Wed, Apr 6, 2016

hola familia!!!!

so today marks 6 months since i have seen my family. i was set apart as a missionary and headed off to the airport 6 months ago today. thats crazy! im already done with 1/4 of my mission! ah! time flies!

so this has been an interesting week because i was sick for more than half of it! it was awful but everything is good now and im feeling great! this like 50 year ild lady was hitting on us this morning and it was disturbning so that was interesting. also it rainedhard and we got soaked and it was cold! youre all heading into the heat as im heading into the cold but atleast i dont need to worry about snow while im here!

we also had general conference this week and it was good wasnt it? remember to keep president monson in your prayers for his health, he was looking a little sick this conference but he still got up and said some good thnings. the man has great diligence!

one thing that i liked about confrence was froom elder holland. at the end of his talk he talked about how we should cherish the things that have been made possible through christ. if you think about it there are many things that wouldnt be possible had he not died for us. because of him we can repent and be clean from sin. because of him we can be saved and live eternally with our father in heaven. becauyse of him we can change. because of hime we can be ressurected.

holland also talked about how the first commandment is to love god with all our heart, but that the first truth is that god loves us with all his heart. because of his love we are here to obtain a body of flesh and bones like him. because of his love he sent his son to opèn opportunities for us to recieve the greatest possble blessings. because of his love we have a prohet to guide us back to him. because of his love we can love.

i know that he loves us and that he wants only the best for his children. we need always remember that christ made these things possiblke for us and that he did because he loves us.

i love you all and i hope you have an amazing week!

With lots of love,

-Elder Sims

Wed, Mar 30, 2016

hola familia!

how did everyones easter go? hope it went well! mine was awesome!

so this week i had an amazing experience that i would like to share.

we were teaching a less active member and her grandma has been very sick and so she asked us to give her grandma a blessing. i have been very nervouse about giving blessings lately because of some of my past evperiences with them messing up the spanish. she had asked me to seal the anointing and i just started shaking with nervs going everywhere. i had no idea what i should say. once i placed my hands on her head i instantly felt comfort, confident and closed my eyes and started. i had no idea what to say but i decided just top listen and open my mouth like the promis from dc 42: 16.
16 And as ye shall lift up your voices by the Comforter, yeshall speak and prophesy as seemeth me good;

i decided that all i should do is listen to what the holy ghost was telling me to say and as i opoened my mouth it was filleed with words.
dc 33: 8-9,
 8 Open your mouths and they shall be filled
 9 Yea, open your mouths and spare not, and you shall beladen with sheaves upon your backs, for lo, I am with you.

i know that the comforter is always with us to help only if we seek his guidence. he will comfort us always. and will always be our constant companion. all we need to do is onvite him into our presence and be worthy of him.

i will always trust him to help me when i feel nercous or lost. i will alwasy listen for him to guide and to fill my mouth with the right words to say.

With lots of love,

-Elder Sims

Wed, Mar 23, 2016

hola familia

sorry for forgetting to write a big email last week.

so it seems that every 100 days the mission just repeats itself. yesterday i had accidentally called an old woman pretty.... the other missionaries were laughing so hard. i realized the mistake i made immediately after the comment i made. was funny! so as i was writing in my journal last night i turned 100 days back from yesterday and there it was... the day that i had called a pregnant woman pretty on accident. i dont know if you remember me writing about that but i had made a big email about that experience about 4 months ago.

i also wrote about two mothers feeding their babies without covering anything 4 months ago as well. turns out that i had another experience like tht exactly 100 days after. what is going on here? i am going to see another woman whip one out and feed her kid in 100 more days and im going to call another woman pretty on accident. its destiny. the mission just repeats itself every 100 days i guess!

so id like to write a little bit about the story i have been reading in the book of mormon lately, the story of ammon and his brothers! always good stuff! something that i really liked about his style of missionary work is the fact that he got to the heart of king lamoni through service and love. ammon hadnt said a word about the gospel until lamoni had asked him about being a great spìrit. ammon offered his service to the king and showed loved toward him and his people. through this love and service he gained the trust of the king and when he taught the king he was overwhelmed with the spirit amd fell to the earth. and then his wife and people after that. even ammon fell to the earth because of the spririt that was within the room.

its amazing what the turn out was. that one man who offered service unto the king could convert many unto the gospel.

just something cool that i liked about my reading this week.

i love you allo and thank you for all the support you give me! have an amazing week!

With lots of love,

-Elder Sims

Wed, Mar 9, 2016

hola familia! como estan?

bueno este semana fue genial! tuvimos muchas experiencias buenas!

first of all ill start with ingrid. we had another lesson with her in the bishops house and it was scary! last week she had lost her purse that had everything in it and she prayed to god for help but she felt he didnt listen so she pretty had lost a lot of faith. she was having a hard time but we helped her out with that. it was just a bad day for her. a couple days later we had a family home evening in the church as a ward and i called her and invited her and her daughter to come. at the end of the lesson, everyone went over and started talking to them. it was awesome! the bishop and his first counselor were talking to her at first and then one person after another started joining the conversation. after about 30 minutes of people talking to them, i see the fist councelor lead ingrid over to a door to show her what was inside. inside the door was the baptismal font!!!!! she thought it was awesome! we are going to teach them again this friday so i should be good!

that is proof that all members of the church are MISSIONARIES. simple little acts like that are missionary work. being a friend, saying hello to someone, inviting people to church, etc.
missionary work never stops. we must always look for opportunities to serve our heavenly father. show him how much we love him by serving him and brigning others to him.
he blesses us with countless blessings. our job is to share our happiness with others so they too can recive the blessing this gospel brings.

i know that everyone back there at home knows at least one person that needs this gospel in their lives, because everyone needs this gospel! go up to that person you know who is in the most need and INVITE them. that is the missionary purpose. INVITE otheres to come unto christ.

also if there is someone you know who does not attend church this week, work as an AGENT and go find them after church to see how they are doing. elder bednar told all of us missionaries here in the south america south area that over half of the people who did not attend last week, would attend the next if we go out and find those who were not present.

i love you all and i hope you have an amazing week!
With lots of love,
-Elder Sims

Wed, Mar 2, 2016

hola familia!

this has been a great week! 100x better than last week actually! i just lovedit!

first of all ill expain why the title says what it says.

so on sunday night we were doing our normal thing at 1:30 am.... sleeping. all of the sudden we get a call from our neighbors saying that someone jumped the gate to our house! but the person left before the cops got there. since we live behind a dentist, we called him and he came over to go over the cameras and after about an hour of watvhing nothing we saw the robber trying to get inside the dentist office and he walked around the corner where we lived and hid for a bit. he came back and started stealing a light from the dentists porch and we saw his face and everything! the cops did nothing about it though. thats chilean police for ya! so yep it was a neat exèrience.

so i would like to talk about my favorite investigator Ingrid who is 42. i found her in my 9th day out in the mission field and taught her a little bit but then we lostcontact with her for a little bit because herfather does not like the missionaries and she didnt want any problems in her family so she stopped recieving us even though she was progessin a lot!

so about after a month and a half one day i was on divisions with another missionary and  i decided to go and look for her again amd i found her and taught her right then and there. she was super awesome! then randomly the sunday after that, i see her walk in to church! ah!!!! that was one of the best things i have ever seen!

she then went on vacation for a week and when she got back we taught her once and then another time in the same week. but in the second visit we had with her, she brought her 3 daughters! javiera whos 18, amadis whos 8, and ryan whos 6. the lesson went great! then the sunday after that lesson they all came to chirch! woohoo!!!! they loved it! we then set up a family home evening with them in the bishops house and ingrid and javiera both came and we taught about the plan of salvation and they both had some really good questions and both had a really good time! we have another family home evening set up with them this friday! i cant wait!

it has been the greatest joy to see someone from my 9th day on the mission and the progress they have made up until about the 4th month. i cannot explain how joyful it is to see people progress and recognize the happiness this gospel can give you. that is why im here. this gospel has brought me wso much joy and all i want is for others to recieve that same joy in their lives.

i hope everyone has a great week and i love you all! remember the joy this gospel gives you and you will have a stronger desire to serve and bring others unto chirst.

With lots of love,

-Elder Sims

Wed, Feb 24, 2016

hola familia!

so in reality not much went down this week. this morning there was a conference with elder bednar and all of southern south america and it was very good. made my pday shorter but thats okay! he talked a lot about agents and objects and that we as missionaries are here to invite investigators to ACT.

we invite the investigator to choose for themselves whether or not to act to listen and accept the message we have to share. agency is huge huge in conversion.

another thing he talked about was the holy ghost and how he is the teacher. he invited us missionaries to write in " small plates" which were the writing of revelation from the prophets of the book of mormon, and not to write our notes in large plates which were just a recording of the people. he said to write what the sppirit tells you to write, not elder bednar. it was a different way of writing but it actually hel`ps you remember what you learned and also that you will always be able to use the notes that you took. the holy ghost tells us what we need to here.

i know it was short this week and i apologize for that. i will do better next week. but i invite all of you to pay more attention to the spirit than the teacher in a lesson. you will come to learn a whole lot more and meaningfully. i experienced these things this morning and it has changed the way i LISTEN.

With lots of love,

-Elder Sims

Wed, Feb 17, 2016

hola familia! como estan????

i hope everything is going great back at home! how was everyones valentines day? mine was cool because i wore a tie that has hearts on it. other than that it wasnt too exciting.

so right now in chile everyone is off to the beach for vacation so there is literally nobody out in the street! there isnt many peoplle home either! we are basically walking in the hot sun looking for new people to teach everyday.

 it is a little difficult to be honest. apparently this time of the year is one of the hardest in this mission. it is a great test, but also an opportunity to find new people and to get out of our comfort zone and do things youre not necessarily familiar with. i found some great people this week that we are excited to visit again. so thats good! but this time of the year is jsut very very hard.

i was reading a talk that president holland did about missionary work and the atonement. my favorite part was when he talked about how there will be hard times in the mission. times that we will suffer. you are a representative of christ, was it ever easy for him? no. why should the mission be easy for us, when it was NEVER easy for him? what we are doing doesnt even compare to what jesus did.

i chose to come on this mission to bring people to christ as a representative of him. i know that things will be hard, but i know that throughout all of this i can find joy.  not just me, the people i find as well.

With lots of love,

-Elder Sims