Elder Newkirk Chile Antofagasta LDS Mission Blog: Week #13 - Transfers this week, getting a new companion, and Baptism!

Hey!

Everythings still going great. Yesterday, being Easter, just felt like a normal day for us. It really didn´t feel special or anything, just another day as a missionary. But it sounds like you guys had a good Easter!

But looks like I don´t need to write you guys anymore, Hermana Malva can do it. Haha no just kidding but yeah the baptism happened and I had the opportunity to baptize which was an awesome experience. Also in Thursday it was Chile vs Argentina so we decided to wear our Chile stuff. It was pretty awesome. But the bbq is super rare and I think it was my first one. It was really good steak, but that doesn´t happen a lot trust me.

Haha I thought that I told everyone that I wouldn´t be back for 2 years but I guess they forgot. When I´m thinking about missionary work and am focused I don´t have any hard time with missing things of the past but when I think about it yeah I definitely miss it. Definitely miss the video games, music, and movies. It is pretty hard. Last night we went to one of our investigators houses so that Elder Villegas could say his goodbyes and take píctures and they were watching the new Deadpool movie. Man I really miss movies. But no it really isn´t that bad, I don´t have to worry about the old life at all.

Yeah I saw those snow pictures. That´s crazy, end of March and all that snow. Definitely wish that we got snow or even rain. I like the cold weather so hopefully that the weather will change soon and will be a little more cold here but I highly doubt it because it is always hot here.

Yeah transfers are this week. This transfer was 7 weeks because of the change in the MTC´s of 3 weeks now instead of 2 weeks, but they are usually every 6 weeks. Usually a trainer stays with his hijito for 2 transfers for training so we weren´t expecting a transfer. But he has been here for 6 months so I guess his time is up here in Gabriela Mistral (this is our sector and ward not sure if I had mentioned this before). Elder Villegas is going to Arica as a Zone Leader right now though which is pretty awesome. But as I am writing this right now we are still together. He leaves tonight at 9:30 and my new companion arrives at 9:45. I don´t really know him all that well I only know his name and where he is from. His name is Elder Alcantara and he is from Spain. He was born in Peru but only was in Peru for 3 years so yeah he is from Spain. He has 7 months in the mission. And that´s just about all I know about him. Hopefully we will work well together and that he´ll be a good trainer to finish my training. But the thing is, is that he is going to be new to this area as well, I will be the one to have to make plans and to guide the sector which should be interesting and hard. I think that I will definitely learn a lot from this. Should be a good humbling experience.

We actually went on the hike this morning which was pretty cool. Was really, really crazy but was cool. A lot more happened that I won´t say right now, it is a story for after the mission... But don´t worry everything is good now and I have pictures and even a video that I will try to send to you guys. Hopefully the file of the video won´t be too big to where I can´t send. But yeah it was fun and I definitely learned a ton from it.

Thanks for sharing D y C 11:12-13. It was something that I needed for today, thanks! But I´ll try to read that talk one day when I have time to do so.

EDITORS NOTE: This is the talk that I shared with Jordan. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/the-holy-ghost-as-your-companion?lang=eng

Your story in Tahoe is so true. Happens a lot to missionaries everywhere in the world. Especially here...

So we had zone conference in Thursday with President Dalton. Now we are studying lesson 1 about the restoracion(I forgot how to spell it in english) for 30 days straight and practicing with our companions everyday. I didn´t really realize how powerful the first lesson about the restoracion of the gospel through Joseph Smith. It is super powerful, we watched a video of an example from a conference with a ton of different apostoles. Elder Cook was being taught by these two men about lesson 1 and even Elder Cook felt the spirit super strong and cried a little. Even though he has probably heard this lesson thousands of times. So for the next 30 days our focus is on studying lesson 1 and nothing more to become more powerful teachers because lesson 1 is the most powerful of them all. I know that the church of Jesus Christ is true and I know that through Joseph Smith it was restored. The story of Joseph Smith and the first vision is so powerful and can bring anyone to the knowledge of the truth.

Will definitely miss you as well for the Priesthood session of conference. But I can´t wait for conference, there is a room for gringos in the stake center to listen to conference is english haha. Should be good!

Love you guys so much! I´m always praying for you guys! May the Lord bless you mucho!

Love
Elder Newkirk