Renca 1 - Week #4

Hey Family!

This last week has flown by. When I finally stopped for a minute on Saturday and looked around I realized that I complete missed Thanksgiving Day! One of the recent converts here in the ward, Leonor, said she thought to mention it to me in the English class of Thursday but decided not to. Oh well! It doesn't mean that I'm not grateful, it just means that it slipped past me like a lot of things do now.

Once again we are here in Santiago Centro for our P-day... it doesn't make sense not to come for 2 reasons: 1) there is absolutely nothing to do in Renca & 2) the trip to get here takes about 15-20 minutes from our front door. I'm not sure exactly what the plan is, but we'll figure out something to do in this tremendous city. I've come to realize that Santiago is only tremendous for people who don't know big cities. What I mean is that for the capital of a country it is pretty small, and the Chilean people don't really want it to keep growing that much... kinda odd right?

Last week we were able to visit Cerro San Cristobal and see "Nuestra Madre de Santiago" or, in other words, the giant Virgin Mary statue set upon the crest of the hill. I'm going to try to attach photos! The whole ordeal was pretty fun, first it sounds kinda weird to say that we climbed (in cable car) an inactive volcano that the entire city is built around, and it kinda freaked us out that is was about 5 degrees (ºF) warmer on top of the hill than at the bottom.

I'm a little jealous about the huge Thanksgiving dinner! At least this was my last Thanksgiving to have away from family & friends, and this Christmas and New Year's will be my last ones as well. Thanks for the pictures Ryah! And what color did Mom dye her hair?

That's great to hear that Brad did get baptized. Many blessings are waiting he and his family through this decision that he has made. And Gabe & Dad stood in on his confirmation, good to see that Gabe at least is using his Sacerdocio [Priesthood]. What is this that I hear about Dad putting in a "plug for action in 2011"? No estoy seguro si yo cacho (entiendo).

Saturday night we had a Noche de Hogar [Family Home Evening] with 4 of the recent converts in our ward along with our investigator, Alvaro. It was a great opportunity to get to know everybody a little bit better and to create a little bit of friendship within the group of people that are new to the Church. In our lesson we taught a little bit about following Jesus Christ and the importance of keeping the commandments, the lesson took a little bit of a turn after a few minutes towards to importance of prayer in coming to know the truth. Our converts began to direct the lesson at that point and focused for a while on that directing every point at Alvaro. We had not said one word to any of the 4 beforehand at any moment that one of the biggest obstacles for Alvaro is that he hasn't prayed to know if the Book of Mormon is true, testing the promise found in Moroni 10:3-5:
3 - Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

4 - And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 - And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
I've really come to realize the importance of this promise during my mission. Every time that we put this promise to the test we are entitled to receive the same blessing as we did the first time! How wonderful is that!!! We are currently working on that with Alvaro... and we are waiting to see how it goes. From what I've seen thus far he is focused on analyzing every little detail and is the type of person who decides based on logic rather than feelings. We've still got high hopes for his baptism in December!

I'm excited to hear how the house is coming along. It would be great to see it decorated for Christmas!!! *HINT HINT* LOL! Keep me posted on how it is coming along. Also, how are the two projects that are sitting in the front yard coming along?

Love ya'll and miss ya'll everyday! I'll be talking to ya sooner than ya think!

¡Besitos!

-- Élder Todd

P.S. Here are a few pictures from Cerro San Cristobal for everyone to enjoy! Better yet, I'll send them in a separate e-mail!