AJ's email from 10/29/2012

       this was one of the longest weeks ever. first of all, the weather finally went back to how it normally should be at the end of october here, which means that it got crazy hot very quickly out of nowhere. and that just happened to come in the week where god decided to test us and see how much we could take. literally thats how i felt about this week too. i dont think i have ever had a week in the mission where ive had so many things fall through in the same week. we literally had around 20 appointments fall through. and its not like we just went and they werent there. most of them were cases where we called the night before to confirm and they said yes and then an hour before or even as we got to their house, they tell us that they cant or that they dont have any time. it  was just tough and that left us walking around a lot in the hot sun doing contacts. thats probably why im so tired this week.

       thursday we did divisions with amengual so i was with elder langford in their sector who got here last change. it was weird being with a greenie all day which is something that i havent done in the whole misson. just having to teach so much more cuz he didnt understand everything and just seeing the look on his face as he tried to get everything that was being said. it was just funny. but it was also cool to be around him and all the energy that he has to do everything. i had kinda forgotten what it was like to get here to the field and just have that "want to do everything" feeling. cuz i havent really felt that in over a year. then at night in the pension it was really cool cuz it was 4 gringos and 2 of them are greenie so we had a lot of fun messing around and talking. im pretty sure we stayed up til around 1 in bed just talking about lots of different stuff.

       saturday was just the worst day of the week. on a normal saturday here since i got here, we usually teach about 8 lessons which is pretty good. so we are always just busy and get into a ton of houses. and we usually do divisions with some people from the ward to be able to get to more houses. but this week, like 15 min before, the people we were gonna do divisions with failed. then one by one, all the lessons fell through tell the end of the night when we got into the last house. and on top of that it was the hottest day of them all. it was just terrible and i couldnt help but laugh as it all happened cuz it was just a feeling of disbelief that everything failed. but like i said, i hope that it was just one of those weeks that we have even now and then and that this week things will get back on track.

     sunday was just more of the same. we had planned on our ward council taking up 3 hours of our day, so when they announced in church that it was being postponed til next week, elder nilsen and i couldnt help but look at each other and laugh at how bad our luck was this week. but church was shortened this week cuz chile had their elections that day (dont ask me why they do it on a sunday) so they cut it down to just sacrament meeting so that everyone could go vote.

       anyway i hope that everyone is doing well and will have a fun and safe week. take care. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!