Challenges and Blessings

Hello Family!

Ok well there are about a million things to tell you this week, but only a short period of time. So I´m just gonna try and touch everything a little bit.

Elder Laney, one of the Elders I live with, got his "trunky papers" this week. His papers that he has to fill out to say where he´s going after the mission. He had to fill in all of his information about Phoenix airport and his ward in Gilbert, AZ. Made me a little trunky.

We´ve been eating alot of Membrio here in Chile. It´s a weird, dry, sour, apple-ish fruit. The dictionary says it called Quince or something in spanish. It works as a laxative for my companion :S

This week I´ve been waking up freezing cold and it´s only otoño or fall. Everyone´s telling me that it´s HORRIBLE and that I´m gonna die during the winter. I´m starting to believe it. So I sleep with double shirts, double pants, gloves and an awesome beanie hat thing. (You´ll see in the picture). In fact, the other morning I was so cold I slept on the floor in front of the electric heater for 2 hours. I think I´m just a wimp. Haha but the truth is, I still like the cold! I just like houses that have insulation and heating.

Also, we were fortunate enough this week to have a flood in our house. Elder Tello and I were in the pension using the restroom and it didn´t quite work. I don´t wanna go into detail because the details aren´t so pretty, but I´m pretty sure you can imagine it all. The toilet started to flood. I stopped the water from inside the tank. We plunged the toilet. We tried to flush it again and it started filling up even more. I tried to stop the water from inside the tank again and the part broke off. Water (and other stuff) started overflowing all through the bathroom and flooded down into the room. Elder Tello was using a broom to push the water back into the bathroom. I finally found a way to stop the water with my finger and then jammed the same spot with a bunch of matchsticks. We had to buy a mop and clean everything up. Then we had to wait two days for the repairman to come. It was quite an exhilarating event. Disgusting... But memorable...
Best part of the whole week though was the 2 BAPTISMS we had! Rodrigo and Juan both passed their baptismal interviews and were baptized yesterday. I think Rodrigo is one of the best conversions I´ve seen so far. It wasn´t too hard for him, but right away he became active in Seminary, Mutual, Church Organizations, daily scripture reading and praying. He´s awesome. He asked me to baptize him and I gladly accepted. Juan asked Elder Tello to baptize him. This week we fixed the water so it wasn´t freezing cold, just slightly. The baptismal service was excellent! A lot of members stayed and watched this time. Most of Juan and Rodrigo´s family came as well. It was great cuz I had to baptize Rodrigo two times because the first time he let his feet slip and pop out of the water. It was kinda funny lookin. The service was great though and the baptisms were performed :)

Strangely, we found out that Juan´s mother is actually a member and she just never wanted to tell us. Juan and Rodrigo didn´t even know. Rodrigo´s 3 other siblings are also members but never told them or us. We shocked and kinda excited because we plan on reactivating the whole family!

I miss you all ridiculously and hope everything is well at home. Thank you so much for all the emails, letters, and prayers. I can always feel your support. I love you all.

Elder Matthew D. Mooney