Hello Fam!

Hope all is well up in the Garden of Eden. Haha, we are doing very well here down in Iquique!

Tuesday night was awesome! We went and taught the Carolina lady and her friend Mary. We taught them the restoration again and answer their questions. We were able to set Baptismal dates with them for the 22nd of September! We were very excited about that and then after that we went and taught Gonzalo our recent convert about the priesthood. It is incredible to see the change in some people and how much more light they have. After that I went straight to bed because I had to leave at 2 am to Antofagasta for a newbies conference!

I had an 8 hour bus ride to Antofagasta. Oh man ha ha the buses are nice but it is a long time on a bus especially when we just recently had the zone conference too. ha ha its a charter bus with two levels. they are crazy but the second level is so hottt. I sweat like a crazy dog and just die! We got to Antofagasta around 10 am and then went to the institute building to wait for president and sister Bruce. Once there we had talked about the vision of the mission and things we would need to accomplish.

President Bruce spent the whole day nailing it into us that we need to baptize. Baptize baptize baptize. We are called to baptize. Ha ha he said if there is one word I want you to remember from this conference it is baptize. He gave us lots of great advice and counsel. We had PowerPoint all day and then had some lunch. We had some empanadas they were really good.

After that we had a few more things from president and then we went back on the bus stop and took the 8 hour trip back to Iquique. Elder Smith was on exchanges with other elders in the zone while i was in Antofa. I got back that night at about 12:30 am and I was just exhausted. But i was ready to do work and was ready to go baptize. I talked to elder smith about my desires and what president said and we were really excited about the plans we had to baptize. 

Thursday we taught Mary and we taught her the Word of Wisdom. She gave up her cigarettes to us and we took the box and then threw them away of course hahaha. Friday we worked our tails off and the Lord blessed us much. We were doing contacting and found a man named Omar. He has 3 kids but we taught him the restoration. He had never really had a specific religion in his life because he never felt like any of them were the true church but he would read the bible for direction. After we taught him that lesson we set a baptismal date with him for the 22nd of September as well. After that we taught this guy named Javier who elder smith found the day i was in antofa. Javier wants to quit smoking and drinking and so he knew we could help him change his life.

We taught him  and then after set a baptismal date with him for the 22nd as well. That night we found some great potential new investigators. They are from Arica but its a single mom and her three sons. One is 12 and his name is Benjamin and there is a little brother named Jeremias.

The next morning (Saturday) there was mutual for the ward and we taught the class. We invited Benjamin to come with us and so he came with us to mutual. He met some of the other youth and really had a good time. Later we went to go teach Omar but he wasn't there but we ended up teaching his mom with a member from our ward. The member is a return missionary so that is very helpful. That night we taught some less actives and gave the wife a blessing because she has been sick

Sunday morning we got up and then started calling our investigators about church. That is the hardest thing about Chile is getting our investigators to church.  However we had our members of the ward assigned and they helped us get our investigators to church. We had 6 investigators at church. We had Mary, Javier, Omar, and we brought Benjamin and his little brother Jeremias and they loved it. Carolina was out of town, but we had many there. The mom was out of town so we couldn't bring her to church.

After Church we ate with a member family in our ward. They made us some yummy Brazilian dish. After that we went and taught Omar and then his son and mom were there with us. Omar's wife left him and she is a drug addict. But we taught the 3 of them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We were able set baptismal dates with the Grandma and son and they are being planned for the 29th! By the end of the week we had 6 baptismal dates! After that we went and taught a member and finished the night contacting. Elder smith asked me if we should just go back to the pension and start planning but I said no that we needed to endure to the end. The last door that we knocked we found two women who were very prepared to receive the gospel! We gave them a baptismal challenge and they both accepted it. It is often the most important that we endure to the end.

This week was incredibly successful and by the end of next week we look to have 10 investigators with baptismal dates. Hopefully everything will go well and that we can be able to keep these baptismal dates! This work is incredible! It is amazing how many of the Lords children are prepared to receive the gospel here in Chile! This gospel is true and there are many people who are waiting to receive it and to have access to the full blessings of the Atonement! Have such a great week family! Keep the faith and endure to the end! Love you all!

Elder Newman