Glad Tidings of Great Joy

This week brings some changes here! Elder Zamudio will be heading out and doing a whitewash with a new missionary in Puerto Cisnes, Coyhaique. I will be getting a new companion- Elder Bautista who is from Guatamala. I have worked with him a few times in intercambios so I know him a little already. He is very sincere and friendly and I am excited for the time I´ll have with him and the things I will learn. Angel, the son of Gloria in my old sector of Las Vegas, is getting baptized on Tuesday! I am super excited to see that and know that they continue to progress as a family! We had a couple of lessons with Wilson this week as well and he continues to progress well. He even came with us to a baptism on Saturday night. We have a lot of support from the members with him and I believe he will be baptized soon. We traveled to Saltos de Petrohue today and it was beautiful. God is an amazing Creator. Love you all lots, Elder Brighton

Sorry-- I forgot to post this last week Recently in our mission we had a change of focus on doing contacts. Before, we tried to do 100 each week. Like many, I am excited for the change in the way we see and focus on contacts. That being said, I want to share something I am learning. At times, we question why things have to change, or why something was not always the way it is now. A small example are the recent changes in how we do things at church. Instead of the 3 hours, they are just 2. Hometeaching has changed to Ministering. These changes do not mean that the way before was bad or uninspired. We believe in constant revelation, and for that reason changes come. Having the goal of 20 contacts a day, that was later changed to 100 each week, helped me a lot to be able to contact more. It helped me to get over my fear of talking to people and use my time better as I traveled from place to place. For me, it is important to recognize the good that these goals were for me and now ta

This week brought a very large change- we finally received our smartphones here in the mission. It will be a pretty long process to distribute all of them throughout the mission but we already have them here. We had to watch various videos to be able to learn a little about them and they made some very interesting and important points. This is an opportunity to learn how to properly use technology for the rest of our lives.  The advancements in technology in the world are primarily occurring to help God advance His work in these last days. It does not replace face to face teaching, but rather supplements it. There are many other things as well, but those are some that immediately come to mind. We had the opportunity to use our phones for good a few times already. The biggest change is we now have WhatsApp, the messaging application that every one uses here so it is SO much easier to communicate with people now. It lead to a lesson we had on Sunday with Francisco. We helped