una angelita

Dear Family,
Yes our visa only lasts for one year so I had to get it renewed last week because without it I can´t leave Chile.
The weather has gotten a little cooler over the past few weeks and I am not too happy about it. We´re supposed to be in the middle of summer right now. Elder Marín and I both love the heat. He is from Cali, Columbia, and I´m from Cali too! Isn´t that cool??? But we are both used to hot weather and even though the sun beats down on us we just love it. But it is still hot during the day right now and in the morning and and night it´s a little windy and it's a little cooler. Winter doesn´t start until May. So we´ll just see what happens with that.
Investigator update!!!!!
Cristofer: He had his baptismal interview this past Saturday and we are preparing the baptismal service for next Saturday, February 13th at 7:00 p.m. He´s a pretty funny kid. He got excited when we told him that a couple of weeks after being baptized that he can receive the authority to baptize too (he just turned 17). We are going to try teaching his younger brother Matias, but he is way flaite (ghetto/gangsta)
Daniela: Came back from Santiago. President Jones said that if she comes to church 3 more times she can be baptized and she came to church yesterday. If she doesn´t go back to Santiago she could be baptized Saturay the 27 and confirmed the 28. But she might have to go back to Santiago. The only thing that matters is that she is ready and she wants to make her first covenent with Heavenly Father - so she is going to be baptized.
Barbara: came to church yesterday with the family for the 4th strait week. She´s not going to girls camp though because she went to the beach on a family vacation. So we´ll see how she´s doing when she gets home.
Tity: Bernardita´s daughter. She has a fecha bautismal for March 7. She needs to come to church though!
Carla: girlfriend of an inactive member, Freddy. They have a little boy named Renato, who has some problems. He is two years old and just learned how to walk. He always seems so happy everytime we see him. But it has been hard for Carla and Freddy. We will keep teaching her though. Freddy´s parents and sisters are active (his sister Maritza is leaving on the mission to Argentina in April) and they have supported him during all this time.
We had a really cool experience on Tuesday the 26th of January that I forgot to tell you about. After we got back from Concilio, Elder Marín and I were on our way to an appointment with a family. They live at the end of a dirt rode that leads to a rodeo stadium where they work. As we started walking on the dirt rode, there was a little girl there (she looked about 3 years old but she was really 5, we later learned). We were a little late for the appointment, since we had just gotten back from Santiago. The little girls asked us as we walked by, " are you going to visit Mrs. Rosa? She lives in that light blue house over there." We were in fact not going to visit the Señora Rosa, since we didn´t know who she was, but we felt very impressed to go to the house that the little girl had pointed to, even though we were already 10 minutes late for our appointment. We called at the door (HALO!) and asked to speak with Señora Rosa. We gave her a picture of the Savior and told her that someone had sent us to meet her. She asked us who and we said we would tell her, but first we wanted to offer a prayer in the house with the family. She accepted, and we met the whole family. We did the blessing for their home, then told them that a little girl had sent us to the house. They all knew who she was. They had been wanting to find a church and they were very happy we came. We visited them a couple of times last week, and yesterday, 3 of the kids in the family came to church! Marjory, Juan, and Janira. It was really inspiring to see how a little 5 year old girl lead us to that family. I know without a doubt that the Lord's hand was there as well.
I got the package on Wednesday. Thank you so much!!! I just want to make sure you only sent one tie, right? I love the tie it is pretty cool!
I found the memory card inside of the bottlecap box. Very clever Mom
Yes I have two Santiago West DVDs, one from 2008 and one from 2009. I didn´t want to send them home for fear of losing them, but we will watch them together soon!
I got an email today telling me to change my email address. I´ll let you know if I have to change it, and what the new adress will be.
I got the pic of the little cousins from Dad. They are all so big!
Sad news, I got my go home papers this week (popularly known as trunky papers). I had no idea they would come this soon. My official release date is June 29, one week early (it was supposed to be July 6). It´s one week early because President Jones goes home on July 6. I´m assuming that he´ll be so busy get the new President settled in during his last week that he won´t be able to spend any time with us (the go-homers, as they call us) So he will spend time with us in our last week then have one more week to do what he needs to do before heading back north. I need some info though to be able to send to the office. I need the Bishop´s name, adress and possibly telephone number.
If there is anything else I need I´ll let you know next week.
Happy Birthday Cara!! I hope you have a great day! I love you and thanks for being a great sister!
Well that is all for this week. Hope you all are well. Thanks for your love and support. You are in my prayers always.
Love,
Elder Cloward