Family, 

This week was a blur. Super busy and hectic. But life is great! Happy Birthday to Grandpa Newman and Grandpa Huntington! I have always thought it is so cool how they have the same birthday. What great grandpas I have. 

To be honest I cant really remember this week. It was a blur. Haha but I will try to do my best. 

During the week I practice the piano with the extra time that i had for the interviews and then for stake conference. It went really well. I have been so blessed to improve my skills while I have been here as a missionary.

We had to drop some missionaries off who had finished and were heading home on Wednesday. We had 3 from the zone that finished their missions. That Wednesday night we were working and then preparing for our English class and President Dalton called us with some questions about the zone and some areas and things. He ended up telling my companion our transfers. I am going to Antofagasta again. My companion is a Chilean. His name is Elder Villaroel. He is awesome, and he has 2 transfers left. I am excited to learn a lot from him and learn from his experiences. I am super excited! We are going to have a blast working together and we are going to work our tails off.  I am going to be travelling a lot doing exchanges with the zone leaders and then going with President and Sister Dalton for zone conferences and stuff. It will be great! We will plan with President Dalton, teach at the leadership councils. Stuff like that. It will be an adventure!  

He is with Elder Burnett right now but he will get here later this afternoon and then tomorrow will make a plan for this whole next transfer as to what we are going to do. We are going to be travelling a lot on the Bus. But i am excited for the adventure.

Elder McCusker is going to stay in Calama for one more transfer and he is going to switch wards to a ward named Rio Loa and the sisters that were there came to central norte. He is really excited to be able to open up a new sector and to be able to work with a ward and to have so many resources. It had been difficult with the challenges that we faced in our last ward with 6 missionaries in our ward and with the small area and amount of members that we had. We had to be creative. But he is going to be the only companionship of missionaries in that ward and he will be able to work with many people in that ward. 

We had our interviews on Saturday. It went really well. President is awesome and I am super excited for the work that lays ahead. He talked to me a lot about what i would be doing and what he expected in me. He told me that he and the Lord have a lot of confidence in me. 

Yesterday and this morning we said goodbye to a lot of the people that we have worked with. I am going to miss a lot of these people. We have had so many great experiences in calama. I have truly learned so much since i have come to this great city and i am so grateful that i was given this opportunity to come to Calama and have all of these wonderful experiences. 

It was interesting one of the experiences that i have had. About a week and a half ago I found myself praying to really see missionaries as who they can become and the potential that they have. This is something i am still striving to work at and strive and I pray that the Lord will help me and bring this to pass. 

There are many around us that we serve, and that serve us. Our Heavenly Father knows our true potential, as servants and children of God. Imagine if we could only have a portion of what he sees and the love that we can develop and devotion to helping each of those around us reach their potential and continue to follow the savior. I know that as we strive to see people as they can become, instead of seeing their current faults and weaknesses, that the Lord will bless us to work miracles and help those around us do great things.

Also as we look to study the gifts of the spirit, and seek for what our own gifts are, the Lord will help us identify them and will help us develop them, for our own benefit, but more importantly for the benefit of his children so we can become more effective tools in his hands.

I love you all. I am excited to serve these missionaries, and to work with them. I know the Savior lives and loves each one of us. I ponder about the infinite love and hope that he has in each one of us. He has hope in every single person that we see, that they can one day become like him and enter into the kingdom of His Father. 

I hope you have a great week. Onward and Upward. 

Elder Newman