Monday, July 10, 2017

week #80 -- new zone - Working hard to find new investigators

Hey!

This week has been pretty good! It´s been a little different working with Elder Torrico because he is a lot more relaxed and likes to have more fun. Him and Elder Lozano are a complete change but it has actually been really good. There is a reason why I got put with Elder Torrico here in Calama because I feel like we´ll be able to learn a lot from each other! Elder Torrico is pretty close to finishing the mission. He goes home in September. There´s a chance that I might kill him, when I mean kill him it means to be his last comp when he finishes the mission.

This week we didn´t have any baptisms because Andres didn´t pass his baptism interview. He´s a youth, he´s 15. He is a little different and has a lot of personal problems but we´re going to keep working with him a little bit to help him to change the things that he needs to and to help him out. We were going to have 2 baptisms this week of a couple people that we found just talking with people, knocking doors, and looking at the old investigators but the both of them didn´t go to church this Sunday so we´ll have to try to get them to church this Sunday so that they can get baptized next week! One of them is a girl whos name is Diyanaira(good luck pronouncing that), shes 17 from Santa Cruz Bolivia. We knocked on her door because missionaries have passed by her house to talk with the parents but we found her and started to teach her! She is really cool and believes a lot in God and knows a lot of stuff. She has had a lot of questions for us and I definitely see her as a future missionary but she didn´t go to church because she had to baby sit and few kids Sunday morning....😭 We also found another person that is really ready for baptism also. She was an old investigator but we passed by and told us that she has been waiting for us to come back because she wants to go to church and get baptized! She remembers almost everything that the missionaries taught in the past so we sent her to the baptism interview(which she passed) and everything was ready to go to be able to go to church on Sunday. But my comp went and passed by with a member to go pick her up and she just recently woke up so my comp went to go pick up a couple more people and when he went back for her she was leaving her house with her kids in some truck....... So that was kinda lame... But we´ll see whats up this week so that hopefully she can go to church and be able to get baptized the next week as well!

We have also been working with a lot of people who are part family members. We work a lot with the members here in this ward. Elder Torrico likes to work a lot with the members and visit them and stuff but it´s actually good because I need to learn how to work more with members as well and gain their confidence. So it´s been good working with Elder Torrico, only sometimes he gives a little bit of juice. But I´ve been getting to know a couple of the members here in the new ward! We have like an attendence of like 110-120 people. Our ward is the Stake building. The church here is huge!! It´s a really cool church, its real different from the other churches! I´ll have to try and take a pic of it this week! But yeah the members here are really nice and pretty cool! There are also a lot of members that are pretty rich as well. Calama is just a pure mining town pretty much so a lot of the people here have money. There are parts that are ghetto like every city but our ward is pretty rich. We also eat lunch with the members everyday which is nice as well! So we dont have a mamita, only a mamita that washes our clothes like normal.

Yeah Calama is the coldest part of all of the mission during winter. It gets really really cold at night and in the mornings. But the weird thing is that it gets pretty hot during the day... It is also really really dry here. My hands have been pretty dry and I´ve gotten a couple nose bleeds. It is a literal desert. But thanks Grandma Newkirk for the jacket that you bought me before the mission! I thought I would never have to use it but I have been using it here every night! I´ve also been getting some sun... I always forget to put on sunscreen because I´m normally running out of the house when we leave so I normally forget sunscreen, that´s why I´ve been getting burned.. Also the sun is really strong here as well also in Alto Hospicio the sun was pretty strong.

Here in the zone as well everythings has been going great! The missionaries here work hard and are doing really well. The numbers this week have been good almost everyone reached the standards of the mission this week which is 14 lessiones with member, 10 new investigatores, 6 baptism dates, and 6 investigatores in church. The only thing that we´re missing is more people in church and also more baptisms. We have the goal this month to be able to have 34 baptisms in the zone but we only have 3 as of now.. This weekend we should be having at least 8 baptisms and after this week we still have 2 weeks to go this month of July! So we´re just going to keep working hard with the zone and also keep baptizing!!

Looks like you guys have been able to keep busy as well this week! Looks like you had a great 4th of July! We made a cake in our house for the 4th of July! Living with 2 other gringos has actually been a lot of fun! I´m living with Elder Clark and Elder Kirk, but I´m the Newkirk lol. They´re really great and a lot of fun to have in the house!  I actually knew the both of them when I was in Antofagasta.

Well hope that you guys have a great week! Have fun at girls camp Hailey! Good luck with the job as well! You guys are always in my prayers!! Love ya a ton!!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Pics:Heres the cake we made for 4th of July

An activity that we did in the Stake this weekend. It was "Mini MTC", Elder Torrico and I were teachers for being the Zone Leaders and then after the classes the youth came out with the missionaries in the street to contact with the youth. It was a fun activity and was a good turn out!

We played soccer, had a bbq, and watched a movie as a zone today for Pday! So heres a pic of the zone!




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