Renca 1 - Week #3

¡Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias! [aka Happy Thanksgiving!]

Bummer that this week everyone will be enjoying a day off with lots of food, fun, and football (except Dad of course). Here the Chileans don't have even the slightest notion of what Thanksgiving is, and I've kind of learned that it is a holiday with an origin that is difficult to explain. LOL. But I hope that everyone does have a good Thanksgiving holiday, however short or long it may be.

This week was chock full of activities that took Elder Nàjera and I out of the sector for quite a bit of time. First off we had the normal zone class and weekly planning (2 days of 7) and on top of that we added in a little bit of training in the office & Zone Conference (another 2 out of 7). I'm not really complaining, but it made it look like we didn't have a very successful week. The Zone Conference, however, was a pretty big treat. Elder Corbridge from the Area Presidency was able to attend as part of his "Mission Tour", and we were definitely uplifted. He put a whole new perspective on the Gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, & endure to the end) and really focused on how not only we should make it part of our message as missionaries, but that it should be our ONLY messsage as missionaries. The whole conference was very spiritual and I didn't even fall asleep once during the whole 4 hours that he was talking! Yay me!!!

Congratulations to Brad! I don't know if you'll see this, but I promise you that this will be the best decision you've ever made... that is until you are sealed to your family, of course!

So Mom, Dad, & family... How does it feel to be so closely involved with someone's conversion? Now you know how I feel!

Saturday Elder Nàjera and I opted out of climbing Cerro Renca because for about the past 5 days it has been cloudy in the mornings and we decided that it wouldn't be worth it to get up at 5:00 in the morning to climb a hill and not be able to see the sunrise (el amanecer). So we put it off for a while as I think the zone leaders are planning on climbing for a zone activity one early Monday morning.

Real P-days are great! Today we are in the Centro again (we have a bus that passes in front of our house and leaves almost exactly in the center of the city). We are planning on hiking Cerro San Cristobal (a very easy hike) to the top where there is a giant statue of the Virgin Mary, it is even el Mes de María so we might run into alot of worshippers up there (I'll send pictures or a video next week). We will be going with the missionaries from Huechuraba (in my old ward), Elder Tello & Elder Jones... and at least 2 of us have never been before, so it ought to be fun. They say you can see all of Santiago from the top!

I'm happy to hear that SFA will have Chief Caddo for another year! I didn't know we had him last year, but oh well. And they won Conference play... wow!!! It is good to see that they are doing way better than when I was there!!!

Our investigator, Alvaro, is still progressing. He's got lots of exams this week so we haven't seen much of him outside of church for the past couple weeks, but I guess that's how it goes. He is on the right track to be baptized December 5th, so we'll keep working with him to make sure that gets done. I'm pretty sure there is nothing that would stop him, he showed up to church on his own before we started teaching him for goodness sakes! LOL.

Well, I think that is about all for the week. Hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving and that they eat lots for me (especially cranberry sauce)!

I miss ya'll and love ya too! ¡Todo mi amor!

-- Élder Todd