Hello everyone, this is the last letter you will be gettin from Elder Elder. Things have really been going very well for us down here. We are having 2 more baptisms this friday (kevins birthday and my 2 year mark)!!! This past week we had a really good time. On friday night we were able to go our priesthood group camping because my comp and I are the Branch Presidency. We dont have too much money in the church budget and everyone here is pretty poor so we decided to get donations of rice, eggs, and hot dogs for dinner (and breakfast haha) and someone talked to the mayor and asked if someone from the city could drive us 20 minutes into this really pretty canyon and so it all worked out great. We went with our whole new deacons qourom, the newly reactivated members and all the guy converts, we also had an investigator that is really interested. We got there about 7ish and set up camp then started making dinner. After dinner we had a devotional and my comp and I taught about the pioneers and how the 3 young men carried the people across the frozen water and how our priesthood responsability we have is really big. They all liked it. After that we all chilled around the fir and told stories, i played my guitar for a while and then fell asleep. Almost all of us slept outside by the fire under the stars. I was right next to the fire and my convert slept right next to me. All he wants to be is a missionary, he is good little kid. The next day we got up, ate, cleaned camp and went to a river so they could go swim. i wanted to so bad......................soon enough tho. I really was such a good activity.


This past sunday we had stake conference and the missionaries that are leaving from the stake all gave their testimonies. 2of the 5 are from my sector. I was actually in this stake last year at this time i dont know if you remember or not but i was in Angol for 6 months and now ive been in los sauces for 4 months. Ive been in this stake almost half my mission. Pretty much the whole stake knows me really well. I was a really good day yesterday. One of the other missionaries that is leaving mentions how much his parents helped him to get on his mission and then he mentioned me. I really am going to miss this place. Seriously so many people have stopped me and have commented on our work and the legacy i am leaving here. I always tell them it wasnt just me obviously but its still nice to hear their appreciation. Tonight actually the members here in the stake are planning a stake family night for me. I have to be there in another hour. I really love it here. It is so wierd for me to say goodbye to them all because it feels like it really is my home.
I know that is week is going to go by really fast. I only have like 3 days that
 i can work in my sector too.........im going to start packing my bags too this week. Im writing letters to all my converts and people here. It is and long and slow task.......i really hope i can finish. I really am so content with the work and progress that the Lord has helped us to have. Im going to happy but sad at the same time. I guess that is a good sign tho.

Its wierd for me to think that it really has been 2 years since ive been home. To see modern things and white people and people with all there teeth again. Dad, if you can find out for me what my homecoming talk is about it would help a lot because on the plane i can start it. Please help me out with that. I really hope that for those of you that are going to travel i hope you travel with safety and that you´re all stoked to see me because i am!!! I wanna get tacked by all my nieces and nephews. That is if they aren´t too scared to talk to me because they dont know me.........

Ok fam i need to get going. I love you all so much and want to thank you for all your love and support. I will be anxiously waiting to see you in Salt Lake!
Take care,
Elder Elder

heree are the camping trip pics, halloween activity,  and the 2 baptims from a couple weeks ago.

Well I now finally have a little time to write my family letter. I am in a little stinky internet cafe and it is getting very very hot now. I was outside all day for a mission activity and I am exausted and burned. Its ok tho i need to enjoy the little summer i am going to have. When I get home its already going to be pretty much winter!

Well this week was very eventful for us. We had 2 more baptisms!!! 2 Brothers that are 18 and 13 got baptised and loved their baptisms. We are still working with their dad. Hopefullly before i go home!!! I dont know if he is the man that God is preparing for Los Sauces or not but we gotta try. We also had our own primary program and it turned out so good. Our new 20 year old convert is the new primary pres and she and her 15 counseler prepared it very very well. We helped a little in prepare but mostly them. We helped a lot in the practices tho. There was about 5 niños that particapated and this friday we are going to have a little party for them. They were pretty stoked about that. There is a little 3 year old that participated that asked for the prize really really loud when the program ended. Every one lauged really hard.

I have 3 more weeks left to be a missionary. It is pretty nerv racking for me. The bad part is that I have like 4 big meetings before i go that i have to attend. And becuase i am so far i have to travel a lot. In one next thursday apparently we have a apostal that is coming here! i dont know who tho. Next monday we want to go climb a volcano too! I really hope i can. There have been a lot of erruptions here lately.................we´ll see what happens.

Ok fam i love you all so much and I appreciate your prayers. Keep em coming. Have a great week!

Elder Elder

Hey sorry i couldnt write yesterday we were a little busy because my comp had to get his stuff ready to leave from the sector. I am now waiting for my new comp. This week was a really good week. Our branch went to the temple! In the end we didnt get permission to leave the mission area but I am happy that our members got to go. One of our converts went to and he loved it. They all got home very very tired from walking miles in the huge city and over 12 hours on the bus but they loved the experience. During fast and testimony meeting they all talked about going and the spirit they felt there. It made all the time and planning my comp and I put into it worth it. I had to use so many minutes from our cell phone to coordinate the deal and several times a problem would present itself and i would have to solve it. But it all turned out great.

My last comp is going to be Elder Nelson from Texas. People say he is a really good missionary so It´ll be good. I am going to train him to be the new Branch President after I leave. My goal is to find and baptise a solid good man in these next 6 weeks. Please pray to help us with that. This area really needs it. It is very strange for me how time is finishing up, I have loved the mission. It has been a life changing experience.

Ok i dont have that much time i just wanted to write the family letter. Take care everyone and congratutions to my little niece Emily for your baptism!!! I love you so much and I´ll see you soon so i can teach you to long board.

Love Elder Elder

Well this was another good week for us. We didnt really have a lot of time to do a lot of trackting and teaching people because of General Conference and a conference as the mission but its better because the Prophet teaches better anyways. Man i really liked this conference. It talked so much about missionaries and missions which was really cool. That was my 4th general conference in chile! I was thinking about how much i want to go to a live one next year so bad. That is something i am really excited for!

Well like i told you that we had an ostrich egg last week well we ate it on thursday morning with a member that we are helping to be active again. It was soooooooooo much! I am attaching several pics of it. we had to hit small holes with a screw driver in it so we could keep the shell and then had to blow out the guts. They told us it was equivilant to 12 chicken eggs. Thats a lot. We also made waffles with the family. I swear i have eaten more waffles in the last 3 months than in my entire life. They love them here. hahaha the family actualy talked about selling waffles on the street to make money.

This is my last week with my companion Elder Searle. He is a really good kid i like him a lot. He is going to USU too so that´ll be good. As a branch we had to take busses the all the sessions. I love how loyal the members are here. We were crammed into stuffy disgusting busses and they were all just really happy. we took some funny pics going to the stake center. Our deacons are studs here too. we have 3 now and one is our new convert. We are teaching them well their duties as deacons how they need to assist the branch president so we asked them to go to all the members houses on bikes and tell them about a branch fireside we did. They took off right away and flew around all over town for about 2 hours. They are such good kids. The temple trip is this week too. My comp and I arent actually going to be able to go because there is a rule that missionaries from our missoin cant go. We had been told we could but now we cant. A small group from the branch is going tho! The deacons come from very poor families so they asked the stake pres if they could do some odd jobs for the church to make money because they wanted to go to the temple. Afther General Conference the stake pres pulled me into his office and told me how touched he was by them that he is going to pay all their bus fare. We are going to have them clean up the church so they feel like they did something. We also had them clean up our yard area at our house this past week to make some money. I love these kids. There names are Sebastian and Julio(July) they are the kids in the picture with my comp on the bus.

 

I hope all is well with you all back home and i am greatful for all your letters. You dont have to worry tho, just because i am almost done doenst mean im dead. I am still working hard, haha everyone is telling me to finish good. hahahahhah now i feel dumb because i told that to Ashlee and she told me what i am now writing haha sorry Ash. Dont worry. I will finish good and hard.

Love you so much.

Elder Elder

well hi all you people.

This was a really fun week for us. We are now getting back to the normal schedule because the big activity is now done so its nice. we had 37 people in church! we broke the record, the room was almost full. The members here are so happy its really cool. I will be getting my last companion here in 2 weeks. that is definately a weird thought.
We are going to have a branch primary program on oct 30 i think. we only have like 4 little kids in the primary hahaha and sometimes when the primary teacher cant go my comp has to play with them for the last 2 hours while i interview the members. hahahahahaha its really funny. i always say how good the day went and he just looks at me all tired and says you have no idea what i had to do that whole time. ahahhaha my comp is a way funny kid i like him a lot. the little primary kids are pretty crazy and screem all the time. we are helping the calm down. very slowly. very very slowly.
This past weekend i had the oportunity to see quite a few converts randomly. It is honestly one of the best feelings in the world when you see how much your converts have progressed in their lives because of hte gospel. I love it so much. I love this country and people so much. I am pretty sure i say that every week but its true.
are you all excited for conference? Down here there is a really bad custom to just go to the sunday morning session because they think its the more important one. we talked in sac meeting about what general conference really was and i think they got it. usually down here the branch pays for everythign adn the members dont put up any money but we have been changing that and asking them to sacrifice a little to be able to go to all the conferences and pay their way. Money is a big issue here but they got really big faith here. That isnt correct gramar is it. They all have a lot of faith. There we go.

Alright my family. I love you all so much. I really do and i am exctied to see you all. have a great week.
Elder Elder

Well i really dont even know where to begin so many things happened this week. very very good and very bad. I guess i will start the good, and then the bad. And then more good! well we had the big activity finally that me and my comp have been organizing for last several weeks. this last week we probably worked as missionaries in the street like.......4 hours. the rest we were flying like crazy taking busses to buy stuff, calling, calling, calling, delagating, fixing drama problems because so and so had to help so and so cook for the activty and ended up not going and bla bla. It was a really stressful week but the activity turned out great. we had a ton of food, drinks, games, and everyone was really happy. ok now the bad news. On like thursday i got a call from a missionary that is now in my first area. It turns out that one of my converts that sadly was inactive because her mom is crazy and burned her book of mormon and hymn book and told her she would disown her if she kept going, well she passed away last week. She commited suicide. Her mom and her always argued and she got home from a party appartently drunk and her mom got way mad and after that she decided to do it. Her little 15 year old sister walked in on her after she had done it. When i first found out it didnt hit me and then i called a member from that city and when he answered i completely lost it. I had not cried like that for a very long time. It makes me so sad because when we taught her she changed so much and was so happy in life. But she didnt have the support to stay. And that same night i found out that a really really good friend of mine decided to go home. He had just completed a year. So that day was horrible but it got better. now more good news. after the activity i baptised!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was such a great baptism. it was the girl who fell on her face and was unconcious. It was so awesome to see her overcome that trial. And later that night on the way home we stopped by a members house to drop off my wet clothes to get washed and when we walked in they turned on the lights and had a surprise birthday for me. We were there for a while and laughed soooooooooo much. by the end of the day my (face) cheaks litterally hurt so bad from laughing so much. it was such an amazing birthday. I am now in my first area visiting the family of my convert that died. I dont have a lot of time but i loved your letters so much. I love you all so much and am very greatful for you all. it was nice to hear all those memories again. I am excited to see you all again i honestly dont want to leave these people. ugh. ok i need to go now.. i will have to send you pics a little later sorry.


i love you!!!!!

Elder Elder

September 5th 2011

Hey everyone hows it going?

This was a pretty good week not the best but still it was good. We honestly had a week where we had to plan a ton of stuff for this big branch activity that we are doing on sept 17. Sept 18 is the independance day down here and it is a 4 day festival of basically nonstop eating, drinking, and dancing and tons of missionaryt opportunities. Just kidding on the last one. It is probably the slowest missionary success week. Anyways as the branch presidency we have to make sure all the food and activities go good and this week was full of that. We are going to use basically all of our money and hopefully get reinbursed by the church. Its awesome! It will be a good time. On the 17 which is my birthday we are going to do the activity which is going to be with empenadas, shizcabobs, and a lot of other chilean typical food. The ward members are going to help cook but we have to delegate. Oh ya and we also confirmed the temple trip date. We are going on October 7! I am really excited. Our two new converts are going to go with us too. We gave the 13 year old boy the priesthood yesterday. He was really really excited for it. He is a good kid.

This week we are really glad that most of the planning for the activity is over so we can actually have more time for visiting and teaching people.

Have a great week everyone. You look great from the pictures that i have recieved.