Cumpleanos y Semana 4 en Rosal II

"I had a great birthday! This whole week has been great, in fact. I am not sure if I told you, but in the stake we are in the hermanas have an annual volleyball tournament. I mentioned to the bishop that I had played for four years in high school, so he asked me if I could help out the hermanas and train them in volleyball. So we have a weekly service activity with the hermanas where I teach them how to pass, serve, hit, etc. We usually do it on Saturday, but this week they did it on my birthday since it was a holiday and nobody worked.

"The activity at the temple was also great. The temple president, Pres. Lyon, gave us a tour of the temple. It was great to go there again. It`s almost been 9 months since I`ve been.

"Felipe`s baptism on Saturday was great. He had the ward mission leader, Hermano Costa, do the baptism. Our ward mission leader is a really great guy and he helps us a lot with the work here. The only problem is that Felipe wasn`t confirmed yesterday because he got there after the sacrament and apparently the bishop wants him to be confirmed before the sacrament is passed. Oh well next week they will do it. The baptism was great though, especially because 5 investigators came to watch Felipe be baptized, one of them is the woman that cuts our hair, Liliana. She is progressing really well, trying to find a different job so she doesn`t have to work on Sunday. She came to church yesterday. She told us though that she wants to be baptized in a river. So we will see about that. Last night when we went by her house, her neighbor was there and we talked to her. She said that her 27 year old son passed away 9 months ago and she is still angry with God. We tried to help her and teach her about the plan of salvation, but she couldn`t really accept it. She said she wished that she had the faith that we have. We are going to try to visit her next Sunday if she lets us."

Feliz Cumpleaños!

Hoy es el cumpleaños de Elder Cloward!

Today is Elder Cloward's birthday!

Happy Birthday, Elder Cloward! We hope it's filled with yummy treats, balloon popping (see email from this week), good teaching appointments and general good times! We love you!

Fotos de Elder Cloward y Elder Mcbee

Elder Cloward y Elder Mcbee

Zone playing soccer (aka futbol)

Cutting off Filipe's hair!

Semana 3 en Rosal II

"I am excited for my bday (even though it will just be a normal day for us) but it`ll be fun. I will enjoy blowing up the balloons and then popping them after haha. I am not sure if I ever told you, but my birthday is a national holiday here in Chile. It is called "Dìa de la batalla naval de iquique" apparently 100-and-something years ago on May 21st there was a "battle" between Chile and Peru, but there were only two boats involved. And the Chileans lost... but somehow Chile celebrates it as a holiday, even though they lost. So no one will be working on my b-day or going to school, so that`s kinda cool.

"Elder Mcbee and I are having a good time together. We are teaching a lot of good people. Fan-Fan (the Haitian) wasn`t able to come to church these last two weeks, since his work is requiring to take a two month Spanish course (which of course meets only Saturdays and Sundays in the morning) so he will not be baptized for a while. Another really good investigator that we are teaching is named Felipe. He is 19 years old, and he is going to be baptized this Saturday. He used to have really long hair but we took him to get it cut a few days back. He also stopped smoking so that he could be baptized. He has a good chance of being a future missionary, so after his baptism we are going to have him come out and teach with us to feel the mission spirit and what not. I will be sure to send you pics from his baptism this Saturday. Please pray with me that everything will go well with his baptism, the adversary always works really hard on people right before they get baptized. We are also teaching Susana and her two daughters, Fernanda (13) and Catalina (10). The missionaries started teaching her a while ago, because her sister Claudia is a recent convert to the church and sent the reference. Susana is passing through a hard time right now because she found out about three months ago that her husband (the father of her daughters) was cheating on her. So she kicked him out of the house and they are working on the divorce papers. She said that she feels peaceful and calm when we teach her and a special feeling always seems to stay in her house after we leave, which was really cool to hear. The biggest challenge with her will be leaving alcohol, and also coming to church. She got really sick with the flu or something and hasn`t been able to come lately. The good thing is that she is accepting everything that we teach her, which can be hard for people. Her sister Claudia helps her a ton, since she is usually there in the lessons with us."

Special Transfer to 5 de Abril

"So I`ve got some pretty interesting news...I had special changes again! Long story short, the assistants called me Wednesday night and said that Thursday at 4 I would have to be read to leave. So I packed everything up, had enough time to say bye to Flia Guerrero, Flia Araya, and Flia Marìn, then Elder Carpenter and I got in the van with the assistants and we arrived to my new sector. Which is...........(drumroll, please)...........Rosal II! So I am back in 5 de Abril, which was the same stake that I started the mission in, but I am in a different ward. It is so cool to be back in this part of Chile, I like it better here than La Cisterna and San Miguel. We are in Maipù (my-poo haha) and the computer that I am sitting at right now is the same one that I used to email you about 8 months ago. Weird huh. p.s. it is also super really really cold now. It changed in like a week. It might also be the sector that is colder. But now we go out to the sector we go with gloves and scarves. And when I say we I mean me and my new companion........(drumroll please)............Elder Michael Bryant McBee. We are getting along really well. He is from Florida, but his mom is Peruvian, so he speaks Spanish and English perfectly. He also speaks French, since he learned it in school. He went to Harvard and U Penn. so he is way smart and stuff, which is cool. We have a few guys that we are teaching from Haiti, in the Carribean Islands, and they are black and speak French and only a little bit of Spanish and English. So Elder McBee teaches them in French and I just sit there trying to understand. It is actually very similar to English and Spanish, but the accent is hard to do. The Haitian`s names are Fan-Fan, Billy, and Reuben. Billy is a member of the church. Fan-Fan and Reuben are investigators, and Fan-Fan has a baptismal date coming up. This ward is huge. There are about 240 people that come to church each week, and there are two companionships of missionaries in the ward, Elder McBee and I, and Sister Ortega (from Argentina) and Sister Supelano (from Colombia). I just like it here a lot though because it reminds me so much of my first sector in Rivas Vicuña.

"I don`t really know too much about how things are in Parque Subercaseuax, since I am not there anymore...we talked to Liliana on Wednesday about baptism, but she said she didn`t feel comfortable about it, so we explained it a lot and it was apparent that we would have to re-teach the restoration. So hopefully Elder Carpenter and Elder Stevensen will do a good job of explaining that. Elder Carpenter and I also found a new family last Tuesday, and they invited us to their house for a bbq Friday (labor day) and since we didn`t have a lunch planned we said it was okay. I wonder how that went... hopefully well."