Elder Aaron's Christmas letter!

Hello Everyone!

   Its that time of year again, Christmas time! How exciting it is. Me and Elder Evans are in the spirit and have been wearing christmas themed ties a lot recently. Especially the musical ones that I got. I wear one and he wears the other and we just dominate the streets of Santiago with Christmas music, even though people look at us weird sometimes haha. The members absolutely love these ties though. Its pretty funny how entertained they are by something not too exciting. Thats just how chileans are though.
   Ok, so the subject of the email. So the elections aren't actually over. I thought that Piñera won. He did get the most percentage. But there were 4 candidates running, and piñera got like 44% And Chilean law states that a person must have over 50% to win. So they have to do elections all over again on the 17th of January. But only the top two guys are going at it now, Piñera and Frei. So then there shall be an actual winner.

Anyway, about me and the life of a missionary...
   This week was pretty good. Actually a little more than pretty good. We had some nice things happen. So last Saturday, I forget if I told you or not, but we found this kid named Juan Jose. Hes 11 and the grandson of a woman who goes to church every week. We kinda found him by chance and asked if he wanted to watch a movie with us. We watched and then invited him to church the next day (last sunday). He came. Then we went over and taught him the first lesson on Wednesday, and put a baptismal date, asking, if you are ready and knew the church was true would you be baptized the 27th? He said yeah, and agreed to read 3 Nephi 11 and pray about it. We set up a return appointment for the next day. We come back, and, whatdyaknow, he read the part three times and prayed and felt good about it. Investagator of gold! Haha, a nice little present from heaven, that we received at the very end of the change. So that is pretty darn cool. He is definitely getting baptized the 27th and we´ve taught him all the lessons already. So that was so cool. All our hard work in the beginning of the change has been returned to us with this nice little blessing.
   In other investigator news.....Alexis is still going strong. We´ve taught him everything now. He knows that it's a big decision to make in his life though and has already committed to keeping the word of wisdom and tithing when he gets baptized. He just still is a little lacking in something. He might get baptized this Sunday, the 27th, he might not. Just depends on if he feels good about it. He realizes that its a huge decision to make and for this he is a little hesitant. I'm positive that he will get baptized, it just might be a little later than we thought. But hes still good.
A dog has just entered into the internet cafe. And no one even gives it a second thought. We are in Chile.
   I don't know if I ever told you abotu María Zuñiga? The super old woman we´ve been teaching? Well she's about 70. Maybe older. You just can't tell here in chile cuz when people get older here it shows, like a lot more than in the States. Well we´ve been teaching her for a while. And she never went to church cuz she is SUPER stubborn and employs one of Chile´s favorite phrases of all time every time we ask her.....Si Dios quiere (if God wants). Well she finally went to church yesterday! So that's super cool. Also a neat coincidence, the grandma of Juan Jose is in the same little group of old people that take little vacations, so she already has a friend in the church! So she could be a potential baptism next change, assuming I stay though. I honestly don't know what'll happen cuz of what happened last change.
    So yeah, those are our investigators. We´ve just been teaching them a lot during the week. Oh yeah, on Wednesday we did divisions again, but I got to stay in the sector and lead it. I was a little nervous at first but it all turned out good. We had good lessons and everything and I didn't get lost or anything lol. I was with Elder Zarate, from Peru. I like being with latin comps, gives me a nice chance to practice my Spanish more, cuz the temptation to speak English while with another gringo is almost impossible to resist.
   Lemme tell you about lunch yesterday. It was with a guy from the stake high council, and he drove us to his house. It was like we took a transporter from Chile to the United States. He lives in a like community of houses, like the ones you see in the states. He has a backyard with grass(weird here) a huge house, and a pool in the backyard.......that is unheard of here. Kids are lucky if they go swsimming in a real swimming pool once a year here. They just unscrew the fire hydrants when they get hot here and stand in front of it. It's quite a sight. But back to this house, it was so cool! I felt like I was in the States again. And then for fun, one of the other elders, Elder Devitry, asked the kids if they spoke english....sure enough they did. They go to a school where they only speak English, and very little Spanish. How cool is that? So the daughters speak pretty good english. Twas funny. Very interesting lunch.
   Hmmm, so what else interesting this week. Oh, theres a Christmas feria in town and I bought a nice fake jersey from one of the Chilean teams and another shirt. That's kinda interesting I guess. Oh, and a pretty funny thing happened at lunch today, which was taco bell haha (not bad, but definitely not the same as the US. Especiazlly cuz the only side they sell is french fries covered in nacho cheese sauce) So we were talking at lunch, me, Elder Evans, Elder Devitry and Elder Saenz(mexicano) Elder Saenz understands English perfectly and speaks really well too, just has a little bit of an accent. Anyway, Elder Saenz was telling us a story in English, then switched over to Spanish halfway through. But the funny thing is is that no one noticed that he did it until after, cuz we all just understood either way. Then I was like, he switched from English to Spanish, did you notice? And no one did. Just a pretty cool thing, when you dont even realize that someone is speaking a different language cuz you understand it just the same.
   But yeah, that's about all I got for now. I can't believe it's the last change of this week already! Thats crazy! And its Christmas on Friday! And I get to call home?!?!?! How exciting of a time it is. Church is true, excited to talk to you all on Christmas! Love you all!

Feliz Navidad!
Elder Aaron Mayberry