Wait wait wait wait... I'm happy everyone had a great week and all, but you said nothing about your birthday!!! June 7th, no?! Or am I crazy? I had it marked in my calendar and everything and was super excited to hear what y'all did! But oh well, Happy Birthday Mom!!! I can't say you are twenty nine, because that would mean you had me at 9 years old... i guess the best age would be 36. 36 never looked so good!!! I'm glad you all had a great week! I'm sad I missed such an epic dance off. Just hope you all know, had I been there, I would have won.
Things here are going well! I really like my new sector! It's so different from the rest of the mission! It's the greenest part of the mission. My sector is really really really tranquilo. I feel like the rest of the mission doesn't pay attention to Vallenar because they don't baptize. It's different here, the people are all actually older, or really young. At least, that's how it seems. And everyone stays home and all shut up inside, and it's kind of hard to get the missionary work done the way the mission wants it. But... it fits perfectly with the way I've been changing my own vision! So I'm ecstatic! My companion is hilarious. He's from Zacatecas, and really really loves music. He is teaching me the guitar right now, actually! And I must say, I'm picking it up quite well! ;) The only problem is he doesn't know how to sing, or he doesn't have the best of voices... he's completely tone deaf! But he's hilarious! And if I sing loud I can drown out the wrong notes, and we basically sing full volume in the middle of the streets! It's awesome! I live outside my sector, so I have to climb for 40 minutes to get to the start of it. But there's a ton of awesome stuff in the camino, so I enjoy it. The grafiti here is interesting. It's not just stupid words or names, it's all paintings! I've been taking pictures and everything, trying to look super hipster and awesome. I'll send some.
We had a baptism this past Saturday. We baptized a little 13 year old, Nacho. He's super funny! With whoever he's with, he feels completely comfortable like you were his best friend! His baptism went really well, and his mom came! That was a feat, because she has been really sick, lately. She has breast cancer, and has been struggling with that. The father, her husband, left them as soon as she got sick, and so she's been having to struggle alone. But she is a great person, and she got the strength enough to come and see him baptized!
Our branch is wonderful. It's the largest, I guess, of Vallenar, but it is still small. It's the smallest chapel I've ever been in. If you want to see it in Google earth, the direction is Compañía 2799... or something like that. It's small. But we have a ping pong table, and I'm getting good at that. Around 60 or 70 people assist church every week. The members seem really awesome. I think we are going to work really well with them. Our branch president is pretty young, around 33, and he is really excited with the missionaries right now. I feel like with him we can go far. I want to reactivate a lot here. I'm going to focus on basically just that. If I baptize, it will be because their family reacitvated. There are 636 members in this branch, only 70 come to church. We are going to change that!
It's getting really cold here, and.... get this.... today, it RAINED!!!!!! It rained!! It was so crazy! It was so weird! I thought our roof was about to break down on top of us! It was amazing! And it wasn't just a little drizzle, it was real rain! So I enjoyed that a lot. But it is super cold here. Or maybe I'm just a baby. But I'm always cold here. It's definitely colder here than in Copiapó. My pension is fantastic! It's super open, with a big window and everything, and it's just us two that live here, so that will be interesting getting used to again. Luckily, I seem to get along with my comp. That will help.
I feel like I am jumping all over the place with this email... I don't know what to say. This week was kind of slow in terms of work, I'm getting used to everything. But next week, my email will be better!
Les amo a todos!
Elder Schmid
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