Last Concilio

Elder Cloward with Elder Finter and his family

House that we helped build for service

Pictures of all of the missionaries in the Chile Santiago West Mission mission.

I took a picture when I first left the office. This is the way it will look

for the next 4 weeks. Can you find Elder Cloward?????

Dear Family,

Well on Wednesday night we had a pleasant surprise around 10:30 at night Just as we were finishing our plans for the next day, when Elder Finter showed up to our pension with his parents and his little brother! It was so funny because Elder Finter`s parents knew who I was right when they saw me without asking my name. They said "Oh you must be Elder Cloward! We´ve seen your blog and your pictures and read your emails!" "We found your blog right after the earthquake. I thought that was really funny. Thanks to all of you for keeping that blog updated for the last two years. I have yet to see it but everyone that has loves it! It was funny because Sister Finter was giving "Landon" (Elder Finter) a guilt trip for not sending pictures home while he was on the mission. She kept saying things like, "I really loved seeing your pictures and reading your emails, Elder Cloward. It was so nice to see my sons mission, since he never sent me pictures." Haha, we all just laughed about it. They are a really sweet family. They brought american candy with them to give to the missionaries which I thought was a really great idea. They said that they are having an awesome experience meeting the people Elder Finter taught.

So about our miracle family from last week... they are being kind of stubborn! But we will keep working with them. We visited them Saturday night again with my new companion who I just realized that you don´t know who he is yet. But that´s another story. Anyway we were there and Karen and David both told us: "We love it when you Elders come by! We have such a special feeling of peace and tranquility and our whole family just seems better and more united and loving." So we explained that that is because they are feeling the Holy Spirit. I asked them if they wanted to always have that feeling in their home and they said of course. So we told them that they need to come to church on Sunday! They said "no we don´t want to go to church". WHAT??? That was kinda weird. We think that their plan is just to have us come to their house a couple times during the week and feel the Spirit that way. So our plan is to visit them this Wednesday and have a "charla franca" (frank talk?) with them and tell them that we can`t keep coming by if they´re not willing to fulfill the commitments and keep the commandments, starting with coming to church. We truly believe that that is the best way to help them.

We are teaching another family too that lives in Silva Chavez, a different branch in our district. A couple of weeks ago, Victoria, the mom of Trinidad a recent convert and Manuel, an investigator, went to the hospital in Santiago. While she was there, her other son, Victor, has been in her house here to take care of Trinity and Manuel. We have been teaching Victor´s family: his wife Paola, and his daughters Aderlina, Carla, Francisca, and Yasna. They asked us, "so, according to your religion, what does one have to do to be saved?" my comp and I said "great question!" Then we taught them about baptism. Then they asked, "what does on have to do to be baptized in your church?" And I thought, "Even better question!!!" So we are going to teach them as much as we can and send the missionaries from Silva Chavez to teach them once they get home.

Antonio is still truckin´ along. He didn´t come to church yesterday and we don´t really know why. so we´ll find out about that.

Well my new companion is...................................................

Elder Alex Robinson from South Jordan, Utah. Yep, that´s the Elder that´s going to kill me. Then he has to finish off this change with some other companion, then he only has one change left in the mish. He´s my 6th gringo companion and the 4th from Utah!

He´s a cool guy.

He started his mission in Talagante and he was Elder Whipple´s last companion.

Alright I gotta bounce. We´re gonna go play "baby futbol". for our zone activity. This change we want to play soccer against Talgante so we are going to train today for the big game!

Love you family!!!

I know this church is true. Iknow that this is the Lord´s work and He is directing it. I know that this work will advance, not becuase of our abilities but rather becuase it is the Lord´s work and not ours. So He´ll make sure we won´t fail as long as we follow the Spirit and keep the commandments.

Love,

Elder Cloward