying.)
Just so you know I have pictures of every single room of every single pension I have ever lived in, they are just not on top of my priority list to send to you guys seeing a gmail only lets me send two pictures per email (I do not know why). 

(Every email I tell him to send us more pictures of his apartment and he hardly ever does. So I told him I was done asking since he wasn’t going to do it. We will see if we see any more now.)

Angamos

Also as far as things about Chile in general . . . where he is going every house he goes into will give him food. Lots of it. Unreal amounts of Coke. With every meal, in every house, coke. There is no Mountain Dew but you can find Dr. Pepper and A&W Root Beer in a store called Jumbo. No beef jerky. Average meal-bread, rice, chicken, fried eggs, potatoes, mayonnaise. Yeah, that is about all I can think of right now.

(This is for my friend Kelli, whose son received his mission call to the Chile Concepcion mission last week. So no jerky and he will be drinking real Coke until he bleeds it. Peanut butter is also pretty hard to come by and brown sugar is rare too. No doing the Dew either.)

I only met Hermana ** one time but she seemed cool and all of the elders talk like she is so I do not know. 

(I told Gunnar I like to read all the mission blogs I can find so I get a feel for Chile and his mission – and the people in it too. Well I said I wasn’t sure if this Hermana was wickedly funny or just really grumpy. I am glad to hear it is the former.)

I am trying to set up that online folder so I will not be sending any pictures in this email. Wait an hour or so. 

(Since Gunnar is in the nicest area in the mission I told him to see if he could work with a member to upload his pictures – all his pictures in the mission so far – to an online folder that we could access. That way it would be insurance if his camera or card was ever lost or stolen)

As far as Hermana**, I was not sure how much to trust in the story from Elder ** but she has been acting kind of strange for a while (always asking me about other missionaries, how many baptisms they have, how well they work, that kind of thing), so I dropped President an email expressing concern for her mental health and anxiety level and asked if he could talk to her to see if everything is alright.

(If you recall last week’s letter he mentioned briefly about a Sister Missionary who seemed to have lost it a bit mentally after a dinner appointment. Well, being someone who used to work in the Mental Health business it set off all sorts of Alarm bells. A person in their early twenties under a high stress environment is prime for all sorts of anxiety disorders. Plus another reader of Gunnar’s letter who also has a lot of experience with this topic also had her alarms go off too. So I wrote Gunnar a long letter explaining why we were a little worried and asked him to talk with the Mission President.)

Well I love you and I should be on for a while so if you have anything else I will be here.


Angamos

Elder Peters