Circunvalacion 1 - Week #14

Howdy All!

This week in the wonderful world of Elder Hendrickson was... General Conference!!! I just had my last General Conference as a full-time missionary (for a long while), so if I wasn't already on the downhill slide I definitely am now.

As I've mentioned before, General Conference is like Christmas, but better, for us missionaries... and this Conference definitely didn't disappoint! There were some really awesome talks given over the course of the 2 days. I was again impressed with the talks by Elder Andersen & President Uchtdorf; I get excited every time it is announced that they are going to speak.

I hope that each of you was able to take as much away from Conference as I did. Now comes the hard part... APPLY IT! I absolutely loved the talk by Elder Holland that spoke about just that, the importance of applying what we learn and listening for what we need to do. One phrase from his talk really jumped out to me, he said, "If we teach by the Spirit and you listen by the Spirit, some one of us will touch on your circumstance, sending a personal prophetic epistle just to you." How true is that statement! Our leaders know our needs, we've just got to listen to recognize what was intended just for us.

The office work se pone pesado (is getting hard). We are working diligently against a clock that we can't see. The construction department got a little behind on turning over the building, but that will be happening on the 15th. On the other hand, we are also having to coordinate with Operations & Maintenance, which has got to be the least organized organization in Area Chile! They are giving us the run around with the move and keep projecting a date that is further away. At this point I'm not sure that I'll still be around for the actual move, or just the preparation (that we are working on now), and I'll almost definitely not be around to enjoy any time in the new office.

Much of this week as been spent working on the move. We are in the process of cleaning out and packing, and so far we've gotten through most just the paper files. We've thrown out about 2 years of financial records and about 8 of membership records. Who ever is working on shredding all of that has his work cut out for him (and it is looking like I'm going to be having a shift or two of it myself)... LOL

Despite efforts in the sector we haven't seen much success. That is the tough thing about the office, and it starts to take its toll on you after a while. When you are stuck behind a desk all day it is kind of hard to preach the Gospel. Yes, we leave to work, but the whole spirit of missionary work somewhere gets lost. I do my best when I've got the time, but there is very little of that when you're stuck here. I'm ready to get out of the office... AGAIN... (Not many people can say that part).

Not much news really for this week. It was pretty tranquil. We did send 2 missionaries home early, for studies, on Monday & Tuesday and we are sending another one on Monday morning. It is wild to see how quickly the time here in the mission is passing. I can definitely say that each of the missionaries who is now leaving the mission are people that I know, something very different from when I first arrived in the office.

And to answer your questions Mom... I have eaten all of the jam and I found it very, very good. And I still haven't gotten the package, it is probably sitting over in Correos Chile and we haven't gotten over there to pick it up yet. Unfortunately it isn't as easy to get mail now as it was before, since we have to travel over close to the new office to pick it all up... yuck! I should be getting it early this week.

Hope ya'll have an excellent week and that work isn't to drab. Wish you could save me a place on the road trip in June!!!

Lots of love!!!

-- Élder Todd

P.S. Good luck to Ryah in Prom, and don't forget to send me pictures!!!