Week 21

Querido familia!

Wow, this was an awesome week! Basically spent all of it with the mission president, so that's awesome! But I'll get to that. But yeah, thank you for the email! It was interesting getting a different viewpoint, seeing the world through dad's perspective. You both write very differently jaja! I can hear your voice when I read, dad. Especially with your jokes jaja, I know for sure you were chuckling to yourself when you were writing them! It sounds, like always, like you are all doing great! I'm glad you all enjoy my emails! I guess that's why I write them, right?

So, as you know, Presidente Ferreira was here last PDay, and we played soccer with him. I got schooled. Yeah, you remember. But he ended up staying the entire week! We had a conference with him the next day, which was super fun, but super far. He always holds them in Iquique, for some reason, I don't know why. It's so dang hot there! But that means that we the missionaries in good ol' Pozo Almonte need to take another long bus ride, among our numerous bus rides throughout the week. It's around 2 hours away, longer if your driver is garbage. Our driver was garbage. Jaja we were nearly late! But the conference was really good, and I understood pretty much all of it, in comparison to the first, where I didn't understand a thing. So that was cool for me, just to see that difference. The main subject that I got out of it was basically how to invite effectively. It's actually pretty hard. You have it clearly in your mind what you want to do and say, but once you start talking, those things disappear from your head. So then you start talking, and you have no idea where you're going, and things get awkward... it's hard. But, we had a lot of practices during this conference, and I think I got a lot better at inviting, and doing so with the spirit. So then after, that was a fairly regular time in Pozo, going around with all of our investigators. We haven't really found anyone new, but we also haven't lost anyone, so that's still good! We got Marisol to commit to church completely. She was super excited to go, which made us even more excited! After a few days we had to head back to Alto Hospicio for our interviews with the Pres, which I guess he's gonna start doing once every cambio. It was great. I love talking with Presidente Ferreira. He really is a great man, and very easy to talk to. The more I talk to him, the more I learn how much of what he says is just straight revelation. He says what I need to hear, stuff that just pricks my heart every time. It's pretty cool, not gonna lie. But then the next day we were getting ready to go to Pica, and I get a call from Pres. He tells me that him and his wife are gonna be in Pica that day, and wanted to do stuff with us! Whaaaaaaat? So we met up with him in Pica. We almost had lunch with him, but our hostess for lunch that day, Oriana, didn't have enough food. We didn't know that, or think that, because we just go eat at her restaraunt, so we assumed that she would have enough. So we walked in with Pres, introduced everyone, and then Oriana says she can't feed them. It was... awkward. So they left, and she just turns slowly to look at us... she was mad! We definitely got yelled at. And by a Latina. It was scary. I was scared. For my life. But we still got food! So that was good jaja! But after lunch we met up with Presidente and Hermana Ferreira again, and they came with us to some investigators there in Pica! And gave a lesson! He is a powerful teacher. We brought him to two people who we didn't know what to do with, and now, one has a baptismal date, and the other is dead set on reading the Book of Mormon and getting one herself. Oriana was one (yes we eat lunch with our investigators) and Erica was the other. It was awesome. Then they took us back home, which is basically an hour drive back to Pozo. So we had that much time to just talk with President and Hermana Ferreira. That is not common. At all. But it was super great to get to know them more personally! 

Sunday we had a conference instead of regular church. It was basically a steak conference, but we're not a stake (I used both because I don't know which one is the meat, and which one is the group of mormons), so for us it was a district conference. All the members in Alto Hospicio and Pozo and Pica went. It was super full! It was so cool to see the chapel actually filled! All the missionaries got kicked out by president to make room for the people, so we watched it on a tv in the other room. It was centered on how the members there were miracles in god's eyes, and their duty to work with the missionaries. After the talks of President and his wife, I think the mentality of the members has changed. We'll be working a lot more with them, I hope. After church, Elder McKinlay and I were walking to the bus stop to catch something back to Pozo, when President and Hermana Ferreira show up with their mini-van and offer to take us! Whaaaaat? So we got another hour with them back to Pozo! Basically, we were with President all this week! But it was cool, because he was teling us that he was going to take another route to Antofagasta, but something told him to go this way, and he found us in need of a ride! #Revelation! But it was good. I love those people. 

Anyways, that's my week. How is everyone going? I wouldn't know, because nobody is writing me!!! But that's ok, it's not like I'm dying to hear from people or anything, especially my family! ;) Haha but thanks for the letter, and talk to you next week! 

Les amo a todos!

Elder Schmid