Familia,

Thanks for the update and it is good to hear that you are all doing well. I cant believe that it is still snowing up there. Down here it is finally starting to cool down a bit in the mornings. We like to open our window at night to cool down the pension but then the mosquito come in and attack us and then we find them all on the ceilings and then they are just nice and fat with our blood. I don't know how many mosquito I have killed in the last 2 weeks but it has been a lot. I kill them with my flip flops or with my hands and then there is just this splatter of our blood all over because they are nice and fat from our blood. It´s pretty gross then we clean the ceilings so there aren´t any marks. 

Well if you didn´t remember, this week is transfers. And it turns out... I am leaving Arica! I am headed for Antofagasta tonight at 9 pm and I´ll get ready for a beautiful 12 hour bus ride. Wooohoooo! My sector is called Angamos and it is the richest sector in the mission. They are a lot of the top business people who own the mining companies and apparently they have houses that are just unbelievably huge. I know it is a tough sector, but i am up for the challenge. I am going to be with an Elder named Elder Sylvester. He is a Texan and has about 3 months in the mission field. I am going to be the district leader of 8 hermanas apparently so that is going to be crazy. I have learned how to work with hermanas here in Arica and so I guess they are taking advantage of that. I am excited for this new sector and to be able to get to know another city in Chile and hopefully meet some wonderful new people. I am excited for the experiences that await me there. 

This last week went really well and was a great week to leave here in Arica. I am going to miss this desert paradise up here. It has been nice living so close to the beach in both of these sectors. In the mornings we go running and we will go running up to where the sand starts to the beach and then back to the pension. While we go running there is this little tiny equestrian park on the side that has all this green grass and places for horses and stuff. Pretty cool. 

This past week we put a baptismal date with Aldrin our investigator. Originally we had put the fecha for the 30th of march but then we found that it was pretty quick so we then pushed it back to the 13th of April. Aldrin is awesome, he really wants to get baptized and also talked to us about the potential of serving one day as a missionary. He just barely turned 18 so i hope that with his conversion process he can experience that change of heart and feel those desires to serve a mission. We went to an activity that the Hermanas of the ward next to us had organized, and it was like a little fireside thing on the beach on Friday night. It was awesome. The bishop from Constanera gave a great talk about sacrifice and repentance and we also had some little relay games and one of the elders also brought an American football and we threw that around for a little bit with Aldrin. Aldrin plays rugby and he loves American football and thinks that it is the coolest thing. We had a great time on the beach on Friday night and then finished up and then went to the apartment. 

Francisco gets baptized on Saturday. I´ll attach some pictures of little Francisco. We also put another baptismal date this last week for the son of some less actives we are reactivating for this Saturday as well. So elder Stratford will baptize 2 this Saturday and then Aldrin on the 13th after general conference. 

We had this little dinner thing to finish up the transfer the other night. We ate some Chilean tacos and boy o boy were they soo good. I am quite certain that I ate around 15 tacos and by the end i was soooooo full. The hermana made some guacamole stuff that was soooo amazing. I could have just eaten it by the spoonful. I love these Chileans so stinking much. haha. 

I had a cool little experience the other night that elder stratford pointed out to me. We were teaching a less active hermana who we are helping and we finished our lesson and then the husband who is not a member comes over and then sits down and told me he had seen something on television about Joseph smith and he began to ask me some questions. I then started to teach him and in about 5 minutes i basically explained the entire purpose of prophets, the church that Christ established, the apostasy, the restoration and the book of Mormon, and i taught it in a way like i have never taught before. It came out so very smoothly and flowed perfectly. As we were walking back to the pension Elder Stratford started to ask me how i did that and really it was credit to the Lord. 

I am excited for the new change that awaits me as i go to Antofagasta. I am actually going to be in President and Sister Bruce´s ward. I am so excited and happy to be able to have this wonderful blessing to be in the same ward as president Bruce. I will be able to see him a lot more and he will come to our ward normally 2 times per month. I love you all so much. I know that Heavenly Father is aware of each and every one of us. He knows where we are, what we desire, and who we want to become. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be here in Chile, and to strive to bring the gospel to my brothers and sisters here. I am so happy that I can be apart of the promise that the Lord made like showed in Enos 1:16-18. 

16 And I had faith, and I did cry unto God that he would preserve the records; and he covenanted with me that he would bring them forth unto the Laminates in his own due time.

 17 And I, Enos,knew it would be according to the covenant which he had made; wherefore my soul did rest.

 18 And the Lord said unto me: Thy fathers have also required of me this thing; and it shall be done unto them according to their faith; for their faith was like unto thine.

I testify of the power of the Book of Mormon. This book is key in our lives, and if we do not read and study it every single day. We are in danger. We truly are in the last days and we must have these habits of daily study from the Book of Mormon. Its divinity of Christ is powerful and its ability to convert men to God is amazing. Have such a great week, I love you all so much! 

Elder Newman

Hello Familia!

Thank you all for your letters it is great to get updates from each of you. Sounds like all is going well for you up there. More crazy adventures this week in the land of the desert!

This past week we had been looking for a bunch of new people to teach and it turned out really well. We were doing contacts in the street and we were just talking about the different way to do contacts. Then elder Stratford helped me remember the way that president Bruce said he would do contacts and i was to ask the people if they are a member, anyone in their family was a member, or if they had friends who were members. I am pretty good with talking to the people here and so i said well I am going to try it out this next door. So i knock the door, and opens up this 14 year old and i begin talking with him and ask him if he is a member of our church. He responds affirmatively and then we end up getting in the house and teaching him and he´s got little brothers who need to get baptized and parents who need to be reactivated. We did it a few more times in that street and we had great results. 

Wednesday morning we had a mini conference with President and Sister Bruce. It was awesome, we talked a lot about the study of the scriptures, and it has really changed the way i study the scriptures. The other morning I spent a half hour on 3 verses in 1 Nephi chapter 14. It was awesome. President will often study the scriptures with us and i am just amazed about what this guy knows from the scriptures. It is incredible. I could sit for hours and listen. 

Wednesday night we taught English to this new  young family we found. Its a guy and his wife who want to learn English. They are super cool and we will start bringing them to activities of the church. He showed me his pellet gun and we had a fun chat about pellet guns for a bit. He told me he goes out to the valley and he kills him some vermon some times some rabbits. He´s got a good ol scope on his and he takes his son to go with him some times. He takes some buddies to go shooting. Real guns aren't allowed here so they have air rifles. I talked to him about my hobby of shooting magpies in the backyard and how my family goes hunting and stuff like that. He really likes us and we are going to break the ice about the gospel this week. 

Thursday night after working I got back and my body just felt so exhausted. I was confused I told elder Stratfrord I hadn´t felt that tired since the beginning of my mission. So i went to bed and then I woke up in the early morning and i felt like i had a fever and i didn't feel very good. But i had told a hermana of our ward that we would go to her house in a valley next to ours to do some service for her. So i drank a bunch of water, went back to rest for a bit and then when i got up i felt a bit better so we went to meet the hermana who would take us to her house to help her with the service. She has a son on a mission in Brazil. So we get there and on the car ride i can just tell that i am not well, but i told myself i would give it a try. Ha-ha we were going to dig holes for her to plant some trees, so i carried over a big chisel thing and my comp had two shovels, and by the time i got to the place to dig the whole i felt like i was going to fall over. Ha-ha i told my comp i couldn't do it man. So i carefully tried to walk back to the house without falling over and then layed down while my poor comp dug holes. I was sooooo sick. Fever, stomach pain, headaches, chills, body aches, ah man it was awful. After elder stratford finished we went to the pension and rested. He got sick the next day and we were out all Friday and Saturday. We went back to that blasted clinica arica and they told us we had a stomach infection. Elder Statford got it too on Saturday morning. We decided that it was a bad completo  probably the tomatotes or something at this place we tried completos we never have tried before. Definitely not going back there anymore. I haven´t been so sick for the longest time in my life. But thankfully Sunday morning we woke up with a miracle we felt so much better. 

Stake Conference up here was so wonderful. They called a new stake presidency and i learned some wonderful things about those who are called for the Lord. It was a bit strange to see Walter F. Gonzalez and hear him this time in spanish as that is his native language. It was awesome and the guy was very funny. He gave a great message about strengthening our families and gave 3 suggestions. 

1. Have a great enviornment in the home. 

Pictures of the Savior, our family, the living Christ, proclamation to the world, scriptures magazines. etc. 

2. Use the blessings of the Priesthood. 

Honestly we should seek for blessings in whatever opportunity we can. 

3. Talk of Christ like nephi in 2 nephi 25. Talk about him and the gospel frequently. 

Stake conference was so wonderful, we were able to bring our investigator named Aldrin. He is 18 years old and is a stud. He really liked the conference and we are hoping to put a fecha with him maybe for this week or it will be the week after the transfer ends on the 30th. Aldrin is reading the book of mormon and is doing really well. We are super excited for him. Everyone in the district brought people to church, it was so awesome. I had a cool experience that made me think and i will write about quickly and then i have to leave.  As we went to go pick up Aldrin for conference. We got in a taxi to get to his house faster so we could get to the conference early to get better seats. As we are driving towards his house, I see 3 members of our ward with a car that is in the road and wouldn´t start and they needed help and waved for help from the taxi driver to give them a pulling start. I was faced with a choice if we stop or go straight to our investigator to get him to conference?  400 feet after we passed them I told the taxi driver to pull around and go back to where those men were with that cars. He pulled back and when we got there, he refused to help the member with his car who is also a fellow taxi driver and then drove away. We started to push start his car and it was not starting, and then we were able to get someone to help us pull the car and start it to get to the conference. The member ended up taking us to Aldrin who was all ready to go and we were so happy because we hadn't had contact with him for 2 days. It was such a blessing. 

Now I know that the blessing would not have been revoked, but i am so glad that we stopped to help these three old men who were in need trying to get to conference. There are little tests that come in our lives, little decisions, where both things are good, but one is better. 

We played soccer this morning as a zone and we played on a turf field for the first time It felt so good. I well send pics next week. 

Love you all. 

Elder Newman

Family, 

This past week went much better than the week before. .

Last Monday we had a mini training from the assistants. Both of the zones from Arica came and it was fun to be able to see some of the missionaries from my group. I was also able to see elder Tymczyszyn it was great to be able to see him. They showed us a video about our march madness program and it inspired us to keep working. One of the assistants talked about the importance of us giving a faithful performance. I meditated on that throughout the night and then and then thought that was what I should teach my district meeting on. I began thinking and then also included the importance of developing our spiritual gifts. While i was preparing I remembered the talk given by President Eyering this last general conference in the priesthood session about our potential and developing the gifts we have been given. It worked out perfectly and turned out to be a great lesson.

 We have begun working with the little brother of Kata named Cesar. He is 14 years old and plays PlayStation all day long in his house. We are working with him and trying to get him to come to activities so that he can branch out a little bit. He is very timid and very shy and doesn´t really like to leave his house. But we are starting to become his friends and he is starting to break free the more we keep working with him. He has little faith in God and isn't really sure if there is a God. We are taking things slow and trying to help this guy out, fortunately his sister Kata was the same way and now she is rock solid. We are praying and hoping that we can receive the same results from Cesar. He came to church on Sunday, and really liked Sunday school with all of the youth. I´ll keep you all posted on how the work goes with our baptismal candidates. 

Our little buddy Francisco is a stud. This little wants so badly to get baptized and is so diligent with his prayers every single day. Any possible activity or event that happens at the church he wants to come to it. We are as well working with His parents who are both members but inactive since their youth. They are such a great family and are very nice people. The parents went to church the week before with Francisco but this week couldn´t go because of family that was visiting at their house. However Fransisco was able to come with us to church. We are excited to be able to bring this family back into the church so they can raise their young children teaching them Faith in Jesus Christ. They have 3 kids, and so we hope to be able to bring them back into the church.  

We are also reactivating another family who recently moved from Iquique just under a year. They haven´t been to church but they know they need to return. The wife´s name is Jovina and lives right next to her sister. The other night we passed by and we found them with the cousin who lives next door. We started to share a simple message about faith and then the cousin Emily said the last prayer. We have started to teach a English class on Saturdays and so Emily went with her cousin to the English class. We gave her a quick tour of the church and she was excited telling us she wanted to come to church and be baptized. She went with the aunt and cousins to church with us on Sunday. 

Last night Elder Stratford felt prompted to go to a certain direction and as we were heading in this direction we passed by a man who had contacted us about 3 weeks ago. We were able to meet his wife and see his two kids. We are going to pass by their house this week so we are excited for this next cita. This Sunday we have our stake conference with the Area President Elder Walter F. Gonzalez. They will be calling a new stake president and reorganizing many things, however we are very excited for this Sunday. The difficult part is going to bring these people to church, because we will need to bring them to the stake center on the other side of town. But i know that with planning and the Lord´s help that we will bring these people to this wonderful opportunity to hear a general authority. 

I love you all so much. Thank you for your continual support and prayers. Thank you for the updates. I am so indebted to my Heavenly Father for the wonderful family that I have and the wonderful place in which we live. Truly we are a blessed people of the Lord, I am grateful to hear from you all and the work that you all do in serving in the church. I love you all. 

Elder Newman

Family, 

Sounds like you all had such a great time up there, that is so cool that Lone Peak won the state championship for the third year in a row and that they finished number 1 in the country. Good for them, I hope that you enjoyed dancing for that Alyssa! I bet that was a blast! 

Wow, The heat down here is the real deal. I bake like a toasted cheeser and just sweat from my eyebrows and nose its pretty gross. By the time that we leave our pension and arrive in our sector I am just dripping with sweat. The worst is when i forget my handkerchief because I don't have anything to wipe all my sweat with. The ceiling fan broke this last week and so the pension has been sooo hot. I have walked into air conditioned buildings like two times in my mission and when I have done it i have felt freezing cold. 

Well the beginning of the week started off kinda rough. Our fecha fell from Adela and Tirsa. They started to show doubts about baptism and then the dad got back with his kids from Ecuador and then would not let us in the house to teach his daughters. The annoying part is that he and his wife are separated. But we trust that everything will be alright. We have a goal this month of 3 baptisms as a companionship. 

That picture I sent you of the baptisms of the hermanas of Zapahuira, were two sisters. Kata, and Isys. Well originally Kata the older sister was only going to get baptized, but the sister only had 1 church assistant, but wanted to get baptized with her sister on the same day. The hermanas weren't sure what they were going to do and how the bishop would react to that, so they were praying and trying to receive an answer and asked for some sign or feeling of what they were supposed to do. Meanwhile we were finishing a day of work and for some reason I told my comp that we were going to go to the mission leader´s house. So we went over there and then we started talking and then after a bit i informed him about the situation with Isys and Kata. He said immediately that we needed to baptize them together and I completely agreed, That was what we felt like we needed to do. So then we left the ward mission leaders house and started heading back to the pension. I then thought that I had better call and tell there hermanas and then about 3 seconds after they finished their prayers I called them telling them that we needed to baptize the 2 sisters together. We know it was an answer. The dad of the daughters is so happy and has seen the great change in his daughters and wants his other two kids to be baptized. He wants us to teach the son. We are excited. 

We were able to put another baptismal fecha for the 30th of March with the son of a less active family that we are working with. Tonight or tomorrow we will have another fecha for the 23rd of march with another kid of a less active family that we are working on reactivating. We have found some new families who are inactive this last week and we brought 11 less actives to church. We work with them and try and get referrals of people so that we can baptize. Right now we are really trying to take advantage of the time that we have together in Zapahuira. This Transfer is short, so it is only 4 weeks long! The transfer ends on the 24th instead of the end of the month! It is a bummer. I guess they are aligning up all of the transfers in the entire world so that they are all together. 

 I have been able to help out our ward mission leader a lot. Hno Irriarte. He reactivated this last fall, and has a lot of confidence in me. I have been able to help him and teach him about things and they have been great experiences. He is frustrated at times with the lack of support but we have been able to help Him recognize the hand of the Lord in our lives and the wonderful blessings we have been receiving. I am going to miss that family when I leave this sector. Jean the son has his mission call and will serve in Brazil. We do exchanges with Hno Iriarte and his son jean at least once a week and this week we will try to do it twice. They are very dedicated to the work of the Lord and sacrifice very much. We have stake conference the 16th of March and Walter F. Gonzalez from the Seventy will come speak to our stake. 

Thank you for all of your prayers and letters. This last week I was able to study a lot about the Plan of Salvation and really how critical the decisions we make in this life are. I hope that we can all become truly converted to the Lord, like the many of the general authorities said this last conference. I love you all so much and it makes me happy to know that you are all doing so well. 

Have a great week, 

Elder Newman