April 14

This week was a little bit boring. Its starting to get so cold! We're like penguinos in the morning. We have little electric heaters to heat up our rooms but ours doesn't work very good at all. I heard it gets a lot colder and a lot wetter so I'm excited for that. I actually really like working in the cold. The food is also a lot better. We eat a ton of soup and a ton of sopipias or scones. The only bad thing is that they put catchup and mustard on the scones instead of honey butter. Its pretty gross but I'm getting used to it. I think I'm gaining some weight back. I weighed myself and I've gained 8 lbs back so I'm not the skinniest man alive any more.

This week we really focused on preparing Oscar for his baptism! I've never seen anyone so excited for their baptism. He was baptized on Saturday night by one of his good friends in the Ward. I've never seen so many people at a baptism before. We had about 50 people there and a lot of non members. I've never felt the spirit so strong in my like. We gave Oscar a surprise and had him share his testimony at the end. He gave a strong testimony and also his experience in the last few months. I'll tell you guys a little bit of what he said. He used to lie to his parents every week so that he could come to church. His mom eventually found out and wouldn't let him get baptized. He felt horrible about lying to his parents but but he loved going to church. I'm pretty sure his family is all against it but his mom finally let him make his own decision. He's now planning on serving a mission! It was an awesome experience. Also what I loved about it was the ward did everything! Just like President Hinckley said - the members find and the missionaries teach. I hope you guys are taking the challenge and inviting someone to church every three months! Love you guys!

April 21

Another cambio already flew by! They go by faster every time - it's crazy. I'll be staying here in Chillan again with my companion Elder Requena for another six weeks. I'm really excited to be staying here. Our ward is awesome and there is so much potential and I think we are going to see some awesome things this cambio.

Oscar, who we baptized two weeks ago just received the Priesthood and he's doing awesome! Also I think they're going to be giving him a calling soon. He's determined to serve a mission and he's doing everything he can to prepare. We also have a young investigator named Belen that has a lot of friends in the church. She's willing to listen and everything but the only problem is that she doesn't believe in God. We invited her to pray so we'll see how that goes this week. That was the good news of this week but there is also some bad news. The other Elders in my district have some really awesome investigators named Tita and joleni that were planning on getting baptized soon. They were a little hesitant on their decision to get baptized so as a District Leader I got to do an interview of support just to help them with any doubts they have. We had an awesome interview and I could tell she has a testimony of the gospel and the Book of Mormon. She was really excited to come to church the next day and also wanted to go to all the classes. She came to Sacrament meeting and loved it and then we went to the class. Usually there is a lot of people but not one person showed up. The teacher then showed up and said her husband is sick and she left. Tita thought that was really disrespectful and really unorganized so she got super angry, almost starting to yell at us and marched out the door. It all happened so fast and we had no idea what to do. We are going to try and save them this week so we'll see what happens. It would also be great if you could keep them in your prayers.

Dad I'm glad to hear that about my hamstring because I've been playing on it for a while now. Its definitely healed a lot and I don't really feel it anymore so I think it will be fine. We actually played soccer this morning and it felt great. We also ate scones with honey butter this morning for our zone activity and it was amazing.

Sounds like everything is pretty normal at home. I'm glad to hear that Ryan's knee is better. Max and Ryan you need to email me to tell me how baseball is going. Enjoy the warm weather its getting freezing here. Love everyone!!!

Conference!

This week went by really fast! Conference basically took up Friday and Saturday so it felt so short. I loved Conference!! My mind was just blown by all the amazing talks.I got to watch it in English so that was really nice. We had a room in the back with all the gringo missionaries and a ton of candy. That's awesome that Roberts grandpa talked, I didn't even put that together. 

Our Investigator Oscar is still doing awesome! He came with us to 3 sessions of Conference and he loved it! He's really excited for his baptism on Saturday. We still have to teach him the commandments but he is definitely ready. Last week we set a goal in our District to have six investigators in Conference and we were able to bring six! My district is doing awesome and we are seeing awesome progress in our sector. To answer your question Dad we do a lot of contacts! Elder Ballard made us a promise that if each missionary does 10 contacts in the street every day there will be a huge growth in baptisms in our mission. 10 doesn't sound like very much but they also made it a rule that knocking door contacts don't count anymore. I think they're trying to eliminate knocking doors from missionary work. We now talk to literally almost every single person that we walk past in the street.

I guess you guys heard about the earthquake. It was super far away but we heard a lot about it. We actually got a call on Friday night that we had to be in our house because the earthquake was going to hit us at 11! My companion is from Santiago and experienced the huge earthquake about 5 years ago. He is now terrified to death of earthquakes and it was hilarious to see his face. We waited until 11 and all the sudden, our power went out and everyone went crazy. Our power than came back on and it had nothing to do with the earthquake and nothing ever happened. 

Sorry I haven't sent pictures for a while. I don't have much time but I'll send a bunch next time. Love everyone!

March 31

Como estan!

This week went a little slow but it was really good. It started out nice and warm and then all the sudden we got destroyed with rain. It poured the entire day on Saturday. My big Mr. mac jacket was water proof for about an hour and then its a sponge. We got soaked but I actually love the rain. It's so much better than baking in the sun. Ever since the rain it has just been freezing cold and our house is just an ice box.

This week we found some awesome investigators! As we were sitting in church on Sunday, a lady from the other ward pulled me and my companion out of class and introduced us to a kid named Oscar. She told us he's ready to be baptized but he just needs to be taught. We set up a baptism date right there and then taught him later that afternoon. He's in our ward but he's been participating in the other ward for the last two months. It was so awesome because the members did all the work! They invited him to church, helped him make friends, and now he's more than ready to be baptized. He's 17 and wants to go on a mission so I'm super exited to teach him. I did a baptism interview with a little nine year old kid in our ward named Benjamin. He's just like Jaxson but ten times worse. You cant even imagine how horrible the interview was. He was jumping all over the place and literally screaming as loud as he could the whole time. It was horrible but I was really surprised how he understood everything and answered the questions while screaming so he passed. At his baptism he jumped in the font and started swimming before they opened the curtains. It was hilarious.

I finally got my package with my pants! It probably wasn't the best idea to put packets of peanut butter in there. They kind of broke and got all over my pants but it all came out so its alright. 

I hope you guys are preparing for conference! I'm seriously so excited. I'm glad I'll be able to understand it this time because I didn't get a word out of it last time. Love you guys!

March 24
We had a good week this week. Things are definitely getting better. We know the sector and the members really good now. We're getting a lot more help and References. We visited a Reference last night. Her name is Daisy, she lives alone and has a lot of family in the Church. She's a really good investigator and I think she's really going to progress. We had another really good investigator this week that accepted baptism and to go to church on Sunday! Turns our she didn't make it to church on Sunday. We called her after and she actually came, but never entered and walked home and then told us she doesn't want us to come anymore! I don't know what happened but it was probably the most disappointing thing in the world. I also gave a talk on Missionary work. It went really good. My Spanish has improved a lot with my Chilean companion. I'm also learning a lot of Chilean words and phrases. Some members actually got mad because of all the slang he uses. We had to tell him to stop so hopefully I don't use any of that stuff.

We had a zone activity today. We played soccer and volleyball. I'm now a master goalie. They don't really like my playing other positions. My leg feels alright. Still bugs me but its getting better. I also met one of Spencer and Taylor Dunn's friends. I just forgot his name but I guess he was in one of Spencer's classes so that was cool. I finally got one of my packages! I love the children book of Mormon its amazing. That's about it this week! Sorry its so short but love you guys!