November 19th-25th

Hello Friends and Family!

Well this week didn't go as planned. We had kind of a crazy week.

We were planning on having 4 baptisms this week... but only came through with two. Our Mission Leader is not willing to take time off work, or try and work with us to baptize Ricardo. He has chosen to push his Baptism date back another month. We are hoping that he doesn't lose interest. If he does... It will be our mission leaders fault. We have tried everything we can to try and get Ricardo to choose someone else to baptize him. Nothing will change his mind. We are now having to wait until the 22 of December.

We had our interviews this week with Evelin, Rodrigo, and Cristobal. I have literally never been so worried, and so frustrated in my mission with an INV. She tells us one thing and during the interview tells our ZL the opposite. She had told us she had stopped drinking tea and was reading and everything. She gets into the interview and says she hasn't done anything. I was really frustrated with her. Obviously she didn't pass the interview. But her two kids knew everything. They passed the interview and somehow managed to make it to the baptismal font. With all of us fasting and praying all week, and many phone calls from there mom with doubts, we managed to get them into the water on Saturday.

After Evelin failed her interview we went to a store to buy some herbal tea. We ended up running into the ex President. He asked us how we were doing and told him that we had a family that the mom failed the interview. He asked us who it was and we told him... He then told us that Evelin the mom, had been baptized in 1989. We ended up having to call the office and send her name into SLC to see if she is member. We are still waiting for an answer. ha

Saturday was awesome! One of the most Spiritual baptisms I have ever had. My Comp and a member ended up baptizing the two kids. Our mission leader wasn't there and everything went really smooth. The family and friends obviously felt the spirit but had fun. It was really just kind of a relaxed baptism. Rodrigo, we aren't quite sure what is wrong with him but he has a couple health problems. We don't know if he is handicapped or autistic. But his mom said he can't remember the things he learns in school but caught on really quick with the stuff we taught him. He knew all of the ten commandments. We taught him the ten commandments with hand actions and he caught on right away. We were still debating if he needed to be baptized but he passed the interview and understood everything we taught him. After his baptism, while everyone was welcoming him in, he started crying. It was a really spiritual moment. We know that he ended up feeling something.

Sunday was a busy day for me. We got to church and I ended up having to give the opening prayer, Bless the sacrament, and do two confirmations. During the confirmation of her two kids, Evelin started to cry. It was really cool. We have been visiting a lot of the members and less actives and a lot of the recent converts and this week the total number of people in church was 67. We are now breaking numbers of 4 of the WARDS in our Zone. We are a BRANCH and we are getting more people to church than the 4 wards in our zone. The ZL's, Assistants, and President have all called to say how great of job we are doing. We have doubled the number since I got here.

The assistants had called me during the week and said they were coming to Coihueco to do a mini cambio with us. I was a little nervous because there are really two reasons why they do them...

1.We have been disobedient or have been doing something wrong (I knew it wasn't the reason)

2. They are looking for future leaders.

I had also called president to help us get rid of the stupid dog because more people had been stopping us telling us that if we were really representatives of Christ we would give it food and water. (missionary handbook Specifically says do not give food to any animal). If I could I would go back in time and beat the stupid elder that had the genius idea of giving this dog food. President said he was going to send the Assistants out to help us. The Assistants came but without the truck... Which means they were looking for future leaders.

Just like every mini cambio, all of our appointments fell. We did end up teaching 3 lessons with 4 new people.

I have learned again this week that Chile has THE BEST FRUIT! We bought a kilo of strawberries for about $2. We have been munching on strawberries and bananas all week.

We have had an investigator that hasn't really been progressing that we decided to drop for a little. We ended up visiting her again and she now wants her daughter to get baptized. She isn't married and is living with her boyfriend. Her next door neighbor would always whistle and yell out the window at me. We decided to pass by her house one day and she let us in. To our surprise she was pretty much golden. She accepted a date right away and said she would go to church this next Sunday. She and her daughter are preparing for the 29 of December. Her name is Maria and her daughter is Valentina.

This weekend I ended up getting a pretty bad cold. We had so much to do I couldn't really take any time to sleep or try and get over it. We had tried just about everything to try and get rid of it. A member told us we needed to go buy honey and some lemons, mix the two and drink it. They also said Honey with Garlic. I tried them both and it worked like a miracle. I can actually breathe today. We couldn't find honey anywhere and we ended up finding a house that sells it. An older man walked out and told us "NO NO NO." We told him wait, we just want to buy honey. He then said okay come on in. We walked in, talked to this older couple and they ended up giving the honey to us for free and then we ended up teaching him. It was really funny. I'm gonna start making up excuses to get into houses. "No we just need to use the bathroom, no we just need some water...!" I think it will work haha.

Well we are going to find a lot of people this week and hopefully get them with baptismal dates. We are going to have a couple weeks without baptisms. We kind of stopped finding people because we were really worried about the people we had.

Yes I finally have been getting some sleep. I found a natural sleeping pill that is amazing. I'm sleeping like a baby now.

I would like some new pants. My other pair ripped and now I only have my skinnies. I would like another pair of those though. I don't need pajamas.

Not much else happening. Love you all and miss you tons.

Elder Torgersen