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