November 12 2012

Dear Family and Friends :)

Happy Birthday Mother and Father! :)

Cultural Notes:

Yes, I heard Obama won the Election. Chileans are very up to date on American news :P

The missionaries here pretty much walk everywhere, except on P-day, to and from the ´central.´ The central is like a downtown Arvada :P That's where we get internet, mail letters, get our hair cut, and do all our shopping for the week. The bus system here is pretty good because most people don´t have a car so they depend on the buses to get everywhere. For example, in the ward, there are 5 active members who have cars; if I´m not mistaken. So we don´t get rides very often.

Some people believe that the missionaries are part of the CIA or FBI and that the reason all our chaples have spires is to trasmit and recieve information :P It's silly.

So far no funny stories with Spanglish or messing up the language. But I´m teaching a family that when the daugher, who is 4, sees us says, ´los duendes,´ which means leprechauns, instead of ´los elders.´ :P

So we contacted a old investigator from 4 years ago and started teaching them. When we first met them we just thought they were less actives. Turns out the man is less active and she wants to be baptized, but she can´t get baptized while she is living with him while he is still married. He has been trying to divorce his old wife for the past 4 years - since the time she was investigating the church. So they can get married and she can get baptized. The wife was making all sorts of legal problems and holding up the process. We fasted with them and that week the wife decided to accept the settlement instead of going to court.

We fasted the next week for one of our other investigators and they were able to solve their economic problems.

Sadly the temple is not in my mission, so I will not have the opportunity to go to the temple during my mission; except for the few hours before I leave the country if the schedual of the flights work out right :P My work is with the living for these two years.

With one of my investigators, we talked alot about the work for the dead because her husband died 3 months ago. And this week the gosple principles class was about temple work as well. It was really cool to hear the testimonies of the people about work for our ancestors and see how it helped Liliana feel comfort for her husband. It's a merciful and just God that allows us to do this marvelous work and to know that our families can be eternal!

All is well,

Elder Hall

PS: Don´t worry about sending a Christmas package :P Last year for Christmas, Elder Wintz's, one of the elders I live with, parents sent him a package and they didn´t declare to the mail place everything that was inside (or something like that) and he had to pay $120 of his own money to get the package from customs and they had taken half of the stuff out.