Circunvalacion 1 - Week #4

¡Hola Familia!

So this next week is game time... one of them at least. I'm currently battling the deadlines of Tuesday for everything that has to do with Zone Conference. Normally I'd be done with that but the visit and soon to come release of Elder Gregory May had everything switched around to this next week... fun fun fun! But to really be honest I love being busy, unfortunately I don't handle the stress nearly as well as I used to. (I guess that could be a good thing, because now I really hate procrastinating!!! LOL).

Anyways, Mom requested rambling but I'm not sure I can pull that off again. So here goes nothing...

This week was another long drawn out week with several trips all over Santiago. It is amazing how you can learn your way around the city fairly well when you have a map that sucks and a companion that doesn't have a clue where he is going either. Somehow we figured out our way to Santiago Centro in auto and back over to the part of town where Presidente and Hermana May live. All of this in about 45 minutes isn't that bad in my opinion... The joys of office life.

Y'all would be amazed at the crazy kind of stuff that happens in the office... but I can't talk about it because I'm sworn to secrecy, but it isn't anything bad... I promise. Some of the comments and funny candid moments just make the day go by a little bit faster... and are natural occurrences when you work in an office with just 7 guys all day (finally an office without a bunch of women!!! LOL). It makes mission life a little bit easier when you are always laughing and having fun!

I can't believe that Sean and Jared are both going home this week!!! Maybe then Sean will start replying to my letters... he has gotten pretty bad about writing in the last few weeks/months from what his letters to his family say. Also Jared hasn't written me in a while, so you might want to bug him to keep in touch when he gets back! (I guess I probably should use their titles until my next e-mail, but I've never known them as Elder Gilmore and Elder Hardy... LOL). Either way it will be interesting to hear from them once they hit home soil again. This week I'll officially be the only missionary serving from the Lufkin, Texas Ward...

This transfer is starting to wind down a little bit and we will soon be starting to pick up the pace getting everything ready for changes and all that jazz. It feels like yesterday that I was still in Lo Ovalle but it has been almost a month... I guess time flies when you are having fun!!! We'll be all over the mission this week with conference and everything, so that will be another learning opportunity in driving in Santiago. So far so good though, I've been driving a couple weeks and haven't hit anything yet... even in the tank of a van that we have!!!

This next weekend our stake will be having Stake Conference, (random fact: our stake center is home to a branch...), Elder Amado, President of Área Chile, will be visiting us... that will mean I've heard from 2 members of the First Quorum of the Seventy within a little over a month!!! YAY!!!

The next time anyone sees Josh, Ashley, or Cory (or anybody else from that group of friends) TELL THEM TO WRITE ME!!! I've sent letters to a few of them and haven't heard anything back... I've about given up hope...

Sounds as if almost everything is going well at home!!! USA tied both of their World Cup games up until this point (we got jipped though)!!! And Chile won their first game (1-0) against Honduras, we'll be playing again on Monday at 10:00 AM (local time) [9:00 AM Texas time]... Keep your fingers crossed that we win!!!

Also, hope you get to feeling better Mom!!!

I'm going to send a picture of the baptism that we had a couple weeks ago... I forgot I hadn't sent one yet!

I love you all and I miss you bunches! Talk to you next week!

¡Todo mi amor y cariño!

-- Élder Todd