Dorsal 1 - Week #17

It's the "Final Countdown"!!!

Time is flying by! We're going to start with the interesting news and then go into this last week's highlights... Last night at about 12:00 we got an unexpected phone call!... But this time it was Elder Garza instead of President... Turns out that our sector just doubled in size! With the exit of several missionaries from my group today there were several special changes that occurred, and one of them was that Dorsal 2 (the other sector in our ward) was closed. Now we have twice the area to cover in the same amount of time! My last couple of weeks ought to be really fun... I'm going to come home on a gurney because I won't be able to walk!

This morning we played soccer & basketball with several ward members and investigators. We had a good time and I actually didn't play basketball too horribly! Now we are headed to eat lunch (barbecue) with our converts and we have a family home evening tonight!

I can't believe several of the cousins have gotten married since I've been away, first Shelbey and now Jessi... What's goin' on? I've missed a lot of action on your side of the world in these last 2 years! Either way, good to hear that Jessi is now married and that the service turned out well... About the getting everybody together... I'm alright with the idea, since I haven't seen anybody from that side of the family in more that 2 years now! Let's make it happen!!!

In other news! Cristian, the other child of Ana (who was baptized recently), was baptized yesterday afternoon! The service was simple, but we had a ton of support from the ward. I was actually kind of surprised by how many people stayed to share that special moment with the newest member of the ward! Also, Friday I was able to attend the temple for the last time here in Chile (as a full-time missionary that is). Eight missionaries from our group and President & Sister Essig were able to attend! President told us "great job", as if we were already finished... LOL. Turns out that several of us from my group are having a lot of success in our sectors right now and it looks as if that might continue until we leave.

Something I've learned within the last couple of weeks is that after about 23 months in the mission field a missionary finally gets good at teaching and knows how to be a missionary... Then all too quickly the last month passes by! Missionary work isn't necessarily easy, so it takes a long while to get used to it and into the groove of things! Sooo... now that I'm in the groove my time is just about up! LOL...

We are working extremely hard here in our sector and hope to be able to keep up with the workload placed upon us by the closing of Dorsal 2... On the bright-side, we have more freedom to move around the ward now. We've got several baptisms planned for the 27th/28th of August, so hopefully everything turns out well there! Keep us in your prayers, we need them now more than ever (even more than last week)!

Love ya'll and I'll be seeing ya'll way too soon!

-- Élder Todd

P.S. You'll probably get a very quick note from me next week since I'll be visiting converts, but I'll do my best to get something substantially long off your way!