Today will be the best day of your life if you let it...

...and having the spirit will help us find happiness more than anything else. 

I have a goal this month to finish reading all of the conference talks and I have found so many cool promises through out them! Like my favorite form Elder Bednar´s talk, ¨The hearts of the Children shall turn,¨ speaking about family indexing and working with the church in this he says, I promise you will be protected against the intensifying influence of the adversary. As you participate in and love this holy work, you will be safeguarded in your youth and throughout your lives.¨ so now my challenge to you is give it a try. Also realized how many scriptures the speakers use without introducing them, they just weave them in and out through there talks. No wonder they are so powerful they just copy the words straight out of the scriptures.     I hope to obtain this knowledge that I may speak as an angel giving speaking the words of Christ, and they might not even realize it. (catch it?) 

This past week we had a service project in a ¨jardén¨ which is like a day care center and we painted a room (It is a big room) afterwords we went to the Hna. Claudia´s home who is the owner of the jarden...kind of... not sure how it all works but we ate some pancakes and afterwords going to wash the dishes there was no water....nada...in all of Pozo. Apparently where the water comes from is flooding a lot, not sure with everything, other than we had paint all over us and no shower and it was 5 in the afternoon. Arrived in the pension and just rubbed our hands until there was no paint and our faces as well and put long sleeve shirts on and went to work. Everything worked out and the water was on by the next morning. 

I found it particularly funny because that morning I read in the Liahona from March about food storage and being prepared. 

One other quick story/advise- Some Elders counted their weeks left until they finish their missions and they said, ¨Let´s count Elder Gillespie´s,¨ and one said that he has more than 100....but no 2 years is 104 weeks future missionaries you only have 100 weeks to serve the Lord like this don´t waste a moment, it is a tithe for the first 20 years of your life! Crazy Don´t waste it. 

Love you all

Have a Wonderful day - because you can choose to

Elder Gillespie

Pozo Almonte

This week flew but at the same time the beginning of the week feels like a month ago. Crazy how that all works out.

Well a little bit of bad news- March Madness, I was a little prideful and as we learn from the Book of Mormon over and over again that once we become prideful we have need to be humbled. We didn´t make it beyond the first round. However, there is a loser bracket as well but I haven´t seen a copy of that at all so we will see how things turn out. :)

Monday night all of the new gringos, either this is their first or second cambio, had the chance to go to Antofagasta for a conference with President and Sister Bruce. It was a fantastic experience to see all of the other 7 missionaries that came with me to Antofagasta and express and talk about our successes, hardships, and everything in-between, because we all come from more similar backgrounds and have similar emotions and feelings about our mission here in Chile right now and how we want to improve, and as well all in English, what a relief. President Bruce presented his complete vision for the Chile Antofagasta mission and asked as all, ¨What do you want to be famous for?¨ He explained how our mission is to save souls and how he sees us doing it.

     After lunch we had the chance to have a question and answer with President which was fantastic, we all laughed together and if any of you become Mission Presidents I strongly recommend having this meeting, just saying.

Today for Prepartion day we went to a Ghost mining town called Humberstone near Pozo and you have to be careful when you dunk on old basketball hoops.

I´m loving studying the scriptures they really have tons of knowledge that I wish I could get more of.

Have a Wonderful Day - because you can choose to

Elder James Gillespie

P.s. I didn´t break the hoop.

Congrats to Timpanogos Ballroom Go Sterling

Congrats to Kike and Phil with their team.

Happy March

So with it being March that means ¡March Madness! Let's play some ball!

Although we don't watch the games Mission Chile Antofagasta is having their own MCA March Madness, and we are all in it to win. But Pozo Almonte will really win. hmm...we have a bracket and all but I don't have a digital copy of it. Ah well Pozo Almonte was ranked 2nd so we are up against a 15. (We'll have the results tomorrow for round one)

   Anyways a little more from the beginning. Pres. Bruce loves basketball, he played for BYU-Hawaii, I believe, and competition runs in his veins. So this month for motivation he has created for us MCA March Madness each sector a team in it to win a day in the mission home to watch the final game of March Madness, or for the Latinos a game of futbol, and other prizes along the way for the Final Four etc. (but I'm not sure what they all are) Points are counted by key indicators, Investigadores que asistió reunion sacramental etc.

This last week we worked like crazy for 3 days because I had the chance to go back up to Arica to do some paper work for my visa so we didn't have much time. It was fun and I got to talk with a few people again up there.

Anyways times up got to run. We have a conference for all the new missionaries in the last two cambios with Pres. Bruce in Antofagasta.

Which one more quick thought that this Sunday we had a District confrence with Elder Jay E. Jensen of the Seventy, Sister Julie B. Beck, Elder Neil A. Anderson, and Elder L. Tom Perry which was awesome and I learned that they all speak Spanish expect Elder Perry.

Well that's the story for now

Have a Wonderful day - Because you can choose to

Elder Gillespie