Happy New Year

It was a pretty good year. 2014 will have been the only year i devoted every day to missionary service... well for now. A lot of crazy things have happened but its cool to see the difference in me and what i have shared with others. New years eve here was just a normal night, some fireworks and we listened to the neighbors music. A new year with new goals.

Recently there will be many changes coming to our mission and some missions in general. Now we will only be focusing on Church attendance, baptisms, and lessons. That's it. The rest of the numbers will not really be counted. But this comes from the area 70 at least. And another thing is we cant drink coca cola or anything with caffeine practically. So goodbye mountain dew :,( But i am fine. I will follow whatever the lord asks of me, even if it is not too much soda haha. We will see the rest of the changes that are to come!

This week was pretty good for us. We were able to visit many less active members we haven't been able to visit before. It is really nice to be accepted into a home even though family hasn't gone to church for years. People trust the missionaries and can let us help them with their problems. The branch president has been calling us every other day to help him with certain things and visits. We are going to put on many activities to bring more people back to church. As part of our calling we have been teaching and directing many of the church classes and priesthood meetings. Its a learning experience but we love it.

I kind of stole the idea from home of hot dogs in the park we had back home and we will be doing a "completos en la capilla" activity which will be games and a family home evening with the ward and a nice completo after. I decided to throw out the idea because it is an easy going activity yet enjoyable so we will see how it goes. 

Love you guys and hope you're all doing good. Stay warm with all that cold weather. I guess we will be having Latinos in the family so you all better get started on that spanish;) love ya bye.

we went to Piedra Roja as always

Last week of 2014!!

Christmas Conference with the Mission

 Best Buds in the Mission

Well it was a great week! It was nice to see you guys and talk with you. Hope you are all doing fine and getting used to the girls being up in utah now. But anyway things are going good here for me. We are ready to start a new year with new goals! Lots of things are on my mind but i will get it all figured out! I love it here and enjoy it a lot:) 

Zone Nativity.  I was a King bringing Myrrh

The other day the mission president called me which is actually rare to get calls directly from him. So we were obviously anxious for why he called us. And he talked to us for a while of how our branch was a little different and that it need as much help from us as we can give. after the call we had a meeting with the branch president and he asked us to be his counselors. HE as well talked with us a lot on how we can help and what we can do. I will be the first counselor over the preisthood, temple, and classes. Elder B is over the primary and all of the youth. we actually got to teach all of the youth and some of preisthood sunday, and we enjoyed it.

Elder B and i are glad to be serving as counselors to President A. He said we might be staying here for a bit longer but we are both fine with that as we would love to talk part in strengthen the branch for as long as we need to. We are going to focus on less active members and having activities to keep people interested. The next two weeks the branch President will be out of town but we feel comfortable doing all we need to and helping out.

Theres a reason for everything and i hope that we can make a difference in this calling and change the branch for the better. I love this work as i always have and always will. Have a good week and make good decisions;) haha but have a fun new years week, ill just be a year ahead for a few hours! thanks guys, love you BYE!

Members home we skyped from.  Elder Z from Argentina, me & Elder E from virginia but was born in Germany & Elder B!

Compuertas pic of this week with the other Elders.

English Classes getting bigger

All of us missionaries pile on a bus after district class.

This week went quite well for us. The best part was probably the English class. Somehow we were able to have about 30 people in our class. It has been growing a lot lately with the help of missionaries, members, and those who attend class. We might have to split the class into two if it keeps growing. 

We have actually been able to see the fruits as well. The other day Elder B and I were able to set many appointments with certain people who come to our class. We have been able to visit many of them and teach them after already having a great confidence and friendship with them. The other missionaries are visiting those that respond to their sectors and seeing progress as well. We will keep focusing our efforts in finding new people who could have an interest in the gospel.

An ex missionary as well came back to visit some people and was able to go out with us and help us with our sector. So we are now able to work a lot more with people he used to visit that seemed really nice. We will see what we do this Thursday for thanksgiving!

Happy for you girls/sisters to get your jobs and get things ready in Utah. Love you guys and ill talk soon:) bye.

Picking cherries

ELDER NELSON!

It was pretty awesome to have Elder Nelson and Elder Viñas here with us yesterday. We each got to go up and shake their hands. We got to hear each of them and their wives speak. I wrote down a bunch of notes from all of them. 

Elder B, Elder A and I

Elder Viñas basically talked about the importance of baptism, retention, and reactivation and I am going to try to focus a lot more on reactivation in my mission. Hermana Nelson talked a lot about our premortal life and what we would have been like before, which was very special to think about. Just looking into the heavens for 5 minutes would give us a greater knowledge of any subject than if we studied it for all our life. Than Elder Nelson talked started by saying something that has now become my favorite quote. "Begin with the end in mind." And i love how he later used that to explain a story of a friend who later became a member. He said he saw his friend and thought of how good he would look in baptismal clothing, but even better in temple clothing. That is the goal for everyone. It was very special at the end when he said, "I as an apostle, invoke a blessing upon you now," and blessed us with many things among devotion and being a true disciple of Christ.

He taught us of how awesome the Spanish scriptures are and the guide for scripture study  which the English scriptures don't have. He taught us of ten doctrines and the greatest was what he said of Jesus Christ and how much there is to study about him. The whole experience was cool and i am pumped to study everything he shared.

Today we went to piedra roja because it is just a chill place to be. They have a dunkin donuts, starbucks, papa johns, sushi restaurants, and a whole bunch of other stuff there by the lake. It was nice and relaxing to be there with a donut from the outside porch deal they had their. And we visited another place after where we could buy a bunch of gringo candy and drinks! i totally forgot how could butter fingers were after one year! Love you guys, Talks to you later! bye:) sorry I wasn't able to reply to all the emails. 

  fish from my favorite place called Piedra Roja.  It reminds me of home.

District Leader & Trainer - ELDER HOLLAND

Elder Hollands visit

I wont have much time to get back to all my emails this week. But i did just get changed from an area to the area directly above my sector. Its sad because i had such a short time there there with everyone but good as i am moving forward with everything. I am now a Trainer and District Leader so we will see how it goes. There are about 20 district leaders out of the 250 or somewhat missionaries here. And on top of that i am training, double duty. I am really nervous. but i have trust in the lord. Theres a reason for everything.

This past week we were teaching a family. They have the same situation as many where they have to get married first. So we shared with them and the kids and they are really excited if the mom can get baptized. She has always wanted to and knows it is true so that is awesome. I am excited for this calling and will show the Lord what i can do.

Thanks for all your support and help with everything.  Bye love you guys. thanks for everything.

My last Sector

Late night snack.  Found a store that sells US food.  Soda for the Elders

Our group from the CCM

Another Apostle came to visit

Last week we had a visit from Elder Viñas of the seventy. I really dont know how our mission has so many visits from apostles. But it was awesome. We had a mission conference with him, and then he came to give a devotional in our district. I was pretty pumped. I talked with him one on one after about some of the questions i had and he was pretty cool to help out. 

Of the many things he said there was some things i really liked. He said, "under the influence of the spirit you cannot offend others nor be offended." roughly what he said in spanish. And he explained that anything you talk or converse about will never be offensive as long as the spirit is there. And i loved that a lot because before we should make decisions in our life we need the spirit to guide us. And many other things about repentance and what had happened to some of his misisonaries while he was serving as a mission president before. So it helped out to hear those things from him.

This week the rain will be here until the weekend. So that means washing all of my muddy clothes after haha. Oh and our laundry got so heavy in the rain while it was supposed to be drying that it broke the pole that holds up our clothes. Its all good here, everything is normal. Love you guys and hope your doing good. We are all getting hyped up for the 18th of se`ptember which is the day of independence here but is one of the biggest celebrations that happens! BYE!

View of the rain from the bus

Short Video Clips

Climbed talest mountain Santiago Chile - Andes

Mix of hymns before transfers

Time is passing by quick!

Man ive been out for 10 months now, this is starting to pick up speed! So i was talking with a member yesterday and he was telling me that about this time in the mission field is when you have everything down and have more time to focus on working and helping others. So im pumped that im not worried about the same things as i was at the start of my mission. 

And then i came to think about how god works, the ways and the times he works. I probably will never notice much of it but as i begin to think and read my patriarchal blessing i can see it all so much better. I dont want to get into detail cuz its obviously personal. But one example of how god works to me is about my schooling. I applied after high school to all the byus and told myself if i didnt get into hawaii or provo i would leave on my mission. So i did that and had my mission call and everything. But one night i thought to myself i had to reapply, not thinking anything of it. The deadlines were just about to come up and i was leaving on my mission anyway, so why not. And i was surprised to be accepted to hawaii. So i still dont know exactly why things have happened this way but maybe one day further down the road i will understand more. I just thought i would share that even though it will be a while longer till i get any studying. Its crazy how god has all of this planned out. I read the Miracle of forgiveness by spencer w. kimball two times and it is really good. It has some strong stuff in there but it helps me see a lot better. 

Saying our goodbyes 

So just a bunch of crazyness this week with my comps bike getting stolen and the member pulling out his gun and shooting to scare everyone away. But things just keep getting better for me:) Thanks for being there, i love all you. Have a good week! Just takin some pics by our house and next to some horses haha. Nothin special  -Elder Austin Jaeger 

Morning view from bedroom

Gearing up to bike in the cold rain - staying warm and dry - when you ride in the mud

Biking in new sec

Some crazy bike trails. Other missionaries of the branch, haha yes the same Elder from my last sector.  My new Companion Elder F.

 I have been getting to know my sector a little bit more. And it is freaking huge!!! like more than 50 almost 60 square miles. and it takes forever to get around on bike but it is fun. Like it took almost 30 minutes just to get to lunch the other day. And it takes 20 minutes in a bus to leave our sector and an hour to get to district class.

The people here are great. We have an investigator named E. He has learnd so much and has such a strong desire to be baptized. We are helping him the best we can with all his doubts and questions, but he says he knows it is true. I am very happy to be helping him and getting to know many other great people here. Everything is going good here, getting used to the bike and the heat!

So i found my spanish name and it would be, Agustin Carlos Cazador, just something for the week haha.

Love you, have a good week. and you boys starting school too!

I cleaned up the house pretty well

Surprise video

We received a surprise video from members in Chile!

New sector, new comp, new start

Favorite District

Last Principal foto 

So the transfers came and i had to end my six months in principal. Pretty long there, but i learned quite a bit:) I will definitely be going back to visit many of them some time in the future! But now i am very excited and happy to be in this new sector. I am excited for my companion as well. I hope everything goes well for us, we will search for those who need the gospel.

Transfers- new everything

The name of the ward is C 1, and it is between Santiago and the Andes. So its my first time serving out of the city and more of the open area:) I am really pumped to be here. It is a huge! sector so we have bikes and i am excited if i haven't said that already:) We are both new to the sector so we will learn it together, i still am Senior Comp and he has a little over a year like my last comp. Thanks for all the help guys, ill be having a good week, dont worry about me:) - Love you guys.

 Saying goodbyes 

 You know your in an area long when the puppy is grown and part of your goodbyes