September 2010

9/27/10
This past week has been good. We went to the temple as a zone, and we also had interviews with the Mission President. All that means a lot of travelling. But it was good. In my interview with President, he told me to take advantage of all of the opportunities that I come across to get educated. Which is what I´m planning to do. Before the mission I was pretty excited for the two year break from school but now I´m pretty excited to get back into school. It´s funny how things change.

This week went really well as far as missionary work goes. My companion and I are teaching a guy named Oscar that accepted a baptismal date for the 10th of October. And there´s a kid from the Primary that turned 8 recently, and his Dad isn´t a member, so he doesn´t have anyone to baptize him and he asked me to do it. So it looks like I´m going to be ending the mission with a couple of baptisms. I´m really excited for that.

On Sunday we finally got a new Branch President. The Stake President had a pretty small group to pick from, so we thought that we knew who it was going to be. Then the Stake President threw a curveball, he called one of the recent converts from last year. He is 28 years old and isn´t married yet. We´re all really excited for him. It´s funny because he gave a short talk on Sunday and you could see how nervous he was. But he´s going to do a good job because he has a really strong testimony. That´s the big news from the branch.

This morning my companion and I got up early and went to Seminary and made the kids pancakes. We´ve been trying to get one of the young men from the branch to go to seminary and the only way we could convince him was by going and making them breakfast. But he went, so I feel pretty good about it. And now I know what it´s like to have early morning seminary. I don´t think I could have done it when I was in high school.

9/20/10
Everything is going good here. It has been a pretty fun week here in Chile. On Saturday it was the Chilean Independence Day, and they took advantage of it being on a Saturday to stretch out the vacation days from Friday to Monday. So on Friday we had our branch activity. It was a lot of fun. We had a big chilean barbeque, then played typical chilean games like jump rope, tug-o-war, and tops. I learned how to throw a spinning top this week. Then everybody started dancing the cueca, which is the national dance here, and my companion and I took off. It was a lot of fun. Then on Saturday morning we played soccer with the some guys from the branch. But after lunch on Saturday we pretty much walked around. It was tough because everybody had people in town, or they left to visit family, so it was about impossible to work on Saturday. On Sunday, my companion and I had to give talks. We were the only two speaking in Sacrament Meeting, and since my companion is so new, he pretty much read the talk that he prepared the night before. So I had about thirty minutes to talk. I tried not to be too boring, but it was a long time. I spoke about the Book of Mormon and how we need to read it throughout our whole lives. It was good though, I felt good about the talk. Then I had to teach the Sunday School class for the young men and women. With my last companion we took turns every week, but since my companion is so new, I´ve got the class every week. But I actually like it. We are studying the Old Testament and it gives me a chance to read stories and learn more about the Old Testament. Today we had a zone activity where we played soccer and basketball and had a barbeque. I like barbeques and all, but I´ve pretty much eaten barbeque for four days straight now. Well, this week was kind of slow as far as missionary work because of the holidays. But things are going to pick up this week.

9/13/10
It sounds like you guys had a good time last week. Jenni told me that they´re having a baby boy a couple of weeks ago. With the greek festival and then the polynesian wedding reception you guys must have had a good variety of culture this weekend.

Everything is going good down here. Well, this week has been pretty busy. Training is kind of hard. My new companion is awesome, he´s a stud, but I do a good amount of the work because he is so new. My new companion´s name is Elder Jewer, and he was born in England, then moved to Canada. So it´s cool, because everybody thinks that all of the gringos are from Utah, so this throws in a little variety. Last Sunday they didn´t call a new branch president. It looks like the Stake President is going to have interviews with all of the potential candidates this week and next Sunday they should call a new branch president. Last Saturday was a holiday called el Día del Jóven Combatiente, or Youth Combatant Day. I´m not exactly sure what they are celebrating, but all of the teenagers go out and destroy stuff in the nighttime. So all of the missionaries had to be in the apartment at 6:00, but it really wasn´t bad for us because outside of the city they don´t do too much. On Thursday, we had a mission activity to celebrate Chile´s independence day. The mission activity was fun, it was pretty much the same as last year. We ate empanandas and watched a movie. We watched Hoosiers this year. It was funny. This week has been pretty good. It has been fun to teach my new companion a little about Chilean culture.

Well, thanks for everything you do. I love and miss you

9/06/10
Well, I hope you guys have a good time with the Labor Day barbeque. Tell everyone I say hi. Wow, I can´t believe that Briggs is going to be going on a mission. And is Kevin Hopkinson the younger brother that was Courtney´s age? That´s crazy to think that the kids from Courtney´s year are going out already.

Well, these last couple of days have been pretty exciting. Yesterday, we had a baptism. We baptized a lady named Luz. And since we don´t have a church in my area, we had to go to Santiago for the baptism. But it was cool because 12 other people from our zone got baptized yesterday, so we just jumped in on the zone baptism. It was a really good experience, our mission president spoke during the baptismal service. Then with everybody that went from the branch, we all piled into the Branch President´s van and went back to our sector last night.

Last night was the last night of the transfer, so after the baptism we went around to all of the cool families from the branch and my companion said goodbye. We didn´t know for sure if he was going to be transferred or not, but we kind of figured that he would since he had been there for about four months. Then we got the call late Sunday night, and my companion had to pack his bags, and I am going to train. So actually, right now I´m with another Elder that´s going to train, because the new missionaries arrive Tuesday morning. Tomorrow morning we get to go through a session in the temple, then we pick up our new companions and we go back to our areas. I don´t know who my new companion is, but his last name is Jewer, so I´m pretty sure that he is gringo.

Well, this is my last transfer in the mission. Then I´ll be home. It seems so weird. Time has flown by. Have a good week. I love you.

Final itinerary for coming home!

CHURCH TRAVEL CWT DATE 13SEPTEMBER10
50 EAST NORTH TEMPLE ST AGENT VH/JG BOOKING REF ZAS244
SALT LAKE CITY UT 84150
TELEPHONE: 801 240-5111 BRAILSFORD/BRETT CA 146281-R
FAX : 801-240-5115 HUGO/JESSICA SADIE 157377-R
MCLEAN/MATTHEW CHRI 148620-R

SERVICE DATE FROM TO DEPART ARRIVE
_____________________ _____ ______________ ______________ _______ ______
AMERICAN AIRLINES 18OCT SANTIAGO DALLAS TX 1000P 610A
AA 940 MONDAY A MERINO BENIT DALLAS FT WORT 19OCT
N ECONOMY TERMINAL INTL TERMINAL D
NON SMOKING DINNER/BREAKFAST NON STOP
RESERVATION CONFIRMED 10:10 DURATION
AIRCRAFT: BOEING 767-300/300ER
SEATS 38G/38H/38J NO SMOKING CONFIRMED


AMERICAN AIRLINES 19OCT DALLAS TX SALT LAKE C UT 1015A 1200N
AA 689 TUESDAY DALLAS FT WORT INTL
N ECONOMY TERMINAL 1
NON SMOKING FOOD FOR PURCHASE NON STOP
RESERVATION CONFIRMED 2:45 DURATION
AIRCRAFT: BOEING (DOUGLAS) MD-80 ALL SERIES
SEATS 25D/25E/25F NO SMOKING CONFIRMED