Today's Missionary Miracle

You need to learn what a short email is... It shouldn't take more than 3 minutes for me to read it.... Oh well, I'm glad that things are going well at home and I hope that you have a great time. Things are going really well for me and I have found that I am really getting better with my Spanish and memorizing things is getting a lot easier. I can recite several different scriptures that I need and they can be recited almost as fast as some of the Chileans can speak. Things are great and I'm glad that you had a great time fishing. I have a lot of emails to respond to so I will do my best. Currently I have around 15 to get through and only 45 more minutes.

Emails and Notes from Mom: in purple today

Hey!  I just read my email and I did it in 3 ½ minutes.  I thought I did wonderful this week condensing it down to the important facts.  You know I like to write.  Please answer my questions.

 Are you feeling better?  How is your cold?  ¿Es usted feliz y saludable?

What is your favorite food?  Have you tried La Ensalada Chilena?  Have you had Los Completos yet? 

 Have you gotten any letters yet?

 Did you do anything special on the 4^th of July? 

Another picture of my District then all the 32 missionaries at Al Contara and then the house we are staying in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Elder Mathewson who is in the group who has been at Al Contara for nearly 5 weeks now sketched this picture of the house. He is from Canada and is a really good artist. Here is the photo so you can share.

 

I have a hard time knowing what all of the foods here are called. I haven't had a Completo yet. I am doing fairly well. I have a lingering cough from my cold and I had a rash last week on my hand that is nearly gone now. Don't stress over those things I'm perfectly fine. Mostly it has been my body reacting to the change to the cold and my dry skin. We didn't do anything special for the 4th and I haven't gotten any letters from home yet. I don't know if I've had Ensalada Chilena yet. I probably have seen it, but haven't tried it. I've tried most of the food. We get a lot of rice, pasta, chicken, meats, different sauces for the foods, but everything generally tastes good to me. Even the white rice tastes better than what I had at home. I don't like most of the drinks they are too sweet for my liking. I like the water and they do a lot of bottled water so I refill mine very often. Things are going really well and I am doing just fine.

 

Note: One of the Elders in the Chile Santiago West Mission started a blog for the mission.  I got a link to it this week.  It is sweet.  Check out the section called Life in Chile and you can see some of the food that Braxton will be eating.  We know he is going to just LOVE that LA ENSALADA CHILENA.  Braxton does not like raw tomatoes. 

http://misionoeste.blogspot.com/

Today when I go shopping I want to go buy at least 2 more notebooks. I am writing so much lately and I want to have some extra notebooks for out in the field. There is a Leders 2 blocks from the CCM and a mall on Providencia that we can walk to in 10 to 15 minutes which has several stores. The money conversion from pesos to dollars the last time I checked was 545 pesos to 1 USD. So 1 mil is approximately $1.80. A mil is a 1000 peso. Things here on average cost around the same as home. Notebooks are 2 mil so about $4. Things feel like they cost a little more though. I haven't spent much and I haven't needed to yet. I am doing well and I just don't really know what I need yet for everything. It's hard finding time to go through all of my stuff and seeing what I really need to pick up.

Thanks for the photos this week and last week.  It was a fun surprise to get some a few hours after you got off the email last week.  I hope to see some more of those this week. 

Buy some cough drops or cough syrup if you need to and buy whatever notebooks you need.  You can use money from your Checking Card if you need to.  Just get what you need. 

 Are you stressing much or have you started to relax a little?

 In the photos, it looks like some are wearing coats and sweaters, some short sleeves, some long sleeves.  Is it very cold?  Are you wearing your coat and sweaters much? 

I think I've seen the salad but I haven't tried it. I'm pretty good it feels about as cold as when Utah is in March. It isn't too bad but I have been trying to stay warm and it isn't too bad.

Try to keep everyone updated with the pictures. I don't know if all of my friends get to see them. I know that Shara told me you showed her a few. I send the pictures to you each week and just hope that you let everyone see them all. I'm trying to give you all that I can in my email time. It's hard to keep writing as much and often I don't always know what to share from my week. It's really starting to blur together and it is getting hard.

Did you by chance get an email from President Doll? He was trying to get you to email the temple names to him for me. I could use Male names for Endowments and the Hemanas in my District would love to help with temple work too. I don't know what happened on everything but I haven't received any letters or temple names so I don't know what you want me to do. I'm almost out of time and I hope that you're able to figure it out.

I sent the temple cards to you in the mail.  They are in two letters coming through the USPS.  I sent some men and some women names.  I hope they arrive this week.  I have not heard from President Doll.  I can print out a temple ordinance request form and email it to you and President Doll and then when you go to the temple, you could go and have the cards re-printed there.  I will try to do that.  Do you have President Doll’s email address?  When do you think you will go to the temple again?

President Doll emailed you. He was wondering about it and no I don't have his email. We go to the Temple at 2 pm today. I don't know what to do about it. I gave him your email and he emailed you for me. It should have come in last week. I've got to go. I hope that you can find out for me. Bye.

Note from Mom:  I sent these two emails as soon as I could, but it was too late for Braxton to get them today.

Here are the two temple request papers.  Print them off and then when you go to the temple you can have cards printed.  Try to do the cards on your sheet first.  That is the Temple Cards2 document. 

Have an awesome day and week!  I love you so much.

Mom

Braxton, I also sent the forms to Brother Gilbert.  I had his email address from the photos he sent to you.  I hope that he will get them to you or President Doll.  I am hoping and praying you get them in time. 

Love,

Mom

Note from Mom: 

A year ago, Braxton and I prepared some names for the temple.  Braxton was supposed to find some names that he could do baptisms for when they went to Youth Conference.  Because of a conflict with his school Choir group, he was not able to go to Youth Conference.  Since then, I have worked more on the surrounding relatives of the first group Braxton found.  We had about 60 people who needed baptisms.  The week after Braxton went to the temple for his own endowment, we went back to the Logan Temple and he and his cousin Braiden were able to perform the baptisms and confirmations with Braiden’s brothers, Ryan, Britton and Mason and another cousin Makayla.  Braxton baptized and confirmed Makayla for all of the females and Braiden baptized and confirmed his brothers for all of the males.  It was an awesome spiritual experience, and one of the best days I can ever remember.  After the baptisms we went and got lunch, then Braxton, Craig and I went back to the temple and did initiatory work for some of these people.

 

Another day we went to the Salt Lake Temple and did an endowment session.  Then Braxton took some of the temple name cards with him to the Chile CCM.  He and his district were able to do nine of the endowments the first time they went to the temple.  I sent him some more cards in the mail, but he has not received them yet.  After Braxton got off the email, I thought for a bit and realized that the photos he had sent to me had Elder Gilbert’s email address.  Elder and Sister Gilbert stay with the missionaries at Al Contara house.  So I took a chance and emailed Elder Gilbert explaining the situation in one email and then sent him the attachments in a second email.  I kept hoping and praying that he would check his email today before they went to the temple.  He did and I am grateful for another missionary miracle.  The Lord is always mindful of us, but especially his faithful missionaries.    

I got this email back from Elder Gilbert about an hour after Braxton ended his email session.

Sister Goode,

I received your email and printed off the information and will take it with me to the temple when we go in a few minutes. We will be with your son in the temple today and this should be a wonderful experience to do some of this work today in the Santiago Chile temple!

Thank you for sending a well prepared son to the mission field. He is going to make a great missionary.                      

Sincerely,
Elder Gilbert​

Final Note:  I checked on Family Search tonight and Braxton and his district were able to complete 10 more endowments today.  Sweet!