AJ's email 12/19/11

Santa is pretty short in Chile...but still very generous
(Weird Camera Angle!)

alright im definitely ready to get into a new sector now. im tired of walking around from 4 til 7 everyday just knocking doors and watching everyone reject us. especially when its about 100 degrees outside and we are in ties and pants. it sucks.

     anyway last monday night we have a family home evening with a couple in our retention. and it was cool cuz basically we just talked the whole time. but at the end was the best part. cuz a few weeks ago she told us that she didnt get baptized cuz she had a testimony. she just did it for faith. and so then that has made her question getting baptized. but then a couple nights earlier she had a dream. and i cant remember exactly what she said happened in the dream, but she knew that the church is true after that. and she thanked us for being so persistant in wanting to come see them all the time and for not giving up. and that we definitely have made a difference in her life. so that was pretty cool to hear from someone that you dont actually baptize.

        then tuesday is when we started the walking. we literally walked from 4 til 730 without stop and without getting into a single house. cuz all our plans fell through and then all the houses that we knocked were just terrible. so it was a really long day. but one good thing came out of it. and that was a few days later on saturday, a lady stopped us in the road close to the street that we had knocked. and she said that we had knocked on her door the other day but that we had left before her son could answer. and that the family are all inactive. and so we set an appointment to go see her this week. but the cool thing was that who knows if she had stopped us in the street if we hadnt knocked on their door. god works in mysterious ways.

AJ's District playing soccer...on P-day.

      thursday was a very long day as well. cuz in the morning we had a training meeting with president king. and that started at 10 in the morning. and then after we had our interviews. so we were in the church from 10 in the morning til 7 at night. i dont ever want to spend so much time in a church ever again. there is only so much that you can do. but i was nervous for my interview cuz apparently one of the guys in the stake presidency had told president that elder sosa and i had been playing soccer every thursday for the last few weeks. which wasnt true at all. we had only played once and it was cuz we had 6 investigators there and so we thought that it would be a good idea. so i was nervous that president was going to get mad at me. but it turned out to be nothing and he just explained that we shouldnt change out of our clothes except for pday cuz we just have to keep our image. so that made me feel a little better.

      friday night we had a family home evening again with chela, a return missionary, and she invited several of our investigators to it. and it was kinda funny to me cuz afterward i realized that she invited all the people that need to get married and then she taught a lesson about marriage. but it was really good.

      saturday night we were in the church practicing for our choir which had to sing in the stake yesterday for a devotional, when a family walked in from australia. and they didnt speak hardly any spanish. so i had to translate for them. but apparently they are on vacation in chile and were staying close and so they just came to see where the church was for sunday. then yesterday they came to church and i got to talk to them a little. (i loved their accents by the way) but it was parents with their 2 sons and daughter. but i found out that they have been on vacation for a long time now. almost 6  months. and they have been in china, the states, then they went to uruguay for a month, here in chile for 3 weeks, then they are going to peru, bolivia, back to peru, and then from there i dont know where. but need less to say they are very rich. but it was cool. i especially liked talking with the 19 year old daughter lol but just kidding really.

     the other weird thing about sunday is that president corbridge came to our ward. he is the area president of chile and in the first quorem of the 70. so we are talking big time. and i honestly have no idea why he wanted to come to ours but it made me kinda nervous. but he gave a pretty good talk. the only thing that i dont like about him is that he talks so slow in spanish. maybe its just cuz im used to hearing chileans or cuz i just get impatient sometimes but it made me bored at times how slow he talks. but the funny thing is that elder sosa said that the speed he talks is actually normal, we just talk really fast in chile. so it kinda put into perspective how hard it is to understand chilean spanish. im glad that i caught on semi quickly.

     but other than that it was a pretty good week. im looking forward to the next couple weeks with the holidays cuz it should be fun but i know that it is gonna hurt us in the missionary area cuz no one is gonna want us to come over and teach them during holidays. but at least i have the mission party to look forward to friday and then calling home saturday. hope everyone has a very good christmas and enjoys their time together. take care

Another P-day soccer picture.