District Leader July 19, 2011

Dear Crist Family,

I am pleased to inform you that your son, Elder Crist, has been called to serve as a District Leader in our mission. He has exhibited leadership capabilities through his desire to learn and lead out in his efforts as a missionary. His example of hard work, following the Spirit, and concern for his fellow missionaries have prepared him to assume these new responsibilities.

This opportunity will stretch him and give him new opportunities for growth. As he lifts and sustains the missionaries under his stewardship, he will develop a deep love for them and for the Lord. These abilities will sustain him throughout his life.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve with your son here in the mission field. This is the work of the Lord. His efforts are blessing the lives of so many. I am grateful to you for supporting him in this new and important calling.

Sincerely,

President Richard W. King
Chile Santiago West Mission

I got changed!

I am posting the last two weeks in this post. I think that time is just flying and I cannot imagine how fast it goes for a missionary who is super busy every day! We have passed the 10 month mark! Crazy, it still doesn't seem like that much time! Alex is (was) having a lot of trouble with his companion and I feel so bad for him. I want to protect him from all things bad but Heavenly Father has a plan for him and is teaching him quickly. This first letter is kind of sad and depressing. I am sad for him but I know Heavenly Father is preparing him for something down the road. Something amazing!

Okay, it seems that the audio doesn´t work - your bitrate was 256 and the ones my camera makes are 44 - maybe a little too much for the camera. It says 44kbps, 4bit 1 channel 11KHz IMA ADPCM. Don´t know if you can try saving the ones you have in that size - I think audacity or garageband would have the options to save like that so I can hear it. I would just put it on the computer and play it, but they have a weird anti- headphone thing in the mission, so I can´t.

Anyway, this has been a rough, rough week. I got sick on Saturday, and could barely go out. I am still pretty bad. I have what appears to be the flu, with bad poo, crazy runny nose, and strange aches all day. I am taking some drugs but they don´t do much.

I´m listening to those recordings. It´s really fun. A lot better than just words.

"Tell Alex to send more BODILY INJURIES. Those are awesome."

That´s awesome.

I´m not feeling particularly inspiring today. I am learning that I´m a lot tougher than I thought, will all the insane things that have happened.

My companion is really struggling right now. I asked him straight if he hated the sector or not. He looked at the ground for a few seconds and said yes. He went on to say he doesn´t find any love in himself for the people (naming a few by name, which surprised me, as they were some of my favorites). He doesn´t have any drive to do anything, and I´m sick as anyone´s ever been, so we haven´t really done much recently. He even said he is absolutely disinterested in talking to me, and because of that we have not progressed much in unity. Not only that, he doesn´t like anything I do or say. I plan alone.

Like I said, it´s been hard. I don´t want to start the drill sergeant angry thing but nothing else works. I know how much I hated it, so I´m hesitant to do it to anyone else. But the choice is seeming to be that or work alone. I would like him to leave. I think it would be better for everyone involved.

One of the interesting things that I´ve realized recently - in my patriarchal blessing I´m blessed with love for people. I´ve never not had love for people in the mission. You could say God kept up his promise. I never even considered how hard it would be if you didn´t even love the people - I don´t know how you´d get out of bed in the morning in the mission. Why else would one be here?

I´m thankful for that gift. A person can talk about how I don´t commit people to be baptized fast enough, or how my contacts are slow and lame, but no one can say anything about my motivation. And rest is doable if you´ve got a motive.

I have spent a little time thinking about what you could send me. I have been unable to think of anything. Anything I could want I have or I can´t have. I was going to ask for an analog watch, but I found one in the pension and fixed it up so now I don´t need one. More CDs, preferably an MP3 CD with several albums so I don´t have to keep so many. That´s all I´ve got.

I´ll keep thinking about it.

Keep progressing, and, like Randy´s dad says, "Take care of your feet."

Love,
Elder A Conrad Crist




July 18, 2011

Somebody sign into facebook and say yes to all the people who are adding me. There are a few.

I´m afraid that the audios are still too big. Needs to be 44kbps, 4 bit. I think audacity has the options to do that.

Anyway, the biggest news item for today is that I got changed. It´s a very strange division, three changes, but here we are, and here we soon shall not be.

Like Dad has said, the mission is a really long 50-miler in terms of baggage. The more intelligent, older missionaries have perhaps 25 pounds, while the noobcake people have 45 or so, mostly of ridiculous things like canned food and other nonsense. I´m now well into the old phase, so packing was a matter of folding some clothes up. I already knew how I was to put everything in, for I´ve done it twice already.

So today I go to say goodbye and stuff like that. I actually have only four families I need to visit, and an additional two to call. I don´t know if I just didn´t do my job enough to meet and love all the people. Whatever. I find that I haven´t actually done a lot of things I regret here, so we´re okay. I guess I just wasn´t a "big splash" here.

The only thing that really makes me sad is our best investigator ever, Carlos. I´ve told you about how we knocked the door of his parents-in-law and they were members, and they were reactivated. He has been to church twice now, and likes it. His girlfriend asked him if he´d like to be baptized, and he said yes. The only thing that´s hanging him up is that he´s not married to her, and they kind of live together. The parents said they´re sure he about to propose and get it all fixed. The only thing is that I won´t be here to see it. I´m on the records, but I kind of wanted to be there. That kills, that. Ach.

I´ve listened to the recording. In audacity, there´s one of those hangy bars, I think FILE, and there´s a save wav, I´m almost sure. All you´d have to do is put 44 and 4.

Anyway, I´m gone, and it´s kind of lame timing. I asked President King to watch out for Elder Aguilar. Honestly, I´m a little scared for him. I make pretty clear the level of problem he has with the sector. President King´s comment on him was something like, "Elder Aguilar has some rough times ahead. He is going to have to learn to humble himself before the Lord." Oh, man.

You know, I think the whole relationship, or lack of relationship, comes somewhere from in there. He doesn´t want to be here. I don´t know how exactly his lesson´s going to come, but he´s going to have to find it soon if he doesn´t want to suffer a lot. He´s got, in all probability, two to four more changes here. That´s a long time, as far as I can think - imagine six months in a job you hate from which you can´t quit or take a vacation. I´ve been blessed, but blessed (that´s a Chilean expression) in terms of love for people so far. I am finding out that I have a really, really heavy prejudice against leech/entitled people. Other than that, I do fine. I gave it at lot of thought - I think pride is the thing that deters me. Could be.

I´ve also started applying Getting Things Done in the mission. Preach My Gospel is very conventional, and good, but I find that the planning section is too "How many people can we push to be baptized this month$" which is to say, less about people than it should be. I think about people in more of a person-by-person way, and I find it gets to the goal better than putting a made up number and then trying to figure out how to force someone to accept our will. GTD says when planning, one should think about the very next thing that can be done with each person, not so much a top-down "People we can get to accept a date", "People we can get to church," etc.

But if I´m wrong, I suppose I´ll have to change. This, my friends and countrymen, is the destroyer of people. I think of myself as humble only because I´ve been hammered so hard so far in the mission. But if I can´t teach, contact, or baptize, at least I can change to be able to do it. I´ve thought about Satan a little more than I should have in my trials to find my testimony. One valuable thing, though, is the realization that if he hadn´t had pride, things would not be at all the same.

Imagine it- I am Satan, everyone is obligated, everyone comes back. (We can argue also that the plan he proposed was just to usurp the power of God and destroy us all right there in terms of progression, but anyway, for the purposes of the story,) Then Jesus stands up and says no, we get agency, and he´ll go and save our bacon. We liked that plan more, and God approved it. What would have happened if he´d said, "You know, Jesus is a pretty smart guy. His plan was better - I´m just going to go along with it."

That´s not what happened. He got angry, and left, and the rest is history - or more accurately, the Bible.

Well, then. That´ll be all. I´ll be somewhere that´s not here tomorrow. Prayer, please.

Love,
Elder A Conrad Crist


Random note before I forget - I will write to as many people as will write to me separately. There´s nothing holy about ludacrist5; Jake and Abby or whoever can write separately from wherever and I will respond as individually as people write.

Mistaken for a Chilean (on the phone)

It is a miraculous thing that we coming up on 10 months gone. I feel so blessed that it does not seem that long. Although I am definitely looking forward to the Homecoming! I see the growth and determination from afar and know this is a great way for him to spend a few years really learning to obey and be a servant of the Lord.
The pictures are $250 pesos to use the bathroom, glasses get fogged because of coldness, and a jhot pizza!




Before I get on any more, I just realized that you could record .wav files (it has to be .wav)(do it in garageband or audacity and just make sure the thing that comes out says .wav) and send them. I can put them on my camera to listen to them. There´s no rules against that - think sending cassette tapes back and forth. Same thing, just electro-fancy.

Also, there´s a really, really cool scripture case maker in my zone I could get some covers from, but they´re rather expensive. The normal tacky trite ones that all missionaries get almost are 14 mil each. These are 30 each. That´s sixty bucks. But they´re between five and seven times better done. What do you think$ I may just get them to do it. And they are so much better.

This week was weak. We had a bunch of cool trainings about the doctrine of Christ. Allow me to present the five tenets of the Gospel -

Christ paid the price for our sins and will intercede if we obey
What we do in this life determines our happiness now, and in the thereafter
The true church, with the ability to follow Christ, exists on the earth
We are given commandments which we must obey to obtain blessings in addition to Salvation
It is our responsibility to share what we have received from Christ with others
Something interesting - every doubt, problem, sin, etc, results from our lack of understanding and acceptance of these things. These things are the most important things that people understand. You may notice that there are five lessons in Preach My Gospel - there´s a reason for that.

Then interviews with President King. I expressed to him the difficulties of the sector, and he just said, "Elder, you´re the best the Lord has for Silva Chávez." I kind of laughed, but he didn´t. He just said it again - "Elder, you´re the best the Lord has for Silva Chávez."

Kind of a heavy thing, that. It´s really easy to think about these transfers as "postings," like when your sergeant says, "Okay, Private Johnson over there, Private Miller stays here," etc. It´s as if anyone could do any posting, just according to how long you´ve been there, and what sector was open when it was too much. There´s actually a pretty large Divine component, if I understand what President King says. There´s something I have to do here, it seems. I´d like to know what it is, though.

Later we went to our executive comittee meeting, which is always a treat. Not so much because the things for which we are there are so entertaining, rather the members of the comittee are just so dang entertaining. There´s the Elder´s Quorum President, who is a cop, his counselor, who´s an executive of some kind, and our Branch President, who owns a company that rents construction equipment (that guy... bank) that are the most funny. The counselor reminds me a lot of Tres, and the Elders´ President is like that accountant Master of Accountancy guy. We get everything done, but there´s some fun in there somewhere. They´re all powerful, get-it-doners. The problem we faced was some people who didn´t come to the meeting, but now it´s fixed and we´re doing all kinds of stuff. They got people to go out to four houses to do pre-rain repairs in a few minutes. It kind of reminded me of a Utah ward, actually.

We´ve been working a ton with the members, and now they invite us over all the time, which is ideal. You could say we paid some time this week to get some more friendship and help from them in the future. We´re not supposed to just hang out with them all the time, but we also need to be a part of their lives. I never saw a single missionary in all my life before the MTC, which makes it difficult to tell what would be ideal from a member´s point of view. It´s so strange to never have gone out with a missionary before. It´s actually pretty unheard of to never have gone out with missionaries before the mission. When people are about to go the missionaries are all over them. They were practically mythological creatures before the mission. Apparently anywhere else in the universe you´re supposed to go out with the missionaries. In Utah it´s not possible. That is a reason for not being in Utah, I suppose.

Okay, so when did Riley go$ I didn´t hear a date in there ever. August 30 would mean he went in... yesterday or so$ But he´s seen missionaries! What a boon! He knows they exist! He needs no faith!

Tell him he can email me if he wants to. (I get that he doesn´t right now because he has like a half an hour and can´t send pictures, so he´s going to talk to his mom and write to his girlfriend.) But still. If he has a latin trainer he may need to ask me what flaite means or something.

Well, yes. Okay. I said hi from Chile to everyone. Tell Kelsey I sent a letter. (Who knows if it gets there.)

Not to be depressing or anything.

Love,
Elder A. Conrad Crist

I was mistaken for a Chilean on the phone! Yay! I´m toast with regards to appearance, but the phone doesn´t show anything (not this year, at least. Apple´s thinking about what they can do to help that).

I have a little problem, though. I can talk about small things all day, but if I want to talk about cooking, or medicine, or whatever I just don´t know enough words to talk like a human. I have the grammar of a sixteen-year-old with a four-year-old vocabulary. Maybe Dad knows something about this - I don´t know what to study, because everything is so obscure at that level. I though of just telling stories to myself until I encountered a word I didn´t know.

Federico changed their P-Day!

I was very excited to read Alex's letter this week. Although when am I not excited? I waited around all day, seriously, and it NEVER came! I decided to wait until the next day and call the Mission Office and be one of those Moms. I had a rough day on Tuesday, imagining the worst. I got home from somewhere and went to look in the past emails for the phone number to the Office and there was the letter! Whew, I didn't have to make a fool of myself or of my son! I suppose this sort of thing happens but seriously they should not let it happen to kids who are on the other side of the world! So, there was no problem and he is still healthy and happy! Thank Goodness!




They changed our Pday to today. I go into more details in the audio (a very long one this week). Basically Monday was a holiday and so we couldn´t shop or do Internet or anything, so they changed it. Which meant we had to work 7 days in a row without doing not-missionary stuff, which made Monday rough.

In other news, it´s pretty cold nowadays. I wear gloves all day, and right now it´s really hard to type because my hands (especially the right - couldn´t tell you why) are cold and sluggish. I wear that scarf all day too, by the way. It´s by far the best one I´ve seen. I remember in the summer I looked at it and thought, "This is ridiculous. What am I going to do with this$" Kind of a similar feeling now for the short sleeve shirts I have.

The sector is still enormous, and I still am not sure what I´m doing a lot of the time. The numbers are pretty weak this week. The work here is so sword-edged - if something doesn´t quite happen, a bus doesn´t come, or a person can´t go out with us, we´re just toast that day. Sometimes we´re just paralyzed in the center of the city, where we have no one. In Chile a missionary can´t go into a house without a man of more than 16 years, so if there´s not someone where we want to go, we just can´t go. So we knock doors all day. It´s hard. The sector is just that way. I´ve tried to keep up hope that with work we can get up to the levels of missionaries in the city, or at least to the level of Melipilla. But we slam and crunch and work so hard I can barely get up in the morning, and when I type the numbers in at the end of the week, we´re still dragging along with a pair of lessons with members and four without. We should be at eight with, and six without. That´s the level we have to be working for, as far as I understand it. It says over and over again in Preach My Gospel that you shouldn´t blame the sector or other people for what´s happening - but I blame the sector. Getting a member out to a "campo" town requires three or four hours of their time, and 1500 pesos, which is like sixteen bucks for an American. How often would you do that$

It´s okay, though. The leaders, while extremely spread out, are stupendous. The trick is figuring out a way to do it and presenting it, and not just giving the problem and asking for them to figure it out. If it´s just a question of money or driving somewhere, they´ll do it easily.

Robbie Williams just came on the radio. "I don´t wanna die. But I ain´t keen on living either," he says. Kind of depressing, the song.

Anyway, I´m also wearing the socks. Of course, we have to have on dress socks, so I just put the dress socks over the good ones. I´ve even worn the long pioneer garments. They work, but they feel really, really strange. I think I´m going to look into getting some thing like that you put over underwear, but under pants. Could be good.

Our investigators who asked for their baptismal date are good still, but they had to go do some tests in the hospital (hope they studied, right$) so we haven´t been able to visit them. They wanted to watch that movie from the Church "Together Forever," so we gave it to our Branch President, a friend of theirs, who will go and watch it with them with his family (like I said, really good leaders). These are your "intellectual" investigators. They studied with every church under the sun (and above it, Tom Cruise) and were ultimately impressed by the Church as being "different" than all the others. (Interestingly enough, in Hebrew, the word kadosh means "holy", but also "different." Next time you hear "holy" think about how it would be if it was "different." "Holy is the Lord of Hosts." "The Lord desires a holy people." etc) Like I was saying, they were impressed, but were very cautious. Then all this medical stuff happened I´ve told you about, and now they´ve seen the need for "Together Forever"-ness.

I´m over time. Blast. My relationship with my companion is getting a lot better. Do you know what the secret is$ I stopped trying. Kind of a wierd thing there, I know. That was all I had to do, though - stop trying. It just happened.

affectionately($),
Elder A. Conrad Crist

Pictures. People in Chile love families. And members always ask for them.
How much Cocoa in brownies$ The recipe doesn´t say how much.
Coins - whatever size, but a variety
Josh Groban
O Magnum Mysterium (song)
Thanks for the pocket knife, it was very usefull today

I whacked the infection, no problem.

A River Runs Through It.

I still cannot grasp the fact that Alex is going through the winter right now. I just have to compensate with thinking he is just having terrible weather but that he is in the US somewhere. It is strange that life just goes on and on and the people in our direct sphere changes. I am pretty sure Alex's world has shrunk pretty small. He has an audio recording that he tries to speak English but he has forgotten a lot of words. Some of them are kind of funny! I will keep trying to figure out how to download his audio's.



That´s hot.

Seriously, that´s hot. It´s now getting pretty cold here. They said this week it will get down to -4. That´s Celsius, but still - enough to freeze water. We could probably skate at that point, for my street has become a river. Filthy water runs down the hill (I explain this in one of the audios) and because all the water on the whole hill has to come down my street, there´s more than a little. It left us with a very gross pool in the back where our cement dips.

Besides a really annoying infection on my neck (this time), I´m pretty well. I inherited a good umbrella from the pension "box of dutey," so I´m okay there. I´ve actually managed to put on every thing I have - shirt, sweater, suit, inside of coat, scarf, outside of coat, gloves, umbrella. Sometimes we have to walk 30 minutes to get somewhere after a bus, so one must go with everything.

I think I´ve started to use everything there was in the packages. I have the pocketknife with me, and the camera, I´ve used a few of the handwarmers (They do not exist here. They freak people out.), I wear the gloves, etc. There´s only two things I need now : a few coins to give people (like 20), and more pictures. With that I wouldn´t know what to request. Well done with the CDs. I expected like 2. I now have some 15.

I´m kind of figuring out how to run this sector. I see what the Lord was saying in D&C 121 when he said that most men get all prideful when they think they have some power, because the last two meetings we´ve had with the Branch President he said that the missionary work is functioning impeccably. Our Mission Leader is a pretty heavy hitter, which doesn´t hurt. He´s the kind of guy that you tell about a need or service or problem and a solution he can help with and he just does it. A lady in the ward needed a new door. He said, "Okay - tomorrow we go to the store and call Bro. Diaz (a construction guy in our ward) to see when he can help us put it in." It silences me when people work like that. We got it all finished in four days.

So you could see how now I go, "I´m such a sick missionary. Look how good my Branch is doing because of me." Eh - careful. The Lord is pretty clear about that stuff. CS Lewis wrote that when you have the same joy from your success and from the success of others, that´s a good balance.

Anyway, it goes on pretty well here for now. Elder Aguilar and I are good, if a little foreign still. What I mean by that is we have almost nothing in common, and we´re just really different. I said that twice to emphasize it. It´s really strange because I get along with the members, and he gets along with the members. But we´re just not friends yet. He´s a rock musician and electrician. I don´t relate to that at all. He had a band and a huge family. I sang in a choir. Just wierd still. I don´t know what to do, but it´s going away with time.

It´s rainy, but I borrowed boots. Note the photo quality change. Pay attention to the Spirit.

Elder A Conrad Crist

Summer/Winter

I am unable to grasp the concept of having my son living in the middle of winter right now. Is it because I have never experienced a June or July that was like a November or December? It just seems not real to me. I look at the pictures and I find myself thinking they were taken last fall. Very strange! I wonder how he will take next July/August when he comes home and goes right into our winter. That may be the longest winter of his life!




Okay. I just realized I didn´t put in a picture of my companion. Yeah, whatever.

My new companion (I went nowhere) is Elder Aguilar from Argentina. He´s an actual rocker; he had a band and everything. He´s freaking new in the mission. I´m his first companion after his trainer, which is to say he has three months and change in the mission. He´s older than I am, a little. He´s a very well put-together missionary for the time he has. He´s been a member for his whole life like me, which means there´s very little doubt or scripture he doesn´t get. We actually have to try to stay simple with people because we both know a lot. Argentines speak like Italians, but in Spanish. Elder Aguilar speaks with huge, bouncy words which make him really easy to understand. (Anyone who´s not a Chilean is easy to understand, actually. Chileans are the worst speakers ever. If you can understand Chileans, Mexicans or Columbian or Spaniards are super slow and easy.) When someone does something cool, he says "Yiiiiiiiiiiiii!" It´s already starting to stick to me.

He´s not crazy about the sector yet, but he likes the members he´s met and the leadership with whom we´ve had meetings.

This, of course, means I´m Senior Companion, even though our combined experience is a year. There´s a gringo from my group of the MTC who´s training, which is unheard of. Usually you train starting at 12 months, but the mission is so young now that they´re grabbing anyone who doesn´t do bad stuff and can walk and do contacts. The mission´s oldest group goes this change, then we´re down to a group with 16 months -almost no one with more than that. The average I would suspect is about 8 months. I´m at 9 and change, which is all kinds of nuts.

"What do you mean I´m old in the mission?"

Something like that.

I get along a lot better with Elder Aguilar than I did with Elder Silva. We are two young guys who barely know what we´re doing, but that´s also our strength - we have very few faith-breaking preconceptions. We´re seriously kicking butt right now.

I am kind of excited for the package. Not going to lie. They give us stuff every Tuesday, so I think I´ll have it Tuesday. My camera kicked it. The screen just went nuts one day and that was it. It still takes pictures, but as one cannot see anything, it is of limited utility. In other words, it´s pretty well timed. If it doesn´t arrive I may have a panic attack.

There are five steps to repentance. Well, there are five in the cool example I always use.

Reconocer
Dejar
Confesar
Restituir
Cumplir con los Mandamientos

...oh, fetch...

Recognize
Cease
Confess
Restore
Keep the Commandments

I usually put my pen in my hand and pull off a finger with each step. The purpose of the example is to show that Recognizing, Ceasing, and Keeping the Commandments only isn´t repentance - it´s a gang sign. (If you want the pen to fall out, all the fingers must be extended.)

No, but seriously, it´s a good example. You have to tell me first so I can give you some sick field-tested didactic helps!

I asked my zone leader if that feeling of having no idea what you´re doing goes away. He said, "... Yeah. Yeah, it actually does." He went on to tell me that you just go one day at a time doing whatever you can and the results result. That´s what we´re doing. And we´re seeing miracles and *bakanza all over the place. Some investigators who excused themselves out of seeing us had a large trial that involved a Blessing of Health that almost certainly saved a life, and they´re now pretty ready to progress. We found a guy the other day who had been wishing he could find a Book of Mormon to read because it had always interested him.

Oh, and my freaking watch broke. That little pin part that keeps the pieces of the band broke. It was a pretty understandable break (not to mention more injurious for me if it hadn´t), but now I don´t know what to do. The watch places here are kind of ghetto. I´m still looking for something there. Should I buy a four-dollar one so I don´t get robbed anyway$ I think I will.

I have rediscovered eggs, in other news. Can someone tell me how Dad does them$ Here they put oil in it, which I don´t like. Dad´s are so superior - what´s the deal there$

Package Package Package

Did you get that Patriarchal Blessing yet$

Package Package

Okay, that´s enough.

Love,
Elder A Conrad/Alex C Crist

*coolness, sickness

Missionary stuff

This must be the hump they talk about. Well, at least it is for me. It seems like Alex left a long time ago! Like longer than reality! Anyway, in a few more months he will be on the downward slide of things and then it will seem like he hasn't been gone that long. At least that is what I am hoping!




Oh, man. This week Elder Silva leaves and I get a new companion. I am not moving; I will be leading this sector by myself. The biggest sector in the mission. I still don´t know what kind of companion I´m going to get or anything. It´s just kind of scary. There´s about 6,000 people in my sector. One can drive 45 minutes through the middle. (Does that mean it´s bigger than Rhode Island?)

Needless to say, I´m scared as dump (as my trainer, Elder Mann would say). My biggest fear is getting a disobedient missionary to make things worse. I´m hoping for a more-or-less old white guy, maybe 18 months into the mission. That would be ideal.

It´s getting cold now, and there was a terrifying rain storm yesterday. I had to use an umbrella for the first time in my life. It rained until we went inside, then stopped. How lame, right?

We had another baptism last Saturday. The mission leader invited all the right people, and now they´re all best friends. Her husband is still in a problem with the alcohol, but we´re going to bring the hammer next time. The love hammer, of course. A little D&C 19, Alma 5...

Next week I´m either going to be depressed or excitied. Probably both.

Something a doctor (teacher of Gospel Principles) said to me about this - ask yourself, "If I knew how to do this, how would I do it?" It´s surprising how often it gets you over the pretense of not being trained in something. I think it not only is a good mental exercise but also an invitation to the Spirit.

Oh, man. Here we go.

Hoping to recieve that darned package soon,
Elder A. Conrad Crist
Silva Chavez


Is there a more arranged version of Beautiful Savior (Crusader´s Hymn) than the lame one on lds.org? Could you find it in mp3 or something? (If you record Abby ever singing religious stuff, consider sending it in email.)