Chip Eater

November 25, 2013

 Elder P's farewell party

 Elder P

 Hello family! Once again I would like to thank you all for your letters and pictures that you guys sent me. I can´t believe Utah won´t be going bowling again this year. Anyways that´s frustrating so I´ll just say that and leave it at that. This week has been decent. G and her grandma didn´t end up coming to church. I had mini-cambios here with Elder M in Yungay (he was here for 6 months a year ago) and we had an awesome lesson with them. They both told us that know the message is true. However, the grandma doesn´t want to get baptized because she was already baptized and was catholic. G knows she needs a baptism but also wants to see if she should be baptized with us or the catholics. We explained the authority and everything but she told us she was going to come to church that Sunday for sure. We weren´t able to get a hold of her and she was never home and didn´t end up coming to church. That sucks even more because church was really good. The stake presidency came from Chillan to give talks and we also had sacrament meeting in the new ¨chapel.¨ There´s a lot more space now and it should be good for the activites that we have. On Saturday, the leaders also came from Chillan to do divisions with us to look for the less activies and invite them to the conference. I ended up going with the Stake President. We went and visited some less actives and invited them. We also took some time to talk about Yungay and how it was progressing and the problems we had.  There is one other person that would be good to be the branch president. He is always willing to work and he is actually the secretary right now. He has been a member for a little bit more than a year right now. We have changes here on December 17th and I´m not sure if I´ll be going or I´ll be staying. We´ll have to wait and see. We´re trying to find some more less actives that we´ve never visited before to try and get them to come back. There are about 140 members here in Yungay total, but the attendance is about 35 now each week. I´m hoping with the new ¨chapel¨ more people will be more willing to come. In the other area, it was really uncomfortable and a little squished and the members had been complaining of that. Hna. S is active now. She was less active and we have gained her trust and gotten to know her really well. She calls all the time just to see how we´re doing haha. She called me yesterday crying saying she was in the hospital with her mom and that she didn´t feel well. Anyways later that night we went over to her house. It ended up she was diagnosed with depression. We talked a little bit about our purpose here on the Earth and what to do in times of trial. We then gave her a blessing and Hna. S started crying. It´s awesome to see her start coming back to church. She always asks me to bring a new Liahona over to her everytime we go to visit her. About that missionary that was planning to leave.. he ended up getting everything ready and he left on Wednesday. My companion and I gave him some ties because he didn´t have very many and he was definitely grateful. He doesn´t have a ton of support from his family so it was cool to see him have everything ready and take off. We had a party for him a few hours before he had to take the bus up to Santiago. I took a few pictures and I´ll see if I have time to send them to you guys.
      My hay fever has been killing me. I have to go buy some nasal spray at the pharmacy and take 2 zyrtecs per day for 2 weeks to see if that helps. I would love that new music by Marshall McDonald. Hopefully Jon or Jeremy can get that to me as soon as possible. By the way I GOT MY PACKAGE! I got it last week and now it´s just chilling in our house waiting until Christmas... or the 18th. If I end up getting transferred I´ll open it then like I have already told you guys. Thanks! There isn´t anything like Thanksgiving here... :( to be honest I thought Thanksgiving was this past week. Tell all the family that I love them and that I miss them. Tell them they´re in my daily prayers as well! Good luck to you on Black Friday. Jon, you better keep up that recently started tradition of Sports Authority every morning :) But seriously I love Black Friday.. wish I could help you guys out! Yes Mom, we pay 12 bucks a month to have people wash our clothes. It´s nice too... they fold it all up and iron our shirts. Now we still don´t have lunches here every day in Yungay which sucks really bad, but it´s all good. I really enjoyed all the pictures of Bella... that one with the ripped up ball hanging way low seriously made me laugh. She is so freaking cute and looks so clean/healthy. A little fat as well but I still love her! Well that´s pretty much it for this week... I wanted to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Teagan this past week and that I love and miss him. He is such a baller. Have a Happy Thanksgiving and eat a lot of turkey. Jeremy don´t choke again this year :P Good luck on Black Friday.. shop well and don´t get punched. Things aren´t what they seem that day. I love you all and I´ll talk to you all next week!!!!!