Hey fam,

Sounds like back home has been a bit crazy this last week. Super happy to hear that the family´s back together (besides me and Tyler!!) that Adam got home okay, adn that grandpa and grandma had a good reunion and that Vernal is alive again!
I´m soooo glad that i´m done with those rainy night, racoon, little kids crying campouts hahaha i´m sure you guys had fun. Hopefully i never get called as a scout leader!
This last week was a really good and fun one. We had a conference in Talca on Thursday and so it was a shorter week for working, but we still had one of our best weeks for finding new investigators. We found some families that are just awesome and we´re sooo excited about. First off Jean Marcos got confirmed and our zone ended up with 17 baptisms and confirmations!!! For the 2nd time in three months we lead the mission, not that that´s what it´s about but it´s still awesome and fun to see the success we´re having. The entire zone baptized, every sector had success, so we were really really happy for our missionaries. This month looks to be a bit of a downer cuz we don´t have very many possibilites for baptism as a zone, but we´re goin to work hard to be more constant. This is the last week of the transfer, so Elder Weston and I are just trying to live it up, working hard, and having fun, cuz we´re almost positive that he is going to be transferred to either become District Leader or Train. We have 17 missionaries leavin this month, and 23 new missioanries coming in. That´s a ton of new missionaries compared to other groups that come in. My group had about 16 missionaries and we were considered a big group, so you can see what 23 would be for us. President Humphrey has talked a lot about us being examples to our missioanries, and helping them prepare to become the next leaders in the missoin because in 3 transfers more than 3/4 of our zone leaders and going home, and in 4 transfers about half the mission will be full of missionaries with 4 transfers or less, that´s a lot of new missionaries. I´m pretty sure I´ll be training again, the 3rd time, which is unheard of here, cuz there´s so many new missionaries coming in and very few missioanries who are ready to train. Looking at it at a selfish point of view it would help me sooo much to train again cuz it would help me stay focused on teaching my ¨son¨ how to be a good missionary and not be focused on home. i would love to train again. By the way they found out that Elder Conley, my last son, has a inflammatory disease that cannot be cured, but that he´ll be taking pills his whole life for it. He´s happy though cuz now he´ll have a way to have it all calm down and he could very possibly come back to the mission. Good news!!
We still haven´t found Gabriela and her family. They´re never home when we pass by, but we´re going to keep trying cuz Preisdent Humphrey really wants us to go back and teach them. Pray that we can find them and help them. Also that new family that we found a couple of weeks ago are back in town, but the mom had a horrible accident that was so sad. She suffers from low blood pressure and one day just passed out and feel flat on her face. She broke her nose and all 4 front teeth are loose. She´s going to have surgery to fix her nose and the dentists are going to see what they can do about her teeth, but when we visited her she was a bloody, puffed up mess. My heart was broken talking to her. She´s so awesome though. She was still crackin jokes and laughing with us. We gave her a blessing and the next time we saw her she looked so much better. Her face wasn´t as swollen and she had more energy. We´re going to take her the Book of Mormon on CD so she can listen to something while she stays in bed. We´re happy they´re home and that we can continue teaching them. Her name is Jessie and her kids are Kiara (16), Tamara (14), and her son Aaron is 3. Jessie told us that she´s convinced that God sent us to prepare her for this big trial with her accident and that she is sure that our blessing and teachings have helped her be healed quicker and come closer to God. I´ve seen many times that we arrive ¨just on time¨ you could say to help people get through a big trial.
We also found this amazing family last week. The father´s name is Jorge and his wife is Rosa. they have two kids, Karen and Gonzalo. Jorge is the most sincere, humble guy i´ve ever met. They actually have a really nice house, but he´s just so down to earth and loves everything we´ve beebn teaching him. Every pamphlet that we´ve left with them he´s read about 3 times and understands everything perfectly. He´s so pumped to go to church with his family and he´s going to love it. He told us that he prayed about our message and felt a relaxation and peace come over him and that he really is learning so much more from us than from any Catholic priest he´d ever talked to (go weak and unlearned missionaries!!!) It´s just a testimony to me that we don´t do the work, but that we just teach Christ´s true doctrine and those that have ears to hear realize that it´s the truth. I love the gospel and this family is just amazing. We met them only a week ago, but we just love them to death. Pray for them that they may accept all the things we teach them and have a great experience in church this week, cuz if that happens they´ll get baptized for sure!
On Monday, the reason why i didn´t write, is cuz we had a Zone Leader council. President Humphrey wanted to do it a littel bit different, so instead of doing it in Chillan, we all went down Sunday night and stayed with the Assistants. we had like 16 missionaries in that apartment haha. In the morning President rented our this sports facility to play soccer. We had two baby soccer fields, in an indoor facility, and we had a soccer tournament set up by the assistants. It was way way fun and we played 4 games, my body still hurts soooo bad. i must be getting old haha. Our team took second. Afterward we went to Presidents house and ate Chicken enchaladas (that didnt make me trunky for mom´s enchaladas at all...) with mexican rice and amazing refried beans. It was soooo awesome and fun.
All in all it was a great great week and now we just gotta finish out this week strong, so that this next (and last transfer aaahh) is amazing for us.
Another cool fact, not to brag, not only is our zone leading the mission in baptisms, but our ward is leading the whole mission for baptisms for the year so far, we rock....I mean that we´ve been greatly blessed by God and are seeing tons of miracles here!!!
Awesome stuff.
I love you guys tons and hope you have a great great week,
love
Tanner