12-3-12

¡Hola!

I enjoyed the videos and email from home. Thank you for remembering me every week and keeping me in the loop. I hope you are all well and in good Christmas spirits.

This week was a pretty simple week. Elder Smith and I taught a bunch of lessons and had some good chances to serve others. We're still working with "B." He's really good and I think he could go really far if the missionaries stick with him. We also have been in more contact with "A." He came to a mutual activity with us and really liked it. I was surprised because the activity was that couple missionaries came to talk about the Perpetual Education Fund and it was a little more aimed towards members. We were going to take him to Stake Conference yesterday, but he slept in. I think a cultural thing here is that if someone is sleeping, you never wake them up. On the other hand, I can imagine what it would be like if two North American Mormon missionaries came and told you to wake up your son. You probably wouldn't be too interested haha. We're going to have to find out a way to get past that though because everyone sleeps in on Sundays you know? If "A" went to Stake Conference, he probably would have been very impressed. A girl that sings for EFY was there and sang a solo and then we had some really good talks from some people, including President and Hermana Wright. Oh I don't think I told you, but David (Elder) Archuleta is going to sing in a Christmas concert with the EFY girl at the temple here in our mission. He's famous here too haha.

I gave a blessing to a recent convert's father, which was really great. He suffered a stroke so he's fine in every way, except that he can't communicate his thoughts. So, he understood everything, but he couldn't ask us questions or anything without help. It was very frustrating for him. I really liked him though so I gave him the blessing. I think he we made his day and hopefully we'll go see him and his wife and daughter again because he and his wife aren't members.

We've been teaching "H," "J's" friend. When we taught him this week, he got really quiet, which surprised us. He said he wants us to keep teaching him so we'll see what happens. He's golden though. "J" really helped out in our last lesson too, so he definitely has support. It's funny though because they remind me of Kurt in some ways: they both think they're too cool. ;)

The Teletón happened this week. It is the Chilean version of the Jerry Lewis telethon. It's super big in South America. It's a huge charity that cares for disabled children and in order to support its programs, it raises money every year and a half. All the television actors get involved and help host and nearly all the television channels are of the Teletón. That was a big thing that happened this week.

One day, we went to see this one contact we made to see if we could help them in any way. When we got there, they were cleaning the front of their house, which was a mess. After being persistent, the mom let us in the gate and we helped her sweep and remove some garbage. They gave us sandwiches and flat Coke to say thank you haha. I don't think we'll be able to successfully teach them because the mom is really old and probably wouldn't understand, and the son is very odd and probably wouldn't understand either. However, it's all in the Lord's hands. He brought us to their house at the right moment to help them so He is definitely guiding His work.

That's all I have for this week. I'm having the time of my life serving the Lord!!!  You're always in my prayers--family, friends, and other missionaries. I love and miss you! :)

Until next week and con amor,

Elder Hill

P.S. I didn't get any good pictures this week. :( Sorry!