Febuary 23, 2015

well i have some pretty cool stuff to tell you guys!!

so on monday i was writing in my journal to finish of the day because i had some extra time to do it and so as i was wrtiting about what i thought about extending my mission or not i felt a really strong spiritual impression that i should read my patriachal blessing. so i whipped out my blessing and started reading it! as i was reading it, it says how i need to humbly accept the word of God in my life and if i do so i will always be blessed with what in need. as a read that  part, very strongly came to my mind that fact that the First Presidency, or the Lord, had called me to be a missionary and to finish on the 8th of september 2015 and that is the word of God. after reading that part i recieved and even bigger spiritual confirmation that, like dad said to me, the Lord has and eternal purpose for my life and by trying to pùt my desires, as bad or good as they might be, I am going to be changing the outcome of things that can happen in my life and what the Lord wants me to do. So after writing in my Journal and following the Spirit i know know that i have 6 months and 2 weeeks to serve the Lord with everything i have and then when i get home i can find out what the Lord wants me to do for my life after the mission! i know that by recieving that confirmation im going to be doing what the Lord wants and i will be able to "further my eternal progress", just like a very wise man told me! so get ready! i will be seein you fools in 6 months wether you want to or not!!!

also i have no idea what it is that i want to do after my mission as far as working goes. and it turns out that my comp is also knows a ton about the army and stuff. so we have be talking aobu the army the navy airforce and a bunch of other manly stuff and it has all started being really interesting for me. haha i remember that i went on an army phase also when i was like 16 years old. and so we were talking and i think i might consider joining the National Gaurd as an officer after my mission and have that as my like part time job or something! haha im not sure and not even close to deciding but i dont feel like its just some wierd coincidence that after i just lost all idea of what i want to do with my life the Lord has put me with 2 companions that have really good, solid plans for when they get back. haha so Gods plan is perfect and im really excited for what is goin to happen in my life!!

so matias didnt get baptized becuase he was drinking tea but this sunday he is going to get baptized! haha and his dad who isnt a member is going to come the the service also!! ahha we really need to find some more people to teach and the contacts in the street are all dont have the fondest feeling toward us! haha our sector is 2-3 miles long and in the top part of the sector there are more that 10 evangist chruches within a quater mile radius so its really fun to talk to poeple!

also i just thought that i should send you guys a lovely glammer shot of me at my finest moment this last week. yes that is a tie with jumping sheep on it. i traded with a less active guy in our branch. i call it my "Sheperd Tie"

hey mom i just wanted to tell you that i love you so much and that im really excited to see you in a few months on skype!!! im glad to call you my mom and i know that i will be with you forever!!!! im sure of it!! im so happy that im a part of your life and i want to thank you for your love and patience!!! i love you!!

LOVE YOU!!!

elder ethington

Feb 16,2015

Monday!.

so we ran down the hill that is like 3 4 miles long to get to Viña just because we wanted to do something different andwe also had to get everythingt ready for the zone meeting that we were going to  have  one tuesday and it was freaking crazy! haha got home and had time to shower and then we went out and got to work and teach people! so we had a good day and we were able to teach a reciente convert girl who has been having a hard time coming o church lately

Tuesday!

haha so everything that we had planned for the zone meeting just fell through at 7 inthe morning! haha the computer didnt have the right slot for the cable the projetor didnt workd the extra computer that we found just stoped working 10 min before the meeting! haha so we had to start runing around and we are right next to the office luckly so we found a projector and the computer from the Job Finding place that we  have there adn it was like a huge miracle and we only started the meeting  30 min and we still ended on time to give the projector and the computer back with out problems! haha it was freaking nuts!! and then we ahd lunch with 2 investigators and we are going to help them  get baptized! the guya asked us how can he know which church is true so we are excited for him!

wednesday

we had changes and my comp got changed so im now with an elder brock and he is from las vegas and he is really funny! haha he was in the army and is really cool and then we taught matias who is going to get baptized this next week and is way excited!!!

thursday

we taught a couple people and were able to do some contacts

friday

i was on interchanges with a guy from spain and we talked to 2 drunk guys who tried telling us that we were all wrong! hahah I ALMOST BELIEVED THEM!!!

saturday

we just got cooked haha its gotten really hot here the last couple days which is kinda wierd!! and we taught matias agina and his grandma and we also talked to eliana and she totally wants to get married to her dying husband so that she can get married!!

sunday!

matias and his grandma came to church and we have the interview planned for thurday! haha he is awesome and is super excited! we just need to teach him everything to him and he will be ready to go!!!

so hna monica got her stuff and im sitting next to elder dalton and he said that she put on her earphones and just started crying and that she told the elders to not talk so loud to her cause she can totally here now! haha who crazy is that!!!! i cant even handle it how awesome that is!!! haha it makes me want to cry almost! thank you guys so much and i know that we live in time that God works Miracles for the Faithful!

have fun in the drougth also!!

Feb 2, 2015

(answering question about why they can’t eat food from the markets)  becasue it can get really bad for the whole gringo digestive system when they say its "beef" and mayo" and it turns out to be "dog meat and 3 day old, unrefigerated mayo" haha and you cant really tell if you are walking around and eating fast like we do all day haha. but if it is an established place i can buy what ever i want and all the members say that those places are better anyways!!!!

so a completo is a hot dog, hot dog bun. avacado, tomatoe, ketchup sweet mustard and mayo, and then if you want to they have a version were its all that with sowercraut on it also! i like it with sowercraut! its really good!! and then a Fanta drink to go with it and your are on the CHilean side of the food world!! im goign to eat one of those today! hah they are so good!! 

well this week was really fun! i dont have a lot of time but we are teaching so much and it feels so good! haha we have are agenda filled up till thurday and its monday so that is really nice! we are just trying to keep that going and fufill our commandmetn to teach poepel!! we have this one lady that is just GOLDEN!!!!!!! GOLDEN!!!!! but she is living with some one and isnt married but the guy that she is married with is on his death bed so its kind hard! but her grandson can totally get baptized so we are working on him going to chruch and getting stuff going! what did you guys do to teach people that talk alot!? eliana talks alot and so its hard to teach stuff!

mom your so freaking cool! haha thanks for making the challenge to everyone to read the book of mormon this year! that is so cool and that makes me so proud to be your son! haha!!!!

really mom i just love a lot and im grateful for the chance to talk to you everyweek! you make me feel special! te amo y te aprecio mucho mamita!!!

cuidáte!!!

Jan 26 2015

well that is really cool! and i dont have beckys emial but give her a hug and a happy birthday for me!!

will that is awesome about the gas! some had told us about that this last week but i didnt think that it was that low! haha that is a lot of money! A TON!!!

haha well that work is going relaly well and we are just doing a ton of stuff! haha litterally this branch is so coo!!! there are a lot of young people in the ward and we are just getting stuff done for the Lord!! so we have average of 113 people coming to church  and we had 7 people come to church this last week that we had taught and invited and its really cool! we have this one lady that has came to church 2 times now but we just found out that she isnt married but her grandson is striaght GOLD!! im telling you hes GOLD!! he now has a baptism date for the 15 of febuary and is super excited and understands everything really well!!!  so we are way excited for that to happen! this week what we did was fun was that im just really enjoying my mission right now! its one of the biggest blessings in my life to be able to serve Heavenly Father!! the more i learn the more grateful i am for how perfect the gospel and how simple it can be taught a lived. i wish you guys could just understand how i feel in my heart. it makes me want to be a better servant of the Lord and do what he wants no matter what. i phrase came to my mind this week and its "obedience isnt obedience, if its only for convience" what the Lord aske us to do isnt easy if we are focused on other stuff but if we dont forget which way we face it makes it really easy to do what the Lord wants us to, and recieve the blessing from doing it, that we dont really deserve. haha more than anything im just so grateful for the change that the Lord has made of me and especially that i can give this beatufil gift to you guys and to others here near me! we arte completos yesterday! in Santa Julia we ate a ton of completos and i hadnt eaten one since then but yesterday for lunch a really funny member made us them and it was awesome!! mom if i had to choos one thing to eat it would be Pastel de Choclo!! ES LO MEJOR!!!! they have some big street markets but we actually cant buy food from them! so i am just scop0ing out everything to buy if you guys come here!

i just hope you know that i love you a ton and that im really happy talking to you guys and doing the Lords work! Mosíah 3:20 El Salvador del mundo ha venido ya!! CONGREGUEMOS NOS!!

January 19th 2015

well Grandma phillips testimony thing is way cool and im definetley going to print that off to read a couple times!

well this last week was fun and we had a ton to do. we presented that replica del consejo and it went good! haha its a little smaller group of missionaries but it was fun we jsut needed them to participate more and so we are going to work on that a lot more between now and next time to have a better relacion with everyone.! 

and then we ahd interviews with president and it was really good and its really fun to be able to talke to him and it helps a ton also. he wants me to talk to more poeple in the street and so im having fun with that and we are seeing more poeple coming to church! we taught this one lady and she came to church and it was really cool! haha she totally loved it and met a ton of peoplel and we are going to put a baptism date with her this week so that she can make a convenant witht the Lord! lots of prayers for her and the rest of the investigators and the branch so we can keep activating people!! that would be great!!! we also have a baptism planned for this saturday we are going to need a miracle but that is what the Lord does for the obeidient and the diligent so we are going to do our part and help someone make a covenant!!

i just wanted to say how greatful i am for the time i have left in my mission and for everything that i have learned! its just so incredible to me how cool and how much the Lord does for everysingle person and how much he Cares about us! its a special feeling to know that im a representative fo the Lord. i want you guys to know how special you are to me and that i love you guys so much!! its a blessing to call you guys my family! keep being the best family in the world and i just want you to know that you are always in my prayers and know the Lord is watching out for you!

elder ethington

2 nephi 31 20

ITS THE BEST!!! (nacho voice)

mom I LOVE YOU!!

Jan 12, 2015

haha its was a pretty fun! we had a good week and im getting really use to my new sector and we are teaching a lot of people now and we just have to start going and getting some more people baptized. we have 2 people with a baptism date but they have been listening tot the missionaries for the last 3 years and so we are just really hoping that they can recieve and answer to thier prayers that they need to get baptized and we are goign to invite them to the mutual this friday where they are going to have a surpise movie and so of the youth from the ward are going to go visit the kids. they are 13 and 14 and are just a hard nut to crack. we also had a sweet family home evening with a married family here that are really receptive but they dont understand the restoration. they nodd their head and are good and trying to believe but they arent doing a ton to really try and find out that its true. we had a family that reciently got sealed in the temple tallk about how they know that they are an eternal family and the investigators really liked it but they still didnt understand that it is only available in the Church of Jesus Chirst of latter day saints. haha and so we are going to keep teaching them so that we can help them really understand. they had a baptism date so that is why we are pushing so hard to get them to really understand and everyone in the ward really likes this family! ¡¡¡¡¡THE LORD CAN DO ANYTHING SO VAMOS!!!!! 

so as missionaries our focus has now changed and the only 3 things we are focusing on is Baptize Retain and Reacivate. and the only 3 things that we are tracking is baptisms, book of mormon placed and how many people came to church. and we had a really good week!!!! we had a 124 people come to church so we are basically in the best branch in viña! haha it was freaking sweet!!! and we just had a member call us and tell us that we ahve a FHE tonight with some people that arent baptised and they ahve came to a chruch 2 time and they have gone to a couple of activities so we are pretty excited about that and its just a huge blessing that the Lord just gave us!

we had the meeting with pres and his wife and the asistens and it was incredible!!!! so we started off normally with a scrpture and testimonies of the new leaders and then the leaders that are leaving. 2 of the old asistents gave their testimonies and it was really special to see how much they love the God and Christ. and then presidente Kähnlein felt like we needed to do another prayer and he offered it. ...... litterly the most spiritual and loving and awesome prayer i have heard on my mission! of the 40 or so pèo0ple that were there at least 30 were crying by the end of his prayer and it was just so cool to see the lov ethat he has for the Lord and for us and for all the  missionaries and it was a cool moment. i choked up a bit when he started praying for the missionaries. it was a really special moment. and then we had a good time and i learned that i need to lear from my weaknesses and from my past and that is how i can keeep on getting better!!!!!

i love you mom and i thank you for what you write me every week and it help me a ton to want to help other people!!! i love you so much and i cant wait to talk to you next week!!!

hey also if you could send me a scan of my mission call that would be fantastic so i can print it off!

Elder Ethington 

Jan 5th 2015

haha well that is crazy about josie! haha i miss the breakfast at 12! haha that was always way fun to do! ç

so i got changed to a sector thats called Las Torres! haha its really fun and we are on top of a hill! it was freaking sweet because we watched litterally one of the worlds biggest firework shows from our house! haha all of Valparaiso Viña and all the way to Con Con they have huge freight boats lined up in the ocean by the beach and then 5 min after midnight they all start shooting off the same fireworke show and it is seriously one of the coolest things i have ever seen in my life! haha! and then whole world was just partying haha we live below a bunch of people that arent members and they were offering  wine to everyone and me and my comp were just like "its alright we dont drink.... " and they weer all just like "umm ok... who are these freaking weird kids!?" it was really enjoyable and we had a good day. haha i had to pack all my stuff on tuesday and it was freaking a JOKE!!!! i have so much crap that i have use i have dont. haha it took me 3 hours to pack all my stuff and get it all ready and we barely had time to say good bye to everyone. it was hard to leave everyone and i actually felt like sector sick you could say. on friday i prayed so that i coulk feel better about  being here and have more fun while working here. haha i finished my prayer and i started reading in the BoM 1 nephi 10:20 and i just laughed and realized once again just how much Heavenly Father has a plan for everysingle one of us and how we can really know that everything that we do here on the earth is for a reason! it was a really cool experience to have the Lord answer a prayer that fast because i was really missing people from there a lot and it was hard adjusting to the new sector. i forgot how it is to get to a new sector and not have anyone know you and just have to start from zero again. but i felt when i got to the sector that i needed to read a letter  the obispo BAVI gave to me and so i have been reading that and it just talks about really letting myself be and servant of others, forgeting myself in the bettering of others and just enjoying my mission as a missionary and as a person. im really excited to keep on applying it and i feel like i have only been here for a really short time but that i have changed and learned alot in so little time. my comp is elder Tinney. we were in the MTC together but he was in the other district and it is really fun to be with him. he is litterally the most organized person that i know and so that is something that im going to learn how to be better at because you know me and im not the most organized person in the whole world and im really excited to learn how to be better at that and learn to be more efficient in everything. there is a really funny family here with the fam campos. haha they are all return missionaries and they litterly are just a bunch of partiers. yesterday (sunday) we went over there to see if they could come with us to lesson today (monday) and they were al ljust in their swim suits hanging out they had just gone for a nice leisurely swim in their giante pool that looks alot like the one the you guys bought. haha so someone left a super tight hollister shirt and my comp has some hipster glasses and i snapback. so enjoy. haha