Dear Family, 

2014. Wow what a great number. 14! The Newman number! This is our year ha ha. I am very excited for this year and have great hope and expectations for the things that will happen in it. There is no better way to start a year than as a missionary.  I hope that you all had a great week and that you were able to set goals individually and as prospective families.

While i have been here in Antofagasta the time has gone so incredibly fast. I assume that it has been because of the busyness of our schedule.

On new years eve, the investigating family that is progressing invited us over for a dinner. We had a great Colombian dinner. Pork with BBQ sauce, chicken wrapped in bacon, rice, and a salad. It was some great food.

It was great to celebrate the new year and to think about the blessings and experience i had in 2013 and to welcome 2014 with open arms. I thought a lot this past week about things that i wanted to accomplish and the growth i wanted to see in myself. I made not only spiritual goals but physical/temporal and social/emotional goals. There is great vision and direction in the goals that we set. Without them we will never achieve our true potential. Just like it says in Proverbs 29:18- "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

We had our mission leadership council this week. It was awesome and the meetings that we are having with the mission are getting better every time. We planned this next transfer a little bit throughout the week withe president. Elder Pinto and I are thinking of ideas and planning for this special training that we probably do in February throughout the mission. 

Yesterday was incredible. We have received so many blessings from the Lord. So we are teaching 2 different families right now in our own sector when we have the time to do so. I will explain each one. 

1. Luis, Lucero, Luisa and Juan

This was a family that we found from a reference. The Luis, Luisa and Juan really want to get baptized. We are trying to work with the mom. She is the key. If we can get her than we will have the whole family. Luis shared his testimony in church today. It was amazing. We are working with the parents to try to help them get married. The dad wants to get married but the mom isn't so sure. But we have seen some great progress so far. They come to church every week and are an awesome family. 

2. Rafael and Diana

They are a young couple who have been together for over a year. Diana is the daughter of a recent convert who also gave us the reference of Luis and his family. Diana is pregnant and they are expecting their first child in about 4 months. They all live in the same apartment building. Diana has wanted to be baptized for quite some time, but her and Rafael need to be married. Rafael a couple weeks ago didn't want much to do with us, but he has been progressing little by little. The other day he cut his long hair and now it is short and clean. And yesterday we were teaching the plan of salvation and we talked about marriage at the end and now that he understands the doctrine, of why marriage and eternal families are important. They also came to church today. We have seen miracles with these families.

We have seen great progress in the ward that we are serving in with the other office missionaries. Life is going great. Last night I felt so much happiness and joy. I was so grateful for the miracles that we have seen in this short time since we have worked in our sector. Truly there is no substitute for obedience and striving to live for miracles. Anyways i hope you all had a great week. There is great hope in creating goals and measuring our progress every day to accomplish them. Have a great week. 

Elder Newman

Family, 

Well it was great to talk to you just a few days ago. I had a great time! It was fun to see all of you and be able to see you all together. I don't know why but for some reason that seems like that was more than a few days ago. Since then we worked with a few missionaries and then we worked in the office getting ready for this next month of January 2014! 

Yesterday was our P Day and in the morning we went to do some service for a family that recently moved in. The dad is a recent convert who was baptized in another ward and the mom is less active. They have started to come to our ward, and we went to help some of the ward members build them a bathroom. It was good I got to get some power tools in my hand again. Ha ha i built a little wall for the kids so it is safe on the second floor where they live. They have 3 kids who have not been baptized members of the church. So we are going to be working with the dad. They all came to church today and they are awesome. We hope to have the dad ready soon to receive the Aaronic priesthood so he can baptize his children. We are also teaching another family who is awesome. We taught the parents this last week and they desire to get married and then be baptized. They have two children. Luisa (16) and Juan(8). Luisa is going to be baptized on the 11th of January. They are so great. Such a great family they have been coming to church every week for the last 3. They are progressing very well. We are being incredibly blessed right now. We are pumped for the future.

I am so excited for this next year of 2014. It is such a blessing to be able to start another year, and to have time to reflect upon this past year. We should look back and reflect upon the year, the things that we have learned, the many blessings that we have received. And then expand our vision, set goals, and hit 2014 running. I am stoked for this next year. That is the wonderful blessing of starting another year is that we feel like we are going to start with a clean slate, and that it will be even better than the past year. 

What a great year this last year has been. As i reflect back it has been such a year of learning and growth. Probably more than any year before. I know that this next year holds great things. As much as for me as for you! I know that this is the Lord`s work. And that great things will continue to happen. There are incredible things and blessings that happen every day. We just need to open our eyes and notice them! I love you all! 

Reflect, Learn, Envision, Plan, and Achieve!  Here we go 2014! Just do it!

Elder Newman