Sept 23, 2013

Hello!

Fun stuff for this week... it was Independence Day which is good and bad. It's good because it's festive and fun with activities and stuff, but bad because we can't take part too much and everyone is focused on that so it's hard to work and be productive at all. It was much better than last year. Generally people aren't at home much and most people get really drunk... really, really drunk - not the members. Also we're opening the sector so we don't know many people yet. So, our numbers weren't great, but we're going to pound it out next week.

Daniel did have his baptism this week, right on Independence Day. Quite a few people showed up - I was quite surprised given that it was a holiday. Others talked to him on Sunday and said hey, we missed your baptism, but welcome. He's pretty chill so it was all good. It was really good. On Sunday he got confirmed and that went smoothly. One funny/odd thing though was right after he was baptized, he gave Elder Gillespie a hug while they were still in the font. He felt so good and then his daughter, Jocelyn, jumped in the font with them with all her clothes and shoes on. She's just a little bit crazy... and 16 years old, I guess. She is crazy but she is a really great convert. She brings lots of people to church. It was just so weird but I couldn't help but laugh - didn't see that coming! Nobody really does that.

I also learned how to throw trompos this week. So the first time we just went out in front of the Pension. I could throw them last year, but very poorly. So my companion said to give him one and he went to throw it, but instead of throwing it down to the ground, he did something and it just went forward and it went flying and just about broke a window. He missed it by about a foot. So, with that, we decided we better go back into the Pension. That would have been very expensive to replace. But the next day, the day of Daniel's baptism, we were invited to the BBQ afterwards and they wanted us to stay for a while after we ate - partly because they hadn't seen me for awhile and they didn't just want us to eat and leave. After dinner Daniel showed us how to throw trompos although it was me and Elder Gillespie's companion, Elder Marander, who did it the most. We weren't playing any games or anything, we were just practicing throwing the trompos and get the technique. Then a couple days later there was a big activity with the whole ward, with Chilean music and dance called Quaka where they dress in national dress and stuff. They also had a breakfast and a BBQ for lunch. We also got to throw trompos there in the afternoon - for about 4 hours. Last year we didn't get to stay very long because one of our Zone Leaders made us leave right after we ate, but this year President Dalton said we could stay until the end of any ward activities so it was way better. It's not very good to do contacting while everyone is celebrating anyway. It was really fun and I got to experience a bit of what the holiday was. I actually got pretty good with the trompos - you can throw them, play games or do tricks. I couldn't do really impressive tricks, but I did learn how to do "the boomerang". You throw it down and before it hits the ground, you yank it back up. At first I was horrible, but eventually I did it about 10 times. It was pretty cool.

About 2 weeks ago some people got into the church to try and rob it. They tried again this week. Here, if the doors are locked from the outside, they're also locked on the inside. It's all locked up super tight and you have to go out the same way you got in. So if you break a window to get in, you have to go out that way too. There's also nothing to steal, except maybe the piano, but that's a bit conspicuous. There's  no money and the computers are locked behind a big steel door so there's really nothing. They didn't get anything but broke some stuff. 

We did a lot of cooking this week - hamburgers twice and pasta. Elder Rodas said it was the best pasta he's had in a long time, so I was pretty happy about that. We had lunch with one lady this week and her husband. She is really cool, but nobody really knew her husband and he was trying to make jokes but it was a little awkward.

You probably know but we got our flight plans this week. I haven't seen them yet, but Elder Gillespie just told me. (The flight information did arrive and Elder McCaskill will arrive home on Saturday, October 19th) This week I've been really tired. I'm always a bit tired, but I just felt drained. Even Lorenza and Daniel noticed on Sunday.

We met a guy named Flavio - he's an investigator from about a year ago. He's living with someone but he's a really good guy. Last week we met a lady who was very adamant she didn't want to go to church, but we shared a short message with her and then she kind of softened and said maybe she'd come to church. That was cool.

There's some really big scriptures you can buy here - they're the size of a full sheet of paper and then some. We bought a Bible and Triple Combination in Spanish and we're going to sign them and give them to Lorenza because she has trouble reading the smaller print ones. So she'll be able to read the Bible and BoM better because she was having trouble. That will be good. It's the same one I gave armana Blanca in Antofa.

Have a good week.
Ciao!