September 24th, 2012

"Hey there everybody!

Well, the festivities of Chile´s Independence Day have finally come to an end, and now there is the normal amount of drunks in the street! Wow, Elder Hughes and I ate so much stinkin food! Empanadas, Empanadas, and more Empanadas... but we love them so much! Yum! We just have questioned a lot of people though, why there aren´t empanadas with Cheese AND Meat mixed! It sounds like a fantastic idea, and I think the Chileans would love it! But everyone we have asked, they sound very skeptical about the idea and also they don´t think it would be too delicious... they are missing out!

Anyways, I survived and enjoyed my first and last 18th of September here in Chile... it was so much fun! I wish that I could experience another one here in the mission, but I am glad for the experience that I had. They celebrated it for so long! A little over an entire week! Elder Hughes and I preached the gospel wearing some fun traditional chilean hats... we felt like Preachers from Jehova Witnesses or the Omish or something. The people were really nice to us though! 

This last week was a crazy week to work, and we got a lot done! A lot more than we were expecting to get done anyways, because with so many drunks, and with a lot of reunions that we had to go to, we had even less time than normal to work... But Elder Hughes and I want to work so much, and we had the best week that we have ever had together, and we have had some amazing weeks! The only thing that we didn´t have to top off the week were some baptizms! But we are making up for that by preparing some people to get baptized on the 6th! General Conference weekend baptizms! Woot! It´s going to be exciting!

The 4 people that we found that are going to get baptized are so excited!  :)  It´s been a fun adventure to really see again that God will put in our path people that are prepared to hear the gospel. We are teaching Maria, and 3 grandkids, Brayan, Ana, and Francisco. When we first found them, the 3 grandkids showed up to church because the grandma wanted them to learn about religion, so she took them to a church that seemed to call here atention, even though there are a few other churches that are closer to her. We stopped by to visit the grandkids and then found out that Maria was going to a different church to learn about God too. Well, after teaching about the Restoration, she changed her attitude completely and all four of them accepted baptismal dates and are so incredibly excited! They are studying so much to learn and they have a spirit so amazing! It is awesome being able to teach amazing people like them!

So, Elder Hughes and I yesterday came across a few J-Dubbs that just wanted to fight with us with the bible. We used reasoning, the bible, the spirit, and our testimonies to defend, and in the end, they really had no reason in anything that they were trying to discredit us with, and they just have really hard hearts and don´t even want to try to see our message is true. I´m so happy to have the restored gospel in my life and that I can be here to share this gospel with the people of Chile. But sometimes it is sad when they don´t even want to listen! Sigh, but we are doing our part! And because we are doing our part, we will continue to be blessed with success here, even though some days seem to fall apart! I love you all so much! I hope you are all doing well! Take care everyone! Wish us luck in our fight against the opposition here in Chile! 

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrett"