Hi everyone.
There was a lot of things to do this week it was crazy. But in the end we did it all. My president said at the beginning of the week that it was a lot to do but the lord always blesses us to finish it all. I know that is true. This week we started zone conferences. Generally in the office we dont have a lot to do with that but there was a lot that the president wanted to do for the missionaries so we had a lot of tasks to complete. On monday we started the day off in the office with our office counsel that we have each monday. At the end of that the president told us all the work that he needed us to do to help him for the conferences that started the following day. So inmediately we got to work. We went to talk to the people who do lunchs when we have conferences to get everything organized with them. We had to go to Jumbo, The big grocery story here that is like walmart, we ended up buying two shoping carts full of things. Back in the office we were getting 275 pendrives ready for the missionaries. One of the "presents" was a pendrive with different videos that we can use in teaching and other training and files that we need in our areas. We may not have ipads but he wanted to go into 2015 a little more technologico. Also we had to prepare emergency kits for each of the missionaries houses. We found out about our next reading of the book of mormon too so we had to get all of the books ready. It is in english and spanish so there were twice as many books to get ready. My companion was lamanating for 9 hours straight monday getting all the papers ready that go inside the books. In the end, on monday, we were able to get everything ready for the conferences for tuesday. We were in the office from 11 in the morning to 11:45 at night so we were a little tired after. The rest of the week we were working during normal office hours trying to get everything as ready as we could for the conferences this week and those that are next week. I fell a little behind in my regular office work with everything we were doing but yesterday I was able to catch up on a lot of that. This next week we still have a little bit to prepare but not a ton. I love it when there is a lot of work to do, and that happens a lot in the office.
In my conference on tuesday we found out that the church is doing a change in our area starting in 2015. The area south america south which are 4 countries (chile, argentina, uraguay and paraguay) is going to change the way we count our work each week and day. Each day and week we count the number of people with baptism dates, number of investigators asisting chuch, books given, lessons to less actives or converts, lessons with and without members, references, and new investigatos. That is what we do now. Starting in 2015 we will only use two numbers each week. How many people got baptised and the total asistance in the sacrament meeting including members, less actives, and investigators. Thats it. Our focus is supposed to always be baptise, retain, and activate at the same time. Im not sure in which areas the church is doing this change to try it but I am really interested to see the differences. It is a big difference but the work is changing and accelerating. I am so happy and thankful for this special time that I have had here. i have been able to see, and keep seeing, so many different changes in the missionary work and different ways the church is share the gospel. We really live in a chosen time and I am so grateful for that. I love being a part of this great work in such a small but important way.
I was so happy this week because the Motab chanel started playing all christmas music so I have been able to listen to all christmas music all day in the office. It has been great.
I love you all and hope that everything is going well with you.
Les quiero
Elder Hamilton
