January 21, 2011

Hey Everyone!

I will try to make this week more interesting, I don't know why but it feels like my last 3 letters that I have sent have been kind of boring. We had a good week this week though and there is a ton of potential here in the sector. There have been some changes here in our sector and I will write about it later in the letter. As for this week, Alejandra is still in her house but things have calmed down and we have a few options of where she can go, so we are just working with what we have got right now. We had stake conference this week and it was a satellite broadcast from Santiago Chile I think. Elder Christoferson gave a really good talk (in Spanish, he speaks really well) and Elder Packard spoke too and he started in Spanish but ended up using his translator in the end because his Spanish isn't quite as good. The conference was good though and Alejandra (our investigator) came and has a baptismal goal for....MARCH 5th!!!! AKA MY BIRTHDAY! I will be baptizing her on my b0day. Also a lot of members in our ward have birthdays close to mine and have asked if I want to come share my birthday with them, but we will see what happens.

Last night we had a really cool experience that I hope turns into something special. We had this girl Carolina that is 26 that we were teaching before and she was really solid but was always busy so we kind of had to stop visiting her. Well, the other day in the street we ran into her and she said her boyfriend Armando was coming to visit her and their kid this week from the United States and he was thinking about moving here for good so we set an appointment and went to visit them last night. He is a huge Latin guy like 6 food 4, 250 lbs of muscle that grew up in New Jersey and Brooklyn New York. I was king of scared when we started talking to him but in the end we had an awesome conversation and he told us that had shared with missionaries before and gone to church too! He said he couldn't find our church while living in Virginia so he went to a Baptist church while he was there but that he wants to come back to ours. We explained everything to him and he said he wanted us to stop by and take him and his girlfriend (who is now his fiance) and his son to church this Sunday and he invited us over for "once" which is like a small dinner they have here! I feel like there is a lot of potential with him and his fiance so we will see what happens.

The 4th of March we have a Talent Show that we have planned and we are hoping that it turns out really well. My companion and I are planning on dancing "La Cueca Chilena" It is the national dance of Chile so it should be really good and funny because one of us will have to dress up as a girl. I am really excited about everything but, we have transfers tomorrow and....Elder Scot is out of here. He was a really fun companion but I will be getting a new one tomorrow. His name is Elder George and he has like 5 months in the mission I think, which means I have been asked to go up to senior companion. I am one of the youngest senior companions in the mission so I am nervous but I am really excited for the new responsibility but I really hope that he is willing to work because we have to get things moving here in the sector. I am glad that I will have a little bit more say in what goes on here in the sector and hopefully I can improve some things that need to be improved. I ask that you all pray for me though because I don't really have anyone to fall back on anymore, just the Lord and his mercy! Also some really good news is that Elder Garcia is going to be alright and stay here in Chile and even better, he is going to be the new AP! (Assistant to the President) The AP's live here in Concepcion so I am going to see him a lot and get to work with him on occasions too hopefully. All is well for me but I am really in need of help from the Lord right now because I have to step up. I hope you are all praying for me this week and our investigators and I hope that you know that you all are always in mine.

Elder Cody Dastrup