HE MADE IT!

Dear Family of Elder Mills,

We are pleased to inform that your son has arrived safe and sound and smiling to the Chile Osorno Mission.  It was a pleasure for us to greet your son upon his arrival and feel his desire to serve.  Enclosed is a picture that we took with him shortly after his arrival.  After a short period of orientation regarding mission procedures, customs of the country, etc., we assigned Elder Mills to work in the city of Puerto Aysen with Elder Strate who is from Utah as his companion.  Your son's address during his time in the mission will be:

                                               Elder Eli Mills

                                      Casilla 7-0

                                      Osorno, Chile

Sister Obeso and I love our missionaries and are truly happy to have the opportunity to work with Elder Mills.  We appreciate your willingness to share him with us as he works as a missionary and ambassador for the Lord in Chile.  Sharing the gospel with these deserving children of our Father in Heaven will certainly bring great joy and satisfaction to him, and to you as well.  Thank you so much for helping him get to this point.

Please write him regularly–at least once a week.  Your love, interest, and support will be of great help to him.  Should there be any emergency or if you desire information regarding any urgent situation, please feel free to contact the Missionary Department in Salt Lake City rather than go to the expense of phoning the mission here in Chile. 

The missionary work is progressing rapidly here in southern Chile, and I hope that you will share in his exciting mission experience as Elder Mills writes to you weekly and keeps you informed of his challenges and achievements and experiences.

Sincerely,

President Rodrigo Obeso

Chile Osorno Mission

First Week in Chile!!!

Hey Everyone!  Greetings from Aysen Chile.  

The beauty here really goes beyond all words and pictures!  The bus ride here was eye opening, so was the flight!  I am more towards the bottom of Chile, and yes at times it is a little chilly, and it rains almost everyday!  I love it!  It is strange here they speak really fast and all the members tease me about it, but I can bear testimony!  That is all you need!

I have really learned a lot here!  I can definitely say that there is a lot of work that needs to be done here, but boy am I anxious to do it!  My companion Elder Strate is awesome, he is from Utah as well, and we are both just plugging away!  The only culture shock I have had was how little the church is here.  Yesterday out of our sector and the Hermanas we had 64 people come to church!  We are going to do our best to raise that.  I know that as we are obedient and do our best that we will receive divine help from God and that we will find the people that have been prepared, and truly want to find the truth.  I think that applies to life in general.  My companion is a District Leader so we have a little bit more we have to do every day, but we are putting in our best!

I am super anxious to work, and there is a lot of work to be done, so I am pumped!  I wish the best for everyone back home!  And I am sorry if I cannot email all of you individually.  Anyways thank you for all your great examples!  

Elder Mills

Week 6

Well I leave this Monday!  I have loved my time here in the CCM!  The sunrises here are very pretty here!  Also these last couple of days we have had the opportunity to see a planet in the morning. I will sure miss the CCM.  The next email you will get from me will be from Chile.  I know when I get to Chile that the language will be completely new, because the Latinos here are saying it is hard for them to understand Chileans sometimes, however I hear that Osorno does not have as many fast speaking people, I hope!  Yesterday I got my flight plans!  I have an 8 hour flight to Santiago, then a 5 hour layover!  Then another 2 hour flight to Osorno, and then possible another couple of hours depending on where I go!   

Before I start the rest of my email, I want to tell you something I found crazy.  Last night was Independence day, so of course the whole CCM was decorated.  For the night devotional we watched some short movies about Mexico, then the Church movie called Legacy.  It was great!  I said the opening prayer.  Then President Call told us not to go out of our house after the devotional, because at night they shot guns in the air, and they have found bullets on the roof.  I did not think it would be that loud last night, but boy was I wrong!  I heard fireworks, music, and gunshots all night!  I does not help when your Casa is right next to the road as well as your window!  I woke up a couple times!  It was awesome though!  I bought some pretty cool scripture cases with the Salt Lake and Mexico City Temples on them!  Maybe next week I will send a picture.  

Last Sunday we got to see the Temple dedication, and Elder Holland and President Erying spoke!  Rumor had it that they would both come to speak to us, but they did not.  This morning I got to go through the Temple!  It was a little chaotic considering there was about close to 100 of us.  However I love the temple it was awesome, and I really felt the Spirit.  It is crazy how much I have learned and grown here.  The Spirit is definitely really strong when you are on the Lords errand!  One thing for certain I have learned so far is that I am nothing!  Compared to God I am more than insignificant. However the Lord loves us so much, that to him we are everything!  An Elder in my district put it this way [Elder Nelson] God is like a huge red

wood tree, and we are his seed.  The seed of a redwood tree is very small, and really hard to see, but as it is nourished, it turns into something huge.  That analogy is such an amazing description to me of the Loving Nature of Heavenly Father.  I find it amazing to see his hand in my life and others.  I can not wait to go serve, help, and invite others come unto Christ!  I am more than excited!  I am Anxious!  I have learned a lot about what it really means to put 100% of my heart into the mission!  I am not afraid to say that I have a ton to work on!  I love you all!

Elder Mills 

P.S. Mom thank you for the donuts!  My whole zone really enjoyed them!  Don´t worry I did too!

Week 5

Well time has really gone out the window!  It has been a blast!  The windows in our room face north, and on the south side there is a brick wall and a door opening to the hall.  We made the comparison that the windows were home. and the Brick wall was Chile, and we could not see Chile. but we are going to walk through that door soon. 

The good thing about a mission so far is that you realize that there is always something you can do better!  I think that applies to life in general!  Everyone can do better!  I know that as we put our trust in the Lord that he will make weak things strong!  We had the privilege to watch a past devotional from Elder Perry and he talked a lot about how in our prayers rather then asking for something, we need to ask for strength to do the things which the Lord would have us do.  I think that it is essential to pray more earnestly and to put our heart into prayers in order to receive help from God.  Elder Perry also mentioned how we all need to pray in Humility.  On Sunday we all had the chance to bear our testimony, and I got a prompting to share mine about the Sacrament.  Sunday night we watched The Restoration movie, and of course the spirit was very strong.  I almost always tear up when I watch movies about the Savior.  Then yesterday a area of the Seventy came and talked about the twelve tribes of Israel and how we are gathering the tribes of Israel.

Two weeks ago he came and took pictures of Elder Jacobs and I, and sent them to my dad I think.  Then he had me go to his house and he gave me cookies.  After the devotional last night I went up to the stage and talked to him and his wife for a minute. and Sister Rubacalva invited me to come to her house last night. and she gave me donuts!  They really brightened my night!  I will have to make them a thank you card.  They are wonderful.  

Elder Shepard brought a really nice camera, so I had some modeling opportunities.  

Week 4 Cage Soccer and Ultimate Tic Tac Toe

So far it has been great!  So far I have played what we call cage soccer every day!!  It is a blast!  It is like indoor soccer just inside a fence.  Since we had some free time today we made something called ultimate ultimate tic tac toe.  I do not want to play since it would probably take at least and hour!!   I will send a picture. Right after I sent an email last week Elder Christofferson came to speak to us!  When he entered the auditorium the spirit was stronger then I have ever felt it!  It was an awesome experience and he answered some of the questions I have been praying about.  One thing that really stuck out to me was that he said as you teach others the atonement you yourself will also experience it.  Those are not his exact words, but it really hit me that in order to become a missionary you must experience the things you are teaching, but most importantly you will go through the same things you teach your investigators.  I am so excited for when I go to Chile!!!!  He also talked about how we lose ourselves teaching others and when we teach others we find ourselves, but we need to serve others out of love.  Before I came on a mission I prayed to have the same love Christ does for others, and I am still praying like mad!  Yesterday Elder Oaks spoke at the Provo MTC and we got the opportunity to watch him speak live!  He talked about how we all need to KNOW the Plan of Salvation because it is fundamental to our church!  He also spoke about how in order to keep the Spirit with us always we need to partake of the sacrament regularly beforehand praying for forgiveness.  This week has been great! Elder Jacobs and I are now teaching someone named Marco Antonio [Hermano Ortiz]  he asks a ton of questions, and we can actually answer them in Spanish!!  We also had TRC this week.  TRC is when they bring in members from the city and you try to answer there questions!  It was so hard!  I could barely understand a thing, they speak so fast!!!  Other than that it is so cool to see the Lords blessings!  I am grateful for all the times he has helped me!