Happy Thanksgiving!!

I didn't even realize that this week was going to be thanksgiving! How crazy. My mind at times still thinks I am back in October and then I realize we are almost hitting December  How crazy! Congratulations to Mitch on his mission call that is so great and i am sure he is so excited! He will have to look out for elder Cameron Deere who is also over there in that mission. Wow how fast the weeks go by I don't even to how to describe how fast the mission is. I am almost hitting 6 months. Does it not go fast for you guys up there? I feel like the world is moving so fast! Ha-ha anyway it was a great week this week and I will try to cover everything that happened. 

So remember how in my letter last week we went looking for a hermano in the ward and the Lord guided us to contact like 3 or 4 important people? So one of them was a 19 year old girl named Jaritza and she was super nice and said we could pass by over to the families house anytime. So we were leaving an apartment the other day and then I told my comp that I felt like we needed to go over to that house. So we touch that house and then we find the mom and dad are there alone. But they let us in and were super nice and then we started to talk to them about the gospel. We come to find out that the Dad is a inactive and has been inactive for 11 years. The whole family used to go to church together when the two kids were really young but then they saw some problems with members in the church and then decided to leave. The dads whole family is super strong in the church, his sister served missions brother bishop. But his wife was never baptized. We taught them the restoration and he began to remember more about everything that he had forgotten about. I have come to find how interesting it is about how less actives forget everything about the church. There have been people who have been to the temple and things and they become inactive and just forget everything! It really is crazy when someone loses the spirit they really lose themselves in this pathway to God. But back to this family we were teaching them and they began to talk about how they have had an empty feeling for a while and when they went to church it was the happiest time of their lives. This family still lives the principles of the gospel but they are worried for their kids who are now 18 and 19 and getting ready to leave the house. The mom had talked about how the things that week had been improving and the moment before we arrived she started to feel a little bit of peace and she said while we were there she felt so good. I know Heavenly Father was preparing this family to be found by us. But the bad part is when we went back the other day apparently the mom and dad had a fight and the dad went up to work in the mines a day early to aviod problems. Satan tries to attack as soon as we begin to make a little bit of progress. 

Our baptismal fechas are doing well. We have a baptism this Saturday of a daughter of a less active that we reactivated. Also we changed Grahams baptism to the 30th of November  He works in the mines 7 por 7 which means he is up there for 7 days and here 7 days. And we didn't want him to feel rushed and we prayed and decided to wait till the 30th. 

We also found another great family who needs the Lord desperately. They are at the point of separation and divorce but just as we arrived the Lord guided us to talk to the daughter one night on the street. The best part is that the ward has started a marriage class recently and the whole family came to church yesterday. We are going to continue to work with them everyday to try and help them change their path. They have a daughter who is 16 her name is Kimberly and two sons. Every single day we try to have contact with these people so they can grow and improve. Because Satan will enter and speak to their minds if we are not careful and giving constant preparation and work like captain Moroni in Alma 50. 

We had a Zone Conference on Friday and it was awesome! The day before our ZLs told us that we needed to prepare a 2 minute talk about asking inspired questions and that missionaries would be selected to give their talks. That morning before we left I told my comp that I had a feeling that we were going to be called to give our talks. Sure enough the first to give the talks were Elder Newman and Elder Tymczyszyn. I talked about Ammon and King Lamoni. How when we ask questions and then with the help of the spirit we can find peoples iceburgs or problems that they need help with. At zone conference we talked about many things but one of the greatest parts was practicing teaching at the end. President Bruce told us that right now we have around 160 or so missionaries and we are going to receive up to 220. It is very necessary because there is so much work in our sector we run like crazy dogs all day long and we just cannot cover everything that needs to be done. Sunday we had 6 investigators in church with 15 less actives. Our attendance is increasing in the ward and we are trying to keep up with our real growth. 

This morning as a zone we went to the beach and played soccer. It was really fun! I hope that you are all doing so well and are doing everything possible to serve the Lord and to prepare his kingdom for his coming. Something cool that president Bruce said was that the church is coming out of the darkness. It is so true. He said that at conference this last session there was over 4000 newspapers and news stuff and then the last conferences there was like 600. The church is growing and every day more I realize how we need to be completely dedicated to the Lord. I love you all so much! Have a wonderful thanksgiving! I am so grateful for a family who supports me in everything that i do! I am grateful to be apart of the building of the Lords kingdom! Have a great week!

Elder Newman

Hello family! 

Monday night as we were leaving the pension to go work this 6 year old comes running to us from the play ground asking us for help. We have no idea who this kid is and so we follow him over to the play ground and his down syndrome cousin will not go back to the house. My companion and I are asking ourselves where are the parents of these kids? Here we are in the middle of iquique and there are 2 kids under 6 one who is downs and their parents are no where to be found. We try to get this kid back to his house with his mom and the grandma who was taking care of the kids sees us entering the apartment with them. We go to the fifth floor with them and we are trying to get the mom or grandma or someone to come to help us and we begin knocking the door and ringing the doorbell and no one is coming. I am thinking where is the grandma! It is obvious that the Lord wants us to help these kids having the little kid come running to us specifically but where in the world is the grandma who just saw us.   We knocked and knocked on the door and finally the grandma opened the door and poked her head out the window and we were like helloo??? Here are your two grand kids?? She was inside doing something but it was crazy. 

Friday night we had a fun activity. We went with the men from the ward to play soccer on the beach at night! We played at 9 at night and there were less actives who came and a few investigators. The beach has lights it  was so much fun! At the beginning of the game they said ¡Todo Vale! Which means anything goes! Ha ha I was so stoked when i heard those words. I felt like i was under the lights one more time! I was running around like a crazy kid like i was playing football again!  I made 3 out of the 10 goals! Ha ha it was so much fun! They were all shocked by this crazy gringo! They were asking me if i took anything before we played like a red bull or something and I was like No! Es como juego yo! Es mi Ser! Saying like nope that's just how I play, its who i am! They started to call me red bull as a nickname  Haha it was awesome one time I was running full speed across the field to get the ball and accidentally leveled one of the 20 year olds and took him off his feet.  I felt bad because it wasn't intentional i was just going for the ball. But i picked him up and said sorry. Anyway it was fun and we are going to try and get the less actives and investigators to attend so we can strengthen the relationships in this ward. 

The baptisms went great! They were so happy and Denis was crying a little bit after her baptism telling us thank you for the things that we had done. It was great. Elder Tym baptized and confirmed Denis and I baptized and confirmed Esmeralda  They are going to be great in the ward and have much to add. It is so great to see the blessing of the gospel enter the family and change the direction and course of the lives forever. They ultimately have the agency to decide where and to continue on the path but it is our job to get them started and to get them through the door and onto the path which is baptism. Speaking of baptism we are probably going to baptize graham this Sunday morning before church because he works in the mines and it will work out the best with this schedule. He is so ready to be baptized it was a miracle that we received him as a reference. 

Yesterday at church was a miracle. We had 19 less actives come and then we had 2 investigators. One of the less active family who we have been working with Rodrigo and Nicole are the parents of Montserrat who we are going to baptize 24th. Please include them in your prayers that we can follow through with these 2 baptisms. Anyways we are doing really well. We are trying to find great new people to teach. As we look for people to teach it is interesting at times how the Lord guides is to find people. The other night contacting we were trying to find a house of a hermano in the ward and i prayed to know where to go and i felt we needed to turn right so we went right and we went back and forth and we ended up talking to many people who are ready to receive the gospel and then we were lead to a person who knew where they lived and she is also very receptive and ready to receive the gospel. 

Thursday I got to go on exchanges with and elder Steiner who has been in the mission for like 6 months but he is a bit more timid so i got to take the control and it was awesome! I was in his sector and i just took control and was being bold and together we found 3 new investigators and some great people to teach. It was awesome, I have learned so much about contacting and talking to people from Elder Tym. He is really good with contacts and I have been practicing so that when i leave I can carry these skills. 

I hope you are all doing so well. I love you all so much. I miss you all and think about you. You are all in my prayers and I am so glad to be here. I am loving this more and more as time continues. Have a great week. 

Con Amor, 

Elder Newman

Familia!!

Hola from a beauiful sunny afternoon in Iquique Chile. 

Our investigators Denis and her little sister are progressing very well. We have their baptism scheduled for this Saturday and it will be awesome! They have progressed so much and are changing everyday. The little sisters name is Esmeralda and she is just this little angel. From the beginning she has been so receptive and is the peacemaker of the home. The mom was a less active member but has been less active since she was 15 years old. There are 2 boys under 6 and the 2 girls and the mom is pregnant. We are excited for the baptism of the 2 girls this Saturday night. My companion is going to baptize Denis and Esmeralda wants me to baptize her. 

We had a miracle as this is our finding week as emphasized by President Bruce in our monthly vision. We had a reference given to us by the other elders in the zone and his name is Graham and is 20 years old. We finally get a cita with him and then we go and teach him. He tells us that he had a girlfriend who now lives in Antofagasta and she is a member of the church. Anyways the girlfriend had told him that people need to be pure and clean to enter the temple and so he had always had a curiosity about the church. Last week he had stopped the missionaries in the street in another sector and had wanted to learn more about the gospel. So we went to teach him and had a great first lesson and he came to church on Sunday and loved it. We went and taught him this morning and we set a baptismal date for the 24th so I am pumped! He is a potential missionary candidate too so we are excited. 

In Chile they celebrate Halloween  but it is really small. I think maybe 30% maybe of Chileans knows what Halloween is, but sure enough there was some little kids with their parents in the streets who were looking for candy. But more than anything on the 1st of November they have their own memorial day here. I forgot to take a picture of the cemetery but here in Chile everyone is buried above ground. Anyways on this day the cemetery is packed full of people and they walk to go visit their ancestors with flowers and things. We went with the whole zone to go contact them and talk about the plan of salvation.

we are really excited for our baptisms this coming Saturday and hope to see miracles continue to unfold every single day!   I pray that all is well. 

Elder Newman

Hello family!

Crazy to see a picture of the snow up there! Down here we are heating up by the day as we enter into summer. It is crazy how fast the time has gone, I am now 5 months as a missionary and it makes me sick to think that soon I will be at 6 months. Wow what a great week we had with a roller coaster of emotions. I have come to learn that a mission is like a roller coaster, one point you can feel like you are on top of the world and then the next you can be bummed for something that happened. However we continue to press forward with faith in Christ and work work work. 

Tuesday we were walking down the street and Elder Tym contacted this lady who was from Chicago and was here in Chile teaching english to the kids. I started to talk to her about the gospel in english and it was so hard. It was so hard to talk about the gospel in english to her and I found myself wanting to naturally transition back to spanish as that felt so much more comfortable. It was an odd experience. 

We found a great family of 3 who we taught Thursday night. Their names are Pretrufka, Francisco and Javier. Javier is the son, but we taught them the first lesson on Thursday night and it was so awesome. The spirit was so strong and as we left they hardly wanted us to leave, we reset an appointment with them and then later went and worked with some other potential baptismal candidates. We taught the family again on Saturday night about the book of Mormon and we hope that they will receive their answer about the truth of our message. They are golden and are so prepared to receive the gospel. 

On Friday we had a funny experience. So in our pension we have some really old mattresses that are old, so we have a family that we are teaching that does not have a bed for their kids to sleep on. Well they have a bed but its boards with sheets and clothes underneath as padding, so the kids sleep on that. Elder Tym decided that we were going to take these mattresses over to them and we carried these mattresses through the streets through the centro and everything it was funny people were giving us weird looks and I am sure they were wondering what on earth we were doing. 

I got a call from Elder Smith (my trainer) the other night. He is doing really good and informed me that he is back up from Copaipo and is in Iquique as my zone leader. I was pretty excited so i am sure we will do an exchange soon because I know he will want to come and visit this sector with me like old times. 

It was a great week! We have 2 baptismal dates right now for the 10th of November and we are hoping for 3-4 this month. Have such a great week! It is all true! Keep pressing forward with faith in Christ! Make a difference in the world by praying everyday for an opportunity to share the gospel! Love you all so much. 

Elder Newman