What a good week...
I'm not really sure where to start. I think I’ll start by saying I love you a lot, Mom. I was thinking about you this morning when I was washing some dishes. You’re just pretty awesome and I love you.
So, for a long time we have been trying to get permission to get into Dichato because the military took control of it and wasn’t letting anyone in. Last Sunday night Elder Keller and I were talking to a Carabinero(it’s like the police force) and to make a long story really short, we got permission for the church to enter Dichato. Right then I called stake president and told him that we were now able to go. So Monday we went - Elder Keller and I, the Dichato missionaries and a bunch of members from here. We worked on cleaning the church. That place was a wreck. The water had hit and entered in to about chest high three different times. It blasted through the two, big front doors and filled up the church with mud and fish. However in the chapel it only entered about 4 inches... there was still a lot of mud. We ended up taking out all of the carpet and just stripping the church.
On Tuesday everyone went back and worked but we couldn’t because we had interviews with the president. Wednesday no one went to Dichato because we were basically waiting for the chapel to dry. Thursday we went back out there and finished everything up basically.
Now you have to know that on Tuesday President Navarro from the stake presidency told me to inform everyone that we would be having stake conference. We were telling everyone stake conference, time and place... however on Friday he called me and said, ¨We can’t have stake conference because the area presidency didn’t approve it, plus Elder Amado (the area president) wants to go visit the Dichato ward. So we had to go tell everyone again that we were wrong and the time and place were different now.
Now Dichato doesn’t have anything, so they were going to need to borrow our sacrament trays. Church starts at ten for both of us, but they have sacrament at 10, we have it at 12, so they were just going to send the sacrament trays with someone. So... Sunday came :) we went to church at ten, Dichato was in their church. It was a great day of church so far. I hadn’t ever seen so many people in Sunday School, and the teacher was on her GAME. She was nailin’ it. Talked about Joseph - you guys probably did too. 12 o’clock rolls around and it’s time to start Sacrament Meeting. We are outside waiting for some investigators when, all of the sudden, I see Elder Amado pull in. I tell my companion and we are just kind of giddy happy. The congregation was singing prelude, everyone was in the chapel. We walked in the front door and he walked in the back - there is only one hallway in the church so we were just walking toward each other - He says, “Elders, you’re looking good today” with a big smile on his face, he gives us hugs and I asked him how it went in Dichato... he said, “Great, just great, now let’s go to work.” or something like that and we entered the chapel. He went and sat up front.
Then we go and work for the rest of the day. Night time rolls around and it is pretty dark... we are actually teaching a lesson when the power goes off. At that time it still wasn’t too dark, but the sun was already down. We are walking up the hill when we meet up with the elders from Dichato. It’s about 9:00 and it’s dark. We find out the power is out from the 2nd region and below... almost all of Chile...total blackout.
I love being here. I love this work. I do not want to be in any other place.
Love, your son,
Elder Pitcher
