This week has been a blur! It gets so hard to distinguish the days some times. 

Well, good news is that my companion and I have finally organized the names of all the people we need to visit. For the past few weeks we have been roaming around randomly, hoping that someone was home, but no longer haha! As of 2 days ago, I have been in Chile for a month! I got to be honest, it has been pretty long, but I don’t worry too much about it. They say the mission is like a mountain: the first bit drags and is a little draining, but after you hit the peak you just fly down the mountain, and when you finish, you want to climb the mountain again, but you can’t. That’s why I’m focusing really hard on making the best of every day. 

Ok, little fun fact. In my zone, every missionary knows how to do the 1 finger snap (you guys know what I’m talking about right?) Anyways, in every single zone meeting, all the Elders do it when they hear something they like. It cracks me up! I can almost do it. Just give me a few weeks haha!

We had and awesome FHE activity with one of our part member families the other day! The mom Cindy is less active and wants to return to church, and Gabriel her husband grew up as a 7th day adventist. She said that her goal is to get to the Temple, so now we just got to work on Gabe. We watched the video "Because of Him" and had a great discussion afterwards. In fact, after we left because we had to get home, Gabriel and Cindy stayed for an hour afterwards!! It was honestly more that we could’ve hoped for. The family we did it with, la familia Yanez, gave powerful testimony and really worked to have the spirit there, and you bet it was. My companion told me afterward that it was one of the best days of his mission.

Their family also came to church this Sunday!! Of course, I happened to be giving a talk that meeting, so I was pretty nervous as you can imagine, but it went a lot better that I had thought haha! I only made one mistake where I said, "when I was young" instead of " when I was in young men’s" and the whole congregation erupted into laughter. I’m just glad I didn’t accidently say something offensive or something crazy haha! Cindy and Gabe really liked the service, so we just have to encourage them to keep coming. 

Elder Lizarraga got bit by a dog the other day. He was walking close to a fence and this massive dog shoved its head through the fence! Luckily the wound was caused by the friction of the shirt, and not by the teeth so he doesn’t have to get vaccinated. The look he gave that dog was priceless haha! I honestly thought he was going to reach in and choke it he was so mad! But all is well that ends well. 

Two more pieces of good news: Elder Nelson is coming to visit the mission and I get to go to the Temple soon! Our president challenged us to finish the Book of Mormon before he comes, so I’ve been frantically reading to finish it. He doesn’t come until November 9th, so I’ve still got some time. Oh, and the family in Chile said they were going to call tomorrow and were going to set up a time for me to talk to them!! Happy day haha!

To finish, I want to leave you with this challenge: El Desafio de Lectura, or Reading Challenge. Simply, its read the Book of Mormon in 6 months. Just 4 pages a day (really, its the front and back of only 2 pages). There are so many people here who have never read it cover to cover, and it’s so essential to our testimony! Joseph Smith said that we would get closer to God by abiding by the precepts of the Book of Mormon than by any other book. Do it!! It will only bless your life and strengthen your faith. I know its true! 

Love you all and God Bless you!

Elder Pomar :)

Hey Mom and Dad!! 

I didn´t have much time, so I wrote a letter that I´ll attach below. Love you!

Aaron Avila´s relative Angela lives 10 minutes from me!!! She found the other missionaries in our ward and told them to pass on the message that Aaron Avila says hi!! ISNT THAT CRAZY!?!? I haven’t seen Aaron in years!! What a small world! Apparently he´s still living in Australia (Ahhhhh man!!)

Chile is amazing. I love it here sooo much! We´ll definitely have to come back and visit :) The church is true, and God Bless You!! 

Love, 

Elder Pomar 

What´s up everyone!

My first week in the field is almost over! Isn´t that crazy? These past few days have been slow, but good. I was assigned to the Los Libertadores Ward, Los Cerrillos Stake in Maipu (a subsection of Santiago). It´s a lot different that thousand oaks. It has its own little style to it that I love. There are so many elaborate graffiti murals. They basically cover every wall. The houses are so small compared to the states. Most houses are barely bigger than an apartment. And the stray dogs, my goodness! They´re EVERYWHERE. Anywhere I go, there is always some form of furry companion trotting the street. Speaking of which, my companion is from Argentina! Haha! Elder Lizarraga is actually from the Salta mission, so when he goes home in 8 months he´ll bring a package to Elder Morgan for me haha! The guy is just great. It’s a little hard having a native companion, but Its great practice. He speaks decent English as well, and he´s trying hard to improve. He LOVES mate. Absolutely obsessed with it haha! He makes me drink it every morning. Lets just say, I have a while before I´ll get used to it. Just like every one told me, Chilean Spanish is just use big continous stream of slang. They do add "po" on to everything (my companions favorite being "bienpo." He says it almost every other word). Even my district leader does it! The word of the year here in the west mission is "bacan", which means great. Everything is super-bacan here! When I showed up, they divided the Los Libertadores wards into 2 sectors, so now we have 4 missionaries in the ward. Unfortunately, all of Elder Lizarraga´s investigators are on the other side. Finding people to teach has been hard, especially since we still need to organize everything. Finding people is going to be the mission for next week. We have 1 family that we´re teaching right now. The mom, Ninoska is bedridden, and can’t do much of anything. She´s also the only religious person in her house. The husband Vicente is agnostic, and the son Vicente is atheist. I challenged Ninoska to baptism, but she said she wants to learn a little bit more. Apparently, she had some bad experience with a member in the past, but we promised her that if she really prayed to know, and was willing to act on the answer that she received, God will answer her. She promised she would, so keep her in your prayers! One of the other few people we teach is a little elderly couple who was baptized 4 months ago. They are so adorable! Santiago and Luisa are just about some of the sweetest people I´ve ever met. I always smile when I´m around them. Santiago is a riot, because he´s hard of hearing and has intriguing commentaries! We shared the story in the Book of Mormon about how Limhi´s people escaped from captivity by following the advice of Gideon and giving the Lamanite guards wine and sneaking out the back door while they were drunk and asleep. Santiago just loved it! He kept going on and on and on about how wise Gideon was, and when he offered the closing prayer, he recounted the ENTIRE STORY! Oh these are going to be two fun years! Love you all and catch you later! 

Viva la Roja!

- Elder Pomar

10 September 2014



Dear Brother and Sister Pomar,



Sister Barreiros and I were pleased to welcome your son, Elder Pomar, to one of the finest missions in the world, the Chile Santiago West Mission.  He is well and happy, and we are impressed with his enthusiasm for the work.  After greeting him at the MTC and a brief tour of the beautiful city of Santiago, we arrived at our mission Office. I interviewed your son.  My Assistants and office missionaries then gave him a brief orientation to the mission.  We had a delicious lunch together, he met his new companion, and that afternoon he left the mission home and departed for his first area of labor. 


Elder Pomar has been assigned to work with Elder Lizarraga, who will serve as his training companion.  Trainers are chosen for their competence, patience and dedication, and are selected after prayerful consideration.  With this letter we are including a photograph taken of your son and his new companion with Sister Barreiros and myself.



Please accept our deep appreciation for raising such a fine son.  We feel a genuine fellowship with you in supporting and providing him this opportunity to grow spiritually as he labors to bring souls unto Christ.  It is my prayer that the Lord will inspire us all to sustain him in this challenging assignment.  Please write him frequently, weekly if possible.  Express your love, support, and confidence in him.  You will witness miraculous changes in his life as he engages fully in the service of others.


Being parents ourselves, we understand your desire to occasionally send packages.  For your information, packages sent to your missionary through FedEx often require large duty fees, which must be paid by the missionary.  Those sent through Global priority mail, marked missionary supplies and valued less than $100 usually arrive duty free and within 2 weeks. But currently there is a mail strike here in Chile, so please communicate with your son through Email.


If you have any questions or if we can assist you in any way, please do not hesitate to write.


Sincerely,

President Jose A. Barreiros


Chile Santiago West Mission