Week 5 - Last Week at the CCM/MTC

Hola todos personas!!

So before I get into it I must say that I will not be able to email home next week!  I will be able to the week after, however this upcoming Tuesday I will be going out to the field to start actually teaching!!  That´s such a crazy thought!!  I will be teaching people the gospel in one week!!!  

Actually I have already started!!  This week my companions (because I am now a part of a trio of missionaries) and I went out to teach people twice!!  It was so cool!!  But the people all speak Spanish sooooo fast!!!   The first time we went out it was just street contacting, so like 5-6 minutes of talking to people and getting contact information.  That sort of thing!  It went really well!!  The last person we talked to was really excited to meet us and she took a Book of Mormon and we talked about it for a while!!  The people here are all receptive to the gospel and it´s so amazing!!  

The second day we went out we went on splits with missionaries who had been in the field for a while!  It was really cool, however I understood almost no Spanish that day...  But I shared my testimony about every 5 minutes and I was really glad I had that opportunity!!  

The biggest regret I´ve had while being out here is not sharing my testimony with enough people.  While we were on the Subway the other day I was just standing there and I could have talked with so many people, but I shied away and now I feel really bad about that.  I know now to talk to as many people as I possibly can!!

So earlier my companion (Elder Despain) and my district leader (Elder Robbins) both taught an investigator who just came to the CCM and said "I´ve got problems in my life that I need to fix.  I don´t know why.  I know I need to join your church and I´ll do whatever possible."  I can´t tell all the details, but they said it was one of the biggest moments of their life!  My companion has told me how much more his testimony has grown because of this experience!

I love you all and hope you are all doing well!!   You´re all in my prayers!

Con Amor (with love),

Elder Forsgren

Week 4 (it´s flying by!!)‏

Dear Everybody,

So I´ve had a great week, but it´s gone by so fast!!  I said goodbye to the second group of missionaries here in the CCM!!  There are presently only 33 people here, but tomorrow we´re getting about 27 more people!  It´s so small, we know everyone!!  

So today my companion and I just went out and bought a bunch of cool things!!  We also got candy, which is awesome!!  We´ve become such good friends it´s so cool!!  

This week we´re transitioning into speaking only Spanish, and it´s honestly really difficult!!  But I´ve learned more in the past 4 weeks then I did all 3 years I took Spanish!!  I can talk to some of the natives... if they talk slow... and they all love missionaries!!  

This week we had some exercises to practice different aspects of missionary work!!  We all go ‘street contacting’ in the halls and just walk up to each other and start inviting them to church and such!  It´s a lot of fun!!  

My comp. and I probably had our best lesson ever yesterday!!  It was so spiritual, and we managed to prepare the lesson perfectly to answer the questions the lady had for us!!  Now of course it´s not real, but we are still glad we have the opportunity to learn like this!!

This next week is the start of a two week celebration for Chilean Independence Day, and so we´re going to the local festival and proselyting for the first time!!  It's going to be so scary, but we´re ready for it!!!

I can´t wait to leave the CCM, but at the same time I love it here!!  I hope everyone is doing well!!  I love you guys!!

Love,

Elder Forsgren

Week 3 - Halfway through the MTC/CCM

Dear Everybody,

This has been yet another great week!!  Not too much has happened but the spirit has been so present throughout!!  Yesterday my companion and I had a lesson and we invited the mission presedent to join us for our lesson and it went really well!!  I had this awesome lesson I had been translating for 2 days into Spanish and when we got in there the lesson changed so dramatically because she had a few questions about something completely different, but it was so cool!!  My companion was really awesome because he knows Spanish pretty well, and I managed to make it through!!  And afterwards Presedent Doll gave us advice for like 10 minutes!!  I learned so much!!

So While I don´t have too much to say, however I´d like to advise everyone on this one thing; look for how God helps you through your days.  I´ve never seen it as much as I have here, however now I feel the Spirit so often.  Look for small things, like when you help others, think about how God is helping them through you!!  That is God contacting you and someone else at that moment!!  It´s amazing to think of isn´t it??

I love you guys!!

Elder Forsgren