First Baptism!!!

I LOVE getting Alex's letters! They are so filled with inspiration and fun. Actually, it is just like being there. I am so happy he is finding people who want to learn the Gospel. I also find it seriously amusing that he has already forgotten some English words. He is going to be a foreigner when he comes back! Oh, and still no pictures! Wah! I hate not having pictures to look at and make sure that he really is fine. I hope he gets a card reader soon!


The dog´s back. That´s all I was worried about. Until next week.




Kidding, of course.

I really don´t remember what happened earlier this week. The thing I remember? Baptism. I still need to find a converter for the camera for the pictures, but we did, in fact, hold a service for Pablo Ortiz. When we arrived for the service, right after church, though, our ward mission leader thought we forgot to plan the program, which we hadn´t, so he started to re-plan it. We had a semi-tense argument with him, but it all worked out. Our first speaker was the investigator´s best friend in the ward so far, and the second was the super-cool returned missionary young men´s leader. We had a violinist Elder come over to play for the music too. I would have played piano, but the violin is ever rarer in Chile. The baptiser is about to leave on his mission and helped us teach Pablo several times - really just a good deal all the way around in terms of participation. For the whole day, whenever something bad happened, we´d just look at each other and say "yeah, but we had a baptism today!" (or just "baptism!!") and do a fist-bump. Win.

Speaking of other stuff I did that day, we visited a less-active family who knew Alan. They are sure his name was Elder Crist, looked kind of like me, hurt his ankle, and was pretty quiet. They lived in a place called "San Bernardo" that was more or less near Viña del Mar. So if some one wants to say something to him, it´s the familia Torres. The sister is a high-level singer and knew tons of missionaries. If someone could find an old picture of Alan too for her to see, that would also be cool.

We later went to Mónica, our investigator with the problematic husband and the smoking problem. She´s doing really well. All is well there, but as the discussion went, she asked us about something American she´s heard about - brownies. Could you send me the receta (the word in English is like recipee but I can´t remember how to spell it) for brownies, cheescake, normal chocolate chip cookies, and any others you can think of? This has a really missionaryish application - she loves cooking stuff and it takes her mind off of things for a while - and it´s a substitute for smoking.

I don´t know how much you remember about Raquél. She reminds me of Granny, remember? She has a spinal lesion for a reason yet to be determined. We passed by to see if we could do something. All she ever says is "Just pray for me." She´s got the deepest faith in God I think I´ve ever seen. She knows He loves children, for example, because she never lacked food while her daughter was in her house, but before and after it happened often. She takes that and makes it good. I hope to develop that kind of trust in God. I like to think my faith is strong, but it´s not had that much of a stress on it before. Even the mission (which is the hardest thing I´ve ever done) doesn´t put that much of a strain of my faith. I see things every day that confirm God approves of the work I do and the progress I make. Every now and then I think maybe I´ve been given a surplus of ease so that I can help other people. Is that possible? There´s nothing wrong with my body or my mind. If I want something, I just work for it and get it. Raquél can´t stand up. She cannot physically stand up. But she knows God is guiding her life. That makes everything, from going to Church, to getting in shape a little easier, doesn´t it? Raquél would love to go to Church. She´d love to work out. Please be conscious of what you´ve been given.

Today was pretty cool though. I wish I could send you the pictures I have. We went to Santa Lucía in Santiago - look it up, it´s pretty cool. From the top of the fortress, you can see the entire city in every direction. It´s pretty ridiculous. Then we ate in a pizza place in the middle of Santiago city, complete with more people visible on the street than there are in Saint George at any given time. Then we went to a feria - a "fair", but really more of a market - and I finally got hold of a few of those linen shirts with the symbols on the chest... you may have to wait for a picture to understand. If I were to sent gift stuff home, I would probably send those. A new metro stop opened near my house, so we used it, and it made the trip a lot faster. I´ll have a lot of good pictures when I find a card reader, I promise.

Besides the trip to Santa Lucía and the baptism, it´s been very standard.

I don´t know how advanced a primary lesson would be, but I teach this class fairly often. There are three questions people have: Where were we before we were here?, Why are we here?, and Where are we going to go? I find that the difference between the telestial and terrestrial kingdoms are really not terribly important - but being able to live with my family forever is. We lived with our Father in Heaven before we came here. We valiantly chose to come here to gain what He has. We are here to learn how to make good decisions and endure trials. If we give are best, and learn to love God and do what he wants us to do, we will live forever with our families. That´s all there is to it.

¿Como tradujeron lo que escribí? ¿O no lo han traducido? Bueno, les quiero mucho,
Elder AC Crist


Do you want anything from here? I guess you don´t know what IS here. Yeah, I´ll think about it.