Week 20: Adventures with the Chilean evangelicals

20 WEEKS PEOPLE! It has almost been 5 months! Holy smokes, I can't believe how fast it has gone. Before you know it Zach will be back in action here in OOtah. Can't wait. Well, in the meantime, he is just tearing it up in Chile. I couldn't help but giggle through out his entire letter this week. I can see he is growing exponentially, and is becoming more confident in himself and who he is. This weeks letter was chuck full of funny little stories that just cracked me up.

Let me start with a grandpa story. I know, we've never heard of any grandpas! Zach is the grandma story magnet, so now I guess he's trying to mix it up with a few grandpas. Anyways, Zach was out on a inter-combo with Elder Katschke and they decided to visit a grandpa who Elder Van Pelt and Elder Pistorius had contacted roughly a week ago. The week prior, the grandpa had told the two Elders to return when his cherries were ripe. Of course, they didn't pay attention to his OBVIOUS seriousness and returned. They both went to his fence and yelled "ALO!" and were greeted by the old man yelling at them to come back when his cherries were ripe (maybe next time they will listen). Anyways the Elders just said, "OK" and went down the street where they busted out laughing. What is up with these old people?

Elder Pistorius and Elder Van Pelt with Rosemary

This last week Rosemary was finally able to be baptized. Zach really enjoyed taking part in the momentous occasion and loved seeing her come up from the water, and the next day at church where she received the gift of the Holy Ghost. What a cool experience! Zach said she had a huge smile the whole time and that he couldn't help but be so thankful to be a part of this special work in Chile.

Zach with Rosemary

Another instance where I giggled, and also noticed that Zach has become more confident in himself is him and Elder Pistorius were walking down the street one day. When a couple of guys that were up to no good, started making trouble in the neighborhood... Jk, I have been watching too much Fresh Prince. Anyways, a guy pulled up next to them in his car, rolled down his window, and yelled "you suck!" and pointed right at Zach. Random right? I know, these Chileans...  I know that if this happened in Utah, Zach probably would have been hurt, in fact he said in a similar circumstance before his mission, he probably would have cried, but not Elder Van Pelt. He is a new man with new perspectives. He just turned to Elder Pistorius and said "what the heck?" and went on their way. He ended his story with him hoping he accepts the gospel someday. Good for you Glen Coco!

One last story that made me giggle, then we will get more serious. Zach and his companion were contacting and ended up at a part-member families house, where they were invited in. When they walked in there was an Evangelical investigator holding a bible with the family. The mom (who is a member, but her husband is not) invited the two to stay for the meeting, to which they accepted. Well, they listened for the entire lesson and towards the end they asked Zach if he would share something. He took this opportunity to testify of the Book of Mormon and that it is a true testament of Jesus Christ. He also quoted a few scriptures on prayer from the bible (heres where I giggled) and during these scriptures, they started yelling "amen!" and "hallelujah!". I found this amusing, just imagining Zach trying to hold back a laugh after all this time. But in all seriousness, as he testified of the Book of Mormon, he could tell that they were touched by the Holy Ghost and were able to have a great lesson!

Well that is it for this week! Hope you all have a good Thanksgiving, and remember to keep Zach in your prayers because he definitely feels them helping!

Hasta luego!

Week 19: Adventures of the 40 day fast

Alo!

Zach had a lot of fun on his p-day today. He was actually able to go climb a volcano. It exploded, and now he is coming home! Just kidding. But he really did climb a real, live, Chilean volcano. Which is freaking cool. Im jealous of all these cool adventures he's having. No volcanoes here in Utah (which I guess I should be thankful for). The name of the volcano is Lonquimay so if you want you can google that right on up!

Good news! Rosemary is getting baptized this Saturday. Now before you go back in blog posts to try and remember who Rosmary was, this is the little old lady who had a baptism date set, then went gambling the night before that set date (I thought it was kind of funny in a cute, old grandma kind of way if you recall). So she committed to stop gambling and actually put that money towards paying tithes, so that is a pretty large accomplishment if you ask me. Zach also was able to contact an undercover cop, which he thought was cooler than anything in the world. He was really excited about it, especially because most Chileans think that the missionaries are with the CSI or the MIB (men in black). Now that would be a good "I'm a Mormon" commercial. "Im in the Men in Black and I am Mormon." Off topic.

Elder Van Pelt and one of his roommates were talking one night about a 40 day fast. When the elder brought it up, Zach said immediately that "he would die" if he tried to fast for 40 days. In response the elder gave details into this 40 day fast (and no it is not a Jenny Craig diet). It is when you start your first day with a fast (2 meals) and pick 5 things you want to change about yourself.  The next 39 days, you work on changing those 5 things and becoming a better person. Whether it isn't doing something, or actually making an effort to do something, you work your hardest for those 39 days and you have a fast to kick it off. Pray every morning and night and go over your list in your prayers. A pretty cool concept!

Zach concluded his letter with saying life is great. He loves Chile and says God truly is working miracles through him. Improve every day just by changing a little here and there. That is how we come more like Jesus Christ is taking it a day at a time and doing our best and smiling through everything.

Anyways, until next week!

Hasta luego!

PS. Thanks to everyone who sent a letter to Zach for his Christmas box. It turned out great! He will love it. Appreciate all of you!

Week 18: Adventures of the jealous missionaries

Alo!

Well Elder Van Pelt is doing fantastic! He is loving all the mail and packages he is getting. He says that everything he gets in the mail is like Christmas morning. I can imagine! The only communication he has from home, and that communication comes with candy and letters? I would be pretty excited too! He said that the mission field is a lot like "The Best Two Years", which is Zach's favorite movie. There is a scene where some elders get mail and others don't, the elders that don't get really jealous of those who did. He said that the other elders in his apartment are really jealous of all the mail Zach gets, I think secretly he loves it. He told the missionaries in his apartment that he gets so much mail because he has such great family and support here at home. So keep the mail coming! He absolutely loves it! He is also only speaking Spanish at his pad of 4 english gringos. I imagine his pad mates are probably bugged by it, but I am sure it is helping their Spanish also :)

Zach told us in his last letter about Marcia. She is a sweet lady who is at home taking care of her 90 year old grandmother. Which is why she loves when Zach and his companion come over and talk to her. She hasn't made any progress at all really, because she is SUPER die-hard Catholic. But, she will read the Book of Mormon with the elders and enjoys it. She just won't read it on her own or even thinking about committing to baptism. So hopefully with some hard work from Elder Van Pelt and Elder Pistorius, that can change and she can see the truth of the gospel.

Zach ended his letter with a passage in Spanish. I honestly can only pick out a few words that I can translate myself (thank you high school Spanish class), but I am sure it is wonderful! So enjoy yourself, and until next week, hasta luego!

Week 17: Adventures of the doggie who converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ

Happy Halloween from Elder Van Pelt (AKA Abraham Lincoln  Easter Bunny)

Well my friends, Rosemary ended up not getting baptized because she went to the casinos the day before her baptism. This made me giggle at first to imagine this little old grandma gambling at the casino the night before joining the church and making a promise to the lord, but when reality sets in it was pretty sad! Zach and his companion Elder Pistorius need to keep giving her some more discussions to help her more fully convert to the gospel before she can make that next step of baptism. So lets all keep her in our prayers as she contemplates what is most important in this life.

Zach will be staying in Victoria for at least another 6 weeks, which he is super excited for. He has really grown to love the people there and loves the beauty that surrounds him. He will find out if he will be transferred shortly before Christmas (when we as a family get to finally freaking see him, yay!).

Halloween was this last week, and as some of you know, our family really gets into Halloween. We LOVE it. We love being scared, we love scaring each other, we love pumpkins, dressing up, skeletons, hauntings... Everything. We love it. Anyways, Zach informed us that much like Mexico, Chile doesn't really celebrate Halloween (bummer, they think halloween is for devil worshippers), but they celebrate dia de la muerta (day of the dead).  This is a holiday where they go to cemeteries and honor those who have died by cleaning their tombs and headstones. As most holidays, the Chileans also celebrate with lots of empanadas, relaxation and FIESTAS! YEAH! Sounds awesome, I would love my fair share of empanada fiestas at a cemetery, nearly as good as halloween. Nearly. I guess I am a devil worshipper.

Anyways, Zach was able to bring a little bit of halloween to the members in Chile. The elders made games, decorations, snacks and played spooky music. Zach even put a scary dolly in a highchair as decoration in memory of Cassie and I, you can see this in the picture shown. I was most excited to see that he had not lost his flare for the best holiday ever. The highchair is straight out of a slasher film (probably).

One day this week Elder Pistorius and Zach were in the church preparing the baptismal font by filling it with water and making sure the chapel was clean. When they arrived, the trash can was spewed all over the floor, which they cleaned up and didn't have a second thought. As they were leaving the church, they found this little black dog wandering the halls. In Chile, the dogs are mostly all stray and rabid, crazy mutts that like to bite people, so they didn't want to touch him because as Zach said, he was "gross". They tried pushing it, moving it, shooing it, but it would not get out. So they spent 20 minutes chasing around this little black dog, which he said was his fun for the day (I think we need to send him a game or something if thats the only fun he is getting).

Well, here is your weekly grandma story...
Zach was teaching an 82 year old grandma this week. They were planning on teaching the lesson of the plan of salvation after they said the opening prayer. Instead, after the prayer, this grandma stole the conversation and just started jabbering and talking so fast that Zach said if she had dentures, they probably would have fallen out. She wasn't preaching or anything, she was just talking about all this random stuff and wouldn't let the missionaries speak. I guess she just wanted someone to talk to! They are still there to this day, listening to her talk and talk and talk. Just kidding. But they really didn't think they would ever be able to get out.

Zach had his first baptism this week, it was a little 10 year old girl (who is super cute, as you can see in the pictures). It also looks like she has picked up Zachs crooked thumbs up. Ruining thumbs up for people in America and Chile, thats our Zachy!

Anyways, thats about it for this week!

Hasta luego!

Week 16: Adventures of the gambling grandma

Ello poppits!

Its a beautiful day for some sweet, delicious, Zachy updates! (you know you love it.)

Elder Van Pelt has a new little church job that he is doing 3 times a week on the computer. There is a program that is basically a huge database of all the members in his mission. His job is to correct any mis-spelled names and to enter their addresses into the database. They have their work cut out for them because there are 16 missionaries working on this database of about 15,000 people. Holy smokes!

Zachs Spanish is getting increasingly more awesome. He can understand exponentially more than when he arrived (obviously), and has been able to carry on full conversations with some Chileans.

Rosemary is still scheduled to be baptized, which is such a great thing to hear! She still needs to quit gambling though so that she can make that commitment to the church, so hopefully she can keep her money in her pockets :) Zach has built quite a bond with Rosemary as we have had similar experiences in our family, with our cousin Scott recieving a scary diagnosis of a brain tumor and about two years ago, losing our very close cousin Jake. This month 2 years ago he took his own life, and Zach gave a very beautiful tribute to him in this letter as he sent words of comfort to Jakes mother, Kim. He testified of the power of the atonement and the covenants we make in the temple.

Zach was having some more questions of why he was out in the mission field and how he was helping. He prayed to recieve inspiration in one way or another. One morning as he was opening his scriptures a picture of Jesus Christ fell out of it and on the back read this quote From Elder Bruce R. McConkie:

"My Missionary Commission: I am called of God. My authority is above that of the kings of the Earth. By revelation I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is my master and he has chosen me to represent him. To stand in his place, to say and do what he himself would say and do if he personally were ministering to the very people to whom he has sent me. My voice is his voice, and my acts are his acts; my words are his words and my doctrine is his doctrine. My commission is to do what he wants done. To say what he wants said. To be a living modern witness in word and deed of the divinity of his great and marvelous latter day work."

Week 15: Adventures of easy money, if you look in the right places

Hello 'erbody!

Im finally almost back on track, so now you get a Zachy overload (I know some of you young single ladies out there won't mind). Seriously though, sorry I'm so behind. Im not worthy to be Zachs social media manager!

Well Zach has had an awesome couple of weeks, with some incredible stories of conversion and faith.  The first one I will write about is about a little señora Rosemary, that will be getting baptized the 1st of November (if she can stop gambling). 2 months ago, this sweet little lady lost her great-nephew in a tragic car accident, leaving the entire family devastated and heart broken. Their questions have been similar to questions any of us would ask in similar situations... "Why did this happen?", "Why did God do this to us?", etc.  In this situation Zach has been able to share his testimony of the plan of salvation and when he has done this, the spirit has had such a strong presence. As sad as it is, Zach believes that there was a higher purpose for this young man who died, so that his family would be led to this gospel so that they could all be sealed together for all eternity. Zach was able to share a personal experience that has hit our family in the last year of our cousins Rachel and Scott. Scott was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor that has been a large trial for their little family. Zach has been able to share this story and it is touching the lives of those across the world. This story was a large inspiration for Rosemary to accept the gospel and to be baptized. The young mans mom, Tatiana, has yet to accept baptism just yet, so lets all remember this family in our prayers that she can see the importance of this gospel in her life on earth.

Zach wanted to challenge everyone this week to take a hard look at your lives and try to see the silver linings and blessings that God has given you. He had a moment this week where he was contacting (about 50 people) and only a few had opened their doors to greet them, not to even invite them in or to hear their message. He was cold, soaking wet, and had fallen down so had been drenched with rain. I didn't know this before Zach left, but our summer is their winter, so this is the tail end of their VERY cold winter. So his nose and ears are frozen and it hurts to even touch them. Admit it, this is kind of a crappy day. As he was pondering all these crappy things happening to him, he stopped and looked around him. In the distance he could see green grass and a beautiful forrest with a volcano in the distance. He realized what a great memory this was that God had blessed him with. Open your eyes when you are in a not very fun situation and see the blessings that have been given to you.

This past month or so Elder Van Pelt had tried to budget his allowance but ended up spending it by helping others who were having a rough time and only having the exact amount of money to pay for their lawn to be done. He needed a little bit more to get all of the traveling done that they needed to do and for some food. He said a quiet prayer, asking God to help him in some way with his problem.  Sure enough the Lord answered that prayer! Zach was walking down the street and clearly saw a 5 mil. on the street. People had been walking past it without seeing it, but Zachs eyes were lead to it. He had a distinct feeling that this money was to be used for food the rest of the month and he knew that god had answered his prayers. Wow! Super awesome, I too have seen the financial blessings that the Lord can give through prayer and tithing. It really truly is a miraculous thing, the way the Lord helps us out in our times of need.

Hasta luego!

Week 14: Adventures of Elder Scared Pants falling off a bridge

Elder Van Pelt and Elder Padilla in front of said bridge

Zach was out Tracting with Elder Padilla this week (who apparently looks like Jacob off of twilight). They were out in the farthest corner of their sector, Bajo Traigen, and needed to get to the other side of their sector for some scheduled appointments they had. It is about a 45 minute walk from one side of the sector to the other (gag), so Elder Padilla suggested a way that would cut down their walking time so they could make it to their appointments on time. Well, Zach is super duper afraid of heights as some of you may know, and sure enough Elder Padilla led him to a humungous bridge with plenty of room to fall to your death. As they got closer Zach noticed it was not just a bridge, but railroad tracks that were on the bridge. Zach was growing increasingly uneasy as he got closer and as he passed through the fence to get to the bridge he felt really uneasy. He expressed this to Elder Padilla and Elder Padilla looked Zach in the eyes and said "I am here, hold onto my backpack and we will cross the bridge together." Zach was able to cross the bridge and conquer his fear with the help of this elder by his side.  Elder Van Pelt likened this unto his life and compared the bridge to sin, fear, change, trials... With the help of the Holy Ghost, Christ and Heavenly Father, we can overcome these things and cross the bridge.

Here are some things he likened to our lives:
1. Faith - faith that he would make it across safely and faith in Elder Padilla, that he would not take him across the bridge if it was unsafe.
2. Repentance - He chose to go to the gate and cross through it.
3. Baptism - When we are baptized we enter the gate and the path to eternal life.
4. Gift of the Holy Ghost - Elder Padilla was like the Holy Ghost guiding him and helping him across the bridge (life).
5. Endure to the end - he took baby steps from one side to another. Enduring through this life and some trials may be difficult but the end is so worth it.

To end Zachs letter, I am going to just quote the rest of what he said because I thought it was just very well said and I wouldn't want to do anything to change it.

Self titled by Zach: Selfie with a sheep

"Now there is one more example I would like to share and that is of the Savior Jesus Christ. He gave us everything! He did the hardest thing without complaining. He died on the cross for you and me! Now I want you to take a second and think about that. He literally died and gave us the chance to be perfected through him. That is why we dont just work... We give our all in everything we do. If we truly love the Savior Jesus Christ we will obey his commandments and pray and read the scriptures with sincerity. 

We as members of the church dont work! I have found that work is weak! Work is only for those who want to be seen and gain happiness through others seeing them. Whats higher and better is giving your all in everything! Growing, learning, experiencing, loving, never soars unless you give your all. For you to give your all you must change who you are. Re-evaluate your life and focus on a higher law which is to GIVE your all. What does it mean to give? Giving can be a father providing for his kids in every opportunity even when he has pain that would put a man crying on his bed. Giving is suffering for the pains of the world. Thats what Christ did and all he asks is for us to be like him. For us to truly soar we need to give our all and focus on others. Be better. Do the will of God and choose good. 

I testify with everything I am that this is the way to eternal life. Turning outward then inward. I know that we all can do this. We all can obtain this. I pray that you will take this story and apply it in your life to change and intruduce a new vision in your sight. I know this is true and as you change your attitude on serving others god will bless you with more love, patience, kindness and give everything to you. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen."

Remember that Zach love love loves letters! Especially hand written. He enjoys so much hearing from every one of you, so if you can take a minute and send him a note to the listed address here on the blog that would be great.

Hasta luego!