THE TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT 

Hello dearest everyone, 

Another lovely week at the end of the world.  My companion and I sang in sacrament meeting this week for Christmas and our entire zone of missionaries here in Punta Arenas went to one of the big department stores here and sang every single one of the Christmas hymns in the hymnbook for the people there.  It was lovely, all Christmas spirity and all.  

Once again, I have zero time this week to write, but I REALLY promise that next week I will write EVERYTHING.  

Just remember the true spirit of Christmas with one of my favorite scriptures:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  - Romans 8:35,37-39

Also the picture is of me in the world famous Punta Arenas cemetery but I took about 50 pictures because it looks like the maze in the Triwazard Tournament.  YAy!!

Hello dearest everybody!!! Una semana maravillosa!

This week Marina was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The very last lesson we had before her baptism, she told us that before she met us and started learning everything, she was visiting the psychologist almost every week because she had extreme depression and anxiety attacks after her separation with her husband.  She was taking a bunch of pills but she told us she visited the psychologist for the first time in awhile a few weeks ago and her psychologist told her he didn´t know why, but all the symptoms that she had of depression before, were gone, and that she could stop taking the pills he had given her. It reminded me of Emma from La Union. After her confirmation Sunday, we were eating lunch with her in the home of a member (the members are great and have really helped us make her feel welcome here), we were talking about her baptism and she started crying all of a sudden and she just kept saying that she was so happy and she didn´t know why she hadn´t listened to "those Mormon kids" earlier.  One of the members said he always thought the same thing, that before he would always see "those Mormon kids" and think "they´re just wasting their time".  And here he is two years later, a very faithful member of the church. 

Catalina also came to the baptism and then came to church the next day and loved both!  I was praying so hard that she would like church, because what normal 21 year old voluntarily spends three hours in church on a Sunday morning, but she loved it and started crying during one of the talks and later said it was just for her, because the speaker was talking about loving your family as they are, which is exactly what she is trying to do, because her father is alcoholic, and it´s caused many problems in her family.  It was an answer to a prayer.  Also she´s dating a member of the church.  His name is Juan Bautista.  John Baptist.  Can we just revel in how perfect that is.

I didn´t have much time this week, I´ll write more next week love you all!

Hello dearest everybody, 

Another lovely week here at the end of the world.  It´s a different world down here, we´ll knock on a door and ask if we can share a message about Jesus Christ with them and a good amount of the time they´ll invite us in, give us something to eat and listen to our message.  We taught 23 lessons this week.. more than I´ve taught in my entire mission.  I don´t even know... it´s really rather magical.  The challenge with this is that we have so many people to visit that it´s hard to discern sometimes if they are really going to progress or just friendly and curious. I love it.  I meet at least one borderline crazy person every week.  This week I met a possibly drunk, very anti-American man and we tried to teach him the first lesson.  My companion and I decided it was a story for our journals.

Marina also had her baptismal interview this week and after was so incredibly happy.  She says she feels so different and she really has changed in the few weeks that I´ve known her.  It is so wonderful to see people change purely through the knowledge that they have a loving Heavenly Father and that he has a plan for them.  

We are also teaching another investigator, Catalina, who is 21 years old and she´s incredible.  She reads everything we give her and she says she´s praying for an answer that everything we´ve taught her is true, but that she feels like part of her answer has already arrived.  She doesn´t come from a great family home and she says all she wants in life is a happy future family.  Perfect, that´s our specialty.  We explained how the gospel of Jesus Christ can help the family stay together and be happy and she says she loves it.  

My companion are also teaching a free piano class in the church and we´re going to start a free english class this week.  Nobody here teaches piano for a reasonable price, so you have to be pretty rich to afford it, so a lot of people are really interested.  

We also had zone conference this week but of course there is not time to write about that, Also I found trees in my sector!! it turns out since we´re on the outskirts of the city, our sector extends out into the hills off into the ocean.  We did a bit of exploring and left a pass along card at a very remote home way back in the hills.  

I love you all and I love my Savior!! As we lose ourself in service, we will gain so much more than we ever thought possible!!

Fotos

Hello dearest everybody, 

First and foremost, a very Happy Birthday to my beautiful Myriam Delirium this Wednesday.  I just love her so much, everyone should give her lots of hugs and kisses when they see her because she absolutely LOVES that.  

Secondly, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! Obviously this auspicious holiday is not celebrated here, so my companion and I worked as normal, but as soon as we got home and finished planning for the next day, we cooked absolutely all the food that we had in the house, even if it was a bit expired.  We also passed by a panaderia and bought some rather delicious postres.  We tried to find turkey, but all we could find was spam turkey, so we bought a bit of that (to be traditional) and then cooked the chicken that we had in the house.  It was very gourmet.  We had fruit salad, salad (with dressing that I made out of cream, parmesan cheese and green onion, because salad dressing is not very common here), cake and other desserts, spam turkey, chicken, and mashed potatoes and corn.  It was very gourmet.  Then we spoke in English the whole time to celebrate.  I hope you all enjoyed your dinners.

Anyway, my very first day here was a bit difficult because I was a bit depressed that I had left the beautiful greenness and flowers of summer which had been replaced by graffiti and concrete, and three days after I left Omayra was baptized.  So that night I said a very fervent prayer to Heavenly Father that he would help me be happy.  Then the next day and the whole week we taught an unprecedented amount of lessons and our leaders told us that that past week, we were leading the zone, and it´s the biggest zone in the mission.  I am always so much happier when I´m teaching, and it was an answer to a prayer.  We also have so many great investigators.  We have one investigator, Marina, who is preparing for baptism on the 14th and we´re helping her stop smoking right now.  My companion told me that before she was completely depressed and taking so many pills for depression and anxiety and everything, but now she´s not taking anything and she´s changed so much I LOVE IT!! The gospel just makes people happy on their own.  

Also it snowed this week.  What´s up with that.  I just love it here, the members are great, there are so many people to teach, I just love being a missionary!!! Ciao!!