March 28, 2011

Hey! This week was definitely not the most exciting one but it was definitely a little interesting. I am glad to hear that everyone is doing well and that you guys had a good time with Taylor there this last week. I am so glad that you guys got to go to the temple and have the experiences that you had. I can't wait til I am back and will be able to go with you guys and share those experiences with you, but for now I am content with the experiences that I am having. Elder Garcia is ending his mission this week and we have transfers this coming week. He is doing well and will have the surgery right after he ends the mission up in Santiago, Chile. He is an AP right now and he told me that he wanted to work with me one last time before he goes home, so he is going to come out on Thursday and me and him are going to go out and work in my sector. I am probably gunna cry like a baby when he leaves, he is such a good guy and has done so much for me, but I know that the mission has to come to an end at some point. I am sooo excited to get to work with him again! As far as work in the sector...this week was pretty good. we didn't find anyone new that has a ton of potential but our investigators are progressing a ton and we are looking to have a solid 3-5 baptisms in April We are working really hard and I know that the Lord is going to bless us with people when these ones get baptized. Nothing too interesting happened this week so I guess I can just skip straight to Sunday which was packed with excitement, and just to let you guys know stuff like this happens all the time to me...So we get to church right as it is starting and they start with the normal "Hows everyone doing" and then the bishop's counselor says "We are going to start with a hymn and Elder Dastrup will lead the music..." I went up and did my best to lead the music then went down to sit by my companion. Then he says we are going to prepare for the sacrament by singing another hymn and so I got up and led another one. After the hymn ends, he taps my shoulder and says "prepare yourself to give a talk". So I go down to my seat bust out my scriptures and end up having 5 minutes to prepare a 15 minute talk. I give the talk and it went pretty well, and after sacrament meeting ends I look around and I don't see our teacher for the 2nd hour anywhere. She is in Santiago!!! So we start the 2nd class and the Mission Leader says..."The teacher isn't here, but sometimes that just happens but that's why we have the missionaries..." I end up teaching the class pretty much by myself (A full hour by the way) and I think I am pretty much done for the day but...that would have been to easy. After the class an older woman comes up to us and asks us to give her a blessing of health. Of course she wants me to do it and so I did it. After that we get asked to take the sacrament to some older lady that lives on the other side of our sector. After we did all of that...we got to go to lunch and I was sooo happy. Until the lady brought out Chicken liver to eat, haha. LONGEST SUNDAY OF MY LIFE! Well I have no time left so...I hope all is well and that you get this email quickly. Love you guys a ton and hope that you know that. Yours Truly, Elder Cody Dastrup

March 21, 2011

Last week Cody was real sick and we only got a few lines stating how sick he was with the stomach flu....so that is why we didn't post anything for March 14, 2011.

Hey Everyone!

I am back! Last week was rough, me being really sick, we had interviews with President and we had a baptism on Saturday. As for the sickness...I am feeling great. On Sunday night I puked my brains out and I literally thought I was going to die, but I made it out alive and I am good to go for this week. I don't know exactly how I got sick but if I were to guess I would say it was just a virus. I am doing really well though and I feel like I had one of the better weeks of my mission this week. Like I said, we had a baptism this week and it went perfect, and like I think I said last week we are working our butts off and it is paying off.

The girl that we baptized is named Alejandra and she is awesome. She is 13 but understands everything perfect and is very mature for her age. Elder George baptized and I did the confirmation on Sunday. the confirmation went really well and surprisingly it was a pretty decent sized confirmation (my vocabulary has increased a lot in the last few months, haha) The baptism and everything was really good but the best part was the whole week of preparation. Last Saturday Alejandras mom asked if we could come help them take down their house and move the stuff to a different lot nearby, we said yes and we did it with the help of 3 other missionaries. On Tuesday she called me and asked if I could do a big favor for her...come over and build the house! I said we will see what we can do and that i would get back to her. Honestly, I was thinking about not doing it and telling her that that's not what we are here for but I knew that isn't what the Lord wanted. So, Tuesday night I called up Elder Reed and my DL and asked them if they could come help us in the morning, of course they said yes. We went and worked until 1 in the afternoon. Alejandras mom, Sara, seemed really pleased and then asked if we could come back later so she could thank us. We went back to the house at like 5 in the afternoon and we taught her a lesson and testified of why we are here and that we are literally servants of Christ. She got emotional and told us that she asked her church to help her the day before, they said no and then went on to talk bad about us and say some nasty things about us. She told us that she knew that we were good people because we came to help her when we didn't even know her. She came to Alejandras baptism on Saturday with Alejandras aunt and to church on Sunday. They loved church and so we went to share a message with them afterwards and her mom just broke down in tears. She now wants to listen to our message, accepted a baptismal date for the 10th of April and asked me if I would baptize her. I know that the spirit can speak to us, but only if we are willing to listen and act upon the promptings of the spirit will we receive them. If we hadn't gone and done that service for her, we would have more then likely been just another church in her eyes, but because we went, she now has the chance to have the gospel of Jesus Christ in her life.

This week we had some other good people in church and to be hones we are looking really good for April. the Lord blesses us so much when we put our trust in him and my companion and I are seeing the blessings of our hard work finally paying off. My invite to everyone is that you can go out and serve someone, anyone...you never know what could come out if it or how much it could mean to them.

Yours Truly,

Elder Cody Dastrup

PS...I heard BYU is playing Florida in the sweet 16. GO COUGS! (unless they are playing Utah) haha

March 7, 2011

Hey,
I had an awesome week! Me and my companion finally clicked a little bit and we worked our butts off and it looks like we will be having a baptism this week or the next. I am more comfortable being senior companion and my companion is helping me adjust and making the transition really smooth and easy. I had my birthday on Saturday and it was....amazing! I can honestly say it was one of the better birthdays that I have ever had. I had 3 "Birthday Parties" 2 of them were surprise parties that our investigators and members planned and the other one was something that we planned for the night. We ate a ton of cake, Chilean pizza and we had a BBQ. I had a blast and I would like to thank everyone who sent me letters, packages or anyone who has even prayed for me and just so you guys know the Chileans treat me very well down here, they are a good people. I am really grateful for all of the support I have from them and from you all.

This next week I think we will have a baptism and if not it will be the next week. I am really getting down to business here with my new companion and we are just forgetting ourselves in the work. I love working hard because the time flies by and you really just don't have time to think about anything other than the work. The baptism that we have planned is for a girl name Alejandra. She is a 13 year old that is really smart and literally answer all of the questions that I ask her better than I can teach so I pretty much just ask her a bunch of good questions when we teach her and she basically teaches herself haha (if that makes sense)

Today we obviously have our pday and we went to a church building in central and we played soccer and basketball. I realized that I am a lot better as soccer then I am at basketball now and that's not because I am really good at soccer...I have just lost all basketball skills. This next week we are planning on going to play paintball again but it is kind of expensive so we will see what happens there. Nothing else too exciting happened this week but I will keep you guys updated on whatever goes on and if anything cool happens down here. Let me know if you have any questions....

Yours truly,
Elder Cody Dastrup