week #102 -- last email from Chile!

oh wow, last email! Como estamos?

Pretty crazy how fast the time has just flown by. I honestly cant believe that this is going to be the last one! Thanks for never missing a week lol!

Well this week that we had was actually really good. We didn´t have all the much success getting people to church this Sunday like we did last week. We only had 1 in church this weekend. We had a lot of other people promise to come to church but just didn´t answer their phone or anything. There were a couple of others that things came up so they couldn´t go to church. Jessica Castillo came to church this week. A youth that is just a little crazy, but shes nice. The thing is, is that this week shes going off to Santiago to live so she wont be here.. Matias also showed up but he showed up really late actually. He came to the classes with a friend of his. Matias is really cool but he is really slow. He has a real hard time learning and doesn´t really pay all that much attention. We did his baptism interview this week but he forgot pretty much everything for the problems that he has. We´re going to see whats up this week and see if were going to baptize him or not, we also have to get permission from President about him. But we´ll see what happens! This week we also found a ton of new investigators that were really really cool. We had 26 news this week and a lot of them are really cool and I feel are going to progress a lot. There is a ton of potential here in the sector now! A lot of good people that we are teaching and that we have found! Definitely sad to leave it! But yeah that was pretty much this week! Just still working hard and helping all those that I can before that I leave the mission field! This week should just go by flying. Tuesday and Wednesday should just be some normal days. Thursday we have a Christmas devotional with all the missionaries from the south of the mission. Friday will probably just be a day of saying bye to a lot of people. Saturday will be like the official last day in my sector and working, hope it will be a baptism day. Then Sunday morning I go traveling to Antofagasta to have the interview. Monday last Pday with President and all the missionaries finishing the mission. Then Tuesday I travel back home! So that should be my week this week! We´ll be seeing ya real soon where we can talk a lot more!

Not gonna lie I dont have a clue what happened with these 2 years. A lot of mixed feeling about everything. Definitely excited to come home and start the game of life, but also a little freaked out because there will be a lot of things to do and worry about as well. I feel like the real mission is just about to begin! But I also dont feel like its going to be such a huge change because I´m going to take the things that I have learned in the mission and the good habits that I´ve developed and just put them into the real life! Just because the mission is finishing doesnt mean that I have to stop being a missionary and helping people out and changing lives! But definitely going to be a change! I honestly dont know what else to say to you guys about the mission. But I am so grateful that I have had these 2 years to be able to serve the Lord here in northern Chile. An experience that has changed my life and the life of others as well. I came here to help all those that I could to come unto Christ, have faith in Him, repent of their sins, and be baptized to be able to reach eternal life. And along the way of helping others I have helped myself. I now understand the importance of the Gospel and how important it is to live it and the importance to share it with others. I think that the thing that I have most seen and learned is how much love that the Lord has for his children and the importance that we have in his plan to bring salvation for everyone. Gods only purpose is bringing his sons and daughters back to his presence and nothing else. He only wants that everyone can make it back. I love the mission so much and for everything that has happened to me in these 2 years. There honestly not enough words to explain everything that is the mission. But I love the mission and Im so grateful that I took the decision to come and serve the Lord. Thank you everyone who was there to support me and was with me every step! Thanks for all the emails, all the love that you guys have shared!

Se que este es la Iglesia de Jesucristo y no hay ningún otro. Se que por medio de un profeta, Jose Smith, la Iglesia pudo ser restaurado. Se que el Libro de Mormón es verdad y es la evidencia de que todo esto es verdad. Se si leemos, meditamos, y oramos que el Señor va a contestar a todos sus hijos. Se que este es su obra y no de ningún otra persona. Estoy agradecido por este oportunidad que he tenido para servirle por estos 2 años. He podido aprender mucho y ahora entendió muchas cosas. Se que este es el único camino que vuelve a la presencia con nuestro Padre Celestial y que también podemos estar con nuestras familias para siempre. Se que si somos obedientes que vamos a recibir muchas bendiciones de Dios y hay que siempre confiar en El en cada momento. Se que el tiene todo poder y El es todo en nuestra vida. El siempre quiere el mejor para sus hijos. Se que si tenemos fe podemos hacer todas las cosas! Se todas estas cosas porque he sentido fuertemente y he tenido muchas experiencias! Se que todo esto es verdad y lo dejo en el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen.

Love you guys a ton! See ya real soon!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Pic. Last pic! Had the last zone activity and we played soccer like normal lol!

week #101 - second to last week of missionary service

Hey...

Well second to last email that I`m going to make to you guys! Real crazy! But this week was actually really good. A real chill week of just solid working! We found quite a few people who were really cool. This week we actually focused a lot more on bring investigators to church which worked out for us. We had 8 investigators in church with a few others who were suppose to come to church but couldnt show up for reasons. We focused a lot on commiting people to come to church. We have like these cards that we used which is like a written promise that we do with the people that they sign to remember to come to church and make a promise to come to church and it worked out really well for us this week! The investigators that we have been teaching has been quite a few. We have a real good stock going on with people that we are teaching and progressing! I`ll just go through all the people that we`ve been teaching and everything. Zenobia is a lady from Bolivia that we contacted a couple weeks ago and have been teaching as well. She came to church this weekend and also has a son who is 8 years old. She is married and is super awesome! She`s really nice. She is from the Adventist church and everything but we have faith that she`ll be getting baptized and also with her son! Also Jannette came to church again. This was her second time coming to church and also really likes church, she also has a couple friends from work in the branch as well which helps out a lot. The only thing about her is that her husband is really lame. He like restrains her from progressing and everything. She wants to do it but to avoid problems with her husband she hasn`t been able to progress a lot. We are actually going to go for it this weekend and baptize her because she is super ready the only problem is her husband Franko... We have also been teaching Matias who is Jocelyns(recent convert) older brother. He also came to church yesterday for the first time. He will get baptized like almost 100% which should be cool! Also this week we found 2 chicks that are super ready as well. Bernarda and Camila are cousins that live pretty much together alone with their kids. We found them this week and started teaching them. From the first lesson they were really really cool and accepted everything really fast and already really like what we teaching and everything about the church. They actually weren`t able to come to church yesterday because their kids got sick but they are really cool and should be getting baptized next Saturday as well. I`m going to just ask President for permission to baptize them with 1 attendance for my last Saturday as a missionary. But they are way cool and have be progressing a ton! Also we have Veronica and her brother who came to church yesterday. Veronica is like 18 but also really cool. She has family who are active members of the church in the south of Chile. So she`ll be progressing as well and get baptized here soon. The only thing is that she is going on vacation with school ending and bring back her family to her house. So when she gets back with her family that are members she`ll definitely go back to church and get baptized as well! We also had another investigator that came to church who was Alejandra but she actually didnt like church like at all because no one like said hi to her and she just felt weird in church so she told us that she didn`t want to come back.. The members are so crucial in missionary work. You have to have the members and also the missionaries working to make things work. You cant just have one or the other working. The both have to work.. But that kinda sucked because she was really cool and excited to come to church but left the church empty and didn`t like it because of the members.. But other than that the work here is going really well and we are having a lot of success right now! There are definitely a lot of blessing and miracles happening here in my last couple weeks! Hopefully a lot of these people that I mentioned should be getting baptized this next Saturday the 16th which is my last day here in Tierra Amarilla and my last day pretty much as a missionary! My last day because Sunday 17th I go traveling in the morning before sacrament meeting to Antofagasta and in the afternoon I have my last interview with President Ferreira. Then Monday is last Pday with all the missionaries finishing the mission and with President where we play soccer and do a couple things during the day and have a dinner with President at night. Then Tuesday we go to the airport to go traveling. Pretty crazy how fast things go flying! This next Sunday is pretty much my last Sunday as a normal missionary.

Well that was pretty much everything this week in one big paragraph haha. But things are going really well just working hard until the end! Hope that you guys have a great week! See ya next week in my last email!! Love you guys a ton!

Love

Elder Newkirk

Pic with the famous donkey statue in Tierra Amarilla(its really weird)

Tierra Amarilla symbol

Chilean Flag

week #100 -- Dressed in white for the prom!

Hey!

Hey imma make this email real quick this week. It was a great week! We had 2 baptisms this weekend! Jocelyn and Thabianny got baptized this weekend! Thabianny we thought that she was a member of the church less active who is Jocelyn`s cousin because all of the teaching records and everything from the missionaries said that she was less active. But we found out this week that she isn`t a member! Miracles that the Lord just puts in our path! I was just sitting talking with her when Jocelyn was in her baptism interview and we got to the point where we talked about the church and about baptism and all that good stuff. Well I found out that she got baptized when she was 8 years old, but... she got baptized in the Catholic church with her little brother. I couldn`t believe it lol. The next day we called the mission office to look up her information and everything just to double check and make sure because we were almost 100% that she was a member. But the office couldn`t find anything. So that same day we went and talked with her and explained to her everything and invited here to get baptized with her cousin but at first she didn`t really want to because she said that she`s already gotten baptized and all that but we talked a little bit more and explained the doctrine of Christ and hyped her up to get baptized. She had her baptism interview that same day and got baptized!! Actually Elder Wild came back down during the week to be able to do interviews for the zone again and did my interviews again! But its funny how the Lord works and everything but we definitely recieved blessings this week! So we had 2 baptisms! Also the other Elders from Tierra Amarilla(Elder Gordon and Elder Davis) had 2 baptisms! It was just pure young women. The title of the pic that I`m going to send is "they all choose white for the Prom" hahahaha! Because we all got in white to baptized! But that that`s the success that we had this week! Also had crazy exchanged this week where in the whole zone gets mixed up to work with a new comp. I got to work with one of the zone leaders in their sector which was fun! With Elder Thomas. Other than that just another normal week of working! We actually didn`t have any investigators in church yesterday which sucked. We had quite a few people promise to come to church but the attendance was pretty low as well. The other Elders as well didn`t have anyone in church. It was just a weird Sunday. I had to do a ton yesterday lol. Lets see I baptized, confirmed, gave a long talk about the Book of Mormon because there was only 2 speakers including me, also did a special number with my comp, fransico, matias, and mamitas daughter kimberly, then i had the gospel principles class like usual. So just a jam packed Sunday meeting for me haha. But its all good I like to participate. I`m also like always ready to give a talk about something having to study the gospel every single day. But yeah that was pretty much my week this week!

Also the cut in my head is already better. Friday I got the stitches taken out. It weird part is when the doctor took off the scab that had a couple hairs in it lol. Hurt a little bit and felt weird but we`re all good now. Got a scar when I got the cut but its on top of my head so the hair just covers it which is the good part! Oh I also didn`t have to pay for anything. Here in Chile they have a decent system. Depends on a couple things but they did it for free. Seeing me as a missionary and everything I think they just did it for free. I didn`t have to give like anything just my Chilean ID and that was about it.

Looks like you guys had a good Thanksgiving! Nice and quiet!

Yeah just another normal Pday. We played soccer as a zone, watched Moana and then went to go eat lunch. Now were here writing in a cyber place, then we`ll head off and buy food for the week and then head home to finish the day. Thats just about all that we can do. There isn`t like anything here in Copiapo to do...

Hope that you guys have a great week! Love you guys a ton!! See ya soon!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Oh I forgot to mention that it was Elder Davis`s birthday on Thanksgiving! We celebrated in Franciscos house. The other Elders had to go and do the interview for Thabianny so thats why they werent there but the members wanted to do something for Elder Davis so I stayed with him there. Selfie with everyone, pic with Paulina(Francisco`s cousin that got baptized this weekend), and pic with Francisco! 

Oh I forgot to mention that it was Elder Davis`s birthday on Thanksgiving! We celebrated in Franciscos house. The other Elders had to go and do the interview for Thabianny so thats why they werent there but the members wanted to do something for Elder Davis so I stayed with him there. Selfie with everyone, pic with Paulina(Francisco`s cousin that got baptized this weekend), and pic with Francisco! 

Oh I forgot to mention that it was Elder Davis`s birthday on Thanksgiving! We celebrated in Franciscos house. The other Elders had to go and do the interview for Thabianny so thats why they werent there but the members wanted to do something for Elder Davis so I stayed with him there. Selfie with everyone, pic with Paulina(Francisco`s cousin that got baptized this weekend), and pic with Francisco! 

On the crazy exchange day we bought Sushi at night with the boys. The flash was just a little too bright right in front of my face. But its all good I look japanese while eating Sushi.

The best decoration from Chile... Baby in a tree

"They all decided to wear white to Prom" 

Pic with Francisco, Elder Davis, and Elder Riquez

week #99 -- baptism of Priscila

Hey hows it going??

Well my week has been pretty crazy. Good but also lame because I might have cut my head and had to get stitches... We´ll get to that part in just a sec. But the week was good. On Wednesday Elder Wild, who is now the traveling assistant, came to our zone to do interviews for some of the investigators that we are teaching. He interviewed Priscila for us and she got baptized on Saturday! We almost didn´t get permission from her mom but finally we got her permission! Then on Thursday we had a conference with President where he talked with the zone about a couple of things because our zone isn´t doing so great before this weekend we only had 1 baptism in the month as a zone which is really low. But he came and talked with us and talked about a couple things and the spirit of urgency and how we need to look at things half full and not half empty. Then we had interviews with President afterwards. My interview was real quick, he didn´t really tell me all that much only that I have to start thinking about plans after the mission Sunday nights haha. So I´m going to start doing that to make a couple plans for when I get back. And now that I have the flight plan and everything, time is just passing faster and faster everyday... Then afterwards we set up an interview with President with David. President talked with David for a little bit but David won. President told us that he was ready and that he should be getting baptized soon. So we are going to keep working with David but I have faith that he is going to get baptized soon! But then on Friday it was just another good day and while we were working I hit my head on a electric box... We were just talking and walking and I hit my head on a post... I have hit my head a couple times here in Chile because they make everything shorter here and I´m a little too big here. But I hit my head pretty hard and touched my head and there was just a lot of blood.... So we hurried and went to Francisco´s house because we were close, cleaned my head and but some pressure on the cut. Then we called another member who came and picked us up and took us to the hospital where I got a couple stitches in my head... Theres always a first time for everything... But everything has been fine. After that first day everything has pretty much been normal. Just that first day my head was a little sore and hurt lol. But after that things have been fine. A little pain here and there but all good. A little weird to shower and also to do my hair in the morning. Then on Saturday we had a baptism! Priscila got baptized! She chose me to baptize her right after the accident haha but everything when well and she got baptized!! This week we should also have a baptism. Yocelin should get baptized this weekend as well. She has the baptism date for this weekend and she has came to church like 2 times and she has been progressing as well so she should be getting baptized this weekend. I also did a couple interviews for the other Elders here in Tierra Amarilla and she should be baptizing as well so here we should be having a couple of baptisms!

But yeah thats crazy that the flight plan is already here! Now you know exactly when I´m getting home. Its crazy how fast the time has been flying by. I never thought I would get to this point lol. But now I feel like the time is just passing by really slow but when we get to the date I know it will feel like it flew by really fast. But I´m definitely excited as well!

No but we didnt do anything too special for pday today. Just another normal day of just hanging out and going to Copiapo. Right now we´re in Francisco´s house just chilling, I´m using his computer to write. But yeah just another normal day of just hanging out not doing anything too special.. Pdays are kinda boring because there isn´t a ton to do here in Tierra Amarilla or Copiapo. Just go around downtown to see what they have or just hang out with members or whatever. But I only have like 3 more Pdays after this one haha.

Well I hope that you guys have a great week! Have a great Thanksgiving!! Love you guys a ton!

Love
Elder Newkirk

The only photos that I have from the baptism of this weekend... I didn´t take any photos because I thought that someone was taking pics with the camera of my comp and the person that was suppose to take pics didnt take any pics...... So this is the only one that I got. But Priscilas baptism!!

week #93 -- working in Tierra Amarilla

Hola como tai po? Feliz Cumpleaños Mama! Espero que ha tenido un gran día!!

Esta semana fue buena! Mucho caminando en el sol, esta haciendo mucho mas calor cada dia! Pero estamos bien trabajando aquí en la viña del Señor! Solamente tratando de traer almas a Cristo en este tiempo que me queda! Well so things have been going well with the investigators as well! We are teaching someone who is called MariaJose. Her boyfriend is a member of the Church less active and has been listening to the missionaries for like a month now. She´s 17 but she is really cool and we´re trying to get her baptized. She pretty much has everything and has gone to church as well but now just says that she wants to feel an answer and a desire to get baptized. So we´re just going to keep working with her to help her out because I know that she has already gotten an answer and everything but we´re going to just help her out to enter into the waters of baptism. Sometimes agency sucks lol! The missionaries here have also been working with another investigator for a while who is an old lady who's been going to church but she has to stop smoking so that she can get baptized, her name is Aida. She is actually really close to stop smoking she has gone from smoking boxes a day to like 1 or 2 a day and she has also gone a couple days without smoking so she is really close as well. We also have another investigator who went to church yesterday with us who is a single mother who has 3 little kids who just got here to Tierra Amarilla from southern Chile who lives in a Toma. She is really really good and really receptive and everything. She also just has to stop smoking and she´ll also be ready to be baptized because she has been progressing really fast because it was just a contact that we did in the street with her but she is really cool, her name is Nicole. We have also been sharing with a lot of other people who are also really cool but still haven't gone to church and havent been progressing as much as the other but we are going to keep working with them to help them to progress more as well! Sunday morning we had a lot of people committed to come to church and we got out in the street at like 8:00-8:30ish to go out and pass by all the people who said they were going to church to wake them up and help them come to church. A lot of people fell..... But that's normal and happens all the time. There are a lot of people that say yes, yes ,yes but when it actually comes down to it......Different story... But other than that things are going good down here. I´m having some fun here just working hard till the end!

Conferences and interviews with President went really well! In my interview President was asking me about some of my plans and all that after the mission! Gave me just a little bit of advice, I bet he´ll give a lot more when I get to the end, but it was some good advice and told me not to worry about it. Also told me that I was one of the best missionaries that he´s had in the mission which was cool and that the Lord was pleased with the work that I was doing. Also gave me a shoutout in the conference that we had with all the missionaries from the south part of the mission! Definitely a good feeling to know that I´m working hard and doing a good job! but it was a good conference and learned a couple things but not anything too big or different.

Also yesterday Tierra Amarilla had the highest attendance that I think that they have ever had. We broke like 90 people that came to church. We literally ran out of seats to sit on and we were just standing up in the back of the sacrament meeting lol. Also had to bless the water 2 times because we ran out as well. The branch here in progressing a lot and a lot more people are coming to church. So the work here in actually going really well and we are working well with the branch and the members!

Yeah to train a new missionary there is a program that the church has which is called the first 12 weeks which is just like a little book that we study from to train the new missionary coming into the mission field. Other than that it is just an example like you were saying and just helping them accustom to missionary life and everything. But Elder Riquez is already a good missionary so there isn´t a lot of training to do lol.

Today we got up and went on a hike here also with the branch with a couple of people that came with us. It was actually a pretty good hike. I´ll send some pictures! Tierra Amarilla is just a little town the is just surrounded by mountains so there are a lot of hikes here that we could do. But it was pretty fun!

Looks like you guys also had a fun time down there in Boise!! Too bad for Dalton´s team but next game they´ve got it for sure! I bet Dalton is just like a machine out there playing football. I´ll have to go watch one of his games sometime as well! And geez you guys are rich just buying a new car! Looks like the Lord is definitely blessing you guys! Don´t fall into pride there lol😉 But that will be a good car to go up snowboarding this year! Hopefully we´ll be able to get out to the mountain a lot! I´m stoked!! but looks like things are going well and you guys had a great weekend! Have fun getting back into the normal schedule this week!! Love you guys a ton! Have a great week!!!

Love
Elder Newkirk

week#92 - working hard in Tierra Amarilla

Hey whats up?

First week here in Tierra Amarilla has been pretty good! Its quite a small town but it is a lot of fun. Definitely the most green part that I have been in. Our house is out back of our Mamita who gives us lunch which is like in a forest. Its actually pretty cool. I`ll have to take a video and send it to you guys. But everything's going well here with my new comp. He`s not super newbie because he`s been out already for one transfer but I came here to finish his training. But things are going really well with him. He is actually really cool, also teaches really well! He is also really funny, I`m having a lot of fun with him. We have also been working real hard in Tierra Amarilla. There are actually quite a few solid investigators here that we are working with. We should be seeing some baptisms here real soon! Definitely a lot different not being a Zone Leader anymore either. It`s now just way to chill and I really dont have to worry about anything else just my sector and my comp. I actually kinda miss being Zone Leader is was a lot of fun and I learned a ton. But now we just have to worry about the sector and get out there and work hard!

Conference was also really good this weekend. A lot of good talks! I really liked the talks from President Uchtdorf about our pathway back to our Heavenly Father. Elder Holland about perfection. Elder Callister with pure fire about the Book of Mormon. But I think my favorite out of them all was Elder Rasband`s talk about Gods plan for us and how he makes the moves for us on the chess board and that there is no coincidence in life. I definitely am going to have to print out some of those talks and also listen to them to study them out because there were a lot of great talks this conference. But Sunday morning I didn`t really listen to all that well because I was pretty sick. Saturday night after Priesthood session a member took us out to eat completos and I think I ate a bad completo and was throwing up Sunday morning. But in the afternoon I was feeling better and today I`m back to normal. But yeah stupid completos, soo good but sometimes risky lol.

But yeah everything's going good. I don't have all that many photos to send this week. One with my new comp here in the cyber. Also I found one of my converts from Tal Tal. Remember Yerack??? He`s here in Copiapo studing now and still going strong in the church!! It was really cool to be able to see him in the conference! But I`ll try to get some more pics for this next week. Today we are also going to play soccer with President with the 2 zones together. Also have interviews again with him today and zone conferences with President tomorrow. So that should be fun! But yeah that's about it! Love you guys a ton! Hope you have a great week in Boise!! Send me pics too!

Love
Elder Newkirk

week #37 - still in Tal-Tal

Hey! Well I guess that we all thought wrong this week for transfers... I´m still here in Tal-Tal, but with Elder Fernandez for another transfer... Normally the max that you can be with a comp is only 2 transfers but now we are going into our third together. I guess there is something that we still need to do here in Tal-Tal. But it should be all good, me and Elder Fernandez are pretty chill now. Also Elder Phillips officially died this week and is going home. (If you don´t know when you start the mission you are a baby and are just being born and when you finish you "die"). We dropped him off at TurBus this morning at 4 am to head off to Antofagasta. To replace him is coming Elder Jaramillo. He is a really cool Elder that I met at the beginning of my mission because he was assistant to President Dalton when I got to the mission field. But yeah that is all that happened to us this transfer. The 3 of us are staying.

Yes bakan means awesome. Look at that you figured it out. Hope that you were able to read a little of it from help by Google Translate haha.

Here in Tal-Tal they sometimes have things going on in the plaza. I think they try to have some every once in a while. But honestly they don´t happen a lot but when they do it is usually on a Saturday or Sunday. And when it is on Sunday not a lot of people come to church. Here in Chile it really isn´t in their culture to get up and go to church every Sunday. Their culture is really different here and makes it a little hard. 

Yeah President Lemos is the one that we go out fishing with! He is also our papito for the missionaries here in Tal-Tal. We go to his house Monday-Friday to eat lunch, his wife cooks really well. They are a really awesome family. I´ll send a pic that we took with them this last week(I have a lot of pics to send this week and some of them I´ll be saving for other weeks). It was awesome that he was able to baptize Yerack as well. I´m not exactly sure if Yerack really has serving a mission in his mind right now but it was funny. Like everyone was giving Yerack a hard time yesterday in church to go and serve a mision. All of the classes that we had yesterday had a lot to do with missionary work. So we´ll see if he´ll make the decision to serve a mission. It would be really cool to see him go out and serve a mission! 

Speaking of baptisms this week we have 2 more! This Friday Williams and Jimena will be getting married. Then on Saturday we have the baptism of Williams and his son Ismael! Ismael picked me to baptize him this Saturday and Williams chose my comp to baptize him. Williams also chose me to confirm him on Sunday which will be my first confirmation that I have ever done, which should be cool to do!

Also this week we will be traveling to Copiapo on Wednesday. We have a conference in Copiapo on Thursday with Elder Bragg from the seventy. Should be awesome to be able to go down there. I´ll be getting to see my papito(trainer) again, Elder Villegas! He is there in Copiapo as a zone leader.

Also this weekend should be pretty crazy. Here in Chile the 18th of September is their big holiday. It is their day of independence. We have an activity in the branch going on Saturday for the holiday. There are a ton of different traditions that they do here for the 18th. They have some dances and some traditional games that they play. With a big bbq. Should be interesting but should be a lot of fun as well! But the streets should be pretty crazy, everyone will be doing bbq´s and will probably be drinking a ton..

To answer your question to where we go to send our emails and use computers I took a selfie to show you where.

In the church they bought a new ping pong table that we have been using to play a little bit here and there. I also have a pic that I´ll be sending of that. I also bought my own ping pong paddle and everything. We are also still playing a little bit of soccer on Saturdays. There are a ton of soccer fields all around town. We usually just play in the one closest to the church so that afterwards we go to the church to share a soda with everyone and share something with them. We can only play if is has a missionary purpose and will help the work. So that´s what we usually do.

Yeah I pretty much tower over everyone. Also like everything here is made for shorter people so I hit my head a lot on things haha.

Church was great yesterday. I had Gospel Principles class yesterday about missionary work, also Elder Phillips gave his farewell talk in the branch yesterday and this morning we dropped him off in TurBus at 4 am to travel to Antofagasta. But yeah I get a ton of practice with being a seminary teacher, giving talks, gospel principle teacher, and just a full time missionary. It really is great experience that I have learned a ton from.

To finish, there is something that I want you guys to listen to as a family. I sent this to mom as well. But there is a devotional called "Life is a Football Game" by Troy Dunn. It is a devotional that he gave at an EFY. I listened to it this week from Elder Abalos and I really liked it. It was a really great devotional. It is like an hour long so just listen or watch it when you guys have the time to do so, I definitely recommend it!

Hope that you guys have a great week! Love you!!!

Love

Elder Newkirk

Ping pong in the church

Pic in papitos house

Elder Abalos got a number 2 piñata for his birthday because he is turning 22 this month. But he decided to use it for Elder Phillips going away for 2 years. 

The last selfie with Elder Phillips when we dropped him off this morning at 4 am.

Where we use internet

week #29 busy week - Meeting the new mission President

Haha no your Google translate was good. I understood, don´t worry! But yeah I had a pretty crazy but fun week this last week! Pretty crazy because I´m writing today on a Wednesday! 

So this week we had a ton of different travels and a lot of our plans changed a few times. At first we thought that we were going to Copiapo Sunday and be there Monday for interviews with the new president. But that changed to Saturday. So we traveled to Copiapo on Friday to be there on Saturday. Then on Saturday we had a little conference with the new president to get to know him and his family. We were there with the zones of Copiapo, Vallenar, and our zone. So a total of 4 zones(because there are 2 zones in Copiapo). I got to see an Elder from my group(Elder Gali) in the MTC that´s in Vallenar that I haven´t seen since we got split up and he sent me the photo so I have one to send haha. Still haven´t found my charger, but I think there are other missionaries with the same charger so I´ll be asking around to see if I can try and charge my camera with someone elses charger.

Well continuing with what happened this week is that the president had his interviews with the zones from vallenar and copiapo there in copiapo and changed our interviews for this Monday in Chañeral. So after the small get to know the president and stuff we left and went back to Taltal. Then after church on Sunday we practically left in the afternoon again to travel to Chañeral to be there Monday for interviews. And then after that we asked the President if we could change our bus tickets to the next day so on Tuesday as a zone we could play soccer together and he approved it. So we stayed there another night and on Tuesday in the morning played soccer as a zone and had a BBQ. Then at like 5pm we left. But we had a problem in Chañeral to write so we got permission to write today. So that is why I´m writing today. We just got home to Taltal last night. So this week was pretty crazy and just practically traveling.

Also somethings really awesome is that we got permission here in Taltal to play soccer with the members. Since we are so far away as a zone he gave us permission to do so. All the other zones in the mission also can play with members but they need to have future investigators or investigators to play. But it is super awesome. Also he will be giving us permission to watch Disney movies! His wife said that she´ll be sending a list of movies that we are allowed to watch! They are making some awesome changes haha! The new president and his wife are really awesome! I really like them a lot. And he is only like 47 years old. 

Yeah last week when we went fishing we had to walk out there. It was like a 30 min walk. My shoes are all good for now. I honestly have no clue if they have my size here or not. But usually the thing here is that everyone is smaller. So they usually don´t have a ton of things in my size haha. But I think I should be able to find some if I need some, but for now everything is good with my shoes. 

Also the new mission president has a blog for the mission that has some more pictures around the mission and as well as some pictures of me with a ton of other missionaries and stuff. But here is the link. http://mcaferreira2016-2019.simplesite.com/429363319

Well I don´t really have any time to write anymore this week with everything that happened haha. But everything is going good here in Taltal! I´ll answer your question about the members here in taltal on Monday when I write again!

Hope you guys have a great week!!! Love you guys!

Love

Elder Newkirk

Elder Newkirk y Elder Gali