Halloween in Chile..

Hello again from amazing Santiago. I really love missionary work. I'm sorry, I don't have that much time to write this week, but I have my notes of what I wanna say so hopefully I'll get everything in I wanna say. It took sometime to read marshalls emails but they were well worth it. Thanks Dad.

  So, this week has been quite crazy. I shall explain why. Firstly we had an activity on Saturday night. And we planned it at like the last minute so it was quite stressful. But it turned out alright. It was a noche de hogar de barrio (Ward family home evening). It went well. There was a lot of little kids running around screaming though, which was quite annoying and frustrating when we were trying to do things. But still turned out alright nonetheless.
  Saturday night was also halloween. Halloween is a very new holiday here, only like 5 years old. They still have trick or treating, but only little kids go. And the funny thing is that no one likes the holiday. Everyone thinks it's some kind of demonic satan worshipping day. So it's not near as popular here. It's pretty funny when we talk about how it's a super big holiday and everyone celebrates, even all the wards have big parties. They're all in shock when we tell them this- haha. They also don't comprehend that people dress up as whatever they want. Here its only like scary things. This adds to people thinking its a witchcraft holiday, people don't realize you can dress up as other things.
   Sunday we had the baptisms of Camila and Christian, the kids of a woman named Rosa, who was baptized like 3 years ago. So that was good. They're 11 and 8, but both have a good knowledge of the gospel and the support of the mom, which is the most important aspect. She's a solo mom, but she has been working on reactivating and in doing so wanted her children to be baptized. Hence, we taught them and baptized them. It was really cool. I'll send some pictures next week because I don't have enough time this week (sorry!!).
   On Sunday also was the confirmations of Ximena and David, who were baptized last sunday. It's always stressful, in this ward at least, cuz there was two people who were baptized and never confirmed. So it's always a fear that they won't come the following Sunday to be confirmed. But we passed by the house Sunday morning to make sure that they were awake, and David answered the door and said that only he was going to go...Ximena was sick. So we left feeling quite discouraged. The only thing we could do was tell them how important it was. David said he was gonna talk to her. But we had faith and prayed and a little before the sacrament they came in and were confirmed! What a relief. But all is well now. We have a family home evening with them after this. We´re gonna play the card game spoons and make fanta floats. They're both things that are super strange to the people here but they love it- haha. We made the fanta floats for the activity and they were a huge hit. They just havent thought of putting soda and ice cream in the same cup. Well now they know.
   We´ve been teaching this family, the family Martinez. They used to be inactive, but the parents decided to reactivate themselves and the family. The youngest son, Fransico Javier is 13 and was never baptized so we´ve been teaching him. He's doing good and has progressed a lot and wants to be baptized. The date is for this Sunday, and I'm pretty sure it's gonna happen. It's amazing how this gospel blesses families and everone and I love seeing it do so here. But the dad in the family reminds me a lot of you, dad. Hes balding, and the last time we saw him he had recently cut his hair and he does the same thing you do, shave it almost all off haha. And he is a mechanic and always smells like grease when we get there cuz he gets home late. And to top it off one night he gave us a ride back to the pension in his work truck which was a super big truck that barely fit in the tiny street. Reminded me of when you used to give us rides in the big trucks :)
   We´re still teaching the daughters of Ximena and David. The youngest turns 8 on the 12th of November so she has a baptismal date for the 15th. And we´re working with the older daughters to get them on the same date. One of the daughters, Marcella, age 14, has made extreme progress this week. She used to have no interest in what we had to say and would stay in her room and chat the whole time, but now she comes down voluntarily when we come over and has attended activities. So that's been really cool to see her progress.
  Well that's all I got for this week. I love this work so much and am so glad to be here in Santiago preaching the gospel! Church is true!
Con mucho amor,
Elder Aaron Mayberry