El Salto 2 - Week #3

¡Hola Familia!

I haven't gotten a letter from Dad yet this week! Good to hear the house is going well and that home is surviving without me. I'm kinda sad that I don't get Thanksgiving dinner at all and that the other missionaries are getting mine...LOL. We are living in the light again, and have been for about a week and a half (I forgot to mention that I guess), luckily the office decided to pay what they call "gasto comunes" finally (basically trash pick-up and other sanitation expenses) so they turned it back on!

Good to hear that Ryah is getting payed for her work at the chicken company and that Gabe hasn't changed one bit! I really miss all of you especially coming up on the holidays, but I try not to think about it too much...

Woot, woot!!! HOUSE PARTY! Why was I not invited? And be sure to let me know how that goes! (Sounds like it could get really interesting.)

Christmas: I don't (like every other year) know what I want. My companion put out an interesting idea for a electronic Spanish/English dictionary (apparently such a monster exists), so that would be really cool. I do have one special request besides candy (lots by the way, like the big bags they have at Wal-Mart)...that special request is...Peanut Butter. I didn't think I'd ever ask, but you can get a little bitty jar here for a lot of money and it isn't that good...plus it will survive the long trip. Other than that I've got no idea what I want/need/etc.

Also, are there pictures of the house coming? My companion is dying to see them! LOL. And I want to see how it has changed in the 3 months I've been gone...

One of our investigators this week got into an "argument" with his "wife" on Saturday night and didn't end up going to church Sunday morning. Turns out that he broke her hand!!! He is not looking so great for a baptism this transfer, but we'll see today. We are going to teach his la Palabra de Sabiduria (Word of Wisdom) today and try to set a plan to resolve his fairly extensive problems with it.

This week, yesterday, we put another golden investigator with fecha for the 13th of December. We are going by today to see if he recieved an answer to his prayer about the Libro de Mormón and José Smith. It is a family of 3, which we fasted and prayed for this week, but so far he is the only one with a fecha bautismal.

Everyone sounds busy, busy at home. And just so you know, we are not having our share of neccessary downtime here in El Salto. I don't think we ever stop. (I'm not complaining, just to clarify...I love it). In a day of 10 hours of proselyting we teach during about 4, tocar puertas (knock doors) about 2-3, visit a member or two, and are walking the other 3 hours... Our apartment is in the other sector (El Salto 1) in our district but we are normally working on the other end of our sector. Fun times!

Chile is finally starting to get hot!!! At night it isn't cooling down as much as it was previously and the days that it isn't nublado (cloudy) we have to do our best to find shade when we are walking and proselyting. Luckily (or maybe not...I'm not sure), it isn't nearly as humid as East Texas, but not nearly as green either. Everyone here either waters or sweeps the patch of dirt in front of their house, and no one has grass. Back yards don't exist (big or little) and almost everyone has a front yard piled with as much clutter as backyards in the states. The sidewalks have varying elevations about every 3-4 feet... Just so you have an idea of Chile. But the views of the sunsets with a reflection off of the Andes with palm trees in between you and the mountains is amazing!!!

I miss you all and love you all. I'm going to try to upload a few pictures now so sorry this isn't super long. Hopefully there will be pictures headed your way!!!

¡Todo mi amor!

-- Elder Todd