Hello Family! 

Sounds like lots of sports and more sports and sports have been going on lately. Haha I'm sure dad is in heaven watching the Yankees play every night! Everyone here refers to me as a Yankee being from the states,its funny. Pass a happy birthday to the grandpas and have fun at Sadie's Alyssa!  

Monday in the afternoon we had interviews with president Bruce. While others were being interviewed I got to talk to sister Bruce and get to know her a little bit better. They are so nice and the interview went really well. He was able to give me some great advice and counsel that really helped me. Later that day we went and did a family home evening with a less active family. I talked to them about the importance of keeping the commandments and that we will receive many blessings for the things we do to follow the Lord. In 2nd Nephi 4 Lehi blesses his posterity and I explained to them that they being the seed of Lehi still have a right to receive these blessings. It went really well and then they fed us some food afterwards. We had a classic Chilean meal. Bread, butter, soda and they had a little dessert cake thing. It is pretty sad what these people live in. Occasionally there are some who live in some nice places but it is a completely different world down here. There are bugs everywhere in some peoples houses. the lady where we used to eat lunch at had cockroaches who would roam around in her cupboards, mom I am certain that you would die down here. At first it made me sick but you get adjusted to this after a little while. 

The weather is starting to warm up a little bit more with time. I hardly ever wear my jacket anymore, only when it is windy. I have heard the summer is absolutely brutal here so I am just trying to prepare myself for the worst. We always joke here about how the culture here is very laid back. The dogs in the street are lazy  we joke about how the pigeons in the street are lazy too. There are dogs who just sit in the street all day long dogs will just be laying down and will bark at us sometimes but won't even move a muscle because they are so fat or are just tired. Haha stores here don't open till 10 or 11 in the morning usually and they close around 8 or 9. Today is some holiday and so everything is closed we are in a members house right now because all of the cibers are closed. There are a lot of holidays here. 

The work here is progressing really well. At times it is frustrating being a junior companion because we have so much potential with the ward and members but I have to follow my companion and his lead. We have the baptism of Leninka this Saturday. We pushed José's baptism back to the 27 so we can prepare him more. Currently we have 6 or so progressing investigators, yesterday we brought 7 investigators to church and 5 less actives. I broke my record of investigators at church. We are teaching this woman who is probably 55 or 60 who reminds me of Grandma Glenda. She is such a sweet lady, she said she was going to make me an apple pie for our next appointment so i was pretty stoked about that. We found a sweet apartment complex lot that we have been contacting lately and we have been finding some people who are ready. It reminds me of Jason when he said they'd go to the trailer parks, we are going to some of these old run down apartment places and are finding great people. We have plenty of work to do here in this area, and we have so many people to visit teach and that need to be baptized. We just do not have enough time. We are going to use the priests this week for divisions. 

So here is a funny story, the other day we were teaching a girl whose mom had been baptized when she was 8 and we found them the other day. But we were talking to them and then we invited them to church and they asked a question about wearing pants to church. They said that they had heard that Jesus said in the bible that you cant wear pants to church. Haha we have heard this odd rumor like 2 times now and assured them that if they just come to church that they will receive blessings. We explain that no where in the bible does it say this and that pants were invented like 40 years ago. Haha we taught an Evangelical lady one time in the church and she tried to convince us that our religion was wrong and that our church was bad because she has seen people walk into our church with jeans on and that Jesus said in the bible to not wear jeans to church. Haha absurd some of the things people come up with! 

Pdays are different for every companion. When i was with elder smith we usually played soccer or something every week but elder tymczyszyn said that president Bruce said not to have zone activities because then we are tired for the rest of the week?? Sometimes i don't know if that is true, but I have to follow his lead. Anyways our zone has activities like last week they went and played Frisbee on the beach but we didn't go because elder tym didn't want to. Transfers are this next week. Crazy to think another transfer has come and gone so quickly. I want to stay in this sector because I love this ward, but at the same point I would love to start a new sector and with a new companion. Who knows what will happen I will most likely stay here. Anyways I hope that you are all doing very well. I am growing a deeper love for the people here in Chile as time continues and I love waking up every morning knowing that I have a message that can change someones live forever, and that we get to do it everyday. 

Love, 

Elder Newman