Hey there errybody,
This week we had a rough time getting into a groove, but we were blessed with an unexpected miracle on Sunday.
Because of finding 16 new investigators last week, who all don´t get home until 6-8 at night, we had a hard time re finding many of them, so we weren´t teaching very much, but doing a lot of finding. The hard part was that because of having so many appointments, we we only able to knock doors at around 4-5 pm, and that´s a really bad time to do contacts because nobody´s home. Regardless of all of that we still were able to find 7 new investigators and we have a lot of people in our pool of investigators that are preparing for baptism and have attended church. The exciting thing is that we have even more good investigators who haven´t come to church yet, but will be coming soon. I feel like a coach recruiting players for football and we have some exciting prospects hahaa. We tried hard to keep up the work going into this last week of the transfer. I have absolutely loved my time here with Elder Weston. I´m going to miss that kid big time and i´m really bummed that he still has a little over a year left in the mission. We have made many traveling plans together: Cali, Mexico, Spain, Chile etc. haha but we´ll see what the future brings! He gives me a really hard time when we start talking about the future saying that we won´t hang out cuz i´ll already be married, fat, and boring...hope that his prophecy doesn´t come to pass too soon. I got a lot of things on my to do list! Anyways, the week has come to an end and we´ve both received new assignments that we´re excited about. Elder Weston is going down to Chiguayante (pronounced Chi-Y-ante) which is the most south that our mission goes. He´s going to be district leader and he´s goign to do awesome. I was left without a companion and don´t know who my companion is yet, cuz tomorrow i´m traveling down to Conce to pick up my 3rd kid!! I never thought I´d get to train 3 missionaries during my mission, but I´ve been blessed. Elder Balkman, by the way, is doing awesome. he´s a District Leader and is training a kid of his own. I´m a grandpa!! i never thought I´d have a grandson in the mission either haha the mission´s been good to me. I have to be down in Conce by 12pm tomorrow to see who tha lucky feller is. We have a group of 23 missionaries coming in (10 of which are latin) so it´s a big ? as to who will be my comp. I´m really excited for this opportunity to better myself and help another missionary start his mission right. I know that this is going to be such a huge blessing for me to stay focused and be more spiritually, so that when i get off that escalator in the airport I amaze you all will my shiny, white suit, having been transfigured in my last few months of the mission. It´ll be great.
Anyways, all those investigators that i wrote about last week are doing well. Jorge and Rosa came to church. Unfortunatley their kids didn´t come, but said they´d come next week. Jorge is really excited about the church and all that we´re teaching him. His wife is a bit more stubborn and lazy when it comes to her worshipping God. She told us about a millioin times that she wasn´t planning on going to church everyweek cuz she worships God in her own way (roll my eyes) That is one of the most repeated phrases here, especially by Catholics. Anyways we´re going to battle with Satan this week to help them return and have a great spiritual experience. Sadly Jessie and her kids didn´t come to church. THey were all ready to go, and we were going to go get them, when they received a call from some relatives and found out that they were coming to Chillan to visit and would be arriving at 10 am. She was really sorry and called us and apologized a 1,000 times haha she´s so great. We´re excited for them though cuz they´re going to come thsi week. Jessie´s face is soooo much better. I saw her on Tuesday and she looked bad, but Elder Weston said she looked so much better than when he saw her on Sat. When we passed by on Thursday she looked even better, and on Friday had also improved a lot. She told us that she knows that it was a miracle that God had blessed her with, and that the blessing that E´Weston and E´Dalton gave her was a great great help. She´s getting a strong testimony little by little. We just pray that her daughters will also search for answers and desire a personal testimony.
As for the miracle, we talked to Nico and Erica and found out that Erica´s parents were 100% against her getting baptized. They even told Nico that if he took her to the ¨Mormon Church¨ again that there would be problems. We were super bummed about that and ruled thme both out for baptism this week. Anyways things didn´t get better with them as the week went on cuz Nico told us that he was goign to Concepción for the weekend for some Kung Fu thing. On Saturday i talked to Elder Hinojosa and Elder Roberts, who were in Chillan saying goodbye to their converts cuz Hinojosa is going home, and they said that Nico was home and planning on getting baptized on Sunday. We called him up right away and he was very nervous and kind of reluctant about the idea of getting baptized by himself, without Erica, and on the next day. We talked to him and helped him realize that he was ready and that waiting any longer would not get him anywhere. He agreed and asked E´weston to baptize him! On Sunday we got to church, had sacrament meeting, Sunday school, and he still hadn´t showed up. We were worried, but walking out of Sunday school we found him and his family ready for the baptism. E´Weston didn´t have his baptismal pants, so I actually ended up baptizing Nico! it was awesome to see that he, after such a long time, finally took that step of faith and followed his family into the waters of baptism. The service was awesome, with a special musical number done by us and some youth in the ward who played the chello. It was really spiritual. Soooo we ended the week really well. We went around last night saying goodbye to several people, including Gabriela and her family, who unfortunately we feel like will not progress, so we´re going to have to leave them. At the end of the night, some of Elder Nelson´s and Sorensen´s converts, the Basso family, invited us over for a family night. When we got there we saw a huge grill will tons of Shishcabobs (don´t know how to spell that) and ribs and Sausages. We ate sooo much meat that night we all wanted to puke haha. it was really fun though and a great way to end the transfer.
I´m really excited for this last transfer. I know that we´re going to have continued success and that the time will fly by. We´ll be seeing eachother soon, but for now i got some work to do!!
I love you all tons
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