Heyyyyy,
I’m sure you are all way excited for this week, I’m surprised how fast December has flown by and that we’re already at Christmas! There’s not too much excitement here in Chile about this date, no decorations, no music, and obviously no snow haha, but I don’t feel bad, cuz we don’t have time to feel bad here cuz we work so much. We had a good week this week, working hard and traveling all over the place for exchanges and interviews with the president. My District’s doing really well seeing as we all baptized yesterday and more than half the baptisms in the zone are from our District. We’re happy with our work, but are a bit frustrated as a zone about why we’re not baptizing more, cuz we can do better. We have so many people that are progressing, but just need to take that final step forward and accept baptism as the gate to the Celestial Kingdom.
I honestly love love love those letters! Coolest Christmas idea ever cuz I feel like it’s Christmas morning knowing that I get to open another one. I really love our family, all you guys are awesome, we’re the coolest family in the world! Tell Adam, David 2, Jake, Jeff, Brent, and Keith a big thank you for their awesome testimonies and stories. I still haven’t opened the one for today, so I have that to look forward to when I get home. I’m going to keep all those letters for life cuz they really are such treasures! fun stuff.
About calling on Saturday, Christmas day, I’m going to call you guys on Skype at 12:00pm our time, so I think that’s 9:00am where you guys are at. I honestly don’t know how to use Skype, but Elder Balkman and his family do, so if you guys have any questions you can get in contact with his family. If it doesn’t work I’ll email you the phone number of the family’s home. Super excited to talk to you guys!!!! p.s. I emailed Corley to see how he was doin, and he says he’s going to be home the day after Christmas! cool stuff.
Sorry to hear about your finger daddio, but it’s okay cuz it’ll be perfect for cheering on the Cougs, who dominated on Saturday!!!! We have some good years comin up of football yea yea yea!!
This week we were hoping for two baptisms, Luis and Nicolas, but we ended up with one, but that’s one alma on the path to salvation. Luis was and still is so pumped for his baptisms, but is struggling big time quitting smoking. He has a firm testimony, so he just needs to stop and he’ll immediately be a strength for the ward here, which is very lacking in Priesthood. We´re planning on 2 or 3 baptisms this week, Luis, Manuel, and maybe Angela. Nicolas´ baptism was awesome, but kinda unorganized, but still it was an awesome experience for all of us to see him take this step. We love this family a ton, and Elder Balkman had the awesome experience of being able to baptize him, his first baptism of the mission! It’s definitely gratifying to see fruits of our work, cuz we’ve worked so hard and we’re going to have even more success in the future, but we’re a bit bummed seeing we only have 3 more weeks together. Time to work even harder I guess.
With Luis we were able to have a very spiritual experience. On Saturday we went over to see how he was doing for his baptism the next day, and he told us he had smoked. We were sooooo bummed and he worried us cuz he acted like it was no big deal. I think he was just embarrassed and tried to play it off. We talked and he didn’t really understand why it was such a big deal and why he couldn’t get baptized. When we explained it, he understood, and it gave him even more resolve to quit. At the end i asked him if we could pray together and make a covenant right then and there that we’re going to work together and that God could bless Luis to stop smoking. Luis wanted me to say the prayer, but we told him that we felt that he needed to do it. As he prayed we all felt the spirit way powerfully, I felt like my hair was standing on end, it was electric. He needs all the help you guys can give him through your prayers, he’s great. Manuel is a 20 year old kid that we met through the Oyarces, especially with Kiara´s help. He received his answer that this church is true through reading the testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and told us that night he was tossing and turning all night thinking about it. He prayed and said he felt his heart burn, and since then has accepted everything we’ve taught him and is excited for his baptism this Sunday! Angela has attended twice with us and is really great. She’s studying to be an English teacher and is going to Boston to live there in November. She’s really been doing her part and is progressing nicely, but is a young girl that like the rest of the world doesn’t know if she wants to give up the parties and all that comes with it. We’re really excited about the future, and even if we don’t baptize all these people, we feel satisfied that we’ve done everything we could for them, and now they need to search for the spirit and have the faith to follow it.
I’m looking way forward to Saturday, I know that Elder Balkman is way excited to talk to his fam, being his first opportunity to do so, for me it’s going to be way fun as well. I love you all and look forward to hearing all that you guys do this week, and the goodies Santa brought this year!!! Merry Christmas!
Elder Tanner