Does Red Bull Really Give You Wings?‏

Why hello my family! Crazy how fast the weeks are flying by.. the days no.. but the weeks. Thanks once again for the letters and pictures that I received. Well first off I will start by telling you guys that "A" wants a little bit more time to prepare. He had his baptismal interview and everything on Friday, which lasted 2 and a half hours! In the end he said he wanted a little bit more time and wanted to watch General Conference next week. He came to church and everything, and now he has a baptismal date set for April 13th. He loves Elder Holland, and has watched talks from past general conferences as well. He is going to watch General Conference with 3 questions written down on a piece of paper, and will pay attention to those questions as he listens to the talks. This was an invitation from the bishop to all the ward, and one of his questions will be if he should get baptized on April 13th. We will continue to pray for him so he can have a good experience next weekend. I´m definitely excited to watch conference again and it seems like these past 6 months have flown by since last conference. I´m not sure about the plans yet.. I know we have to go to the stake center (Chillancito) which isn´t too far from here to watch it. I too will write down 3 questions that I want answered and I know in one of the talks they can be answered. I invite you guys to do the same.. that would be cool!
 I¨m getting along with my companion.. he´s just having troubles adjusting to a new mission. This is in total his 4th mission. He was in Bolivia for 10 months waiting for his visa when his mission got split and he got sent to a different one in Bolivia. Then he got sent to Venezuela for a month and a half, and now in Chile.  The 2 new missionaries in our house are both from Bolivia. 
 We have also been working with a lady named C. G. The other day she asked us for a Book of Mormon, and we left her a chapter. When we returned on Friday, she brought her book and said she started from the beginning, and was on page 172. She started explaining a lot of parts and she understood everything like perfect. The only thing is that she is almost impossible to get to come to church. She says she has wanted to see what the church was like and go, but every Sunday something happens. It´s like the 3rd or 4th week she has bailed which is frustrating. We passed by the other day, and she was smoking. We had no idea she smoked, but we just need to keep working with her. If she doesn´t ever want to come to church, we´ll just have to stop teaching her until she wants to progress. We also have been teaching some more people, but haven´t quite been progressing or reading the stuff that we leave them. PATIENCE, PATIENCE, AND SOME MORE PATIENCE. 
 So you did get the video? I´ll have to see what I can do. I´ll feel super awkward making a video like that.. maybe just a letter? Hahaha I´ll have to think about it :) Congratz to my niece Brielle for getting her first tooth! Already growing up so fast. Thanks Dad for the update on that missing airplane. Seems strange and like you said, we´ll probably never know exactly what happened. Anyways that´s about it for this week... thanks for all the letters and for all your prayers. I pray for you guys daily as well and hope you guys are all happy and doing well. I´ll be thinking of you guys as I watch General Conference next week being held in my favorite place in the world... UTAH :) I love you all and I´ll talk to you guys next week!!!!!!!!!

 L to R: Me, Elder Ribeiro, Elder Flores, and Elder Colque

By the way... on Saturday it RAINED. It´s starting to get super cold here especially in the mornings and at night. We are going to buy a heater today so that should help out. Apparently here in Concepcion, when it rains.. IT RAINS. It´s not quite the winter yet... but we got a nice preview of it on Saturday. Here is a picture of us before we all left to go out in the rain. They all made ponchos out of plastic that came on a new mattress.. and I was using my nice jacket. I´m a little spoiled... thanks mom and dad! :)  

Choosing to Ignore the Marks Left Behind‏

Hello everyone... how´s everyone doing? Another week down and starting another week once again.  I am still doing well and still working hard. Our investigator has a date to be baptized for the 30th but he´s still not sure if he wants to do it. He doesn´t feel like he´s received his answer quite yet but we are working hard with 2 members that are married and that served missions. They have 2 kids.. a 3 year old and a 5 year old girl. I have grown to love this family and the 2 kids love when we come over and always want to play with me. That´s one example of when I start thinking of my nephews and just want to play with THEM, and nobody else haha. They´re a really cool family and have helped a lot in teaching our investigator. Also, usually we do baptisms on Saturdays, but the bishop likes them on Sundays. In that case, they would be baptized the week after, but it´s general conference. We don´t really know what would happen. He could be baptized before church and confirmed in sacrament meeting, but we have to talk to the bishop. This is all if he decides to be baptized. We have an appointment with him tomorrow and if he wants more time we have to postpone the date for 2 more weeks. I will let you guys know what´s up next week. We have also been teaching some other people but haven´t quite been progressing like he has. He knows everything and has been living the word of wisdom for 6 months now. He says he´s had a big change in his life even from that so he´s happy. We were in a lesson with him and we got talking and I pulled out my scripture and pulled out Mosiah 18:10 and he said it was a scripture directly talking to him. He loved that scripture and I´m hoping within the next 3 weeks tops he´ll be baptized. Anyways we now have 4 missionaries in our house, and we are in normal companionships. 2 new missionaries came from Venezuela, because all of the non venezuelans got sent out because of the situation there. My companion is Elder C from Bolivia.. My other companion, Elder R, is with the other missionary who is also from Bolivia, and he´s a pretty cool kid. We get along pretty well.  Anyways with all this, I have a total of 10 missionaries in my district.... it´s the biggest district in the mission as far as I know. They´re trying to get things moved around so hopefully I don´t have so many missionaries here pretty soon. The verifications at night just take a long time. Anyways that´s about it for this week. That´s cool you were able to go to Parker´s homecoming and that he´s doing well. The pinewood derby for Carter... sounds like he had fun! The batmobile is dope. Reminds me of the unbeatable truck that Jon has. That thing is the king of all pinewood derby. I´m glad Trevor is enjoying his new calling.. a lot of responsibility but I´m sure he´ll do great. That´s cool that Emily´s mom emailed you... yeah she´s a really cool lady. I went up to their house quite a bit to hang out with Dustin and some other kids and her parents are awesome people.  I actually talked to Chandler last week and he said he´s doing well there in Los Angeles. He said it´s sick and it´s cool to be in L.A.   Have Jeremy and Staci decided on an actual date? February 12 after I´m home? Okay sounds good :) hahaha just kidding.. in June right? She looks perfect for Jeremy... looks like a fun girl.. but a video sent my way of her and Jeremy talking or something wouldn´t make me complain.. just saying.  Anyways thanks to all those who were able to get a letter sent off this week.... I really enjoy reading everyone´s letters and seeing all the pictures. Brian´s last picture sure had me laughing... the guy that helped him at the bank. Hahaha so funny.  Anyways please pray for our investigator so that he can realize he has received his answer already so that he can be baptized. Hayden, Teagan, Carter, Dallin, and Brielle.. I love you guys! Don´t grow up too fast okay? Anyways thanks again for your letters and for your prayers and for everything. I´ll talk to you guys all next week..... LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

p.s. I miss EVERYONE..  just not my nephews/niece ;)

CONGRATZ TO SOCO31‏

First off, I wanted to give a shoutout to my Monkeyboy for doing his thing and proposing. While I´m not going to lie and say I´m not a tiny bit disappointed,  (I made the matter clear before I left haha)  I´m happy for you and Staci. Obviously the time is right and things change. Anyways congratz to you guys and I look forward to getting to know my future second sister-in-law. If she´s anything like the first, we need not to worry :) Love you H-Train!! About how you would like to involve me in the wedding...I´m not sure. Don´t you remember what I said about the cardboard cut out? If it´s life sized you probably won´t be able to fit it inside the building. But then again... you´re having the reception outside.. so I think that would be cool. Just make sure Robyn is ready to do some photo shopping because that´s the only thing that has a tiny possibility of fixing this face..  :) Haha no just kidding I´m absolutely gorgeous and I might need a bat sent here in a package to keep all these chileans away. A video or a letter... I´ll have to think about it. Like what would you want me to do in the video? Let me know what you think.
    This week was a really good week. Other than not feeling the greatest all week... (basically the whole zone has been sick. The credit card to buy the medicine was maxed out this week because we had to buy medicine almost every day for the district. On Friday, we spent 145 bucks on medicine for 2 sisters. I´ve been okay.. just dizzy and with really bad headaches.) we worked really well with the members and found 9 new investigators.. one is really solid. His name is Andres and I think I told you a little about him last week if I remember. He´s got a baptismal date set for the 30th of this month but he doesn´t feel like he´s received his answer to his prayers yet if he should do it. So we are working hard with him and with a member that has about his same age so we can try and help him receive that answer. We have an appointment with him on Wednesday so we´ll see how that goes. By the way I just talked to Emily again because she´s here in this internet cafe with me. Mom she is in the other mission, but the mission office is basically a church with both of our missions using it. Anyways hopefully Andres can progress and receive his answer and be baptized on the 30th. We also found 2 families that are nice and one invited us to eat lunch with them after the 1st appointment we had with them. We weren´t able to, but they´re really nice. None of them were able to come to church which was disappointing but we´ll see what we can do. Andres was only able to come to priesthood and missed out on sacrament meeting... booooo. By the way.. about the earthquake. We were in the house of a less active family and we were talking about the big earthquake that happened when cousin Jordy was here. By the way they CONSTANTLY talk about that earthquake still.... it hit hard close to the area I´m in and I´ve heard so many crazy stories. There were like huge boats in the middle of a park and all this stuff. And there´s a bunch of houses that are just jacked up from it and nobody lives there. Anyways as we were listening to some more stories, the daugher gets a phone call and they all start freaking out and turn on the TV to see the news. But it wasn´t anything compared to what happened here in 2010 so it´s all good. We didn´t feel anything but it was weird how we were talking about it and then all of a sudden another one up north. There´s always reports of minor earthquakes here but I´ve still yet to feel one.  I just wanted to make it known to all that I ate a big footlong sub at Subway today and one of their amazing cookies. It had been a long time and it reminded me of basketball because I always ate Subway before the varsity games.  We think after killing 2 of the rats that we´ve killed all of them.. we haven´t seen any more but who knows.  We had interviews with the President this past week which went well. He´s a really cool guy. Anyways that´s about all I can think of that happened this week.. I loved the pictures that Heather sent and that Mom sent. The picture of Trevor driving the corolla... haha I´m glad she runs fine but she deserves to relax in her private and excluded spot next to your house :) Also of the smartphones..... wow I´m in shock. Not gonna lie... as reading Heather´s letter I came to the part where it said they had incredible news... and I almost thought they were pregnant. Hahaha but smartphones are just as cool :) Anyways thanks for everything and I´ll talk to you guys all next week!!!!

We Don´t Need to Whisper Now‏

Hello once again! Here I am writing you guys with another week down. I always have to thank you guys for letters and the pictures that you guys send to me! You guys are dope. Anyways we did have transfers today but I will be staying here in Santa Sabina with my companion just as I had predicted. I´m excited to stay and try to find some more people to teach and bring to church. Anyways this week was alright.. C didn´t come to church again because he had to work. He felt really uncomfortable at church last week because of his clothes he was in. He is really poor and doesn´t have decent clothes to come to church. Anyways we still will be working with him and we´ll see what we can do. We did bring another investigator to church. She is like 35 and has been to church before, but from what we´ve seen, may just be an eternal investigator. We need to see what happens. Anyways this guy at church came to find us and told us he was investigating the church and had been to church down south before with missionaries but that it was his first time in Santa Sabina. I got talking to him and he has been living the Word of Wisdom for a year, and knows everything about the church. He told me that my homework was really easy with him so I didn´t need to worry. Haha I talked to him about baptism and he told me he had been thinking about it for the past year and now he´s really excited about it. He didn´t really come right out and say he wanted to be baptized but we need to sit down with him and see what´s up. His family doesn´t like him to be with us and he also said he´s really busy with his studies but that he´s free on the weekends and that he would be coming to church next week. We just need to call him and see if we can plan an appointment in a member´s house or in the church so hopefully all goes well.  This past week, just about every day Í´ve had to go in the morning downtown to buy medicine for the sisters. Every day it´s a different medicine I have to buy for them haha I haven´t been able to study at all this week. There´s been a bug going around the zone that I had for a couple of days.. just a stomach bug. Anyways we´ve given a ton of health blessings and comfort blessings this week. Today we had to go to the DMV or whatever you call that thing basically and wait FOREVER to get my companion his license here in Chile.  Guess what? I saw my friend Emily Lloyd today in the mission office! I´ve been waiting my whole mission to finally see her and today was finally the day. It was really good to see her and she´ll be finishing here in about 5 months. Nothing else really happened this week that I can think of.. it´s basically the same old same old. I loved the pictures of all my nephews/niece. Also the picture that Carter drew for me... haha and his letter made me laugh.¨¨The bear in the dark cave is mean.¨ Hahaha oh my gosh I miss that kid and all of them. Thanks Dad for the sports updates. My friend here told me Lebron put up 61 and went 8/8 from 3 point range and set some records. That´s sick.  I hope Robyn and Brian enjoy their weekend getaway in Las Vegas.. Hayds... remember this? ¨Vivaaaaaa.... Las Veeeegaaaas.¨ So Parker is home now huh? I was wondering the other day when he would be home.. seemed like it was about time. Turns out we had more than one rat.. so far we have caught and killed 2, but for sure the mommy is still out there somewhere. We´ll let you know how the nightly hunts go. Anyways thanks for all the letters and for all the updates on everything.. I love you all so much and pray for you guys nightly. I´ll talk to you guys all next week...

I MISS THE SNOW

Hello family, friends, and anyone else that might be reading this letter. I would like to thank those that wrote me again this week and for giving me updates on your vidas. Santa Sabina.. is going well. The ward, like I have said, is awesome. The bishop is awesome, the ward mission leader is dope, and stuff just gets done. I´m just not quite used to that from my other 2 past sectors like you may know. Today we went to the beach and had a barbecue. I took like 2 pictures but then my camera died. Nothing special.. I think everyone has seen some water meeting up with some sand at one point in their lives. Elder J brought a kite that his family had sent him for his birthday, and me and him flew that for awhile and just chilled on the beach. He´s a pretty cool kid. This Sunday we had an investigator in church. He lives alone and wants something more in his life. He lives in a really small house, and is quite poor. He liked the meeting which was really good. There is this family in our ward that is huge. One of them is the nephew that´s going to California on his mission. They had a baby blessing in their family, and they all bore their testimonies in testimony meeting. Also, the president of the high priests bore his testimony.. the Spirit was really strong in this past week´s sacrament meeting. Almost everyone said something about how grateful they were for the missionaries that knocked on their door and shared the Gospel with them. It made me think how great of cause I am involved in and how great the responsibility is. We actually haven´t gotten into his house because he´s always busy, but he agreed to come to church and we have an appointment set up with him this week. Other than that, basically the same thing as last week. We have gotten to know a few more less actives, incomplete families, and some more members that are really nice. We are trying to work really hard with those incomplete families and get all the members baptized, but it might be a little difficult. Because of that, they are incomplete families haha.  Anyways slowly and surely we are working here in Santa Sabina doing what we can to help the ward.  Besides from what I´ve already mentioned, not much more to report. I am soooooooooooooooo boring I know.. I´m sorry. There´s this sick soccer jersey that I want to buy.. sooooooo dope.. long sleeve and everything but it´s like 70 bucks. I can´t decide yet but it would be sick. I did treat myself to a Papa John´s pizza by myself.. which was very delicious. It´s been forever since I had a decent pizza like that.  We had a family night with a member on Friday and she invited her neighbor from behind. She was a missionary a while ago so she knows what´s going on. We ate scones, and watched a movie on the atonement. It was successful but the member is going to invite her to church next week I think. She says she already has her religion and is pretty set on that, but we´ll see. The sisters brought an investigator to church on sunday and I was sitting next to him in priesthood. He´s an old guy.. and I asked him his name and he made this weird face and got all offended. A little after, the bishop asked him, and he made the same face, and got up and stormed out of church. Hahaha nobody has heard from him since. Crazy dude that´s for sure.

         I got an update from my primo Nate Dog!!! I already told him, but congratz to him. She looks perfect for him and they look really happy in the picture, so that´s awesome. How long had he been dating her before he proposed?

Mom, about my letter last week, I referred to her as the wife because Chileans always refer to them as that even when they´re not married. Anyways, they´re still not married. We need to figure out what´s up with him and when they actually have plans to get married. He knows everything is true and wants to do it, but I don´t know what´s going on with their wedding. We need to figure that all out. By the way, we have been praying specifically to find a family of 4, so we are really hoping for that. I would love to find a family, so we have been praying for that. Today, all the kids starting school again here, and everyone is back from vacation. That should be a nice little help there so we´ll see what happens. Dallin.. haha he sounds like such a funny kid right now. I´m glad he knows who I am.. keep showing him my picture show he remembers! I hope he´s not all scared of me when I come home.. or the other kids too. I can see Teags being all weird not talking to me hahaha. The picture of Hayds... wow he´s huge. Has he been playing basketball? He would be such a baller. Thanks Dad for all the sports updates... I love them so keep them coming.

Thanks again for everything that you guys do and for all the letters. It´s the best coming here every Monday and just reading everyone´s emails. I pray for you guys daily and miss you guys so much! I love you all and I´ll talk to you next week!

p.s. I have not burned a shirt yet, but I´m planning on it this next week. In our free time at night, we have been trying to kill the rat that´s in our house. I found it the other day and we always look for it, and when we find it, it is really hard to kill. It´s a professional rat and is pro at escaping.. trust me. I love you guys!!!