October 10, 2008

I really like all the photos that you sent. I thought the ones of sammy and her faces were pretty funny. She is starting to look so much older to me. The pond looks pretty good too. Is it done? The pinewood derby looked pretty cool too...who won? Im glad that you had a good birthday. It looked like it was a good day to go golfing. I was surprised to hear how hot it is there right now. I though it would have dropped a lot. Its perfect weather here right now. Im glad to be back in the short sleeve shirt...plus my tan line is pretty bad. Yesterday we were in the apartment of other elders and he told me that I had the worst collar line that he had ever seen. Its pretty embarassing when we go and do service and we are wearing normal clothes. Sometimes the argentines give us a hard time about it, especially the teenagers. Thats sweet that you bought out Bro Woods. I hope that the boat is still there when I get back. Some of the new investigators are still doing good. We have lost a couple to, excuses. Well its always hard to loose some. But we have some good ones still. So we have a baptism planned for the 1st of november. We are really working hard to get this too. Right now we are for sure having 1 on the 1st, but Im hoping that we will have 5 baptisms on the 1st. Well the other day while we were teaching a lesson in a mans back yard this lady climbed up on the fence and started saying that we were from the devil. This was in the middle of the lesson! She said look in their faces you can tell they are not from God, then she said that we would not be able to trap her neighbor, then she cast us "out" in the name of Jesus. It was horrible. We almost got really mad at her during the lesson but I stoped my comp. and then just began to testify to her. After ranting for about 4min she stopped and went off in her own yard chanting halleluya. It was so bad! The man we were teaching just shook his head at her and told us sorry. Havent seen her since, but we are definately going back to the investigators house. One weak lady like that cant even shake something that is built upon a "Rock."

September 30, 2008

Well guess what, Im still here in Chacabuco and my companion and I are really excited for this transfer. We recieved a few councils from the President on how to help our area. We put them to use yesterday, and found 9 new investigators in 1 day! It was so sweet and we are both really excited. Lots of miracles were seen. We recieved a reference from the missionaries in a different city. The reference lived so far out, about a 45 min. walk, but we went anyways. After finally finding the house we rang the door bell and this lady came out. She said that she was the sister of the reference and that her sister was sick in bed. We said we would come back in the week when she was feeling better and she said that she would tell her sister that we came by. Well as we were walking away from the house we started to turn the street corner and heard ¨wait.¨ It was the lady waiving to us and we came back. She said that her sister was getting out of bed and wanted to tack to us. We went back and taught a great lesson with both of the sisters. They both want to come to general conference this week. Its in another city but they have a car, so we are really excited. Then this other guy stopped us in the street and said that he had listened to the missionaries a long time ago and reads the Book of Mormon every day. Then he told us that he wanted an american flag. It was kinda wierd, but I told him I actually have one in the apartment. Well we went to his house last night with the flag. His whole family wants to get baptized and all know that the church is true. He asked me how much I wanted for the flag and I said that I wanted an asado...barbecue. So we are going to have a bbq friday night with his family. Pretty good trade! Well we are excited once again and know that the Lord is blessing us a ton. I hope that Ben is doing a lot better. I guess we just have to see the Law part of it all. The baptismal interview went great. It was a girl that is 15 and her sister that is 10. They were both a little nervous and excited. I started it sort of fun with them to let them feel comfortable with me. They got baptized sat. night I heard. The pinewood derby sounds sweet. Im sure that someone will do something retarded buy cool. I wish the we would have done that. Well have a good week. Love you.

September 23rd, 2008

I'm still here in Chacabuco because this is the last week of the transfer. We have interviews tomorrow with President Benton, and transfers end on Sunday so Im not sure yet. I think I will be staying though but am not sure. Well Im a little bumbed because the baptisms we had planned fell through. My district leader helped me realize that even with all our effort, people still have their own free agency. Then he told me about transfers during his mission where they worked so hard and still didnt baptize anyone. Oh well the work goes forward and yesterday we found 4 new investigators that are really good. Well I saw one guy this week that saw the fight. He told me that the guy I fought was his uncle and that he just got out of prison...5 years. He told me that he fought everyday in prison for 5 years straight...he was still weak weak anyways. Nothing other than that though has happend. When my leaders call me to get the numbers for the week they always ask me for the number of fights too. Im doing good though. Elder Alvarez too. We are going out with a member tonight to do visits, he is 20 yr old and is preparing for his mission so it should be cool. Well sounds like you guys have just had a crazy week. Ive been waiting all week to hear what all happend. After all that I hope that Ben is alright. So what are the police going to do? Obviously he got a ticket or something, and without a title on the car or anything? So whats happening with that part of it all? I was glad to hear of all the support he had though from all the friends and family friends. Thats cool that Wikoli passed his eagle board of review, just in the nick of time too. Im glad to hear that. Well dad Im doing good and am growing a ton. Friday Im going to Junin, about an hour away, to do a baptismal interview. Since we are in the country, the zone leaders are not able to come out and do it, so they asked me to do it. Im really excited for it too. There are a couple things that I have to study/memorize. Dad I know that this work is the work of the Lord, he has his own ways, and loves to bless us. Love you.

September 16th, 2008

Well this was a very crazy week. On Thursday we had a Family home evening set up with this missionaries family, and with his nonmember girlfriend. He recently left from here to go serve in Bolivia...so she obviously has interest in the church. Well in route to the family home evening, my companion and I were walking on one of the main streets in Chacabuco. While we were walking, I saw a man (about 30yr, 6´2, 200) arguing with his girlfriend while they were riding their bikes. I told my companion to "watch this" and right then the man through a bag of food he was carrying right at his girlfriend. We crossed the street quickly to get a better look of what was going to happen. While we were crossing the street the man jumped off his bike and pushed his girlfriend off her bike. Then he started to punch her in the face and she fell to the street. (Thats when my tie came off) I threw my books and tie down in the street and ran at the man. He was still hitting his girlfriend when I got to him and then we started going at it. I hit him a few times and he hit me a few times, but luckily none of his connected. I gave him a low leg kick after that and then tried to pull his girlfriend away from him. She wouldnt let me and kept trying to argue with him. Well he came back at me and we went at it again. Then he backed off and cussed at me and then spit at me. (The whole time I had a huge smile on my face) and I think he realized that he wasnt doing anything to me. So he took off on his bike and we had someone give us their cell phone so we could call the police. I tried to comfort the women a little bit and she told me thank you. I walked back over to my books and tie, which my companion was guarding the whole time because someone was trying to take them. I put my tie back on casually and we walked off. There were like 50 people watching and no one jumped in to do anything. Well we walked off to our appointment and the police stopped us in the street. They wrote down my name and saw that I was from the United States. They told me thankyou and said that I did the right thing. IT WAS BY FAR THE BEST THING THAT HAS HAPPEND!!! HAHAHA. I never thought that I would have the "priviledge" of doing that in the mission. Well after that the family home evening went really well. Dana the girlfriend of the missionary wants to get baptized, so hopefully the offices wont transfer me out for what happend. I called the offices that night and they said I did the right thing, but to try and not get into things like that, for the image. Well a few people stopped us last week in the street and asked if it was us who protected that lady. We said yes and they said, wow what a boxer you are. Hhahaha. Then one lady told me that I almost killed the guy. " Casi lo mataste" What a week. Then in Church we didnt have 1 of our investigators there. We were so disappointed and were wondering why no one had come. Then we found out why. At the end of sacrament meeting, Pres. Falcon allowed Marcelo, the crazy guy, to come up to the pulpit and ask forgiveness. Well he got up there and said some of the worst things you could say in Sacrament meeting. It was terrible and all the members were like what the? So I feel that God didnt allow any of the investigators in the church, because if they had heard what he said they wouldnt come back. The Lord has his own ways. Well Pres. Falcon felt really bad for letting him up there during the sacrament meeting, we all know that Marcelo is still crazy. Well that is what happend this week. We are doing really good and searching for new people and trying to protect the innocent...hahah. Love you dad.