"it doesn't matter where you serve, but how"

holas,

two weeks ago the work was going pretty slow, we werent getting into many houses or teaching many lessons, but this week we were able to find 3 new investigators and teach a few good lessons with members.

catalina and jose parra are doing great and are active with their aunt maddi, and they actually gave us a reference to start teaching joses older sister leticia and maddis mom, maria. they all live together and they have talked to the missionaries before but never really had the lessons. so this week we passed by and they accepted a baptismal date for the 7th of may and they are pretty receptive. they are going to need lots of help, but it wont be impossible.

we went back a few days later to teach them the restoration and found maddis older sister, ana. she is about 35 years old and is really catholic, but maria invited her to listen to the lesson with us and she turne out to be really interested in the book of mormon and the restoring of the church. she said she had never heard of the book of mormon but that she loves to read so we went home after the lesson, got another copy of the book of mormon, gave it to her and she told us we could come to her house this coming thursday to talk more about the book and the restoration. i have noticed that lots of the success i have seen on my mission comes in waves, after a small or big trial of faith, and it always comes if we handle that trial happily.

in church we were asked to assist mission prep with the 3 young men who are preparing to serve missions soon, one of them is jose, our recent convert! we had a good lesson on understanding the purpose of the mission and realizing that it is not our mission, its the lords mission. its a small lesson that i had heard many times before, but it hit me hard that day and i realized that it is 100 percent true. it doesnt matter when or where you serve, but how you serve.

questions:
Did you get your package? yes i did, it was awesome!!!
my buddies and i ate all the seeds and jerkey in like 2 days ha!! thank you so much for sending it!

Are you doing any video diaries?  If not, start today! 
i did video diaries a while ago but i lost most of them so i stopped. ill try to start again

What is the most beautiful area of Chile you've been in so far?
pichilemu is cool and so is conti. they are both cool beach cities and the weather is always pretty nice. other than that, most of the mission is city or grape vineyards in the country

What was the last interaction you had with the youth in your ward?
i wrote them about the mutual theme and a cool experience i had about 3 months ago. A stake youth leader asked me to send something in for a big slide show they were going to do

If you could choose, what area would you want to finish your mission in?
in a city ive never been in before like buin, its the farthest north our mission goes.

Are there any good restaurants in Talca?  Do you have a favorite?
not really, just fast food. we have a mcdonalds here and a place called the class. its a small burger joint that sells pretty cheap and good burgers but nothing too special

Do the members feed you every day?
ya they give us lunch everyday

What is your favorite birthday memory as a kid? 
when dylan came over to our house by ashland ranch and hid in the corner the whole time... no jk i like the new york and the cancun birthday trips a lot. its hard to decide because hawaii was super fun too, but i think the best ones have been with just the fam.

What is the most important lesson you learned this week?
the lesson i learned in mission prep that it doesnt matter where you serve, but how. i learned that i need to stop complaining too.

Do you still have that good coat we got from last chance?
there was an elder who was going home in december and needed a good jacket and i figured im leaving soon so i gave him the jacket to take home.

How are your two suits holding up?
i gave my grey suit away in machali and my black suit is doing ok. it will hold up but im not going to wear it home. im going to give it away as well or just leave it in my last mission house for someone to find.

What is one way you've learned how to make your prayers more meaningful?
i dont always do this but i find that when i get out of bed, think about my day and kneel down at my bedside my prayers are much more meaningful.

thats all for this week. it was a fun week with elder marshall and my roomates, and this new week is the last week of this change so ill let you know next monday if im staying or leaving! love you guys. mom it would be awesome if you could get a hold of elder marshalls mom. he just told me that his mom and dad are thinking about building a house soon in queen creek! let me know if you get a hold of her.

love,

elder pacheco