Lo Ovalle 1 - Week #7

Yee-hah!!!

Hola familia, this week has been full of all sorts of interesting surprises... but first things first. We have new e-mail addresses, la mía is todd.hendrickson@myldsmail.net. Any of the e-mail to the old address should make it to me but it might be a little slower, so try to use this new one. Another quick announcement to end the week of surprises. Last Monday, President Monson announced the building of a temple in Payson, Utah. Turns out the property where the temple is going to be built was part of the sod farm that my companion worked on before his mission. Cool, huh?!?!? Mom, I'm glad I looked good and healthy in the picture that I sent you. LOL... I think it is because I was, up until this past weekend. Turns out I got one of my little 36 hour bugs (stomach virus), and was in the house for a couple hours Saturday and almost all day yesterday. But I'm alive and well now, ready to hit the streets again tonight. Turns out that it is a good thing that my taste buds have changed since I hit foreign soil, as I now like yogurt and alot of other things that I would hardly touch before. (I've still got a few picky tendencies, but the yogurt is keeping me from staying sick). So this was the big surprise to end out my week!!! Another big surprise this week (or two) involved algúnos de los Haitianos that we are teaching. Nadege still wants to get baptized and is well on her way to doing so this Sunday!!! YAY!!! My first baptism... And Bob has stopped progressing, so we are pushing for this month still but aren't sure what day now. Another one of the Haitianos, Ludger, now wants to be baptized but wants to wait until March because he wants to go to the church more first. He is working weekends right now because he was receiving money from his family in Haiti, but now isn't, and is trying to help his older brother move to Chile. Also, another one of the Haitianos who hasn't wanted anything much to do with us is listening to us now and yesterday (according to Elder Davenport) requested a Book of Mormon. Things are starting to look up and looking white!!! LOL. Sounds like everything is good at home. Surprise, surprise about a change in seminary in the middle of the year... where did that come from? And is McCabe still president of Elders Quorum??? Ryah will have fun & I'm sure that all of the youth are excited. I'm pretty sure that McCabe has taught it before, but maybe I'm mistaken. Primary ought to be a fun time for Mom, especially with 5 year-olds. Who is in the primary presidency now? Sounds like problems at the house might be starting to resolve, so that is good. Sucks that the water heater had significant damage. (The song "I Feel Like A Woman" just ended on the overhead speakers and I really had ganas to do a line dance). I'm glad my package got there OK, I'm sorry I forgot I asked at Christmas... :'( And the idea of the letters was not to be ugly para nada. To answer your questions, Jumbo was a success. We found Oreos and one of my favorites, Campbell's tomato soup (which I'm going to eat today to finish the recuperation process). Also I found something that isn't my favorite but I had to buy because it is a novelty item here and it reminded me of Texas... Dr. Pepper!!! And it didn't taste awful either, I'm still not really a fan though...LOL. Unfortunately for us Jumbo isn't super close, it is actually outside of the mission boundaries but we had permission to go. It is also fairly expensive as all of the items are imports. There is another within the mission boundaries but it is in Los Andes (almost 2 hours away). There wasn't really any super exciting news this week, but I look forward to being able to work full-time this week...LOL. How is Gabey doing on getting things ready for the mission. He can open his carpeta (mission papers) 3 months before his birthday, just so you know. I love this work and the opportunity that I have to serve here at this time. I love being able to see the changes this gospel makes in the lives of the people we teach. It feels like yesterday that I entered Chile and I know this next 19 months will fly by. I miss you and love you all!!! Good luck with all of the endeavours. Look forward to hearing from you next week.

Love ya'll bunches,
-- Elder Todd