02-27-10

I am just writing you to let you know that I am safe and sound from the earthquakes here in Chile. My mission president wanted all of us to write our families to let them know. From all the news here there is quite a bit of destruction, but all more north of me.

I hope that Scott is okay, he is in Santiago where they had an 8.3 earthquake. He should be protected though, as a missionary. Here where I am at it was a 5. I was sleeping very deeply and woke up with my bed rocking back and forth. From when I woke up it only lasted for like 20 seconds, it wasn´t much here thankfully. Only a few of the highways here got damaged.

02-22-10

My email just got destroyed again, which was weird, the program just quit by itself, ;(. The computers here in the south aren’t that good, and especially in a little town like San Pablo. I'll write next week!

02-15-10

Happy Valentine´s Day yesterday! Hope you all had a great day.

This week went by quick, and Wednesday I met my new companion, Elder Salguera. He is really cool and we get along great. He is from Nicaragua, and he really works hard.

One thing that I have really realized this week is that it's always great to seek improvement, but not perfection. The thing is is that honestly a lot of times before I wanted to be perfect, and I was picking and thinking about everything that I wanted to change and improve. But that's not the way to do it. We can never become perfect in this life at anything. And so I am really learning to seek improvement in things, but not to stress myself out when I make mistakes.

Another thing I have realized is that how we need to focus on others if we truly want to be happy. Always thinking about yourself really ends up bringing you down. What I am saying is that Jesus Christ never once put himself before other people. He was always serving others. As He was completing the Atonement, He thought of every single one of us, and he suffered individually for every single one of us. I am learning that as we focus our thoughts more on others, we are happier. I was thinking too much about how I wanted to improve, and not thinking enough about the people I'm serving. I am starting to study every day for at least half of my study time for the people we are teaching, and that's helping me be much happier.

This week we will have the baptism of Fernando. He is eight years old and so amazing. His mom is not an active member of the church, and we are working with her too. She came to church this week with him. Her name is Marcela. Please keep her in your prayers. Fernando is such a good kid and he's funny too. He remembers everything that we teach him, which is nice because many adults can´t do that. He is so happy and doing great.

02-08-10

I am going to be staying in San Pablo this transfer, and I am getting a companion from El Salvador. Apparently he is a huge dude, like a giant Tongan. I don´t know his name because my companion forgot it. But transfers are Wednesday. I´ll tell you more about him next week.

Elder Munoz is going to Valdivia to open a sector. It will be sad to see him go, he is a great missionary and I liked serving with him a lot.

I want to write you all so much more, but my companion has to pack his bags, which is going to take a while, and we have to finish it today. So I will write more next week.

02-01-10

We are traveling today, on a trip for the zone, so while the zone leaders are sending some forms in, I'm typing you an email. We are going to see some cool sights. That’s all I know.

This week went really well. We found some amazing people to work with. We’re teaching a little boy named Fernando. We call him Fernandito, it means little Fernando. He is eight and is going to get baptized this February. His aunt is a member. He is so funny. I like teaching him. Yesterday we asked him about Joseph Smith and he asked us which one, because there is a cartoon he knows called Joseph Smith too. Julio is doing really well, he’s going to a professional to get help. He hasn´t drunk again, and so if he's doing well in two months he can get baptized. And this week Claudia, an investigator, she got her answer about the Book of Mormon!!!! It is so cool, she has been praying for a while now, and she said that she has felt a difference in her life since she started meeting with us. And the other day when she was praying about the Book of Mormon, she said that she had an amazing feeling of happiness and a really warm, uplifting sensation that she knew was from God. I don´t know exactly what her sensation was, but she really and truly was praying to know if it is of God. She has been reading the Book of Mormon with the women from church here during the week. We are still working with her, hopefully she will accept a baptismal date this week. We are meeting with her tonight.

Things are going amazing here. I taught Sunday School again yesterday, and it went so well. I taught about how Cain fell and about agency. It went so well. It is cool to teach Sunday School, we switch off every week. It is interesting to see how Cain was the son of Adam, a prophet. He obviously was raised in the truth and yet he had his agency. He chose to follow Satan, even when he could talk directly with the Lord. I talked about when Cain had to make a sacrifice, but he decided not to do what the Lord had asked- he gave a sacrifice of fruit instead of a sacrifice of the first of his flock. But we talked about how we sometimes do that too. The Lord has given us commandments, but sometimes we don´t obey and we think it is okay to do less than what He has asked. And that this is what Satan wants. And like Cain, when we trick ourselves into thinking it's okay to not keep a commandment 100%, we are going to fall and be miserable like he was. It’s interesting, you probably had the same lesson yesterday.

I want to write more, but we are leaving!!!

PS Next week there are changes! I think I'll stay here in San Pablo.