May 31, 2010

Saying goodbye to the Millahual family

Hooooooooooola!

First things first - Cami looked really pretty for her senior thingymajig! And congrats to all that have finished the school-year well. Now don't start rotting during the summer!

I had a grrrrreat a week here in Curanilahue. We live on the third floor of an apartment building, and I'm closer to where the epicenter of the earthequake was (Concepción), so we have aftershocks from time to time. On the third floor it feels pretty cool, hehe. All the Evangelical churches are preaching that there's going to be a gigantic earthquake again in June, so everybody should prepare themselves. I think they're getting that information from some group of scientists or something...anyway, when we talked about it with President Swenson he said that if we look at the history of earthquakes, if there is another big follower earthquake it's usually within 3 days of the first. And here we are more than 3 months later and we're just getting some small aftershocks. From what I've heard the next big one should be in the north... I don't think anything will happen. But only God knows, right?

Curanilahue

Cannal in our sector

Turns out this sector has a bit of a history, haha. About 2 years ago there was a big apostasy when one of the members named José Nabarra said that he was a prophet and apostated from the church with about 60 or 70 members. They started a church called ''The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints 2''...hahahaha. Gotta love the originiality on that one. So yeah, they were all excommunicated. The branch here is actually a lot bigger than I thought it would be. Before I got here I assumed that it was going to be something similar to how Cabrero was, but it's a lot stronger. The branch here actually functions as a ward (about 125 assist every week) but it's still a branch because it belongs to the district of Lebu. So when Lebu becomes a stake, Curanilahue will be a ward. This week we put 4 baptismal dates with investigators that they already had when I got here and then some more that we found this last week. I'm really enjoying this sector already - there's tons of great people. Curanilahue is a smaller town that's located in the middle of forestry and there's a mine pretty nearby, so everyone works in one of those two things. There's a lot of humble people here. There's also a section of our sector where we can't enter, under orders from President Swenson, because a few months ago the flaites attacked the elders. But that was awhile ago and we've found some good people that live in that area, so we're going to try to get permission to go in there when the sun is still out. It gets pretty dangerous at night, so I don't think we'll be going in there after dark.

My new companion's name is Elder Laurito. He's from Uruguay - one of the 2 Uruguayos (no clue how you would call them in english...) in the mission. So far we've gotten along incredibly well. I'm finishing his training, so this is the second time I've been a mother here in the mission. We're always joking around with each other and he's really eager to learn and get better, as am I, so we make a really good team. ALSO, we have made sopaipillas twice, so we know how to not die of hunger. So that's a plus. In my district there's a mexican-american named Elder Noriega (he's from Arizona), and Elder Galindo (from Honduras). We live in the same house, so it makes it pretty easy to keep in touch with them. Well, my papa, Elder Kester, is an assistant to the president now. So things are changing up here in the mission. In August a ton of missionaries will be leaving, most of them zone leaders, so there's going to be a lot of people jumping up as zone leaders, district leaders, etc. in the next few months. Elder Galindo told me last night that he's pretty sure I'll be a zone leader around that time, so I've got to make sure I'm ready for whatever assignment comes my way, right? I'm looking forward to it thought - more opportunity to learn and progress!

Baptism Sopaipilla (blogger kept rotating it weird...sorry)

Bread with mustard....yummy

Have Dad write me - I haven't heard from him in a good while. Have the rest of the fam drop me a line or two once in a while as well, I'm almost half way done with my mission and I've only heard from them just a few times. OH! Tell Cami and Grandma and Grandpa V that I'm very grateful for their letters. I don't have time to respond today, but I will get back to them. (Note from Janice: I forgot to tell him about the birthday money, Mom and Dad, but I've just sent him that word.)

Well, I had better get some pictures and junk attached to this. I'm pretty sure the conference is tomorrow (the zone leaders still haven't called me), so it's very likely that I'll get that box you sent. I'll let you know next week what went on. Thank you for the letter, I love and miss you very very much!

-Trevor