El Rescate and 38 DVD's -- 9"!

This week was full of incredible experiences.  To start it off, we had an awesome opportunity to present to some pretty big fish.  My companion and I attended a Sunday morning coordination meeting at our mission president's house, and President Rappleye gave us 10 minutes to present the project "El Rescate" [The Rescue] to all of the stake presidents in the Chile Osorno Mission, and the presiding authority from the AREA SEVENTY.  For those of you unfamiliar with Mormon vernacular, let's just say that I felt a bit like the warehouse worker presenting to the CEO.  I don't think I've ever been so nervous about a presentation in my life, but it seemed to go okay.  All of the stake presidents were really excited to participate in the Rescate project, but I guess you can't go wrong when you only talk about good news.

I thought we were going to present during the first 10 minutes of the meeting and then get kicked out altido [fast??? Google isn't translating this word], but it went a little different than that, and we were privileged to see what an area authority talks about with his stake presidents in a coordination meeting.  And of all the things they could talk about, can you guess what they discussed?  The youth of the church, and whether or not to hold a mission-wide youth conference this coming year.  Listening to them discuss the obstacles of the conference, and hearing the testimonies shared about the spiritually-uplifting effect of the conference really convinced me that our leaders genuinely care about the youth, and the unanimous consensus was that yes, they are definitely going to do another youth conference this year.

So the presentation and meeting was pretty awesome.  It was definitely the opportunity of a mission, and perhaps the opportunity of a lifetime.

I want to tell about another funny story that happened this week too!  So office elders are kind of the errand boys of the mission, and especially of President.  Except I'm no messenger boy.  I'M A DELIVERY BOY!

Bueno.  Anyway, Wednesday morning I answer the phone and it's President, and he says " Elder Crotzer, I've got something for you to do.  There are some missionaries coming over from an Argentinean mission to do their legal visa paperwork, and then when it's done, they'll re-enter Argentina.  And we're going to take advantage of the opportunity, and help their mission out."

Apparently, this particular Argentinean mission has been unable to purchase DVD players for months, and every missionary companionship needs a DVD player to watch training videos.

"So.  Elder Crotzer.  I need you to go around Osorno and buy THIRTY-EIGHT (38) DVD players today, and tomorrow get them to a little town a couple hours from the border to hand off to the Argentinean missionaries.  Got it?  Thanks."

And then we, the office Elders, spent all day running around Osorno, going to the mall, trying to find a good price for 38 DVD players.  At 7:00 at night, we finally had them all bought, and I called President to let him know.  And the conversation went something like this:

Crotzer:  "So President, we finally got all of the DVD players bought.  We had to go to a couple different places to find them all."
President:  "That's good news!  Are they all the same though?"
Crotzer:  "Yeah, they're all portable DVD players with a 7" screen."
President:  awkward pause...  "Did they have 9" DVD players?"
Crotzer:  "Yes....  but those are $20 more."
President:  another awkward pause....  "Well, the other Mission President specifically asked for 9" DVD players..."
MORE AWKWARD PAUSES
Crotzer:  "I guess we still have the receipts..."

So then we frantically ran around Osorno returning 38 DVD players before the shops closed for the night, and we ended up buying the 9" models early the next morning.  BUT WE GOT IT DONE.  And that's all that matters.

Friday we had zone conference, and that was another awesome experience.  Later that day we went on exchanges, and I got to work with Elder Monson for a bit.  We were able to visit Rodrigo and Gisela, and talk with them a bit.  They told us that the last four weeks have been full of challenges for them, and they have really missed the visits of the missionaries, which just breaks my heart every time, because I hate choosing between doing a good job in the office, or visiting the people in our sector.  We talked to them a bit about fasting, and about how it helps the poor and helps us to become more spiritually in tune by ignoring our natural appetites and hunger.  We bore testimony of the power that fasting has in our lives, and challenged them to fast together with us this coming Sunday.  And they said they would do it, so we'll see.

-Elder Crotzer

Chernobyl in Chile...

I wish I could write and tell you about all the miracles that happened this week, but the truth is I've been drowning in office work.  Ever since Elder Barney left and I took on his responsibilities, the work load has been a little overwhelming.  The mission secretary is kinda over-worked too, and so we have only had the opportunity to teach one lesson this week.  We had a Family Home Evening with the girl that just got baptized, and it was a lot of fun.  Elder Gonsalves cooked brownies, and we taught them about the importance of recognizing your blessing and giving thanks to the Lord.

Today, for P-day, we took a field trip to Chernobyl in the Soviet Union.  Just kidding, we actually went to an old, abandoned, burnt-down hospital.

It was pretty cool.  It might have been dumb to walk around an abandoned, burnt-down nine-story building, but I don't think fire weakens the structural integrity of concrete.  So we did it anyway.

Love you,
-Elder Crotzer

The Importance of Obedience

We received some excellent zone counsel this week.  We talked about obedience, and why it's important.  President Rappleye is doing his best to help all the missionaries in la Gran Misión Chile Osorno be more obedient.

Recently, there has been a bit of confusion regarding obedience and "successful" missionaries.  Someone said to President Rappleye:  "Elder So-and-so listens to worldly music and doesn't get up on time, yet he has helped X amount of people get baptized.  Why is obedience to mission rules important if you can baptize without it?"

President responded in the following way:

Elders and Sisters,

You are here to do the Lord's work.

You CAN baptize without being obedient.

BUT, in that case, only the person being baptized receives the blessings.  So I guess the question is:  "Why are you a missionary?"  If it is to obtain honors of men, then if you are clever, you might be able to achieve that while being disobedient, but if you came to truly DO HIS WORK and be guided by him to whatever that may be, it is through obedience.  A missionary should not make the mistake of assuming he is fine just because he is involved in a larger work and seeing results (such as baptisms, etc.) (Matt 7:22).

     “Our greatest and most important labor is to cultivate ourselves.”  Brigham Young

Not baptisms, not key indicators, not leadership positions, it is who we become that in the end really matters.  What is the disobedient missionary becoming?  Someone that thinks that he can cheat his way to heaven?  What is the obedient missionary becoming?  A powerful servant of the Lord, in whom the Lord knows he can trust and that He will guide because he is worthy of, and constantly seeking, the guidance of the Spirit.  The difference is NOT measured by numbers or baptisms.  But the difference is HUGE!!

That is why I focus so much on obedience.  Precisely because it is NOT easy.  I am hoping that more missionaries will truly give their hearts to the Lord and do his will, even when it is not easy.  In so doing, they will be worthy of the multitude of blessings the Lord has promised his worthy servants. 

I realize that this is directed at missionaries, and it may not resonate with you.  The gist of it is:  "If you lie and cheat your way to a lot of money, and then give it all to the Church, you're still not going to heaven, and you're definitely not becoming more like Christ."  But maybe that was obvious to you already.

Love you,
-Elder Crotzer

Happy Mother's Day!

Editor's note:  Missionaries are allowed to call or skype their families twice each year, once on Mother's Day and once on Christmas Day.  Both Thomas and Catherine skyped home and we enjoyed a 45-minute session with each of them.

Here are a few interesting tidbits from the conversations:

For Catherine's mission, the infamous bicycle has broken once again, and so when Catherine sent her weekly e-mail update to her mission president recently, she notified him of this.  And asked for a horse instead.  Her mission president wrote back that he enjoys reading her weekly updates and that she is very funny.  (I think that means "no horse.")

Catherine thinks she has lost about 30kg (or about 60lbs).  We thought it must be because of all the bicycling and walking that she does, but she says it is more because they only eat one meal a day.  They are on a very very tight budget, apparently.

She does her laundry at a laundromat, but because it is expensive and they must stretch their limited funds, they only do laundry once a month.  Which means wearing their clothes (she has outfits to last about two weeks) twice as long as normal, or doing some handwashing in between.  There are no dryers, and she says nothing dries completely.  (It has been raining a lot and humidity must be high.)  The weather is changing to the fall season and they are essentially on the coast, so temperatures have been cooler.

As far as her apartment, she says their "pension" has hot water, but there is only one temperature available:  scalding hot.  Or in other words, waaay too hot to tolerate for showering.  So they take cold showers.

Catherine is coming up on her one-year mark (in early June).  At that point, she will only have six months left on her mission.  When asked about upcoming transfers, she feels she will be staying put.  She says it cost a lot to get them to their current area and it isn't cost effective to be transferring them around too often.  She believes she might be asked to train a new missionary at some point.

And finally, she indicates that the thing she misses most on her mission is frito pie.

The news from Thomas is that he has gained at least some of the weight that Catherine has lost.  He has managed to accomplish this feat on only one meal a day (usually).  A "mamacita" cooks a large early afternoon meal for some of the missionaries there.  Thomas says it is huge but expected to last them all day.

Although he could, he says he does not eat breakfast often.  Chilean missionaries "rise and shine" at 7am (instead of 6:30am).  He spends time in the morning exercising, in individual scripture study, in companion scripture study and planning for the day, and then heads to the office.  After completing office duties, they head out into the "sector" to do missionary work.  They get home to their apartment at 9:30pm or 10pm at night.  Sometimes he makes "alfredo", which he said was boiled noodles with alfredo powder sprinkled on them, and then parmesan cheese sprinkled on that.

Church members do the missionaries' laundry for them, usually once a week but sometimes every other week.

The weather there has not been rainy lately, but they are heading into the rainy season (it is turning fall there also) and that means it may rain for days at a time.

Thomas' mission president (the Firestone executive) is going home soon.  He and his wife have only a few weeks remaining of their three-year assignment as the Osorno mission president in Chile.  At that point, the new mission president who is from Mexico will arrive to take over.  Because of this change in mission leadership, Thomas feels he will remain assigned to the mission office for one or two more transfers (six-week periods).  Until the new mission president learns the ropes, it will be up to the young missionaries to ensure the mission runs smoothly.  After that, Thomas thinks he will be assigned to a new area, because he is approaching the limit of a normal assignment to any one place.

The thing Thomas misses most on his mission is his violin.  The only violin available in his current area is someone's from church, but it is a three-quarter size violin and therefore smaller than what Thomas is accustomed to playing.  He has not played since the conference at which he was asked to perform a musical number with two other missionaries several months ago.

Q&A

Editor's note:  In an effort to learn more about what Thomas does, his family sent him some questions.  He sent answers back in a Q&A format.

Q:  What good have you done?  What successes have you had recently?
A:  The project I am directing is going well.  A brief summary:  We can use government voter-registration information to find members that went inactive and lost contact with the Church, and using this new information, clean up the Church records that exist in Chile.  Missionaries make visits to the new addresses, and reactivate lost members.  Someone has to get the information to the missionaries, and make sure they know how to use -- and are using -- the program.  That's where I come in.  I had a hand in planning and directing the training sessions, coming up with rules, recommending missionaries as program specialists, directing the specialists, overcoming obstacles, and maintaining a focus and progress in the program.

Of every mission in Chile using the El Rescate program, our mission is in third place in terms of the numbers:  Members visited, addresses verified, and information updated in the church management system.  The other two missions above us have been using the program for about twice as long.  There have been several inspirational stories about people reactivated or baptized, because of members found using the El Rescate program.

Q:  What disappointments or setbacks have you experienced?
A:  The mission office can be a spiritually, mentally, and emotionally draining environment. There is stress, complaining, temptation, and many opportunities for abuse of privileges and unrighteous dominion.  (Extra responsibility begets extra privileges and extra privileges begets abuse of those privileges and pride.)  The work load is heavy, and the consequences for failure in the fulfillment of responsibilities is severe.  For one little example, last transfer, I never realized that it was my responsibility to send new 6-week planners to all of the zones along with the other normal supplies.  No one ever told me to include the planners, and maybe I should have realized of my own accord (because transfers were taking place and that is when we get a fresh planner), but I didn't realize.  So the missionaries in our mission worked for three days without pocket planners that week, because Elder Crotzer messed up.

What's more, office elders are given this mountain of work to do, and they are still expected to be missionaries, and work in a sector, and make visits, and baptize people.  No one has ever yelled at me for failing here in the mission, but we all know when someone is talking to you because they don't think you are doing your duty.  It is a constant battle to know how to prioritize.  If I don't work on El Rescate, no one else will, and it will fade away just like every other failed or half-success missionary program.  But I still have to fulfill my other office responsibilities, and leave to work in the sector.  There's not enough time for everything.  Something has to suffer.  What's it going to be?

Q:  What can your friends and family ask for in their prayers to help you?
A:  You can pray for the strength and fortitude to live the Gospel, and then for the courage to give a Book of Mormon to a friend and tell them how much it means to you, or invite them to Church or a family home evening.

Q:  Have you taught anyone any of the missionary discussions lately?
A:  Two weeks ago, we taught the 9 year old son of a less-active single mother.  We taught "The Gospel of Jesus Christ", which contains the 5 crucial steps to attaining salvation:  Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End.  The kid is only nine, but he seems to understand it all.  It was interesting to simplify our lesson down to the comprehension level of a nine year old.

A week and a half ago, on Tuesday, I taught a lady sitting next to me on the bus.  My companion and I took an hour bus ride to attend a meeting, and I started a conversation with this lady about her presentation that she was making on a laptop.  She asked us if we were missionaries, and we ended up sharing the story of Joseph Smith and the First Vision.

Q:  Do you do any tracting at all?
A:  Missionaries in Chile do a lot of tracting.  People tell us they are busy, but they are usually not rude to us.  Occasionally we find someone who will let us inside and we can teach a lesson.  That hasn't happened to me in about four months though.  As office elders, we do not have much time to work out in the sector, and so we fill all of our proselyting time with pre-scheduled visits.

Q:  What have you learned lately from your gospel studies?
A:  This morning I read an interesting address about the difference between sin and adversity.  Basically, you need to repent of sin, but you just need to ask for God's help overcoming adversity.  Real life example:  Couple is scheduled to get married in the temple.  They break the law of chastity and conceive a child just a few days before the wedding.  They go ahead with the wedding because everyone has already been invited, and they are the first couple to get married from their small branch.  The child is born nine months later and has serious birth defects.  They confess their transgression and return to full membership in the Church after Church discipline and repentance, but their marriage is about to fall apart after three years because of the stresses of raising a special-needs child.

But let's sort their problems into sin and adversity:
    Sin:  Broke the law of chastity.  Went ahead with marriage, compounding the sin.  But they fully repented.
    Adversity:  A special-needs child is born to the couple.

You can't repent a child.  But you can recognize adversity for what it is, which is an opportunity to grow and develop your Christlike attributes, such as patience, long suffering, and kindness.  I feel like I didn't do the talk justice in this brief summary I've typed to you, but that's the best I can do in the time that I have.

Q:  Did you provide any service this past week?
A:  I chopped some wood for our landlord's wife, but that was more because I felt like chopping wood (letting off steam) and less because of charity.

Q:  What kinds of things have you accomplished in the office?
A:  On Friday I presented the next step in the "El Rescate" program that I am directing in the mission.  A new part of the website was just released, and I showed the zone leaders what it was and how to use it.  Now it's up to the zone leaders to present it to their respective zones.  We also discussed how to work most effectively with the ward secretaries, in order to keep the records of the Church up to date, so that ward leaders can have access to correct, useful information.  In addition, I recommended 26 missionaries as El Rescate specialists to President, to help the ward secretaries magnify their calling.  I need to give them information about their roles and the requisite resources, and create a presentation for President to give to the Stake Presidents of the mission, but I haven't had time this week.  We've been busy welcoming new missionaries to the mission, and coordinating the departure of those that are leaving.  As well, my old companion Elder Barney left the office, and I took on his responsibilities.  So next week will be full of entering baptismal records, verifying mission key indicators, and receiving and sending out missionary proselyting materials.  All the while receiving, recording, and sending references to the correct missionary sector, and recording interesting events in the mission history.

Q:  Who is your new companion?
A:  My new companion is Elder Gonsalves, the mission secretary.  He is in charge of keeping everyone legal in Chile. (visas, passports, IDs)  He also buys the flights for the coming and leaving missionaries, reserves cars and hotels for President's conferences.

Q:  Where is he from?
A:  Vermont.

Q:  How long has he been in the mission field?
A:  A little less than a year.

Q:  If you had ward or stake conference lately, what talks impressed you the most or what did you learn?
A:  We just had stake conference a week ago.  An Area Seventy came and talked to us.  In the general Priesthood meeting, he asked each of the bishops in the Stake to stand up and present all of the Priesthood holders that accompanied him.  I would have hated to be the bishop that stood up and could only point out two people in the congregation that were from his ward.  It was an interesting request; I'm not sure of its purpose.  I guess it could be to make the bishops a little more conscientious of who attends meetings.

Q:  Do you have any investigators or less actives that you are working with?
A:  We are working with Nicholas, the nine year old boy.  Also, we are working with the unbaptized wife of a re-activating member.  She has been meeting with the missionaries now for about 5 months now, and she enjoys our visits.  I don't enjoy them as much as she does.  They talk A LOT.  The wife is reading the Book of Mormon because of a calendar we gave them with a couple verses from the Bible and Book of Mormon for every day.  She tells us she says her prayers every morning and night, and she attends church fairly consistently every Sunday.  But she isn't progressing towards baptism, and we really haven't touched the subject much.

Apparently, before I came to the sector, she had a baptismal date, and she was progressing very quickly.  Then, she said she felt pressured, stopped reading, stopped attending church, and stopped meeting with the missionaries.  About three months ago, during my first week in the sector, we finally got her to meet with us again.  Then my companion left the mission (it was time for him to go home), and I've been leading the sector ever since.  And I am scared to death of offending this lady.  I think it is better for her to attend Church and not be baptized, than it is for her to stop attending church because the missionaries wouldn't quit talking about baptism.  Furthermore, it's really difficult to have a lesson with them, because they talk so much.  It's hard to try and control a conversation, especially in Spanish.  So we get there and start to share a message, and then her husband gets off on some tangent, and we are lucky to get two or three sentences in after that.

Our lessons are usually more than an hour, but we barely teach anything, and usually I leave feeling frustrated and unsatisfied.  I don't know how to get the lesson on track again without being rude and interrupting her husband, so usually I just sit there and listen and say "Mmhmm" every now and then.  Probably one of the skills I've learned on the mission best is how to smile and pretend to enjoy a conversation that isn't going how I wish it were.  Maybe we should stop visiting them, but there aren't too many other people to visit in the sector, and if we do stop visiting them, they'll probably stop coming to church.

 I will try to skype tomorrow at 3:00 PM Chile time for Mother's Day.

-Elder Crotzer

Companion Changes

Hi everyone,

Another six week transfer cycle has come to a close.  My companion Elder Barney will be leaving the mission office, and I will be taking over his responsibilities.  The next six weeks will be interesting.

In other news, I love my district leader, Elder Monson.  He hails from Pleasant Grove, Utah.  We did an intercambio a couple days ago, which means that Elder Monson and I traded companions for a day.  I traveled an hour out of the city to work in Elder Monson's area, while he worked with my companion in our area.

I love you,
-Elder Crotzer