Week 51

Woah.... The guy in the cyber just offered me a glass of juice to get started. ALRIGHT!

ahem..

I can’t believe that I am already 3 weeks into my transfer here in Chillán. It is true that the harder you work and the busier you are, the faster time goes. Time has never moved on so quickly.

I would have to say this week was an interesting one for Elder Bird and I. We worked hard and I learned a lot more about Chillan. Our week was really up and down and up and down. We had amazing days and really disappointing days.

Alright, since some of the days weren’t that exciting, I’m just going to give you all the highlights.

- On Tuesday we worked our brains out. We were all over the place. I think we walked around nearly every part of our sector... No, I don't just think we did - I know we did. We had 4 lessons with members, and found 3 new investigators all in one day. We got home and collapsed. We visited both Eugenia and Sayeññ and they were both doing very well after their baptisms from the past Saturday. We passed by Mitzi and re-established goals for her to quit smoking and continue going to church. We also passed by Ruth Puga and her son Ignacio. Surprisingly they had Barbara, Ruth's Niece, and Barbara brought her boyfriend Ignacio over as well. 

- We focused on Evelyn Carrasco and her son Ignacio who wants to be baptized this next weekend. We found out that the apartment complex where she lives actually isn't inside our ward boundaries but really it’s just on the edge. We explained that situation to her and we are now discussing those issues with the bishop

- We helped the sister missionaries with their baptism on Sunday. One of their investigators David, was baptized this week. He is pretty old and it was cool to see him make such a decision when he has participated in so many religions before. That is so rare here in Chile. You could see the emotional change in him after his baptism. He obviously felt something deep inside him. It was cool to see that.

- For the international service day for the church we went to the Cemetery and cleaned up the place a bit and re painted the fence. The event even made it onto some of the radio channels here. Cool exposure for the church.

- I got pretty sick on Friday. I woke up with a little sore throat and allergy symptoms and it slowly got worse through the day. By the night, I was dizzy and had a huge headache. But a good night’s sleep took all the major pains away. I feel a lot better now.

- The cold is slipping away here in Chile. People are shedding their winter coats and there are more people outside. The skies are always filled with kites now. This upcoming week is the week of Chile's Independence Day. The 18th of September they call it. It’s going to be one crazy day. It seriously is going to be the zombie Apocalypse of the drunks. I can’t imagine what kind of things we will see this week. Chileans like to party hard - a little too hard at times I think. We will have to see how this all turns out. The church is hosting a giant party all day at the chapel to have a friendly atmosphere with no drugs and alcohol for all the members and everyone else who wants to join.

- The week was a hard one for finding new investigators, we have set some serious goals to find some people this week despite all the festivities.

- Above all I have been working a ton at getting my optimistic attitude all back together 100% again. It’s been taking blows for a long time and I'm realizing more than ever how important it is to just be happy no matter what. It’s easy for me and its really who I want to be inside.

Sorry for the short letter guys. I dealt with a lot of technical difficulties today!

I'm looking forward to the week, It should be quite the adventure going out and seeing all the patriotic holiday madness that is surely to come. Hope you all have a great week this week! Love you guys tons!

Elder Ethan Haws