Roller Coaster

Our Branch President and his wife after the meeting with Elder Holland

Family!

We had a very crazy week! It has been a roller coaster. Monday and Tuesday we worked on coming up with ideas to get this place rolling. I really appreciated dad’s counsel, as always. We have been working with the Branch President, who is awesome! He is very excited to work with us. I think we can really pull off something big here. We meet with him on Tuesday to finalize plans and start incorporating members. I am very excited to get this started. The most efficient way for us to work is through members. I hate tracting; too much time and too little result. It’s good to work hard but it is good to work smart as well.

We had a big inter cambio this weekend and I was paired with one of the office missionaries for a day.  He is from Mexico and attended the CCM before it changed over. We did a lot of tracting. I stayed the night in his apartment. He lives with the Assistants. The Assistants and Office Missionaries are all great guys and were really cool to me.

The next night we were back with our regular companions but we stayed at the District Leader’s house to be on time for the conference with Elder Holland in the morning. The District Leader is in one of the more inner city areas, so it was different to see that area, compared to our small country town. Santa Juana is really growing on me. It is a cool little town nestled in hills covered by pine trees on 3 sides and a large river along the 4^th side. It is about an hour outside of Concepcion. There is a pretty large logging industry here so you see big logging trucks roll through town. They are kind of cool to see.

I also experienced my first earthquake this week. That was pretty cool. It only lasted a couple seconds, but it was cool to feel the ground shake. It was over before I realized what was going on.

Elder Holland spoke to our Stake yesterday and was outstanding. He talked about building strong families to provide a place where children can build testimony. He emphasized how important it is for each of us to have a testimony.

I love you all so much! You are incredible! I hope all is well at home.

Will