1-20-13

Hola Familia,

This week has been pretty good, and pretty crazy with all the work that we are doing. We have been trying to get new houses and get ready for new areas and new missionaries. We had a meeting with just the office elders and with President to plan and see what things we are doing and what things we need to be doing, and how we are going to do all of these things.

We have been looking for houses in Los cocos to open up a new area. So we went and drove through the area to see how it is and houses or apartments that we could get for the missionaries. I is out of the city against the mountain and has lots of farms and fields. So we were driving through the main street, it was a pretty narrow street with big huge ditches on either side. So we kept driving and we got to this little hill and my companion said ok when there is a place to turn around lets turn around. So we start up this hill and it just keeps getting steeper and steeper, and there is no way that we could turn around. So we just kept going in a couple of seconds of driving on this road we needed to pop our ears. It was asphalt and was so steep that on the turn our ties would spin out. So we kept going until we could turn around which was just a couple of minutes but when we turned around you could see all of Santiago so we took a couple of photos and then had to go back down. We still haven't found a house because most of the houses just have tin roofs and the missionaries can't live in a house with tin roofs.

On Wednesday we had a conference with the mission president and then I had to put on all of the minutes for all the phones in the mission. So I did that and then we left to go to salcedo and then to San Francisco, and I got a bunch of calls because nobody got minutes so after taking batteries and other stuff to San Francisco we had to go back to the office and I had to redo all the minutes so that was a really long day.

We contacted last week which is different then normal missionaries because we don't have so much time to contact. So we went walking down our area which is the lower and down town of Santiago so we walk and if we feel impressed to contact someone we do or if we see someone that we could talk to that looks like they are more open to our message then we will contact them. So we went by this house and all we could see was a mid-aged lady and we can't teach women alone so we were just going to keep going but we felt like we should at least talk to her. We talk to her and then invited her to an activity and to church and set an appointment. When we went to the appointment she wasn't there and she never came to church so we passed by a different day to see how she was doing, and she started to ask about the Book of Mormon. She told us that she is pretty busy but that she was able to read about half of the pamphlet. So that was really cool so we put another appointment and we'll have to see how that goes.

Yesterday we went to Salto de Jimenoa. It was a really pretty drive we had to go a little ways up a mountain so that was really pretty and when we were up there there was hardly any garbage which was really refreshing and it was really pretty. We went on the rope bridges to get there with the giant grey rocks with the green and blue water. The water fall was amazing it was so pretty I really wanted to swim, but that will just be on the list of things to do after the mission. We were able to walk around and it wasn't too hot up there but it was humid. There was also Peter Pan's house up there, or that is what it looked like so I guess we are in Neverland.

Yesterday we also had a stake conference, and it was the priesthood session and Elder Domingas from one of the quorums of the seventy was there so that was pretty cool. Today was also a Stake conference that was broadcast from Salt Lake to all the Caribbean, Elder Russel M. Nelson. On the way home we almost got in an accident we were driving on a road with basically nobody on the road, and a guy went to pull on to the road and so I moved into the right lane and he just kept coming and was slowing down, so I laid on my horn and he still kept coming and we slammed on the brakes coming to a stop skidding so we didn't hit him and he was pretty startled and scared like where did you guys come from, but that was a pretty close call.

Well I hope that you guys have a great week this week. It sounds like you guys are doing all kinds of fun and enjoyable things. I love you all tons!!!

Con Cariño

Elder Cannon