Hola todos!

Hey everyone! Hope you all have had a fantastic week.  We are enjoying our time down here in Rio Bueno Chile.  I'll be perfectly honest, it makes me very jealous to hear about everyone moving into summer up there when we are now just starting winter down here. Not fair!  The rainy season is just starting and it is constantly raining which is pretty interesting.  Luckily we are well equipped to handle it.

It's been a really awesome week for us.  Our investigators are progressing and we're finding new people.  I'm really excited about what is happening here and even more to know that I'll be here for a while to be able to see how everything turns out.

The unfortunate news is that it looks like we won't be having a baptism here in the month of May because Vicky has been sick this last week and we aren't going to be able to teach her everything and have her interview before the 31st.  So we will be putting a new date for June here soon.

This week we were able to contact and teach a reference of a family in our sector.  The mom (Paula) talked to a missionary on a bus on the way to Valdivia to see her husband in the hospital.  The missionary got here address and we got the reference.  They are a really great family. Her husband, Cristian has diabetes and had his foot amputated as a result (he even showed us the pictures haha). They have a son, Rodolfo, and are really open to our message.  I'm excited to see where that goes.

Yesterday evening we worked with our ward mission leader to visit some other new people.  We taught a less active member and his daughter, Denisse, who is twelve years old and hasn't been baptized.  We were able to put her with date for he 28th of June.  It would be really sweet if her and Vicky got baptized together!  We also visited one of my favorite families in the branch.  The dad of the family works up in the north of Chile so isn't here very often, but he isn't a member.  Julio, our ward mission leader, talked about baptism and actually invited him to be baptized as well! And he accepted!  The only problem is that they live in the sisters' sector so I don't think we will be able to teach him but the only thing that really matters is that he takes that step.

This is seriously the busiest time in my mission so far.  I'm really excited to see what is happening and to be able to be a part of it.  Time is flying by so fast!  Days feel like minutes to me right now but I'm really excited to see how things go this next week.

Hope you all have a great week.  I love you all!

Elder Dower


Questions from the week

1. How are you feeling about being the senior companion/trainer?  

 I'm getting more used to it.  It'll take some more time but I'm doing better.

2. Are you able to plan the things you need to do each day to be successful?

 I've learned to make good plans that I can be excited about each day.  That way I have more enthusiasm when I wake up in the morning.

3. How is your confidence in the language?

 It's pretty good.  Now during training I'm trying to find the ways that I mess up most often and correct them.

4. What are your duties as a District Leader?

 I have to do calls Wednesday, Friday, and Sundays to see how the district is doing.  Each week I have to lead district meeting as well.

5. How are your investigators? 

 See other email haha

6. Do you still have a baptismal date for the end of the month?

 No, we will need to push it back to be able to teach everything more.

7. Have you met anyone new this week?

 Yes, we met a new family of three that are awesome.

8. What are you going to do today?

 Today I am going to write, shop, clean, and then nap haha.

9.  What is planned this week?

  Lots of teaching and we have an activity of the branch Friday.