It's been a good week.  On Saturday night we had the ward party to celebrate September 18th, which is Chile´s independence day.  It was so fun.  I think I sent you a few pictures from that with us all dressed up.  A hermana in the ward lent us two of the typical dresses.

Monday was super fun.  We went with the Familia Vergara up into the Andes mountains to go play in the snow.  It was the first time that Hermana Achucarro had ever seen or touched snow.  It was lots of fun.  The drive was about two hours and it was amazing.  We stayed up on top of the mountain for about an hour and then drove back down.  It was lots of fun.

The week flew by.  We had a Zone Conference with President Arnold, who is the area president of the South America area.  It was really good, but it looks like our mission has a problem with obedience.  It was sad to see.  But he gave us a lot of great counsel, and taught us a bunch so I think we´ll be able to do better.

This week we had a lesson with Luis and President Wright.  It went pretty well.  Luis is basically ready to get baptized, and wants to get baptized with all his heart but he works on Sunday and hasn´t been able to find a way to switch his schedule or find another job.  But I think the lesson we had with President really helped to motivate him and hopefully things with be able to work themselves out soon.

We also had a great meeting with our ward mission leader and finally put together a ward mission plan.  And the ward just came up with this awesome retention and activation plan that we´re super excited about.  So things are going really well.  Our converts are doing awesome.  Camilia had an interview with the bishop yesterday to extend a calling, I don´t know what it is yet, but she should be sustained next week.  I´m so excited.  We also found some great old investigators.  We found them on Saturday, taught them a great lesson, and they came to church on Sunday.  And Sacrament Meeting was awesome and they loved it.  So I´m excited about working with them.

Can you believe I´m about to start my last transfer?  It doesn´t feel real.  It makes me sad to think that some of these people we are working with are going to get baptized and I´m not going to be here to see it.  And there's a chance that I could never see any of these people again in my life.  Its hard to think about. 

It's starting to warm up here.  And everyone is getting ready for the 18th, which is Chile´s Independance Day!  I´m so excited.  It's a big deal here.  We´re going to a have a fun week this week, and next week too with all the festivities. 

This week has been good.  I´m finally 100% better after being sick for over a month.  Tomás recieved the Holy Ghost yesterday :)  And the missionary work continues to progress.  We found a lot of people this week that we had lost touch with.  And we´re trying to start and find new people to teach because everyone else is getting baptized. Luis is doing great, he's ready to get baptized, he just has to wait till they switch his work schedule.  Camila is awesome.  They are working on a calling for her and we´ve started helping her with family history.  Tomás is super excited to serve a mission and has already started collecting his toys that he can sell to start saving money.  It's so cute.  We bought him a piggy bank to start saving.  His cousin, Bastian is doing awesome.  We´ve kind of lost track of Karen because her mom doesn´t want her to go to church anymore because she doesn´t want her to get baptized.  :(  Oh well...

The coolest thing about the mission is that you can see the gospel in action and watch it change the lives of people.  It's amazing to realize that all the things I´ve learned since Primary and have always trusted to be true, and really and actually very, very true.  Its amazing.  We meet so many people who are so unhappy and I just want to pound it into their heads that what they need is the gospel!  If they would just live it they would be so much happier!  And that all these worldly things don´t matter.  We are literally children of our Heavenly Father, which means he loves us perfectly.  Our worth is inherent and nothing we can do can change that.  It also means we have the capacity to become like Him, just like every child can become like their parents.  It also means we were born with some of His qualities, just like we are born with characteristics of our parents.  And if everyone could just understand that, really understand how special they are and everything they were created to be, they would be so much happier.  But it's all very, very true.  I know it beyond a doubt and I´m so, so, so happy and grateful to be able to help other people learn how to be happy.  

I´ve attached a bunch of pictures from the baptism of Tomás that we had yesterday.  It went really well.

We spent most of our week making sure we had everything ready for the baptism so I don´t have much else to report.

The missionary work is going well.  We will be baptizing the uncle and cousin of Tomás in October.  And we´ve got some other people we are teaching that are good prospects.

The time is going by so fast.  It's crazy!

This week was good.  I'm feeling alot better.  I still have a bit of a cold, but other than that I'm doing good.  Camila recieved the Holy Ghost yesterday.  She is now officially a member of the church! 

I guess the biggest news is that we had changes.  Hermana Achucarro and I are staying together.  This will be Hermana Achucarro's 5th transfer in this area (thats 7.5 months)  and my third (4.5 months) and our third change together.  

We actually had this great specialized training with President this week about the Atonement.  He talked and taught about how to access the power of the Atonement, not only for the forgiveness of sins, but all our problems.  It was super cool.  We were able to turn around and use it with our investigator Luis.  It was great.

But everything is going good.  The missionary work is moving along and we're trying to keep up.  I'm out of time, so I'll talk to you all next week!

"Camila got baptized yesterday!  Everything went perfectly, except for the fact that we forgot to turn off the water when we were filling up the font and it almost over flowed.  So like 10 minutes before, the poor elders were bailing out water with trash buckets.  It wouldn't be a baptism if there wasn't an adventure right?  But the rest was perfect.  Our ward mission leader didn't say anything weird, her family came, the Relief Society provided refreshmants, people from the ward came, it was great.

We took a ton of pictures but I forgot to bring my camera to send them :(  But I'll send them next week for sure.

And as for everyone else we're teaching, we have 4 other baptismal dates set so things are going well." 

"Things are going well.  Hermana Achucarro is still a little sick...but hopefully she´ll be able to get the medicine that will help her soon.  Just keep us in your prayers.

 

Things are going really well.  We have had a good week.  Camila is getting baptized this Sunday!  We´re so excited.  I´ll make sure to send pictures.

 

But other than that things are normal.  Time is flying by." 

"Its been an interesting and very long week. The beginning of the week started out great.  We had some great lessons and everything.  And on Thursday we had interviews with President.  It was wonderful.  He is an incredible man.  Very loving and kind.  What's nice and different is that he's a lot more accesible.  It was a great experience.

But right after our interviews with President, Hermana Achucarro came down with a stress headache and we had to go home.  And it just kept getting worse and worse until we ended up in the hospital on Friday.  It's been a roller coaster of a ride ever since.  We spent one day in the mission home with President and his wife and they took great care of her.  And I got to spend the day with them, which was super cool :)  After 6 days in bed, she's doing a lot better.  

As for me, I did go a little crazy being inside so much.  But I´m okay. I was able to make a lot of yummy things,  Apple Pie, Banana Bread, Sugar Cookies, and Cake Bites...  

But we´re good now, and do to the fact that we were inside the whole week, that's all I have to report.  But I love you all bunches and bunches."

"This week has been a little bit more stressful. But, the hardest times always come before the greatest blessings.  And on Sunday our big blessing came!

We had a lesson with Camila and President Wright in his house and it was amazing!  We talked about the Book of Mormon and the Spirit was so strong.  And at the end she asked to put a baptismal date!  So we set the date for the 12th of August!  We are SO happy!!!!  We have another appointment to teach her in the mission home this Wednesday.  

Our other investigators are doing well.  We're going to talk with Karen and her Mom tonight about her baptism.  Luis is still working on changing his work schedule so we'll see how it goes.

It's still pretty cold here.  It will stay cold until about September.  But it hasn't been as bad as last year, for which I'm grateful.   

We were supposed to go down to Puento Alto today to visit some of the families down there but our Zone Leaders forgot to ask permission.  So, we just lounged around all day.  It was nice to relax because we're going to have a busy week this week.  I can't believe we're already half way through this transfer...time is flying by.  We have interviews this week and I'm planning on begging President Wright to let me stay in this ward for the rest of my mission. Just two more transfers...oh boy."

"We had some great successes this week.  We were able to put two baptismal dates with Karen and Luis for the begginning of August. We´re super excited about it.  They both have a lot to overcome before thier dates, we have to talk to Karen´s mom, and Luis has to find a way to stop working on Sundays, but we have faith its all going to work out.

Church was a little lame yesterday because its the middle of winter break so everyone is out of town.  But Camilia was there.  We tried to put a date with her but she says she still feels like she's missing something.  We didn´t have much time to talk to her about it, but hopefully we´ll be able to work through her doubts this week and hopefully set the date, at least as a goal."