February 22, 2017 - Contacting, Contacting, Austrailian!

Hey everyone so this week has been a little crazy down in our sector, for some reason a weird heat wave is rolling through Santiago, so it is boiling down here, but that just makes it easier to contact people because we just knock on their door and ask them for a glass of water, and from that point on we start the contact. But this week has been very good and very spiritual, I have definitely seen the hand of God in the work that we are doing, and the guidance of the Spirit has never been stronger. 

Ok so as far as the people go that we are teaching, ca va bien. That means it is all good in French, because we are literally getting about one new Haitian investigator everyday, they just love to share the gospel with their friends and family that they know, and invite them to listen to us. About two weeks ago, Elder Gowers and I passed by a house to go teach one Haitian, who was a contact we got in the street. We have continued to teach them, and everytime we pass by, another one of their friends is there in the lessons, so I think there are about 7 people in that house we are teaching. They have amazing questions about the gospel, and some of them are super Evangelico and have a hard time accepting the Book of Mormon. But we shared with them about faith and how if we have faith we will want to learn more about God, and then we invited them all to read and they all got quiet and said that they would love to learn more about God, so they are going to read the Book of Mormon. Like I said in one of my previous emails, I want to visit Haiti. At this point right now I think we have about 13 Haitian investigators, they are all super piola. We are also teaching a bunch of younger people that we have met by playing soccer with them and talking with them in the street, so we are excited to see how they progress as well, and we are trying to see if we can teach their families! 

This week has been a great week of finding and working to help out the lost children of God. Yesterday we had a big mission meeting where we got introduced to a new system and a list to help us find the less active members in our wards, to help them come back to church. Our initiative is to use this list to find and teach the less actives, and then teach their non member families or friends, so we will see how it goes. Elder Gowers and I went to one of the said houses yesterday. We were in an area of our sector that we rarely go into, and we saw a house on the list that said a less active member lives there, so we dicidimos a stop by. A lady answered and we started talking to her, and we asked her about her life and she told us she grew up in Australia, so then I looked at Elder Gowers and we started to talk in English, and she told us English is her native language! So it was awesome and cool to teach someone in English, and this lady had an Australian accent as well, so it made it even cooler. We got her reference and we are going to stop by again.

I am loving the mission, and I honestly would not change this experience for anything. Yes it is hot, and yes the people refuse to come to church, and sometimes they yell ugly things at us, but that is the path that Jesus walked, so when we walk that same path, we only get closer to Him. I love you and pray for you and hope that you are all good!

Love,

Elder Tilghman

Ether 12:25-28

The man Elder Gowers and I

Elder Sims and Elder Shirrod, love those guys

And another picture with Elder Soto

Kinda blurry, but we had a nice district family night last night, and we made some food at Elder Rodriguezes house

A nice little note in our house from my favorite Zone Leaders

February 15, 2017 - And... that is a pig

Hello my people! This week has been awesome and really has been a great week for me and my companion, and me personally as I am continuing to grow and learn more by the Spirit everday! This week has been great with meeting and talking to new people, and learning to overcome challenges that we have in order to become better people and disciples of Christ.

So this week was actually really fun in the sector with Elder Gowers, because the last week we did a ton of contacting because everyone is on vacation in Chile. But this week, we went back to the new people that we found in an effort to start teaching them and help them come and enjoy the blessings of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. We still have about 6 investigadores on vacation, but we have also been able to find and meet some wonderful new people. First off one of the families that we found was a family who has grandparents who are members, so when we knocked on their door they let us right in and started talking to us. The husband does not have any belief in God, but he let us talk to him because he respects our work as missionaries. We started to talk with him and he looked us dead in the eyes and asked us why he needs God in his life. We talked about how He is our loving Heavenly Father who helps us, cries with us and cares for us always, and then invited him to read the Book of Mormon and pray, and he said an enthusiastic yes! So that was pretty awesome, we will continue passing by to see how the family is doing. 

We also had the opporotunity to find and teach some new Haitian investigadores this week as well, and I know I have already said it, but I love the Haitians. They are so humble and willing to learn, we even had two come to church on Sunday. All of our lessons with them have been great and powerful, but it has been hard because they do not read Spanish, and we only have Book of Mormons in Spanish, so we are working with them step at a time and teaching through the Spirit. But those guys are awesome, I love them.

So the best part about my week I think happened today for P Day. So last week our Zone Leaders told us to bring money to our P Day today because we were going to roast a pig, but we all thought it would just be like pork chops or something. We showed up today and it was a whole hog. We had to skin it, gut it and basically clean and cook it all our selves today, and it was freaking awesome. It was probably one of the funnest things I have done in my life, let alone on my mission. We literally cooked up a whole 150 pound pig ahahhahahaha. (Pics to come on the blog9

I love you guys and I hope you are all doing good. I am proud to be enlisted in the Lords work, and I know that everyday for everyperson across the world He is watching over us and waiting for us to come unto Him. I love you and pray for you, take care!

Love,

Elder Tilghman

Mateo 27

We got these hats with the zone like 10 minutes before

Mis cabros, we play the ball and teach the gospel

These next few pics are viewer discretion advised, so I have no idea if my mom will put them on the blog will not, it is up to her, but that pig is called Betty, and she is dead

And now she is even more dead, she did taste really good

Some little puppies we found in the street on the way to service

bacon

February 8, 2017 - I was (kinda) robbed

Yeah so do not worry, I will tell the story later about what the title of my email is, but its all good, we are chill. But anyways this week is going super good, Elder Gowers and I are really progressing the work along in our sector, there are multiple times a week when we have to arrange divisiones with ward members for hours at a time in order to get all of our appointments covered, but it is awesome. 

So the investigators. Right now we have one girl, Cassandra, who has a baptismal date for the last Sunday of the month. She is super awesome and really receptive to everything, and is reading and praying everyday to know if the church is true. Her only problem is going to the church, we are really pushing Repentance with her so that she can learn to go to church and continue following the Lord. I am excited and happy for her, we will see how everything turns out! So right now in Chile, everyone and their mother is on vacation right now. So that means that Elder Gowers and I do a ton of contacting everyday to find new people to teach, because everyone we know is out of town, so we just have to keep working to find more people to teach. And it has been great. We met a guy a couple days ago who recieved the missionaries a while back, but then went to the hospital for 4 months, so he lost contact with them. When we found him he invited us in and we immediately started teaching him, he is a great guy and is willing to change, so we will see where this goes. Yesterday we were also doing some contacting and all of the people where either not in there house, or they just slammed the door on us, but we finally found some people who would talk to us. They are a young family who actually has family members who are church members, and they invited us back Sunday to talk with them, so once again we are happy to see where this goes. 

Ok so story time. This week Elder Gowers and I were touching some doors talking to people, and giving out little invitations to people so that they will start coming to church. I had about 50 in my hand, and we started to talk to some people, so I put them resting in my pocket. I also had our cellphone in that same pocket, and someone must have seen it. A teenage kid walked by me and stuck his hand in my pocket and took the first thing he found and ran away, he did not steal anything, just all the 50 church invites, so he better be coming to church on Sunday. So, I was kinda robbed, but nothing bad happened, and who knows maybe he will come to church and we can start to teach him. 

Things are going great down in Chile, I love the days and the people more and more as they weeks go by. Even though sometimes the people are weird, they are super funny and I know they are children of God, and I happy to be working with them. I love you all, do not forget to write!

Love,

Elder Tilghman

3 Nefi 27

We broke Melissa´s back patio so she could put in a garden. I have no idea where she got that shirt, she does not even know what it says

Went and played soccer with the old district today

Marcelo, Paloma and Disney toys

Elder Gutierrez will finish the mission this month, he is a great example and friend to me, I love the guy

February 1, 2017 - We didn’t start the fire (But someone did)

Hey so how is everyone doing? Life is going along piola down here in Chile. The work continues to progress super fast in my new sector because Elder Gowers and I have really started to hit the ground hard, we try not to waste a single minute during the day because we know that we have a ton of stuff to get done. This past week was a week with a lot of service, and also a lot of new changes to our lives as missionaries. 

Ok so you guys probably do not know, but we had a change to our missionary schedule last week, and we are trusted more as missionaries to manage our schedules and what we want to do during the day. I really like it because it allows us more time to do morning proselyting if we want to, and push studies back a little bit, or study in the morning and work in the afternoon, so it is a really flexible schedule to work with. Our PDay also got longer so that we can have time to do more stuff to get prepared for the week, so Elder Gowers and I are also going to start playing soccer in the mornings at our church and inviting all of the youth, and having them invite their friends so we can have more people to teach, I am super excited. 

This week was overall a good week. As I was looking through all of my journal entries this last week the phrase I always saw was "Today was a good day" and they were all great days. We have still been doing a ton of contacting in our sector, but we are starting to find more people to teach. On Tuesday we went to visit a potential investigator and as we were teaching him he stopped us in the lesson and said he was a member, even though we had asked him earlier in the lesson if he had ever heard of the Mormons and he said no. But anyway that is just how the people work down here in Santiago. But, he is working to come back to church after recently moving into our area, so we are super excited for him. 

As I said before we also did a ton of service this week with investigators and less actives in our ward. We went and pulled down two trees in our neighbor's yard this last week, and we also went and smashed concrete apart at one of our investigators houses, so it was a pretty great week. I have really been studying the story of Ammon in the Book of Mormon and how he used service to change the lives of thousands, and that through service we can really change the lives of others as well, so I am excited to see where this leads us. 

So this week I do not have a funny story, I just have news. The south of Chile is burning to bits right now, there are over 100 fires that are ravaging the country, and thousands of people have lost their homes, jobs and even loved ones. We have met a few people in our area that are here living with family or friends because all of their things have been destroyed. It is really rough to watch and see, and all of the smoke from the fires comes to Santiago and just sits over the city, making it even hotter than normal. But, it has really strengthened my testimony that we all have problems, and if we can used the power of the Atonement to overcome them, we will be comforted by the Lord. We will see how much we get affected by these fires, but for now we are just working to help by comforting the people and collecting things to donate. 

However, overall the mission is still the best thing I have ever done in my life. I can honestly say that the only way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others, and in that moment you will begin to realize just how much our Savior loves us too. I am grateful for everyone of you and I hope you are all good! Do not forget to write!

Love,

Elder Tilghman

Alma 20

Some sweet shoes we found in a mall

My main man Elder Shirrod

My other main man Elder Smith

Temple PDay

Hermano Quezada, a guy from my last ward, I forgot to send the picture but he is awesome