1 year!! and 3 baptisms!!‏ (August 17, 2015)

Hey all!

So I just completed ONE YEAR in the mission!!  It`s been a very short year actually!!  It shocks me just how fast everything has gone by!  In such a little amount of time I have seen a lot of personal spiritual progress and a lot of spiritual progress of the wards I have been in.  I have had 6 companions, 2 wards, 3 sectors, and 6 baptisms and 4 people reactivated.  

This week we also had the baptism of the Reyes family!  It was such an amazing baptism I loved that I could be their for it.  But not only that, Scarlett (the daughter of 8 years) asked if I could perform the ordinance and she was my first ever!!  Sadly I dropped her, because I wasn`t sure how it worked, but in the end what is important is that she got baptized.  

The bishop later talked a lot about how God calls unprepared people to callings of importance (such as Bishop) and trains them in that calling and through that calling.  He focused on one example that made me think a little bit.  He said to Brother Reyes "It is possible that in 1 year I`m sitting on the opposite side of your desk in the bishop`s office" which is really impressive and true.  The Lord calls the weak to strengthen and humble them.  Look and me and my companion.  Together we only have 2 good knees (of 4), we know we can`t do anything without the strength and help of the Lord.  However we are finding it, and seeing our own strength grow every day.

This week has opened my eyes a little bit more as to how I need to work and how I can receive the blessings of the Lord.  I`m so glad to be here in the mission and I know that this Gospel is true.  I hope every one of you can come to that understanding as well.

Les amo muchísimo,

Elder Forsgren

Preaching in the rain‏ (August 10, 2015)

Hello to all people!

This week we had a lot of rain.  An incredible amount actually!  It wasn`t near to more than VA gets in the Summers a lot, however for Chile it was enough to cause nationwide disaster and panda-mania.  We enjoyed it thoroughly!  It has cleared up the smoggy air so much and brightened our spirits a lot.  One day we weren`t allowed to leave the house though, it was so bad.  This week was a little slow on lessons, but the many we had were important, especially for one family.

We are currently working with one family to be baptized this next week.  We`ve been working with them for about 2 months and they`re very excited to be baptized, but we`ve had to push the baptism back 2 weeks already, so we are nervous about them getting discouraged, but they assure us that they aren`t even close to it.  They say that they have made their decision and when the baptism is doesn`t matter, they just want to make the covenant with the Lord.  Everything we explain to them the understand.  At first we had a lot of trouble with the Brother (Brother Reyes) and the Book of Mormon, however he followed the promise and prayed about it and received his answer.  He knows it to be true now.  We`re very excited for that.

One theme that we are talking about a lot in our ward is the theme of Eternal Families.  We are talking about God`s plan and how we cannot achieve everything without an Eternal Spouse and how through this commandment we have the blessing of being with them and our children for all time and eternity.  It`s a wonderful experience to know that I was born into such a covenant and that the people who i`ve known since my birth (or theirs) will never leave my side.  I love them all very much and know that they are my family for the eternities.  I cannot wait to see them again, but until then, they are with me in my heart.

I hope you all have a good week and can see the blessings of your Heavenly Father in your lives.

Con amor,

Elder Forsgren

Week I really don`t know‏ (May 25, 2015)

Hey all,

So this week was a really good one spiritually.  We had a lot of success in the lessons we had and I feel really good with it.  The biggest thing that happened was we had 3 baptisms in our ward!!  One of a little kid of 8 years, one from my sector and one from the other sector.  The baptism in my sector was especially really good because it was someone who we`ve worked with for over a year and had a few difficulties with baptizing because her husband was dying.  But she now has gotten baptized!  She is the 3rd in her family to be baptized (after her mother and her son) and she`s really excited because she wants to do the work in the temple for her husband in a year!  I look forward to see how the family progresses through everything.  Her son (17 years old) will be going on a mission in the next year!  But first hand he will probably baptize his little sister when she turns 8!

That is our big news for the week everything else is small little things that made me happy.  One thing we are going to start to work on now is finding more people so that we have more people come unto Christ soon.  

I love you all and hope you have a good week!

Con amor,

Elder Forsgren

Week +1 (AND SPENCERS BIRTHDAY!!!) {Week 33}

Dear peoples,

So I`m going to start off by wishing my little brother a grand birthday:

FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS A SPENCER ZANE FORSGREN!!!!!! EL CUMPLÒ 15+1!!!!!!

Entonces, This week we had a baptism!!!!!  The baptism was of a little 10 year old girl who my comp has been teaching for a good while.  Her family are members, and her mom is less active, so she wasn`t baptized.  But when the missionaries started to teach her she wanted to be baptized.  A friend of the family (also Recent Convert) Baptized her.  He is the president of the YM and he`s preparing to go on a mission this summer too!!  

So we also had cold come for the first half of the week.  And it came FAST.  One day we woke up and there was rain and snow on the mountains.  Naturally that same day the water heater broke.  The water was Frozen.  We thought it was just something to do with that day, but when it continued we couldn`t hold it back anymore and we just called the office for them to fix it.  When it happened for the first time my comp. left the bathroom immediately, turned away and slammed the door.  But really for me it wasn`t too big a deal, the cold never bothered me anyways.  

So this week a major news item of Chile is the north (many hours away from me) had a huge flood and the country called a state of emergency.  The reason this is so weird is because this flood happened in the desert...  So there were absolutely no precautions for it.  No one was expecting it.  It litterally just destroyed homes on impact and swept many people away.  The whole country is scared for the people missing.  We actually met one man whose sister lives in that city and he still hadn`t heard from her.  It put things in perspective for me.  I need to be prepared for things like that to happen so I can be ready to help anyone in a second.  I also need to help other people realize the importance of this message we share so that they know whatever happens their family can live forever in the eternities.

That was my week, I hope everyone else had a great one,

Con amor,

Elder Forsgren

2 Marzo - Week 29

2 March 2015

Hey all,

So I didn`t remember the week, so I wrote the date... I feel like this has reached a new level of lost in time...  So this week went really well.  We taught a lot of people and had a lot of help from the Lord with our work!  I really enjoyed this week and enjoyed teaching everyone!  

This upcoming week we are hoping to have a baptism, but we have to finish teaching her, resolve a few confusions she has, and make sure that she`s ready.  The ward has already accepted her as one of their own, which is awesome!  We also had a baptism in our ward this past week!  It wasn`t ours, it was the wards baptism, but it was someone who we`ve been helping for months and he`s finally baptized!  We are very proud of him!  He worked really hard!  His family was all so happy!!

The missionaries in the other ward are currently teaching a man named Steve who is NOT Latino.  He`s Las Angeles through and through and he`s so much fun. He`s one of the few people that we can speak English to and not be breaking rules of the mission.  He finds the rule of only speaking Spanish so funny because when we talk to him we talk in English, but when we talk to each other (all of us are from the US) we speak Spanish.

So this week I`ve had my testimony of Family History strengthened so much.  This past week we shared Family History with the family the recently reactivated and now the daughter is obsessed!  She loves it and I can see her getting closer to her ancestors.  It makes me want to work harder on it!  I love it!

I hope this next week for you all is great!  I love you guys!  

Con amor,

Elder Forsgren

I'm Losing Count - Week 10

Dear all,

So this week was one of the most productive I´ve had yet!! We went on interchanges on Tuesday, so I got to experience a different area of the mission which was a lot of fun!!  I got along well with the other Elder, and I’ll be doing it again this upcoming week with his companion!! 

We had a zone conference Wednesday with half the mission!  My friends and I were drinking a lot of juice and my companion decided to chug about 3 liters and when he was finished he ended up throwing up in front of the president...  He became very famous that day...  It was very funny honestly, but at the same time, he´s learned his lesson! 

This past Sunday we got to witness one of the boys in the ward baptize his sister, which was a really amazing experience!!  He´s currently working on his papers to be a missionary and so it was a great experience for him!  I don´t really know them yet though because I´ve only been here but so long.  There were 11 missionaries there though. It was really cool!!

We had one of our investigators agree to be baptized this week!!  It was such a spiritual experience!!  He has been searching for the Lord´s church for years and years and he thought it was silly that we had to ask him to be baptized. He said "Of course!" when we did and seemed like he didn´t understand why it was a question!  He has a lot of faith!!  I really like him!!  Now we want his brother to baptize him because that would be amazing!!

I love you guys and hope you are all doing well!!  

Con amor,

Elder Forsgren