Hello dearest everybody, greetings from the end of the world.  I will have you know, the directors of Pirates of the Carribean - End of the World took great creative liberties... in all aspects of that movie.  Anywho, I have officially been transferred to Punta Arenas - the absolute tip of South America and the southern-most spit of land in the world - besides Antarctica, which is, in fact, a two hour flight away.  In our mission, all but 2 of the areas are in the North part of the mission, and then there´s a whole lot of nobody, then there´s a city called Chiloe, and then there´s a whole lot more of nobody, and then there´s us.  So that´s where I am in case anyone wanted to send me some hot, homemade bread or something.

Anyway, I found out I would be transferred here last Friday so that I could send one of my suitcases by bus because we could only bring one suitcase on board the airplane that we took.  But I was told that I would be leaving Wednesday morning.  HOWEVER, our leaders called me Monday night and told me that I would be leaving Tuesday, so I did a frantic pack of my suitcases and didn´t get any time to say goodbye to anyone. I called Emma to say goodbye and when she heard that I was already on the bus to the bus terminal in Osorno, she left right away and took a bus there too - about an hour away from La Union, and met me there.  I told her to tell everyone back in my beautiful La Union goodbye for me.  

From there, I took a bus to Puerto Montt - about two hours away - to spend the night so that I could wake up early the next morning to catch a bus to the airport.  Anyway, I woke up early and all that jazz, and the hermana that was with me told me she would call a taxi to take us to the airport.  So we called the taxi and then waited on the curb for about twenty minutes until we realized the taxi probably wasn´t coming.  At this point we started getting stressed because we had to be at the bus terminal in about thirty more minutes to catch my bus to the airport.  We called the taxi again and they told us it had gotten lost.  Anyway, long story short, it didn´t show up until five minutes before my bus was about to leave, and the terminal was still fifteen minutes away.  I had said quite a few prayers before that I would get to my bus on time, but when the taxi finally got there, I felt that it was impossible.  But then I remembered a talk I had read by Elder Jean R. Cook that was talking about how we can increase our faith.  He said that when it looks impossible that your prayers are going to be answered, thats when you have to double your faith, not cut it in half.  So I was praying the whole way that I would still make my bus, then the zone leaders that had been waiting for us and all the other missionaries who had to take this bus called and said the bus had left.  At this point, it seemed impossible, but I kept praying.  When the taxi finally left us at the terminal, one of the zone leaders rushed over, grabbed my suitcase and rushed off without saying a word.  So I rushed after him.  We ran and ran and ran through traffic and people and I had no idea where he was going, but he finally stopped at some random intersection, and about two seconds after we got there, the bus that I was supposed to take stopped there too.  They opened the doors, the elder handed them my suitcase, and I got on.  As I sat down with all the other missionaries who were all applauding my victorious entry onto our bus, I thought to myself, I made it.  I really made the bus.  And that´s how I made it to the end of the world. Faith and prayers.  And an elder who knew where he was going.

My companion´s name is Hermana Lethco and she was actually in my district in La Union, so I knew her before.  She´s great and I love working with her.  

Now.  Punta Arenas.  Example: as I am writing this, a piece of roof just flew off someones house and flew past the window.  I had heard before that Punta Arenas is absolutely beautiful and I was looking at pictures of Torres del Paine, which is the famous national park here, so I had an image of myself preaching the gospel next to cascading waterfalls, and apparently there are sectors like that, but my sector looks a bit more like the suburbs of downtown LA or a zombie wasteland (there is not a single tree in the whole sector)... mostly because we are the only ones in the street.  The first day was quite hard, I was missing beautiful La Union with all the fields and flowers and all the people, and I said some very fervent prayers that night.  The next day, I realized NOBODY leaves their house which is absolutely FANTASTIC for missionary work and all the houses are close together and this week my companion and I taught 21 lessons which is INCREDIBLE and the people are GREAT and I was just so happy.  I´ll visit all the beautiful places on P-days, but I´m very happy to be right where I am.  Happiness is the destination but it is also the path - Elder Uchtdorf.

I love you all, I´ll write so much more next time HOW IS THERE NEVER ENOUGH TIME