Elder Newkirk Chile Antofagasta LDS Mission Blog: week #52 -- Year one all done!

Hey! Hope that you had a Merry Christmas!

It was cool to be able to talk to you guys yesterday in Skype. It was good to see a lot of the family! Also a little fun to speak a little Spanish! I´ll definitely have a little fun with that when I get home lol! But yeah it was really good to see all you guys!

Thanks for everything that you did for me this Christmas! You guys did a ton and I really didn´t need everything haha but thanks! Also thanks to the grandparents for everything that they sent to me as well! I took a video of the aftermath of everything that I´ll be sending as well. But seriously thank you guys for everything!

This week was actually a decent week. Even with all the Christmas rush around we had a baptism this weekend. Bastian got baptized! His parents were the first people that we contacted in the street here in this sector. They are super awesome as well but they aren´t married. It´s super common here that people aren´t married because the marriage process is wack here so a lot of people don´t get married.. So we have to wait until they get married before they can be baptized as well. Oh their names are Enriquez and Jenny. They also have another son, Ignacio, who´s 7. But they are super awesome and we baptized their son this weekend. They have been attending a lot and been getting along well with the members. That´s the importance of talking with everyone that you cross because you never know who are prepared and just waiting for someone to tell them the truth. If we would have never talked to them in the street my first day here we never would have known them or anything. It´s crazy to think about how many people we pass by every day but we never know who are going to progress and who isn´t. So you just need to talk with everyone!

Yeah these weeks are going to be a little slow with all the parties going on. I´ve never been here in Chile for New Years but I imagine that it will be pretty crazy with a ton of parties. And then the next day we have church at 10am... So we´ll see how the attendance goes....

But even with everything that was going on, we had a decent week. On Friday we had our Christmas conference as missionaries. It went really good! I really enjoyed it. We talked about a lot of different stuff and we also went over this years numbers month from month. It´s crazy in these last times the numbers have jumped up a ton and we are having a lot more success here in this mission. At the start of the year we had like 30-60 baptisms monthly and now we are having more than 100 every month! Also in the Christmas conference I got Grandma Newkirk´s package with a ton of food!! Also we had lunch and president gave away goodies to everyone. We also watched a movie(The Croods) which was pretty cool as well! Then on Saturday we had our baptism and then in the day we went and worked in La Chimba which actually went really well and we had a few lessons. Then at night we went and ate with a family. So here they open presents at midnight on Christmas Eve and before that they have a big dinner. So we had permission to stay out until 11pm and eat dinner with a family. So that´s what we did! It went really well! Then on Sunday just opening the presents that I had, church, and Skype! And that was pretty much my week this week!

This morning we also played soccer with President and his family and also the office which was a lot of fun! We played in a real soccer field and everything. I actually didn´t really get any pics but president took some pics so they should go up on the blog or something pretty soon! http://2012375.wixsite.com/chileantofagasta Here´s the blog just in case if you didn´t have it! But it was just out zone of like 20 missionaries, president´s family, and the office. There were a lot of us but it was a ton of fun to be able to play with President and on an actual field!

Well this week as well should be an interesting one and we might have a chance to have another baptism! So we´ll see how everything goes! But should be an interesting week! Also sounds like you guys are going to have a good week as well! Have fun sledding and at the movies!! Wish I could be there with you guys! I would much rather be in the 20´s with snow than the 80´s with beating sun all day long..... Count your blessings haha

Well hope that you guys have a great week and a Happy New Year!!! Love you guys a ton!

Love
Elder Newkirk

P.S. I complete a year in the mission this week! WOO(yeah that was pretty trunky....)