March 25, 2013

Hey, Everyone!

Another good week this week! Unfortunately, Benita could not get baptized this week but we will keep moving forward. Hay que seguir adelante.

Let’s see. It’s been a long week. Monday night, I went to Penco Centro and Elder Clawson, who speaks very little Spanish, and I got lost up in the hills. Some Chileans gave me some bum directions. Punks. But we ended up at the top of a huge hill looking over Valle Hermoso and it was great. Pics next week. Then on Tuesday, Elder Saenz and I tore it up. Wednesday, I went out and worked with Elder Navarette in the pouring rain--that was a great experience. Actually, it really was--he taught me a ton. We did a ton of service this week--mostly cleaning up yards and stuff like that but on Saturday we helped the Balcons build a house. That was kinda cool.

Elder Saenz and I are doing really well. It’s really nice to have the zone leaders with us, feeling like they trust us to do the work we need to. We are super excited to be helping Julian and his daughters, Barbara (14) and Natalia (15) get ready for their baptisms on Saturday. They are going to be great. We went over the baptismal questions with them, and they had some doubts about a living prophet but I made brownies for them so that smoothed it all over. Ha ha, just kidding. Actually, we watched some good Thomas S. Monson talks, talked about the Book of Mormon being the keystone, went by with converts, and today we are going to teach revelation. Should be good, real good stuff.

We are working hard to keep finding those people who will be baptized in April. We are really excited to keep the zone going strong. It is great being in this zone with elders that really are all invested and doing all they can; it changes the attitude. Changes the whole game, really. And it’s nice to feel like we are really contributing to the zone now. We have a good attitude, and Elder Saenz is great, too. Good teacher. He’s definitely a pretty gangster Ecuatoriano-- loves rap and talks about his life before the mission like he was a drug lord or something, but great guy!

I’m having a great time and loving the work here! Hopefully we will have lots of great news and great pics for you all come next Monday! And General Conference is coming up, too! Wahoo!

Say hi to everyone for me! I hear Duke is in the sweet sixteen! GO, my favorite sports team! GO!

Chao!
Zach