week #12

I so love this guy! I love everything about his experiences and I love his humble nature. He is an excellent missionary and once he sorts out the friendliness thing, he will be rockin'! These experiences will serve him his whole life through! I am thankful for his willingness to do what is necessary as well! I am a little biased but I think he is the best! Love you son!


Before I start the ramble-thon, I could use two more garment tops (my infection blood destroyed two and I´ve been perpetually behind since) and a good pen or two. This is a tough row to hoe for you guys, knowing how hardcore picky I am with them, but you can only get Bics here and they are simply insufficient. I just like smooth action, preferrably with a needle point. The brands Staedler and Tul are the coolest, I think. Oh! Socks. Socks. Black athletic anything. I need lots more socks. We had a mix up at a laundry place a few times and now I have like 5 pairs. Which is not enough. But seriously. Anything you see and think, "Hey. This could be useful/cool/rare in Chile." It probably would be. I loved all the ties. I have worn all of them except the grayish red DKNY one. I´m getting there. I´m wearing my companionship tie I got with Elder Mann (It´s in the picture "too much McDonald´s icecream"), but tomorrow, if it´s the correct pant color day, it will happen. We just bought a new pension nostalgia tie, a very blue one with a very slight patterning. I´m sure you´ll see it, it´s very wearable. Some people like getting companionship ties that are only wearable to meetings, not to teach, but we decided that´s dumb. So socks, ties, pens, and - I found a place to send letters that is really close. So I will finally be getting letters off to non-family. Tell them to hang on.

This has been a crazy week. We have changes. Kind of. Elder Mann and Elder Lacambra are gone - and their spots are toast. The powers that be have decided the sectors are better rejoined, and so it is now. Elder Smith and I are now together in Mirador. We expect that I´ll only have one more change here, then I´ll leave. This is very cool, on the whole, because Elder Smith and Elder Lacambra, who have investigators almost baptized, but have no new investigators, and we have a bunch of new investigators, but no one who is soon to be baptized. We have one date - in April. Whatever. So now I´ll get to teach the higher lessons. I´ve only taught the first two lessons out of five, which are The Restoration, and The Plan of Salvation. We haven´t ever taugh the Commandments, Laws and Ordinances, or even The Gospel of Jesus Christ more than twice. I´ll be doing a lot less knocking, and more teaching, which is good as heck for me. We have a baptism the 20th of this month that will technically be partly mine. Yes! Convert! I´m sure to be having a lot to write about next week, I promise you.

How many Chileans have I taught? Since last change, 25 or so. You´d actually be surprised that the biggest problem they have IS the Book of Mormon. We have a lady who´ll be baptized in April if she can find a testimony of it. She says it seems like we worship Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. We say whatever we can, but we´re having a serious problem there.

The thing about Chileans is that they are really nice. So nice, in fact, they have a really hard time telling you when they don´t want to listen. They´ll keep telling you to come back later, but then they won´t be there. We call and set a new time, and the same thing happens. We have had to shelf a few people, and that is a very difficult thing to do. We found a lady crying in the street, and she took three lessons from us, then just dumped us. That kind of thing is rough. On the other hand, we had a fantastic experience with a lady, the lady who reminds me of Granny a lot. She called us back because the doctor said she might have cancer, and she wanted us to pray for her. We instead just went over before she went to do more tests and gave her a blessing - a real one, with oil and everything. Elder Mann told her that she´d be fine with her faith. She´s got plenty of that, so when we sat down after, everyone just felt good about it. Our friend who came with us told her about a sickness diet he learned about in college, and we left. She goes in today to see what´s going on. We fasted for her today too. We´re looking into getting her on the temple roll.

I need to ask Dad some specific stuff. I´ve gone on divisions with some other Elders and seen how they do things. They are all more friendly than my companion. They will go in and talk for 20 minutes, share a scripture for 10 minutes, and leave a few times in a day. Elder Mann will go in and do the scripture in 5 and leave, talking not at all. This brings into focus a huge balance I don´t understand. The members don´t really like us. They prefer to have the other companionship because we´re just not fun to have over. They will usually only fill half our lunches on the sheet until the Relief Society president makes them do it, but the spots for the others fill up in minutes. I keep trying to be more of a human being with the members, but Elder Mann says it´s a waste of time. We were teaching a lesson to a less active lady and she was kind of so-so with us. She didn´t want to go to church. She was petting her dog, and I asked her what kind it was. I got out a picture of Kato (people love him here. I pull him out a few times a week, especially with moms) and we talked for ten minutes about all the dogs we´ve ever had. It looked like Elder Mann was going to kill me. Then, I gave her a short little scripture, and we talked more about church, and she decided to go, because she knew she needed to. When I brought it up, Elder Mann talked about how numbers don´t mean anything - but the other Elders I worked with enjoy their time more, and are more liked by others, and have better numbers. So shouldn´t we try to do this too? Basically what I´m asking is how do I know what´s right? If I did everything how the MTC said to do it, the ward might as well have stationed soldiers who knock doors. I´m going into a change with a less-hardcore Elder, Elder Smith. I don´t want to become disobedient, but I want to have the relationship that Elder Smith and Lacambra have had with the members. I don´t know who I am anymore.

But hey, that´s why we do this, right? It occurs to me that my letters sound manic depressive sometimes. I don´t mean to; I´m just confused. I can´t do what the MTC says, but I can´t not either.

Pórtense bien; les quiero ; recuerden que Dios les quiere también,
Elder AC Crist

By the way, that diet was not to eat anything with added sugar, flour, or salt, and try to eat only fruits and nuts. You don´t have to do it for a long time, but it can make you feel better very fast. Also, cancer grows from protein and fat, and if you aren´t eating either, it´s easier to remove if such an excision can be performed.