Elder Matthew Kenison's Mission To Chile

March 15 - HOME AT LAST!!

2011-03-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

There is no thrill quite like the thrill of welcoming home a missionary as he returns from faithful service. The anticipation builds as you wait in the airport terminal (we had "Flat Matt" with us, wearing a sign that said "Coming Soon in 3D").

You join other missionary families, and see their excitement and joy as their son comes down the escalator, and you impatiently wait your turn. Then, FINALLY, you see him! His face is glowing with joy and eagerness, and you wish the escalator would move faster. Mom breaks away to get the first hug. But there are enough to go around - the hugs are sweet and the tears are plentiful.

Sarah had a fun announcement for her brother. He caught on pretty quickly!

WELCOME HOME, ELDER KENISON!! WELL DONE, GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT! WE LOVE YOU!

March 14 update

2011-03-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

SURPRISE - one more mission update! Elder Kenison will be spending most of today in the mission office for final meetings and interviews before getting on a plane late this evening, headed for Atlanta and then SLC. But he did get online briefly to check email and send this brief message:

Dad, thanks for the letter. I got on just for a second to tell everyone hi and that I'm excited to see ya. But most of all to say, Dad we HAVE to come back to Chile and visit. As much as I want to go home and see "ya'll" (as mom would probably say as of now haha) I wouldn't mind staying a little longer. I'll miss the people here and I'm sad to say that I didn't have enough time to visit near all of the people I wanted to visit. But it's all good. I hope all is well with the fam. Thanks for everything :D I LOVE YOU!!! See you soon :D

-Elder Kenison

We're grateful to hear that he loves his mission, the people, and the experience. But that he's also eager to see us! The mention of mom in that message relates to the fact that her mother (Matt's grandmother) is here now, and when Bonnie gets around her mother, the "southern accent" appears in full force!

Meanwhile, we were pleased (and a little concerned) to read an update from Elder Kenison's last companion, Elder Rubert. He wrote:

The only bad thing was that E' Kenison got really sick. Stomach cramps and worse. (we got him some good drugs and he got a little better by the end) but regardless of that he still forced himself to get out of the house and go to our citas and teach. Way good elder.

Later in the message he mentions the doctor said he was sick because he was dehydrated, but we're wondering maybe if it was the other way around? But that forced them to stay indoors a little more, and Elder Rubert worked on cleaning and painting while Elder Kenison rested.

There was also this wonderful tribute:

Well my experience with E' Kenison taught me a few things. 1- i dont have to be a robot to be an obedient missionary so in other words just be yourself within the boundaries 2- Chilean culture (the dichos, the mate, the insence) all are very much chilean and make me feel like a bit of a hippi but hey its all good 3- Enjoy where you are, and what you are doing because you wont be able to do it again. 4- how to make "as close as an elder can safely get to sex cake" (better than sex cake) and 5-if its broken...fix it. and do it right.

Actually this morning and last night he was packing but kept on saying that he really just didnt want to leave chile and that was good to see an elder who loved his mission. THANKS E' KENISON (and good luck with your frosty orchata)

That warmed our hearts! And so did these two photos — the first appears to be the famous cake, and the second Elder Kenison and Elder Rubert:

This was also a nice view of Santiago:

SEE YOU TOMORROW, ELDER KENISON!!

March 7 update

2011-03-07T15:28:00.000-08:00

Well, the day has come. Our email again today was pretty brief, but sweet; and may likely be the last email we receive from Chile! Elder Kenison will finish his service a week from today and get on the plane Monday evening. He doesn't expect to be able to write us next week, so if we do get a letter, it will be a surprise bonus. WOW — hard to imagine that this wonderful phase of our lives is coming to an end!

Elder Kenison is really enjoying his final companion, Elder Rubert. We asked him to tell us about him:

One word.. "¡trabajador!" haha He's a good missionary, he's workin hard so I don't get trunky haha

Elder Rubert reported a little more detail in his letter home to his family. We're grateful they shared it with us!

well my comp is freaking awesome. The first thing he said when he got to the pension was look around and say something to the effect of, we got to get this pension listo (in shape) for your next comp so that you can get some really good work done, and also we need to get the ball of baptism rolling for next change.
He got in and worked right away. (cool) but more than that he is soooo chill.... He also introduced me into mate...Which is AWESOME and ridiculously delicious.
the one problem is that we talk and chat a little bit too much so we are in bed on time but we don't sleep (i suppose there are worse things) but we tore up the moldy walls and we are going to paint the whole pension...
We also cleaned the whole house and got rid of all of the junk that was left around the pension. All in all things are going really well. I told him he was my favorite companion... :)

That's an impressive description. We hope the desire to clean and work doesn't get lost on the plane home from Chile!!

He's had a hard time getting immersed into the area for such a short time. This was the report on investigators and the progress of the work this past week:

Just visiting tons of people! haha I can't keep everyone straight so I just memorize the names before the appointment and then forget them after haha. kinda crazy.

We just hope Elder Rubert is keeping them all straight! It sounds like they have a couple of investigators who are close to baptism, but that will happen after Matt leaves.

We joked in our email that we might have time to send one more package to him if we hurry, and asked if there was anything he needs. He responded:

Yeah. A girlfriend would be nice :).

Aha! So there IS a sign of being trunky!! But he's not letting it slow down his service. We're very grateful for that.

We were glad to get a few photos of some recent visits and companions. We just wish he had sent one of his current companion and area! This shows his last zone:

This photo includes Elder Cevallos, Elder Smith, and Elder Kearsley:

This is Elder Leavitt, who he's encountered a number of times during his mission and enjoyed getting to know:

And finally, Elder Dallon Smith, who said some nice things about Matt last week:

It's STUNNING to look at these photos and then realize that we'll be seeing Matt in person in JUST EIGHT DAYS!!

SADLY, THIS WAS PROBABLY THE
LAST LETTER WE'LL RECEIVE
FROM OUR MISSIONARY!!!

We love you, Elder Kenison, and can't wait to give you UN ABRAZO GRANDE!!

March 3 bonus comments

2011-03-03T10:10:00.000-08:00

When Elder Kenison wrote us on Monday, he had just met his new companion and didn't know much about him. However, we've since learned a little more on our own (thanks to Dorothy Hassler, mother of one of Matt's former companions!).

His name is Elder Corbett Rubert. He has served for a little over 4 months (2 months in Chile). He wrote this about his new companion (note he got the spelling of the name wrong, just like Elder Kenison did (he wrote Elder Rupert)):

His name is Elder Kineson, way nice, and has two weeks left for his mission... which means i get to go and see his other sectors too (and he served in the coast WOOT) Pres. King assured me that he is not trunky. :) well we will see how it goes. He is from Orem UT, and not freakishly tall. well that is about it for him i will update when i know more about him...
but because of his leaving, this is technically his last real p-day, because next p-day we visit his sectors (woot) and then for real changes in two weeks i will get a permanent comp. so yeah that is it for that. ),

In addition, this nice comment appeared on Elder Dallon Smith's blog:

"I went to Santiago again this week... I got to also hang out with Elders Smith, Kenison, and Van Dyke. We did an activity where all the missionaries worked in one sector. It was so fun and I got to know the other missionaries really well....
"Elder Kenison was absolutely hilarious! I am sad that he is going home. It would have been cool to get to know him better."

Sorry, Elder Smith — his family back home is even more eager to get to know him (the NEW him) better!!

February 28 update

2011-02-28T20:22:00.000-08:00

Another week, another companion, another transfer to another area, another very brief letter... and time is running out fast!

Elder Kenison is now serving in Cerrillos in Santiago, in the sector Amerigo Vespucio. When he wrote us today, he had just met his new (final?) companion, Elder Rupert. We don't know a thing about him! We only know that the new area is near Maipú (where Matt served for his second area and where the mission home now is). Matt said he'd fill us in with more detail next week.

So we're hoping he'll have a good, steady week of working hard in this new area with Elder Rupert. On P-day next Monday, he'll have the opportunity to return to Cartagena, his first area, to visit members there. He did promise to find time to write us! We look forward to that.

In our stake office back home, we have a photo board where all the missionaries serving from our stake are listed. This part shows all the elders; there is another section for sisters and couples:

New missionaries start on the bottom row, and gradually work their way up to the top as they serve their two years. So parents and family members are always eager to come in to the office and find where their son is now! Well, as of this past weekend, Elder Kenison reached the coveted "#1 position" on the top row left, much to the delight of his family:

The "best two years" are almost over. We have two weeks of mission left. Feelings are very bittersweet. We can't wait to have our son return to us, but we also are going to dearly miss the joy of his service and the anticipation of our Monday communication.

WE'RE ONLY GOING TO RECEIVE
ONE MORE LETTER
FROM OUR MISSIONARY!!!

February 21 update

2011-02-21T21:29:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison has been in a threesome this past week (or a "trio" as he calls it), working with Elder Smith and Elder Van Dyke. We learned about Elder Smith last week; this is what he wrote about Elder Van Dyke:

He's from Kaysville in Utah, he has the same time as Elder Hassler, they were in the same district. Well he's... chill haha We always talk about hiking and stuff. It's pretty cool.

So he's pretty new in the mission, but it sounds like he's fitting right in! This was Matt's description of working in a threesome:

The first lesson we had we all testified of each topic while teaching the lesson, so it took FOREVER. We only finished two principles, faith and repentance. It was interesting so we're decided that one should teach the doctrine then the other testify and then keep going and not add his thoughts like before haha it's been a lot better.

Report on activities during this week:

We've been working with a lot of less actives. We had 19 lessons last week just with less active and recent converts. So i don't really know a lot of the names but we've just been trying to teach as many people as possible

Sounds like some very worthwhile efforts. As for Matt's future, he expects to be moving this coming Thursday or Friday to a new area. Here's the speculation:

Yeah. Just close to here. I'll probably replace Elder Romero, he's in Santa Lucia right now with Elder Fuhriman a gringo from Oregon. So I'll probably go there.

That would give him a little over two weeks in the final area.

One other positive report for the week:

Yesterday we had a stake conference and it was broadcast from Salt Lake. Elder Packer and Cristofferson spoke. It was AWESOME!!! They just reminded us of the things that President Monson said about youth serving a mission and also couples serving. and Sister Dalton also spoke she talked about being prepared and worthy in all times in all things and in all places. It was pretty sweet! haha

Here are two photos for the week. The first shows

Just a picture of Elder Smith and the Metro. Pretty sweet. haha By the way the blur was planned. haha

And this one said,

just trying to get a ride.... no luck haha

WE'RE ONLY GOING TO RECEIVE
TWO MORE LETTERS
FROM OUR MISSIONARY!!!

February 14 update

2011-02-14T18:56:00.000-08:00

We had a pretty brief letter from Elder Kenison today. With only four more weeks to go, his P-days are probably going to get busy! The only mention of progress in their missionary activities was that their best investigator is the young daughter of a ward member who is making good progress.

We tried to clarify what the next few weeks hold. We had heard that his companion, Elder Smith, would be going home three weeks early because of school. But Elder Speakman, one of the other elders living in their 4-person apartment, will be going to the office this week. So Elder Smith and Elder Kenison will be working in a trio with Elder Van Dyke. But then it gets even more confusing:

Then in two weeks some elders go home early to study. So I'll have special changes and I'll be heading out to a different area. So in my last change I'll have a total of three different companions and two sectors. haha

So this will indeed be interesting — talk about a mixed-up way to finish!

We asked if they had any special zone or district activities recently.

We had an activity today in the apartment of one of the other elders. We chilled up on the room though! On the 26th floor!!! haha It was awesome! They had a pool up there too but... we can't go in. haha But I decided that I want to own a hotel someday and have a pool on top and my house right next to it haha.

Dream on, buddy! Here are some photos from that apartment; pretty spectacular with the Andes in the background:

This was a fun photo; he wrote,

On Saturday we had an activity and played soccer with the young men in our ward. No one came haha but we took advantage and fixed some on the nets. haha service!!!

And then this was the best:

Just chillin on the swings haha Elder Speakman is on the left and Elder Smith on the right.

WE'RE ONLY GOING TO RECEIVE
THREE MORE LETTERS
FROM OUR MISSIONARY!!!

February 7 update

2011-02-07T20:08:00.000-08:00

The week after a transfer is always suspenseful until the next Monday, when we find out the news. So we were happy to learn that Elder Kenison will finish his mission in an area called Carlos Valdovino, in the Republica area of Santiago. It's apparently pretty far downtown (see map in the right column of this blog), but seems to be a nice residential district. Here's a photo he sent of the area — he said it's from a different elder's pension. but i guess you get the idea. haha (Click any photo to view larger...)

Here are three photos from "Google Earth" that show the location in the city (way downtown), the general neighborhood, and the approximate location of the elders' apartment (near the corner of Mozart and Haydn streets):

Elder Kenison's new companion is Elder Smith, from Rocklin, California (near Sacramento).

When President said that this should be an interesting change I think he said that because Elder Smith is from my same group. So we BOTH go home this change. So I don't know what happens to the area. The area though, Carlos Valdovino, has four elders. We also live with Elder Speakman (from Kansas) and Elder Van Dyke (from Utah, who is from Elder Hassler's group) so we think that Elder Smith and I will leave and the area will just be left with two elders.

Here are the two new comps:

We heard from another source (from Elder Hassler via his mother) that Elder Smith might be going home three weeks early; in that case, Matt might either get a new companion or be left in a threesome for the final three weeks.

In spite of the sadness of leaving Elder Hassler behind in Talagante, Matt seems quite excited about his new area. We asked about the church building and the ward, and he responded:

Bigger than my other sectors though. there were about 76 yesterday. and the ward is AWESOME!!!
Really friendly, the bishop was called about 3 weeks ago so he has that "new bishop fire" it's awesome!!! He'll be coming with us this week to work with us all day :D He's awesome! The other leaders are too! :D

That's encouraging; having support and enthusiasm from local leaders can make a tremendous difference! Elder Smith has been in the area for one change, and this is the status of their current investigators:

yeah there are some good ones, and we're finding some news. Yesterday we knocked a door of the house of a guy that Elder Smith and his last companion contacted, and the wife came out and said "Hey! we've been waiting for you" haha Her husband was sleeping but we have a time to pass by for them today. Hopefully it all works out.

Matt also sent us about a dozen photos of families and individuals from Talagante that he appreciated. Here are a few, with his captions:

President Reyes and his wife. what a stud.

FAMILIA ESPINA haha I love this family the little boy's name is Mateo (Matthew) and he was always walking around and yelling at church. They would always make the joke when he would do something crazy "wow, all Matthews are the same." Referring to me of course

Familia Rojas. This is the family I had lunch with for my birthday. Hna Betty, the mom, is the music director for the branch, and Valentina who is only 18, is the Primary president. haha an awesome family :D

Marlene and Antonio. The ones who wrote me on facebook haha We passed by for their "store" (almacen) a lot because they have really good bread and stuff haha I would visit Talagante just to go to their almacen haha

Familia Muñoz. haha I love this family. This is the family that gave us the crazy food. (because we asked for it of course haha) they're awesome!

Simon. He's the only one in the young men's group in our branch. He came with us a bunch to teach people and gave us some references. He's going to be an AWESOME missionary! We traded ties when I left. :D

After today, we now realize that...

WE'RE ONLY GOING TO RECEIVE
FOUR MORE LETTERS
FROM OUR MISSIONARY!!!

January 31 update

2011-01-31T17:15:00.000-08:00

We had a very short letter from Elder Kenison today, and soon discovered why:

Me voy! :( chuuuuta jaja. yeah I've got changes. It'll be interesting. President sent me an e-mail that said that "it should be an interesting change." I don't know what to think about that. haha I'm kind of nervous.

"I've got changes" in current lingo means "I'm being transferred" for us old timers. So Elder Kenison will spend the last change (6-week period) of his mission in a mysterious new assignment. We don't quite know what to make of the President's comment either! And unfortunately, we won't find out the details until NEXT Monday! So we'll have to be patient this week.

A further comment on his feelings about the change:

meh. Glad... sad... in the middle. I just want to stick with Elder Hassler for a change more. He's such a stud. haha He's like my brother. Definitaly someone I'll remember.

We're happy they've had such a good relationship for the past 12 weeks. It was unfortunate that part of that time was spent taking turns being sick. But we hope their good friendship will be able to resume after the mission.

Meanwhile, updates on the work: the appointment with Familia Salinas mentioned last week (to teach the Plan of Salvation lesson) won't take place until this Tuesday, so Matt will have to pass that one on to Elder Hassler. And in other news:

We're working with a reference [referral] that we got from a member (the President's brother) and we've been teaching Jaqualin (no idea how to spell her name. haha) but she's been progressing really well

We assume that's the branch president's family member — should be a good opportunity!

We also asked him to review a typical morning schedule.

This week was all service meetings and service. But normally we get up 7:30 and do exercises (which are rather pathetic, normally just stretches), study for an hour as a companionship and one hour alone. Then language study for 30 minutes. But this week was rather different just service service and more service. We sanded down wood, painted and cleaned haha

Interesting! He promised to send photos and more details about the service projects next week; that was all the time he had for today.

Six weeks from now, Elder Kenison will be completing his final interviews and saying goodbye to Chile! Hard to believe!! We hope and pray his final "change" will be a wonderful, successful, and joyful one.

Here are a couple of bonus photos (not recent, but certainly typical):

January 24 update

2011-01-24T21:07:00.000-08:00

It sounds like Elder Kenison and Elder Hassler continue to work hard and do their best. This was the summary of the week:

Well we've passed by for several people this week. trying to animate them and trying to get them to come to church and stuff. We've been trying to pass by for people in our sector and teach them. We found Fanny!!!!! We set a cita and passed by and she wasn't there. So we decided. maybe if we don't set a cita she'll be there. So we just randomly passed by the other day :) it was awesome! The same thing with Rafael, a less active member. With work it's been REALLY hard to find him because he works a lot, but yesterday we felt like we should pass by for his house. and he was home!!! haha It was awesome!!! Also we got a time to pass by and talk to Familia Salinas :D it's kinda sad because they just let us know that their friend just past away, but we were already planning to teach... The Plan of Salvation. Elder Hassler and I will be doing some practices to try and get good at teaching it. Elder Hassler mentioned to me recently that he hasn't ever taught the second lesson. Kinda crazy. But I'm not surprised because it's SO hard to find people at home. Everyone at this time of year is working, working and working some more.

For the "Liahona project" (preparing copies of the Church magazine to be distributed in public places) he reported:

yup just gluing and gluing and gluing some more... haha

They've been gluing their contact information on the magazines; they need to get them distributed now so they can do some good!

We asked about his experience as a district leader, and what he tries to accomplish when they have divisions with other companionships.

Just be an example. Be animated and show them that you love them. Really I just want to get to know them, why they're here on their mission, what their family is like, stuff like that to help them. I try to help them with whatever I can.

As for the progress in the district, he reports:

In the district we have about 9 baptismal dates set with different investigators and more and more are coming to church (something we've been focusing on in our district and zone meetings). Just kinda waitin on our sector to get goin. haha

There will be "changes" next week — and Elder Kenison will begin the last 6-week segment of his mission. We asked what he expected would happen:

I don't know. I could stay because it's my last change but I might go. I'm kind of out of ideas in this area. If I stay I'll just do my best. haha I'd like to stay because there is NO way I could have a companion as big of a stud as Elder Hassler

He really seems to be enjoying his work with Elder Hassler as much as any companion he's had in his mission — that's wonderful! He also commented about their time together:

I was sick a lot so we didn't get to do alot in the sector. But I got to teach him lots of Chileanismos (slang terms) haha and so he's been able to understand people a little better now. haha and now he's saying "ok hermana gracias por todo, pero tenemos que echar al pollo, cuidese mucho" meaning really, "hermana thanks for everything but, we've got to split, take care." haha People laugh when they hear that froma gringo. haha But Elder Hassler's Spanish in general is AMAZING!!! We had an appointment yesterday with less active members. They've been members for a LONG time and they know LOTS of missionaries. Somehow we started talking for little about how Elder Hassler is new. They were suprised that he's only been here for 3 months and talks so well. haha He'll be speaking better than I do when he has a year in his mission. easily. haha He's a stud

As for recent food experiences:

Elder Hassler has been talking about that. A while ago we had "prietas" and "riñones" - prietas is a mix of a type of meat and animal's blood, usually from a pig or cow. haha And riñones are kidneys hahaha So we've had a good experience. This wednesday we'll have lunch with the hermana again. I hope all goes well haha

Recently they had a multi-zone conference with Elder Corbridge. Today, Matt sent this "annotated photo" showing people he pas particular connections with. Fun to see his comments:

This was labeled as, waiting for the bread to cook, and killing flies haha — we like the homemade fly-swatter!

Looks like they kept the flies away pretty well. making bread. haha (mom I learned so I can make you some when I get home because I know you like bread)

Continuing on the food theme, this one was: come y bebe (eat and drink) a "fruit cocktail" without alcohol haha just a popular thing that Elder Alonzo taught me to make haha it is DELICIOUS!!!

And here's Elder Hassler, enjoying the last of Elder Kenison's birthday cake (with the nice chocolate frosting we mailed down special for him to enjoy!):

Here's my study wall haha — he loves his photos!

And finally, this photo seems like Classic Matt:

January 17 update

2011-01-17T20:12:00.000-08:00

This week's update on work with less active members:

Yup still passin by and still working with some of them. We've been talking to the Famlia Armijo (ar-mee-ho) they're awesome! Kinda just slipped away from the church because they live kinda far and they changed branches so it's kinda hard to leave all of your old friends behind and try to make new ones. They told us that they want us to pass by more. We told them that we would but only if they go to church and stuff. Because we don't want to be spending a lot of time with them and have nothing come out of it. haha They assured us that they would work hard and attend church.

That sounds encouraging! Meanwhile, some additional progress:

We found two new investigators. AMAZING investigators. haha We received a reference from Hermana Espina (the hermana we ate dinner with on Christmas eve) and we passed by for Carlos and Alejandra. Alejandra has LOTS of questions and has kind of bounced from church to church so she asked a lot of questions. Carlos wasn't a part of really any religion so he was just kinda chill. he told us that he just wanted to listen. So we taught the first lesson (La Restoracion) it was awesome! With Alejandra's questions we told her that we would clear them up one by one, but over time. haha Because I've had the experience when you try to teach them and answer all of their questions all at once. It's impossible! So we're trying to go step by step in the process. So hopefully all works out with them. We've passed by for a couple of other people but they haven't been home.

I love that "Chilean" way of expression - "passed by for" someone! haha

The mission recently had a visit from Elder Lawrence E. FirCorbridge, a member of the Area Presidency and of the First Quorum of Seventy. This was Matt's report on the content of his message, and of an application that soon came:

The spirit, the spirit, the spirit, the spirit, the spirit, the spirit, the spirit, and more about THE SPIRIT!!! It was cool because he asked,"If I was an investigator and I asked you, right after you had taught me a lesson, yeah well, why is this important? Why do I NEED to change my life? Why do I need to change religions?" (Which was interesting because Carlos asked us the same question later that day, and we replied just the same as Elder Corbridge told us to)

"Because in your life you can receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, which gift, is the greatest gift of God that we can have in this life."

Carlos then asked us, "But I've already been baptized." We then reminded him that we had talked about the authority to do so. It was pretty cool. So really Elder Corbridge told us to focus on the MIT the Most Important Thing. (he said it in English too haha) and so, for example, in the lesson about the restoration the most important thing (in most cases) would be the spirit, a gift that we can receive that helps us feel "peace, love, and every good thing"

We'll hope for continuing progress in these efforts in weeks to come!

January 10 update

2011-01-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison and Elder Hassler continue to spend much of their time working with less active members. Elder Kenison described the efforts:

good just kind of frustrating. We have some of the most amazing visits with them (not because of us of course haha) but then for some reason they just don't come to church. But all it'll take is patience. and a little effort on their part. Hopefully they'll come around

No photos today, based on this report of the P-day activities:

We actually had a little "get together" as a zone. We played sports, soccer and kinda hit around a volleyball. And then we watched a movie, the Emma Hale movie. I'd never seen it. It was SOOOO good :D Then we ordered some pizza and ate it there. But SADLY I forgot my camera. :( Sorry

We always hope for some fresh new photos, but can't complain since we're generally pretty spoiled.

There are now 9 weeks to go in Matt's mission. There will be one more "change" in three weeks. He really loves being with Elder Hassler, but chances are they will be separated with this coming change. We suggested to Matt that he should give a gentle suggestion to President King about being near Elder Poulsen for his last change. He apparently did pass on the suggestion:

Yeah I did. I told him, "On behalf of my mom, and kind of myself, I just wanted to "mention" that I wouldn't mind being around Elder Poulsen for my last change." haha I told him at a conference that we had recently so Elder Poulsen was right there so Elder Poulsen kind of asked him the same thing when I asked him. It was pretty cool haha

This was the final thought from this week's letter:

Well one weird one. haha A couple nights ago I was exhausted and so I went to bed and feel asleep right away. haha And while I was sleeping I dreamt of me walking around, and I was SO tired (in my dream) and then I woke up. haha It was weird. I dreamt of being tired. Kinda random.

Here's a cool quote, "Live every day like it's your last, and you won't regret it once time has past."

Thanks, Elder — keep working hard!

January 3 update

2011-01-03T21:59:00.000-08:00

As we enter the new year, we (Matt's parents) are now aware that we have only 10 p-days after today. That's all! We will miss these wonderful days of communication.

We were delighted today to hear that the elders are "alive and kickin!" Good to hear they are back to full strength and working hard again. Elder Kenison said Elder Hassler is making great progress in learning "Chilean":

Awesome! He had an hermana say yesterday after he said the prayer, "Eres kapo el Elder Hassler!" haha pretty much saying, "Elder Hassler is a stud" haha he speaks EASILY better than I did when I had a year in my mission.

We asked about the earthquake that occurred Sunday in Chile. It was magnitude 7.1, which is not as big as last year's 8.8 but still very large. It was about 300 miles south of Santiago, and fortunately appears to not have done much damage.Matt commented:

No I didn't feel it we were walking around the street really fast. haha But i did hear about it. That's crazy!

As for New Years traditions and celebrations, this comment:

Yeah there was a firework display thing. And there is a custom here that on new years you give a hug to the people at the beginning of the year to wish them luck. haha So we didn't knock many doors because people would think we're wanting to give them a hug. haha but it was good. There were hugs and kisses and everything given to everyone yesterday at church. haha Elder Hassler turned to me and said, "Too much love!!!" haha I just laughed, and said, "Welcome to chile... haha"

It sounds like they continue the focus of working with the members to encourage better involvement and support:

We've been working a lot with the members and also trying to get the new area organized so that we can make sure that EVERYONE gets a chance to accept or reject our message, so that we can be the most effective. We've been visiting the members that live there, even though there are only three families and only one of them are really active. We've tried to visit them and get to know them a little more. like their families and also their schedules so we can know when they're working or available. :)

We found this story particularly interesting:

We passed by for a less active member recently, Nestor. haha he's a stud. He speaks English too so we'd randomly switch off from one to the other haha it was kinda annoying for Elder Hassler I'm sure haha. But we talked to him a bit. He let us know that he had talked to his boss and that he won't have to work on Sunday anymore. We were excited to hear that. But also we just talked to him for a bit. He told us that for new years and stuff he just spent it all alone. We felt kinda bad that we hadn't heard of it sooner but we just talked for a little to get to know him. Then he asked us if he could share a couple of ideas that he had to help us as missionaries. haha
We told him that he could. He told us that we need to "dejar huellas" which means like, leave prints, or a path. For example, he said, if you want a dog to come into your house, you'll leave treats along the path so that they'll go where you want. He told us several different ideas that he has to do that with people really, to find the ones that want to learn more, and if they want to learn more, (want more treats) they'll follow the path.
One of the ideas he had is that we could pass by for the houses of members and ask if they have any Liahonas that they're not using and then with those we could pass by for "pelucarias" (hair cutting places) hospitals, or anywhere where you would have to sit and wait. And we could leave them there. But also put a little piece of paper on every 5 or so pages that says "if you have any questions, or if you would like to learn more, call this number......." Then we could leave our number there for the people to call if the want to learn more. He told us that he has TONS of ideas. So yesterday we spent a good part of the day passing by for members. haha Now we have more than a hundred Liahonas! haha We just need to print off the little papers and glue them on. haha Nestor says that his ideas are that the investigators come looking for us, not us for them. So we're going to give that a try. And for this week just do what we normally do and kind of give that a while to start and hopefully some people start calling. haha

Here's a picture showing the results of that effort:

Interesting idea! We'll be eager to see how this goes.

Two more photos. Elder Hassler is trying to get Elder Kenison to like sauerkraut on his completos:

And then this "mission photo" — Elder Kenison on the lower right, Elder Hassler on the far left:

December 27 update

2010-12-27T17:37:00.000-08:00

It's been a great week for the family of Elder Kenison! Do we look happy in this photo, taken on Friday December 24?

This is the reason we're happy:

We were so delighted that the missions in Chile (or at least our mission) received a letter from SLC just before Christmas informing them that missionaries are allowed to use Skype for their semi-annual phone call home!! Since this would be our last call, the notice came just in time to allow us to benefit. It was such a joy to not only hear Matt's voice, but to see his face as well. We were instructed to talk between 45 minutes and an hour, and we were just under an hour total. The sound quality was good, but the video a little "jerky"; but we certainly won't complain. The connection stayed solid for the first 40 minutes, then we lost it a couple of times - but always got it quickly re-established.

Elder Kenison sounded SO GOOD - happy, enthusiastic, loving the work and his companion and his assignment. We were very pleased to have all that reconfirmed and know that he's moving forward. We asked him in today's email if he had any goals for the end of his mission (the last 2 1/2 months), and this was his response:

Just to give it all I got. I hope to just collapse off of the plane because I'll be so tired. I want to leave it all here (in the sense that I'll take advantage of every second.)

That's a great missionary spirit, and we hope he does his very best and comes home knowing it!

It's been a busy week, but different than most due to the holidays. On the 23rd the missionaries assembled in Santiago for a mission conference. They held meetings with a member of the Area Presidency (whose name I don't recall) and had other activities. Sounds like that was a great day for them, inspiring and encouraging. We asked if he noticed any different local customs related to Christmas:

Just about the same as in the states. Just without snow and not everyone celebrates it. Kinda sad but still I saw kids riding around on their new bikes and stuff like that. haha Kinda normal. The biggest difference is that everyone has a huge dinner the day before Christmas. haha Kinda weird. We ate with Familia Espina. We ate SO much!!! I could barely walked out of the house we ate turkey. haha

Nice that they were taken care of! It looks like the elders also enjoyed the Christmas presents they got from home, including lots of "treats" (some of the stuff in this photo that is still wrapped is for Matt's birthday, that is a couple of weeks away)::

This photo has a little less traditional "Christmas spirit" but more local character. Matt wrote:

Just chillin in our house Christmas night. We had our dinner with a family on Christmas Eve and so on Christmas we stopped by the neighbors to buy a Completo haha and as usual in Chile a Coco-Cola haha

Not a terribly festive Christmas Dinner, but they were happy, and that's what counts.

Otherwise, they've been trying to work more (sounds like their health is much better) and keep the work moving forward. There were about 50 people in Church on Sunday, a good attendance compared to recent weeks.

We had several meetings with the ward which was AWESOME!!! It was a really good experience. We've set up a couple of plans for the next year. haha pretty sweet

We continue to hope and pray for safety, health, and success in their labors!

December 20 update

2010-12-20T19:34:00.000-08:00

Today's email was even briefer than normal, because we're only FOUR days away from the PHONE CALL!! Every missionary family around the world is bursting with eagerness this week.

Elder Kenison and Elder Hassler seem to be on the mend. We asked if they saw a doctor and if he diagnosed or prescribed anything:

It was a girl doctor and she just gave us like cough medicine and stuff. She's not a real doctor though that's the bad part.

Not quite sure what that means... but something must be helping.

yeah. we worked quite a bit this week :D haha

Here's a brief update on the work:

We're trying to work a lot more with the members. We passed by to talk to President Reyes recently and he says that he's really worried about the Branch and that he'd like if we work with activating them and stuff. So i'll be trying to do that.

On Thursday (Dec 23), all the missionaries in the mission will travel to Santiago for a mission conference. We're sure they are going to have a wonderful experience. And then on Friday (Dec 24) at 5 p.m. Chile time, Elder Kenison will call home to talk with his family!!

There was one very exciting announcement in today's email, though, regarding the highly-anticipated Christmas Phone Call. The missionaries in the Santiago West mission have received permission to use SKYPE for their calls! That means we'll get to SEE each other, as well as talk together! What a joyful blessing.

We appreciated, as always, the photos that came in today's email. How fortunate we are to have all this modern digital communication!!

At our Christmas activity Elder Hassler and I were pretty much the only ones. haha Then other people came.

Our branch. Most of the people at least haha

just chilling at home. haha

Here's a picture of some of the missionaries from Orem haha and Elder Hassler from Provo haha

I sure wish we could find a way to make these two companions for a few weeks before Matt comes home!

December 13 update

2010-12-13T18:04:00.000-08:00

We were sad to hear that the elders are still not feeling well! Elder Kenison indicated:

we'll be contacting the doctor again because... I am sick of "home"

Unfortunately, there has been a setback with the young woman named Fanny they were fellowshipping along with the branch members.

She didn't come to church but we did pass by in the week and she told us that she can't be baptized. Her parents are really really evangelical and she doesn't want to go and do all this behind their backs. We told her that that was a good idea. But we asked her to also remember the importance of it and try to talk to her parents about it soon. I hope everything works out. She's really an awesome person.

The other good prospect, familia Salinas (the family that tried to return the Book of Mormon but Matt insisted they keep it and read it) also is progressing slowly:

but with us not being about to work much and the dad of the family working a lot it's been hard to set a time. but we're still working with them

One of the things they've been emphasizing in the mission recently is working closely with the local leaders in the branch, and recognizing their stewardship. We thought this was a fascinating approach:

Working with the members and the leaders, we've read 1 Nephi 16:23 with them. It says:
"23 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did make out of wood a bow, and out of a straight stick, an arrow; wherefore, I did arm myself with a bow and an arrow, with a sling and with stones. And I said unto my father: Whither shall I go to obtain food?"
Then we told our branch president that he has the authority to tell us where to work so we asked his where we should work. He told us that he would need to think about it. A couple days later he told us that he thinks that we should work in "La Palma" which is on the left side of our area. The place that doesn't have a map made yet. We told him that we'd start working there, which, with our investigators all kind of stopping progressing will give us lots of time to do so. The only problem is that it is really really far from where we live. So it'll be hard to work all of the way over there for right now. But we'll just have to go forth with faith. haha Luckily there are a couple of good members over there. haha I just hope they like missionary work. They'll be getting lots of opportunities haha

What a great way to involve the branch leaders and use their insight and inspiration to strengthen the efforts of the missionaries!

We asked Matt if he had any Christmas decorations in his apartment. In response, he sent the series of photos that follow, along with these descriptions. (Click on any photo to view larger.)

just getting ready. haha we found a couple of Christmas things in the closet :D

Elder Hassler remembering how stupid Christmas lights are.

struggling to put the lights on

attempting to top it off with a star. First Elder Hassler tried

then I tried

shoot failure

both trying

I think we're missing something else

darn... nothing... still. haha Elder Hassler is crying. haha

Well at least the lights work haha woot!!! We'll just have to be patient till we can "finish"

We were sad along with them to look under the tree and see nothing!! The packages are in the mail, and we're praying for safe and timely arrival — we don't want Elder Hassler to keep crying! We also noted that they appear to have identical ties on... new mission uniform???

December 6 update

2010-12-05T20:17:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison is feeling better, but his companion Elder Hassler has struggled with his health this past week. They've had to spend more time at home than they'd like. We got this update about investigators:

Well Fanny is doing good. She's really the only one we can find at home. But she for some reason couldn't come to church this last week so we AGAIN have to change her fetcha (goal) for baptism. But hopefully all is good with her. For Carla we've been trying to pass by as much as we can and she just hasn't been home. She woks a lot. But hopefully all goes well. As for Angel who recently got baptized haha he's doing awesome! He went to the district conference we had yesterday

Last week, they had a 2-zone conference with the nearby Penaflor zone. Matt reported:

Well really it was the same as a normal zone meeting (the meeting we have every Tuesday) but this time it was just with more missionaries. And President was there. He came in when we were split into our separate districts and he listened in. haha I was teaching the lesson, haha but it was good. he talked afterwards, with all the missionaries, about how we can better involve the bishop/president in the missionary work in our ward/branch. It was really good.

The main joy of the week was that we received TWENTY-EIGHT photos — a new record! Matt wrote:

Well consider this your Christmas present for now haha I'll give you your actual presents in about 3 months haha

We'll share some of the best, and save a few for future weeks when we don't receive any (which often happens). A few weeks ago they had a zone activity where they apparently hiked to a nice overlook. In this photo, Matt wrote just loving all of my companions in the zone — these are all former or current companions!

This one shows more of the fellow missionaries, including some familiar faces:

chillin with some of the missionaries haha from left to right: hermana Redondo (honduras), hermana Collahuazo (Ecuador), elder carvajal (utah), me haha, hermana Smith (haha utah and from Orem!!!) and hermana Landeen (also from Utah)

And this is "classic Matt" — he wrote just trying to get some extra energy before the hike. :) haha Any guesses what that is he's about to eat?? (Remember, this is the guy who ate a cockroach in high school when the "pool" got high enough!)

When the last changes occurred, Elder Kenison went to the office to pick up his new companion, and in the process saw some former companions and friends on their way. This photo is sayin bye to Elder Simmons and Elder Rawlins. :(

Last week, to celebrate some birthdays in their area, they made a cake. He also wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICOLE!!! (even though it was on the 27th) in honor of a friend back home.

Next step:

finished frosting but... it's missing something and we don't have sprinkles, but.... we do have no bake cookies haha :D WOOT!!!

This one was captioned divin' right in haha

And then, dang... no more cake (a couple days later haha

Two more nice photos.

so since we've been inside we've kind been talking a lot haha and one of these days (Thursday) Elder Hassler and I got REALLY trunky haha so...
This is Elder Hassler wanting to pet his dog haha

And finally...

This is Elder Kenison (me haha) thinking it's crazy that everyone is getting married, so I made some brownies, but didn't want to wait forever and cook them so.... I just ate the batter haha

November 29 update

2010-11-29T20:17:00.000-08:00

We had a short report this week. Elder Kenison and Elder Hassler are trying hard to get over their illness — it's especially frustrating to not feel well as a missionary. This was the summary about their physical condition:

meh. ok. Still a little sick. when we're inside we're fine but when we walk around outside we feel terrible so we've just been working like part days. Kinda lame. But just doing our best

They're also "doing their best" to keep up with investigators, encourage them to attend Church, and continue learning. We'll hope and pray for improved health and better progress in the coming week!

We were pleased to get a few new photos this week. This one shows the two missionaries on the day they met, with President and Sister King in front of the Santiago temple:

And here is a closeup of the two happy companions:

November 22 update

2010-11-22T20:02:00.000-08:00

We (Elder Kenison's parents) both have jobs where we spend a good portion of the day in front of a computer screen. So we're often watching on Mondays when the emails from Chile start to arrive, and we've enjoyed the chance to "interact" by replying to emails while Matt is online. In addition, he's been replying to a lot of our individual comments and questions in the emails we send to him. But it looks like there will be a change in that procedure in the future. Matt opened his email to us today with this notice:

we recently had a meeting this last week and president talked about how we shouldn't plan on sending e-mails back and forth to the family. I asked him myself if it was ok because my parents work with computers and are always on and lots of times it's just about questions that I've got.
I still don't understand why but he told me, and all of the other missionaries, that it is better if we send one letter to the family. I don't know why but the "why" really isn't important. The fact is he's my leader and I should do what he says. So I'll be reading your letters and everything but I won't be responding to them like I did before.

We were a little disappointed about that, but at the same time, thrilled that Elder Kenison is willing to be obedient and do his best to follow the instructions he is given! We feel that's a significant sign of growth and maturity, and are proud of his commitment.

Meanwhile, there have been some challenges this week in Talagante. Last week Matt mentioned that he had a persistent cough, but it looks like things went downhill:

to tell ya the truth we haven't been working very much because I've been pretty sick. I've felt like I've been able to work so we did a little but then when I heard that I had gotten people sick. We decided we'd stay home. Elder Hassler is getting a little sick too. But we'll be passing by for a doctor this week "¡si o si!" so we can both get better. But the investigators are doing good

He did feel well enough for a little district activity today:

today we all ate together at a little place it was pretty good. it was "comida jarabe" haha just kind of like a sandwich wrap with meat and chicken it was pretty good :)

This was the update on his new companion, Elder Hassler:

He's a stud. haha We're pretty much like brothers. Like the same jokes and stories and stuff it's kind of funny. lots of people we're saying the it's really stressful to be a district leader and a trainer especially both at the same time. haha But I've loved both of them. haha "despite being sick haha" but for training it's pretty easy, I often forget that I'm training because Elder Hassler really just acts like he's been here for a long time. He knows the people, his Spanish is actually pretty good. He'll be speaking like a Latin when he finishes his mission. haha He just struggles with understanding what the people say. haha but Latins, who speak perfect Spanish, have a hard time understanding Chileans for a long time.

We're grateful to hear that he continues to love his companion and the work they do together.

He concluded his letter with this:

I heard something cool in church yesterday. An Hermano said that when we're in church we need to LEARN, then ACT, and then SHARE. I know it's kind of obvious but I was thinking. "do I do that?" when I learn something does it help me be a better person. Then do I share that with other people, even if sharing is simply through my example

and....
I have a scripture that I found that I like haha that despite being sick and stuff it can still be applied to Elder Hassler and I, It's

2 Nephi 5:27
"And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness"

We still didn't get any new photos this week. But I found one on a Facebook page of one of the other missionaries who is connected to us — one that really portrays that part of Matt hasn't changed!

November 15 update

2010-11-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison has been serving for 20 months on his mission (including the 2 months in the MTC), and this week met his 11th companion, Elder Jared Hassler. We asked where he is from:

PROVO UTAH!!!! WAHOO!!!!

Elder Hassler is a "greenie" — just barely arrived from the MTC — and so will have some of the normal challenges of adjusting to the new culture, getting comfortable with the language, etc. But it sounds like they are off to a very good start together. Matt is pretty easy to get along with, but we believe he has been very blessed to have wonderful companions throughout his mission. We were able to contact Elder Hassler's mother today, and she also reports her son said the two have become best friends already. We're looking forward to photos and more reports in the future.

Meanwhile back in Talagante, the work is progressing. Fanny came to church on Sunday but her boyfriend Francisco didn't make it. They're hoping to have a baptism soon with that couple!

There are two young women in the branch named Sindy and Simone, and Matt reported:

They're both been working a lot, passing out Books of Mormon and stuff really trying to help us out. It's been awesome! We taught one of Simone's friends, Ivan, and one of Sindy's friends, Carlos. It was pretty cool. both of them are pretty interested. :)

We loved this little story. When he was waiting for his new companion to arrive he worked for a day in Maipu, near where he served previously:

When I was in Maipu on divisions on Monday Elder Merino and I (my companion for the day) were walking down the street looking for an address. and we stopped and talked to a lady. When Elder Merino said, "Hi we're servants of Jesus Christ, and we'd like to bless your house by saying a prayer." She looked at us and started to cry. I don't mean cry like cry I mean cry like.... she was bawling.
We went in and blessed her house, and she said that we could not have come at a better time. Her husband had made some bad choices and had left the family. It was pretty crazy. But it was such a good feeling to help. I'll have to check up on how they're doing later. haha it was awesome! :D

As I mentioned, we didn't get any new photos this week. But here is one from last week that I found intriguing. Matt said

some guy a little drunk just sitting on the curb. and my zone and i were waiting to take a bus (when we went to pomaire) and so i just sat down and talked to him. about nothing really he just wanted money. so we said that he could go and get a job and stuff . haha it was prety cool though.

This is typical of Matt's personality — just talk to anyone, even a stranger on the street dealing with some challenges. But to have him comfortable enough to do that in Spanish is one of those good signs of his comfort level in the language!

Here's a final photo, showing Elder Kenison with Elder Urbieta, one of his previous companions, who also went home (to Argentina) last week:

November 8 update

2010-11-08T21:47:00.000-08:00

This was a busy week for Elder Kenison and Elder Carvajal, who is now on his way home! During the final week of their missions, the elders are allowed to visit two of their previous areas, and Matt was able to accompany him. They visited Maipú, where Matt worked previously himself, and the Llo Lleo, out on the coast near Cartagena, Matt's first area. Matt commented,

I've realized how amazing the coast is. haha the air is AMAZING! i didn't realize that when i was there because i was new and didn't know what the air in santiago was like. it was good though i love it. i miss the people in the coast. haha then we go to maipu and i miss the people from there haha

And of course, they spent time saying goodbye to members and investigators in their own area. This photo shows Elder Carvajal with Carla and Mitchell; Matt said,

she came to church last sunday and said that she really liked it :) that it was a good experience and that she'd like to attend more.

This is another investigator named Fanny — she and her boyfriend are investigating:

yeah they're progressing great. haha they have a goal for their baptisms :) but i think we'l have to change it because they didn't come this last sunday because they went to a birthday party for a friend.

The best news of the week was the baptism of Angel.

Elder Carvajal and his last companion found him knocking doors. we've taught him since i've been here. his wife is not a member, she's really nice though but never wants to talk to us when we pass by. he does have children but they're older now and have moved out

He was baptized by the Branch President, Presidente Reyes:

This is a photo of the district where Matt and his companion have been serving:

And this is the Talagante Zone — they look like they have lots of fun:

This was a fun photo from an event a few weeks ago. Matt wrote:

this is from the "weekend misional" the two youth were with me on Sunday and the couple was with both of us on Saturday and with Elder Carvajal on Sunday. pretty sweet. the couple have a daughter serving in Peru

This was a classic missionary story, about trying to continue to teach and nurture:

we stopped by for Familia Salinas. an awesome family. the dad though didn't really want to listen more. he handed the Book of Mormon back to us and said, "about the prophets and about Christ we agree. but once you add the point in about Joseph Smith and him writing some book, i don't believe" we said, wait, Joseph Smith didn't WRITE this Book. in fact there is NO WAY it would be POSSIBLE for him to write a book like this. he translated it, like the Bible, prophets wrote this book. the difference is that this book was translated by a prophet who was given power from god.
we handed him the book back and said, "would you like to read from the start? you can read the introduction and the testimony from Joseph Smith that is written there. maybe that will resolve some questions." he smiled and said that he would read.
so hopefully it all goes well. out of I think every investigator I've had I've prayed more for him and his family than for anyone haha.

We will hope and pray too!

Matt was able to arrange a "surprise farewell party" with some members of the branch for Elder Carvajal. He sent several photos of the fun they had:

starting out, waiting for the people to come, haha playing the piano. "chop sticks" haha

Maragarita (left) and Claudia (right) margarita is the hermana that cooks SO good haha we've made so much stuff in her house. and she sells completos that are SO good haha and claudia is a recent convert

this was realy happening. haha all of the hermanas were telling elder carvajal "eat this, oh have you tried this" those cookies in his pocket were not put in for the picture they were already there haha

The rest of the photos show what happened when missionaries get carried awake with cake and frosting, and then before you know it, the branch president gets involved!

November 1 update

2010-11-01T19:45:00.000-07:00

Elder Kenison's companion, Elder Carvajal, is now entering the last week of his mission! That means some special activities for the missionaries. Elder Carvajal has some relatives in Chile and has permission to visit them before he departs; and it sounds like there was a mission conference, and some other trips going on.

this week we've been going to all sorts of places, santiago and stuff, now i'm in san miguel close to my last area. because elder carvajal has permission to say bye to his family. haha but we've had to cancel lots of lunches this week (so i took out money to buy lunch, for more than one day) so really i've missed eating really good food haha

It's nice that he appreciates the "really good food" provided by members in his assigned area. Eating on the road probably means the Chilean equivalent of "fast food." The travels will continue; on Saturday, they will go to two of Elder Carvajal's previous areas (Maipu and Llo Lleo, out on the coast). Then on Monday, Elder Carvajal begins his journey home and Elder Kenison waits to hear who his new companion will be!

There has been some progress with investigators. We learned today for the first time about a man named Angel (pronounced Ahn-Hel) who is 60 years old and married; we're not sure of the family situation or how he got connected with the missionaries. He is having his baptismal interview today! We only learned this:

Angel is the investigator that we have that has read the entire Book of Mormon and half of the principles of the gospel book. haha he loves to read. we were kinda surprised when he accepted the challenge to be baptized. but hopefully it all works out :D

That's great news — we'll look forward to more details next week! We also heard about a new investigator named Carla:

she hasn't been able to go to church because her husband gets drunk the night before. so we're kinda trying to find a solution

We did get this second insight about her:

she's a progressing investigator. she's really cool, but she works at a hospital and so she has to work a lot, and sometimes on Saturday night so it's hard to go to church. we're just trying to get her to attend church. but we're guessing that her husband is finding ways to make it so she can't go.

And then he shared one additional experience:

yeah we passed by for a new investigator, Fanny, (pronounced F-aw-ny) haha, and we talked to her a bit. she said that she LOVED reading and so we gave her a Book of Mormon and had her start from the start. then she asked us if we have like meetings or whatever in the church. we told her that we did, every Sunday at 10.
On Saturday we passed by again, actually it was interesting because we had an activity in our district where some people from other districts came over and we had a "weekend misional" (missionary weekend) there was a missionary couple that came with us for a little and then on Sunday two kids came with us. it was AWESOME!!! we stopped by to see Fanny with the couple, and Fanny told us that she read the first 20 pages, and didn't understand it (because of all of the names) so she read it again, she still didn't quite get it so she read it a third time. so we described who the people were in the Book of Mormon, the family and everything. and she said that she'd keep reading.
On Sunday (yesterday) she came to church :D haha with her boyfriend (who lives in a different house than she does) and she brought her daughter. it was AWESOME!!! we watched a video about he plan of salvation and she asked "how can i be baptized?" haha we laughed (out of excitement) and told her. she told us that she would be continue coming to church and everything. :) i was awesome :D hopefully all goes well with her.

Nice to see some enthusiasm, and some good new prospects in the work!

Finally, Matt admitted that his official release date, according to the "trunky papers" received last week, will be March 15. So the countdown begins: only 19 weeks, or 133 days to go!!

October 25 update

2010-10-25T19:10:00.000-07:00

The first thing Elder Kenison told us today was that he'd just received his "trunky papers" and needed information from us about his bishop's and stake president's contact information! But if the trunky papers contained any detail about when he's returning, he didn't share it. We're assuming he will be coming home in mid-March, just under 5 months from now. We're not sure we're ready to start a countdown yet, so maybe it's best we don't know details for a bit!

Meanwhile, his companion, Elder Carvajal, is down to just two weeks before his return to SLC! They will be doing some extra activities for the coming weeks on P-days. Since the mission is pretty compact, departing missionaries are allowed to return to two of their previous areas to say goodbye to members and converts. So Matt will have the chance to accompany his companion and learn a little more about areas of the mission he may not have served in! And then he'll soon have a new companion. He will miss Elder Carvajal; it sounds like they've enjoyed working together.

This was the report of the week:

as for the work and everything it started off kind of hard we prayed planned and worked our best. diligently too. and we had a miracle.

first it was at church, there were 6 less actives and actually in-actives that went to church. it was an awesome feeling. also we passed by a contact that we did. and it was amazing. the girls name is Funny (or Fanny, it's really a mix of the two) but we went with our Branch President so that we could go in the cita. and when we taught her about the restoration she said that she LOVES reading and that she'll read a lot. and then she asked if we have church meetings. we told her that they're every Sunday at 10. and she committed herself to go. haha my companion and i were amazed. and on top of that, like i said before, the Branch President was there so he got to have an awesome spiritual experience also. it was amazing.

Matt said he had some great photos to share today, but left his camera at the zone leaders' apartment. Sad day!

I sometimes send him a few photos of us, or some other fun things I see here and there. I sent this picture with the comment, "Sometimes you just don't know where to go in life." Matt responded,

luckily god always does :D

Spoken like a true missionary!

At the end of our message to him today we wrote, "Do you know how much we love you and how often we think about you??" Matt responded,

i can imagine i think. haha i love you too. but i do my best not to think about you too much. haha no offense haha but yeah I LOVE YOU :D

We're proud that he's doing his best to focus on the work!

October 18 update

2010-10-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

The major news of the past week in Chile, of course, was the rescue of the 33 miners who had been trapped for 69 days. The missionaries tried to keep working, but didn't get a lot of response during the time that coverage was on. We asked Elder Kenison how much of the rescue he saw.

I saw the machine that pulled them out. pretty sweet. haha everyone was talking about them. we got an update in the street all of the time. haha it was funny because while we were walking around there was some kid that started yelling at us (like "Hello, how are you?") just trying to be funny. the thing is I had NO IDEA what he said. so i said "¿QUE?" (what) and he just stops... thinks and says, "hay dos mineros mas" (two more miners) hahaha elder carvajal and I laughed. but it was good to know

Work in the Esmeralda Branch continues pretty slow, but the missionaries are working hard.

we're just trying to find some new ones. we've knocked SO many doors and contacted SO many people. hopefully some of them will progress. the problem is that there is a rule that is being enforced in our mission now. that we cannot enter a house unless there is a guy there that is age 16 or older. so it's been kinda hard from like 3-7 in the afternoon because ALL of the guys are working. but it's been good still. just trying to help the Branch start participating :D we're planning an activity to act out parables from the bible. so i hope it all goes well. it'll be on the 6th.

We asked what kind of door approaches they use.

when we can find something to talk about besides the gospel first (something in the lawn, their day, for a while the miners, stuff like that) then that gets their attention and we ask them if we can bless their house with a prayer, or share a short message about Jesus Christ. one thing i've learned is that if you ask ANY chilean for help they are GLAD to help you (unless they're drunk)

On that last comment, he said there seems to be a much larger problem with drunks on the streets in this area than in his previous ones.

This picture demonstrates a typical missionary appetite. Matt always did like pizza...

haha also lunch yesterday haha pretty good. haha what is gone is how many 5 of us could eat haha it is a HUGE pizza. haha

The next photo looks like someone was having a lot of fun.

Noche de hogar. haha family home evening. we had a family home evening and we played a game. katharine won (bottom right) note that she doesn't have stuff written on her face. haha the game is that you pass around a marker or something and one person turns their back and says "la papa se quema" (the potato is burning) over and over and then when they say "la papa quemó" (the potato is burned) whoever has the item being passed around gets to have something drawn on their face (by the one who was saying "la papa se quema")

Last but not least — this was a photo to make his Dad proud. Matt and I always had the tradition to go out for ice cream after general conference priesthood meetings. He wrote,

after the priesthood session of conference i still had ice cream haha :D woot

October 11 update

2010-10-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

Summer has returned to Chile. Elder Kenison complained it was getting hot already, and asked us to send him some American antiperspirant! He's entered the year of perpetual summer — in March, just as Chile's summer is coming to an end, he'll come back to the US in time to begin our summer. He won't see winter weather until late 2011, more than a year from now.

There hasn't been much progress in the work this week. We asked about Maria and her kids, who was a prime investigator at one point.

she hasn't been avoiding us. she's just been gone a lot. and yes they did move. and some of our other investigators are moving too. elder Carvajal and i think that we're suppose to "start over" haha so we've been doing lots of contacts knocking and stuff. not really working. so now we're going to work with the members to get some references from them. the problem is that it will take a lot of working with them. but we'll do our best. haha

This was an interesting personal insight from Matt:

Every saturday and sunday there are always drunk people our on the street. in a specific spot there is always one. he's ALWAYS there. without fail. and he always wants to talk to us. and then get all mad and says some really well, sad stuff. like how he mistreats his wife and stuff. we've told him that he should change his life and try to stop drinking. but it's kind of impossible to commit a guy who's completely wasted. but yesterday we were late to an appointment and so we walked right by him. he started yelling at us and stuff so we'd go say hi to him. we just kept walking. so he started to throw rocks at us. he didn't get anywhere close to hitting us though. but while walking i just though how sad his life is do be like that. it's sad that people do that. so i decided that i will NEVER EVER drink alcohol! EVER. I NEVER have and I NEVER will.

Matt was going to send us some new photos this week, but he said the computer kept freezing on him (sometimes the technology is a little behind what we're used to). Here is one photo of Elder Kenison and Elder Carvajal, and two sisters in their district, that we didn't post last week:

October 4 update

2010-10-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

Like most missionaries, Elder Kenison was thrilled this week to participate in the General Conference broadcast. They were able to hear the broadcast in English, while the rest of the members listened in Spanish. We asked how much he was able to see:

ALL OF IT!!!! except for President Monson's last talk because there were two little girls that kept interrupting us so I (with still being in site of my companion) tried to ask them politely to leave and go listen to it in spanish. then they started asking me questions "where are you from?" haha there were 5 gringos in the room. haha 5 of us are from Utah, Elder Balling from Centerville (yes he's in my dictrict hahaha), Elder Carvajal from Salt Lake, Hermana Landeen from somewhere up north haha and Hermana Smith from Orem haha (but she went to Timpanogos, isn't that sad haha) and me. then there is Elder Iglesias (in spanish his name means churches) is from Florida. haha so the little girls asked about all that. i just figured that it would be better to talk to them (from the door) then having them running around and screaming haha

Nice guy, that Matt — serving with gladness!

Here was his latest contacting experience:

so we're going around knocking doors a couple weeks ago. and we stopped by an "almacen" (little store, they're everywhere) and bought a sandwich. well a "sandwich" the owners started asking us questions, why we're here what we do. all that stuff. then they asked what we were planning on doing for the 18th of September (Independence Day). and they asked if we were going to dance the cueca (k-way-k-a, "a" as in father) a Chilean dance, really popular for the 18th, we talked for a bit. then when we finished our sandwich we left.

we passed by another day to buy some "dulces" sweets. they have like a bakery part too. so we got empenadas, a little lemon pie. needless to say we've passed by several times. haha for conference we bought a bunch of these little cookies so we could "munch" on something. and we gave then a Book of Mormon and asked them their names. haha well... the guys name is Antonio and the girls.... MarLyn. hahahahahaha (pronounced the EXACT same, i don't know if it's written the same haha) i laughed so hard. (afterwards of course. haha)

but the cool part is that, when we went to see general conference, Hermana Landeen really liked the cookies. so we went by Antonio and MarLyn's almacen. someone had seen the Book of Mormon they had and had given them a Bible. haha we said... "good, now you can read the Book of Mormon and compare it with the Bible." haha MarLyn asked were she should read and we gave her the introduction to the Book of Mormon, well technically the Libro de Mormon haha but whatever haha. so hopfully she reads. haha

Here's a photo Matt sent us recently with the caption

making a mud oven. this got all covered in mud haha pretty cool

We have no idea what a mud oven is, but we're sure he enjoyed getting dirty! Some things just don't change...

Matt used to close his emails to us by telling us how much he loved Chile. He hadn't done that for a while, so we asked if he still did. This was the response:

¡¡¡¡POR SU PUESTO QUE SI!!!!

¡CHI! ¡CHI! ¡CHI! ¡LE! ¡LE! ¡LE!

¡¡¡VIVA CHILE!!!

September 27 update

2010-09-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

It sounds like Chile is still recovering from the massive bicentennial celebration last weekend. The wards and branches in Talagante had their celebration this Saturday. Matt commented on this photo — it's a law in Chile to have a flag up on the 18th

There were a couple of food themes in today's email and photos. Last Tuesday for an activity, a group of missionaries visited a city called Pomaire, which is known as a craft and pottery destination. Matt said everything was very expensive, since it caters to foreign tourists. They are also known for very large empanadas (meat pastries). Matt commented,

i tried to buy one but when i went there they lied. they said that had an empenada that weighed a kilo but it wasn´t even like 1/5 of a kilo. just a LITTLE bigger than the normal ones haha

Here's the evidence. He wrote — an empanada in Poimaire, not as big as i thought. note my disappointment

He was also eager to show us these photos of making pizza at a member's home. It looks like the missionaries are getting enough to eat!

This was a nice little story:

On the 23, that was thursday, we were in a conference with President King and the assistants. haha President King was talking about the Book of Mormon and how Dan Jones taught with it (see the first page in Preach My Gospel at the picture on the top) and right as he held up the Book of Mormon there was a... little earthquake. haha (temblor) and the whole chapel shook. not hard but a little. hahaha and everyone started laughing. and made the joke of the power of the Book of Mormon. haha it was hilarious! but i know that it really does have power haha :D

In support of that message, he sent this photo with the caption my message to all of chile. haha :D the Book of Mormon hahaha :D

Or there is this alternative, titled making my mark on chile haha just kidding.

He was on "divisions" and had an experience that isn't very common in Chile:

this was in El Monte with elder Guzman. ridin on bikes haha kinda different from Santiago.

And finally, one last photo. We're guessing based on the caption that the huge flag is probably a present he bought for himself. The display of socks is probably a special effect to impress his Mom.

companionship study with a "present i got haha"

We sure miss this guy!! But we're glad he's working hard and having such a unique experience.

September 21 update

2010-09-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

Matt let us know at the last minute last week that P-day would be a day late this week In true Spanish construct, Matt described the anniversary as

Chile completed 200 years

We showed our solidarity by flying the Chilean flag at our home on Saturday September 18! But apparently Chile's Bicentennial Independence Day celebration lasted four days in the country, Friday through Monday; so all the stores were closed on Monday. They would not have been able to shop or find computers to use, so P-day was postponed until Tuesday

needless to say it'll just mess me up because i always think it's a day earlier than it really is. haha

Same for your parents, Elder! We managed to endure an additional day waiting to hear from him.

Of course, the holiday celebrations were pretty disruptive to normal missionary activities. He promised to send more photos and details next week (limited time today), but he did comment:

yeah EVERYONE was gone or had family so was busy. it was just about a week of walking around trying to clean the SIMI (list of members) because people would at least answer the question "does this person live here?" so that was ok. but also we passed by for some members to see how they were doing. haha we've been eating LOTS of meat. haha empenadas and everything. and today we'll be going to Pomaire which is like a tourist center so hopefully we'll get to see alot of stuff :D

Pomaire sounds like an interesting place to visit. It's about half an hour away from his current city. Here's a description we found: click here

He did report a little on Maria:

with maria yes :D she's progressing amazingly :D she's having some trials but she's AMAZING in enduring to the end. her kids were out of town this past week to visit their dad (maria is seperated) but they'll be coming back today in the afternoon. :D Maria's personality is amazing though. she told us (after telling her about it) that she's really excited for General Conference :D we promised her that if she prayed with faith, she would be able to receive answers to whatever kind of question she has :D

We asked if the members were helping support their efforts in fellowshipping Maria:

yeah. the rule about us going into a house without a guy older than 16 is being re-inforced in our mission. so we've kind of had to bring members, it's helped to have a member there but it's so hard to get some men there because they all work but it's been good. also she lives really close to several members so that's helped :D

This was also an interesting response. Matt has never said anything negative about his companions. But we asked which of all his companions has had the most positive influence on him as a person:

all of them. all of my companions from disobedient and strict, to chill and stressed, have all helped me learn ALOT! so far the companions that i had the hardest time with i learned the most from. :D

Very interesting response! We look forward to learning more details, probably after he comes home.

September 13 update

2010-09-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

It is astonishing to us to think that Matthew has finished 3/4 of his mission! Eighteen months down, only six to go. When we sent him a copy of this graphic and asked only, "Does this picture mean anything to you? How does it make you feel?? (FYI, it SHOCKS us!!)" — this was his response, in large bold underlined letters:

MY FAMILY IS SO TRUNKY!!!!!!!! HAHA

I guess maybe we are.

Last week's best investigator report was a woman named Maria and her children. This is the update this week:

Maria has been trying so hard to do her best. read and pray and everything. but Satan is really makin it difficult, but she's still fightin :D she didn't come to church though. her son, the night before got a temperature of 102 so they left to the hospital and couldn't go to church. but they're still working hard. we recently taught the word of wisdom and Maria said,"wow this is so true. i've got to work on this." so hopeully she keeps going :D

Her daughter Jocelyn (and Jocelyn's friend Valentina) is 18 and son Francisco is 13. As for any additional progress:

a couple new investigators but still seeing if they'll keep progressing. haha inactives. we passed by but most weren't home. we changed houses on wednesday so we've been painting and stuff. i've done my best to take before and after pictures but i don't have my camera with me but i should have lots of pictures next week. especially with the 18 de Septiembre coming up (the 4th of July for chile. and they´re completing 200 years, so it´ll be crazy. haha)

This Saturday is the Chilean Bicentennial. That will indeed be an interesting time for the missionaries to witness! Probably pretty distracting for their work...

We asked about the challenges that take people away from the Church in Chile. This was an interesting response:

well we´ve noticed that wards are just like the Book of Mormon. they´re obedient, then they get a little prideful, then they have problems, are humble, repent and then they´re obedient again. so really lots of members leave in that prideful/problem time. kinda crazy. but that´s really been the problem.

Much of the rest of the week was the distraction of moving to a new apartment, and all the cleaning, painting, fixing up, etc. We'll be eager to learn more about their "pension" next week!

September 6 update

2010-09-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

Our communication with Elder Kenison was a little limited this week, since we are in England and didn't have as much Internet access as we would like. But we were grateful to receive some responses.

In a previous message, he told us he and Elder Carvajal are working very hard. We asked what kinds of things he has seen that are done differently by missionaries who work hard and missionaries who don't. This was the response:

really their attitude. in a group it's hard to see who is a good missionary and who isn't. but for example if you see the missionaries and how they change you can tell. so really i've learned that baptisms don't show a good missionary. really to tell if someone was or is a good missionary just look at who they were and who they are. that'll tell ya. but as for Elder Carvajal. haha he's just a straight up stud. haha i'm so glad he's my companion haha

The rest of his email was sharing this wonderful story of working with an investigator family:

For the work here in Esmeralda, at the beginning it was really hard. The investigators that we have aren't really progressing. One of the investigators that was progressing said that she didn't want us to pass by anymore, we told her thanks for her time and left. We contacted lots of people but have had a hard time finding them again.

Elder Carvajal and I prayed and fasted that someone would open their doors and accept the message that we have to share. On Saturday we got a reference from a member and we passed by to see them. The Mom, Maria, immediately became interested. Her kids, Jocelyn, a friend Valentina (who is practically a member of the family), and Francisco also became really interested.

After talking for a little Maria, and the family in general started to open up a bit. Maria told of the struggle of being a single parent trying to support her family of 4 kids. We found out that one of her kids is going through the stage where they're having a hard time. We told Maria that the message we have to share would be able to help.

When we started to talk about The Book of Mormon and baptism. When we mentioned baptism Maria looked at us and said "I’ve never been baptized, and neither have my kids, what do we have to do to be baptized?" each one of the kids looked at us, as if each one of them had the same question. Surprised by what we just heard my companion and I looked at each other. Then we told her that they needed to pray and read the scriptures to know about it. Afterwards we invited them to church.

We had asked the member who gave us the reference to pass by for Maria and her family to take them to church. At church they didn't come. We asked the member, Hermana Betty, and she said that she had passed by and no one was home.

We passed by after church and Maria told us that she had slept in. she said she felt really bad that she didn't go, and it was obvious that she was telling the truth. We asked if we could pass by later that same day, Sunday, and asked her if it would be ok if Hermana Betty came with us. She said that that would be fine. We passed by later and talked again with the whole family. We found out that Maria had read the chapter we gave them the day before. We asked if she would like to hear about the story of the Book of Mormon and why we have it. She said she would so we started to share the lesson of The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

When we got to the part about the life of Jesus Christ my companion started to talk about baptism. He mentioned why we need to get baptized. He told them plainly that WITHOUT baptism we CANNOT live with God. We then talked about the Holy Ghost and how he can bring the peace that they're looking for. We asked them how they felt right then. Valentina (the daughter's best friend) said, is like... umm... uh I can't explain it. We read the scripture in Galatians 5:22-23 about the fruits of the spirit and asked them if they could feel any of those things right then, (love, joy, peace... etc...) right then Valentina (the daughters’ best friend, pretty much her sister) said "YES that is how I would describe it!" Maria looked at us and said "I don't want this feeling to leave. I want to always feel like this." we told her that that feeling is the Holy Ghost and if she is baptized she can receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost and have that feeling with her all of the time.

We then extended the invitation of being baptized. Because it was only the second time we've talked with them (not to mention the second day we've known them) we asked them if they would be baptized on the 2 of October. Maria immediately said 'yes' and one by one each of the kids, Valentina included. The spirit at that time was SO strong. I can't remember a time in my life that I’ve felt it so strong. We took the time to tell the entire family that God knows that this path will bring happiness and joy but Satan also knows that and he doesn't want them to be happy. He wants them to be "miserable like unto himself". We let them know that they can always pray and read the scriptures for help. Or go a couple of houses down and ask Hermana Betty for help. Or even call us.

At the end of the appointment we asked Maria to say the prayer. It was the first time she's prayed but you couldn't tell. For all of us she said Thanks for this moment. And then while pausing prayed sincerely for help to be able to be baptized. That she could do the things that she needs to keep going. By the end of the prayer she was crying, along with everyone in the room.

I now understand the words of Alma. "And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me." I know that that is true. The joy that I felt yesterday I can't explain with words. But I know that if I keep doing by best. because I know that I can do better. A little better every day, I'll be able to have more experiences like that.

¡¡¡LLEVEMOS LAS!!! (meaning "bring them" in response the other people say "al cordero" so really it means "Bring them, to the shepard" a phrase that President King has always said. haha he yells "Llevemos las" and we yell "Al Cordero")

August 30 update

2010-08-30T20:17:00.000-07:00

Elder Kenison is getting used to his new area in the Esmeralda Branch. We asked about his companion, Elder Carvajal, and told him we assumed he was Latino when we heard the name - we were surprised to hear he was from SLC. Turns out his father is Chilean! The two mature elders seem to be getting along well:

we're loving it haha kinda hard with the spanish because people still don't ALWAYS understand us but it's all good. haha we're workin hard :D

Here's the current summary of the work in their area:

well right now we've been trying to find new investigators and NO ONE is there or they're not interested. but still we're working. the Branch is really good the members work but we just need references. for example we want to have more lessons where a member can come with us, and there are several that can, but we don't have investigators to teach. but we have a couple contacts that we'll pass by for this next week. haha

As for their apartment - apparently it's in need of repairs, or better yet, replacement:

the pension... well we'll be changing this next week into a new one. the one we're in just... well there is a lot of water problems haha the sink leaks and so there is always water everywhere. but really we just found another penison for really cheap and it's a lot bigger and nicer. haha it's out of our area but it's only a short walk so that is the down side but it's all good.

The branch members are working to strengthen one another in some creative ways:

every Thursday the elders get together and go out home teaching i don't think they have assignments but it's like a "mas o menos" thing not many people show up to it. just like 3 or 4. so hopefully that get get going that would probably be a huge help. haha

No new photos today (he left the charger for his camera at his old location and needs to wait for it to be sent to him). But here are a couple from recent weeks I didn't post yet. Apparently the Elders went to a Chinese restaurant, and Elder Kenison saw some interesting figurines that he had to try to emulate.

The first bore this caption/description:

a chinese resturant. just so it's not like apostacy i imagined him like Enos haha quote:

2 And I will tell you of the wrestle which I had before God, before I received a remission of my sins.
3 Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forests; and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart.
4 And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens.
Enos 1:2-4

The second one says:

also at the restaurant haha i've noticed that i'm a very un-flexible person haha

August 23 update

2010-08-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

Elder Kenison had changes this week! We still struggle with the terminology. Missionaries used to get "transferred" periodically, but now they "have changes" — at least in Chile they do. I wonder where that came from.

Elder Kenison is now serving in a city called Talagante, which is about 22 miles southwest of Santiago. He's in the Esmeralda branch. The map on the right column of this page shows the location of the new city within the mission (click on the small map for detail).

This image from Google Maps shows the Talagante area. It's a little mountainous to the north, but the area in general is pretty rural and agricultural:

The area where Elder Kenison is working is towards the lower left of the above map. In the one below, you can see the Church building where his branch meets on the left center, next to a green lawn; his "pension" (apartment) is on the vertical street that is in the lower right corner:

His new companion is Elder Carvajal. When we first read that name today in one of the first email messages, we were sure he was a native; but it turns out he is from Salt Lake City. He's been serving for about 21 months, and will go home after two more "changes" (in about 3 months). We don't know yet the reason these two "senior comps" are together — Matt didn't give us much info. He did say he's a straight up stud. haha what more is there to know. pretty much he's just awesome. And then:

Elder Carvajal and I are both senior companions so lessons are really chill. we both talk in lessons and both teach it's really cool.

Here is a photo of the two companions:

Elder Kenison commented:

oh by the way you'll have to tell Elder (Spencer) Mecham. haha he trained both of us haha we call the trainer our dad (weird) and so in that sense elder Carvajal is my brother haha (but aren't everyone brothers and sisters haha) yeah whatever but you'll have to let him know.

This was the report of the first few days of work in the area:

we've contacted and knocked lots of doors and we've just met LOT'S of people who ended up saying "yeah i was baptized a long time ago and i'm inactive now" so we'll be helping them get to church

He seemed quite optimistic about the branch they are working in:

church was great! i'm acutally in a branch now. haha i'm pretty glad to find out how one works it's a little different. but there were 67 people in church last sunday (in Las Industrias 65-70) so pretty much the same

One highlight of the week was a conference on Saturday with Elder Richard G. Scott. The meeting included all of the Santiago West and Rancagua missionaries. Elder Kenison reported on this unexpected topic of the conference:

it was amazing. there were a couple practices and then Elder Scott talked about marrying a good girl. haha it was a little surprising. he said "this may be the only time that we meet in this life, so there is some adivice i'd like to give you" haha he then asked the elders what they thought a good date would be after the mission, one elder said go to see the temple outside, elder scott reminded him that it was the first date not the last haha.
some elder said that group dating is better and how we should always date in a group. elder scott said that that is really just like hanging out. he asked the sister missionaries their opinion on the topic of having a group date and every one of them said that they wouldn't like it. haha (the elder really got shot down haha but in an ok way)
some elder said "elder scott you said in the liahona last year.... and you said.... and so that is what you said..." elder scott looks at the sister missionaries and says "would you like that" they said no. then he said that that had been said in a different context to a different group of people. haha
it was interesting it made me think. what do i really want in a wife. but amazingly i didn't get trunky at all. haha it was cool. he then had us promise that we should marry a girl who is... oh i forgot the word, haha i wrote it down. like really just example. the idea i got is. work hard and marry up. don't be lazy and settle for less. pretty cool meeting. haha

Three classic photos to conclude. His description of this first one said:

I rested my feet and studied (mom please don´t get mad they already had a huge hole in them and i didn´t have any others like them so they were the only pair. haha)

These last two also convey a unique aspect of his personality:

the caption of this one is "Like MarLyn, I too have a hard time "describing how much I really love Nutella" haha (and don´t worry i did get the little bit left haha
Elder Balling then FALSELY accused me of eating HIS Nutella, but i told him i´m innocent haha he wouldn´t take my innocent face. I never figured out why. haha

August 16 update

2010-08-16T19:37:00.000-07:00

It's that time again — "changes" for Elder Kenison! He learned today that he will be transferred to a new area in the next few days, but doesn't know where yet. And so, that means we won't know until next Monday! We'll be very eager for next Monday's email. We asked what he would miss about Las Industrias:

the people, the people and more the people. haha oh and being close to a huge mall that we can go to every monday. haha

In addition to "changes" this week there will be a special mission conference that will be held next Saturday. All the missionaries from both the Santiago West and Rancagua missions will be meeting with Elder Richard G. Scott. Matt is very excited!

Elder Balling is STILL not back to full strength - poor guy! We hope he'll be much better soon. The elders have continued to work as they could, and rest and study in between. This was the latest update about Marienela, one of their favorite investigators, who is struggling with a very busy life:

yeah really it's her younger son. hes in a wheelchair and sundays are HIS days really. so his dad (who doesn't live at home) comes down and spend the day with them. so, she said that its really out of her control but that she'd ask her "husband" if they could start the day in the afternoon at like 1 or 2. when church gets over. :D hopefully she asked :D

In anticipating "changes" this week, Elder Kenison wrote:

right now i'm just a little nervous for changes. at the rate that President King is going this may be my last area :D please pray that i get a good area :D like meaning a hard one so i'll learn a lot. :D haha my goal is to see a ward change. the one here is SLOWLY doing it. but if i'm going to be in my next area for a long time i'll have time to figure everything out, follow the spirit and hopfully work hard so that i end my mission (in chile because my mission will continue on forever.) haha

We love the attitude of eagerness to work and serve! Matt has mentioned previously that he would love to go to the "campo" — the more remote areas away from the city and from the coast. That would be nice for him to have that kind of opportunity. With seven months to go, I'm not sure he'll have only a single area for the rest of the mission. But we'll be eager to hear about his next opportunity!

Here's a photo from last week showing Elder Kenison in front of the Santiago Temple:

August 9 update

2010-08-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

It was another tough week, as Elder Balling continues to work through his illness. We asked Elder Kenison if he's being careful not to catch "the bug."

yup :D i'm good. eating a LOT of fruit. haha

Here's one experience from this week:

well recently i actually went on divisions with another elder. because elder Maldonado is also sick. so we stuck Elder Maldonado and Elder Balling in our pension and then Elder McMurray (a straight up baller from Washington State, see photo) and i worked in their area. and then two days later worked in Las Industrias. and we passed by for Marianela. the problem is that she does a lot and so Sunday is her only "free" day with her son. but we'll find a way to get her to go. haha she's awesome! and her son recently said that he's always wanted to be a member but hasn't had time. haha

Here's the photo of Elder Kenison and Elder McMurray:

Matt seems to be enjoying his new mission president:

we recently had a conference with him. it was AWESOME!!! haha he's been talking a LOT about the Book of Mormon. haha it's been really cool.

Here are a couple of photos Matt took at that conference with some of his former companions! He really enjoyed the chance to see them again.

August 2 update

2010-08-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

Elder Balling wasn't feeling much better this week, so it was another slow week. It sounds like they had minimal contacts with members and investigators. They were checking in again with the doctor, so we're hoping and praying for a full recovery!

Meanwhile back home, I had some email contact during the week with a member who lives in their ward in Las Industrias. He said some really nice things about Matt — how hard-working he was, and how he hoped his own son would be that kind of missionary. I asked Matt to tell me more about Hermano Mauricio Parra.

he's... AWESOME! haha he was literally a miracle. he was the one who was making some mistakes and was inactive for 15 YEARS! and now he's active actually he's the young mens president and his wife was recently called as the Relief Society President :D pretty awesome :D haha but their son, Paulo, was the member who gave us Gabriel as a reference. and recently we started teaching another one of his friends. haha the family is AMAZING!!!

It was wonderful to hear such positive things about Elder Kenison coming from someone who sees him in action! Mauricio concluded with, "My commitment to you is to care for him and provide all my support, as if he were my own son. I greet you my brother from my heart, brother Mauricio Parra." Wow.

There was one other story that some members of our family will appreciate. One of Matt's aunts on his mother's side is named Kristin. For reasons that are too long to explain, she used to have the nickname of "Fern." More recently, she's been called "Aunt KK" — and that's the background for this comment:

ALSO haha funny story. so mom, i'll have to call your sister Aunt Fern from now on. haha because KK in spanish or "queque" (sounds the same) means cake, but in chile it means "butt". so if you say "hermana i like your cake" they laugh and say "elder no it's "torta". so "hermana i like the torta" it's better. but i've decided that, unless Aunt "KK" is ok with me laughing every time i say her name she'll probably just have to get use to the name Fern hahaha :D

Typical missionary humor!

The only other thing to report was that we received an envelope from Elder Kenison with some letters to some of his friends here (it's cheaper for him to send four letters in a single envelope to us, and have us re-mail them). On the outside of the envelope he had affixed this sticker of the flag of Chile, with a little addition that made one person in our home say "Awwwwwwwwwwwwww..."

July 26 update

2010-07-26T21:42:00.000-07:00

It was "one of those weeks" for Elder Kenison and Elder Balling. Unfortunately, Matt's companion was sick most of the week, so their activities were pretty curtailed.

we've been inside ALL WEEK. so not much working. we studied a lot and did a lot of stuff at home but not much tracting.

Based on our experience from last year, the winters in Santiago can be a challenge for the elders. The colder temperatures, frequent rainfall, and other conditions often weaken their resistance. Although, given the weather forecast for the coming week in the attached graphic, they should have a good chance to recover!

Some "investigator updates" from the few excursions they made:

we passed by for Carlos again and he wasn't there. his wife was though and we set a time to pass by. haha hopefully we can talk to both of them.
we passed by for Marianela and she wasn't there. :( we passed by with a member too. haha but we set another cita with her son so hopefully we can find her. or if not haha teach her son
well shirley was at church yesterday. haha :D she's officially active :D WOOT! Ulices has an almacen (little store) and so we've been passing by and buying bread at night. haha it's been the only time that we leave. haha

We wish Elder Balling a speedy recovery (Matt did say he's much better today), and a more productive week for the elders in Las Industrias!

July 19 update

2010-07-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

We always ask Elder Kenison to share the best experience of the week.

umm... that's so hard to say... probably church. when LOTS of people came to church. not like a lot of people in general but just people who haven't been in a while. :D it was awesome! i'll tell more about them next week.

He did let us know that one of those who came was Luigi, whom he mentioned last week as one they really were working closely with. They were very excited to see him in the meetings this week! Or as Matt expresses it,

YES HE DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D HAHA it was amazing :D

We were pleased to get some nice photos that tell a little more about their experiences. Here's a photo of Elder Kenison visiting a member — Hermana Elena. When they arrive for a visit, she has the table set and according to Elder Kenison eventually served them about 10 sandwiches before they could get away. Typical of the faithful members in Latin America!

Meanwhile, back at the apartment, this is what Matt fixes for himself for lunch. On the left is a concoction affectionally called "Ale Ramen" in honor of Matt's "Brazilian sister" who taught him to make this flavorful noodle dish. On the right is a kind of "smoothie":

yogurt, milk, a banana, and an apple blended together. haha YUM haha

Elder Kenison and Elder Balling have worked in their spare time to clean up and improve their "pension" or apartment.

this room has no window and before it didn't have light. haha it's really small, which is perfect for studying in the morning because it's easy for the heater to make it really warm really fast haha. (p.s. i cheated and cleaned my side before the picture.) also we call it our "chilean room" note the flag on the ceiling

They also did some work in the bathroom.

the shower head that we used to not have. haha there was just a hole in the wall. haha and the hot water thing doesn't work. haha now it does. haha all thanks to an hermano (brother) in our ward to fixed it :D

Last week, we found out the address of the "pension" where Elder Kenison and Elder Balling are living in Las Industrias, and were able to locate it on Google Maps. Here are some photos showing more detail - click to view enlargements. The first is a view of the whole metropolitan area of Santiago; the little red "A" marks where they are working.

This map shows the "sector" or area assigned to the elders:

And this closeup shows their actual street and apartment! If we try hard, we can almost imagine seeing the missionaries walking down the street...

July 12 update

2010-07-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

Our communication from Elder Kenison was pretty brief this week. Apparently they had a district soccer activity in the morning on P-day which took extra time. It also made him forget his photo adaptor so we didn't get any new pictures. :(

Some progress on investigators. We asked about Mariela and got this response:

yeah we passed by and taught her and she said. "so what do my son and I have to do to get baptized?" haha we we surprised haha but we told her that she needs to come to church :D she didn't come yesterday but we have a "cita" to pass by with a member tomorrow :D

This was the rest of the summary of progress:

well we're working with A LOT of less actives. (well in-active members) because there aren't many members without calling in our ward and there is a huge need for more leaders. (like one to help us. haha) so hopefully we'll get some people active. recently we've been working a lot with a guy named Luigi. we've been trying to get him to church. he told us he'd come but he didn't :( we passed by and i asked him, "where were you at 10:00 this morning?" and he looked us straight in the face and said,"i´m sorry I was sleeping." he then commited to feel better. i could tell he didn't feel great but hopefuly he'll go :D all we did is say "hey, le quiero mucho amigo, no se precupe. estamos luchando con usted :D" hopefully things get better. :D

Meanwhile, one of the recent highlights relates to other recent converts:

well. last sunday i had the pleasure of having Gabriel give me the sacrament. haha and also hear that Ayram is the President for the Laurel class haha

Finally, we asked about Elder Balling — how are they alike, how are they different?

like me. well we both can't speak english. haha it's kind of funny. for differences. for Spanish my problem is grammar, for him it's pronunciation. haha but he's amazing at grammar and thanks to elder Tucto i'm "mas-o-menos" at pronunciation. but we've been helping each other out. one big difference is like our high school life. he was the guy who took 5 AP classes (and aced all the tests haha) and I... I regretfully, did only what i needed to or wanted to do. haha but because he took those classes he knows ALOT about like chemistry. haha needless to say i've learned a lot from, how bombs work, to why the moon stays where it is. haha (gravitacional lock) haha kinda crazy. haha

Glad they've been discussing such important matters!!

Since there were no photos this week, we'll share a previous one. Classic Matt creativity... (click to enlarge)

July 5 update

2010-07-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

Sometimes "no news is good news." Elder Kenison's response when we asked if there were "changes" this week (transfers):

yes. and... i don't have changes :D WOOT!!!

He really likes Elder Balling and is delighted to stay together another six weeks in Las Industrias. Their work is progressing slowly but surely.

The other big news of the week was the transition of leadership. President Richard King and his wife Melinda arrived in Santiago to begin their three years of service. We think the missionaries each had a very short interview with the new president. This is what Matt wrote:

when i first met him. he walked in the door and starting, greeting everyone. and he came to me and stopped. and the FIRST thing he says to me was, "Elder Kenison, oh you're the one with the famous blog." haha i just said. "you know about that!" haha it made me laugh.

And then this is the rest of the information Matt was aware of:

he has a big family. 6 kids. and he worked at Novell i think. he lives right in Provo too. so hopefully i'll be able to attend his homecoming in 3 years. haha (that's looking ahead) but yeah he's a great guy. he has a daughter on a mission in, nebraska, michigan, one of those states. and his son just entered the MTC going to Orsorno Chile. haha pretty cool :D also he served his mission in Colombia, so he speaks spanish pretty well :D yeah haha

We got a series of fun photos without much explanation. Elder Balling and Elder Kenison visited with a family for "Noche de Hogar" (Family Home Evening) with two recent converts.

we made Caca de Mono (monkey poo) or as they say in the states. No Bake Cookies. but i like the name monkey poo more :D haha

From the looks of the missionaries, they are enjoying each other's company and having a great time.

Finally, there is this classic photo of Elder Balling — who looks like he must fit in just fine with Elder Kenison!

June 28 update

2010-06-28T20:17:00.000-07:00

Things are going well for Elder Kenison and Elder Balling! We enjoyed the new mission logo received this week; note the flagpole is actually the outline of the entire country of Chile, and other significant symbols are included. Very nice. (Click to enlarge.)

It's a time of transition in the mission. President and Sister Jones are completing their service and returning home this week, and a new president will arrive. They held a farewell mission conference, which gave the missionaries a chance to get together. Matt was quick to point out,

We had a final conference with President Jones :D it was sweet. haha it was a conference not a going-away party. :D i saw several people there. haha

Here's a photo showing some of his friends and acquaintances. Elder DeLong (in the center of the photo) is a distant cousin.

some of the elders i know. haha originally the picture was just with Elder DeLong but then some others joined. haha the one on the far right is from my [MTC] group. Elder Smith (good luck finding his parents mom. haha) and elder mills. he's from Las Vegas. haha and on the far left. Elder Keogh (something like that) he's from Scotland. haha

And one more showing Elder Poulsen, Matt's buddy and neighbor from Orem:

One thing we were pleased to hear was that Elder Kenison really hopes he's not going to be transferred next week (the next time scheduled for "changes" which occur every 6 weeks) — he's loving his work with Elder Balling, got the apartment cleaned up and organized, and feels there is still plenty they can do together in their current area. It's always great to hear that companions are "bonding" together!

This was a photo we didn't expect: Matt with his dentist and dental assistant! He apparently went back in this week for a checkup of his recent work, and for his companion to have some teeth looked at.

The big event of the past week was the baptism of their investigator Auram.

it was AWESOME!!! haha besides the fact that the Calafont (water heater) ran out of gas and we didn't notice right away. haha but it was still good. the water wasn't to bad. haha for me at least. but of course i wasn't the one who went all of the way under. haha the hardest part was remembering her name. Ayram Javiera Almuna Cabezas. haha pretty crazy. but yeah.

the baptism. haha it was amazing. Ayram and her mom were there. and her Grandparents, who before didn't even talk to us, were there, it was really nice :D Elder Balling gave a really nice talk about The Holy Ghost. so overall it was a really nice baptism. :D

June 22 update

2010-06-22T20:17:00.000-07:00

We waited all day Monday for our customary email, but nothing came. We worried a bit, but were delighted to receive the messages on Tuesday. Apparently the district had an activity at the zoo which is closed on Monday, so they postponed P-day. But visiting the zoo apparently inspires missionaries to strike poses like this:

In spite of the zoo experience, it seems the missionaries had a pretty good week. Their best investigator Ayram is scheduled for baptism this coming Sunday. She was a referral from a recent convert; but Matt observed,

:D now we just have to get that recent convert to church haha

He sent this photo of another young family he's been working with for a while. Wilson was an inactive member, and Debora has been very enthusiastic about the Gospel. They both are doing great now, but have a challenge with a divorce situation. They are making arrangements to be married in August, and Debora will then be able to be baptized!

He mentioned one other new investigator:

Marienela :D elder Tucto found her. but we passed by the other day and taught her the first lesson (the restoration, we had already taught her the second) and then we asked her if she would pray to know if it was true and she said. "well, i don't need to it just feels right, i feel like it's true. :D it just all makes sense. God had prophets before and he needs them now" :D it's awesome :D haha

Finally, this great story. This is one of the longest experiences Matt ever wrote; we really enjoyed it!

we were working the other day (yeah we do that alot haha wow i don't know why i started off like that) anyways. so we were passing by for references that we have from the ward and we passed by for a less active member. as we were looking for his house two women left from a house and then stopped us. they said "are you elders" we said "yes" they looked up in the air and said "oh thank you, thank you" (elder Balling and i got a little curious)

They invited us to go into a house. i've seen the house before and talked to a lady who was a member outside so we went in. when we walked in it smelled a LOT like smoke. we walk in and saw two guys sitting at the table. one big guy on the left (Julio) and one smaller guy on the right (Carlos).

When we walked in the big guy looked amazed. and he put his hands to his face and started crying. elder balling and i just stood there. one of the women that invited us in (probably Julio's wife) started patting him on the back and said, in a loving voice, "that's ok cry, just cry" he cried and cried. Then after a while. Carlos started talking he said. “wow, we were just talking about you. And here you are. This is Julio he is my best friend. And he’s going through a hard time.” He then told us that he was a member, he had the aaronic priesthood and Julio had the melchizedek priesthood and is actually a High Priest. But they’re been inactive for about 10 years.

After talking for a little more Julio stopped crying and asked us to give him a blessing. We gave the blessing and the spirit came into the room :D it was awesome! We then sat down and started talking. Julio and Carlos said that they were just talking about how they needed to go back to church. We talked to them and said, “ok, so what do you need to do to go back to church and feel the blessings that you did before?” they weren’t sure. So we pulled out the folleto (I don’t know the word in english haha pamphlet? ¿no?) The Word of Wisdom :D they looked at it for a little and then both dropped their heads. We read the blessings that come from following the word of wisdom and then we talked about it. They said. Wow we have a big problem with that. So we had them set a Goal. We asked “how many cigarettes are you smoking everyday?” “umm... about 20.” They replied. A little shocked we said. “ok can you set a goal, how many cigarrettes will you stop smoking from now, until Sunday?” Carlos looked at me and said, “Here’s how I look at it. If i needed to cut a dogs tail off I wouldn’t do it bit by bit but just once. Then it would be cut one time and heal one time.” “so...” we said. “that cigarrette that i had 5 minutes ago is my last” and with that he grabbed a boc of cigarrettes, (unopened) and crumpled it up in his hand and threw it in the trash. Haha. Elder Balling and I just looked and each other, stunned. Haha afterwards we shared a short lesson told them to keep going with the good intentions that they have and then we left.

Well, we saw Carlos a couple days ago, riding his bike (he actually came to us). And asked him how he was doing. He said. “i’m chewing so much gum.” Haha but in the three days before he hadn’t smoked a single cigarrette. :D Pretty cool :D haha as of right now i don’t know how they are doing. Haha but we have a cita with Carlos Tomorrow so hopefully everything is ok. Haha !vamos a ver¡ :D

What a great story! We were very proud of how Elder Kenison and Elder Balling handled the situation. They seemed to be very blessed.

Of course, like much of the world and especially South American countries, "World Cup Fever" is rocking Chile right now. The Chilean team won their first two games, but has to play a strong Spain team next (on Friday) and must at least tie to guarantee advancing to the next round. Matt said the country is crazy about the games. We asked if they had special instructions about their work around game times:

during the game no. but after yes. this friday we'll probably get instructions to stay in till 5. because there is A LOT of things that go on. a pizza place got broken into and stuff. kinda crazy. i don't get it. but yeah so we'll probably be staying inside. if they win.

Food was also a theme this week. These pictures show Elder Kenison digging into one of his favorite meals (a missionary staple), mac & cheese with hot dogs and ketchup. The second photo looks much better to us — a nice lemon meringue pie we think was given to the missionaries by a member!

One more photo. Since they are now entering winter in Santiago, the air pollution is picking up. Matt observed,

CAN YOU SEE WHAT I'M BREATHING!!!!

June 13 update

2010-06-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

Elder Kenison has been serving for 15 months on his mission! Time continues to fly... Hard to believe there are only 9 months to go until he returns!! He continues to feel great joy in his service, and desires to grow and improve in his missionary duties.

We shared with Matt some of our experiences during this past week which were a bit challenging (a large stake youth activity in Wyoming that encountered some weather problems) but had a great final outcome. He responded with this reflection:

that's awesome! even though it was a hard trip I'm sure i would say it was a great success. i remember in the MTC when my companions and i taught a lesson and we thought it was HORRIBLE! (especially when it was given in Spanish) we were So disappointed. but then our teacher would ask us "how did this person come unto Christ" and then we would think about it and find some ways. so... applying that to the trip. i think that it was a success. because there may not have been the firesides and everything but there was still a lot of learning going on. and they still learned a lot. i'm sure almost all of the youth that went on the trek have much more respect for the Pioneers than they did before :D SWEET!!!

His best news of the week:

we have a fetcha with Ayram for her baptism!!! i mean AYRAM HAS A BAPTISMAL DATE :D HAHA

We also asked a little about the senior/junior companion situation, which Matt has been downplaying. He clarified the mission's approach, and his personal attitude — we loved this comment:

yeah our mission does [have the concept of a senior companion]. but elder balling and i kinda don't. really if there is a problem or opinion needed we BOTH work to fix it. but if a leader is correcting us for doing something (like... getting in late or something) then i would be responsable for it. but as for like teaching and deciding what to do with investigators. we work together. :D

As for whether he likes having a "gringo" as a companion for the first time in a long time, he commented:

yes and no. we try speaking mostly Spanish. but elder Balling is in that stage where he doesn't understand everything. but he's understanding more and more. so it's kind of hard to talk to him in spanish. but he's been a Baller and he's been really patient and trying to understand. haha he's a stud.

And do they speak Spanish or English when they're alone?

probably english because we're always telling each other stories about stuff. Elder Balling knows A LOT! about like chemistry and mathamatics. haha so i've just been asking random things. haha like "how does a bomb work?" haha

Bombs??? That's important for missionary work, right???

We didn't get any photos from Matt this week, but here are a couple that came recently that I never posted.

'dancing' with a dog. haha aquiles he likes to jump on you so i grabed his paws haha and as a joke started 'dancing' (you know i can't dance) and elder Tucto took a picture haha

And then this nice action photo...

service hahaha cleaning out a yard. SWEET

June 6 update

2010-06-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

Elder Kenison has settled in to working with his new companion, Elder Balling. We asked what he likes most about him so far, and this was the compliment he paid:

he's animated and obedient.

He also reported that he has good, solid Spanish grammar, which will help Matt; though Matt perhaps has a bit more confidence and fluency. So they can work together well.

It turns out that Elder Balling is the nephew of a wonderful couple who live in our stake here in Orem. We'll see if we can establish a connection to the family!

Matt reported:

so elder balling was sick this week so i made smores :D they were pretty good :D haha

We're not quite sure the correlation between a sick comp and chowing down on snacks — maybe because he had some free time? He doesn't seem to be offering the food to his companion to help him recover!

He did mention later, when we asked what the best experience of the week was:

best experience. well. working yesterday because elder Balling isn't sick anymore haha it felt GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!

President Jones, the current mission president, will be finishing his mission in a few weeks. Matt has really loved and appreciated this good man. He reported:

we had interviews with the president (our last one with President Jones) so i took advantage and took a picture.

Finally, this photo, which has a great story behind it.

this is a cool picture/story these are people from my ward. :D the two in the middle just got sealed with their family. the husband (mauricio) was actually in-active for 15 YEARS! he was drinking, doing drugs and stuff like that. his wife, margarita, kept going to church every sunday she would get their four kids ready and go :D then one of their kids, benjamin, asked his dad, "dad when am i going to get baptized?" mauricio immediatly decided to fix his life. he stopped doing drugs stopped drinking and started fixing his life. and here he is about 6 months or so later getting sealed in the temple :D he worked hard. and now (as of yesterday) was called to be the young mens president :D amazing no?

May 31 update

2010-05-31T10:32:00.000-07:00

We knew Elder Kenison got a new companion last week, and were eager to find out who his new one would be! He sent us this photo, claiming he was "in a trio" — yeah, right:

This is his "real" new companion, Elder Balling from Centerville, Utah:

Matt has LOVED having Latino companions, and they've helped him tremendously with learning to speak better in Spanish. But we're sure he'll have a good experience with Elder Balling, who has been serving about 8 months. When we asked how he felt about the change, he responded:

good :D we've got potencial!! but we have to get better (health wise) first haha

That wasn't very nice of him; now we'll spend the week wondering what's really going on "health wise"!!

Last Saturday they held a baptismal service for a young man named Gabriel they've been teaching for several weeks. There were about 40 people from the ward who attended — good sign of support! Matt commented about the baptismal service:

(i don't have a lot of time but) it was good. i want to say thanks to dad though. we, well Gabriel had asked some of his friends to help, one give a 'talk' and one say the prayer. i forgot to tell them so i told the guy who was supposed to give the talk like 20 minutes before the service. and he got kind of mad. i said "hey just read this scripture in 2 nephi 31 and bare your testimony and how you feel knowing one of your friend is being baptized." he said that he didn't want to do it. i just said "it's just something short, like 5 minutes you can do it" he still resisted. then the kid that gabriel asked to give the prayer said that he didn't want to. haha i was like "are you serious! this isn't hard! haha" so i gave the talk. and the one who was going to give the talk gave the prayer. so i want to say thanks dad. for telling me that i'll do things i don't want to do. and also helping me learn to ALWAYS be prepared. haha it helped.

We were proud of Matt, being able and willing to "jump in" especially in Spanish!

Finally, a couple of photos —

helping the bishop build another room for his house :D

May 24 update

2010-05-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

This week, Elder Kenison "lost" his companion, Elder Tucto. They have served together since early March, and seem to have had a wonderful relationship and have accomplished some good things together. Unfortunately, since our letters are exchanged on Monday and the new companion is assigned on Tuesday, we won't know details until next week! But Matt seems to be chillin' and ready to move forward.

Here's a district photo - seems like they enjoy each other's company!

As for the week's progress, Matt didn't have much time to write (less free time because of his comp's transfer). In a short update, he reported some progress with a family that seemed to be fading last week but is bouncing back:

wilson and Debora yes. Debora found work where she doesn't have to work on sunday :D pretty sweet :D haha also wilson's grandma came to church again :D haha she's awesome

He had hinted about a new program and we asked for some more details:

there is a 'plan misional famililar' in the mission that has the members work with the investigators. it's a way to get more references from members and then have them help us teach. so we'll be doing that in our ward :D

That sounds encouraging!

This last photo was especially fun. Matt wrote:

suprise. haha i found this ballar writin his fam. haha he's sutck her in internet. haha pretty crazy. can you send this to his mom. his computer is being crazy haha thanks

I guess Matt still talks "teen" in addition to Spanish. But running into his old friend and neighbor, Elder Poulsen, is always a lot of fun. We sure wish they could be companions together! Maybe... who knows...

May 17 update

2010-05-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

We loved this new photo received this week of Elder Kenison and Elder Tucto, his Peruvian companion. They really seem to have a great relationship!

We asked Matt about investigators who attended Church this week, and learned about a new young man he's working with:

well... Gabriel was the only one. we passed by for several yesterday. (actually we did divisions so we could pass by for more. i went with one hermano and Elder tucto with another. but not much luck.) but Gabriel came :D he's a stud. don't know if i talked about him. he's a reference from a member. he's 14. (kinda cool to teach the story of Joseph Smith) but really when we pass by we ask, "do you have any questions about what you read recently?" (we normally left like a pamphlet or a chapter in the Book of Mormon for him to read) he would say yeah. "who's Nephi?" and we'd explain. then we'd ask what he learned. and he'd give us like a full break-down of the chapter he read (or pamphlet) haha he's amazing. he has a baptismal date for the 30 (sunday) but he wanted to change it to the 29th (saturday) so he could be baptized on his birthday. haha pretty cool.

The work is slowing a bit; Matt mentioned they will need to start tracting more to find most people to teach (they currently spend about an hour a day knocking on doors). They are also continuing to work with members and are getting some better support there. Here was one fun experience during tracting:

haha we 'knocked' a door once. and the person yelled "no estoy" (i'm not here). we laughed and said "hola, ¿como esta?" and they said. "no, encerio, NO estoy" (i'm serious, i'm not here)they were, serious. so elder tucto and i said,"ok cuidese" (take care.) haha and we left. haha kind of weird.

Matt has a little glass desk ornament with the Salt Lake Temple etched inside, and his companion really loved it; Matt asked if we could find one and send for his comp. They received the package this week, and Elder Tucto sent us this very nice little note:

hola soy elder tucto ... en verdad no tengo palabras para agradeserle por el hermoso regalo que me envio muchas... muchas grasias ..

estoy muy agradesido por estar junto asu hijo trabajando en esta maravillosa obra del señor ...el es un muy buen misionero , tiene mucho animo para trabajar, aqui en chile, con las personas que nesecitan tener esta falicidad que nosotros tenes con este evangelio de jesucristo , grasias por ser buenos padres ...lo cual esto anhelo que tambien mis padres sean mienbros algun momento ...

aaaaaaaaaa muchas grasias tambien por enviar los deliciosos dulces ... grasias por todo ...

Very nice note. He thanks us graciously for the gift, and then says how grateful he is to be working with Matt who is a very good missionary with much enthusiasm for the work. He thanks us for being good parents and hopes that his own parents will some day be members. A very kind message.

Finally, here are a few photos of a district activity last week at the local bowling alley! We asked if the alleys there are pretty similar to the ones here, and he said they were — except for the crack in the ceiling from the earthquake. Unfortunately, he didn't send a photo of the crack! (Click on any photo to view larger.)

In the next photo, that looks suspiciously like a "gutter ball"...
and doesn't that last one look like "classic Matt"?!?!?

May 10 update

2010-05-10T20:17:00.000-07:00

There was certainly less to email about this week, since we had a wonderful phone conversation just two days earlier. But there are a few things we can share. No new photos, though... :(

It sounds like Mother's Day in Santiago was interrupted by stake conference. We asked if they celebrated Mother's Day this week as well.

yeah they did. ''Dìa de madre''. in church we actually had Stake Conference. President Nuñez. (the last president) was called in the last General conference to be an Area 70. so they called a new one. and he's a JOVEN (he's young) he has two kids. one is 5 the other 3. and they've only lived here for a year and two months. haha he came and got called as a bishop and now as the stake president. haha

This was the update on one of the good families he's been working with:

well we're trying to get Wilson and Debora Married. but there are a lot of problems with that. the grandma doesn't really want them too. (we think because they live with the grandma and if they get married they might want to leave. and the Grandma and Grandpa will be alone) but also Wilson is on a medical leave from work because of his neck. i think i said once. he's a horse Jockey haha so a little guy. but he fell of the horse on the first of April and hurt his neck so he's had a brace on. he's doing better but still needs therapy before he can work again. so it's kinda hard on the money problem. so Debora's been working. BUT she works on sunday so can't go to church. haha so many things. but we're hoping to sort things out. we gave Debora a number and address where she can call (or go) and get a job from the Church. which will mean. no work on sunday. and also we've trying to get them to talk to the bishop so that they can figure out the things for their wedding. so HOPEFULLY it all works out haha

We'll continue to pray for his safety and success in his endeavors. Meanwhile, he promises to send us more photos next week — that's always a joy!!

Mother's Day Phone Call (one day early)

2010-05-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

We had the delightful semi-annual opportunity today to talk with our missionary! Based on the mission rules, he had to call us; but then we were able to conference in Brian and Sarah, and Matt's grandparents, from Virginia. We had just a little trouble with our connection but once it was set it worked out great. What a joy to hear his voice! The sound was clear and prompt, with very little delay. The time went by very fast.

I was able to record part of the conversation, and then extract a few fun excerpts. His voice sounds so pleasant and happy, and he really seems to be enjoying his mission experience.

This first clip tells a little about his challenge of speaking Spanish almost all the time (his current companion is from Peru), and then occasionally having to switch to English:

This clip talks about a new habit Elder Kenison has developed since being in Chile: studying!!

Remember the huge "completo" (Chilean hotdog) from a previous week? He talks about that, and about his weight gain:

How do you pronounce "Kenison" in Chilean Spanish?

Some unique aspects of Chilean Spanish:

And another language comment:

The joys of missionary apartments — a wonderful shower:

The mysterious "haunted room" in his current apartment:

Finally, some memories and impressions about the earthquake:

May 3 update

2010-05-03T19:41:00.001-07:00

Today's letter from Elder Kenison was VERY short and sweet. In some of our questions where we asked about the people he was working with, we appended the note "Tell us as much about them as you can!" to try to encourage a little more detail than normal. But his responses were mostly one-liners — worse than normal. We think he's holding out for some reason....

Could it be because of an upcoming phone call??? We did make tentative plans to have our Mother's Day Phone Call on Saturday afternoon!! We hope to beat the rush and be able to enjoy a more leisurely conversation. We also had a complication with Bonnie needing to catch an airplane on Mother's Day. So it was nice to work this detail out!

At one point, Matt did comment after one of his short answers, "sorry don't have much time." So it appears he had a busy P-day.

One of the questions we asked was about his participation in the local Church meetings — whether he'd had the chance to give a talk. He commented,

yeah i bore my testimony yesterday. gave a class the sunday before and had a talk like a month ago.

We see lots of evidence like this that his Spanish has significantly improved!

One last little "gift" that Matt forwarded to us at the request of his mission president, President and Sister Jones. This was nice. I'm sure things are a little poignant for them right now, since they have only 2 months left before they return home.

April 26 update

2010-04-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

Last week, Elder Kenison told us about some new investigators named Wilson and Debora. It sounds like they are progressing well! Wilson is a less active member, trying to get reacquainted with the Church and introduce his family. Here is this week's update:

well Wilson attended church again. and Debora and their Daughter (Sofia) came too. haha we passed by and taught a lesson yesterday. :D when we arrived there were two hermanos (brothers) from the ward talking to them. then we taught them the Plan of Salvation to Debora and to Wilson's Grandma. (wilson helped teach). it was kind of funny. we taught about the resurrection. and elder Tucto said ''everything will be restored to it's perfect frame, so if you don't have hair, you'll hvae hair, if you're missing a finger you'll get your finger :D'' then Debora said ''¡QUE BAKAN! mire'' (that's awesome! look.) and she held out her hand and showed us that she had only about a half of her thumb (something we knew because it's on her right hand and we shook her hand haha) elder Tucto said (mas o menos) ''yeah so you'll get your thumb back." she then pratically shouted. ''i like this now'' :D haha we all laughed.
after talking to them for a bit we actually got Debora to commit to baptism. :D the grandma no because she needs some more time. haha so hopefully all works out. the problem, (but not really problem... more like issue) is that Wilson and Debora aren't married. so we'll have to do that first. then the baptism (hopefully Wilson will be able to :D) and then a year later they can be sealed to their daughter :D (hopefully if all works out. :D we're praying for it :D)

Later in the letter, he added two additional experiences with this family:

i have a thought that elder Tucto shared yesterday that i thought was cool. Wilson's grandma asked (but in spanish) 'if i'm baptised in the Mormon church will i have to attend the mormon church or can i attend mine.' in response elder Tucto asked.
'Hermana, if you want to go to Santiago or to some other place. can you take more than one bus at the same time? no. it's the same with the gospel. (only the difference is not all the buses are going to 'Santiago' only one)

Matt really seemed to like that analogy. Finally, this experience:

after the lesson with Wilson and Debora we gave Wilson's grandpa a blessing. the spirit was SO strong. haha I'm pretty sure that afterwards everyone was on like a spiritual high. haha I'm sure Debora went to sleep spiritually exhausted. haha with the church, the hermanos passing by (Hermano Moreno (elder quorum president) and Juica (elder) and later Hermano Salazar (ward mission leader) and Mauricio (just a straight up stud who has long hair haha) and then after that we passed by with a lesson. (the spirit was there for that) then the blessing haha it was AWESOME!!!!!

Another investigator was close to baptism, but needed some clarification about tea:

well Ayram had her interview for baptism. but didn't pass. :( we forgot to tell her that club tea was against the word of wisdom. we told her about red and green tea. but everything else was fine. she said that she'd stop drinking tea and prepare for her interview next week. luckily a chilean interviewed her (elder maldonado, i've sent several pictures home with him, along with the videos of us 'excercizing') but he knows that club tea is one of the most common thing here (something elder Tucto and I didn't know.) so next week she'll get her interview :D

No new photos today, unfortunately. But we have to add some details about this one from last week. Since he didn't include any explanation when he sent the picture, we asked what was going on! We recognized the sandwich as a "completo" — a Chilean hotdog covered with relish, avocados, mayo, etc. Here's the rest of the story:

well elder tucto and i found the bread in Lider (like wal-mart, haha it's actually owned by wal-mart) and he said. 'completo?' haha so we made one. (well two) 'i think we won' meaning, i think we've made the biggest. but we're looking for bigger. haha i ALMOST ate it all. the problem was the bread. haha and the fact that there were 5 tomatoes, 4 hot dogs, and 5 avecados on each one. haha and then mustard mayonase and ketchup :D haha i felt SO sick afterwards. also because i drank a lot of juice. haha but i couldn't finish the last little bit of bread. haha almost all of it

Yep, the boy's appetite has definitely expanded from those picky teenage years!

April 19 update

2010-04-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

Elder Kenison reports this week that he and Elder Tucto have been working with members to strengthen trust and invite help. It seems to have shown results in the way their work is progressing. They've also done a lot with strengthening inactive and part-member families.

This was fun:

one cool story is that we got a reference from the other elders (from the sector next to ours) they said that two people came to church that they didn't know. after getting to know them the elder's were dissapointed because they didn't live in their area but were still glad that they came. the people live in mine and elder Tucto's area. :D
we passed by. Wilson and Debora :D Wilson is a member inactive for a long time. he rides horses for his job. like races. haha it was kinda obvious because he's kinda small haha but he had a neck brace on. we asked him why. aparently he fell off a horse and landed on his head. he's been wearing a neck brace since the first of april. kind crazy. but luckily it got him thinking so he attended church. :D
the other chapel is closer so that's why he went there. but yesterday he came to the right one :D it was awesome! his 'girlfriend' was sleeping so she didn't come. their daughter Sofia 'tampoco'.
so this week we're hoping to talk to the girlfriend (who is NOT a member) to see if she'll come to church.

The rest of his letter was just answering questions. We're starting to get excited for the great and wonderful "Mother's Day Phone Call" which is now less than three weeks away! Wahoo!

We did get a few classic photos, with very limited descriptions. This first one said,

the famous completo :D i think we won with the biggest :D hahaha

A completo is a Chilean hotdog topped with relish, guacamole, mayonnaise, etc. All we can say is, what an appetite!! (We were also intrigued by the "Bruce Lee" poster in the background.)

This one said,

i saw this door and remembered an old movie. so Elder Tucto and I took a picture :D haha do you remember which movie its from?

We could only guess Harry Potter's closet under the stairs, or maybe a Hobbit cave entrance. We'll be eager to find the answer next week!

And finally, this is classic Matt — he loves sunsets!

April 12 update

2010-04-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

Elder Kenison had some great news this week, and some great photos to share (after several weeks of doing without), which is always a joy for his family and friends!

The big news was two baptismal services. We asked if the baptisms he was expecting last week actually happened. He responded:

YES!!!!!!! it was AMAZING!!! we had so many issues come up. SO MANY! we could find a tunica for Jocelyn. the time kept getting changed. and everything. it was crazy. we wanted to have the baptisms at the same time but Jocelyn couldn't so we had hers at 9:00 and Aracelli's at 1 after church. it was AWESOME!!!

The first was for a young woman named Jocelyn. It appears from the subtle clues in the photo that Matt performed the baptism (click on photo to view larger):

He identified the people in the photo as Elder Tucto, Eduardo (the boyfriend of Jocelyn, a returned missionary, we tried to get him to baptise Jocelyn but Jocelyn said no don't know why.) then Jocelyn, her dad, and mom.

The second baptism was a younger girl named Aracelli. Matt wrote, her dad is the brother of the bishop. but inactive for a long time. but he's going to church now and hoping to be able to baptize his daughter :D i hope so too. Looks like that worked out!

This was the update about additional investigators:

well we have 4 other people with baptismal dates. one family of three, familia Martinez Paredes, they're really awesome. the Dad has a testimony and everything. but the mom and daughter are kinda struggling. they say they pray. but we don't know if they're praying sincerally. but the dad got his answer and wants to be baptised. the mom and daughter have a date, or a goal, and are still asking to see if they need to or not. so hopefully all is well.

the other fetcha, baptismal date , is with Ayram (aw-ie-ram) she's like 15. but she's awesome haha she's been going to church and mutual. reading and praying. everything. the thing that helps is that she lives really close to the church (like from the Melvilles to our church) haha but she's doing really great too :D

and there's Rosa. haha she doesn't have a fetcha :D ('fetcha' is just shorter than 'Baptismal date' haha) she was smoking a lot. like a pack of 10 cigarettes a day. and now she's down to like 3 a day. which is good. the only problem is it's taken since October. also there have been some struggles with a member. the member, a good friend of Rosa, says "the Word of Wisdom isn't important, just stop smoking and get baptized and then you can start again." so Rosa has been having a hard time. the thing that is keeping her going is that her son was really sick. like dying. and the missionaries passed by and gave him a blessing. and he got better (i don't know if instantly or over time but he got better) so she's been wanting to listen because she has an amazing testimony of the Priesthood. :D

This next photo was fun — Matt wrote, my attempt at french toast :( i miss ya dad :(

This photo was taken a few weeks ago at a mission conference. It shows Elder Kenison and Elder Poulsen, his neighbor and friend!

Finally, here are a couple of interesting pictures. I asked Matt recently if he can see the mountains east of Santiago. The maps I've looked at indicate that the high Andes mountains are not far from the city! And these photos confirm that suspicion. Matt did mention that the mountains are hard to see on many days because of the haze; but they look beautiful in these shots.

April 5 update

2010-04-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

Elder Kenison reported this week that the work is progressing well in his area. He has two baptisms scheduled for the coming weekend, and other investigators progressing well. His report of Easter celebrations included this:

lots of people were gone. at like the catholic celebrations. there was like a 7 hour movie about the new testament. that played all day. LOTS of people watched it. it was nearly impossible to get into houses. but we passed by for some investigators.

He was able to enjoy General Conference in a nearby stake center! He reported:

we got to see it all. haha the sunday morning session we watched in spanish. because the stake president took the TV for mothers with little kids. but we took the TV after. there was NOBODY in the sunday afternoon session. kinda sad. i just wanted to say to all of them. GOD'S WORDS AREN'T PARTIAL (but i don't know how to say partial in spanish, let alone spell it in english. haha)

Elder Kenison reported being sick Sunday evening. It was interesting to hear how he dealt with the challenge; it gave him the opportunity to reflect on some things from the past and on the blessings he has, and he shared some wonderful and personal expressions with us that we very much appreciated.

March 29 update

2010-03-29T20:17:00.000-07:00

Elder Kenison has one of those really rushed P-days. He didn't give us much detail of what he did all day (of course - he's not big on giving detail!) but just said he had only a little time to write.

The work seems to be going better in this new area. He has several baptisms scheduled for upcoming weeks. He did give us a pretty good summary of some of his best investigators:

Hector is a member but his wife karín isn't. Hector has been inactive for a long time. and actually starting to fall into bad habits. but he's doing better. he's got some new friends at church and everything :D

Arecelli- she's the other investigator that is getting baptised. she's 9. and her dad is the brother of the bishop. but inactive for a long time. but he's going to church now and hoping to be able to baptize his daughter :D i hope so too

Ayram- is about 15. she lives next door to the church and has been assisting for a while. we're hoping to get a baptismal date for her this week.

Jocelyn- you know about her. haha her boyfriend is actually a returned missionary. and Awesome guy. haha so we hope they'll be able to go to church together.

Rosa- she's been an investigator for a long time. and really just has had problems with a member. the member is one of her best friends and so Rosa has been going to church with her. the problem in that the member really isn't a good member. so it's been difficult. but she came to church yesterday and hopefully will again this next week. :D

Nice to see some progress, especially in strengthening existing families. Chile went through a time of very rapid Church growth, and now seems to be trying to move more cautiously and make sure the members and converts are well-grounded and faithful.

Matt is very excited for General Conference this coming weekend. That's good evidence of the growth he is experiencing; that wasn't always the case!

We'll hope for more news and maybe more photos next week...

March 22 update

2010-03-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

Elder Kenison is settling into his new area in Las Industrias. This was his report of progress this week:

well we found one investigator named Jocelyn. her boyfriend is a returned missionary. so we've been teaching her. it's been awesome! she came to church yesterday too!!! :D haha as for the other investigators. the problem is that school just started. so they've all been busy. one of our investigators had a baptismal date. but lost it because she hasn't been coming to church :(

They had a good "pool" of investigators when Matt came to the area, and so we hope they are able to follow up and make some good progress. Here's another experience that was quite meaningful to Matt:

Yesterday we had an awesome experience. We were teaching an inactive family who has been inactive for a while, due to a situation that happened with another member, and just as we were about to finish. Elder Tucto had the wife read Ether 12:27 to herself and then think about it. Afterwards said that we're here to help her out. Then there was a knock on the door. And 4 members (the elders quorum) walked in. one of the members has legs that are crossed so he can't walk very well. But he went anyways. and really I'd have to say it was one of the most spiritual experiences of my mission. haha it was AMAZING. The spirit was so strong as one of the members told the inactive family that they care about them. Then he invited them to an activity this Sunday. it was amazing. :D so hopefully I'll be able to remember the feeling I had. And be able to work hard this week :D thanks for your help :D

No new photos this week, but this one came last week. We're not sure if this is his new area or the old one. And we're not sure why he's sleeping on a bed with no mattress — maybe just getting extra ventilation!

March 15 update

2010-03-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

Another week, another area, another companion! Elder Kenison has been transferred to an area called Las Industrias and is working with Elder Tucto, who is a native of Peru.

We asked about the new area:

HAHA I'm in a place called Las Industrias. It's closer to Santiago. It's a little poorer area kinda I don't know. Really Maipu was all kinda the same. Here has more of a rich and poor area.

And this is the story about his new "compy":

haha his name is elder Tucto. He's from Peru. I was actually in maipu with him before. He's a stud. Time… Haha we both hit our year mark this last week. Haha personality. Well a stud. I learned a little bit about his story yesterday. He's a convert. He was 17 years old when he got baptized. Just him and his brother out of his family. He has 4 brothers and 2 sisters. The two sisters are the oldest but they actually both died from some disease. First one and then the other. He was living on his own when he turned 14. working and going to school because his family lives in the… campo… like an area with a lot of fields. HahHaha (I forgot what it's called… country, maybe… hahaha) so he moved to the city to be closer to school. And then later closer to church. His family lives 12 HOURS from church. Him and his brother are the only members. His brother is actually the bishop. (he's 34 years old) so yeah pretty but I told him hes a stud for serving a mission. haha

Elder Kenison has had quite a variety of "Latino" companions:

Elder Mejia - Honduras
Elder Urbieta - Argentina
Elder Alonzo - Ecuador
Elder Tucto - Peru

The area where Matt is serving had 4 missionaries temporarily; there were two elders serving there who were called to Concepcion and just arrived in Chile, but had to wait temporarily in Santiago right after the earthquake. Now, they are back to two, but it sounds like they have the benefit of a large pool of investigators, thanks to the temporary help from the other elders:

Kinda crazy. And apparently they worked hard. They had 27 new investigators last week. So needless to say. Planning at night has been really easy because we have so many appointments set haha. We had one baptism set but she didn't attend church yesterday so we have to make a new one.

It sounds like a bigger apartment:

hahahaha in comparison its HUGE!!! The last house was two little rooms. This house has one huge room for like studying and eating and then it has an upstairs. Haha kinda crazy

We asked about how strong the ward is:

there were 81 people in church. Haha so A LOT!!! Elder Tucto said that there were a lot of people. It was pretty cool. Oh there are actually like 3 people that speak English so they were pretty excited to hear a gringo came. Haha so ve been able to "practice" haha so my English won't be so bad when I call in MAY!!!! :D

Not that any of us are excited for that Mother's Day phone call... a little over 7 weeks from now....

The impact of the earthquake continues. The missionaries have felt a number of the stronger aftershocks. There was a massive power outage last Sunday evening that covered most of the country:

yeah. We were at a house getting our clothes and all of the power went out I mean ALL of the power. Haha so we quickly went home. We locked up everything good and tight because lots of gangsters (haha) leave and break into houses. Lucky our cell phone has radio so we listened to figure out what was going on. Were lucky we came home. Haha there's this thing called "toke de keda" and it's really just permission for the police to shoot, SHOOT anyone who is out of the house. So that got rid of the gangster problem. Kinda crazy.

Finally, here are a few photos taken with members and investigators in Maipú as Matt was leaving:

March 11 - HUMP DAY!!

2010-03-11T20:17:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison entered the MTC on March 11, 2009 — so he has been gone for a whole year now! And in "missionary lingo" he is celebrating "hump day" — the midway point of his mission. It's all downhill from here!!

We asked him recently how he felt about approaching the halfway point of his mission, and what he thought he had done well so far.

yeah. spanish is coming GREAT!!! haha and Elder Alonzo is FINALLY showing intrest in english. haha so two goals accomphlished. haha but i'm excited for my next year of my mission. because i'll kinda know what i'm doing and i'll just get to work :D WOOT!!!!

And as for his goals or plans for the second half of his mission:

i want to become a missionary :D because i feel like i have yet to become one.

That remark comes some counsel given by Elder Oaks when he visited the mission back in June. Matt reported that Elder Oaks taught them:

"Today i only bumped elbows with a few missionaries. I did with everyone in here but i can tell that some of you still aren't missionaries. If you're green (new) that's a different story. Haha it's not really a bad thing to not be a missionary if you're green. When I was ordained an apostle I didn't immediatly become an apostle. I had to work for it." so that really helped me really want to become a missionary.

We're sure that Elder Kenison will be a missionary, and a very good missionary, in the second half of his mission.

To celebrate the "Hump Day," Chile responded with another round of earthquakes. These were probably still aftershocks of the February 27 quake (magnitude 8.8), but they were the strongest ones yet — a 7.2 shock occurred at about 11:39 a.m. Chile time, located about 92 miles SW of Santiago (compared to 197 miles SW for the big one). We suspect the missionaries felt this one pretty good! It was followed in quick succession by a couple of slightly smaller aftershocks.

In the attached "ShakeMap" image (click to enlarge), Santiago is just outside the yellow area on the upper right. But we don't know for sure where Matt is now — he was transferred on Tuesday. His mission extends well down into the yellow areas, where the "perceived shaking" would be rated "strong."

So, the adventure continues! We'll hope that Chile soon quiets down and lets the missionaries get back to work.

March 8 update

2010-03-08T18:47:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison reports that the missionaries have been busy this week in Santiago. They made lots of offers of service, but in his immediate area, didn't find a lot of need.

Everyone was ok. (which is good :D) but the main plaza is closed. And power was cut off for a long time. In some parts of our sector they got power on Thursday. Pretty crazy. But all is good. The biggest problem for me was that i didn't get Money placed back in my account for this month. So i took some out so i could eat. thanks

All week, we've been hearing about aftershocks from the earthquake. There have been well over a hundred that were magnitude 5 or greater! We asked Matt about the aftershocks, how strong they were and how they felt to him. This was his description:

5.something haha well really it feels... lame. nothing compared to the other. really it's more of like your stomach growling but it's a lot louder (A LOT!!!) and it's the ground. kinda freaky haha

As far as relief efforts and work they've been doing:

yeah we've been helping with the "hogar de cristo" it's a church here that la iglesia de Jesucristo de los santos de los Ultimos dias has united with. We woke up at five Saturday morning and heading out to the stake center there were about 100 youth in total and then the missionaries from Maipú it was cool. We all stationed out in different stops for the metro and talked to people to see if they could donate non-perishable food. It didn't work too well because if you're in the metro you want to leave. Not go back home. So we started knocking doors (elder alonzo and i and two other youth boys.) we got 17 different items haha which was good most groups didn't get any. But all is well. We were exhausted afterwards. haha

He did report that Church attendance has been much stronger than usual, including people who have been inactive in the Church for a while.

The other big news of the week is CHANGE. Elder Kenison will be moving to a new area tomorrow! We'll be eager to hear next Monday about his next assignment. He has really enjoyed working with Elder Alonzo in Maipú, but having new opportunities is a blessing too.

March 1 update

2010-03-01T18:53:00.000-08:00

It's always a joy to hear from Elder Kenison on Mondays, but never more than today! We were so thrilled to receive emails with descriptions of the weekend and answers to our questions.

We asked him to share as much as he could about the actual earthquake. He said he didn't have that much time to type, but had recorded a detailed video explanation which he'll get to us soon! But he said he thought he woke up within 10 seconds of the start (3:30 a.m.) and that it seemed to last 3 minutes. His initial summary of the earthquake was:

in short 3 nephi 8:11 :D

Pretty clever — that verse reads: "And there was a great and terrible destruction in the land southward."

But this was a little more detailed:i woke up with the whole house shaking. always thinking that all would be ok if there was an earthquake. but i couldn't imagine the noise. haha it was crazy. i woke up and flipped around and started praying. haha "Padre Celestial Ayudame Ayudame Ayudame!!!" that is, "heavenly father help me help me help me" a little after the middle of the earthquake i jumped onto my companions bed (we have a bunk bed and i sleep on top. haha) after everything slowed down (literally everything) we went around to find what broke. just a watermelon. our neighbors (we live behind a house of two elderly people) helped us a lot. they had candles and lots of other things to help out.
We were so touched to hear that his first thought was to pray — and that he was praying in Spanish! This photo was the only one he sent of earthquake impact, showing the total of the damage that occurred in his apartment.

We asked about aftershocks:

they were nothing. there was a 4.0 (or 4. something) aftershoke yesterday at like 8. Elder Alonzo feels all of the aftershokes and stops and says (in spanish) "still going... still going.... still going...." i just sit there.. "what?" haha yesterdays i felt though. haha

Other comments and insights:

we haven't really seen many things. but we went to the supermarket today. haha wow. they cleaned up but you could tell that there were alot of things on the floor before. but really just at night there are like sections without electricity. haha

We asked about power and water supplies:

no power outages but they shut the power every once in a while. we heard that they were going to shut the water off at like... 4 yesterday so we collected water. (we have two five liter bottles of good drinking water and one bucket of... mas o menos water for showering)

So in general, we were grateful that Matt was in one of the safer, less-impacted areas of central Chile. He felt enough to appreciate the power of the earthquake, but was spared any harm or danger.

The transfers that were planned for this week have been postponed one week. Matt is still expecting to be moved, but he'll have another week to help clean up and say goodbye to the friends and members in Maipu.

We were also pleased to get a series of photos, with this comment:

sorry i'm sure you were expecting lots of earthquake pictures and not pictures of making empanadas. but really there wasn't any damage here. and i haven't really seen much damage. but yeah all is well thanks for everything :D

One of the families in the ward, Familia Gonzalez, had the missionaries over for lunch and let them use their computer for emails (since most of the computer places were closed). Elder Kenison and Elder Alonzo took turns helping cook while the other was sending email to the family. (We'd love to know why Matt appears to be covered with flour in that last shot.)

Here are two more — Elder Kenison enjoying a dinner Elder Alonzo cooked before the earthquake, and appreciating a big, full moon (which doesn't look that big in the photo but seemed "huge" to Matt - "we checked to make sure the moon was white and not red. haha ")

Earthquake!!

2010-02-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

We woke up early Saturday morning in Utah to hear breaking news of a massive earthquake in Chile — measured at 8.8 on the Richter scale!! We spent much of the day glued to CNN and searching the Internet, watching the nonstop news reports and trying to find more details, hoping and praying that all was well. We heard that the main damage was in the Concepcion area, but there were lots of pictures and videos of damage in Santiago. At one point we were watching a video channel from Chile over the Internet, and they showed a shot of a collapsed building in Maipu! Lots of road damage too around Santiago.

We got confirmation about 10:00 that all missionaries in the Chile Santiago West mission had been contacted and were safe. We were very grateful to hear that!

This will be one of the top 10 most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in all of history. Fortunately it was offshore and underwater, so the damage won't be as bad as it might have been closer to the shore. The epicenter was about 200 miles southwest of Santiago, and about 73 miles northeast of Concepcion. By Saturday evening, the death toll was at about 200 but expected to rise much higher.

Some of the significant damage in Chile occurred from tsunami waves that smashed into the coastal areas shortly after the earthquakes. Much of the rest of the day was spent in anticipation of possible additional tsunami damage to Pacific islands, including Hawaii. There were massive evacuations from coastal areas. But by the evening, it appeared the danger had passed. There were tsunami impacts, but only a few feet, and damage was minimal.

During the afternoon. we had two wonderful "confirmations" of Matt's safety. A young member in Santiago "friended" me on Facebook and then told me she had seen Matt today and that he was doing fine. Then later in the afternoon, I was contacted by one of Sarah's friends who had served a mission in Chile. One of his former companions lives in Santiago, and he said he had been chatting with him via computer and realized that Matt was there — he had been spending most of the day at his house! We're guessing the missionaries were instructed to find a safe place to stay indoors while things settled down.

Matt passed on a few things to us through this contact chain. The house they live in was undamaged. Matt and his companion DID wake up and feel the shaking at 3:30 a.m. — "it scared them for a few minutes, but then they were ok. Knowing Matt, he loves adventure though." Power was out for a while, then came back on. Not much damage in their direct neighborhood (though some other areas of Maipu were more impacted).

I found this reference: "In the Maipu neighborhood of the capital, a four-story apartment complex caved into the underground parking lot, crushing the cars. But rescuers managed to pull residents from the rubble." I found the attached photo, which was taken in Maipu and must be that building.

So, at the end of the day - we're relieved and grateful, and very eager for Monday's P-day to come!! We heard of a few missionaries in Chile who either called home or sent brief emails; but we're just grateful to have had the contact we did.

Here are a few more images of the conditions in Santiago. So these were bad enough; the pictures from the coastal areas are much more frightening.

February 22 update

2010-02-22T20:30:00.000-08:00

We asked Elder Kenison to tell us a little more about the baptism of Yubomir that occurred last week, since it appeared he was the one who performed the baptism. He responded:

Hahaha yeah It was awesome :D haha I actually memorized the prayer when I was in Cartagena. Haha and his middle name was Albert (pronounced in English) so that made it easy haha afterwards was kind of funny. Talking about how he's clean from sin. Haha and then when we left they walked into Lider (a supermarket) haha and Yubomir said. "well bye elders I'm going to commit my first sin" haha it was funny haha but yeah all was good. Kinda hard not to laugh while we were in the font because Yubomir is hilarious.

They recently had a visit to the mission of Elder Carlos Amado of the Seventy.

we had a fireside the other day :D haha it was awesome! Elder Amado came (he spoke in the last conference) haha the fireside lasted for 7 hours haha President Jones and Hermana Jones gave a little talk for about 30-40 minutes each. And the rest was Elder Amado. Haha it was AMAZING! We just asked lots of questions :D haha he ended up teaching us about how we can be active members for our whole life. He said L.O.M.A. - Leer Orar Meditar Asistir. Or (read pray meditate and assist. Assist meaning assist [attend] Church to take the sacrament.)

He also told us that taking the sacrament is not a miniature baptism it is simply a covenent to have the spirit with you. To repent we should pray and repent before hand kinda interesting. Because really the sacrament prayer doesn't say anything about repenting. Just keeping his name to be with us. At least that's what I got out of it.

This is a photo of part of the mission with Elder Amado. Click to see the enlarged version, and then find Elder Kenison!

We learned on Sunday that President MacArthur (see last week) was asked this week to serve in the Antofagasta mission instead of Santiago West. We were a little disappointed, since we had heard such good things about him. So we are not sure who Matt's new president will be in July! I'm sure we'll find out eventually, and I'm sure he'll be great.

February 15 update

2010-02-15T13:30:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison and Elder Alonzo were blessed this past week to share in a baptism of a young man whom we know as Yubomir. He has been attending Church and participating for some time, including graduating from Seminary; but the local members apparently didn't realize he had never been baptized. He was taught and interviewed, and the baptismal service was held on Sunday. The first photo shows Elder Alonzo, Yubomir's mom (who is a member, we think), Yubomir, and Matt; then just Yubomir and Matt. Though he didn't say so, we're inferring from the dress that Matt must have performed the baptism! (Click on each photo to see larger version.)

Back in December, Matt had told us about a previous baptism, the son of a less-active family. He sent an update today about that situation, which was touching:

Elder Alonzo and I baptized a boy named Alfonso back in December. a friend of his baptized him. because the dad couldn't. At the baptism, the time after the actual baptism, the dad played some hymns on the clarinet. it was really cool. after some time Alfonso entered and his dad said. ''ok and one special hymn'' he played one more hymn. I remember looking over at Alfonso and his mom. The mom was holding her son. the dad apparently looked too because he stopped playing and started to cry. Alfonso walked over and sat next to his dad. his dad finished the hymn and hugged Alfonso. it as an amazing sight to see the Baptism of his son bring this family together.
More to the story was yesterday. Alfonso received the Priesthood. the bishop picked a ward member to help with the ordinance. and then he paused. I saw him look up and nod at someone sitting behind me. After a bit. the dad of Alfonso walked up and put his hands on the head of his son to help with the ordinance. It was an amazing sight. this family, especially the dad, had been inactive for a while. but the son went to ward activities and such. The baptism of Alfonso really brought this family together :D haha it was amazing :D

This past week, the missionaries received an email with information about their new mission president, who will be coming to the mission at the beginning of July. We had learned earlier in the week about the new president — James MacArthur, who is a resident of Orem, just a few miles from our home. We've been pleased to talk to a number of people who know the MacArthurs, and who say they are wonderful people who will be a real blessing to the mission. Sister MacArthur served a mission in Chile, and Brother MacArthur also served a Spanish-speaking mission. So it sounds like they are ready to go! We found out on Sunday that one of their married daughters recently moved into our ward, so we'll enjoy getting to know her better.

Matt has really been blessed to work with President Jones, so we hope this transition will be good for him. Based on all we hear about President MacArthur, we're sure it will be great.

February 8 update

2010-02-08T18:44:00.000-08:00

During the past week, Elder Kenison and Elder Alonzo have had some better success. Vacations seem to have settled down, so their teaching opportunities have increased. They have a baptism scheduled for this coming Sunday — Yubomir, the young man who has been attending Church and seminary for a long time and was assumed to already be a Church member. Other families are making good progress. Nice to see the work improving!

Matt expressed some feelings about areas where he's seen progress during the first 11 months of his mission:

yeah. spanish is coming GREAT!!! haha and Elder Alonzo is FINALLY showing interest in english. haha so two goals accomphlished. haha but i'm excited for my next year of my mission. because i'll kinda know what i'm doing and i'll just get to work :D WOOT!!!!

He told us about one interesting experience:

so we got asked to give service to a family. i wasn't sure really what it was but we went. haha when we got there i learned that the house of the family had birds living in the attic. SO.... we got to take them out. (us and one of the family members) we found 6 birds (not like the little ones, they were big. like bigger than sete. by alot) also we found 2 eggs and two baby birds. haha it was crazy. haha when we told the hermana (hermana perez) she screemed. she couldn't believe that there were 6 birds living in the attic. it was funny. it took in total about 2 hours. haha

This past week was a week of CELEBRATION. In addition to his missionary work, Elder Kenison managed to squeeze in some important holidays and commemorations.

February 2 is remembered in our family as "Matthew Adoption Day." It was on February 2, 1990, two weeks after Matt was born, that we received the phone call from LDS Social Services (now Family Services) informing us that our adoption application was about to be completed and we were invited to come and meet our son. So this is kind of a "second birthday" to Matt.

To celebrate the day, Matt wrote about the photo below:

this is matthew adoption day. haha we also had a noche de hogar [home evening] so we had a cake (in my hand) that was the cake for my birthday :D and then the cake to the left (my right) that's the cake we gave to Hermana Elizabeth [mother of a family they are teaching]. and then in front to the left No-bake-cookies (or as they say here caca de mono, or monkey poo haha) and last but not least. on the bottom right... brownies :D needless to say at the end of the day elder Alonzo and I both felt sick haha

Quite a celebration! We're glad he enjoyed Matthew Adoption Day. We were all thinking about him and wishing him the best on that day.

The next event was "World Nutella Day" on Friday February 6. Matt loves Nutella, and was glad to celebrate; he came up his own creation:

dia de Nutella. haha this is grapes with nutella. haha they weren't bad. haha

And then third, on Saturday February 7, Matt celebrated "Ice Cream for Breakfast Day" - another holiday (first Saturday in February) which has been a tradition in our family since he was a child.

Helado por desayuno :D WOOT haha

We're not completely sure what this concoction is, but it DOES look tasty:

But those major events were not the only food-related event. He also shared this:

this picture would make dad proud. haha i needed to eat a little this morning before playing futbol. so haha i grabbed an Avacado and some salt haha and my companion took a picture (haha he doesn't like avacado's or as they say here, palta) haha

And one more, also from Nutella Day:

this is me... eating a watermelon haha with a huge spoon. that i actually got to fit in my mouth haha

What a character. We love you, Matt!

February 1 update

2010-02-01T18:20:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison has been in Chile for almost nine months. He commented,

it's crazy to think about haha but time flies when you're havin' fun (¿es cierto?) haha

We've decided that Chile must be the vacation capital of the world. Christmas vacation caused some challenges, and now all of their best investigators are gone again.

The hard part is that right now everyone is on summer break. and so everyone is gone. EVERYONE! our attendence in church went from about 70-80 to about upper 40's lowers 50's. haha

So Elder Kenison and Elder Alonzo are doing the best they can, and hoping for better weeks to come!

Meanwhile, it sounds like Matt had fun at the dentist this past week (this photo was from the dentist visit when he was in the MTC, just a few months ago!). Matt was able to get two of his cavities filled, and should have the additional two or three more done this coming week.

About the dentist… haha not much is different… he has MUCH better music. But really the biggest difference is that there is only one chair. Not like 10. but it was really professional. And the numbing didn't stay as long. Haha and the greatest is that the little cotton swab they put in your mouth so you can't feel the shot as much. Haha it was GOOD. Like minty. Not like some fruity fake taste haha kinda crazy :D

Well, that's a cultural experience we weren't expecting to be part of his time in Chile. We sure hope these visits will be enough to last him until he gets back to Utah!!

New mailing address

2010-01-28T06:05:00.000-08:00

The mission office for the Santiago West mission has moved. They were sharing office space with the Santiago East mission, but now have an office in Maipú, very near where Elder Kenison is serving! This is the new address for letters sent to Elder Kenison:

Elder Matthew Kenison
Misión Santiago Chile Oeste
Correos, Casilla 149
Chacabuco 166
Maipú
Chile

By the way — Elder Kenison would LOVE to get letters!!

"As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." (Proverbs 25:25)

January 25 update

2010-01-25T20:17:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison celebrated his 20th birthday on January 14. We missed him even more on that day, and hoped he was staying cheerful and knowing of our love! Mom sent him an American cake mix, so he was able to bake himself a cake; we got some photos this week:

In addition, when he went to lunch, he was surprised and happy to celebrate "cumpleanos with famila Gonzalez."

We hope all these treats aren't contributing to his cavities! He told us, "I'm probably the only missionary that flosses everyday. Haha because floss here (for like a little roll) is 4 bucks. Luckily i'm still liven off the floss from the MTC haha." He's still trying to work out all the details to get those four cavities filled.

Meanwhile, he continues to work hard. We asked about his investigators:

well there's Valerie and Fabiola. Haha they came to church yesterday!!!!! Haha it's actually kinda funny. Valerie and Fabiola are sisters. (Valerie is 19 and Fabiola is 15) their mom and dad are both members BUT they have been inactive for OVER 10 years!!! And the mom and the daughters came to church!!! The dad in working in southern chile but will be coming home this week so we'll probably be able to see him soon. :D but yeah that was the top news for this week :D

In addition, Elder Kenison and Elder Alonzo are working with a "member" who was apparently never baptized.

Well... haha i think i talked about this. We found out that a member in our ward was never baptized. So he's not really a member. And... yeah. He's blessed the sacrament and everything. So... my goal is to resolve this whole problem. We talked to President Jones and he said that we need to baptize him ASAP! He has a fetcha now for the 3rd of February. One interesting thing is that he has a certificate from seminary. He graduated from seminary and everything. Haha so when elder Alonzo and I passed by to 'teach' him the lesson of the Restoration. He already knew everything. For example

Us: Yubomir who is Joseph Smith? Do you remember his story.

Yubomir: Joseph Smith was a young boy who wanted to know which of the many churches was true. After studdying he prayed and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ told him that none of the Churches were true. Through him the Church of Jesus Christ was restored again on the earth. He also with the power of God, Translated a Ancient record into the Book of Mormon... etc... etc...

Haha afterwards elder Alonzo and i both made the comment. ''wow you're one of the smartest investigators i've ever had. Haha''

So that was really interesting. Also i just got a call from the office. Saying that they don't have a record for Yubomir's older sister (Scarlet) or younger Brother (hans)
So i guess my goal is to baptize all of the members. In a way. Kinda frustrating but... yeah.

And then one more potential:

we stopped also by for the Familia Toledo. The mother is also inactive and the Daughter (Carolina) is an investigator (by the way they're the ones who added me on facebook haha.) we had an awesome lesson with them. The mom. (Elizabeth) had a hard relationship with her Husband. So we've been trying to teach her that the scriptures can help. (by reading a couple it's been really cool)

Nice to have eager people to teach! We'll hope and pray for continuing progress with these families.

Finally, one other photo to share of the two missionaries — looks like they were taking a little break on a hot Chilean afternoon.

January 18 update

2010-01-18T20:17:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison turned TWENTY years old this past week! It sounds like the day didn't go by unrecognized. His Mom had sent him an American cake mix and frosting, so he could prepare his own celebration. But he also reports:

Haha we had lunch with Familia Gonzalez (they're a really good family) and when we passed by for a appointment with Valerie and her family they had a cake ready and started singing. Haha it was pretty cool.

Apparently Valerie and her sister Fabiola are children of a family the elders have just started working with. The parents have not been active in the Church for some time but are now progressing well, and the missionaries are teaching the two daughters.

Among the gifts he received:

A little stuffed monkey from Familia gonzalez. Haha Elder Aloonzo gave me a jar of nutella haha and yeah. I loved the ties. Haha and the cake was good :D thanks :D

He also celebrated the day by going to the dentist and discovering 4 cavities (how fun). He said the dentist's office was very clean and modern, just like back home — that was reassuring! Two of the cavities will be filled this week, and two next week.

Transfers occurred in the mission this week, and Matt was afraid he would be leaving. He really hoped to stay in his area with Elder Alonzo for another period; he felt they had some good momentum and prospects, and wanted to stay and see some of the fruits of that work. He reported:

Haha i don't have changes. Haha WAHOO!!! And neither does Elder Alonzo. So we'll be companions for another 6 weeks :D

The email was short and there were no new photos today. But here's one from last week:

January 12 update

2010-01-12T20:17:00.000-08:00

We had two days of email this week! On Monday, Elder Kenison was online for a short time to answer a couple of questions and then inform us that he had an activity for the rest of the day and had permission to write more on Tuesday. So we were doubly-blessed to hear from him this week!

Elder Kenison and Elder Alonzo seem to really get along well, and are continuing to work hard in Maipú. Things are looking up:

we've gotten some new investigators. And we've been able to stop by to see several people. :D it's been a crazy but we're starting to teach more and more people as they're starting to come home from vacations :D so it's going good. :D

Transfers are coming next week, and there is a chance Elder Kenison will be moved; but he really hopes to stay longer with Elder Alonzo. We asked about his feelings about the transfer, or "changes" as they call them, and whether he was worried that he might be moved:

I'm not worried. I just don't want to. I mean change is always hard. But really it's like... elder Alonzo and I just have barely started to get to know everyone in our ward, ex: inactives, members, less actives etc... and i just don't want to leave and have elder Alonzo have to start that all over again. Haha but The Lord knows what's best so if I'm supposed to leave. I'll go. Haha (not that i have much of a choice haha)

We were also thrilled to get some nice photos. This one was labeled "wonderful P-day eating my peaches and cream. haha"

This one had the caption, "some of the houses in our area. (this is the rich part by the way haha. no really it is)"

Here are the two elders posing along a railroad track:

January 4 update

2010-01-04T20:17:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison seemed to enjoy his first South American Christmas. His summary of Chilean celebrations:

They had lights and stuff here the only difference is that it was really REALLY hot haha.

He has mentioned several times that he misses snow, and asked us to send him a photo of Utah snow so he wouldn't forget it. We sent him one that shows our front yard piled pretty deep, and told him that Dad misses his help in the job of shoveling!

The missionary work has been pretty challenging during the holiday season.

EVERYONE is gone. Or on vacation. Stuff like that. It's been crazy. Lots of knocking. haha
Well we found 12 new investigators this week :D but we haven't been able to pass by again yet. We have appointments with them this next week haha so hopefully it works out better

Matt mentioned in our Christmas phone call that he has a sore tooth. We encouraged him to see a dentist as soon as possible. We received an email this week from the mission secretary explaining the process and costs. But in his email, he said he had not been able to get an appointment yet. We hope he'll do that this week.

This photo might give an indication of part of the problem. It shows some of the candy he received in Christmas packages. No wonder he's getting cavities!! :)

December 28 update

2009-12-28T16:12:00.000-08:00

It was a little strange to email with Elder Kenison today, since we talked to him on the phone only 4 days ago!! We had a wonderful phone call on Christmas Eve. Based on the mission rules, he was only able to talk for 45 minutes. That time went by REALLY fast! But we loved hearing the joy in his voice and feeling his wonderful spirit. The hardest part of the phone call is saying goodbye and hanging up!

He sent us a photo of "Familia Tello Gutierrez this is at dinner chirstmas eve haha it was really good :D"

Not sure if the timestamp on the photo is accurate; 10:18 p.m. is a little late to be having dinner with a member family!

Here was his update of the work as it relates to the Christmas season:

this week has been crazy. i mean CRAZY! haha elder Alonzo and i have been knocking door after door. and no one is home. or if they are... they have family over. it's been kinda hard. one cool experience though. we had one day where we walked and walked and WALKED! NO ONE was home or had time. it was crazy. really we both felt like just going home or to a members house to 'paint monkey' (an expression that means 'to waste time' i don't know why haha) but we kept going.
Elder Alonzo said he was hungry and i was too. so we passed by a completo stand that one of our investigators own. we bought a completo and talked to him for a little. haha he told us that he's reading a book about Joseph Smith (a book from the Church). we were really excited. haha he said he's learned a lot.
After that we passed by for another investigator (actually the daughter of the guy that owns the completo stand.) The daughter, Pamela, invited us in. there was her entire family. her 4 daughter as we walked in I just said to myself "soy un misionero, soy un misionero, soy un misionero" (i'm a missionary i'm a missionary i'm a missionary) haha the dad of the family, Mauricio, was also there. haha then a friend came over. so there were in total... 7 people (6 of which were girls haha) and we taught them all. haha it was awesome! Pamela, the mom, had a LOT of questions. Elder Alonzo answered them and i just added a word or two haha it was good. yesterday we visited them again. this time we watched a movie about Jesus Christ haha it was awesome! :D the only problem is that they have A LOT! of questions. haha but it's been good. :D

It sounds like they have some promising investigators! Matt mentions the "completo" — a Chilean hotdog with lots of toppings. He sent us this photo showing a completo on the left and a variation on the right which has meat and cheese instead of a hotdog:

He mentioned to us that he's hungry a lot, even though they tend to have very large lunches; hard to believe! He also told us on the phone that many of his clothes are getting too tight because of the weight he's gained.

Here's another photo. He commented:

see mom i told you they like bread! haha they actually sell it by the kilo. so the prices you see are per kilo (for more info 1 dollar is about 500 pesos so the 'pan' (bread) here is about 2 dollars a kilo. haha which is actually CHEAP! haha pretty cool haha :D

This message was just a little hint of missing Utah at Christmastime:

Oh yeah i have a favor. Can i get a picture of the Snow haha. I just need something to kinda keep me on the time of year. On christmas day elder Alonzo and i had service. And so at 11 in the morning we were running over to the members house wearing short sleeves and shorts. And i turned to Elder Alonzo and said (only in spanish haha) "today is not Christmas. It's too hot to be Christmas." i just know it'll be the same on new years. Haha well yeah that's about it. Haha thanks :D

And finally, we have to share this photo. It was taken on Wednesday 12/23, when they had a mission "Christmas party" that included some sports activities. Elder Sam Poulsen, our neighbor and Matt's friend for many years, just arrived in the mission a few weeks ago. He's about 7 months behind Matt. We hope they have a chance to work together over the next year!

December 21 update

2009-12-21T19:42:00.001-08:00

Gotta start out this week with a photo of a couple of happy missionaries! Elder Kenison and Elder Alonzo seem to be getting along great, and working hard together. (Click on the image to see a larger copy.)

Here's a summary of the week:

we've been working hard trying to find new investigators. haha it's been hard but fun. we found a street in our sector named 'Walt Disney' so we decided to knock every door on the street to find what kind of magic was there. haha we got 5 references and 1 family to teach. hahaha :D so pretty awesome!

We asked if the Christmas season was making things easier or harder for the missionaries.

it's made it a lot easier. We hand out pass-a-longs with a number to get a free DVD of the birth of Jesus Christ. It's been working pretty well. Haha it did on Walt Disney. haha

Here's a photo of the Church building where their ward meets in Maipú:

And here's the family that is featured in the main story of the week:

Here's what Elder Kenison wrote about this family:

Elder Alonzo and I both had our first baptism!!!!!! it was awesome! it had started when we got a call from a member in our ward. she said that her son, Alfonso, wanted to be baptized. when we went to visit we noticed that Alfonzo needed to be taught quite a bit. they wanted him to get baptized before they went on vacation. we told them we weren't sure if he could. when we went back to visit. we learned that Alfonso's parents had been teaching him. when we asked him some questions about lesson 1 he would respond with the perfect answer. haha

After a couple other visits, and talking to our district leader, we felt that Alfonso was ready to be baptized.

the best part was at the baptism, first off Alfonso's dad has been inactive for years. at the baptism he played the clarinet. it was awesome! while he was playing you could see the spirit working on him, in the middle of the song, stopped. and started to cry. Alfono walked over and sat next to him. the dad played the last couple of notes and then him and his son embraced. it was so awesome to see this family who had so many troubles get brought back together and reunited with Alfonso's baptism.

so that was the highlight of our week it was awesome.

Congratulations to Alfonso and his family, and to Elder Kenison and Elder Alonzo!

December 14 update

2009-12-14T15:44:00.000-08:00

Another week... another companion! Elder Kenison is now comps with Elder Alonzo — he writes:

He's from Ecuador haha he's awesome. The best part is that he speaks really really good spanish. And he's been correcting me a lot. Haha so i've learned a lot :D so hopfully by the end of this change i'll have much better spanish. Haha that is if Elder Alonzo continues to be patient. Haha :D

Here is a photo of the new companionship:

Matt has now had companions from Honduras, Argentina, and Ecuador. He's getting a great introduction to different Latin accents and cultures!

They returned to their assigned area of "4 Poniente" in Maipú and got back to work. They were immediately confronted with a great prospect:

we have a Fetch!!! I mean a bautismal date! Hahaha for this Saturday :D we get a call from a member in our ward. And she said that her son, who is 13, wants to be baptized :D :D :D so we taught him. He's been attending church and mutual for a long time. So he pretty much knew everything. Haha the only problem is that everything happend so fast that we don't really know him. And he'll be leaving on vacation for 2 months next week. So i won't get to see him. Haha but he's an awesome guy. He'll be my first baptism, Elder Alonzo's too :D

We hope things work out for this young man. It's exciting for Matt to see this, but we hope the support will continue after he leaves for vacation.

Sunday was also an unusual day in the Santiago area:

This week was elections so church was earlier. 9 instead of 11 and it was only an hour long (just sacrament meeting) normally the barrio in Los Heroes meets at 10 and we meet at 11. but instead they joined us together. We had 38 people attend church this week — it was horrible. Mostly because lots went to vote and others were just lazy because the church is so far

Here's another classic Matt story. We're glad he's trying hard to improve his Spanish!

Also.... I have a story about learning spanish. :D So the other day i was telling a story about when sam shot a bird on his fence. The word for a little bird is Pajarito. But for the life of me i couldn't remember that word haha so i would say, "y mi amigo con su pistola le disparo un.... aaaaa..." and my companion would say "pajarito" haha then i would say yeah eso. Umm y un otro tiempo un........ my companion said "pajarito" haha again. So while trying to remember this word i remembered "elder kenison if you use it you'll learn it" so i decided to use it but i didn't remember it right so i said, "y mi amigo con su pistola le disparo un cucharita" Elder Alonzo gave me a weird look. Haha i looked at him then thought about what i just said "my friend, with his gun, shot a... little spoon...." hahahaha so for the past couple days whenever a bird flies by Elder Alonzo says "Mire Elder Kenison una Cucharita" haha then he laughs haha it's been funny haha

And then, he made the classic missionary blunder, that many Americans make in Spanish or Portuguese:

Ok i have one more :D Haha so another time i was telling a story about how i was embarrased from something. Haha but instead of saying embarrased (avergonzar) I said Embarazada which means pregnant so i told Elder Alonzo that after... something, i can't remember, I was really pregnant. Haha he laughed and laughed and laughed. Hahaha good times

Matt sure knows how to have a good time! One final photo. Not much description of this one; he just said it was taken in their area on the way home from an appointment:

December 7 update

2009-12-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

Matt has continued this week to work temporarily with Elder Mawhinney in an area called "El Conquistador" — he said it's about 10 minutes away from his area (by taxi, we assume). They should both be getting new companions on Tuesday or Wednesday. We're excited that Matt's friend, Elder Sam Poulsen, will be leaving the MTC and arriving in the mission this week! We're not sure they will get to see each other right away, but will definitely be together for a Christmas party.

This map shows Santiago. The red dot is the mission office; the blue dot is Matt's area in Maipu; and the green dot is where we believe El Conquistador is. Click for more detail; and note the Andes mountains just to the east of the city.

It sounds like the two missionaries have been working very hard, doing lots of tracting.

we have knocked TONZ of doors. Haha and made cita's to pass by but pretty much everyone has been gone. we've had a good practice on our diligence this week haha it's been CRAZY. We knock like 20 doors and everyone says they're busy. But then we knock one more and we get invited in. and we have an opportunity to teach. Haha we've met TONZ of people! Haha elder MaWhinney said last night that he has SO MANY people to visit and barely any time. Hahaha

They did go briefly back to Matt's area to check on a few things; we know he'll be eager to return there with his new companion and focus on his own investigators. They did have one other fun experience while doing some street contacts:

Yeah one really cool experience. Haha elder MaWhinney and I were walking down the street on Saturday. Haha and we turned the corner and there were about 20 kids all standing in a little park playing. Haha one of them walked up to me and said "hello." (like pretty much every person does). I at the time had a bunch of Laminas de Jesucristo (a direct translation would be slices but just 8X10 pictures of Jesus Christ.) I had about 30. after the kid said hi I gave him a Picture. Haha and wow can you say Pandora's Box hahaha every single one of the kids ran up to us. Haha elder MaWhinney started passing out pass-a-long cards and I kept passing out laminas. Haha then Elder MaWhinney told them all to call the number on the pass-a-long card to get a free DVD BUT they have to ask their parents first. Haha after talking to them for a bit. They asked for our Autograph. Hahaha so elder MaWhinney signed each Lamina "'Los Elderes" hahaha it was hilarious. Haha I wish I had had my camera. Haha

We didn't get any new photos this week, but did want to share one from that past that we received recently. This is classic Matt - his "ear flap" hat and a necktie for a headband, reading and drinking, and with a goofy expression. We love you, Elder Kenison!!

December 1 update

2009-12-01T20:17:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison's email was a day late this week. We waited all day Monday for news, depressed when nothing came. But we finally heard from him on Tuesday. Apparently they had postponed P-day so they could have a zone activity at the city zoo, which is closed on Mondays! We were glad to hear from him.

The main news of the week is that his companion, Elder Bench, was released to go home early due to medical issues. So Matt was temporarily paired with a missionary named Elder Mawhinney who is from Heber, Utah, and whose companion also had to leave for medical concerns:

Elder MaWhinney is… well too say the least, a lot like me. Haha we've both been laughing and having fun. But when we work. We work. Haha we've knocked SO many doors and passed by for SO many contacts. Haha it's kinda crazy because I just moved into his sector/area. So the ward of 4 Poniente doesn't have missionaries right now. But next week i'll probably get a new companion and i'll go back there. So that'll be interesting....

he has 6 more months than me so he'll be going home pretty soon. haha oh one more cool thing. his first sector/area was also Cartagena haha so we've been talking a lot about what's been going on. haha pretty crazy.

There were some great photos today, with Elder Kenison's typical delightful commentary:

this is a picture of district meeting last week. elder Simmons, seen outside of the circle on the left, got pictures. haha and when everyone found out... well... to make a long story short. missionaries just really like pictures haha :D hint... hint... hint... for all my friends haha

so this is elder Mawhinney. we had a air freshener and i was bored and tore off the wrapper. haha and Elder Mawhinney decided to draw a picture on it. haha it's a skull and it was ''Warning, Poison'' haha so now if it ever smells bad we say. ''where's the poison?'' haha

While we were walking along. Elder Mawhinney and I noticed a small (emphasis on small) little house. Haha so, being missionaries, we decided to knock it. (see picture #10) Sadly no one was home ?

Elder Mawhinney and Elder Kenison on the bus, returning from the zoo:

Matt writing email to the family. He said this is probably the "freshest" photo we'll get — taken just minutes before he sent it to us!

Christmas at the zoo:

And in the city — "Haha I took this picture to prove that Chileans love Christmas. Haha"

November 23 update

2009-11-23T20:17:00.000-08:00

This week brought some sadness for Elder Kenison. His dear grandmother passed away last Tuesday, November 17. We called the mission office to ask them to pass on the news. Matt was very close to this grandmother; they really loved each other, and had a sweet and precious relationship. She would constantly ask about him and his service — "How's my boy?" — and was delighted to hear that he is working hard and progressing in his mission.

The sister in the mission office said that President Jones would call him personally to share the news. This was his report of finding out:

well... i was in my pension when president called. he had been talking to elder bench, he is most likely going home problably the end of THIS week. so elder bench walked in and handed the phone to me. president said that it was never easy news to share but that grandma had passed away. i immediatly started bawling. he then asked me the perfect question. he said, with a voice that i knew he cared, "what was she like?" i told him a little. but when i mentioned the part about grandpa. he said "wow can you imagine that reunion? that would be incredible" it was a nice conversation.

one friday i came to the office with elder bench so he could see the doctor. and Hermana Gonsalez walked up to me and said. "how are you doing?" she told me that she had received the call. it was nice to know that there are people here who care. it's been a hard week i won't lie. but i've had LOTS of help. it's been really hard to take my spirits down this week. which has been an interesting experience. i'm definatly being helped, by more people than just Grandma :)

Meanwhile, the work continues. It sounds like Elder Bench's problem will require him to return a little early and Matt will be getting a new companion. Meanwhile:

well i got the infection that elder bench had. only it wasn't as bad for me because my immune system isn't shot. but we've had another week in our house. we worked quite a bit though. it was hard haha for both of us but we taught a couple of people. and knocked about 400 houses haha no luck though

As for his best investigator now, the Familia Fuentes

they're doing good. they didn't come to church yesterday for some reason :( not good. but they're progressing. the grandmother and grandson said that they both have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. (well Libro de Mormon) so yeah it's good

God bless you, Elder Kenison! Get healthy, and keep working hard! And know that your Grandma is watching out for "her boy"!!

November 16 update

2009-11-16T20:17:00.000-08:00

Illness is a scourge of missionary work. It was a challenge this week for Elder Kenison and Elder Bench.

not much has happened this week. Really. Elder Bench has been sick. He has some sort of infection in his Nasal cavity or something. So we've been staying home since Wednesday. We go out to meetings and stuff but we can't do much else. Apparently he HAD the swine flue virus and so his immune system is really bad. So we have to stay inside so it doesn't get worse.
Also because it's been really really hot here and so we've been at home. I've been getting sick with something. Elder bench thinks it's the same thing. The only difference is that my immune system is fine so I should be able to get better quickly. Haha we've been sleeping a lot but always wake up sweating. Haha it's been a pretty crazy week.

In spite of the challengs, Elder Kenison finds the "silver lining":

elder bench is awesome! Haha even though he's been sick we've gotten a lot done. So we'll be studying a lot this next week. So hopefully my Spanish improves.

And he also learned some of the realities of life:

One thing I got to do which made me really really grateful is that since elder bench can't leave, I haven't been able to pass by the Hermana's house who does my laundry (a different Hermana does elder Bench's). so… I washed it by hand. WOW was I tired after. Haha yestterday and today i've been sore haha so i'm really greatful for 1 the Hermana's and 2 washing machines. Haha :D

We'll hope for a better report next week!

November 9 update

2009-11-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

Happy Monday - updates and photos from Elder Kenison! The first picture to share shows him with Elder Bench, his new companion as of a few weeks ago. They seem to be getting along great, and working hard in their area. We asked about Carlos, who was their best investigator for a while:

well Carlos... umm he moved. we saw him in the street the other day. smoking a cigarette. so... yeah i hope he accepts it later on :D as for other investigators... we had a family of investigators attend church yesterday :D :D :D haha familia Fuentes. Daniela, Fernando, philipe, and shoot i can't remember. Haha not good. But yeah they attended church. Haha the mom, daniela, loved the fact that she could leave her littlest boy in primary and not worry about him hahaha he has LOTS of energy. Haha but yeah I actually found the family while on divisions with Elder Simmons :D haha woot! So hopefully it all works out.

Some Primary leader may not be terribly enthused about this new little boy overflowing with energy, but we'll hope the Fuentes family continues to make progress! They've also been focusing on the less active members, and seem to be making progress there:

we do visit lots of people for Permaneced (inactives) we taught 12 people last week. Haha and we had... 5 or 6 attend church yesterday maybe more :D

Here's a great description of some of the contact methods they are using:

Well i always carry a book of Mormon and Elder Bench always has 'laminas' like 8X10 pictures of Christ. And if someone is about to shut the door we say 'quiere un gratis lamina de Jesucristo' the word gratis (free) always gets them haha and they'll come and pick one. Then we ask them why they picked that one in specific. My favorite is when they pick the picture of christ in the americas because then i can hold up the Book of Mormon and immediately talk about that :D it's actually been working really well.
Also for using the Book of Mormon we ask someone if they believe in christ and then (when they say yes, because EVERYONE here is catholic) we turn to Mosiah 4:9 "Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend." (i actually memorized that one in spanish haha) so then we talk about how the Book of Mormon really is ANOTHER testament of christ :D

Food has apparently become more important to Matt than it used to be; he commented:

Haha i just found out on my mission how much i love food. Haha i eat a lot :D haha the Gonzalez family, if they have extra, just say "give it to elder Kenison he'll eat it" haha

One of his favorite items is something called a "completo" — a Chilean style hotdog with lots of toppings. Matt was craving one of those at home one evening:

I was hungry one night and i wanted a completo the problem was that we didn't have hot dogs. so... thinking of what my dad would do i used what i had. eggs. haha so in this picture i'm eating. Bread, eggs, guacamole, tomatoes, mayonase, ketchup, and mustard. haha it really wasn't that bad haha

Here's a photo of a "real completo" and one of Matt enjoying his own concoction:

Here's one more typical looking picture of Matt — goofing around with one of the sisters, Hermana Maples:

Finally, this classic photo and the story behind it. He told us it would be better to read the story first, then look at the picture for this one!

so i wanted to make Brownies last night. haha so i went into the kitchen and when i went to grab the chocolate mix... and it fell back behind the cupboard/shelve. so i moved the cupboard/shelve thing and grabbed it. and then moved the cupboard/shelve back. little did i know that the bag had a hole in it. so when i grabbed the shelve i got Chocolate Amargo ALL over. haha after laughing for a bit. i walked into my room. Elder bench was on the phone. i said. "elder bench, big favor, can you take a picture" :D haha he looked at me and said "what happened!!!" haha cleaning it off is a different story. right now my suit is at the dry cleaners. haha

Elder Kenison the Cook

2009-11-07T18:51:00.001-08:00

Elder Kenison has had frequent "divisions" with one of his zone leaders, Elder Simmons. They seemed to "hit it off" and have become good friends. The photo shows them cooking pancakes together for a zone activity a while back.

This week, we got an email from Elder Simmons' mother, whom Bonnie made contact with through a "missionary moms" email list.

I just wanted to tell you that your son is an angel! He got brownies for my sons birthday and had the other Zone Leaders sing Happy Birthday to him. that made me happy because he hadn't received our cards or package yet. He tried not to sound to disappointed but I could tell that the brownies helped. Thanks for having such a thoughtful son!

We were very grateful for that little insight, and the compliment about our son. Matt started out making chocolate chip cookies with his dad when he was quite young, and has expanded his skills gradually. We understand he's becoming quite well-known in Chile for his brownies made from scratch!

November 2 update

2009-11-02T16:06:00.000-08:00

Elder Kenison's new companion in Maipú is Elder Bench, from Ogden. According to this week's email,

he's an awesome elder. Sadly though i won't we able to send a picture. We're doing p-days a little different so... yeah i kinda don't have my stuff. Sorry. He was in the coast with me. (he was my zone leader) he's a really tall guy. Haha so you can check the pictures from that. I think i sent on of our zone where he has a hat on.

So we're guessing Elder Bench is the one standing in the back of this picture with a white t-shirt and a baseball cap (click on photo to enlarge):

We'll hope to get a better photo soon! Matt is eager to work with Elder Bench; he has commented that he really seems to want to work hard, which Matt loves. They are making sure to have good, positive interaction with the members. Elder Bench has only 2 1/2 months left on his mission - "So there is a chance that i'm his last companion haha."

They apparently celebrate Halloween in Chile in a similar fashion to the American custom. Matt noted one related experience:

Funny experiences haha well on halloween some lady yelled in spanish "hey look. Twins!" and she pointed at us. Haha elder bench and i laughed haha it was cool. We traded plaques for a little bit. But then thought about it and traded back. Haha

One final note. We asked if he thought he was gaining or losing weight.

I'm pretty sure i'm gaining weight. Haha and the beginning of last change i weighed myself. I was 75kilos. I don't know if that's more or less than 150 pounds. Haha but i know i'm a little bigger now haha.

Of course, 75 kilos is 165 pounds — so it sounds like Elder Kenison is putting on some bulk! That Chilean food must really agree with him.

October 26 update

2009-10-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

Changes, changes. After only 6 weeks with Elder Urbieta in Maipú, Elder Kenison is getting a new companion this week (tomorrow). So today is spent helping pack and prepare. He hopes he's ready to introduce the area to a new senior companion! Elder Urbieta was sick during the past week, which has also been a challenge for the work.

The ward in Maipú where Matt is serving (4 Poniento ) is smaller than he's used to, even by Chile standards. There are rarely more than a hundred people in attendance, and only 68 last week. Matt is hoping to "rejuvenate" the area with his new companion.

Here was a fun story that occurred this past week:

well i was on divisions with elder Simmons. We stopped by a families house... familia Gonzalez/Gallardo the last name of the husband is Gonzalez and the wives name is Gallardo. a while back they were like parents of missionaries here in chile. like cooked for them cleaned for them everything. when they showed me pictures i recognized one of them. they kept saying John this John that. They had called him Little John haha and it was... Daniel Melville. hahaha I laughed so hard. sure enough I turned the picture over and it had his name and address written on there. haha they said that they haven't heard from him in a LONG time. haha when i told them he was married they went crazy. haha they said "little John is married?!?! and has kids" (only they said it in spanish). I kept thinking of John Melville the entire time haha it was funny. I would've taken a picture but i didn't have my camera. haha

Daniel Melville grew up just around the corner from us, and was on a mission in Santiago probably 7 or 8 years ago. He's a very large young man (probably at least 6'8") so would have been gigantic to the Chileans. How fun for Matt to have that connection appear.

On P-days, Matt really enjoys playing "bebe" — a kind of soccer played on a cement court. This photo was taken just before he left his last area (Cartagena). This week, in response to a question about how he spends his p-days, he wrote:

we play Bebe every monday :D it's awesome! i play goalie all of the time haha mostly because bebe is played on a hard surface, like cement, and so all the latins do the little rolls and crazy stuff. and i'm not to great at that. haha so i just chill in the back. haha

Sounds like an interesting event, though we're sure "doing rolls and crazy stuff" on cement can be especially interesting!

He ended his letter with this:

oh one scripture :D Moroni 8:3 says "I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end." I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

October 19 update

2009-10-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

The "Elders of Maipú" (Elder Kenison and Elder Urbieta) are having some pretty typical experiences in their work lately.

Lots of people are gone when we pass by. We're really trying to work with the ward (it is REALLY struggling.) so hopefully it gets better quickly

Their best investigator, a man named Carlos, wants to be baptized; but this week:

he's doing good i think. Haha he hasn't been home. We've passed by a lot but i think he just got a job so he's been at that. We're glad he got a job but we want to visit him haha

We learned that there are slightly more "gringos" (Americans) in the mission than Latinos, but it seems the Latin proportion is rising. That's great to hear.

The activity of the week was apparently some entertainment with the local members:

we had a stake talent show that we all got to participate in that was interesting. Haha we did an acting thing. We split into two groups and we had a little "skit" about a kid getting stung by a bee and then going to his mom crying. And then his mom going to the doctor. Both groups took turns trying to act out a scene that the "director" would like. And once we got one. The camera man, who had tried to tell the director several times, said that he didn't have film. Haha it was funny. We tried the story, opera style, gangster style and ninja style. Haha it made everyone laugh.

We would have loved to see Elder Kenison "hamming it up" in that kind of setting! He did share this one photo, which he said came from a ward-level talent show preceding the stake show, which the Elders didn't have time to participate in:

And finally, a typical Matt "sunset photo" (his two greatest photographic loves are sunsets and waterfalls):

October 12 update

2009-10-12T20:07:00.000-07:00

We had another wonderful letter from Elder Kenison today. He is well and happy and doing great in Maipu. We were especially thrilled to get a whole series of new photos from him! These are the first pictures since he was transferred four weeks ago. It is always SO good to see his happy face, as well as read about the progress they are making.

Matt was not in Maipu this past Sunday (he was "on divisions" working in another area) but reported there were seven investigators in Church. Comments about one of them:

we are teaching a guy named Carlos haha he's cool. He's been listening to the missionaries for a while. Haha he's really cool. He actually said the other day (when i was on divisions with elder simons) that he wants to get baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so happy haha i barely know him but he's a cool guy. Lots of his family are members so he'll have good support haha pretty cool.

He had an interesting experience tracting with Elder Marquez on divisions. This occurred the day after they had changed to daylight savings time, losing an hour of sleep — he said they were exhausted, ready to quit early. But they persisted, visiting a member who was struggling a little. During the course of the conversation, they realized that this sister had concerns about the Word of Wisdom. Matt remembered that he had been impressed to put a pamphlet on that topic in his backpack that morning — something he rarely does. It turned out to be a real blessing to have that discussion with someone who needed it, and Matt felt inspiration in several aspects of what happened.

So now for some photos (click on any photo to view enlargement). These first two show Elder Kenison and his companion Elder Urbieta, who is from Argentina; they seem to be quite happy together:

There were a lot of food-themed photos in this batch. This is Matt with a plate full of food at a ward party; he commented, the black blob at the top was the only thing that i've had in chile that made me really want to throw up haha the rest was good. oh and my companion was... really happy haha. The second photo shows divisions with Elder Maldanado. haha eating toast haha

They enjoy their zone activities on p-day. Here they are, eating together in a Chinese restaurant:

Here's a shot of Matt having lunch with Elder Simmons (on divisions) and with two sister missionaries from their zone:

Finally, a photo with a story all its own.

these elders and i were sitting here waiting for our visa and then i noticed the white paper behind them. haha (translation... please do not sit in front of this door.) when i saw that i laughed and (being a kenison :D) took a picture haha

One very tender segment of his letter came when he was offering advice to a friend who will soon enter the MTC in Provo:

1. DO NOT TAKE THE MTC FOR GRANTED! You can save yourself SO much stress in the field if you just get it done there. Especially the language. Haha and also 2. hug your mom 1 more time before you leave. Just 1. and tell her you love her. Really i just ran off... "wow what's next" that right there is one of my biggest regrets. Just PLEASE before you walk around that wall and out the door MAKE SURE your mom knows you love her. Then after that devote every second to trying to learn something.

You can imagine how that #2 melted his mother's heart! He's a sweet boy.

October 5 update

2009-10-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

The weekly email arrived early this week — a little after 9:00 a.m. Thanks to the blessing of modern technology, Bonnie was able to read the incoming message on my Blackberry while we were driving to Salt Lake to attend the wedding of a friend. Matt had us both in tears with some of the things he shared. We sure do love this missionary!

A great highlight of the week was General Conference. It looks like they were able to participate in all the sessions. We worried that it would be challenging to get as much out of the messages in the Spanish translation, but he reports:

they actually had a seperate room for the "gringos" haha so i got to hear it in english. so that was really nice.

We asked if they were able to get any investigators to come to the conference broadcasts:

yeah we had several 7 to be exact. haha the most since i've been here. it was good though they loved it. haha :D

And we asked if he wanted a CD with Conference talks to listen to. This was his response (spoken like a true missionary who also loves the Book of Mormon):

i wouldn't mind have a CD. haha mosly so i could listen to Elder Hollands talk over and over and over. if you didn't hear that one you NEED to look it up. and reading it... won't be the same. it was really good. about the Book of Mormon :D

Matt has adapted well to the new area. It's more prosperous, compared to his first area — "the people here are a lot better off. i mean A LOT better off." He noticed that they eat more meat in their meals and never any fish. We hope the people are still eager to learn in spite of that relative prosperity, but based on the attendance at the conference sessions, they are making good progress.

Finally, on a personal note. I had written to Matt earlier how I missed being with him at the General Priesthood broadcast. Our tradition for seven years had been to sit together (on the stand, based on my current assignment) then hurry out afterwards for an ice cream. I wrote to him: "I was terribly lonely sitting by myself in General Priesthood meeting. I was hoping you were able to attend in Chile, and tried during the meeting to imagine you sitting somewhere in Maipu or Santiago and listening to the talks. Elder Ballard talked about fathers and sons and how they can help each other and be close; it brought back lots of good memories of doing things together." Matt wrote this, which touched my heart:

i was also in there for the Priesthood session. haha i turned to the elder next to me and said, "my dad is sitting all alone in conference." afterwards while going home i passed a little store and bought ice cream haha my companion and i ate it with brownies. haha :D but yeah i missed you too dad. elder ballards talk just about killed me haha afterwards i said "i miss my dad!" haha some of the elders laughed haha.

We sure love you, Elder Kenison!! haha God bless you. Keep working hard.

September 28 update

2009-09-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

We learned a little more about Elder Kenison's new assignment in Maipú today, but didn't get any new photos; the computers he has used the past two weeks seem to have some issues, and he hopes to try a different one next week.

However, I was able to find this photo of his current missionary residence, with the help of Google Satellite View — right in the middle of a dense urban area:

And here's the "big picture" showing Maipú on the southwest outskirts of Santiago, and the towering southern Andes to the east:

Matt's companion, Elder Urbieta, is a district leader. They had "divisions" with the zone leaders this week, and Matt enjoyed working with Elder Simmons from Bountiful for two days — "he's a really cool elder." If that weren't enough:

then on Sunday we had special divisions (there was some problem in our ward) so i was with him yet again. it was pretty cool. he taught me a lot of spanish. and "leading the sector", as they call it, helped me learn more about our sector. haha I know one of the Main streets is 4 poniente and another is Renee Olivares and I can get home if I'm on 4 poniente haha a lot better than it was. now i'm trying to pay more attention so that I can learn all of the other streets. haha

Then this important experience from today's p-day activity (very typical of Matt):

Also (a cool story and along with a favor), the story is that elder Urbieta and I help the Zone Leaders a lot. and we helped them today with an activity. we made pancakes for our entire zone. haha it was awesome. LUCKILY (and this is where the favor comes in) I had a recipe for pancakes haha so that's my favor can you tell Ale THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!! :D

In his efforts to improve his Spanish, Elder Kenison learned this very important word:

("Permiso" is an ingenious word that doesn't exist in english. if you're ever unsure about something you just say "permiso" and you do it. and whoever you said permiso to watches you to make sure it's ok. we say it everytime we go into houses and really whenever we do anything. it's like saying "excuse me". haha)

The work in the "4 Poniento"ward is a little slow right now. Elder Kenison and his companion(s) did a lot of contacting and have many follow-ups for the coming week. We'll hope and pray for some good results!