Jan 22, 2018 A Pretty Good Week

This week really has been pretty awesome! 

Started off with a really cool spiritual confirmation. I had been praying the past little while since President Monson passed away that I would be able to have a confirmation that the new prophet really was selected by the Lord. Well Tuesday afternoon as we were watching the announcement to the church members as soon as President Russel M. Nelson began to speak I felt the spirit wash over me in such a powerful way that I could not deny it. It is ever so amazing to me that God does really hear our prayers and answers them individually. What a blessing it is to have a prophet on the earth in our day and have the capability of knowing ourselves that he is just that, through personal revelation. God does still love us and for this reason he gives these great tools and teachers, to help us prepare to return to him. 

As a mission this week we received another really awesome tool. On Tuesday we attended a zone conference training meeting where we received the new smartphones. Finally we have received authorization to proselyte online. Along with the new smartphones we have received access to applications such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Skype to use in our teaching efforts. During the past couple of days we have already seen a huge increase in responsiveness to our messages! The communication is an essential part of this work and these new tools will allow us to reach out to more people on a much broader scale. 

 I’d like to finish up by sharing two cool little miracles that happened this week.   

First of all my companion and I have gotten back on the exercise grind lately getting meaningful workouts in to start of the day right. Haha we only had some small dumbbells so we were doing what we could with those but all the time wishing we had something more. Well this week we were helping a lady clean out and organize her storage room when I came upon an old bench and bar. She said she was going to throw it out and that if we wanted it we could take it. We were like YES we totally want it! Haha. So she gave it to us. It was pretty funny because we live like 30 minutes from her house so we were walking through the city trying to carry all this equipment and weight. We got a couple of funny looks haha. 

The second miracle is even better. We haven’t been able to get an investigator to church for quite a while now but Nono promised he would come this week and we were really excited. Well yesterday morning rolls around and we head over to his house to pick him up. We toke the door and nothing so we toke again and still no answer. It was getting pretty late and we had to get to the church so we decided to leave. As we were walking there I felt pretty disappointed because we were just so excited for him to finally come again. Anyways we show up to the church and start welcoming everyone. A random guy just randomly showed up so I introduced myself and invited him in to sit with us. Well he ended up staying all 3 hours and loved it. Turns out he is the grandson of an old member who lives out in Puerto Real. She is pretty sick and is confined to her house so he moved over to help take care of her. He got curious from all the stuff she told him and decided to come check it out!  So that was way awesome, now we have 2 citas with him this week :) 

So overall a pretty good week. I wish you all the best. Keeping you in my prayers always. 

Love y’all, 

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

Jan 15, 2018 Service and Social Media

Its been a pretty fun week, we were able to find some good service opportunities (my fav). We helped with two moves and met some really cool people through them. 

Then we were also able to help one of the members, Enrique in his campo. He got polio when he was a kid so one of his legs is pretty messed up and he walks with a crutch all the time. This man is a beast though. He knows how to do literally everything and he is self taught. First of he started with a shoe store. He figured out how to repair shoes and opened up a shop. He ended up running the place for 40 years! He saved most of his money and when he retired he went across to Puerto Real just on the other side of the bay and bought a plot of land. When he bought the land it was just dirt. He has done so much to it! Including building their entire house themselves! They started off just with one room, which is now the living room. They would use it for everything. The tractor was even parked in there! It was truly impressive, and it is still a work in progress. They are adding on two new rooms for visiting family on the side. We went there to cut wood because the house is only heated by a fire burning stove. So we cut a ton of firewood and stacked it so it can dry over the summer and be usable next winter. Since they are not connected to the power grid the electricity is provided by solar panels on the roof. They also have hot water thanks to a cool solar water heating contraption they’ve got. Elder Moffat and I just loved being out there playing around with axes and wheelbarrows, it brought back tons of fun memories. We are hoping to go back sometime soon because they promised to teach us how they slaughter the chickens haha. 

Well we also received some other crazy news this week. We are now an online proselytizing mission. On Wednesday we got facebook on our iPads and its super weird! This upcoming Wednesday we are having a conference where we will be trained in how to use it and also receive the new smartphones. Really exciting stuff! I was thinking the other day how many changes have happened during just my time in the mission and it's crazy. The Lords work is rolling forward and filling the whole earth as prophesied. It will be a great blessing for us to have these new tools that will enable us to reach out to even more people. 

Thank you for the love and prayers! 

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

Jan 8, 2018 Dia de los Magos

Well this week has seriously been all over the place. 

Most people have been super busy with the holidays because it was dia de los reyes magos. Basically their Christmas here. Instead of santa bringing gifts the 3 wise men bring them. Its pretty interesting how Christ has been completely taken out of the picture though. A lot like how Christmas in the states becomes more about Santa and less about Christ every year. Oh yeah so we decided to make cookies for all of the people who live in our building for New Years and they loved it! Now we are great friends with all of them. We’ve seen a bunch of them in the street the past couple of days and most of them have stopped to greet us which is cool. 

With the holidays everyone has been super busy with family and parties so we ended up in the street a lot contacting people and knocking doors. We were able to have a lesson with Jose Antonio which went pretty well. We changed his baptismal date to the 27th because he said he didn’t feel quite ready yet. On Sunday he was sick with a fever and wasn’t able to make it to church. Hopefully he will get better and we can meet some more this week. 

I have still been listening to conference talks almost every morning while I get ready. I was cooking breakfast Wednesday morning and it just so happened that two of Thomas S. Monson’s talks came on. One from Saturday afternoon and the other in priesthood session. They both included stories he’s shared a few times and I like a lot. I was thinking about how much I loved his talks because they are always humorous yet powerful. I thought back on watching the priesthood session with Dad when he gave the talk “Examples of Righteousness” during which he wiggled his ears. About 20 minutes later as we were doing our daily planning we got the call that he had passed away. It was really sad because he’s the first prophet that I really remember well. I’m sure he is in a better place now though, happy with his loved ones. My companion and I watched the short film the church has made that is available on the gospel library application. It’s called  “On the Lords Errand: The Life of Thomas S. Monson.” It is way good! When you have a little bit of time watch it! He truly was a prophet of the lord, I love teaching that principle to people. If God called prophets in biblical times, why would he leave us in the dark nowadays? The answer is, he hasn’t! “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” It is such a blessing to have living prophets in the latter days. I’m so grateful for the teachings of the prophet Thomas S. Monson that have truly effected my life. I invite all to study his talks and teachings they will change your life. 

Lots of love, Feliz día de los Reyes! Have a great week :) 

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

Hey!

Wow thats so crazy the ward splitting again already. So much growth going on around there. What families did we lose/ gain in the ward that I would know? 

Thats great the brother warner is the bishop, he will do a good job, great guy. 

Real bummer that its been such a bad snow year. Sorry guys, I guess its all just being saved for me next year! Can’t wait to hit the slopes with ya’ll again :) 

I’m glad you mentioned that about Nelson, I thought that he might the one who sealed you but I wasn’t sure. Thats so awesome! Yeah I’m curious to see who the counselors will be too, my guess is he keeps them the same.. but we’ll have to wait and see! 

It looks like I will be here for the next 6 weeks. My companion and I are both staying this transfer so that’s nice. I was a little stressed thinking I might have to pack everything up and move again. I got the package with the Nutella this week and its soooo good! Its a huge glass jar! Should last us for quite a while, thanks :) 

Thanks for informing me about the christmas money too, rebajas start today so I’m going to try to find some slides and stuff cause mine keep falling apart. 

Anyways thanks also for sending the master tonic recipe. I’m going to try to find the ingredients at the store today. That stuff is the best :) 

Also yeah thanks for getting on that new calendar too. I’ve been just trying to note down a couple things each day in a notebook so i can fill in when it gets here. 

Hey we talked about Moses chapter 1 in church yesterday! Really cool section :) 

There is power in the lords name! 

Love you :) 

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

Dec 4, 2017 Light the World

Well the week started off good in both our eating citas we got cooking lessons. The Santos family taught Elder Zapata and I how to make Bollito Balón. Its basically a corn flour dumpling filled with chicken. Super good Venezuelan food. Then the next day after district meeting Milagrosa taught us how to make a classic spanish dish. The tortilla de patata. Can’t wait to make it with real Idaho potatoes haha. We also made some rice pudding this week so lots of fun cooking haha. 

We were finally able to teach Nono again this week. He is just a little low on motivation, like he normally keeps his commitments but he lacks the inner desire. Its hard to explain. Anyways we taught his the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it went pretty good. We are going to teach him again this week though and just make sure he understands that baptism is just the beginning not the end goal. His mom came to church so that was awesome but he was feeling sick and stayed home sleeping. 

Oh yeah so my new companion got here this week. Elder Moffat, he’s from Las Vegas. So far we have gotten along pretty well. He’s a big talker so we are always having interesting conversations which is fun. Mostly about business type stuff, studies and such which is good because we are both trying to figure out what in the world we want to do in life. 

On Saturday we had interviews with President which went really well. He told me its getting close to time where I should start thinking a little bit and setting goals for the future. Figuring out what I want to study and whatnot because soon it will be time to apply for scholarships and register for school. It’s crazy how fast the time is going now, feels like November was just a week long. He goes home June 25th so I will have one transfer with the new mission president which will be weird. 

My favorite thing this week was the service project we did. We painted our investigator Cipriano’s house. It was a really dark purple and we painted it a cream/yellow color. It completely changed the place, doesn’t even look like his house anymore. It was fun we invited some other members to come a a couple came. Fernando had been a painter for a few years so he taught us all of the techniques it was cool. Sounds like we are going to be painting another house soon because the Santos want to do theirs now. Good useful skill to learn. 

This past week we have especially been sharing the Light the World video with everyone we talk to. Its a really great video, if you haven’t seen it go check it out at mormon.org. My favorite thing about the video is it shows people serving one another in various ways then it begins to show the savior preforming all of his miracles. It helped make me realize that the little acts of service we do each day can actually be the answers to prayers and miracles in other peoples lives. It think sometimes we see Christ as this great figure that is just so much greater than us that it is simply impossible for us to rise up to his level. What we really need to see though is that even though we may not be able to do the same exact things he did, we can do similar acts with similar results. If you haven’t seen the video go check it out! And get started on the 25 days 25 ways, its never too late! 🎄

- Élder Alex M. Childers Dec 

Oct 30 - Mormons and Maserati’s

Well its been a pretty solid week.

Highlight, well we found a new investigator who is really awesome he is the son of a less active lady in the ward. This week we were able to teach him twice and he came to a family night with us which was fun. His name is Jose Antonio but he goes by Nono. 19 years old and a really good kid. He and his mom both came to church yesterday which was amazing! Oh yeah so church was super interesting. First of all a guy came to drop his wife off at the church. So we are standing in the enternece welcoming people when we smell smoke strongly haha. The guy was standing right in the doorway where everyone enters just smokin a cigar. So the bishop made us go out there and tell him he couldn’t.. it was awkward haha. Then second hour we show up to the gospel principles class and the teacher never shows up so we have 2 investigators in there and a couple of less active members who came and no teacher. So we start flipping through the manual trying to find a good lesson to teach when a member of the bishopric came in and saved the day. His name is Andres, from Chile. He taught an amazing class just on the fly it was awesome. 

Anyways what else.. well Saturday morning we played soccer with the ward. It was way fun and for some reason I was just on my game that day. Somehow I ended up scoring 4 out of the 6 goals hahaha. So now everyone thinks im really good when it was mostly just a lucky day lol. It was fun though and they said now we will get invited back since we set a good first impression hah. Afterwards Juan invited us to breakfast and took us in his Maserati. Man that thing is powerful. It has a 450 horsepower Ferrari engine in it so he literally just taps on the gas pedal and it feels like you are lifting off. Reminded me of flying, it was fun. This guy Juan has basically the entire Book of Mormon memorized like you can open the book read any scripture and he can tell you what chapter its in. So I’ve started to do it myself. So far I have 1st and 2nd Nephi memorized so I know what happens in each chapter. I’m doing it with image mapping in my mind. Its pretty fun my companion quizzes me every night. Its already proved to be really useful so far. We get talking on a subject in the street with someone and I can just open right up to a scripture that explains it pretty cool. 

Yeah so thats basically it. The week was good. We visited and taught tons of members so I have gotten to know them all pretty well and we have some good references coming in. 

This week is going to be absolutely insane. First off tomorrow morning we leave here early at 5:30 to catch a train to Sevilla for a zone meeting with a member of the 70, Elder Bennasar. Then after that we get back and are here for Wednesday which will be our weekly planning for all the morning. Thursday we will travel again to a mission council meeting in Jerez, immediately followed by a trip to Málaga to go pick up my new ID card for residency. Which will be crazy because I have to take a train to Sevilla where I will stay the night then catch another early morning 6:00train down to Málaga. Then that afternoon back up to Sevilla then back down here to Cádiz. That’ll be a long day. So basically I will only be here for Wednesday afternoon and Saturday. Then my comp will be in San Fernando while I’m traveling all over the place.

 So yeah next week you can expect to hear some crazy traveling story, cause something always happens :) It’ll be fun though. 

Hope you all enjoy the photos and have a good week! 

Love ya! 

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

Oct 23 - Welcome to Cádiz

Bienvenido a Cádiz! said Antonio, (the second counselor) over the phone Saturday night, followed by, hey..... could you give a talk in church tomorrow..? Haha yeah so I got to introduce myself and give a talk on my first day! Thank goodness I’m a missionary and can wing these kinda things :) turned out really good though, everyone always seems enjoy my analogies about flying haha. 

Well it sure is beautiful here. We are basically on an island so there is water on all sides. Since the hermana area is closed right now we have the entire place to ourselves. We also have a little place on the other side of the bay called Puerto Real its pretty neat too. 

I arrived with not much trouble, besides 3 of the wheels breaking on my suitcases, thanks cobblestone roads. They clearly didn’t have missionary travel in mind when they designed the streets in this place! In Sevilla they are the worst and with the amount of tourists they have there I thought it was crazy. But I guess regular tourists don’t normally walk the 2 miles from the bus station to the train station so it’s not that big a deal. Yeah anyways my travel was a bus from Badajoz to Sevilla then a train from Sevilla to San Fernando then a Cercanías from there to here. Luckily the Cercanías station is right next to our piso here so I didn’t have to drag the bags much further. Got here at about 10 pm unpacked a few things and hit the hay. 

The past few days have been pretty good, I’ve gotten to meet a lot of the members which has been cool. There are some really awesome families here. There’s also this guy in our ward named Juan who owns like 4 jewelry stores and a few piso buildings. So he’s pretty loaded haha he drives a Mazeratti and just bought a new wake boat that he was trying to get us to go out on. I was pretty tempted by the offer haha but withstood :) 

Oh yeah another crazy thing that happened, my first day here we went to visit with a kid that they had played soccer with earlier this week. He had given them his address and told them they could pass by so we did. When we knocked on the door his mom answered and was super mad that we knew where he lived. I explained that we just play soccer with him but she just kept yelling about how he was still a minor and she gets to choose his friends and she didn’t want people like us being them... so we said alright well we will leave. As we are waiting for the elevator the door suddenly flies open again and the dad comes out in fighting stance with his fists up. He was this short dude who didn’t look very threatening so I kinda smirked just like dude what are you doing we are leaving! Well he didn’t think my smile was funny haha he’s like “You laughin at me kid!? I’m just like no am I not allowed to be happy haha and told him to chill that we were leaving. So he just starts yelling saying never come around here again. I don’t want to see you anywhere near this building you understand me? Yeah so finally the elevator arrived and we got out of there, it was a fun little experience though. I just don’t understand some people.. 

Well yeah that basically sums it up. My new comp is Elder Zapata and I’m greenie breaking him but there’s not a whole lot of breaking to do cause he’s already a beast missionary. He already understands spanish perfectly cause his Dad is from Mexico and his Mom served a mission in Ecuador. So they would speak spanish together whenever they didn’t want the kids to know what they were talking about. Over time though the kids started to understand. 

So yep we’re just hangin out here I took a bunch of pictures today. Its a pretty touristy place. My first afternoon here there were 3 cruise ships in the port. We have also heard a ton of different languages being spoken around us. The coast is super pretty and the beaches looks awesome but we are supposed to avoid the main ones as much as possible cause ya know swimsuits are just too restrictive for the spanish culture, they prefer to let it all hang out.. yikes.

Well that’s about it. Hasta la próxima!

Have a great week, as always I send my love :)

- Elder Childers 

Intercambios, Interviews y Invierno

Hey guys! 

Well its been a good week. First off we had interviews with President Tuesday which was good. During mine President asked how the family was doing so I was telling him about how Mom and Dad got to be tour guides for the new temple and all. Then I told him how Zach was super happy to have shot a big elk. He got so excited and started bringing up all sorts of hunting stuff then paused and was like “Alright we’ve got to change the subject, you’re making me trunky Elder Childers” hahaha it was pretty funny. After our interview we taught Sister Andersen the Plan of Salvation and it went really well. Sometimes she travels around with him and just does little practice lessons with us then gives us advice on how we can improve. It was good that we got to teach lesson 2 this time cause it prepared us perfectly for our lesson we had last night with Jose Antonio. Oh and that lesson went soooo well it was great. His mom is a little bit less active but has been coming a little more since we started teaching him. Anyways normally when we go over there she stays in the other room while we talk in the kitchen or his bedroom. Yesterday we were about halfway through when she came in and asked if she could join. We were like “Claro que si!” And she ended up helping us out perfectly! She shared this really awesome experience and talked about how she had tried to quit smoking on her own for 30 years without success when finally one day she decided to pray with true intent for help.. The addictive feelings were lifted from her. She said the only way she could describe it was as if she had just forgotten completely that she was even a smoker. Suddenly she realized that it had been over a month since her last cigarette and she knelt down and thanked her Heavenly Father for what he had done to help her. 

The rest of the week was pretty good too. We had exchanges with the Elders in Jerez which was good. Saw some miracles there. I was working with Elder Quispe and our cita failed us so we were just out talking with people. We stopped this guy walking his dog named Daniel (he said “yeah I’m Daniel, like the prophet who got thrown in with the lions but they didn’t eat him, that guy.”) yep exactly right haha. This man liked to talk haha he ended up following us around for like the next hour and talking to people on the street with us. At the end were talking to this Guatemalan lady and her daughter and he cuts into the conversation and says. “I just love these ministers they are really nice guys, you really should listen to them.” Haha it was pretty awesome 👏🏽 good dude. 

Yeah well thats basically all, its starting to cool down here quite a bit. Its crazy cause it went to like really hot sweating all day to freezing bundling up in a period of 3 days. All the cockroaches are coming indoors now 🙃 Oh yeah and last night we were walking back home along the bay and saw a nocturn fishing competition which was kinda cool. 

Anyways thats about it, love ya’ll! 🤙🏼

- Élder Alex M. Childers