Dorsal 1 - Week #3

Howdy All!

Yesterday was great! I'm so thankful for the opportunity that we had to use Skype to communicate with the family, it's amazing how that little bit of technology works so well! I echo what Dad said in that eventhough we were thousands of miles away that it felt like we were so close. I'm very much convinced that I'll be using Skype quite a bit after the mission to be able to stay in contact with some of the people from the mission, in Chile and in the USA.

Once again, for everyone who didn't talk to me, Happy Mother's Day!!! Hope that all of the mother's out there had a wonderful day!

It is wild to think that yesterday marked my last call home in the mission! AHHH!!! And since I probably won't be having a layover either when I get to the US, I'll be seeing you before I talk to you again! I can't believe that time is flying by so fast... I'll be home before we know it!

Yesterday we had the opportunity to participate in the baptism of Mattías Astorga. It was an amazing experience! Elder Brunt & Elder Foster had been teaching Mattías and his brother Lucas before I arrived, so I just kinda helped seal the deal. I don't know that I've ever seen a 15 year-old so excited about the Gospel, we are expecting great things from Mattías in this ward, and a missionary in 4 years!!! Woot!!! The actual baptism was a little bit commical, Mattías is a very big guy, and poor little Tonny was who baptized him. Needless to say, it was a little bit of a struggle, and it didn't help matters any that the water heater in the church has problems... the water wasn't super cold, but it wasn't as warm as it should have been and the tankless heater (like in all of Chile) randomly decided to shut off every once in a while and stop filling the font! So Mattías was baptized by someone half his size in water that only came up to his knees! The ordinance had to be performed twice, Mattías had to kneel, and Tonny had to shove him under the water at the same time Mattías stretched out his legs. It was great!!! I'm attaching a couple of pictures from before the baptism for ya'll to enjoy! (You can thank the Chilean with the camera for the black line across Elder Brunt!)

I forgot yesterday to tell you a funny story that happened to us this week! On Thursday, Jhonny, a young man preparing for the mission (just waiting for his call) accompanied us for a little while. As our luck worked out, every appointment that we had failed and we were trying to find out what we should do. After a little bit we decided to pass by the home of Claudia, a less active member/recent convert who has been trying to come back to church. We got to the house and hollered at the gate (that's how we roll in Chile) and nobody answered... After repeating this several times her 7-8 year-old son came running out of the house and towards to back to play. Francisco, her son, is "mentally challenged" and is quite a character (from what Elder Brunt has told me he apparently plays with a laser pointer in the same way a cat does...) Elder Brunt hollered at him a couple of times yelling "niño" and he didn't respond, after a couple tries he began hollering "loquito" which means crazy man! Francisco responded immediately and ran towards the gate, took off the chain, threw it open, and took off down the road! The three of us stood there for a second and looked at each other wondering what we were going to do, then Elder Brunt started freaking out. Turns out that Claudia wasn't home! Luckily after a couple of seconds, one of the neighbors that was walking by mentioned to us that the store that he had run into knew who he was and that he'd be alright there. Moral of the story... don't holler "loquito" at a crazy little kid, otherwise he might escape from his cage! LOL!

It's little experiences like that that I missed about the mission. When I was in the office we just saw all of the stupid things that missionaries did, and nothing of what happened to them! I love it!!! I'm constantly amazed by the contact that I have with the people here, sometimes it frustrates me so much, but other times I'm purely amused! I'm going to miss Chile!!!

I guess I'll be seeing you again in less than 4 months! I'm not quite to the point of keep track of every day yet, but it is very easy to figure out exactly how much time I've got left!

Love ya'll and miss ya'll bunches! See you again soon!

¡Todo mi amor! ¡Muchos besitos!

-- Élder Todd