That trip to Moab sounds like so much fun. We definately have to do that when I get back. Things have been going good here. I baptized a ten year old girl yesterday that we have been teaching for the last couple of weeks. Her family is inactive so we are reactivating the family and baptized the girl yesterday, it is really cool to see how the baptism is bringing the family together, and the ten year old girl is setting a good example for her parents. But it was really funny because she is deathly afraid of water. We knew that something was up because everytime we talked about the baptism the girl always had a ton of questions about the water. Then when I was getting into the font with her she was freaking out a little bit. She held onto my arm with a death grip. But everything went well. The computer I´m using today doesn´t have a USB port so I´ll try and send some pictures next week. The Bishop of the ward I am in right now saw a picture of Dad that I had on my camera and said that Dad looks like Einstein, I thought that was pretty funny. General Conference is next week and I am pumped. I don´t think I have ever been this excited for conference before. Things are going good. Don´t worry about my shoes because I don´t ever use tennis shoes. After that Christmas activity when we all played soccer a rule came out where we can´t play sports, so I never use tennis shoes anyway. And when I need some I can get money from my debit card that I used before my mission. And also, I need the home address of Dustin Berlin. Everything is going good, I will talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

We love pictures!

Things are going pretty good right now. We had Stake Conference last week and I guess I haven´t changed much, because I was dosing off during the meeting. My excuse is that it is my blood, and for proof you just have to sit by Dad one Sunday. But everything is going really well. Here are some pictures, finally. My new companion is really cool. We have a baptism next week if everything goes well. So I´m pretty excited for that. This week has gone by so fast. It seriously feels like you told me that the Christenson´s were going to Florida for 3 months like a week ago and now they´re back. Time has been flying by. Things are going really well down here, but for now nothing new and exciting to report on. Talk to you later.
Love,
Matt

This week has gone by pretty fast. I just completed five months in the mission yesterday. Time flies by pretty fast. My new companion is really cool. He only has one more change in the mission than me, so we are both fairly new. He is a little timid so I have been leading all of our lessons and stuff. It is really good for me because with my first two companions I let them take the lead, but with this guy I have started to do it. Mission life has been really good, and really busy. It is still scorching hot down here. We have stake conference coming up this week, so I´m guessing that getting investigators to church is going to be even harder than it already is. We have been teaching this lady for about a month now, and she wants to get baptized, but she smokes, and she is having a really hard giving it up. But everything is going really well. Talk to you later.
Love,
Matt

Hey, I just finished my second change in the mission field. I got a new companion today but I´m staying in the same area for another six weeks. My trainer, Elder Ramos, went back to Mexico today. That kind of sucks because he was really cool. My companion from the last change is staying in the same pension so I´m going to be seeing him a lot still. My new compion is named Elder Aguirre. He is from Honduras and doesn´t speak any english, so it´s going to be fun teaching him english phrases. This last week was really fun. On Tuesday all the Elders who came with me to Chile and I went to downtown Santiago, which is actually outside of our mission, to get our ID cards. It was really cool and there are some really cool Catholic Cathedrals in downtown Santiago. I got some pictures but the computer I´m using today is not working with the pictures so I´ll try to send them tomorrow. Things are going good, I´ll talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

This week has been pretty good. I got the package today, I was really surprised it came so fast. Thank you so much for everything. All of it was perfect. So I am sending some pictures. The first is me and my companion Elder Zárate. The other is a picture of the average bus here in Santiago. Elder Hansen, my buddy from the MTC, and I went on splits on Saturday. So we worked together all day, it was really cool. That was the day it rained. When it rains here it pours, and I guess in the winter it rains off and on all day every day. But it is fine with me, it kind of reminds of Seattle. We have changes next week, so in one week I could be in another area with another companion, but I don´t know yet. But everything is going good, not too much to report on. The other companionship in our ward is having a baptism next week. The whole family, wife and kids, of the guy that is getting baptized are members. And I know the family really well and have taught the guy a couple of times, so this baptism is going to be really cool this week because his son that is 18 years old is going to baptize him. We are pretty excited for that. Everthing else is going good, thanks again for all of the stuff. The bag is perfect. Talk to you later.
Love,
Matt

Pictures!

Mom just thought it would be funny to put me and my cardboard Edward up.

Matt and his companion, looks like he's lost some weight!

The bus system.

When it rains, it pours in Chile.

Hey this week has been crazy. On Saturday my whole zone was at a plaza doing a public presentation. Where half of the missionaries sing hymns and the other half do contacts. We have a little table set up with pamphlets and picures and this really drunk Chilean started singing with us, then he started preaching some apostasy, like God is a spirit and stuff like that, then he tried to stand on our little table with pamphlets and preach. It was hilarious, I honestly couldn´t stop laughing the whole time. We were going to have a baptism yesterday but the lady bailed on us because she got really sick and she´s moving in with her daughter who lives in Southern Chile. So wasn´t too good. Also, there is a guy in our ward who got his car stolen and his life is just going really hard right now and he needed some shoes for work, because he does manual labor. So Elder Hansen and I each gave him a pair of shoes. So I am going to have to buy some soon, but it is ok because I barely ever use them. One of our rules is we can´t play soccer because I guess missionaries get in fights when we play. But it was really cool to help that guy out. I´ve got to get going, I´ll talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

Life here is good, we have a baptism scheduled for this Sunday, so hopefully everything goes well with that. There really hasn´t been anything too exciting to report on this week, everything is going really well. People are funny down here, they like to bash on America. It is really funny, one old guy asked me if I was in Chile looking for Osama Bin Laden. I thought that was a little weird, but some people are just crazy. Thank you so much for sending all of the stuff. I think it takes about three weeks to get here but that is alright. I love you, talk to you later.
Love,
Matt