Cambio!!! Elder Evans.

Hellooo again from amazing Santiago, Chile. Boy do I love it here. I love the Mission so much! It's so much fun and worth while to spread the gospel to all the world. This week sure has been a crazy one. I shall elaborate....

So this week, during the week was nothing too exciting. We were working hard trying to get more inactive and less active people to church. We passed by a lot of the inactive mujeres jovenes (young women) in the ward to try and get them excited and go to church and activities, because we were gonna baptize Marcela, the daughter of Ximena y David, who is 14. So we passed by a lot of them to try and get them to go. We also did a lot of work with our new converts, because that is where Chile is lacking. There are plenty of Baptisms, but then they go inactive right away, so we were trying to prevent that.
   So Friday was Mutual, with young women's and there was a lot that showed up! But two that said they were gonna go didn't show up, but there was still a good turnout and they had a good time and made new friends in the Church, which is what they need to stay active. So that was exciting. Friday night we did a lot of planning with Cesar, our ward mission leader, because we were gonna have a zone activity Saturday. I shall talk about that now.
   So Saturday was our zone activity called a sector slam, basically when the whole zone of Missionaries (18) go to one sector and dominate it; pass by inactives and less actives and knock doors and do street contacts. That turned out super good! All the Missionaries worked hard and found success. We also had some of the hermanos from the ward go out with soe of the Missionaries so that there could be more people. But yeah, it turned our to be a big success and we got lots of references.
  Oh yeah, so Friday during our planning session with Cesar, a guy from the Bishopric asked if us three could give talks cuz he said the other speakers wouldn't be able to make it. Oye, so me and Elder Hastings were up late writing talks.
  So sunday came and we had a higher than average number of people in church, which is good! We had some of the people we had worked with in the week come. And to top it all off, in the morning the guy from the bishopric said that one of us didn't have to give our talk, and guess who was the first to volunteer :D Yup, so I didn't have to give a talk. It felt like a giant weight was off my shoulders. But we did sing a song in Sacrament meeting haha, us three. Me Elder Hastings and Cesar. Who woulda known I would do that. Not even me. We sang called to serve, but the first verse in Spanish and the second and third in English. The ward got a kick out of that haha. Cuz Cesar has pretty decent English so we could do it.
   After church were the baptisms of Marcella and Valery, it was super good. This family is absolutely amazing. They're gonna be extremely faithful members for the rest of their lives I think. The Baptism turned out super good, very spiritual. I got to baptize Valery. Oh yeah, David also got the priesthood on Sunday! What a day for that family!
   After the baptism we went to their house for lunch and to celebrate Valery's birthday at the same time. Chileans are so weird. They have a very strange custom, where they sing happy birthday, the person blows out the candle, then the person has to take a bite out of the cake. Just like stick their whole mouth on it and bite it. And the purpose of it is so that someone can smash their face in the cake....They know its coming but still do it anyway. How weird. But pretty funny. Yup, then we headed back to the pension for the night, awating the call for cambios(transfers) DUM DUM DUM.
   So we all sat by the phone, we all meaning the 4 missionaries in the pension, awating the call. It eventually came at 11:30 at night. And basically it's like American idol or who wants to be a millionaire and the guy says "Elder Hastings........with a big pause.......se queda (you stay) or se va (you leave) and that's it. So the call came and we got the news. "Elders Braden and Burton, se quedan. Elder Hastings and Elder Mayberry, thank you very much for your hard work and baptisms this cambio. Elder Hastings.......se queda, Elder Mayberry......se va: Gracias Elders." So that was it. I was leaving! I really really didn't wanna go and we were both sure we were gonna stay. So needless to say I was a little disappointed. Having helped a lot of people and coming to love them and I was gonna leave, not knowing if I'll see them again. So that was disappointing cause I won't be able to see the family Rocco Perez, or other investigators or whatnot. But it's ok. I did what I had to do there and there are people waiting for me here in my new sector. So this morning Elder Hastings and I went to where all the people that were leaving were gonna meet and we met and the Mission President talked to us, Missionaries that were going home bore their testimonies (which was super cool and powerful) and then we received our new assignments. I'm now in the zone La Reina, ward La Valle. Its way north of where I used to be in Puente Alto. My comp is Elder Evans, he's probably like six five or something. He's pretty cool. I think it'll be a good transfer with him.
   So yup, here I am in my new sector. I'm super excited to get to work here, because I know I'm here for a reason. Two scriptures for you guys. 2 Nephi 2:24, which is a good scripture if you wonder why something has happened or something, and Mosiah 2:41.
   Church is so true, I love this work. Its absolutely amazing! I'm so excited to do this for the next year and many months haha.
 
Lots of love,
Elder Aaron Mayberry
I'll send pictures next time, im out of time now, sorry!