Hello Family, 

Tuesday we had our district meetings and then after we met as a zone. It was awesome. Elder Mccusker and I talked then we made goals as a zone and then we listened to Elder Hollands talk about the first and great commandment. It was a powerful meeting and the zone left excited and with energy for the month. Honestly we have seen great changes in the zone since we have been here. As we strive to love these missionaries and help each of them the zone has had more unity and elders who were struggling are now having success and are working hard again. 

We had to go to Antofagasta on Tuesday night so that we could make it for our zone council meeting with president on Wednesday. Our Buddy Elder Congleton is in the office right now as historian. He does a ton of things in the office and he buys us bus tickets for when we travel. Well since now we have connections in the office Elder Congleton hooked us up with the bus seats that are legit like beds. There are two levels on the buses here, its nuts. But basically you could say that congo hooked us up with first class seats. 

So we get to the bus terminal, and we are waiting for our bus, thinking that it arrived late, and then we realize that it was at a different terminal! Haha Elder Congleton bought the tickets for the wrong terminal. So we were pretty bummed about the whole first class thing not working out ha-ha. I guess you could say its like Jerry Seinfeld when he is on first class seats hahaha. 

Anyway the office had to buy other tickets and then we went on a normal bus. But we got to Antofagasta at about midnight. We slept at the pension of the office elders and the assistants. The pension is so sweet, it overlooks the ocean. I will send a cool pic i took. We helped them prepare some of the food that we were going to eat that next morning. 

Elder Burnett, who is an assistant, he was Emily old boyfriend. I love the guy he is a stud.  He played offensive line at Riverton and I played him my senior year in the playoffs. We are quite certain that we hit up against each other a few times.

Anyway he is a pretty big boy, his arms are huge. And He wanted to arm wrestle me. He has arm wrestled a lot of people throughout the mission and has never lost. Ha-ha so basically he had this whole pre game pump up and i am just sitting at the table waiting and he comes out and he just looks massive. We go at it and I beat him in about 20 seconds.  Everyone was pretty shocked ha-ha i am pretty sure he was too. But we had a great time. It was fun to be with them that night. The zone council went great and it was great to be with president and sister Bruce. 

On Thursday I hit my year mark as a missionary. It was pretty crazy. I am getting old in the mission. Thursday night the family that we are teaching wanted to give us some tacos that they had made. So we ate some of the tacos and they were pretty good. Anyways that next morning we get up for prayer and Elder McCusker tells me that he feels awful. I knew immediately that he had food poisoning. The poor kid was sick the whole day going to the bathroom and throwing up. I went with one of the other elders to get him some meds so that he could feel better. So we lost an entire day of work in the pension. But i studied the scriptures a lot that day and it was awesome. I am studying the life of Christ right now and i am learning wonderful things. I love it. 

Saturday morning we went and did some service for one of our investigators again. We helped him paint some of the iron he has so it doesn't rust as he is building a second floor onto his house. 

Both of the families that we have are doing pretty well. We want to set baptismal dates with them this week. We found out that the parents of one of the families is not married but they do want to get married so we will have to get that process done. We are basically opening this sector, which means that we are opening a part of the sector where no one has been or worked before. So we are looking for more people to add to our teaching pool. We are doing many contacts and are going to start working with the ward member list to find more people. But we are working super hard. Elder McCusker told me this is the hardest he has worked his entire mission. By the end of the night we fall asleep so fast, we are super tired.

Anyway this week we are going to.....Antofagasta.. again ha-ha. We have the last zone conference with President and Sister Bruce. The zone conference is combined with Antofagasta and Calama. I am sure it is going to be amazing.

 Also this weekend we have stake conference up here, and a seventy is coming from Argentina. It will be great.   I love you all so much! I am so grateful for the opportunity i have to be here in Chile. I am learning so much everyday and am striving to become a better tool in the Lords hands.

Thanks for all the letters and the support I receive from each of you! If you could pray for the families we have that would be great. The are the Carvajal family and the Molina family.  I have gained about 6 pounds of the 20 I lost this last week. So that is great. I am really kicking it into gear now and eating like a machine. Anyways I hope that all is well! Until next week!

Elder Newman