Circunvalacion 1 - Week #13

Howdy All!!!

It's Friday morning and we're sitting here in the mission office like any normal day... but it is actually P-day!!! I'm not entirely sure what we have planned for today, but I'm thinking it will probably be pretty chill. I think we are planning on heading into Santiago Centro to eat and maybe go to the big Catholic cathedral downtown, since I've been in Chile for 19 months and have never been!

This week has been kind of an interesting one. I'm trying to work on a few processes for our office instruction manual but I feel like more than anything I've been twiddling my thumbs... Elder Skidmore is 99.9% in control of his post as historiador and I've very much taken a back seat for the past couple days. It has been kind of nice to be able to run around the mission helping Elder Gibson out with the things he has to do outside of the office, but I'm not sure I could handle doing that for too much longer. I'm still hanging in there, which is a very good thing as it looks like I may be staying put in the office until the end of the change (or there abouts).

We should know today the projected date for the office move. The keys will be turned over from construction to the Operations & Maintenance Department on Monday, as far as we know, all-in-all the time for action should be coming up very soon!

I'm stoked for General Conference this weekend. Not only are we allowed to go to all of the sessions, but we are required to attend. The broadcasts here in Santiago are only shown in the stake centers, so we have to go to the ward next to us (oh so far...) to see the conference. I've got to admit that I'm guilty of not watching Conference in Spanish, it just doesn't have the same feel as it does in English, and since they make it available to us in English I can't help but take advantage of it!

I'm starting to get into several lasts in my mission already, and I've still got about 5 months in the field... This weekend will be my last General Conference as a missionary in Chile, I'll be home for the next one in October. It is kinda hard to believe, but the time is passing by very quickly... I'll be home before you know it.

I'm anxiously awaiting the package from ya'll! Yesterday, Elder Gibson and I headed over to the post office where our new PO box is located. We came back with a pretty big load of mail, and I hit the jackpot! The package from Sis. Whitworth was already there and boy was it filled with all sorts of goodies, and most of them are still there waiting for me... (just so everyone knows I didn't pound them all down within less than 24 hours)... LOL

All of this fresh fruit, jams, bread, etc. is getting me ready to be back to home cooking. I'm kinda tired of the way that we eat here in the office, and there is a place in my heart/stomach that Chilean food just can't fill either... I need some homemade fried chicken or something!!! LOL.

The work here in Circunvalación is going well also. We are striving to help several people accept the gospel. Carlos, from a long time ago, is still sharing with us but it looks like his ideas have been changed a little bit because of some recent sharing with another religion. Let's just put it that he seems to believe entirely too much in the fact that Satan is just as powerful as God (see if you can recognize what church that doctrine comes from). Either way, he's been more tough to help out this time, but we are still hoping that he can make it to Conference and can really get something worthwhile from the messages presented.

Melva, Sonia's mom, is still eager to learn. We had a great lesson with her during the week, but it was interupted by visits at the very end. She was feeling the Spirit very strong, as were we, but she had fallen out of that same rumbo when the time to commit her to baptism came. I'm confident that she will accept baptism though and that she too will become a strength to her family in this great and marvellous work.

I love the Gospel! This weekend is a great opportunity to learn and recommit, and there is alot of that that I've got to do. Take every opportunity you get to share the Gospel, that is how our testimonies really tend to grow the most.

How are Brad and his family doing? Keep me posted. And is there anybody new in the ward that I don't know, that you haven't mentioned before? Overall how is the ward doing? Attendance? I want to know all...

Love ya'll and miss ya'll bunches! Don't start counting down the days yet! But just so you know, only 5 more fast Sundays! (I'll send more details in another e-mail so now everyone thinks that I'm getting trunky!!!) LOL

¡Todo mi amor!

-- Élder Todd