December 13th

This week was a good week. I feel like I worked my brains out by learning Spanish the last week that Im sort of mentally tired but, thats what P days are for! We dont always rest physically on P days (because we play sports sometimes) but we always rest mentally, and that helps a lot.

Last friday we had mission conference in Concepcion for the inside. The mission is split into two halves, the inside and the outside. The inside is Concepcion and the surrounding cities and the outside ranges from 2 hours to 6 hours aways from Concepcion. Im still on the ¨inside¨ and my whole district from the MTC is on the inside, so I was able to see everyone! I was really excited about that because Im pretty close with a few of them. My first companion in the mission field, Elder Davis, gave his final testimony because he is leaving in February and also Elder Lopez, my zone leader for 18 weeks. They are both awesome so I talked with them for a bit and with other missionaries. Im getting to that point where I know a lot of Elders in the mission because around the year mark, you know almost everyone. After the year mark, people go home that you know and tons of new Elders come in. So, I enjoyed conference a lot. President Humphrey, Sister Humphrey, and the assistants spoke to us on different topics. I really enjoyed what the assistant taught especially. They taught us ¨The Vision¨, which is what we are supossed to teach as we are guided by the Spirit. They basically told us that we are to teach that God is Our Heavenly Father and that Jesus Christ, through the Atonement, is our Savior first and if they dont understand that, then we cant move on because they arent going to know or realize the importance of the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, Doctrine of Christ or anything like that. The assistants that we have now are really good. They arent number pushers like some assistants can be, they just want us to do our best and reach our potential and thats really what its about.

There were two baptisms yesterday. The missionary that I replaced in the sector, Elder Dastrup (who is from my group that came to Chile), came to baptize one of them. When I got to the sector, they were already golden and ready to go for baptism. Baptisms are always really special because you can always see the joy in the convert after they are baptized. Last Tuesday, we attended a setting apart from someone in the ward who is headed to Argentina. It reminded me of mine 8 months ago and how special it is!

I love yall! We are working hard and I love talking to people about the Gospel, that I love!

Chao!

Elder Gregory

First post in Chillan! (12.6.10)

Things are going great! I love the ward, the investigators, and my companion is awesome! Sometimes its easy to get sector trunky (to miss your last sector) the week after changing, but things are amazing here so Im not trunky at all!

Im replacing one of my friends from the MTC and he left a lot of really good investigators. The ward is great and really friendly. Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting and it was a lot of testimonies of people saying bye to a future elder who is leaving tomorrow for his mission! He lives right down the street from us and he is a really good person with a smile always on his face. Its awesome to have a good, LDS family a few houses away from where we live. I introduced myself in sacrament and I could just remember 6 months ago when I arrived in Chile and how petrified I was to do it in my first ward! Its nice to have a fresh start and bring what I learned from my last sector and apply it to my new sector.

My companion is awesome. He doesnt know any English so its spanish all day, everyday. I have probably learned more spanish in this past week than I had learned in the six weeks before. Its all about filling up my agenda each day with words that I hear that I have to look up the meaning to once we get to the house, asking my companion questions, having him correct me, and my grammer book! Im starting to break out of that missionary vocabulary and be able to speak about other topics and it feels great! My companion is really patient with me and he cracks me up. Hes really friendly with everybody and can find something to talk about with everyone and make them laugh. Its hard to explain why, but its different living with a latino but like I said, I enjoy it! For example, Ive been snoring lately a little bit so in the middle of the night I got a few wacks with a pillow! I asked him what was up in the morning and apoligized for snoring and he just laughed about it and wasnt mad at all. It cracks me up how forward he is and how easy going and forgiving he is too.

The sector that I am in is a little ¨flite¨ as they say here. (That is a name for the gangsters here and it comes from the kind of shoe, nike flights!) I really havent seen too much but its known throughout the mission as one of the more dangerous sectors, I guess. We saw a fight outside the church one day with a guy with a 2 by 4, wacking someone who was curled up in a ball against a fence. They got up and the guy getting beat up ran away but its really nothing to be worried about because they dont mess with us at all. The Lord promised us safety as long as we are worthy and follow the guidance of the Spirit so there is nothing to worry about even for a second!

If I havent showed it, I really am enjoying my new sector! Im learning a lot and I feel like we are doing some really good work.

I love yall!

Elder Gregory