Elder Newkirk Chile Antofagasta LDS Mission Blog: week #50 -- First week back in Antofa! Good week.

Hello!

Well everything´s going good here my first week back in Antofa! My comp is alright. The first time that my comp has had less time than I have had in the mission so it´s a little different. This Zone is also a lot different from the other zones that Ï´ve been in. I feel like it´s a little crazy sometimes but I have learned a lot. I´m also District Leader of a district full of sister missionaries... We´re called the Relief Society District haha.

The new area that I´m in is also super good. We´ve got a pretty good ward. There´s an attendance of about 90-110 members. Sometimes more and sometimes less. So it´s definitely the biggest ward that I´ve been in! We also have a different ward building from my first ward here in Antofa.

The people that are here in this sector are actually pretty receptive as well. There aren´t a ton of investigators that we are working with right now. When I got here there wasn´t a lot of people that we have been working with. But this week we have talked with a lot of people and we actually had 10 investigators in sacrament meeting yesterday! We found a family that we started to teach this week that came to church. They aren´t married so we have to get them married before they can get baptized but they are super awesome! We also have a few other investigators that we are working with but we definitely need to find more!

Also part of our sector is like 20-30 mins away in bus so sometimes we have to travel out there. It´s like a camp that´s called La Chimba. It´s a group of tomas(which are like houses made out of whatever people can get their hands on). Tomas are houses made out of wood, cardboard, metal, and anything else that you can think of. Actually the people who live out there are actually really cool. A lot of the people who live in La Chimba are foreigners. A lot of people from Bolivia, Peru, and a few other places.

Well other than that we have been working on finding more people to start teaching and everything. I feel like I´m almost at square one here in this sector. Also with this mission president he changed the rule that investigators only have to attend one time before they can be baptized when before it was 3 times. This Zone I feel like has been taking a lot of advantage of this. They are a little baptism crazy. Some people are ready for baptism after one attendance at church but I feel like a lot of them aren´t. We had someone attend this Sunday that can technically get baptized this Saturday but I don´t know how good I feel about it and if the person really is devoted to what they are going to do. What I´ve seen here a little bit is they have been baptizing a lot but a lot of the converts haven´t been attending church.... I guess I´m just a little scared to see what happens. But we never know if anyone is going to inactivate after their baptism or not. I don´t know, there are a lot of conflict of thoughts. Sometimes I feel like it´s ok and other times I don´t...

Well good work Hailey!! That´s awesome that you guys won! (even though there wasn´t even any competition....haha) That´s a little lame that there wasn´t any competition but it´s good that you won! Looks like you guys had a good time as well, I saw a few photos!

Well I don´t have a lot more time to write! But I love you guys! Hope that you have a great week!

Love
Elder Newkirk

P.S. Don´t worry I got your package. I´m just going to copy paste what I told mom and my story with the package...
"OH I also got my package!! Don´t worry! I actually got it last Monday but I didn´t know that it got in yet. The Zone Leaders had it in their house. I had to carry that stupid thing all the way from the Zone Leaders house until our house which is super long and our house it literally the highest that you can get in Antofa and the Zone Leaders live super low almost at the beach....,. So that was a long trek to get that giant thing to the house... Why did you send something sooo big? haha. That is the biggest mail that I have ever seen a missionary get... You guys are crazy haha!"