Feliz Navidad

 

Well... today is Christmas Eve. That's pretty nuts. 

Today when P-Day ends, we have permission to spend time with members and to eat with them. We are allowed to be out until 12:30, and we get to sleep in until 9 tomorrow. So that's pretty sweet, and then tomorrow we get to call home, well, with google hangout, which is even better. My english might be a little bad, Jake might have to translate. Haha...just kidding. We're teaching Elder Verón English, so we do speak a little English.

So this week was a little crazy. We went down to Santiago on Wednesday. When we got off the Metro (subway) in Santiago, the clouds were seriously dumping on us. We got soaked running to the bus station to catch a bus north. That is very rare here, especially this time of year. We were stuck in Santiago in traffic for an hour, and then had another hour in order to get to Los Andes. When we got to Los Andes, it wasn't raining, but about 30 minutes later, it started pouring. We had to ditch the bikes and walk with umbrellas. In a lesson, the power went out. We sang "La Luz de la Verdad" in the dark... which is supposed to be funny... This was the 20th, so we joked about the end of the world beginning. We started walking home in the dark, but all the lights came on after a while. 

The next day, the clouds cleared, and there was snow in the Andes. I sent a picture. About 3-4 hours later all of that snow had melted. And it turned hotter than ever. We had two days where it was cold... which was awesome... but we're back to full out summer. 

Snow... first day of summer... end of the world. But down here

we only had rain... lots and lots of rain.  

 

So we have good news. Leontina is getting baptized in two weeks. She is really excited. She has started inviting family and friends, and is talking to people about her new beliefs, and inviting them to listen to us. That is really exciting for us. 

The other day, I knocked a door. A girl opened the window. I introduced myself, and asked her if she'd ever met missionaries before. She didn't answer the question, just told me to come back the next day. 

So we went back the next day. We taught her and her mom, Vannia and Laura. They told us they are baptized Catholics who are no longer Catholics. They are really, really great, and very receptive. We gave them both the pamphlets for the Restoration and for the Plan of Salvation. 

We went by again last night. We figured her husband would be there... we were a little worried about what he would be like, if he would be supportive or not. And then we got there and turns out he's super chill. They had read the pamphlets and said they had no questions, it was all clear. The husband... can't remember his name... invited us to come back and eat with them... they said he almost never invites people to eat. So that was sweet. Unfortunately, due to mission rules, we can't eat dinner with them, only lunch. 

Also... We were going to take the bishop's daughter with us to this appointment. She couldn't go, but it turns out this family is friends with the bishop and his family.

We have a lot of hope for them. 

Anyway, Merry Christmas. I will see some of you tomorrow. 

Elder Garrett