Estimados amigos,

Whats up!  Man, the Lord is blessing us so much here in Paradise Chacabuco.  This week we have two baptisms planned.  The first is Analia, a little girl who´s mom has been a little less active who we have been working with.  She´s gonna be baptized on December 4, my 21st birthday, NIIIICE!!  Then, on sunday, SPIN´S GETTING BAPTIZED!  YEEEEEEEAHHH BABY!  Honestly, this baptism is going to be really special.  I taught Spin in my last area and to look back and see the progress he´s made is incredible.  The first lesson we taught him was telling him for the first time in his life who God and Jesus Christ were.  Then, yesterday, he bore us his testimony of the organization of the church and the principles taught in the gospel.  Man, it gave me ganas to learn chinese to be able to bear my testimony to him!  But, the Wu and Catala family here in the Congreso stake have really helped out a ton to fellowship and translate for Spin.  This week we just have to teach a few more lessons and have a translated baptismal interview.  We are so blessed.  I compare this to 2 months ago when I was really struggling in my last area.  Well, my blessings came right in time for thanksgiving!  We are also arming a plan to work a lot with the ward counsel and the ward missionaries to find, find, find.  Then, we´re gonna personally work with the recent converts.  That will make two full time teams both working to find, until we will just spend our whole day teaching while they find!  I love it!  Elder Clarke and I really feel like there is a lot of abundance here and we look forward to really establishing the church here.

So, I´ve got a crazy funny story to tell you guys.  Well, I dunno, maybe its not that funny, just something that you wouldn´t see in the US.  When we were returning back to our apartments on Saturday night, we saw a huge crowd walking in front of our house and the park.  It probably stretched 5 blocks.  In  the middle of the crowd was a truck with a giant statue of the virgin mary.  They were singing, chanting, and praying to the statue, heading towards a nearby cathedral.  Well, we had to get to our apartment on time, so we had to join the crowd and walk like 2 blocks with the mary worshippers.  haha  

Well, we´re doing great here and I love you guys. Elder Clarke and I are looking forward to some awesome success here and we´re positive the work here is going to boom.  
Today I had a crispy bacon chicken sandwich from McDonald´s.  Mmmmm.  Just thought you should know.  Pray for Analia and Spin!  I´ll let you know how it goes next week. 

Love you guys!

Elder J. Hales