December 29, 2014

Well I feel like I don't have much to say this week! ha It was great to talk with the fam I spilled most of the week to them. This week of holidays has been really rough. Not really because I miss home (of course it is rough to be here instead of there during Christmas) but more because the people are more stubborn and few and far between. Being in the street you think "wow where are all the people that were here last week" but its cool there is nothing that work does not fix. So that's what we do. This week we watched a small video called the Atonement and missionary work. It is powerful and if you would like to see it I encourage you to look it up on youtube.

The video is two talks one by Pres Eyering and one from Elder Holland. It describes that the Price of Salvation is not cheap nor is it easy. The Savior payed for it. The work that we as missionaries and member do to bring others unto Christ wouldn't make sense if it were always easy. Yes God prepares the Heart of men to accept the Gospel and they make the conversion easily sometimes but they will have hard times in their life at some point everyone must suffer. Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy. But the Gospel Brings true Joy, but it is impossible to know Joy with out suffering and pain. It is impossible to know success in the mission field with out working with all your heart might mind and strength only to be rejected. I smile. I carry on. I have felt the Love of Christ. I know that one day all men will know that Jesus is the Christ I am looking for those that will join me in the battle. I love the mission. 

This week we reviewed the Word of Wisdom with Jose Luis. They were living it other than the fact many members here don't understand the the problem with Coffee isn't the caffeine but the coffee itself and that they cant drink decaf. So we fixed that problem. We went back the next day and they had studied every word of the Pamphlet of the word of wisdom. ha they came across section 89 that talks about using wine as the sacrament. They wanted us to explain it. I had already studied it and my comp as well so it was pretty easy but it was pretty funny if you just go to the foot notes it takes you to section 25 or maybe 27 I'm having a brain cramp. But it explains it well. The footnotes are always great to check for the doubts. But they had also read the story of Daniel and thought that they couldn't eat meat at all. hahaha they were freaking out. It was great and it is all clear now. They understand that meat is in moderation. and that Christ Completed the Law of Moses. 

Well I hope that you all Enjoy the New Year!!! I Challenge you if you have time to try the challenge of the Book of Mormon. If not in three months in 6 or maybe 12. But also set Goals and stick to them!!!! Don't be like the People that go to the gym the first week of January and then by February the gym is empty again. Stick to your Goals whatever it is! 

Love Elder Biesinger

James with his chocolate orange, apron, and other items from his Christmas package from home. Love it!

James and his companion with the Barria Family on Christmas day

James 12 days of Christmas from home with Stocking from a members

December 22, 2014

Hey Feliz Navidad!!!

This week we had Conference with President Kahnlein.  It was a really good conference. I'm super excited for the new year. First off they are Changing the key indicators. For those of you that don't know; a key indicator before where things, like how many lessons did you have with an investigator, and how many of those lessons did you have a member present? How many lessons did you have with a recent convert or with a less active? Or How many Book of Mormons did you give out? just to name a few. Its just pure numbers and personally I think it made missionary's focus in teaching lessons instead of teaching people and building the kingdom of God. So this next year instead of all that the only two key indicators will be....

How many Baptisms did you have this week?

How many People attended your ward or branches sacrament meeting?

I think that this is perfect and truly revelation from God. Baptism the door to the stairs of heaven and persevering to the end; or attending sacrament every week. It will be nice to have the help of the bishops to see who is assisting and who we can go and find. It really focuses in on bringing in the lost sheep. The focus is becoming Baptism Reactivation and Retention. We talk about this in every meeting. I'm stoked about the change.  I would like to know if it is happening in every mission, or just mine. I forgot to ask sometimes they use my mission as a pilot mission so that's why I ask. 

Also we will be reading the book of Mormon in three months as a mission we were all given a new hard back copy in both languages. Me and my comp are going to read it in both English and Spanish I am going to send a picture of the study plan for those of you that would like to join my mission in this. We have given study topics and one free topic. For my free topic I am going to look for Conversion, and stories of Conversion, but you can chose your own. 

As far as this week sometimes I get overly excited and I guess Porfirio is having a rough go. He is to kind and he gives in to what other people want in his life more than what is best for him.  He confuses love with problems at work. So his life is a mess and we are just going to keep a close friendship with him until he is ready to accept, and clean up his life. I wish I had time to explain it all but long story short he works with his ex girlfriend and they fight 24/7 so we are doing Internet in another place because he is closed because of it. ha Really he is  a great guy I hope he figures things out. 

Other than that one of the most spiritual thought provoking things in my mission happened this week. On Monday night we received a call from a member saying that there was an inactive on his death bed and he wanted a blessing. So we went. Normally we know all the less actives or at least are familiar with there names because we study the roles. even though sometimes there are 1000 names. He was not on the roles because he is so inactive. Well we went and he was laying in bed groaning and moaning. It was the most interesting experience. He was literally a skeleton. his thighs were nothing but his Femur. He was all but passed on. His family told us he was scared to die.  Sure enough he was. He was on deaths bed saying oh Lord my God I'm sorry. We blessed him and went by everyday. He passed away on Thursday 20 minutes before we arrived. Having experienced something like this I will never forget it. I invite all of us to remember we don't have to be scared of death or of its coming. I would invite all of you this Week of Christmas to do a little activity we are helping people to do. Take two pieces of paper on one write all of life's challenges, all the things that are hard, all the things that are difficult or temptations. on the Bottom of the paper or the top write Alma 7:10 through 11. on the other paper write all of the blessing and all of the happiness that you have in your life Everything that brings you Joy and on that paper write John 3:16 now read the Scriptures and thing about the birth of Christ. Meditate how you can receive the Gift.

I love you all and I hope that you enjoy this season! I have seen the great fruits of the Gospel I know Christ was born a child and left earth a resurrected God. Please remember him this week. Merry Christmas

Feliz Navidad!

Elder Biesinger

James and his comp. and a Christmas dinner

The church house in his area

Church house in his area

View of the church grounds

An inactive couple James help reactivate in his first area

Picture of the 3 month study guide  Sorry I can't get them to rotate.

Letter from 12/15/2014

Hey all another week flew by! Seriously this week went be so fast! After last Monday we had went to run in the morning and then played baby like I told you but this kinda pushed my comp over the stress edge a little bit and he has had a pretty bad cold since Wednesday. Saturday morning he was so sick that he took the morning to rest and try to feel better so instead of leaving to work at 11 we left at like 1:20 this meant that I had a lot of time on my hands. I did my hour of personal study then another hour of personal study instead of comp study because he was sleeping and then I did an hour of language study instead of the half hour. That put me at 11:30 and he was still pretty sick so I did some more studying cleaning and I made a Christmas tree out of cardboard and a sprite bottle ha I was desperate. 

This week Maria Jesus was baptized. Her mom was baptized on October 21st, I think.  She wanted to set the example for her 8 year old daughter and she didn't feel ready yet so we had been teaching her a little bit but mostly trying to get the ward involved. It was really cool. It was a good experience and numbers don't matter souls do. The desire to follow Christ matters.  and this little 8 year old girl is more than ready she is really smart and was begging to be baptized.

We also have a baptismal date for Jose Luis, the 17th of January. He will be married on the 10th and then he will be baptised the following week. Also we started to teach the Manager of the place where we do email. Its a little store that sells eggs and milk and snacks and has five computers. His name is Porfilio. He is gold. He is really great if all goes well he will have a baptismal date tonight when we come teach him at 9:00 when he closes the store so pray for that please. 

This week will be the Conference with President Kahnlien. It will be my Zone (Belloto) and another Zone Quillota. Its on Wednesday. So there should be pics on the mission blog soon, as well as my blog.  This week also went by fast because we did a lot of service for people. Trimming bushes and painting. I like doing the service its a nice way for people to realize that we are not just Pharisees. I also Had an amazing lunch yesterday. Churriana Ill send a pic. Its one of my favorite foods here, really unhealthy, but soo good. I hope everyone is enjoying this season and the snow, I miss the snow!  I hope we can all continue to remember the Greatest gift of all the Gift that God gave the world. For he so loved the World that he gave his son. I know that my salvation and the salvation of all is only possible through Christ. Please partake of the gift. 

I love you 

Elder James Biesinger

Baptism of Maria Jesus 

James awesome shower... haha

Picture of his favorite lunch! Looks amazing.

James and his Christmas tree

James Christmas tree and things sent from home.

12/8/2014 letter

So everyone whats up?
Today is a holiday here in Chile the day of the Virgin of Vasquez. (Catholics and there virgins and saints..... I don't understand.) ha But its cool because it gives the real latter day saint a day to have some fun! So we went and played Baby soccer with the members that didn't have to work and some of our investigators (Jose Luis and his son) It was fun to play baby. I haven't played for a while so it took a second to get the hang of it but once I got it I had a great time. I feel bad sometimes because I am a lot more solid then Chileans so when they try to take the ball from me or chop my legs they always end up limping away. haha oh well. 

Also I cut my hair again today. The fiance of Jose luis Paula Faundez cut the missionaries hair and does a good job.  It's nice because I don't feel uncomfortable having someone covet my hair... 

So this week the Church gave us some cool cards to do contacts the say "El es la Dádiva" or He is the Gift in english. It's been fun to contact people with those. Me and my comp are sick of people rejecting us so we make them feel bad like they are rejecting the gift if they don't accept us. haha but the video is good if you haven't seen it. 

So I have been here a little more than month. When I got here I look at the registry of the area and realized that for the last year it had been what we call in the mission the carcel or the Jail for missionary's that are a little disobedient or are like a month away from going home and don't want to work. President told me that he wanted to change the reputation of the area so here I am. Me and my comp Velasco are taking out the trash. literally we work none stop. But the people are very prideful. Just like the Book or Mormon. For an example: This week we were walking on a pretty busy street its like a main street with lots of people we pass a drunk laying in his own urine, bleeding from his face because he fell flat on it and got road rash. Now this is an extreme case of what in other areas in my mission sees all the time. But here in my area the people have a little higher standards than this. We walked passed him until I though wait hold up. What would the Savior do in this situation? So I stopped my comp and we turned around to ask him if we could help him and tried to move him off of the side walk. He couldn't speak. He was so screwed up he just sat there so after several minutes of trying to communicate we wrote our number on a card put it in his shirt pocket and left. (drunks when the begin to sober 90% of the time want to repent) But as we are walking away we felt like we should get him something to eat (mostly my comps idea this time) so we stopped bought an empanada and took it to him. He was grateful and began to eat. There was another man there this time. He said that he used to have a bad conception of us and that now he felt better about us. As I explained to him all of his misconceptions my comp tried to talk to the drunk. The drunk began to talk, thanked us and said he was very grateful for the help. The other guy gave me the excuse that his dad wouldn't let us in the house, so I invited him to church, and we went on our way. The next day we were walking on the same road but on the other side. We saw the drunk again. This time he looked like he was beginning to sober.  He was sitting on some steps drinking juice from a recently purchased carton. He was still filthy. We stopped and tried to see how he was doing. I asked him if there was anything he needed and how we could make his day better, That's when he began swearing at us. He began to say the most vulgar things. So we just left. I don't understand how you can be so prideful and shut out when you are in such bad situations. 

But honestly I am so grateful to be here in the Mission. We will have a baptism this week but it wont count as numbers, but who really cares about numbers. My companion baptised a lady in the end of August here and she is a single mother with an 8 year old daughter.  The daughter was not ready to be dunked yet, but on Sunday told us she wants to be baptised this Friday! So that's a blessing. 

We are teaching a 20 year old guy named Cristian he started as an atheist and said he wanted to learn but had no desire to read or anything.  He said he wanted us to just teach him once a week. Well after three weeks he agreed to read small parts of the Book of Mormon. He will be baptised I'm sure of it but, it'll take a few months, and will need lots of prayers. 

We are also teaching a couple that are not married but live together. They started with just the woman being interested now they are developing testimonies and its awesome I just gotta get them married. 

Other than that Jose Luis will be dunked in January after he gets married. and there are two kids of like 11 years old. One needs the permission from her parents to be baptised but that's all she is missing but the parent refuse and I mean refuse. 

The other 11 year old is just super lazy and has no desire to do anything but it makes sense because his dad doesn't work and just sleeps all day.  While his mom works all day, comes home cleans and cooks then does it all again the next day.  Till the point she is now in the hospital anemic. She weighs 86 pounds... So the Bishop is helping us huge with this family everyone is members but the 11 year old. 

Other than that we have reactivated two families and its been a great month so far. I wish I could share all my stories but I could never have enough time.   If anyone is wondering my favorite scripture lately that I have been sharing a lot is 2 Nephi 2: 11 and 12. Its great it never fails to make a less active family feel the spirit tell them that there reason for not going to church is lame.

Well I love you all! 

Chou Elder Biesinger

James getting his hair cut

December 1, 2014

Hey everyone! How was Thanksgiving? I'm sure it was good! It was good for me to even though it wasn't Thanksgiving here. Thursday was by far the best day this week. There is a member family here in the ward. The Family Barria, and the mom of this family knows everyone! So, on Thursday we went around to like four of her friends and taught there families. It was honestly, so great! She was even doing contacts in the streets. (contacting all the same people that have rejected us already) so it didn't do much good. But the families we went to teach are really good and we have appointments to meet with them this week. So fingers crossed that it goes well because other than that knocking doors doesn't get us anywhere. The problem is that the world is so far away from God in our day. People are living the Book of Mormon. (Alma 45:24) it makes it hard to find those willing but with a member it is so much easier. For me this week and honestly everyday of my life I realize how great the plan of our God is. Its so simple! Mosiah 2:41 if people could just realize that the Price of Salvation was not cheap, so its not given away, but if you just follow Gods commandments it pays off! In preach my gospel it says that Gods plan is for us to have success in this life and to return to him in the next life. SUCCESS is not just in things spiritual. He wants his Children to be happy but they are to scared to let go of what they think will give them success and Grab on to what God has established as a way to gain success. When we follow God and accept the Savior the power of heaven sustains us in all things. I know it. 

But yeah that's my soap box for this week. Other than that it was a good yet rough week. It rained all day Saturday, which is really not common here.  Everyone always says that it will never rain unless it's May through October. I have been praying for rain because its so blasted hot!! The problem is when it rains, the lazy become lazier, and the paranoid become obsessed. Ha so no one wants to open there doors everyone is afraid they are going to be sick and even sometimes the members. ha its something else. I love it. Then also this week they had "Teleton" (a TV marathon) where they raise millions of dollars that is supposed to be used for medical research to help children that have disabilities or are terminally ill. So it's even harder because Chileans love to be Chilean so everyone is supporting Teleton, because its huge! So everyone has their TV on and everyone goes to the fundraisers. ha. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me how we were helping with teleton....... Other than that the week was good like I said its hot to be in the streets all day but it keeps me in good shape. Also I found a pull-up bar in our pension this morning so I was pretty ecstatic about that.. hahaha I love the mission and am so glad to be here I'm learning so much everyday. Never let fear or the fact that something is difficult stop you from doing something. Heavenly father well help you at the point that it truly is to difficult. I know that and I testify of that. I love you all. Until next week!

Please enjoy the real Christmas season because Christmas in the summer isn't the same! ha

James eating his breakfast burrito made of garbonzo beans, eggs, and hot dog

Chilean sidewalks. There are so many dogs that when the concrete is wet they leave a mark!

Selfie with Elder Valsco, cuz why not, Ha!

James doing his work out. Handstand push-ups. He can do a few without the wall!

November 24, 2014

Hola a todos mi queridos! 

This week was so much better! Instead of being in the street 8 hours with out stopping everyday, the longest was only 6 hours this week! Ha But really it was much better we have a lot of good people to meet with this week. We will teach a Jehovah's witness tonight I'm excited about that he doesn't want to be a part of them anymore and is looking for something better. The only investigator that went to church this week was Jose Luis. He is the fiance of a member. He needs to get married so he can get dunked. He told us last night that without a doubt he will be baptised. The only problem is his future wife was married before and paper work is a joke here in Chile. We are waiting for a paper that says she is divorced. I know it sounds like a mess and what in the world are we doing trying to get one person divorced to marry another, but if you only knew what It is like down here you would understand, it's a joke. I didn't get changed out of my area so I am still in the Liahona with Elder Velasco in the zone Belloto. I will spend Christmas here. It is messing with my mind because it is so hot, but everyone is decorating for Christmas.. No one celebrated thanksgiving here :(oh well. I'm thankful that you all get to do it! So enjoy it for me! I am so thankful to be back in the mission. This week it hit me, I finally feel like I am progressing and I am a better missionary than I was before. I can feel the love the Savior has for each of us. I often stop in the street to help people that may not even need help but I always get a sincere thank you. I love it. I love God and I love Christ. It is there work and glory to bring to pass our salvation and eternal life. And there fore be being a disciple of Christ it is my work and glory and I will work and I will send the glory to God. 

On another note yes the Pulgas (fleas) have found me. Yes its hot. For me its humid for my companion from La Cruz Bolivia he says it is really dry. haha He is great though we got along well. We have been running every other morning. The first time we went out we forgot the keys so we had to call the zone leaders then run the three miles to get the extra keys from them and the three miles back because we had no money for a bus. My companion got pretty gassed. But he did really well. 

Also apparently there are Chilean cats, they are bad A. They live on the tops of the buildings. haha So I take back what I said before. They do exist, and yes the dogs do eat most of them, but survival of the fittest has made those that exist into high flying jumpers. 

That's all for this week.

Love 
Elder Biesinger!  

Lookin good!

Playground equipment

Elder Velasco