Circunvalacion 1 - Week #7

"I feel the earth move under my feet!" (But this time I didn't!!!)

Apparently there was an earthquake in Concepción yesterday, a 7.0 on the Richter scale... I didn't know until about 30 minutes afterwards when we left the office to work to fix up a house that there had been any seismic activity! The joys of riding in a car during something like that, you are completely oblivious!

The weather here is starting to get a little bit nicer. We have been enjoying temperatures that are a little bit cooler and even a little bit of cloudy/rainy weather. I'm loving it! The nice thing about rainy weather in Santiago is that not too long after the rain shower the smog is gone... for a little while at least. When the city isn't so dirty it looks great!!! Despite all that, I'm still willing to trade for the cooler temperatures.

Sounds like Gabe and Ryah have recently run into a gold mine or something! Where are they all of a sudden getting all the money to do these fun things? What concert are they going to? With almost every e-mail that I get from ya'll I become more and more convinced that I'm the home-body of the family! How did Ryah's applying for BYU go? Is she still looking at going up there, or have ya'll convinced her otherwise?

The McProject seems to be moving along rather slowly because of the fun East Texas weather. That little excuse still doesn't liberate you from your responsibility of sending me more pictures of the progress (and the house in general) to share with people down here! Hopefully all of the factors will start coming together to be able to work on it a little bit more and make a little more headway.

The office is still rockin' and rollin' down here! We are working at double the strength we have to get this project done, and we are hardly advancing at all! This last week we had zone conferences which took a very large chunk of time out of our already very busy schedule. I'm not completely convinced that everything will be ready for the move within the next 4 weeks, but that is the goal... I'm starting to think that we are all insane for thinking it was possible in the first place. The gears are turning full speed here and the work in the office is taking a lot more time than I'm used to. Our sector is suffering pretty badly, but we've been to handle-it school and are hitting the sector hard in the little bit of time that we are there! It is very difficult at this point in time in office history to be able to do as President has counseled us many times, to put the sector first. We're in the middle of a move for goodness sakes!!! I'm going insane, or as they say in Spanish, "estoy volviendo loco"!!!

Just to clarify the doubt, I'm not training another historian at this point. As a matter of fact, nobody in the office is training at the present moment. In fact, the 2 of us veterans (Elder Young and I) are working alongside Elder Taylor as the executive secretary of the Chile Santiago North Mission! It's kind of fun, but a pretty big headache at the same time. I can't get my own work done because I'm trying to help Elder Taylor as well... I'll survive.

Stake Conference sounds like it was great, I haven't had one here for a while... For a couple of months I was getting almost every stake conference in Santiago, but now I've gone a couple of months without getting close to one... Oh well! I think Conchalí has one coming up right about the time that we move offices, so hopefully I'll get that one. I'm a pretty big fan of the regional broadcast format, it is good to hear from the General Authorities, but I also like the more personal feel of the having to travel to conference and get to see everybody from the stake.

To let everybody know a little something about what is going on with me right now... my line of thought more than anything... Elder Taylor, our new office secretary, is a former Army Lieutenant and served for several years in the 82nd Airborne division. Well, he is constantly talking about the military and the experiences he had. This has gotten Elder Young and I extremely excited and wanting to know more about the military, specifically the Air Force, as it is closest to civilian lifestyle and more friendly to family life. For a while the possibility of joining the military for my medical training has been in the back of my mind, and just to let everyone know... being around Elder Taylor everyday is convincing me more and more! Just a fun little side-note...

I miss ya'll and love ya'll! Time is flying by really really fast. Every day seems to be going by faster and faster! Before you know it I'll be home!!!

Love ya'll and miss ya'll bunches! ¡Todo mi amor y cariño!

-- Élder Todd