Chocolate helps everything!

Hola 

This week was great. It is always so fast. I cant believe it is monday again. And we are at the end of the month which is crazy and another end of a change. We will see this wednesday what is going to happen with the changes and if I am going to get changes. I sort of think that I will change but we will see. Nothing really exciting or crazy happened this week but It was still a good week. We have a baptism scheduled for saturday so hopefully that will go through. It is with Elias. He his really great and has been fighting to get to this baptism. He has had a problem all of his life with smoking and we are trying to help him overcome it for good. He has been doing really good. We gave him chocolate and told him that when he has the temptacion to smoke he needed to each a piece of chocolate and it seems to be working really well. Now he might get addicted to chocolate but hey they word of wisdom doesnt say anything about that. haha. And then the next week we have a youth that has a date to be baptised. Him and his family are really great. He has a lot of friends with the young men in the ward and this week is even going with them to a camping trip that they are doing. 

I am a little nervious about the changes. Im not really nervious about changing areas I more just want to know if I am going to change or not. This patience thing always has been hard for me. I feel like I am learning to be a lot more patient but it is really hard when it is about something as big as a new area. But I will just have to wait and see what is going to happen. I would be happy either way. I would love to be here for the next change because we have two baptisms with people that I have been working with from the beginning and I really have liked this area a lot. But also if I change areas I will be excited to get to know a new place. 

I cant believe that we are one month into the year this year. And now we are going into feb. which is a short month. (Ok maybe only by three or four days but still a little shorter) I cant believe that time is going by so fast. I will have 7 months in my mission the next monday. It goes so fast. I really love what I am doing and I can definately tell that I am learning and growing here as a person and spiritually. I think I told you but we are focusing a lot on the book of mormon this year as a mission and everyday we are reading 30 minutes in the book of mormon. I have loved this and really have learned a lot about the book. It really is the key to our religion. I love that we can learn so many things from the book of mormon. Maybe everytime we read it it is the same book but with the spirit we can learn new things that we need in our lives. I know that if we can read even just a few verses every day we can have the spirit with us more. I love you all so so much and hope that you all have a great week. 

I love you

Les Amo

Elder Hamilton

Quilpue- City of Sun

Tynan's district. They played games for p-day. He was happy it wasn't soccer

Hola Familia.

¿Como esta todo? Espero que ustedes estén teniendo un invierno muy bueno. Estoy disfrutando mi verano mucho. Hace calor pero tenemos viento casi cada día. 

haha A little spanish for everyone. I am doing really good and had a good week. I am enjoying the weather here in the city of sun. Yes Quilpue really is called the city of sun. But really it isnt that bad. I still think that it is hotter in utah during the summer. 

Last monday we had interviews with the president which was so great. I always love when we see the president. Everything went really well he encouraged me to keep working hard and striving to be obedient everyday. He asked me what my goals were for the year and I didnt really know what to say because I havent always been the type of person to make goals every year but after I really though about it and made some goals. I am really hoping to learn more about the book of mormon this year. We are reading it 4 times this year as a mission and I am excited to be studying it so much. This week was really good. I had a few lessons that were really great. I love it when me and my companion are so in tune with the spirit that we can feel it so strong in every lesson and we feel like the lessons really are led by the spirit. The spirit is something really important in my life right now and for all of us. I loved your experience with the sacrament mom. Really that is the importance for the church every week. I have learned that really we need to do 3 things as members to keep our faith. They are the three things that we are always comitting our investigators to do. Leer el libro de mormon, Orar, y asistir a la iglesia. These things are really important for all of our testimonies. I know it may seem like things so small. And really they are. They are the three basic primary answers to almost every question in the church. ANd that is why we learn them in primary. Because they are so important. 

Also I have learned a lot about the members and how important they are in the conversion and change that takes place in the investigators. One of the members of the family Orlando, is 17 old. They moved here about a year ago and he didnt really have much friends because the schools here and not by where they live they are basically all private schools and they can choose where they want to go. We introduced him to a member that is the same age and invited him to the mutual that is friday here. He went and now has gone to mutual for two weeks and different activities with the youth. In our last lesson with him yesterday he seemed so much more happier and was talking about the youth and the activities. It was so great. He is progressing more than the others in his family. He is studing a lot. We have these pamphlets that we use to teach and in the back there is like another additional study if someone wants to do more. He is the first investigador that I have had that actually did everything and answered the questions. I was a little shocked but so happy. 

I really am liking this area a lot and my companion is doing really great. He is learning so much and we are teaching a lot more together. 

I am so happy with my mission right now and am excited for another week. We have 1.5 weeks left in this transfer so we will see what is going to happy the following transfer. 

I love you all so much and am thinking about you daily. I love you

Les amo

Elder Hamilton 

We don't have to worry about him eating. He says his comp is a great cook.

This reminded him of the Lion, Witch and wardrobe

This is a pet bunny- not one for food.

Food

Hi Mom

This week was really good. We have been really busy and have been working with some really good people. Elias, the guy who is struggling with smoking, is still progressing but we are waiting a little longer for his baptism. He has a lot of questions because he has studied a lot of religion. We are also teaching a family. The Morales family. They are really good a are progresing a lot. The dad is  less active for the last 20 years or so. He lived in our area and then moved 20 ago and lost contact with the church. Now he has a family and they just moved back to the area. So we are teaching them and they are progressing a lot. The dad wants to get back into the church. In the family there is patricia his wife, Carolina 19, Orlando 17, genises 7, and rosa maria 5. We started teaching carolina and orlando before we had met the dad or knew that he was a member. The mom always was listening from the other room and slowly she came closer and closer. Then one day she said that she was reading in the book of mormon and she liked it. They all havent come to church yet. Last week carolina and her dad came. And yesterday orlando and his dad came. We are excited to see them progressing. Even if it is slow it doesnt matter as long as they are progressing. We are really trying to work with the members more right now because we have seen how important it is. It is good because we have a lot of members who are willing to help us in lessions and be friends to the investigators. 

I really like this area and am hoping that I will be here for the next change too. We have 2 more weeks of this change, I cant believe that it has already been 4 weeks in this change. It really flys by. During the week we always are having meetings or interchanges so it isnt like we are doing the same thing every single day. That is nice because before my mission I was worried that I was going to get bored but we are always doing new things. This week we had a zone meeting that was really great.  Today we have interviews with my president after this. They are in our house so we have been cleaning. It has been nice, I dont know why but cleaning is so relaxing for me. I am excited to have the interview, I always like when I get to talk with the president. 

Many of you have asked about food. I love the food generally. I really like empanadas. The worst thing i have eaten is foo foo. I dont remember if I told you guys but I ate a bunny. I thought it was just chicken that was a little harder than normal and then we were talking and they said it was a rabbit. It was a little wierd for me because we have a rabbit but I still ate it. It really didnt have that great of taste. Not like it had a bad taste but rather that it just didnt have any taste. Im going to stick to bunnies as a pet no a food. haha. But Really the food isnt that different. We eat a lot of salad and soup before the main thing. Then  like chicken or meat and rice. A lot of potatos, like fries and mashed potatoes. For desert we have a lot of fruit. So I dont really want to call that desert because for me desert is like Ice cream or maglebys cake (That sounds so good right now) but I like fruit too so its fine. haha.

I am glad to hear that you are all doing good. I am so happy that erin had the oportunity to go to the temple. I love you all}

Les Amo

Elder Hamilton

Our cute little bunny Foo Foo!  Poor Tynan!

Happy 2014

Elder Huertas- Companion

The sky here is different than at home. I love it!

There are donkeys everywhere

Hi family.

I am doing good and had a great week and a great new year. 

For new years we had a dinner with our "mom" (The sister that does our laundry) and her family. It was fun. We had permition to be outside til 11 and then we were awake until like12:15. We just said happy new year and went to bed. We could hear all of the big fireworks that are in vina del mar but couldnt see them.  Our new years day was a little interesting. We were studing in the morning in our personal study and when we started our companion study we realized that we both studied the same thing... patience. haha yes I am learning to be more patient. And we needed a lot of patience. First we were waiting for 45 minutes for a taxi from our district meeting to our house. Then we found out that one of our investigators moved to the other side so now wer are not her missionarys. And no one was in their house so we were walking around a lot. so it was good that we had studied that and we really used it that day. I have noticed that a lot in my mission. When we put forth the effort to study the scriptures and other things of god we will find parts of our life to apply them. And then today we went to the government building to do some paperwork for my visa and we waited in line for 1 hour before finding out that we were in the wrong line and had to change lines. so now we have to wait a little until our number is up to do the paperwork. So we just keep telling eachother that we need to be patient this week. If you think the government seems un organized and really slow when we go to the DMV you need to come and try this in chile. WE still have like 3 hours to wait. haha. I am very grateful for the united states.

But really it was a good week. We found some new investigators that are really good. And Some of our investigators are progressing. We have a baptism the 18th of january. His name is elias and he has listened to the missionaries before but never could stop smoking. Right now he is doing better and is progressing a lot. We still have to teach him different things and he has studied a lot of religion all of his life so he has a lot of doubts that we are working on helping him with. 

My companion is doing good. He has the support of his family but he is having problems with his email acount and we cant figure out what is it. He hasnt gotten any of the emails from his family in the month that he has been in the mission. I cant imagine how hard that would be. I am sad when I dont here from you guys after one week. He talked to his family on christmas and they are good but we are trying to figure our the problem. I think it is something wrong with the account of his brother or something so I am going to have him give them my email so they can email me and we can see if I can get it. I think that they need to create a acount with google and it would be easier. 

I hope everyone had a great new years. Every time I saw flowers and plants I thought about the rose parade. I am excited for 2016 when we are going to go! I have always wanted to see it. 

I love you so much. 

Elder Hamilton