FELIZ NAVIDAD!!‏ (December 28, 2015)

Well a big hello and a MERRY CHRISTMAS to all!!

This week was a big week for me as I celebrated my second and last Christmas in Chile.  I celebrated it in the same place as last year with the same people, so it was all with good friends.  I also got to Skype my family for the 3/4 times in my mission.  My companion keeps talking about how old I am in the mission.  It´s really weird.  But above everything else I had some time to reflect on the importance of the Savior in my life.  I´m so glad I can take 2 years of my life and give every second of them to Him and it saddens me to see that they are flying by so quickly.  

During this week I thought a little about the act of gift giving and why we do it.  It´s been on my mind a lot recently.  For a few reasons I have now come to have a better love of the Christmas tradition of giving gifts.  (note I´m not talking about getting them)  These reasons are:

1. We give gifts to remember and honor the gifts that our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ have given us.  "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son..."  That´s a huge gift to give, your only begotten.  Then Christ gave His life for us.  He gave everything he had, capping it all off with the Atonement, giving us the chance to obtain eternal life.

2. When we give gifts we find a new love for those people.  We take time to think about their needs, their desires, there feelings as a whole and then we try and appease those.  

3. "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."  I like to think of service as a gift too.  Christ served all of us, so in return we can give service to those around us.  We put their interests above ours.  It´s another great way to spend Christmas.

I love you all and hope you all enjoyed your Christmas.  Enjoy your New Years too!

Feliz navidad, prospero año, y felicidad a todos,

Elder Forsgren

It´s beginning to look a lot like summer...?‏ (December 21, 2015)

Hello to all, from burning Chile!

The weather here is scorching keeping itself about 90 degrees or above.  I´m not sure how I feel about it, but I doubt that "dreaming of a white Christmas" is a bad idea, but who know, "When you wish upon a star... your dreams come true" So we´re going to see just how white my Christmas is.  

For us, this last week actually went pretty well.  We worked hard trying to find new people, find those that we have found in the past again, and things of the sort.  We´ve been teaching some Haitians recently and we got to visit them twice this week.  It was a privileged for us, and we both enjoy teaching them a lot.  They are very humble and they have so many questions.  At first with a lot they don´t understand, or they aren´t sure about what we are teaching, but their attitude is the best you could imagine.  They always say that they will have to pray and ask God if the things that we are saying are true or not and based off of the answer they will act, which is exactly what they should do.  We told them that that is perfect and there is no one better to ask.  They will find their answer through that attitude and I love that they have such confidence in their Father in Heaven.

This next week is Christmas, and I´ve thought a lot about it this week.  We talked about the real meaning of Christmas with a lot of people this week and the importance of remembrance to the Lord in this holiday.  One thing I´ve been thinking about is what I can give to God.  One of my favorite lines to hymns is "Because I have been given much, I too must give" and that´s how I can give to God.  When we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are in the service of God (see Mosiah 2:17), so if we wish to serve God this Christmas, we must give.

I love you all and wish you a Feliz Navidad, that you may enjoy it and remember why we are celebrating it.  

Con mucho amor,

Elder A.J. Forsgren

FELIZ NAVIDAD!

Month 16 and NATHANS BIRTHDAY!!!!!‏ (December 14, 2015)

Hello everyone,

So this week I´ve been thinking about my little brother Nathan a lot because yesterday HE TURNED 10!!   I find this to be a really weird thought because just one short decade ago, I remember holding him in my arms and he was tiny.  Not but a few years ago he was a tiny kid with a southern and a British accent, now I´m in Chile and he´s 10.  I love him a ton, and if any of you see him soon, give him a hug from me because you´re closer!!  I love you Nathan, and happy birthday!!

Now onto this week.  It was another long week, but we got a lot done and we felt the spirit a lot.  I feel like we were working just to get to Saturday and the Lord blessed us that Saturday with 4 new people to teach (a Venezuelan, and 3 Haitians) and  all 4 of them accepted a baptismal goal for this January.  We will now be working hard with them so that they can find their testimony of this message and can make the great covenant with the Lord.  I have a slight feeling that by the time January comes around, I´ll already be gone, and my companion will have the opportunity to see their baptism, but I´m happy that they have had the opportunity to hear the Gospel.

We here are now facing a terrifying heat mixed with very little water, so things here are just hot all around.  Working out in the sun takes a lot of energy, but we´re taking that as an incentive to work harder to get into the houses of more people to help them.  The more houses we are in, the less time we have to be our in the sun.  I personally like that idea.

I hope that this week has treated you all well and that you have enjoyed it.  I love you all and have you all in my prayers.  Remember the true meaning of Christmas, and if you´ve forgotten it, I recommend you read Luke chapter 2.  

Con mucho amor,

Elder Forsgren

8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

 9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

 10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

Semana largo‏ (December 7, 2015)

Hello everyone.

I´m going to keep this one short this week because I don´t have much
time. This week was a week of patience. Going door to door of people
we know and without anyone answer. But the highlight was certainly
Sunday to see 2 investigators come to church and the daughter of a
less active family come without her family. (it isn´t good that her
family dídn´t come, but it is good that she took the initiative to
come on her own! We were very happy to see her there.

I love you all and am sorry that I´ve not been able to write very much!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Forsgren

Thanksgiving gone, December is here!‏ (December 2, 2015)

Thanksgiving gone, December is he

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!!!

I hope you all enjoyed your holiday of gratefulness, I really did.  My companion made me some eggs and hot dogs so we did have a feast in the end.  Actually, the ward in our stake that has the Senior missionaries had a huge party!!  I wish we had too...  However I´m very grateful for the opportunity I have to spend Thanksgiving working for the Lord.  There isn´t a better way to spend it.  

So the last week went by really slowly because of how few lessons we had.  We almost doubled our number of contacts from the week beforehand because we didn´t have anyone to teach.  However we have begun to see fruits.  We have 6 new people who we are teaching and we all of these new people have a baptismal goal if they receive their answer from the Lord that this message is true.  I´m also seeing a change for the better in my way of teaching now that I can work all the hours of the day (my knee is better).  Because of this problem I have had for such a long time I haven´t taught as many new people as much as just focused on those that we had, however with all the new people we found this week, I "relearned" how to do it.  It actually surprised me (and saddened me a fair amount) how much I had forgotten, so right now I´m working very hard to keep up.  

However it looks like we are going to continue finding more and more people, so I´m excited to be working again. 

I love you all and hope you are enjoying the new Christmas season that has come.  

Con mucho amor,

Elder Forsgren

Almost Thanksgiving!‏ (November 23, 2016)

Hello to everyone! 

So I´m currently in a very bad internet place with very bad
internet... So I´m currently practicing patience in my work. I have
to use internet explorer, which makes me stressed... And I just had a
very stressful week. There is not a whole lot to report, save the I´m
learning a lot from Elder Paredes. He has a way of working which is
new to me, but I really like. It makes things a lot easier and more
efficient. It really is, in my fathers words "working smart and
hard". I´ll admit, we had a rough beginning, however we are hoping to
reap some of the fruits of the week to make them worth more than they
appear. Today he and the rest of the zone played soccer, and I
watched. My knee and I are still not getting along. Tomorrow I will
go to the hospital again, and that should help. 

This next week I will be missing my second Thanksgiving I have ever
missed in my life actually. It makes me a little sad to be missing
it, however the zone is thinking about doing something. I hope they
do, because last year I didn´t do much, but I do remember having an
awesome cake with my Father, Elder Garner, and I really enjoyed it.
That´s something I´ve noticed lately. The smallest of things can lead
to the greatest of memories. 

This week, one thing that was really amazing was my companion and I
visited a few recent converts that hadn´t gone to church in a long
time and we visited them about 2-3 times and they came! Not only that
but they taught people in the Gospel principles class. It made me
extremely happy and grateful for the help of my new companion. I
believe that we are going to have a lot of success together. 

I love you all mostest! 

Con mucho amor,
Elder Forsgren

Nuevo compañero y cambio!‏ (November 16, 2016)

Hello to all!

So I just received a new companion!  I am with Elder Paredes from Araquipa Peru!  I remain in the same sector and ward and basically the biggest change would be my companion.  I`m excited because he seems really excited to work and has a good mentality about everything.  We`re hoping to have a lot of success this next transfer!  He has about 10 months in the mission I think, but he seems like he`s already got a very firm grasp on everything.  He also had a knee problem, which I find funnily ironic.

This last week was another long one, but it was good as a whole.  There wasn`t a whole lot new that happened, however Sunday was the Primary Program and it was so amazing, I really enjoyed it!  I love to hear the little kids and their testimonies and the songs they sing.  It was really fun!

Well I love you all, and hope you have a great week.  I feel like I say that every week, but It`s true!

Con mucho amor,

Elder 4sgren