SNOW!

I'm glad there is finally snow, but I hope you guys aren't tooooo swamped.... I MISS THE SNOW! WHA hahaha.

Well changes were this past week. Nothing too crazy happened, only changes. These changes were really sad because there weren't that many in the zone, but those that there were were really good friends of mine. Elder Virga and I are still together. So that's really awesome! But Elder Stokes from our ward left and went to another zone so that's sad. But that's how the mission is.

Yeah so like I said, nothing too crazy happened this week. We have had to stop passing and teaching a lot of people that we used to have because they stopped progressing. So we've been having a lot of contacts! A lot! We have talked to a lot of people! It's so nuts because there are always just people, and we'll never talk to them all, but they all know who we are enough to say no. The contacts aren't going too well, we haven't really found anyone new, but we're still trying.

Since nothing happened I'll just share a few thoughts. This week I was asked by the bishop to speak in church about faith. I liked preparing for it because I was able to learn a lot! It was interesting to find out how closely related faith is to action. In James 2 we read that "Faith without works is dead in itself." Which is an interesting point because we can't say that we have faith unless we try to live our lives in accordance to what Christ taught while he was here on earth. So how do we demonstrate our faith? We 1) Pray 2) Read the scriptures and 3) go to church to learn of Christ and God to try to more fully live their commandments.

Just the few thoughts that I had. So Everyone, do those 3 simple things with real intent and Heavenly Father will bless you, I promise!

Well for pictures. It was my comp's trainer's birthday today so we went to Wendy's downtown, but Wendy's was closed, so we went to Denny's and it was sooooo good!

And I ran out of time, so I couldn't send anymore pics. I'll send them next week!

Attachments area

General

It's P Day, and there isn't too much excitement. We were supposed to have an asado, but that's still kind of up in the air. We might have it when more in the afternoon, but we're not really sure. 

Well, this week has been kind of interesting. Especially Saturday and Sunday. 

Saturday all the missionaries in the Zone went to the stake center and met with a bunch of members over there. The point was to take our leaders out to do just contacts so that they could see what it was really like to be a missionary. Well, we got there and only had two guys from our ward, so the other companionship took them to go do contacts. Elder Virga and I recruited 3 young men to go with us. So I took a 16 and a 14 year old to go do contacts. It was kind of funny because they were so shy to talk to people. So I did all the contacts. The best was when we talked to this one guy, I walked away because we finished, and the 16 year old just handed him a 

Book of Mormon and walked away hahaha. 

He didn't say anything to him hahaha. So I showed them how to do it so that the other person understood what they were getting.

Then on Sunday, we had our Capilla Abierta (Open Chapel or Open House) which is a program that was started in Argentina where the church is open from 5 to 9 at night and lets people walk in a get to know what we teach and what we do in the church. It was really fun! I got to participate, but mostly I was outside trying to contact people and bring them into the church so that they could see and learn. We got a lot of references to go see people in their homes and teach them more about what they saw there. So it was really cool!

So, the pictures. I've got two. The first is a HUUUGE spider we found in the house behind the couch. It was nuts.

The second is a picture of my bag. You can tell which shoulder my bag is always on haha.

Hey Guys! 

I hope everyone is doing well, 

and all is going good with this new year!

This last week has been pretty great! I am still loving this new ward! Actually it was really awesome this past week because on Thursday we were contacting and found this really young mom who went to an Open House at our chapel and had talked to missionaries from the other ward and was super excited to hear from us! The reference just hadn't gotten to us, so we just found her while knocking on doors. It was really cool! Her name is Faviola and she is really awesome!

We saw that it is really cool how the Spirit works. This week it was really cool because we had two different people tell us that they had called us on their "Mind Telephones" so that we came to their house, really hoping that we would show up and help them with their problems. The funny thing is, we had already planned to go over there the night before. So it really was cool to see how the Spirit told us to over to their houses the day before, and we showed up and the same time.

And then today we went to the Temple for P Day and that was really awesome! There is so much peace there and I really enjoyed going back, it had been a while since I had been. Too long actually.

But here we go, I have good pictures this week.

This is a picture of me and my comp New Year's Eve. Those are some stylish glasses.

The next one is a GREAT Big Mac meal from McDonald's I had today. 

It was really good.

And the last one is a pic of Me and Elder Virga in front of the temple today.

Happy New Year!

Well hello. Feliz Año Nuevo! That's right, it's time for a new year! 2015 is at the doorstep and it's crazy to think how fast 2014 has passed. It seems just like yesterday that I was with my trainer (who is now home in Brazil) were hanging out alone for the New Years of 2014. CRAZY!

Well Christmas here went really well! It was really awesome! I don't remember how much I told you last week, but we went to an elderly man's house to eat dinner with him and his daughter. It was really fun, because he is the man! His name is Hermano Sepulveda and he is so cool! He has basically read everything there is to know about anything, so it was fun having awesome conversations about just cool stuff about the Gospel. Great guy and we really enjoyed Christmas, especially because we got to Skype home with the Family! That was the greatest, and the hour passed even faster than Mother's Day, so that wasn't good. But it was great being able to see everyone and see that you are all okay!

After Skyping home, we went to an Evangelical church we did service at and attended one of their meetings. It was cool to see how they worshiped and I learned a few things. Overall it was great to meet new people and stuff!

Then on Friday I went on divisions to my first ward, Poeta Neruda, and it was really cool to walk the streets and stuff again. Nobody remembered me because I was only there for 3 months, but they remembered me as the greenie who didn't talk with Elder Bezerra. But I had to tell them first.

Anyway, that was my week. Tonight we have to go into the house at 9, and we can't leave until tomorrow. We actually got our P Day changed to tomorrow, and we only have time to write and buy our food for the week today, and so after this we have to work.

Alright so the first one is our Christmas tree there in the house.

The second one is really funny. We have 3 dogs in our little street that all the neighbors feed and stuff. But they are really friendly and stuff. We left our gate open for 3 minutes and this big guy decided to nap in our front walkway haha.

And the last is the family during Skype! Awwwww, how cute!

Merry Christmas!

Well, here's Christmas. I can't believe that it just snuck right up on us! That came so quick! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!

We are super excited here for Christmas! It has been great because it seems like everyone is more happy, which also means that they are more receptive! So that's great! We have been having a great time this week! We have found a lot of new people and eveyone that we have are progressing really well! 

There's not many stories to tell this week, other thn the fact that we've been tearing it up! We have been doing so well together! I love working with Elder Virga, he's awesome! We work so well together and we are having a blast here in the sector. There is so much work to do!

Anyway, to answer a question I think everyone has, How is Christmas in Chile? Well it's very different than in the states. It isn't as big of a deal, people just usually spend it with their family. But it is different how they do it. They call Santa Claus "El Viajito Pascuero" which basically means "the Old Guy of the Passover." I don't know where they got that from. But here, El Viajito Pascuero comes at midnight Christmas Eve (so today), so all the kids leave the house to watch fireworks at 12 at night and then when they get back in, the Viajito Pascuero had passed, so that's when they open up presents!

(This was a long email so I'll send you another with pictures)

So the first picture is the Meza Family. They were great and I worked with them the whole time I was in Covarrubias. I'll miss them a lot.

The second one is in the Subway this morning. The whole zone went to sing Christmas hymns in the subway this morning. Super fun!

And then the last one is me and Purnell with the Pezoa family. They were great! 

Changes!

Well, I got changed. I finally left my ward. I went back to my first zone, La Bandera, and I am just in a different ward. My new ward is called Pedro Aguirre Cerda! My new comp is Elder Virga from Arizona, and he is a great guy. His trainer was an elder who has my same time, so I'm still senior comp, but I don't know anything about the sector, so this will be fun!

It was sad to leave Covarrubias, I had come to love the members so much. They were all just such great friends of mine. I didn't even get to say all of the goodbyes that I had wanted to. That ward will always hold a special part in my heart, as long as all the individuals who helped me out in my time being there. But, now I'm out.

I don't know too much about my new ward, but I'm really excited to be in a new sector. I hope it doesn't take me too much time to get used to it, even though it will be hard. I don't know much about the ward, so there isn't much to tell about it.

Well that's about it this week. I spent most of the time this week saying goodbye to everyone. It was hard because I had been there for so long.

But anyway, here's the pictures.

The first one is our house "Christmas Celebration" with hot chocolate and sugar cookies.

 The second is a picture of Nicole and her son. She was a less active member but was reactivated. She was a great friend of mine.

The third is a picture of our room while Elder Diaz and I were living in the house of 6.

Have a great week!

Well here we are in the ciber a little bit early this week. This Saturday we have a Mission Christmas party at the Mission office, so today we only have from 10:30 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon to have P day, so this morning we baught our food for the day, hung around the house for a bit and now here we are writing. So it's going to be kind of rough getting to Saturday without a full P Day, but it'll be worth it!

We had a good week this past week. Things have been going well in the new house, and the ward has been looking up for the last little bit. One problem is that the Summer Vacations are coming soon, which means that soon everyone will be going out of town, so things will probably start slowing down in a little bit. But this week was pretty successful. We were able to find a few people who seem interested in listening to the Gospel, so that's exciting!

On sunday we were able to watch the First President Christmas Devotional! That was great to see! It was really good this year, and the best thing about it was that we brought a few less active members to see it and they loved it! It brought a great spirit!

This week, I'm on schedule to finishing the Book of Mormon again, so I'm getting really close. I am in Ether right now. The Book of Mormon has become a big part of my life and a bit part of my faith in Christ. I've felt the changes in my life as well as the blessings that come from reading it and living by it's priciples.

Well, this picture that I've got is my favorite part of the house we're at! It has a Massive Manchester City rug!

And, this week I have a surprise, thanks to a guy in our ward. This is a bunch of Christmas pictures that our District took! I hope you enjoy them!