Transfers

Well, I got transferred... I'm pretty sad that I had to leave my last sector, but at the same time, it will be good to have a change, I think. But anyway, I'll start from the beginning.

This week was awesome! We have had so many lessons and everything was falling into place. We started to really really teach the daughter in law of one of one of the sisters in our ward, and it is going great! She is progressing so so fast, and her husband started to listen and talk with us too! We were so excited for that! They are such a great family and they have a little 5 year old who is hilarious and loves the missionaries! We love going over there because they are progressing really well and we just love their family!

Henrique is one of the people we have been working a lot with. He is really progressing too! The good thing about him is that he just really wants to change his life. He had some problems in the past and he really just wants to get rid of it all and start over again. So of course that's great because it gives him a reason to meet with us and he is doing very well!

But on Friday, we all knew that changes were coming, and we were all super nervous as to who would go and who would stay. We all made predictions, but they didn't all turn out. My trainer, Elder Bezerra got to stay in the ward, and I needed to move on, which I was really sad about. Elder Hoose, who was in the other set of elders, left too, and Elder Mateus is now an Assistant to the President, which is really cool! But, us and the sisters in the ward were all pretty sad because we had all been working really hard together and we were having a lot of success! But, I am needed somewhere else.

Today, with my bags all packed up, we went to the mission center in San Bernardo and waited to hear who is going where. I am now in the ward Barrio Cavarrubias in the Zone La Gran Avenida, but I'm not a hundred percent sure that's the zone name, I'll check on that.

But my new comp is Elder Piñeyro from Uruguay. He is really cool and we get along really good. The only thing that makes me a little bit nervous is that we have the same amount of time in the field. We were in the MTC together and now we are companions with less than 3 whole months in the mission. It makes me a little bit nervous just because we are both so new, but it's going to be really good for the both of us! The good thing is though that it is not a White Wash, so that will make it a little bit easier!

Well, that's all for this week. I'm hoping me and comp do well this week! Here I go!

The first picture is me and my new comp!

The second is a picture of all the missionaries in my old ward with my bishop!

 And the third is me eating the biggest completo that I have ever seen! 

25 Centimeters! And I finished all of it!

Week 17

Well, a very interesting week. 

Bit of an update:

We have started to work a lot with a man named Henrique. He has got a past that is pretty crazy, and he is pretty old now and kind of in a sticky situation. But we started to really work with him and he is really open to listen to us, and he has been to church twice now! So that was really exciting! He told us that he really wants to change his life, and we told him we would try to help him along with that. So we are really trying to help him!

Vacations are still really killing us. Especially with José, Felipe and Jorge. They have not been to church in a long time, but we are still trying to get them to come back. But fortunately we were able to make an appointment with their dad Mauricio, so we are hoping that he will start to listen to us too, and maybe help them out along the way!

The most interesting was that I gave a talk yesterday in church. That was very very interesting. Why? Well first of all I decided that I was just going to prepare it in spanish. I did not want to translate it because that would take double the time, so that was a first. It went pretty well, I was able to write it out pretty well. I did not write it out word for word, just bullet points and scriptures and stuff. But it got time for me to speak, and the weirdest thing happened. I was not nervous at all. I just went up and talked, and surprisingly I took up all the time that I needed. So that was really cool! I guess people liked it because they told me that they did! But the other elders in my ward told me that they were really surprised because my spanish was really good! So I am pretty excited about that one!

But, this is week 12 of my training, so I am kind of nervous about that. I am pretty sure that me and Elder Bezerra are going to get split up, which is really sad because we are great friends and we work together great! I really don´t want to leave this ward, because it is great and I love the people here. But I will find out this Friday if one of us is leaving or not. Fingers crossed, but it is not likely we will both stay here in the ward... 

Love you all!

This one is of me and Elder Bezerra playing soccer this morning! It was really fun and we played with our Zone on a TURF FIELD! Yeah that is right, so that was pretty cool!

This one is a picture of my entire Zone all together! Last week we played dodgeball so that was fun! But here is the Zone!

It is starting to cool off (THANKFULLY) down here and this third picture is a bit of snow on the top of one of the mountains! Pretty cool! 

So, there goes another week. They are flying by right now. I only have 2 weeks left of my training, which kind of scares me a lot. I could potentially be training in 2 weeks, but I am hoping that does not happen, but we will see. I have a feeling that I will be training eventually, but I just do not know when.

This week was not too much easier. In fact just a little bit more difficult. But with some good news. The four of us might be moving into a bigger apartment closer to the chapel, but we are not sure if we will be moving in together. We are not sure, it is still up in the air, but we are hoping!

This week we did have some great things happen! Last week, we found a great investigator! Her name is Katalina, and she has her partner Santiago, with 2 little kids. We went to her house 2 times this week, and taught her the Restoration lesson. Both times we had a young man in the ward accompany us. He is preparing to go on a mission so that was pretty cool! It is so hard to try and teach when her 2 kids were running around, but it was perfect because as soon as we said the First Vision of Joseph Smith, they quieted down and we got all the way through it! That was pretty great! She liked what we taught her, and said she felt that it was true in her heart! We got so excited about it! Then she went to church on Sunday, so we are pretty pumped up!

We also found another great investigator! His name is Franco, and he is about 15, but he genuinely wants to know more about the church and answer some doubts he has about religion and God and stuff. Unfortunately all of Chile is still on vacations, so he went too, and so we have not met with him for a little while, but we are hoping he will be back soon!

That is my week in a nut shell. The work goes on and there is no time to stop! Wish me luck and here I go to another week!

The ZOO!

Hey, so just to start out, we went to the Zoo today and it took pretty much all day, so I can't promise how long this letter will be because we don't have much time to write today, but here we go!

So, another week gone by, and to be honest this week was kind of hard. Everyone in Chile is on vacations for the summer, so that means basically everyone is out of town! So that makes it pretty hard. For example, our attendance in church dropped about 20 people in one week, so that's pretty rough, but I'm sure everyone in every mission experiences about the same. So we keep going.

Right now, we are living in a house that is composed of 2 rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom, and it's tiny.  It's pretty cramped, but we think we might be moving if the President approves it. So maybe, but we aren't sure yet.

We are teaching 3 kids.  They are crazy about the church, and they are progressing really fast! The only problem is they don't live with their parents, and so we aren't teaching their parents. And we have a rule in our mission that we have to wait 4 months to baptize anyone under 18 without their parents. Because there are a lot of kids that get baptized, come for a few months and then never come to church again. So we are waiting and working with them.

So the pictures are:

1 This is a picture with our bishop, and all the missionaries in our ward.

2 This is a picture of a family we had a Family Home Evening with, and they are super great! It was a fun time!

3 This is at the Zoo today! I got chased by an elephant............. I won!

This is all for this week! Like I said, I didn't have much time to write, but I'll email you next week!