Hello hello -
I hope everything is going well for you all. Everything is well here. We didn't do anything today. We were going to go to Concepcion to get my companions ID, but when we called the zone leaders to get permission they said they would need to call the assistants and then call us back, but they still haven't called us... no big deal, I didn't want to go there today anyway. At 4pm we are going to play baseball with some guys. Some kids in the street always ask us when we're going to play soccer with them. We can't play soccer, plus it just wouldn't be the smartest thing to do as missionaries. Anywho, one day I said joking, "I don't play soccer I play baseball" and they said, "OK lets go play." They don't even know what baseball is I don't think. That was last Wednesday. We told them we would play Monday, preparation day, but we still didn't think we would. This last week we had interviews with the president and my companion asked him if we could. He said yes... I was surprised because I wasn't going to even play, but when my companion asked him I said, "OK if you want to play, lets play." We were walking yesterday and all of a sudden three kids came out of a house and said, "We are playing tomorrow, right?" We told them yes....we´ll see how it goes.
We had some cool things happen this week but I didn't write them down so I can't remember what they were... (plus I haven't written in my journal for about 5 weeks!) We are finding a lot of good people and so we have to be good about remembering them all and passing by all of their homes to find out who is going to progress. Yesterday we searched forever for an address. When we finally found it they let us in and we taught the dad. His name is Sergio. We found out his son is 15 and was baptized about a year ago in Santiago (speaking of Santiago I hope he is doing OK... we haven't passed by in about 4 weeks) They moved here to Chillan and his son hasn't attended at all here. He told us how he was about to be baptized, but he couldn't stop smoking. We taught him about repentance, remission of sins, and the Holy Ghost. I thought I was being kind of bold when I pulled out a calender and said OK lets make a plan right now. How many are you going to smoke tomorrow? I thought he would say a number and we would work on it until it was down to zero by the end of the week. He just said none. I'm just going to stop doing it. The spirit was strong and I know that's why he said that, but I sure hope he can do it. He wants to get baptized on February 7th. We´ll see what happens. I know he can do it. He knows he needs to stop smoking, not because its a rule for the church, rather because it's a commandment from God.
Yesterday we just had sacrament meeting because they had elections for the president. Chile is socialist country. Everyone loved the socialist candidate that was running, however the the republican won! CCHHEEHOO... The attendance at church went from about 145 to 110 yesterday because of the elections. Here in Chile if you register to vote you HAVE to vote. Because of that, many people don't register.
We have found some good people... we have a family that I love...Walter, Alejandra and Camila. We tried to do a family night activity with them yesterday but the sister of the wife had a problem with her husband and the husband of Alejandra was still working so they couldn't come... we still did a home evening with The families Alarcon, Carrasco, and two people we reactivated. We talked about prophets. We are so lucky to have a prophet. We are the only people in the world that have prophets and we are so lucky for that.
We also found this other girl that moved from Santiago about 2 weeks ago. She was being taught by the missionaries there, but she had to leave...she had to leave so fast she didn't even say goodbye, they didn't know where she moved to...we found her. Her name is Marisol.
Everything is going good. I got a letter from the Ashbys and the Elzeys this last week. I love letters more than anything. The Elzeys cards were AWESOME. I was telling you guys a couple weeks ago how much I love them, Rob and Lee Ann... they are so awesome. And Caleb... what?!? Caleb is big... I saw a picture of him and Jessica and I thought ‘Oh, Jessica has a boyfriend’, but no no no it was Caleb!!! That was shocking....
I hope all is well for you all... love you
