April 23, 2012

Hi Mom--
  Wow. I gotta say your life does sound a little boring right now. Haha. Work. Tennis. Church. Repeat.
Our investigators are doing good. I have told you guys about the Gomez Parada family. Well. The dad(Julio) officially left the home this week. His youngest daughter Florencia(11) was still oblivious to the whole affair and divorce thing. On Saturday night Julio announced that he was going out to a movie or something with his OTHER woman. Florencia put things together and obviously was super devastated. Nobody slept that whole night. They all (Mom, and 4 kids) stayed up together in the same room. Then, bright and early Sunday morning Julio left for good. He took his things and left. Wanna hear the craziest part of all this? Elizabeth(mom) accepted a baptismal date for the 12th of May. Then, Sunday morning, after having stayed up all night with her crying kids, she came to church with her son Lucas. Great faith. She took lots of notes and cried when one sister gave a talk from Elder Uchtdorf called ¨Forget me not¨ or something like that. I am traducing so I am not sure. Anyway, the talk was perfect for her and Lucas. It was a great meeting. She is really excited for her baptism. We had hesitated to put the baptismal date with her, even though she was basically begging us to baptize her, because Julio was still in the house and was still causing problems.
  We had lots of investigators in the church again. Our Bishop is really pleased with us. It's a huge advantage having him on our side. I feel like for the first time in my mission our relationship with the ward is how it HAS to be to have success.
  I ran into an old friend from my first sector named Joty today. He was part of the Sandoval family. It was cool meeting up with him and chatting for a while in Burger King. His family is doing great. He and his wife were sealed, and his sister-in-law and her husband were sealed. They are all recent converts. They all have callings too. He is President of the Elders. It was cool to actually be able to communicate with him, because when I was there I couldn't speak Spanish yet.
   I am going to beg President King to let me stay here another change. Changes aren't until May 8th, but I figured I will start begging now so that my chances are better. I don't wanna leave. We are having lots of success and alot of the families we have found are going to be getting baptized.
  Today we went to La Moneda(Chilean White House) for our Zone activity. I hate zone activities. I ended the day feeling like a cow herder. La Moneda was cool though. I have been like 5 times...but this time the museum they had was all about India. They had cool Indian artifacts.
  I got my package last Wednesday. The Rolos are gone. The PB M&M´s were gone in 2 days. Yummy. The ties are SUPER sick. I love em. I also love the photos. Now I have some updated stuff. Thanks for everything. I know my friend in La Cisterna is going to love the fish stuff. I already sent it to him.
   We got a surprise phone call from the office this week telling us that we needed to go to central Santiago immediately to renew our ID cards. We were illegal immigrants for a few days there without even realizing. Hahaha. I went with my companion, Elder Crist, Elder Smart, and Elder Caldtaran. They are all from my group.
  Skype phone calls will be on the 12-14th of May. Let me know when its better for you guys.
Love you
Elder Van Dyke