I CAN SEE THEM GETTING WARMER AND HAPPIER AND MORE SMILEY

Hola querida familia y amigos!

Well things are getting pretty close to Christmas and here in Chile you can barely tell the difference haha. Some people have trees and a few decorations but no one really has lights but for the most part not too many people seem all that excited. As far as when I will call home, to be completely honest I'm not sure yet, but I'm going to try to call at around one o'clock Chile time.

As far as the work goes, this last week was both really good and then really disappointing at the same time. We got to teach the family that went to church last week, la familia Godoy, again and they like the church a lot and a few of them already want to get baptized. They are all very different and have different needs as far as teaching goes and spiritually but I think we will be able to baptize all of them for a complete family. The only thing is they didn't come to church this last week but we are going to get a hold of them tomorrow to find out what happened.

We also taught another family, la familia Gonzalez Chavez, and they are a little timid but awesome and 4 of them commited to being baptized and two of them came to church! The other two had to entertain family coming into town for Christmas. We also had a noche de hogar with the family Carrasco and their son's friend Cecilia that we've been teaching and that went very well. She brought her 15 year old brother, Juan, as well and at the end of the lesson they both said that they want to get baptized. But they both couldn't go to church on Sunday because of family coming into town for Christmas.

It's good that all these people want to visit with family at Christmas but they're not getting what Christmas is really about! They need to put their focus on Christ and if they do that, then family comes naturally. But Oh well what can you do. We have a lot of other investigators as well but those were all the ones that have already commited to be baptized and they are all good and very different. We were supposed to have 15 investigators at church on Sunday but we could only get two there so that's why the week was good but didn't end so great. But we aren't too worried because we are going to help our investigators a lot this coming week and we are going to have a lot more next week! So even though it was disappointing, I didn't let it disanimate me too much because we did a lot of good work last week and I know we are going to start to see some fruits real soon here. The people that we do have are growing and changing and I can see them getting warmer and happier and more smiley. They are not quite there yet but we are helping them get there and we are planning what we need to do to continue to guide them in the right direction.

Haha sorry I'm starting to ramble now, well besides working a lot and teaching a lot, it was a pretty normal week. My companion is a little moody and loses animo easily but we are working on that and I'm working on being more dependent. Because when he loses animo it's easy for me to lose it too so we are working on that. No companionship is perfect. And your right Dad, giving the Christmas story from Luke to investigators is awesome because you really can connect it to any gospel principle. I usually just connect it to baptism but it works for everything :)

Oh, one interesting and sad thing that happened this week was that a house burned down pretty close to our house and almost took two others with it. It was really sad just watching the flames devour the thing and that the Bomberos couldn't put it out in time to save it. Luckily they were able to save the other two. The house was in sector O'higgins and they went to the site but nobody was there and the neighbors said that they left. Hopefully that family will be able to take their situation and grow closer and find the true meaning of Christmas now that their material posessions are gone. Haha there I tried to end the sad story on a good note. Oh and we got to watch the Christmas devotional yesterday so that really got everyones spirits up.

Well it sounds like you guys are going to have a very merry Christmas way up north in southern California and that everyone is doing well. I'm really excited to talk to you all in just four days! Bueno les amo! Chou y vamos a hablar en solomente cuatro dias! Tengan una feliz navidad todos!

Con amor, Élder Harper :)