Juan Carlos Part 2.. "Fuerte! Fuerte!"

Okay, I´m going to start with Juan Carlos. He didn´t get baptized. I know, He´s killing me. Turns out he went to a party with his buddies when Chile played Peru and got drunk. All that fun stuff. It was pretty disappointing. Because they have to be clean two weeks before baptism, we´ll be waiting a little longer. But the good news is, he´s definitely growing. Yesterday in church was fast and testimony meeting. Juan Carlos told us that he wanted to go up there and bear his testimony and have Hna. Alvarenga translate for him. He was soooo nervous. But he kept pointing to his muscles and gesturing that he is ¨fuerte! fuerte!¨ (which means strong). So he did it. It was pretty incredible. It put all the old ladies in tears. In the following classes everyone was talking about Juan Carlos, and how he´s a great example to them of faith. That even though he doesn´t hear or talk, it doesn´t matter to him. He´s doing this, he´s trying to follow Christ. I really think he helped the ward out. Right now we´re trying to get down to the bottom of it all. He´s been so close so many times and something keeps happening. We´re trying to figure out if there´s something bigger impeding him, but at times it can be a little challenging the communication. But good things are happening.

We have taught this kid named Francisco 2wice now. He is a cute smart 17 year old boy that has incredible desires to learn and do good things. His dad doesn´t like the mormons, so we´re teaching him in the house of one of the members. This kid is pretty awesome…it´s really cool to me to see a 17 year old teen with this kind of interest in the gospel when all his buddies are out doing not so good stuff. We´re really excited about him.

The other day we had a couple hours to knock doors and found ourselves in this pretty little farmland area. The sun was just setting and it had a handful of homes scattered here and there with big fields as property. It was an older area so there were a lot of trees that were taller and as it is autumn here there were leaves all over the ground. As we walked along knocking doors I could hear all the leaves crunch under me, it was a fresh cool outside and I could smell APPLES. Fresh apples. My companion and I weren´t talking much, just walking and looking and listening to our surroundings. To me it was the essence of fall, and it made me excited for the cool weather. But more than that everything just felt good. I always know that I am loved, but in that moment I felt a little more than usual the love that Heavenly Father has for me, and that he loves all of his children. And we´re blessed enough to have this beautiful marvelous world to enjoy. It was just nice.

And yes, the results for the changes have come. They are doing some pretty funky divisions this week to get everyone settled, but when all is said and done, this coming Monday I will be staying here in Machalí with my new companion Hermana. Muñoz. She is a native CHILEANA. This is good. Because she is good. She seems like an incredible missionary and is very nice. Among all the nervousness and the bit of stressfulness of joining the two huge sectors, I´m really excited for the change. Hna. Muñoz will help Machalí a lot. Hopefully together we can do a lot.

Time.

Grr… so much I could say.

Know that I love you so much. Dad, the Pastel de Choclo is definitelya staple chileano food. With corn and beef and eggs and potatoes and about whatever else they want to throw in. It sure is tasty. I love you mom, I love you dad. And Cali and Geoff and Erik and Danielle. I wish I had more time to do some more responding… I´ll talk to you later!