Las Fiestas Patrias

September 15th - 21st, 2025 

This week we experienced our first “Fiestas Patrias” - celebrating the independence of Chile from Spain. September 18th & 19th are the official independence days, but most people have school and work off for the whole week. When I was a missionary I always joked that they needed 2 days to celebrate because most people got so drunk on the 18th they needed the 19th to recover! Overall it was still a normal week for us, and we did get to join in on some of the celebrations which was fun. Before we jump into the week, enjoy some pictures around Santiago showing off some Chilean pride (including some of our missionaries in their red, white & blue). 

To start off the week on Monday, we had the chance to meet up with Monica’s great-nephew, Elder Walter Browne (her brother Roger’s grandson). He is serving in the Santiago West mission and we got permission to take him and his companion out to lunch in their area, which was only about 40 minutes from our house. Walter and his family live in Florida so we haven’t seen them much throughout his life, so it was fun to connect with him and hear about his mission here in Chile before he heads home in a couple weeks. 

On Tuesday we attended a district council meeting in San Miguel. Afterwards we bought a cake and went to the office to celebrate Hermana Clark’s birthday (one of our senior missionaries). 

Wednesday we had a very special experience at the temple with a couple of our missionaries.  Elder Nuñez from Argentina had reached out to us a month ago and let us know his grandpa had passed away. His grandpa wasn’t a member of the church, so after he passed, his family wanted to do his work in the temple and decided to have Elder Nuñez be baptized by proxy for him. We of course gave him permission to go to the temple an extra time and I felt honored to have him ask me to perform the baptism. In addition to the baptism for his grandpa, we were able to help another lady that came to the temple that day with a list of 40-50 family members who needed their baptisms performed as well. It was wonderful to be a part of helping these individuals receive this essential ordinance. 

As we were in the temple, one of the workers shared his testimony of temple work and a story about his great grandpa with us. This brother was baptized in 2006 after meeting with the missionaries. Years later when he was learning about his family history, he came across the records of his great-grandfather and found out that his temple work had already been completed by someone else in a temple in Utah. When he checked the dates he realized that the day his great-grandfather was baptized by proxy by someone in Utah, was the same day that he had received a copy of the Book of Mormon from the missionaries prior to his own baptism here in Chile. He said he knew that was no coincidence and that he felt a very powerful connection to his great-grandfather and was grateful for the temple blessings in his family. 

On Thursday, I started our next round of interviews with each missionary. We went to 3 different areas; Buin, Hospital, and Vi Luco, and interviewed missionaries at each. It was nice to break up the day a bit by driving between each area instead of just staying in one place and interviewing all day long. 

Friday we had a meeting with all our district and zone leaders to help them standardize their weekly district meetings so they look the same across the mission. Historically these meetings have focused more on reporting the numbers and key indicators for each companionship, but I wanted them to start counseling more about the needs of individual people the missionaries are teaching and how to help them keep their commitments and progress toward baptism. 

Afterwards, we came home and changed our clothes and then took the metro together for the first time to meet up with President Miranda and his family for an independence day celebration (called a “fonda”) at a park in downtown Santiago. They had live music from a Colombian Band, games, food and dancing. We had some traditional chilean dishes including completos (hot dog with avocado, tomato, mayo), empanadas, and mote (a drink made from dried peaches & wheat that have been boiled). We tried our best to learn the national dance, the cueca, and overall just had a wonderful night immersing ourselves in the culture. 

Our new favorite drink, mote!

Completos

Saturday was a catch up day filled with groceries, working out and then watching the BYU football game with my son Brandon over FaceTime. We miss going to games in person together, but this is a fun substitute for the next 3 years. 

Last Sunday after we spoke at a stake conference we were introduced to a young man named Brian who the missionaries had met 3 weeks ago. He had attended church every week since meeting the missionaries and had decided to get baptized. In chatting with him last week he asked if I would be able to baptize him and I said yes of course. The elders texted me on Saturday night saying that Brian was super excited to have me baptize him, and I felt so honored. Today, before the baptism I realized that I had forgotten to bring an extra white shirt to change into after the baptism, but luckily Elder Berrett was about my size and their house was close by so we rushed over there to grab a shirt. As I changed I realized there were 3 buttons missing and when I showed Elder Berrett he just laughed and apologized for grabbing that shirt. He said he’s been meaning to fix it, but figured his tie hides the missing buttons when he wears it so it wasn’t a big deal for him. I was grateful nonetheless. Brian was pretty nervous before the baptism, so I talked with him a bit in the hallway right before to try to calm his fears. Everything went great and it was a neat experience. It was my second time baptizing someone here and I am so honored and grateful every time we get to witness or assist with these special ordinances. 

On our drive home this evening, we got to listen to our niece, Haili Bartholomew’s farewell talk. She is going to Mongolia on her mission, and we know she’ll be a wonderful missionary and a great blessing to the people of Mongolia and especially to her mission leaders! 

Last week we mentioned Elder Rhoton who had to return home to fix his torn labrum. Well, he reached out after arriving home and shared with us that on his flight home he was seated next to an older gentleman that had served a mission when he was young and also had to return home for a torn labrum. So that was a great experience for him to have God place that man in his path on the way home, and again another evidence that there are no coincidences in the plan of a loving Heavenly Father. We testify that he is aware of each of us and sends other people to help us out along our path back to our heavenly home. 

Dropping off Elder Rhoton last Sunday

Building a Powerful Mission, One Week at a Time

September 8th - 14th, 2025

Oftentimes at the end of the week we have to look back through our photos of the week to remember what we even did - the days all blur together! Monday we prepared for our new missionary orientation the next day. We had 21 new missionaries arrive last week, and we loved getting the chance to see them again this week and help them start to adjust to life here in Chile. Previously we held this orientation 2 days after the missionaries arrived, but we realized the new missionaries in our past groups were pretty exhausted and didn’t get as much out of it as we wanted. Switching it to week 2 felt much more effective. Our main focus of the day was on the 4 pillars of a powerful mission: living our missionary purpose, having the faith to baptize, expecting miracles, and working with diligence.

Tuesday evening we went to the airport to drop off one missionary, Elder Hoch, who stayed an extra couple weeks. Then we waited there at the airport to pick up Shane Littlefield who is our Area Mission Specialist. He is employed by the church to provide training and insights to mission leaders in our area, and more specifically he helps us monitor performance metrics. Shane served as a mission president in Mexico 20 years ago, so we definitely appreciate his expertise and were looking forward to his visit. His niece is also serving in our mission, so it was fun for him to connect with her. 

Goodbye, Elder Hoch

Brother Littlefield & his niece, Hermana Clegg

On Wednesday Brother Littlefield conducted focus groups with some of our missionaries and put together a report that we reviewed with him and then brought to our MLC group on Thursday. He put together 4 key things to focus on to increase the output of our goals. One thing we specifically talked about was how to help people we are teaching to want to come worship with us in church on Sundays. 

Brother Littlefield with our MLC group

Saturday is our preparation day, and I finally had the time and energy to work out for the first time since arriving in Chile. I even felt sore the next day, which was a great feeling to have again. Hopefully I’ll be able to get into a regular workout routine soon. We had some random missionary needs come up throughout the day, including sending one of our missionaries, Elder Rhoton, home to get his torn labrum taken care of.

We spent the rest of the day preparing remarks for our first stake conference in La Cisterna on Sunday. They asked us to take 10 mins total, so I translated for Monica while she introduced our family and shared her testimony and then I filled the remainder of the time. They had a choir of children sing during the meeting which was beautiful. On Sunday I also had the opportunity to set apart my first and second counselors - President Sandoval & President Miranda. Their families joined us and we had lunch together afterwards. That evening we went to a baptism back in La Cisterna and ended the day with our Sunday night devotional over zoom with our missionaries. 

Children's choir from stake conference

President Miranda, President Bartholomew & President Sandoval

Mirandas, Bartholomews & Sandovals

The Miranda & Sandoval's daughters... or as we like to call them, our chilean daughters :)  

No Unhallowed Hand

 September 1st - 7th, 2025

This week was filled with lots of opposition as you’ll read about below, but it was also filled with lots of manifestations of how God really is in charge of his work and that “no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing” -Joseph Smith.

We started the week with Mission Leadership Council (MLC) on Monday. We had the highest number of baptisms in August this year compared to any other month over the past year at least. Obviously it was a very exciting month to be here and we’re looking forward to witnessing how the Lord continues to hasten his work in this part of the world! 

By the time we got home on Monday evening, I was not feeling well at all. I laid down for a nap and ended up sleeping for 6 hours straight. I woke up to eat briefly and then immediately went back to sleep again for 15 hours - by far the longest I’ve slept since being here. I figured my body was just trying to catch up on the lack of sleep. When I did finally wake up on Tuesday, Monica and I got to work on preparing for zone conferences for the rest of the week (Wednesday - Friday). That evening, after finalizing everything, I started to have chills and aches - basically I just felt terrible. I didn’t understand what was going on with my body. 

Wednesday on our way to zone conference Monica sent out a message to all the missionaries to pray for me to feel better. Our family back home was praying too. I asked a couple of Elders to give me a blessing when we arrived at the church building, and I felt a lot better right away and was able to deliver my message. 

Thursday I was feeling okay physically, and the conference went well overall, although we had quite the hiccup before it started. When we arrived at the chapel in the morning, the elders met us at the door and told us the water in the building was not working - nothing in the bathroom, kitchen, etc. Turns out there were some robbers the night before who had taken a rock and wedged it into the slats in the fence so someone could slip through so they could steal the water meter, likely with the intent to sell the brass. We had to quickly communicate with all the missionaries to take a city bus to get to another building nearby. That building was a bit of a construction zone with crews repainting/fixing some things both inside and outside, but it worked out. 

I helped with a training that night at another church building for the ward mission leaders of a few wards in the stake. While I was there, Monica got to go out with the hermanas serving in the area and spend an evening accompanying them. She was with Hermana Reed & Wistisen. Here’s a little bit about her experience: 

We went to the sisters’ house first - it’s pink on the outside so they refer to it as the “Barbie house.” There’s a stray dog that hangs outside their house that they’ve named “Ken.” He is the only friendly stray I’ve encountered so far in Chile. Ken tried to get on the bus with us as we were heading out to visit some friends, so the sisters had to tell him to stop by name and then he reluctantly stayed behind. First we visited a single mom and her 9-year-old son and had a great lesson about prayer. We headed back to the house briefly so Hermana Reed could go to a meeting with another sister training leader, so I was left with Hermana Wistisen and Peterson, while their comps were in the meeting. These two have only been on the mission for 7 weeks. They did great, even though collectively we don’t speak much Spanish, they still knew more than me! We tried to visit a few people but no one answered, so we just started talking to people on the street. I have never served a mission before, so it was my first time using the “talk to everyone you see” approach as we walked down the street. Most people ignored us or only talked for a bit before kindly rejecting us. We went back to their house and then I took our car back to the church where Brent was for his meeting. It was my first time driving on the highway, so I was a little nervous, but I made it safely. Overall, it was a very enjoyable evening being with the sisters and experiencing what they are doing all day every day. 

Friday we found another building for our last day of zone conference, and it all went well. Friday night I was still not feeling great again. I ended up sleeping for 10 hours that night and when I got up, I felt like I wanted to go workout, but I realized I really didn’t have enough energy to go do that. I decided to go take a shower and I noticed a red area on the inside of my right calf - it felt warm to the touch, and was tender. I went to show Monica who was downstairs working out and we started googling my symptoms (always a good idea) and cellulitis came up. After talking to our area mission specialist they recommended that we go to the hospital to be seen asap. We went to Clinica Las Condes and luckily there wasn’t a big wait. It took less than an hour for them to examine my leg, draw my blood, do an ultrasound of the skin, and get the results back - and I did indeed have cellulitis. It's a bacterial infection that gets under the surface of your skin, and strangely it only affects one limb on your body, and it's accompanied by flu-like symptoms. It can be pretty serious if not treated quickly, so I got the prescription and started taking it asap. Luckily the treatments are working and the rash is all gone. We’re not sure where the bacteria was introduced from, but given that we were in Argentina last week I’m going to blame the Argentines haha. 

Sunday I had a 5.5 hour long coordinating council meeting with some local leaders and our area seventy, Jaime Brace. It was long, but also very productive. That afternoon, we attended a baptism for Magali, a 60+ year old lady that has cancer and had to overcome lots of health challenges to get baptized. She’s been receiving lessons from the missionaries for about 2 months, and we were so happy to support her. The other baptism we attended was for a woman named Tonya. Her brother actually lives in Utah and has been a member for many years. The last time she visited him, she finally felt like it was time for her to listen to the missionaries and get baptized. Her brother was able to join the baptism via video call without her knowing. It was very special for her to talk to him afterwards!

We’re ending the week very tired, but grateful to have received the medical care I needed to get back up on my feet. We know we are doing the Lord’s work here in Santiago, and with his help we will try to keep up and help it progress forward. 

Airports, Asados, and Amazing Missionaries

August 25th - 31st, 2025

This week we had transfers - another great group of missionaries left to go home and another new group arrived this week! We sent out the transfer news on Monday so they’d all knew who’d be staying or leaving their current areas. Monday and Tuesday we made a few trips to the  airport to drop off the 6 elders who were heading home. 

Wednesday was our big transfer day with all the current missionaries going to their new areas, and our new missionaries arriving at the airport. We received 21 new missionaries - with 20 of them coming from the Mexico MTC (all native to the US), and then 1 sister from Colombia came from the Brazil MTC. It was a hectic day at the airport since there were also 27 missionaries arriving for the Chile Concepcion mission, so even though we had memorized the pictures and names of those arriving to our mission, we had to sort through lots of name tags to find our missionaries. 

Our first transfers in the mission (6 weeks ago) were a little crazy and disorganized, in part because we were new so we really didn’t know what we were doing yet. This time around we made more detailed plans ahead of time to help things run a bit smoother. Instead of having our new missionaries and their trainers all just waiting around at the church building with not much to do while I interviewed each new missionary, this time we provided a bit more structure so everyone had something to keep them busy and focused during what can feel like a long, crazy day. First, I asked my APs (Elders Sanchez, Harris and Bray) to provide training for all the trainers. Then, we kept the new missionaries rotating through 4 different activities including and interview with me, and then meeting with our senior missionaries to do the following; get an ATM and bus card, fill out a questionnaire, and review some fundamental teaching skills. 

At 1pm we had our trainer reveal meeting where each new missionary introduced themselves and then we would tell them who their trainer would be. The energy in the room was palpable and it was fun to see their reactions and emotions as they are just getting started here in Chile. After lunch we sent them on their way to their areas to jump right in and get to work! We’ll get to see them again early next week for an orientation day to check in and see how things are going. We’re excited to get to know this new group. It’s interesting that even after just meeting them, I can get a sense pretty early on which missionaries will likely be leaders in our mission later on. This is a high caliber group with strong testimonies, and I’m so impressed by how prepared they are to serve at this time. 

On Thursday we actually went to a baptism service for a man named Brando in La Cisterna. Due to his work schedule, he couldn’t be baptized on a Sunday afternoon as is customary here, so the missionaries helped make it happen on Thursday. 

That evening we went to the airport, but this time for us to go on a short trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Area Presidency from the South America South Area (composed of the missions in Chile, Argentina, Paraguay & Uruguay) invited us and all the other new mission leaders from the area to come have a training at the area offices in Buenos Aires. It was great to be reunited with our dear friends we had made at the MTC back in June. After checking into our hotel, we went out to dinner at an authentic Argentine asado restaurant. We ate a lot of meat to say the least! Friday morning we got started early and had training all day from Elder Costa, Elder Walker and Elder Gavaret from the Area Presidency. That evening we took the short 1.5 hour flight back to Santiago, so it was a short, but enjoyable trip. We really enjoyed the spectacular view from the plane flying over the Andes.

Saturday we used as a catch up day, running errands and preparing for our new missionary orientation day next week. On Sunday we attended a few baptisms; first for a sweet 9-year old Camila, and later for Mateo, Gerolin, Yanera & Clara. Mateo is the young man that Monica visited with the missionaries a few weeks ago, and she was the one who invited him to be baptized, so it was great to accompany him on this day!

Sometimes it feels like we’ve been here for 2 years already - but just over 2 months is a great accomplishment too ;)