Well hello everyone, I only have about eight minutes today because the rules are extra strict in my mission, and I can only send one email a week to my family.  If you´ve sent me an email, know that I appreciate it beyond belief and that as soon as I get home, I will come talk to you about any and all emails you have sent me.  If you send me your address,  I can write a handwritten note too.

This week has been a bit better as I´m starting to understand more and more and talk more and more.  This week we focused a lot on getting the less active people to attend church this week becasue it was the branch conference.  I play piano for the branch on a keyboard and we did a special musical number and the chapel was absolutely full (it´s a pretty small chapel but still), it was great.  We are really focusing on getting a lot of the less active members to attend church and realize it´s importance.  There are so many.

I know this is ridiculous to say, but we just have too many people to teach.  There are a lot of people willing to just let us in and listen and they just keep agreeing with everything we´re saying, but they don´t really keep the commitments we leave, so it´s difficult to decide which people are really serious about wanting to learn.  It´s a bit difficult, but I´ve decided I just have to work my hardest.  My biggest fear is not doing my best.

This week during a particularly difficult day, I was thinking of all the things I could be doing if I weren´t on my mission, and how happy I´d be.  How I could be with my family and everything.  But what I´ve decided I need to do to progress is to not only gain a testimony of this gospel but a true conversion to it where I constantly apply and act on the principles I know to be true.  When Christ had difficulties, he turned outwards and served others.  If I want to come to a true knowledge of this gospel and be truly converted, I have to turn outwards when I´m feeling down or depressed.  I hope as I continue to give my time to serve my Heavenly Father and my Savior and His other children, I will become truly converted unto the Lord.  If you are struggling with your testimony or faith of this gospel, continue in faith and turn outwards by serving people.  As you forget yourself in service, you will develop a true and lasting knowledge and conversion of this gospel.  

I´m sorry I don't have much time to write, I´ll expound more next week on some of the people we´re teaching and Chile. But this week also, I ate picarones.  They are literally the most delicious and unhealthy things I have eaten in my life. Look them up and then drool.

Happy Birthday to my most wonderful father and my most wonderful sister Clara! Their birthdays were especially hard because I couldn´t talk to them, so please give them a hug from me. 

I love you all! until next week!

MTC Photos

In the story of Don Quixote or the play Man of La Mancha, it´s about a man (Don Quixote) who´s been driven so mad by all the evil in the world, that he has deluded himself into thinking he is a knight errant, and dashes about fighting windmills and looking for his nemesis, The Great Enchanter.  He sees the world not as it is, but as it should be.  Most people think he´s crazy and turn him away or laugh at him, but one scullery maid he calls his lady and treats her like one, and because he sees her as she could be and not as she is, he changes how she views herself and how she decides to act.  And that´s what I´ve been trying to do.  When you see people as they can become, suddenly their ability to become that is so much greater.  Though I feel like I´m going mad sometimes and like I´m fighting windmills, I try to think of all these people as they can become.

Chile is beautiful and as I flew in, I looked over fields of green and tons of cows and I was reminded of Darrowby from All Creatures Great and Small.  The area that I am in is a bit more rural, and there is ony one branch for our entire district area, whereas a lot of Chile has wards.  There are only three active members in my entire sector, though there are quite a few inactive members, so we´ve been focusing on reactivating a lot of people.  The houses are made out of corrugated tin or wood planks and I´m constantly humbled by these people who have so much less than me.  We taught a family yesterday who couldn´t even buy wood to warm their house.  It was freezing. All of the houses are warmed by combustíones, which are basically like woodburning stoves.  Every morning my companion and I go out to collect firewood to start the fire, and it is absolutely freezing.  Since we can´t keep the fire going during the night, we just get lots and lots of blankets and wear about four pairs of socks.  Apparently I´m going to have to learn how to chop firewood.  All of Chile smells like a campfire, that´s just the smell of the air.

My companion, Hermana Navarro is from Honduras and speaks about two words in English, so it´s been pretty hard because she does NOT speak the Spanish I learned in the MTC and neither do the Chileans.  It´s very hard to understand, which makes it hard to be useful during lessons, but I´m trying my best to stay positive and patient about learning the language.  We sing a hymn before every lesson though, and many people have asked me to just sing afterwards, so I´m trying to sing my way into these people´s hearts because I really can´t talk to them.  We taught a woman and her daughter this week and after, she asked me to come sing for her tía who is bedridden and basically dying.  I sang How Great Thou ARt (in Spanish of course) and her aunt started crying, though she coudldn´t talk much. it was a beautiful experience. Somehow it made the whole night f freezing and being turned away from doors worth it.  

Also one night, my companion and I had been turned away from many doors and we had no appointments, so we said a prayer that we would be lead to those who needed us.  Twenty minutes later, as we were walking down kind of a dark street, we found an older woman who was drunk and we helped her home. she kept saying her mother had died, i´ll finish the story next week, i have to go! i love you all! i can´t write separate ltters any more!

Only 4 days left in the MTC, so next time you hear from me, I'll be in Chile!  

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July!  Our celebration here included basically the same schedule that we have every day (although we did have some pretty coordinated outfits going on), but at the end of the day, we got out of study early and all went down to the main building for a top secret fireside.  We all sang some patriotic hymns (My Country 'Tis of Thee, America the Beautiful), but it was incredible to hear the entire MTC body singing these hymns with such patriotic gusto as the organ pulled out all the stops.  The floor started shaking at one point.  Missionaries are a very patriotic bunch.  We then had a speaker who talked about the sacrifices many have made for this country and then watched the movie 17 Miracles, which is about the Willie Martin Handcart Company and their horrific journey across the plains.  While it was incredibly heartwrenching to watch these faithful saints sacrifice their lives as they tried to reach all the others Mormons in the Utah Valley, the movie focused on the many miracles they experienced while crossing.  It made me think of my ancestors who crossed the plains and lost family members to the sickness and elements while doing so, and I realize how little I've appreciated their sacrifice and conviction for their faith.  On tough days, I just think about them, and suddenly it's not too hard to endure anything I have too.  We then got to stay up PAST ten thirty (GASP) and go watch the fireworks from Stadium of Fire while standing on the edges of the MTC campus.  They passed out gourmet ice cream bars and as the firework finale began, all the missionaries began singing the Star Spangled Banner, kind of impromptu, and we ended with a rousing chorus of "land of the free and home of the brave" as the fireworks ended with a rather spectacular finale. 

A day before, my district had been asigned to clean them temple, as it is closed for renovation.  The hermanas got to go to a sealing room and take apart a huge crystal chandelier and clean it piece by piece.  Those things are incredible, and apparently when they get old, they smash them up and put them in the cement for the walls of the temple.  That is what you call recycling.

As my time in the MTC comes to an end, it's amazing to see how much I've changed - as well as my entire district.  I never thought I would grow so close to these people who are so different than me.  But there are some things you can't do without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a 14-foot mountain troll is one of them.  I've grown to love every single one of them, and I've come to learn that there is always something in almost everybody that you can grow to love.  Every one has incredible potential, but you have to see them that way and as you set high standards for them, they will reach them as you grow to love and respect them.  I wish I had time to talk about the many incredible experiences I've had here, but there never is time and some are very personal, but just know that the gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives.  Those are not empty words from someone is just grasping for something to believe in.  I have seen it work in the lives of many, and this is only the first month of my mission.

I love you all and tell my family I love them every chance you get, cause once a week is just not enough :)  Adios! Hasta la proxima semana!

This week I've finally started to understand something that's confused me so much in the past.  Following the promptings of the Spirit has seemed like such an abstract concept to me at times, and I've always wondered how I could differentiate between my own thoughts and promptings of the Spirit.  For those of you unfamiliar with what that is, the Spirit, or Holy Ghost is one of the members of the Godhead, who does not have a physical body like Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, but is a spirit that testifies truth to our minds and hearts and gives us feelings of peace and love.  This week I've realized I've been asking the wrong question entirely.  We don't need to differentiate between thoughts, maybe a prompting from the Spirit will just feel like one of our own thoughts, but if it's a good thought, we should simply act on it.  The more righteously and obediently we are living, and the more we are becoming like Christ, the more our thoughts will be the same as promptings from the Spirit.  The more our thoughts will be aligned with what the Spirit tells us.  All we have to worry about is becoming more like Christ, and following the promptings of the Spirit will become easier and easier. 

This week has been another wonderful week.  My companion and I were made Sister Training Leaders, which is kind of like a Zone Leader, but only over the sisters in our zone.  The Zone Leaders mostly take care of the Elders and we take care of the sisters.  I have to go do a tour for all the new sisters coming into our zone this week in just a little bit.  I'm so excited! My companion and I have decided (along with the Zone Leaders) that we want to help our zone step it up with, not only our study, but our whole behavior here. 

Also, apparently along with the new announcements at the missionary broadcast, they are going to start phasing in ipads and iphones for all the missionaries, and they will be able to use them for scheduling, teaching and everything else.  Two of the elders from my district were chosen to be "models" for the pamphlets they're making about it.  They went for a two hour photoshoot and got makeup put on them.  It was really weird.  But if you see an Elder Angel and Elder Weber on any pamphlets, that's my claim to fame.

Last night we had a fantastic devotional about "What ere thou art, act well thy part."  My district came back and had a discussion about it, which was incredible, watching all these 18 and 19 year olds

weep as they became truly humbled and ready to serve others.  I wish I had more time to explain it.  There is true power behind humility.

I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July, I love you all, next week I will organize this better and have a lot more time! Adios!