Family, 

Glad that you all had a great week.  Cant believe that October is already ending. Well this week was super fast and super busy. But a great week doing different things. I got here to Antofagasta on Monday.

Monday I spent the day helping with what i could and then that night I applied for my international drivers license. It was really easy and it came in like 3 days. They send it from the United States. I got it yesterday in the mail and I was able to drive today. It felt weird for the first few minutes ha ha I felt like I was being disobedient or something.  It was like riding a bike, it came back in a second. We had to drop off a missionary and his parents at the airport. It was a good time. 

This week has been pretty weird being in the office. Especially the first couple of days. I felt really strange not being outside all day long looking for investigators or planning lessons and things. But I am feeling more used to it now.

We planned out our transfer the other day and then reviewed the schedule with president yesterday. On Monday we are leaving to Arica.  We get on a 12 hour bus ride.  We will go work with the zone leaders up there. There are three zones, we will return back on Friday, and then the week after that we will work with the zones in the south of the mission. I am really excited to be able to work with the zone leaders and really apply what we have been talking about and help them see it first hand. 

Thursday the new missionaries arrived to the mission. We picked up a group of 15 missionaries. It was really fun to see the energy and excitement they have to be able to go out and do the work of the Lord.

One of the missionaries named elder tippets is from Logan Utah. These missionaries went to the Mexico MTC. When he saw me he came up to me and said, Elder Newman! Sister Jones said "Tell elder Newman hi for us when you get to Antofagasta". I guess brother and sister Jones are now serving in the branch presidency in Mexico! How cool is that. It was awesome to hear that they are serving down there and to hear that they still remembered me. They were so great, I really loved them as my Branch President in Provo MTC.  It was crazy to see all of these missionaries. It truly feels like that was such a very short time ago that was me arriving to the MCA. Time has flashed before my eyes. 

Yesterday we spent most of the day with president and the other office elders planning a few things for this transfer. Elder Villarroel and I had a long meeting with president and sister Dalton talking about things that we are going to do as a mission and things that can do to improve. There is a senior couple who got to the mission a couple weeks ago. They are awesome. They are Elder and Sister Garrison. They are so great and super nice and funny and it is enjoyable to be around them. Today is our preparation day and we spent the morning deep cleaning the apartment and then we had a BBQ. 

Life is great. I am loving every minute of every day!!!!  I am really excited for these upcoming months and the experiences I will have and the things that I will learn. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have been given to serve and to learn.

This is the Lord´s work. There are many who are prepared to receive the gospel. As we are prayerful and look for opportunities the Lord will put people in our place and give us opportunities to share the gospel and introduce them to the plan of happiness.

As we face choices in our lives we can make one decision. To win or to lose. Every difficulty, every trial, every sorrow, or unjust thing, disappointment, temptation or any opposition we have the opportunity to decide apply the gospel of Jesus Christ, win, and be happy and become more like him, or follow the instincts of the natural man and lose and be unhappy.

I love you all and I hope that  you are well and are continuing to progress and make a conscious effort "to try a little harder to be a little better."  Thank you for your examples to me. 

Elder Newman