A dog?

So frequently I check my phone and computer a 100 times a day on Wednesdays......waiting for my son to be on the computer.  Sometimes I am able to ask him some questions or see if a package I sent got to him, or to tell him to send MORE PICTURES!  That is what I did this week, as I hadn't really gotten pictures the last 2 weeks!

Here is what I got!  WARNING!  It might make you sad!

He says there is not a lot of stuff to take pictures of and he doesn't like to take his camera when they are out tracting as he doesn't want it to get stolen.  But he does have his camera to take this picture.....

Sadly, this poor dog is dead, just laying on the sidewalk.

Marisa did say it is kind of an artsy photo!

His letter is below!

There have been a few tremors over the past week, but they've been so small that I haven't felt anything. It has been nice though, because the next day it's always cloudy which means the temperature is incredible. Like yesterday, when I could wear a sweater! It was incredible! Haha it felt so nice. The sun is just getting to everyone.

Vacations finally ended!!!!!! A lot of people went back to school today and a few will go tomorrow or next week or something. The point is... WE'LL HAVE PEOPLE TO TEACH! We are soo happy! All of our progressing investigators are either home or coming home!

This week we found out just how important a bishop and ward members are here in missionary work. On sunday, we were talking to our bishop to try and find out if there were any familys where not all the people have gotten baptized where we could teach their less active family members along with those who didn't get baptized. Well, on monday we went to the house of one of the families that he gave us, and we got to go in and teach them! It was great! We're going back on friday, so we'll see how it goes! They seemed really receptive, so we're really excited!

Anyway, the pictures I've got this week. This first one is all the missionaries in our stake. There are 24 of us, so there are a lot of us. 

The second one is of the muffins I made that mom sent me for Christmas. THANKS MOM!

And no one is really sure why this painting is in our house. But it is. Pandas.

We're here again.... A finding stage. We have a lot of people that are progressing, but everyone went out of town. So we haven't had anyone to teach, so we've been contacting a lot lately. We felt like we had been doing it wrong, so we decided to really get studied up on it and decided to just try and change the way we've done contacts, and it's worked out pretty well. We have a lot of people who sounded interested, but we'll see what happens. We've had a lot of appointments and they've almost all fallen. So we'll see how the next little while goes.

In other news we had a pretty cool experience this last week. One day we were contacting in a small street we've never been to before. We called at the door of one house, and this little sweet blind lady came out. She was sooooo happy we were at her house! We found out that she was baptized a little while ago outside of the city, but when she moved there she didn't have anyone to take her to church because her son was too lazy. So she was so happy to hear from someone in the church and is hoping to go next week. Her name is Marcela and we're hoping this next Sunday that we can get her to church.

Then today, we went to eat lunch with a family in Elder Virga's last ward. It was really cool! They were baptized a little while ago, and they've been firm ever since. The Campo Salas family. It was really cool to see how far they have come from the stories that my comp told me. They are a really good family and it was really cool to go and get to know them. Elder Virga's trainer was Elder Shultz, and he came to Chile with me. He was actually in my first zone and we did divisions one day when we were both new if anyone remembers that. But we got to talking about how fast the time has gone by, and it has flown! 

It's been nuts!

No pictures this week...the computer has been giving Braden problems quite a bit.  So much so that he is saying he is missing home where everything works well!!!

It's hot!

IT'S HOT HERE!!!! It is so hot, and then even telling us about snow at home makes it even hotter here hahaha. Even President and Sister Cook told us about how much snow there is up there, and it makes me miss the snow. It gets to be between 89 to 95 degrees here, but the sun just is a killer. Luckily we have sunscreen because if we didn't the sun would kill us. It's actually cooler to wear a long sleeve shirt and get protection from the sun than it is to wear a short sleeve haha. But we've only got 2 months or so left of heat.

But luckily as our heat starts to die down, so will vacations. Vacations haven't been soo bad as last year, but they still stink. They are dying down, but still. We have 3 investigators that are progressing a lot! They are reading the Book of Mormon, one is even coming to church consistently, and they are all taking it really seriously. The only problem is, 2 of them are on vacation for another 2 weeks or so haha. So we haven't been teaching much, so there's been a lot of contacts. But that's okay because we have been getting some good future investigators.

Me and my comp have been really trying to improve our teaching skills. That's helped me learn how simple the lessons really are. The Gospel is simple, we just need to understand and explain it as simple as it is, and anyone can explain it. We actually thought of a new way to teach the Plan of Salvation being as simple as possible, and it really helped one of our progressing investigators, Carmen. She is just looking for peace of mind in her life, and when we taught the Plan of Salvation she felt really good about it because she said that it helped her know where we will be going after this life. That's one f the reasons I love the gospel, it give us peace and happiness. 

Well anyway that's that. Here's something funny that we found while contacting. Yes that is a cactus growing out of a Washing Machine Drum.

And the other picture I love. I took of picture of a picture someone had. I love the image because of how happy Christ looks while he is with the children. I love it!

Well the close of a new week brings an uneventful letter, but nothing really happened. We've been doing a Lot of contacts and it seems like it's not working. We haven't had much luck, but here we are. Not much has been going on with me or with the sector, so I apologize beforehand if this is a little short. But here we go.

We have been in a huge finding phase. Trying to find new people because a lot of the people we were working with have lost interest or stopped progressing. So we've been doing a lot of contacts. And it hasn't gone too well. We haven't been having much success. We've come to find out that a lot of people are closed minded about things that have to do with religion. It's funny because if we start a normal conversation and talk about anything but religion, we're fine. The people talk to us a lot, but one we start talking about it, nothing. So it's hard for us to cross that border and get people interested, but we're trying.

This Sunday was really cool! President Cook swang by our ward unit to say hi and see how the ward was progressing. So that was cool to see him there. And Oscar Pezoa from my last ward came to see me! It was really awesome to see him because he's been doing really well since I left and hasn't stopped going to church! And he came in a suit hahahah! Here's a picture!

And here are the others from the week. Which is really only one. This is how a lot of people work in the street market. They have horse and buggies to get them there and back!