Week #9

Alex sounds like he is working very hard! He is loving it and learning so much. I really just wish he had gotten a package or two that we have sent. Does it really take 6 - 8 weeks to get something there? Maybe it won't ever get there and that would be sad. I can't wait to hear what he thinks about the package that he will get this Wednesday. There is some fun stuff in there! The pictures are of him after he ate a lot of meat, the banana still hanging from New Year's,(why hasn't it rotted?) and the meat they cooked at the zone activity. Fun Fun










That is rather exciting, the package thing. I belive if it touches down in the office before Wednesday morning, I get it that week, so I´ll expect that, if nothing else. The pattern seems to be when you stop really getting mad when they don´t arrive, you´ll get them. I´ll probably get them all at once, just because that would be funny.

This week has been fantastic. We took an investigator on a tour of the chapel, and now she´s going to come next week. We finally got in contact with an investigator we´ve been chasing for a month, and we had a sick zone activity/barbeque. I have a little more time this week, and I´m wondering how to use it to help people out or at least give them something interesting to read. Let´s think.

After a vote last week, we decided to do an Asado (barbeque). We bought thirty bucks worth (more like 70 where you guys live) of meat and cooked in this awesomely ghetto grill (the grill part is made of fence - I think you can see if you look in the pictures.) First the sausages (with real intestine casing, which is actually a good thing, I´ve learned) were done, so everyone had a little hot dog. The rest of it was mostly a brisket, complete with dry rub and butter. While it cooked, six white guys and two latins played American football. They didn´t really get it, as you might imagine. Then we ate the meat, which was very good, but had no utinsels, hence the picture. I ate a third of one, I think. Then, in post-meat stupor, we just layed on blankets like engorged walruses (or walrii, you´d have to ask Jake). (I find myself very curious at the mechanics of Latin, after studying Spanish, which is supposedly based upon it.)

Anyway, then we took cold showers (this was earlier today). The other Elders video´d my yelling because of the cold water, which I´m sure will end up on facebook in a year or so. And now I´m here in an internet café. (On that note, type in something like Mirador, Los Cerrillos, Chile. That´s my mainstreet. Then find Pablo Suarez, which connects to it. That´s where my house is, somwhere along there. I´ll get the address for it. I think Google can find it. It´s too bad they won´t have on-the-ground photos.)

This week has been all about hope for me. Two weeks ago, I was on divisions with our Zone Leader, Elder Zmoos (who is in a picture). We were walking to an appointment and I said something like "Yeah, we´re going to pass by, but they probably won´t be there."
He stopped and looked at me. "Elder - Where´s your faith?"
It was a good question. I was walking to a house because I had to verify they weren´t there. I honestly did not expect the people to be there. Because of a few instances of this earlier in the week, I did not have hope that the investigators would be there.



Come with me, if you will, to last Friday. One of our investigators is very awesome. She takes everything we say without problems, and she´s reading the Book of Mormon better than a lot of members may be. Our next step was to get her to church. If you like math, a new investigator has a 3% chance of being baptized. If a person gets to church, it comes up to 25% in our mission. We decided to take advice (that seemed really weird to me) from our President and take them on a tour of the chapel. We invited to a tour that Friday. We set it up, but when the time came, she didn´t arrive. We waited for a half an hour. We decided to walk to her house. On the way there, a car pulled up - with her and her husband, who´d she´d invited (they´re separated). We drove there and had a spectacular lesson and walkthrough of the chapel. Even though he doesn´t live in our sector, we called the missionaries (who are friends of mine) that are over his area, and they are teaching him now, and he is on a straight shot to the font. If she wasn´t pregnant, she´d have a baptismal date.

Let me tell you, when we left the chapel, I believed something like that would happen. I knew that if we set up the tour, God would give us someone who would go into it with us. God does not hang you out to dry. I know a little more about that this week.

Yo sé que vive mi Señor, y que Él nunca va a abandonaros. Y que vosotros, mi familia, sois los mejores.

Que le vaya bien,
Elder A C Crist