week #48 - Light the World initiative!

How`s it going?! Hope that you guys had a great Thanksgiving weekend! From what I saw looks like you guys had a good time! Well they don`t celebrate Thanksgiving here so I definitely missed out! Holidays here in the mish seem just like normal days, it`s kinda weird.

My week was alright. Every single day this week we had an activity in the church to prepare for branch conference. On Tuesday we had an activity from Elder`s quorum about family history. Since we are counselors in Elder`s quorum we had to help out a lot with that. It was pretty interesting, I learned a lot more about family history work! It`s pretty hard for the members to head down to Santiago to go to the temple. A couple times they do a trip as a branch to go to the temple but it`s pretty hard for the members to make it down to the temple. Then on Friday we had the activity from the missionaries. We did who wants to be a millionaire with questions about the scriptures and stuff. It was actually a lot of fun. Elder Jaramillo and Elder Oliveira dressed up and everything which was kinda funny. There`s a pic of the activity. A lot of the youth showed up and not a lot of the adults. It was pretty much a mutual activity.... But yeah that was the fun/good part of my week.

Not going to lie the rest of the week was kinda lame. We made a list of people who could be ready to be baptized and made plans for every one of them but everything fell.. Also I haven`t been super united with my comp either. He has a lot of different thoughts about the work than I do. He`s also a little different and he knows/admits that he doesn`t have common sense.. We`re good friends and everything but we`re just really different and think differently. But he`s a good missionary and a great guy.

Also this week the new initiative from the church came out for Christmas so we`ve been showing the video to a lot of people. It is a really awesome video so if you haven`t seen it yet you should! It`s called "light the world". The church is doing like 25 days of service or 25 ways in how we can be like Christ. It`s actually really cool! Light the World

This next week coming up are transfers! So we`ll see if I leave from Tal-Tal or if there are any changes this next week. I`ve been here in Tal-Tal for quite a while so we`ll see what happens! Maybe next week I`ll be writing you guys in a new city!

Oh I forgot to write as well about a crazy story that happened to us this Monday. So last Monday we actually went down to Chañaral again to play soccer with the zone. So we got down there in time, this time. We played soccer and had a good time with the zone and then we went to turbus to take the bus back home, everything all good. Then we looked at our tickets and they said 6:55 so we arrived on time but.... The tickets were for 6:55 in the morning! The office bought the wrong tickets and bought them for the next day in the morning. Well we also can`t sleep in the church or anything so the office told us to look for a member or for a hotel. We ended up finally finding a member who let us sleep in his house for the night. He was a really cool dude. His name is Raul Johnson and we talked a lot with him that night. He does harpoon fishing and catches huge fish. He was really cool and it was pretty fun to talk with him. He also has a daughter who lives there in the states, in Atlanta, who is also a member. But yeah we made it back home in time and everything is good now.

Also we are kinda out of money here in our pension. We had to buy our tickets to travel a couple weeks ago and we still haven`t received this money back from the office so we are completely out of money.... I have been living off of oatmeal and rice pretty much haha. Well at least we have our mamita for lunch haha. It`s been pretty interesting but also kinda lame as well. I feel like there are a lot of trials going on right now. But I`ve gotta be thankful for them right?

Well hopefully this next week will be a better one! Hope that you guys have a great week as well! Love you guys a ton!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Pics:

The Christmas decorations are starting to go up!

Friday`s "Who Wants to be a Millionare" Activity!

week #47 - God is a God of miracles!

Hey,

Well not going to lie this week was pretty boring and kinda stressful. We have been trying to work really hard so that we can baptize this month but it just seems like everything is going against us. I feel good about the work that I`m doing and feel like I am working harder than I ever have in my mission but it`s hard because I haven`t seen the fruits. But you just gotta keep working and trying. God is a God of miracles, just have to go with faith this next week that we can have a baptism. I hoping that Kambry and Matias will be baptized soon. They are Yerack and Carlitos`s little brother and sister who still aren`t baptized. Their parent won`t let them get baptized and told us that they have to wait until they are older to be able to decide. Kambry is 9 and Matias is 11. We have been working a lot with them and I feel like now is finally the time and I feel like they`re pretty close to getting baptized.

Tuesday we watched the Chile game with a investigator which was pretty funny. We went to Gielberto`s house because he is an old dude who lives alone and we have permission to watch Chile play if we watch with investigators or if it has a mission purpose. So we just went over to his house to watch it because he didn`t have anyone there to watch the game with him. But it was pretty funny because my comp got pretty into the game. But Chile ended up winning, Alexis Sanchez had some pretty awesome goals. Vamos Chile! Chi-Chi-Chi Le-Le-Le viva Chile!

Also on Saturday the other missionaries had a baptism and my convert, Yerack, baptized! He baptized his girlfriend, Javiera, who I was able to interview. Don`t worry I made sure that she wasn`t just getting baptized for her bf haha. But no she`s super awesome as well and gained a testimony. Also Yerack bore his testimony in the baptism and told everyone that he didn`t convince her at all or talk too much to her about it and that she actually made the decision. But it was funny because that was the first thing that he said when he got up to share his testimony. But it was awesome to see one of my converts baptizing someone else!

Other than that this week has just been some walking and contacting and teaching and just the normal week. We found some good people to start teaching this week as well. We passed our goal of contacts in the street a lot this week as well, we ended up contacting 59 people which was pretty cool as well. Hopefully one of those 59 we`ll be able to teach and will end up member of the church.

Yesterday was also the primary program. It was actually really cool and a little different because there aren`t as many kids. All of them gave like short 1-2 min talks with singing in between but they tied together and lot of stuff and it was really well. They also decorated the sacrament room which was pretty cool. I took some photos after wards so you`ll be able to see. But it was probably one of the best primary programs that I`ve seen, not gunna lie.

The reason I said I might not get my package before is because we only receive packages every first of the month. Ever first thursday of every month the Zone Leaders have leadership training in Antofagasta(in the mission office). And then when the Zone leaders return they bring all the packages and give out the packages to us. So that`s why if it doesn`t get in before leadership training then I`ll get it in January, the next leadership training. Hopefully that makes a little sense haha.

Last week when we ate with the sister in the mountain we had a member bring us up there haha. There`s no way I`m walking up that. It would probably take us like a good hour walking.

Yeah Ping-Pong is pretty popular down here. There are a lot of youth that play so we normally have an activity every week to invite youth and investigators to play. We do like tournaments and doubles and stuff. It is a lot of fun because there are a lof of people who play really well. I have improved a ton haha.

I hope that you guys have a great Thanksgiving weekend! They don`t celebrate Thanksgiving here so send me some turkey! Hope that you guys have a great time in Boise this weekend with the family! Love you guys!

Love
Elder Newkirk

Primary program

Primary program

Primary program

Selfie with Gielberto

The District

Funny pic of Carlitos

Javiera`s Baptism!

week#46 - past week travelling to Chanarel and zn

Hey everyone!

Hope that you guys had a great week. My week was pretty good. Last Monday we went off to Chañaral to play some soccer with the zone. The bus arrived and we were all on the bus ready to go and.... the bus broke... Turbus is the company that we travel in and the most popular here in Chile but not going to lie the buses are really lame, they are always late, and they break a lot. So we had to sit and wait like 2 hours for the next bus to arrive. We didn´t have a ton of time to play soccer but everything went well and we had fun. That´s also why I didn´t have time to write again!

Then on Tuesday we traveled again to Chañaral for our zone conference. So we lost like 2 days of work because of the traveling. I actually like to travel, but I don´t like to lose days to work.

Then from there the week was pretty normal, just walking, contacting, teaching, and finding. It was actually a really good week to find new people to teach. We found some really awesome people that we started teaching this week. It´s crazy how the Lord puts people in our path. You have to always be attent to the spirit to be guided to those who are prepared. The Lord is preparing people every single day. In our Zone Conference someone shared something that changed my perspective. They told a story about someone who joined the church as an adult who got his patricarcle blessing and in his blessing it said that he was prepared to recieve the gospel a long time ago but someone chose not to serve a mission so he had to wait until now. They explained to us how we need to be ready to find those who the Lord is preparing because we pass by so many people every single day. I also don´t want someone to recieve their patriaricle blessing later on in life saying that you didn´t receive the gospel until now because Elder Newkirk didn´t talk to you in the street or didn´t follow a prompting of the spirit.

Friday we actually did some service for Guierrmo. They are building their house out back so we went and help out do some cleaning. We also helped clean out their pool(without water). There was a ton of dust and stuff at the bottom and they also need to fix a few things for their pool. But after Guierrmo invited us to eat lunch with the family which was pretty cool because we were able to teach the family. They are really cool people. Hopefully they´ll be able to progress and go to church and stuff.

Every Saturday in the morning we have been playing ping-pong in the church and it has actually been pretty successful. Through ping-pong we have 2 dates for people to get baptized. We gave as well the other missionaries someone to teach who also has a baptism date. So ping-pong has been successful and fun.

Yesterday in Church was good. We had 4 investigators come to church which is normal for us. There were a lot more investigators who were suppose to come to church but didn´t show up. We need to be more diligent in the mornings before church to go out and bring people to church. We always call people in the morning to wake them up but we need to get out in the streets a lot earlier to look for the investigators to bring them to church. Also next week is the branch primary program which should be interesting because there isn´t a ton of primary, so we´ll see how it goes! And then the week after that we have branch conference, like stake conference.

Sounds like you are having a fun time on your new bike, but here comes winter. Better get some riding in before it gets cold. And while it is getting cold for you guys it has been getting real hot here for us. We haven´t even hit summer yet so we´ll see how things go and how hot it gets.

In the pic that was Yerack with the knife haha. Carlitos is the one next to me with the face paint and military clothes.

Don´t worry I definitely heard about the elections. A lot of people asking me what I thought about Donald Trump being the new president, and I honestly have no clue. I didn´t see anything about the elections. It seems like a lot of people here in Chile wanted Hillary to be president because they think that Trump doesn´t like latinos and that he doesn´t have any experience. But I guess we´ll find out what happens with Trump as president for the next 4 years.

Well today should just be a chill P-day, not too much going on, same with this week. Hope that you guys have a good week! Love you guys!

Love
Elder Newkirk

We had lunch yesterday with an older sister who lives outside of tal-tal in the mountains, so I took a couple of pics.

We had lunch yesterday with an older sister who lives outside of tal-tal in the mountains, so I took a couple of pics.

We had lunch yesterday with an older sister who lives outside of tal-tal in the mountains, so I took a couple of pics.

We had lunch yesterday with an older sister who lives outside of tal-tal in the mountains, so I took a couple of pics.

In Chañaral and the zone conference.

Service in Guierrmo´s house. His house is really cool, super different from normal northern Chile. Reminded me a lot of the states actually. Also his kitchen is outside in like a hawaiian type thing which was also really cool.

zone conference

Service in Guierrmo´s house. His house is really cool, super different from normal northern Chile. Reminded me a lot of the states actually. Also his kitchen is outside in like a hawaiian type thing which was also really cool.

Service in Guierrmo´s house. His house is really cool, super different from normal northern Chile. Reminded me a lot of the states actually. Also his kitchen is outside in like a hawaiian type thing which was also really cool.

week#45 -- heading to Chanarel for a zone activity.

Hey just going to write this real fast because our bus leaves to Chañaral in like 15 minutes! We are heading down to Chañaral today to do an activity with the zone, have another bbq and play soccer! I`ll try and get on a computer down there to be able to actually write you but we`ll see if I have time down there! But I`ll send you the photos now from this week!

Everything is going good here and we had a decent week. It was still kinda just a normal week but we worked really well this week.

The pics that I`m going to send is from Halloween last week. Actually there were a lot of kids and people out trick or treating. This is with the family Becerra. We passed by because we were close to their house and they were all preparing to leave to go trick or treating so we took a couple photos.

The other photo is when we played basketball. Brother Chavez, or Edwin, actually plays decently. But I pretty much just dominated the floor. But it was a lot of fun playing with all the youth. Guierrmo`s kid also came to play with us, his name is Willie. He`s pretty cool as well! 

But yeah it`s about that time for the bus to go so I can`t write anymore right now but I`m going to try to write a little bit more there in Chañaral so we`ll see! but if not just know that I`m all good and that everything is going well!

Thanks for the updates on the NBA. Sounds like it should be a pretty good season! Wish I could watch it! Go Thunder!

But yeah if I don`t have time in Chañeral to write, Love you guys and hope you have an amazing week!

Love

Elder Newkirk

week #44 - Slow week, but still working hard to get things done!

Hello, what´s your name? 1, 2, 3. How are you? Well that´s what I hear a lot here in Chile in English from almost everyone haha.

No this week was pretty good. Another week a little slow. Not too much work, well I mean we are working hard everyday but just a little hard to get things done. It felt like a lot was just falling but it was still a good week. Yesterday was good though, we had 4 investigators in church yesterday. Cambri and Matias(Yerack´s and Carlitos´s brother and sister, who still aren´t baptized), Valeria, and Barbara. So that was good that they came to church! It´s a little hard for people to get up in the morning and go to church. A lot of people don´t have the habit of getting up early on Sunday´s to go to church, so it makes it a little hard.

Yup another cambio here in Tal-Tal, should be a good one. Elder Jaramillo´s new companion is pretty cool his name is Elder Oliveira. He´s pretty funny and jokes around a lot which makes things a little fun.

Most recently I have been seeing the hand of the Lord more and more in his vineyard. For example this week another miracle(well I think it´s a miracle) happened. Valeria, who is one of our investigators, is living with her husband(well not really her husband because they´re not married) who is a member of the church(Rodrigo). They have started coming back to church and participating again. Valeria hasn´t wanted to get married with Rodrigo because she was scared of getting married with him. But yesterday we heard that they were planning on getting a date soon to get married so that she can get baptized. We honestly didn´t do like anything but they are progressing and planning on getting married now! It´s cool to see how the people change thanks to the Spirit and that hand of the Lord.

We come into contact with a lot of people that the Lord is preparing everyday. But everyone has their agency to choose whether or not to accept. It´s sad because we have what everyone in the world is looking for but there are a lot who don´t accept it or who don´t find it. That´s why we have to be ready in every moment to share the gospel. I have learned a lot about this on the mission. Before the mission I don´t think I really shared, shared the gospel with anyone. I think of all the opportunities that I missed and maybe the opportunity that I had to change someones life or to help them receive salvation and live with their heavenly father again with their families.... 😶

The weather here has been starting to change a lot. A lot of sun and a lot of sunscreen. It has been getting pretty hot during the day and cool in the nights. Just wait until it´s hot all day long even at night... 😓 but yeah I have burned just a little bit, but not too bad. A little tan as well, even though I don´t tan like at all. I do have a line though when I wear normal shirts from my white shirts that I wear everyday.

Yeah in Tal-Tal it´s ocean to mountain. So there is a little climbing throughout the day. Definitely keeping me in some shape. Normally I´m pretty tired to do a lot of exercise or workouts in the morning but if I do anything I just lift some weights, pushups, situps, the normal. We have also been playing a little of sports. Like today in the morning we played some soccer but as missionaries we can only play as goalies. Also this Friday we´ll be playing some Basketball for a change!! Finally!!! There are a lot of youth in the branch that play and the President asked if I could go to mutual to play a little with them and maybe teach them a few things which should be pretty fun!

Hey Happy Birthday Hailey!! Hope you had a great 16th. Looks like you guys had a lot of fun! That would be cool if you guys got some passes to go up snowboarding this season. Definitely miss the snow here and wish I could go as well!

I honestly have no clue about elections that happened here. I only saw like a ton of different signs of people running for different positions and after voting the people doing a caravan of cars honking horns for the person that won. So next Tuesday are the elections? Sounds like it should be pretty crazy. I haven´t heard too much about it but I have heard a little bit. Hope that we get some good leadership as well!

That´s cool that Damonte is 1st in their divisional, hope they do well in playoffs!

Well this week should hopefully be a good one! I also hope that you guys have a great week! Love you guys!!!!

Love
Elder Newkirk!😎

This is a giant whale bone that a dude has outside of his house that I took a pic of as well. It´s like a chest piece of a whale.

Elder Pineda and I when we went over to the Puntilla, in the back is where all the fishing boats are and it was a pretty cool view.

week #43 - Still in TalTal -- finding a golden investigator.

Hey como estan? 

No transfers for me this one! I´m going to stay here in Tal-Tal with Elder Pineda again. 6 more weeks. But there was a transfer in our house. Elder Abalos went off to Iquique as zone leader. Elder Jaramillo´s new comp is a brazilian. He was in my zone in Antofa but I didn´t get to know him that well. Anyways that´s what happened with the transfers here. 

Not too much happened this week. Just going out and hitting the pavement and working.

So I don´t remember if I told you guys before or anything but my comp, since he´s been here, has a bad ankle from playing soccer. So for these past weeks we have been going to a physical trainer who has been seeing my comp for free. I´m pretty sure I´ve told you this. But anyways we started talking a little bit about the church and about religion and stuff. Then he started telling his opinion on how Jesus is the savior of the world and that he believed that he came and visited the Americas, he was pretty much explaining the Book of Mormon. It was really crazy because he pretty much said it right on the dot. This is the first time that this has happened in my mission. So we left him to read in 3 Nephi 11 where Jesus is coming down to the Americas. We passed by the next day and he said that he read all of it and even more. 2 pages back and 2 pages forward to get more context. Now that almost never happens. Not to criticize the Chileans or anything but almost never do the people keep their commitments to read or do anything. So that put us in shock once again. It´s really weird how prepared the Lord has made this investigator, Guierrmo is his name. So we´ll see what happens with this investigator but he´s pretty awesome!

Also this week we had a activity for seminary in the beach. It was pretty fun but there was a dead sea lion on the beach so my comp and I took a selfie with it. It was a pretty fun activity. We planned like a treasure hunt type thing with the dominios(forgot the word in English).

But other than that this week has been pretty normal. The sunday school class got canceled this week for the elections which was weird, the first time I´ve seen sunday school and qourums canceled. But the streets got pretty crazy after everyone figured out who got elected. 

This week we have the talent show but other than that, that´s about it. Not a lot going on here. Sorry I don´t have like any time to write today so I´ll just leave it here. We´ve got to go pick up Elder Jaramillos new comp.

But looks like you had a great week! And hope you have a good one this week. Also Happy Birthday Hailey on Sunday!! Hope you have a fun party!!😁 Love you guys!!

Love

Elder Newkirk

Last district meeting of this transfer with the group of 4. Elder Jaramillo, Abalos and Pineda!

We left out working with one of the youth in the branch. Carlitos or Carlos. It´s Yerack´s brother.

With the dead sea lion

week #42 - baptism of Ivette - 14 member lessons goal accomplished

Eyyy, your Spanish actually wasn´t that bad at all!

Pero FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS Dad!! Hey hope you have a great birthday!! Save me some cake!

Umm, about Moses.. Looks like I spoke a little too soon because we learned this week that he really doesn´t live where we were teaching him. He lives in the other sector of Tal-Tal... We found him while he was in his uncles/mom´s house but he really doesn´t live there. So he´ll be taught by the other missionaries. But hey he´s still really great! 

Also this week we had Ivette´s baptism!! It was awesome! Ivette is super good in the church and already has a calling. The only thing is that Elder Abalos stole my baptism and baptized her. She chose him to baptize her because he was "the first missionary that she got to know." But at least I was able to do the baptism by fire! But yeah everything went well in Ivette´s baptism!

Also this weekend I did my first baptismal interview. As district leader you have to do the baptism interviews of the other missionaries in your district. So I was able to do one this weekend because the other missionaries will be baptizing this week. It was pretty cool to do an interview.

Another awesome thing that happened this week is that we had 14 lessons with a member present. As a mission we put a goal to have 14 lessons with members every week and this week we actually hit it. We have been working a lot with the members here. The members here are super awesome and are willing to go out and leave with the missionaries. We were also able to do a division this week. A division is when me and my comp split up and leave with a member older than 16 to do visits. It makes it so we can visit a lot more people and get a lot more work done. But we have been working pretty hard here in Tal-Tal.

Sounds like you´re having a good time with the motorcycle. Sounds like fun riding around Lake Tahoe and everything! Thanks for the pic as well!

Well on the mission I´m not suppose to read other materials other than the list. Remember the 4 books that we bought. I´m suppose to focus my studies on the scriptures, preach my gospel, and the missionary library(which is those 4 books). But definitely after the mission I want to read some books and stuff and learn more doctrine haha. But if you want to pass it to me on onedrive you can. But the thing is, is that I still haven´t found my usb. I'm  thinking that I´ll try to buy a new one.

Yeah the last fishing trip, like all the fish were pretty small. Guess it just wasn´t a good day to fish. But yeah Elder Jaramillo did a good job cutting my hair. Hey it was free haha..

So we got transfers coming up this Saturday. I have a chance to be leaving but I also have a chance to stay here. I guess we´ll see what happens next week. But if I get transfered I´ll be leaving Monday to my new sector. But only God knows right. I actually really like it here in Tal-Tal. I would honestly be fine with staying here and I would also be fine with leaving to get to know a new sector and new people.

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

Love

Elder Newkirk

Elder Abalos stealing my baptism

Pic of us after seminary eating ice cream.

baptism of Ivette

Here´s a video of a magic trick that we will be doing for the branch talent show. Don´t ask me how it works because I don´t even know how it works haha. The talent show will be at the end on October so hopefully I´ll be able to stick around for the talent show!

week #41 Fishing and a haircut!

Hey whats up?

This week was pretty sweet. Not too much happened but we actually found a lot of new people to start teaching. Me and my comp have been working really hard here and we have started to see a lot of blessings and miracles going on here in Tal-Tal. We have started to work a lot more with the members here and a lot of them have been leaving with us to go visit people which has been really cool. 

This week we found 7 new people to start teaching. One of them that we met this week is a teenager who is 17. His name is Moses. We met him knocking on the door for one of his family members who was a member of the church but we ended up going in and sharing with him. He and his family are a part of a Evangelist church which is called like the Brazilian mission church. Idk it has a weird name. But anyways this church he said that he was planning to serve a mission. Then we asked him if he wanted to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ. From there he was interested and we taught him about the Restoration. He told us that he was going to fast and ask God if the Book of Mormon was true and if this really is the Church of Jesus Christ. The first time that anyone has ever been so receptive and willing, to the point of fasting! It was really cool! We haven´t been able to follow up on what happened yet because he went on a trip to Concepción with his Church. So let´s hope that everything went well!

The other people that we started teaching this week have also been pretty good but nothing really worth sharing haha. 

Like you said about my comp. It´s a great trait to talk to everyone but there´s also sort of a limit not to scare people and I don´t think my comp knows that limit sometimes... But maybe that´s why we have been able to find a lot more new people to teach haha... Every comp has their good traits and I have learned a lot from every comp that I´ve had. But I mean that´s how it is.

Sounds like you guys had a pretty fun week with Mom´s birthday and going to a pumpkin patch. But I didn´t get any pics of the pumpkin patch trip that you guys had but I did get a pic of Mom´s birthday dinner. Wish I could have been there! 

Not any service projects this week but I think me and my comp will be planning on doing some service soon in a auto shop to work on some autos which should be a lot of fun. Also to be able to learn some new things. We have a member who is starting to come back to church who has an auto shop and told us that we could come over whenever we wanted to help him out. But the service that we usually do is pretty fun!

From what Elder Abalos told me is only the little kids do Halloween. Apparently not a lot of teens do it. But I guess I´ll find out when Halloween comes around. But I do know that our mamita is making come costumes for her daughters so I imagine that they somewhat celebrate it.

Have fun at Homecoming Hailey! Should be fun! Hope that Damonte wins their homecoming game!

Great idea to listen to the conference talks again! I started to do that as well but I miss placed my USB with the talks on it and haven´t been able to find it so I haven´t been able to listen to a lot of the talks yet. Hopefully I´ll be able to find my USB this week so that I´ll be able to listen to the talks as well! 

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

Love

Elder Newkirk

So we went fishing again this morning with the first councelor in the branch and our branch mision leader. There´s a pic of me almost kissing a fish with Jesus(Branch mision leader) holding the fish. Also a pretty cool pic of the sun rays showering over Tal-Tal.

 I got my haircut last week by Elder Jaramillo. None of the haircut places were open and I really needed a haircut. Elder Jaramillo told me that he has cut hair a couple times before so I decided to put my trust in him and he cut my hair. There is a before and after pic. But he actually cut my hair really well!

Me and my comp have another investigator that has his own gym and does physical therapy. We decided to visit him this week to look at my comps ankle because it has still been hurting him a little. So we went over there and he did some muscle strengthening stuff with this machine which was pretty funny because my comp was yelling because it felt weird and hurt a little. I took a video of it hahah. Also there was a basketball coach at the gym that I started talking to and he pretty much wanted to draft me to play on his champion league team haha. I told him that I wish I could!

week #40 -- great conference this past weekend -- service for a member of the ward

Buenas dias! Como les ha ido?

What a great conference weekend right? I really enjoyed a lot of the talks from this conference. Before the mission I remember how I only liked conference because I could stay home in PJs and sleep on the couch... But now I really enjoy conference and I actually understand the importance of listening to our prophet and the apostoles. I love listening to the talks this conference. I hope that you guys were able to watch all of conference and if you didn´t you should go back and listen to them! I was actually able to watch parts of the conference in English. I had to watch conference in Spanish the Saturday morning session and the Sunday morning session. For these sessions the primary were using the room to watch conference as the primary. But all the other sessions I was able to watch in English. I´ll probably go back through and listen to the talks from these sessions in English so that I´ll be able to understand everyone 100%. Also I feel the spirit a lot stronger in English because it comes straight from the voice of the prophet and the apostoles. 

This conference there were quite a few that I really enjoyed. I don´t have my notes with me and none of the talks are posted in reading form yet on lds.org so I´m not able to take quotes or anything. But I really enjoyed the talks from Elder Oaks about missionary work and how we can find ways to share the gospel with people. I also really enjoyed the talk from Elder Uceda about prayers and his story while he was out on his mission. And I think my favorite talk was the one from Elder Nelson about how we can find joy in every situation through Christ. No matter what we are going through in life we can have joy and happiness. We should always choose to be happy because really happiness is a choice. There were also a lot of other good ones! I could probably sit and talk about every talk given haha.

Well bueno as District Leader here in Tal-Tal it isn´t that much. Our district is only a district of 4 and we live with the other 2 missionaries. Normally as district leader you have to call for numbers(or results for the week), prepare a class for district meeting every week, but more than anything is to help the missionaries out so that they can improve. Be a motivator and just be there to help the missionaries in your district out. But yeah definitely busy here in Tal-Tal but I really enjoy it and opportunity I have to learn a lot. Like I said to mom in my email this week it would be a different story if I had a normal life but as a missionary I´m just 100% focused in the church and have no other responsibilities other than the church.

Everything is going well with the new comp(Elder Pineda). We have actually been working pretty well together. Usually at the start you just have to get used to your new comp. I have actually been learning a lot from him as well. He is really good at talking with everyone. He seriously talks to everyone in the streets. We have met a lot of great people thanks for him starting a conversation. He is my first companion that actually talks with everyone so I´m learning a lot. Normally my other comps and I usually just say hi to people we pass in the street. But with Elder Pineda we have met a ton of new people and a few really cool people. So this is a really good thing for me because I never really felt comfortable just to talk to random people in the street but now it is something that is normal. There is definitely a reason why we got put together and I´m learning a lot of good things from him. There is always good things that you can learn from every comp. But no one is perfect either so every comp has there bad things. 

Yeah the pic that I sent last week is Yerrack´s family. The Becerra family! They are a really cool family.

Yeah the 4 of us missionaries eat with the papitos every day. We are with them for a good part of the day but not all day because our sectors are the city split in half. We have one half of the city to proselyte and they have the other half. When we are proselyting we don´t see them(which is a good chunk of the day), but everything else we are pretty much with them.

Well hope you guys have a great week and that Mom has a great birthday! Feliz cumpleaños mama! Love and miss you guys!!!

Love

Elder Newkirk

We did a service project this Wednesday for a member. He has a piece of land that he wants to start building a house on but...... His piece of land is on a mountain of rocks. So we helped out flatten some of the land there and pick out some rocks. It was actually a lot of fun. Even though in the pictures it really doesn´t look inclined, it really is haha! 

Ummmmmm I may have recieved your Halloween package already... I didn´t know it was for Halloween so I just opened it. I haven´t eaten anything yet I promise. I wanted to ask you guys if you wanted me to wait to eat it on Halloween?

So when we went to Copiapo a few weeks ago I was able to buy some thing there and guess what they had! Mac and Cheese!!! So I finally made some mac and cheese this week. It´s been soooooooo long!

week #39 special transfer this last week

Special Transfer!! 

Well this week we got a special transfer(which hardly happens). Elder Fernandez left to Copiapo and I stayed here in Tal-Tal as the District Leader! I got a new comp as well. His name is Elder Pineda. Him and Elder Fernandez changed places. Elder Pineda had some problems with his comp so they changed him here. Elder Pineda is from Chile, Santiago. He´s actually a really nice guy and we have been working alright together. He teaches really well and is a good missionary. He has only been a member of the church now for like 2 years, for the time that he has in the church he is great. The only thing is that he´s just a little different, so it will be an interesting transfer!  He has a little bit more time than I do in the mission, he has one transfer more than I do. So we got put together as co-comps.

Now I have a lot of responsibility here haha. District Leader, Seminary teacher, 1st counselor in Elders Quorum(don´t remember how to spell), gospel principles teacher, full time missionary. Well I definitely have been learning quite a lot.. haha 

Well that was pretty much it this week. Elder Fernandez and I got a call on Wednesday at like 2 pm that we had a special transfer. So then pretty much all day we were just saying goodbyes for him. Then the rest of the week I was just working with my new comp. On Monday Elder Pineda rolled his ankle playing soccer so he hasn´t really been able to walk fast or walk a lot so this week has just been really chill for the most part. Just visiting a few people.

We actually have an investigator that has been progressing a lot. Her name is Ivette and has been coming to church with one of her friends. She is 15 and is awesome. She has been coming to church, seminary, and the activities. She has been liking the church and this week accepted a date to get baptized on the 15th of October. We still have to work out some process and ask permission from the mission president because she is under 18. Also we have met her parents. They are really nice and are supporting their daughter in the church. So I think that we´ll be able to get permission and everything!

Yeah last weekend was a lot of fun with the Holiday here. Glad that you liked the photos of Elder Jaramillo and I racing haha. The salsa was pretty hot, but normally here people don´t eat things that are hot like at all. Dad I´m in Chile not in Mexico, they eat a lot differently here than chips and salsa. When you think of the food here just think of rice and of chicken....... (dad's note: haha I know it's not Mexico.... I just had to ask if they ate chips and salsa's like they do here in the states)

Hmm with the gringos we usually just speak English for the most part. We speak Spanish if we are in a coversation with a latino. Idk, it´s kinda just like a mix of Spanish and a mix of English.....

So with our planning we do a weekly planning and a daily planning. The weekly planning we think of the investigators and what they need and we put goals for the week coming up. Then we have daily planning every night to plan for the next day to help us accomplish the goals that we put for the week. So that´s how planning goes here in the mission.

Hope you guys have a great week. You´re always in my prayers! Love you!!

Love

Elder Newkirk

Activity from last week

Activity from last week

Activity from last week

Activity from last week

Goodbye photo with Elder Fernandez and the Becerra Family

Funny pic of Elder Abalos and Elder Jaramillo on the bikes of the papito´s kids.

Goodbye photo with Elder Fernandez and the Becerra Family