week #40 -- great conference this past weekend -- service for a member of the ward

Buenas dias! Como les ha ido?

What a great conference weekend right? I really enjoyed a lot of the talks from this conference. Before the mission I remember how I only liked conference because I could stay home in PJs and sleep on the couch... But now I really enjoy conference and I actually understand the importance of listening to our prophet and the apostoles. I love listening to the talks this conference. I hope that you guys were able to watch all of conference and if you didn´t you should go back and listen to them! I was actually able to watch parts of the conference in English. I had to watch conference in Spanish the Saturday morning session and the Sunday morning session. For these sessions the primary were using the room to watch conference as the primary. But all the other sessions I was able to watch in English. I´ll probably go back through and listen to the talks from these sessions in English so that I´ll be able to understand everyone 100%. Also I feel the spirit a lot stronger in English because it comes straight from the voice of the prophet and the apostoles. 

This conference there were quite a few that I really enjoyed. I don´t have my notes with me and none of the talks are posted in reading form yet on lds.org so I´m not able to take quotes or anything. But I really enjoyed the talks from Elder Oaks about missionary work and how we can find ways to share the gospel with people. I also really enjoyed the talk from Elder Uceda about prayers and his story while he was out on his mission. And I think my favorite talk was the one from Elder Nelson about how we can find joy in every situation through Christ. No matter what we are going through in life we can have joy and happiness. We should always choose to be happy because really happiness is a choice. There were also a lot of other good ones! I could probably sit and talk about every talk given haha.

Well bueno as District Leader here in Tal-Tal it isn´t that much. Our district is only a district of 4 and we live with the other 2 missionaries. Normally as district leader you have to call for numbers(or results for the week), prepare a class for district meeting every week, but more than anything is to help the missionaries out so that they can improve. Be a motivator and just be there to help the missionaries in your district out. But yeah definitely busy here in Tal-Tal but I really enjoy it and opportunity I have to learn a lot. Like I said to mom in my email this week it would be a different story if I had a normal life but as a missionary I´m just 100% focused in the church and have no other responsibilities other than the church.

Everything is going well with the new comp(Elder Pineda). We have actually been working pretty well together. Usually at the start you just have to get used to your new comp. I have actually been learning a lot from him as well. He is really good at talking with everyone. He seriously talks to everyone in the streets. We have met a lot of great people thanks for him starting a conversation. He is my first companion that actually talks with everyone so I´m learning a lot. Normally my other comps and I usually just say hi to people we pass in the street. But with Elder Pineda we have met a ton of new people and a few really cool people. So this is a really good thing for me because I never really felt comfortable just to talk to random people in the street but now it is something that is normal. There is definitely a reason why we got put together and I´m learning a lot of good things from him. There is always good things that you can learn from every comp. But no one is perfect either so every comp has there bad things. 

Yeah the pic that I sent last week is Yerrack´s family. The Becerra family! They are a really cool family.

Yeah the 4 of us missionaries eat with the papitos every day. We are with them for a good part of the day but not all day because our sectors are the city split in half. We have one half of the city to proselyte and they have the other half. When we are proselyting we don´t see them(which is a good chunk of the day), but everything else we are pretty much with them.

Well hope you guys have a great week and that Mom has a great birthday! Feliz cumpleaños mama! Love and miss you guys!!!

Love

Elder Newkirk

We did a service project this Wednesday for a member. He has a piece of land that he wants to start building a house on but...... His piece of land is on a mountain of rocks. So we helped out flatten some of the land there and pick out some rocks. It was actually a lot of fun. Even though in the pictures it really doesn´t look inclined, it really is haha! 

Ummmmmm I may have recieved your Halloween package already... I didn´t know it was for Halloween so I just opened it. I haven´t eaten anything yet I promise. I wanted to ask you guys if you wanted me to wait to eat it on Halloween?

So when we went to Copiapo a few weeks ago I was able to buy some thing there and guess what they had! Mac and Cheese!!! So I finally made some mac and cheese this week. It´s been soooooooo long!