Family, 

Thank you so much for all of your support. I love you all so much and am grateful for a great family who loves the Lord and are dedicated to this High Calling we have of preparing the world for the Second Coming of the Lord.

Our week went quite well this last week. Every Monday night we have sector attacks here in Antofagasta. They have opened quite a few new sectors here in Antofagasta.  It is when the whole zone goes into the sector and we looks for new investigators and for people to add to their teaching pool. This last Monday night we went and did this sector attack and it was amazing the number of good people we were able to find in a short amount of time. In 1 hour and a half we found a less active, and 4 new investigators and taught 3 lessons. Our sector isn't quite like theirs ha-ha if it was we would be finding 30 new investigators a week. I trust that the Lord is preparing people for us to find, we just have to be worthy of the spirit to be led to them. 

Tuesday our district meeting went really well. I talked to the Hermanas and Elder Sylvester about how our own experience with the Atonement of Jesus Christ is what gives us the motivation to do this work. Having experienced it in our own lives and having Charity allows us to let ourselves go and to lose our self in this work even when there are hard days when it seems everything is against us, only atonement motivated missionaries will be able to keep going when it is tough. The lesson went really well and almost every single one of the Hermanas thanked me for the lesson so I suppose it went well. 

We have been able to find some new people to teach. We have been blessed to find some new areas to do contacts where Elder Sylvester hasn´t been before and we also received some references this week that i believe will result out. Our two investigators Oswaldo and Mariluz are progressing really well and I believe will be baptized around the 1st week of May. Mariluz is reading the book of Mormon, I gave her one of my highlighters so she could mark up her book of Mormon. The first time we taught her after she had read a chapter she read Moroni 7 and had marked many verses and had many questions, she is a great investigator and every lesson we teach with her is so great because it is so interactive and it is like a journey as we ask her questions and she asks us questions. Yesterday at church we had a great fast and testimony meeting and when we entered the chapel a random member asked her if she wanted to come up and sit closer to the front with her. We agreed and we all went up to the front to sit with her, and the member was from Queensland, Australia. She was born in Chile, but moved to Australia and found the gospel over there. She was back here visiting with her husband and kids. She bore her testimony and it was powerful and she was so sweet to our investigator and it was a great blessing because mariluz felt very comfortable and welcome. We also had our other investigator Oswaldo at church and the testimony meeting was so great and very spiritual. After church we taught mariluz and she had a question about the sacrament and when we can take it and how it works with those who have sinned and what are the prerequisites for taking the sacrament. We are trying to help her recognize an answer from God that this is what she needs to do in her life. I asked her that if she had any evidences that this was what God intended for her to do, she said about 3 months ago she wanted to go to a church and one day she was passing in a micro (bus) and she was one of our churches and the people were leaving it on a Sunday afternoon and she said that she really felt desire to go and enter in the church but was nervous to do that alone, then she said that 3 months later she one morning was praying and then we passed by and she said she felt something good when she saw us. I am so grateful to the Lord for preparing people for me to teach, there is great satisfaction in working hard and then finding the people that the Lord has prepared for us, and to see them progress and their testimonies grow. 

Friday night we had a talent show in the ward. The six missionaries in the ward had an act that we did together. Elder Sylvester has his own ukulele and he played a song and then we did a dance that we created, ha ha it was pretty lame but it was fun and we had a good time. The dance wasn't the greatest, its for sure that Alyssa has the dancing skills in the family, You ll be able to add the video I´ll send home with the sir knight collection ha ha. 

On Saturday I felt prompted a few times that we needed to go to military housing butIi was a little reluctant, but when we went I knew we needed to go to this certain less active family and when we got there the wife was sick and we ended up giving a blessing. I was glad that we could minister to the wife and help her with the blessings of the priesthood, i hope that we can help this family to activation. 

Sunday we had the best food I have had in my entire mission. We always eat with member family's on Saturday and Sunday here in Angamos. Holy smokes some of these houses that we have been into are huge! We ate with this family and the food was soooo good. While we were waiting for the food to cook , she gave us a piece of pizza, and then we ate a type of steak, ribs, potatoes, salad, and some flan which is a Chilean dessert. Ohhh man it was sooo good. I ate so much food and tried to take advantage of the food because I knew that I was not going to eat like that for the rest of my mission. I was stuffed like a pig. So I weighed myself the other day and I was around 199.  I saw Elder Smith the other day and he told me I looked skinnier, and so yes I probably need to put on the weight again. I am trying to eat whenever possible. 

I love being a missionary. I love this work, and the many blessings the Lord has given me to serve here in Chile. I have seen great changes in myself as I look back at how the time has passed. I understand now what it truly means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, to honor the covenants we have made, and to strive to build the kingdom of God. I testify that the Church is true, that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, that indeed a man can grow closer to God by reading it than any other book, That we have a prophet on the earth today, and that our Redeemer lives. I love you all so much, and I love the people of Chile.  

Love, 

Elder Newman