Letters from Elder David M Ehrhart

Letters from Elder Ehrhart in Chile Antofagasta Mission

Mission Accomplished

Well guys, 
I can’t believe I’m saying this but this is officially my last weekly email! As I have been reflecting on my time in the mission.. I am so grateful for all of the blessings that I’ve been given! For all the hard times, for all the good times! This has by far been the hardest but the best 2 years of my entire life! 
I really am just so grateful for the opportunity I have been given to serve the people of Tennessee but especially the people of the Northern Chile. To end this weekly email I just want to share my testimony with you guys.

I know He lives, I know that He died for us, and that because of him we will be able to live with our families forever! I know that the time I’ve spent on my mission has changed my life completely and now I am the man I’m today because of it!

I know this church is true and that it really was restored through the power and grace of God and that because He loves us He’s given us the everlasting gospel to help guide us in this Life. It is hard to wrap my mind around the fact, 2 years has gone by this fast. As I am sitting here writing this all the good memories have just filled my mind and heart! 
I encourage all of you and especially you young men to begin preparing to serve a mission, because this has been that most incredible 2 years. It has forever changed me. I’ve been putting at the end of my weekly emails “I’ll see you soon” but that statement is real now! I love you all so much and I’ll see you Soon;) -Elder Ehrhart officially signing off

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Last Transfer!

Hey guys,
I hope y’all had a great week! This week was pretty crazy but mostly because of all the things that happened haha! So, on Friday we were having a huge activity talent show with the Stake. We all decide to have “Intercambios locos” that’s where everyone goes on exchanges with different people in the zone. 
Then we could all get together and plan what to perform for the talent show! Well… on Friday morning as we were walking to the Arica Centro Church, a crazy homeless guy was sitting on the side of the road counting coins. Out of nowhere he sees us and starts screaming about how Joseph Smith isn’t a prophet and that he was actually a prophet. 
I have been in Chile for quite a while now and I have dealt with my fair share of crazy homeless guys, so the best thing you can do is just keep walking. So I turn to the other 3 missionaries with me and tell them just don’t look back and keep walking, Well…. all the sudden we hear him cussing us out and his voice is getting closer and closer! So at this time I tell the other’s to cross the road and it’s a busy road! But we crossed it super fast. Then the shouting stopped, so we thought we were good, well… haha 
The screaming starts again and Elder Lemon turns his head and yells “he’s running” and no joke this was like a scene out of the walking dead! So this dude is literally running at full speed towards us! We tried to lose him but it was no use! 
He starts drunk yelling at us and that gave me enough time to get in the Church and lock the front gate with the Hermanas safe in the Church. The other Elders outside some how got away from the crazy dude too. So now he is screaming at the top of his lungs…”Ah ha! This is your Temple, I found it!” Referring to the church. Then he says, that he is the real prophet and that we need to let him in!  He is also continuing to cuss us out with every swear word.

So we started calling all of the other missionaries not to come to the church just yet because of the crazy dude… but we we’re too late!  He started chasing the Pukarani Elders but they ran around the church and that gave the others enough time to get into the church!
Just as we were closing the gate, we see the Pukarani Elders bookin it down the street to the gate like straight out of a movie with the crazy dude right behind them! 
So we get everyone inside and start celebrating and the homeless guys makes it back around but this time with a huge chunk of concrete! He starts hammering on the metal gate with it and tried to hit one of the church windows. 
We just decided to go into the church and hope, eventually, he would leave. Like 30 minutes go by and everyone is getting hungry so we elected 2 brave souls to go across the street to a cheap lunch place to buy everyone the food they want. I was one of those brave souls and my comp haha. 
So we get to the food place and it’s literally in the straight hood of Arica! There are just a ton of Columbians and Venezuelans outside drinking and smoking weed but they are really super sick and love gringos!! So, we’re outside waiting for the food to get done when the crazy dude finds us and starts screaming again and starts trying to throw hands… then all the Columbians ganged up on him! And the restaurant owners brought us into their home and told us that the missionaries are always welcome! 
An older lady who owns the house came over and started talking to as about how her sister was a member and actually served a mission! We got her number in the end and sent the referral to the Arica Centro Elders! Sorry that was a really long story haha but I hope yall had a great week! 
Only 6 more weeks till im home! I’ll see yall soon!-Elder Ehrhart
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Last Transfer!

Hey guys,
I hope y’all had a great week! This week was pretty crazy but mostly because of all the things that happened haha! So, on Friday we were having a huge activity talent show with the Stake. We all decide to have “Intercambios locos” that’s where everyone goes on exchanges with different people in the zone. 
Then we could all get together and plan what to perform for the talent show! Well… on Friday morning as we were walking to the Arica Centro Church, a crazy homeless guy was sitting on the side of the road counting coins. Out of nowhere he sees us and starts screaming about how Joseph Smith isn’t a prophet and that he was actually a prophet. 
I have been in Chile for quite a while now and I have dealt with my fair share of crazy homeless guys, so the best thing you can do is just keep walking. So I turn to the other 3 missionaries with me and tell them just don’t look back and keep walking, Well…. all the sudden we hear him cussing us out and his voice is getting closer and closer! So at this time I tell the other’s to cross the road and it’s a busy road! But we crossed it super fast. Then the shouting stopped, so we thought we were good, well… haha 
The screaming starts again and Elder Lemon turns his head and yells “he’s running” and no joke this was like a scene out of the walking dead! So this dude is literally running at full speed towards us! We tried to lose him but it was no use! 
He starts drunk yelling at us and that gave me enough time to get in the Church and lock the front gate with the Hermanas safe in the Church. The other Elders outside some how got away from the crazy dude too. So now he is screaming at the top of his lungs…”Ah ha! This is your Temple, I found it!” Referring to the church. Then he says, that he is the real prophet and that we need to let him in!  He is also continuing to cuss us out with every swear word.

So we started calling all of the other missionaries not to come to the church just yet because of the crazy dude… but we we’re too late!  He started chasing the Pukarani Elders but they ran around the church and that gave the others enough time to get into the church!
Just as we were closing the gate, we see the Pukarani Elders bookin it down the street to the gate like straight out of a movie with the crazy dude right behind them! 
So we get everyone inside and start celebrating and the homeless guys makes it back around but this time with a huge chunk of concrete! He starts hammering on the metal gate with it and tried to hit one of the church windows. 
We just decided to go into the church and hope, eventually, he would leave. Like 30 minutes go by and everyone is getting hungry so we elected 2 brave souls to go across the street to a cheap lunch place to buy everyone the food they want. I was one of those brave souls and my comp haha. 
So we get to the food place and it’s literally in the straight hood of Arica! There are just a ton of Columbians and Venezuelans outside drinking and smoking weed but they are really super sick and love gringos!! So, we’re outside waiting for the food to get done when the crazy dude finds us and starts screaming again and starts trying to throw hands… then all the Columbians ganged up on him! And the restaurant owners brought us into their home and told us that the missionaries are always welcome! 
An older lady who owns the house came over and started talking to as about how her sister was a member and actually served a mission! We got her number in the end and sent the referral to the Arica Centro Elders! Sorry that was a really long story haha but I hope yall had a great week! 
Only 6 more weeks till im home! I’ll see yall soon!-Elder Ehrhart
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Arica

Hey guys!
I hope y’all are doing good. Here are the updates from the past couple weeks! First, I left Tocopilla and now I’m in a place called Arica! 
Arica is the Northern-most part of Chile so I’m literally 20 minutes away from Perú and Bolivia! Because we’re so close we have a ton of Peruvians and Bolivians here. It’s like a totally different culture here! My Area is called Industriales and in my area it actually has the most dangerous Tomas in all of Chile!! It’s called Sara Chuña! Were prohibited to even go near the border but we have like 3 friends who live there so we just meet in a park or at the church! 
We actually have a ton of progress with friends here! 2 weeks ago we found a girl named Barbara on Facebook and she wanted to start meeting with us! She has been coming to church and all the activities and even watched General conference! She’s getting baptized on the 7th! 
We also have another friend named Christopher. Both of his parents are members but 15 year inactive… so we have been teaching his whole family and he’s getting baptized on the 14th! We also have another friend that we got from a referral name es Yoe and he’s from Venezuela. His family actually lives in Columbia right now but he is just trying to get money for them and move back! 
He also has been coming to church with us the past two weeks and came and watched conference with us! He has baptismal date for the 23rd! Our area has been popping off lately so that’s been awesome! 
Now I’ll change the topic to Conference! I hope all of you had an opportunity to watch it because it was super great! I would say almost all of it was focused on Missionary work and preparing to serve if you haven’t! 
As I have been out here for the past 22 months I have really come to realize how much of a blessing it has serving and taking his name upon me! I can promise you that if you’re having any doubts about serving a mission God will help you though it and help you accomplish it! He has definitely been doing it for me and I’m grateful everyday for my experience and memories i have made! It really is the most important work on the earth today!
If you do serve, it will change you forever like it has done to me! I love you all, if you haven’t watched conference I encourage you to do so! Hope yall have a great week and I’ll see you soon!Elder Ehrhart 

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Tocopilla

Hey yall, First off sorry for about being so lazy writing weekly emails but here are all the updates! So I’m training a new guy from the states! His names Elder Malone and he’s from Virginia. We’re in this little Pueblito called Tocopilla! They split the area but gave us no one so we’re restarting completely from scratch which has been pretty crazy.  But we are out in the streets all day knocking doors and street contacting people! 
A huge blessing/miracle that happened this week actually started last week haha, so we were knocking doors and came to this house and a woman Named Isabella answered it.  Our first contact with her wasn’t really anything special just a “come back later” but we stopped by 4 days later and taught her all of lesson one and during it, we found out that she used to see us missionaries playing soccer with her kids and their friends in the street infront of her house when she lived in Calama. She had always wanted to talk to us! 

Well, she invited us over again on Saturday and during our lesson she put herself and the rest of her family on date for the 19th of March! She also told us that she was reading an article from the church about the sacrament and that it’s like we’re made sin free every Sunday when we’re baptized and take the sacrament! Pretty sweet miracle! She said, I need to have this!

Now to switch the topic alittle, here in Tocopilla there are a ton of abandoned copper mine shafts! It’s a new adventure every pday! But we have been playing real life Minecraft here haha! It’s pretty awesome. That’s what I got for y’all this week. Hope y’all have a great rest of your week!
Elder Ehrhart 

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Tocapilla

Hey yall,It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these but here are all the life updates! I got transferred from La Pordada and now I’m in a little pueblito called Tocopilla! Just me and my comp elder Contreras and about 8 active branch members haha! I’m actually covering 2 other pueblitos that are about hour away on both sides but we’ll see if we could ever make it over there haha! We’ve got one store here in there center but other than that nothing! 
My comp’s been out for 2 transfer and he’s from Iquique Chile which is actually apart of our mission but his original call was in Brazil so he might dip any day to go there! 
The teaching pool here is pretty small but we’re gonna change that! That’s what I got for yall! Hope yall have a great week and I’ll see you soon!Elder Ehrhart 

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Baptism of Hilda

Hey yall, It’s been a great couple of weeks! Sorry I haven’t really been writing emails but I’ll start doing better! This week our Amiga Hilda got baptized! It really was such a great day and she was so excited for it! We also found a new family of 9! They all came to our church Christmas activity and told us that they want to start meeting with us every week and come to church! I also got news that I’m staying in La Portada one more transfer so that’s sweet! That’s all the life updates I can think of now haha! 
Love guys and read your scriptures!-Elder Ehrhart

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Baptism of Hilda

Hey yall, It’s been a great couple of weeks! Sorry I haven’t really been writing emails but I’ll start doing better! This week our Amiga Hilda got baptized! It really was such a great day and she was so excited for it! We also found a new family of 9! They all came to our church Christmas activity and told us that they want to start meeting with us every week and come to church! I also got news that I’m staying in La Portada one more transfer so that’s sweet! That’s all the life updates I can think of now haha! 
Love guys and read your scriptures!-Elder Ehrhart

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Zone Conference

Hey guys, 
It’s been a great week! First of all we had zone conference on Wednesday so me and my whole zone got to take a bus down to Antofagasta! Our zone conference was super great and we talked about how important the book of mormon really is in our teachings! Every zone conference we do this thing call prácticas and it’s where they select 3 companionships and they have to stand in front of everyone in the zones. They give you a topic and concern and you have to help and teach a person. So when that time comes everyone is sweating hoping that doesn’t get picked but with my luck, my comp and a I got selected haha! 
We actually did such a good job so it all worked out in the end! After zone conference, none of the office Elders would drive us to our house that we were staying at so we all decided just to walk back! When we got back we packed up all our stuff and hopped on the 5 hour bus back to Calama! 
This past week we have been meeting with our friend Norman! He has been coming to church and has been letting us come by his house like 3 times a week! So we have another lesson with him and in the lesson he told us that he feels that God wants him to be baptized! So that was such a cool experience, and when we told him he could be! After that He just kept thanking us and just broke down crying! He’s such an awesome dude! 
Something else this week that happened was we got a Referral from the Rio Loa Hermanas of this super awesome guy named Arthur! He’s 19 and honestly one of the coolest people I have ever meet I’m Chile! In Our lesson with him he we just talked about life and how God has a plan for everyone! After the lesson he asked us, after he gets baptized how long does he have to wait before he can serve a mission!! It’s really been such a great week! I hope yall had a great week too and I’ll talk to you soon!-Elder Ehrhart
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General Conference

Hey guys, I hope y’all have had a great week and you watched conference! It’s been a crazy week here in Chile! We had transfers last Monday, and I’m staying in Calama another transfer with Elder Alley! Our Amigos are doing good, and Jonathan watched conference so he’s gonna be ready for his baptism! 
On Friday all we did was street contacting and we found a new lady named Tatiana and she’s from Columbia! We taught her the restoration and she absolutely loved it! We gave her a book of Mormon and she just keeps thanking us and telling us how excited she is to start reading it! She also watched conference so we’re super excited to see her progress! 
Sorry this has been such a small email but conference took up alot of this week! If any of you haven’t watched it I strongly encourage you to do so because it was all so amazing, especially President Nelson’s! Love yall 
I hope you have a great week!

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