Hola Familia
Sounds like things are going good back in Park City/Flower Mound. Life here in Chile is pretty good. Oh yeah, cambios....I stayed in Canihuante! Not going to lie a part of me wanted to leave. But, I´m really happy I stayed with Elder Machado. Because our finding had REALLY slowed down the last couple weeks of the last cambio. So when we started this week. We had absolutely nothing. Just some random people we go could by and try to teach. And I don´t ever want to leave an area with nothing, so I´m glad to be staying, that way when I do leave hopefully I can leave the area with something to work with. So the blessings of this week, we worked really hard this week. We analzyed the way we had been planning and talked about how we could better use our time and what times during the day are best for certian acitivties (Knocking Doors, Tours of the Chapel, Futuros, Old Investigators, conversos, less-actives, members, teaching etc). Anyway by this weekend we were able to find some people and we hope that these people will progress. And this week is a new week. We´re going to find and teach a lot more we hope!
So, I might as well explain some of the pictures. Well, people always ask when your birthday is here. And so a few knew that my birthday was on Saturday. So for almuerzo the mom of Stefany (a converso) made us asado (like BBQ) and then later that night Elba and her family had invited us over for a noche de hogar. There´s only two members that live there and we´ve started teaching one of Elba´s nieces. Anyway. They told us we were going to do kinda a white-elephant gift exchange thing. So we had a really good noche de hogar with them and then after Elba brought out this Torta (cake). Oh goodness. You have no idea how much I love this family. Elba and Alfonso are members, both converts actually. Alfonso is 12 and his Aunt Elba is the lady that sometimes talks to Dave on Facebook. Anyway in the home it`s Elba, Her two sisters, her nephew (Alfonso) and her two nieces. They´re just the coolest people ever. It´ll take a lot Elba´s sisters to accept the gospel I think. But her two nieces I think could. OK, back to saturday night. Basically it was just a really a fun last hour of the day, it was a way good Noche de Hogar. And the Torta was really good (nothing like a homemade Blizzard Pie...but it was really good!). So yeah that was my birthday here in Chile. It was really good thanks to a couple of members. It`s kinda weird that I'm 21 though.
Like I said sounds like everything is going well back in states. That's good that Dad gets to spend lots of time with Dave and Ale doing "texas" things. And I was actually thinking this week about Alisa's brother-in-law. And if he had ever served in Ovalle. But yes, Ovalle used to be a stake. But when Elder Holland was here a lot of things changed. There also used to be more wards I think too. Right now there's like six Branchs: Ovalle Sur, Ovalle Norte, Limari, Canihuante are the biggest. Then there's three smaller branches out in the campo, Monte Patria, Punitaqui and La Chimba. We're working hard in helping out the church in Ovalle, it´s been struggling a little bit I think. The goal is to become a stake again. and President Gillespie really would like Ovalle become a stake so he´s been working a lot with the leaders here and we as missionaries have been working hard. As a Zone, we've been having lots of baptisms. What we need though is priesthood, which we have...just A LOT of people are inactive. So we're trying to reactivate as well. I had never realized the importance of the Retention of Conversos until I got here. It's so important. I don't know where in Ovalle Brent was, but the backside of my sector is really pretty and night if we´re back there the stars are super bright. I think i've sent pictures of this area home before. What´s Brents last name and what years was here? I may be able to find him in our Area Book. Haha.
How is Roderick? I was thinking about Park City the other day, I hope you all are having fun! So I've been really bad at writing letters to people. Like really bad. I promise...those people who write me dearelders will here from me somehow. It might be a shoutout in an email...but someday! Alex Lopez...I'm not sure if you read this blog...but weren't you baptized in early July last summer? Stay strong in the Gospel. It really is true. Everytime we've had a baptism I think about the baptisms I saw back in Flower Mound and Danville. Stay Strong. Even when it gets hard. Heavenly Father needs all those who have made the step of Baptism to be stong and to move forward with faith. We can't always see the end...actually the majority of the time we can't. But Heavenly Father can. And he knows us and who we can become. So trust in his plan and his son Jesus Christ and everything will be alright. The Gospel is amazingly complex, but yet at the same time...incredibly simple.
Hope all is well in your respective cities and states. I love you all. YAY FOR LIFE.
Love, Elder Hyer
PS- I can hear Lady Gaga playing right now. weird.
