Happy Half Christmas!!

Hello Friends and family

How is everyone doing? Well this week it stopped raining but it has been freezing cold. They are saying tomorrow it is supposed to be 4 degrees C. and is supposed to snow here in Chillán. We will see what happens. My comp has never seen snow so i´m kinda hoping it does. Well this week has been kinda normal. Nothing to big happening.

 

We went to the doctor Friday and this morning. They ended up doing the electrode thing with the ultra sound. It´s starting to feel a whole lot better. It is just kind of a pain taking an hour out of our morning to do it.

 

This week we have found a lot of new people but they have all been nuts. While we pray they shout and yell AMEN, or Si Señor. it is so annoying and distracting. They claim that they understand the bible but I have no idea which bible they are reading. It is so amazing how lost or how stupid people can be with the bible. One lady kept telling us that the bible is the word of god and there isn´t anymore. I made her read 2 nephi 29: 7-11. She then finally said she would pray and ask god if she should read it. I was so frustrated. I was ready to smack her over the head with the BoM. She just couldn´t get it into her head that the Book of Mormon was written by the prophets here in the Americas. Obviously she didn´t understand verse 9 of chapter 29. ¨because that I have spoken one ^cword ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my ^dwork is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever.¨ We have had a week of people like that. We were a little frustrated.

 

GOOD NEWS!!!!! We met with Robinson and he finally accepted a fecha to be baptized. He and his daughter are getting baptized the 21 of July! We are meeting with them tonight to talk more. It has been awesome to see a complete change in him from not wanting to be baptized again to wanting to get baptized with his daughter.

 

We had a lesson with the single mom that has two kids. the little kid that was sick and crying until I took him... We met with her and taught her about the Restoration. She understood everything and it made complete sense. Her mom came in and was sitting next to the wood stove and then asked us a random question about God. Her parents would always go in the back room when we got there. She had started to listen a little when she randomly asked a question. We then taught her about baptism and she started ragging on her own religion. She started asking us why the catholic church does some of the things they do. She was basically like ¨why am I catholic, just because it´s a ¨tradition¨ in my family.¨ She told us she would be baptized but only if she doesn´t get her face wet. She was a little worried about that. She almost drowned when she was little so she is deathly scared of water. Don´t worry we are working on it! ;)

 

After the mom came in the dad soon followed. We had already finished teaching. So we started talking to him about work. He finally opened up and started really talking to us. He takes the packing crates and makes pictures frames. He uses the same metal things that dad uses for shutters and they are actually pretty cool looking. It reminded me of dad and his shop. I think the next time we teach them they will all listen.

 

We decided to have a dinner for our neighbor who helped me buy the camera. The last hour on Saturday we had a little dinner for her. She is the Girlfriend of our neighbor that is a member. They are getting married at the end of the year so we decided to have a little dinner for her celebrating that, her birthday, and for helping us get really good discounts. It was really cool. She was really surprised when she opened the door to find us all in the house with a dinner made.

 

Saturday morning we helped an older lady that is in our ward. She lives kinda far away and during the storm she had three huge trees fall. We had to use an axe and a saw to cut it up and take it out. It took us three hours to take out the first half. The biggest tree I have ever seen. We really could´ve used dads machines. A chainsaw would have been awesome.

 

We are teaching a family that started out as the dad and a daughter and now it is the dad, the daughter, three other daughters, and two friends. A couple of them are a little snakey and kinda scare me. We went by to teach them yesterday and the friend that isn´t really cute... asked me what I was doing this weekend. I told her I would be teaching and visiting families. She said that there is a car race and she has no one to go with. She asked me if I would go with her.... Never before would I think I´d get asked out on my mission. I told her I couldn´t go and after that she was kinda mad. I´m thinking we are going to have to drop her... she doesn´t seem like she will progress. Luckily she isn´t there very much. My comp busted up laughing after we left and said that he´s never had a comp that has had a snake so bad.

 

This last week we went to a recent converts house and she ended up giving us her old oven that she just took out. We celebrated our awesome find by making German pancakes. We found out that the missionaries before could have walked around the block to get a free oven, and a couple free couches. Our house has been destroyed by other missionaries. The walls are covered in mold and who knows what. I took our multi tool, or broom, and some bleach water to clean the walls. It drives me nuts that none of the other missionaries care for the houses and then we have to deal with it.

 

Well not much has happened this week. I was a bummed to hear Megan lost her baby. Tell her I am praying for her. I can not believe it has been a year since Cristian was baptized that seems like yesterday. Tell him Happy Birthday for me. That´s funny you saw Julie in the store. I have always kinda thought she was cute.  We were eating lunch at a members house and heard about the fire in Utah on the news. We had heard it has burned a ton of acres of land. Tell dad to choose the shop that is the biggest, best, and cheapest... haha Tell Tonto to not be tonto and bleach his hair. I can only imagine what it looks like. Curly hair in a Mohawk bleached blond? what was he thinkin? I wanna see the backyard. Send me a picture of the retaining wall. I wanna see how it turned out.

 

July 8th we will know what happens with cambios. It is a really good chance that my comp goes. We had a stake conf. yesterday and president and his wife showed up. Prez asked my comp how long he had been there and he said 6 months and prez just said pffff.... adios. There is a good chance within the next couple cambios I could be either training or a Sr. Comp. We have 11 people leaving this cambio and 26 leaving the next. The mission is about to become really young.

 

Also tell the primary thanks a lot for the Books of Mormon. The testimonies were awesome. I am looking to give them to someone and translate their testimonies.

 

Well thank you all for everything. Thanks for the support and prayers. I love you all and miss you tons.

 

Con amor,

Elder Torgersen

June 18th

Hello Friends and family!

How is everyone doing this lunes? Well it has been raining almost this whole week. We have only had a couple hours of sunshine throughout the week. It has been pretty much raining all week though. It has been quite funny this week. We´ve been doing a lot of contacts.

This week while doing contacts we decided to mix it up a little and joke around a little. We were trying to say stuff interesting to make people listen or make your companion bust up laughing. We were doing a contact and my comp was talking to a older lady and she said she was catholic. My comp then asked, ¨oh so how long have you been in Apostasy?¨ she replied with, ¨oooohhhh mucho tiempo... since I was a little kid¨ I couldn´t help but laughing. The next contact was even worse.... We contacted a guy that thought he could speak English. He kept trying to tell me the shampoo head and shoulders means head and neck. We told him we could teach him a little English and he said he had talked to elders like us before. Also he told us I know about all the different churches. I´ve talked to the catholic church, the evangelicos, and the testic.... testigos de jehova.¨

He almost said testiculos. My comp and I busted up laughing and couldn´t stop. Totally inappropriate but I couldn´t stop laughing. The whole day was filled with funny things like that.

Tuesday morning we had a surprise conference. We found out Monday night that we had a conference in the morning. It was a really great conference. Tell the ward thanks for the two BOM´s the kids testimonios were awesome. But... I don´t know what to tell them. We get boxes of BOM every 3 weeks. We have a ton. and it cost $18 to send 2 to me. I don't know what to do. I feel like that´s a waste because we get them for free and it cost so much to send them.

We were supposed to go to the doctor on Wed but my comp called the doctor and forgot to tell me that we had to go in between 8-10. I was a little bothered about that. When he wants to do something We have to do it right then. If I have to buy something, go to the doctor, cut my hair, etc... then we have to wait. All of the comps I have had have been like that. I don´t know how to deal with it because it drives me nuts.

Last weekend Benjamin had a meeting with the bishop to receive the priesthood. This last Sunday he received it. He was really excited. We are trying to work on his parents now. He is going to be awesome. He told us he wanted to serve a mission. The ward is really good at inviting new members in a really taking care of them.

We have been teaching the family of 5 with the 3 little girls. Their family is awesome. We watched the Joseph smith movie with them and after I had a feeling to share the book of Mormon with them. The were all saying before that it was hard to believe that god and Jesus Christ appeared to him. We shared the BOM with them and the dad said he was going to start reading it the next couple of days. They told us at the end of the lesson that the story of JS. was a little crazy but we have evidence that it happened. They said they are starting to change their minds.

I got the name of the ropa lady. Her full name is Carmen Yeny Rivas Freire. President said if you send something send it to me through the mission and If I´m still here I can give it to here... If not the other missionaries can. Hermana Yeny likes to cook so the store you work at is perfect. Hermana Humphrey said to buy the silpat for her. I don´t know what you had in mind.

The scarf you bought me was kinda crappy. I´ve tried to wash it but it doesn´t matter the thing scratches my neck. I´ve bought a couple other cheap ones that are great.

The answer to Chris´ question is... that the mission has had a lot of new missionaries come in so they took all the DVD players to see which ones worked, which ones needed to be fixed and which ones needed to be tossed. I haven´t had a chance to even watch one video yet. I think I´m going to keep the Dvd´s in my back pack for when we teach families with little kids. Which leads on to my next question... We have the neighbor that works in store where I got the camera... She told us we could buy a really nice personal DVD player for pretty cheap. The problem is most of the families here Have a TV but don´t have a DVD player or can´t find the remote. I can buy a cable to use with a personal DVD player to use when teaching with videos to use with their TV. I don´t know if that is an option or what?

Well not much else has happened this week. It has been kind of slow and a lot of contacts. Well Love you guys and miss you tons.

Con Amor,

Elder Torgersen

Great Week

Hello friends and family!
Well we have had quite an awesome week this week. We have had a lot of success.

Well this week we had to have an interview for Benjamin. Elder Baucom
came to our sector and My comp ended up going to his. We had an
awesome experience with Benjamin and his mom. His mom and I had to
leave the room while they did the interview. During the interview I
told his mom that this first year is going to be toughest for him as a
member. I told her that he is going to need some support from the
family. She said that it was his decision to be baptized and she and
his dad had a meeting with him saying that whatever he did they would
support him. She then went on to thank me and my comp for teaching
him. She told me before he had not been doing well in school, fighting
with his parents, and being messy. She told me when we started
teaching him, he completely changed. She had noticed a huge change and
was really impressed. She said I don´t know what you guys did or how
you did it but thank you. She said he is better behaved and reads and
prays every night before bed. It was really cool.

After his interview E´ Baucom told me that he had never interviewed a
joven that had been so prepared. He told me that he understood the
doctrine and the actual scriptures behind the restoration. He is
awesome. The bishop met with him on Sunday to receive the priesthood.
He is pretty excited. The only problem... He doesn´t have church pants
or a tie. I´m going to go to Lider or accuenta and buy a couple ties
for $2 and give them to him.

We went over to his house Saturday to fill out his registro and his
parents were asking cualquier pregunta about the church and his
baptism and basically everything. I honestly think we could baptize
the whole family. That has been one of my metas on my mission to
baptize a family. So pray that his family will open up and listen to
us and get baptized. One of the questions his dad asked was ¨whats the
difference between the Catholic church and the Mormons?¨ Benjamin
answered him perfectly saying ¨Dad, the Church of Jesus Christ is the
true church! That´s the difference!¨ I thought that was awesome!

Friday we had the baptism and I got to baptize him! MY SECOND PERSONAL
BAPTISM!! Benjamin was really excited. After the actual baptism he
ended up diving into the water and started to swim to the stairs. It
was quite funny.

Saturday we played baby soccer on the basketball court/baby courts
with the youth in the ward along with a couple inv´s and Benja. I”m
getting pretty good at soccer. Our bishop told me that I´m the best
gringo he´s seen play soccer. I thought he was kidding but he was
serious. Which reminds me... My shoes are falling apart and I need
something better to use in soccer...

We helped out Hermana Yeny our ropa lady. I sent a pic with her
grandson so you guys could see her. She had a little shade thing hung
from the wall to her house that was falling down that I ended up
fixing alone while my comp played soccer with her other grandson. My
comp is a little lazy when it comes to service. Our neighbor is a
little older and her little white fence during our crazy weather fell
over. She asked us to fix it and my comp tried to contact her about
teaching her. She said that she wasn´t going to change her beliefs. He
later told me he wasn´t going to serve anyone that wouldn´t get
baptized. I thought that was a little wierd. Our neighbor glares at
him when we walk by and then she says hola mi amor when I walk by. Or
something like that. It is really funny.

Chile played on Saturday against Venezuela and we have found out it is
worthless to try and contact or teach during that hour. We ended up
going to Benjamin”s to fill out his registro. I ended up learning how to
make Empanadas and Sopaipillas while watching a little bit of the game
with Benjamin and his mom. People are absolutely crazy about soccer
down here. It´s insane. Let´s just hope Chile doesn´t lose. I´m afraid
of what might happen.

Cristobal and his little brother kept saying bad swear words in
English... I finally had a great Idea. I asked them if they wanted to
learn the worst swear word in English. I told them they couldn´t say
it in front of their parents or anyone cuz it was super bad. I told
them in a whispered voice baptize me! They ended up walking around all
day saying baptize me! It was really funny and my comp just about died
laughing.

I needed to buy a couple things this last week because it has been so
cold. I bought three long sleeve shirts and a couple pairs of socks,
and a couple more scarves. (I couldn´t remember the word for bufanda
in English) My English is getting horrible.

I´m working on the letters. I´m horrible at writing them. Tell Colt
thanks for the letter and also Megan. It was nice to hear from them.
Also tell Chris thanks for his letter. It finally came through.

Well not much else this week. Thank you all for the prayers and
support. Tell Traci I will be fasting and praying for her. Tell her I
used her story of how we fasted and prayed for her in my talk about
fasting. Tell her stay positive and pray. Well I love you guys!
Elder Torgersen

June 1st

Hello friends and family!

How is everyone doing? Hope fully mom feels better and dad gets
better. Tell him he needs to stop getting sick. Well, I had written a
letter and tried to add pictures and then my letter disappeared. It´s
not in my Drafts either. SO.. here we go again.

Well not much has happened this week. We did have a pretty cool lesson
with a younger lady with two kids. She has two kids, a ten year old
and a 10 month old baby. The baby had been sick and was screaming and
crying when we got to her house. She looked like she was about to lose
it. Anything she did he would cry. I finally decided to take him. The
second I took him he stopped crying. I distracted him while my comp
taught. My comp was able to teach her and she actually accepted a date
to be baptized. After the lesson she asked me how I did it. I told Her
I didn´t know and she said I have a gift with little kids. I thought
it was pretty cool.

I did receive three letters this week. One from Traci, Grandma
Kratchen, and Valentines day cards from forever ago. (thanks mom).
Thank you all for the letters.

Thursday I got a really bad aching pain in my shoulder like I had had
before but worse. At lunch we talked to brother in the ward and he
ended up checking my arm and shoulder and he said that I have
inflammation and little balls inside the muscles of my shoulder and
along my shoulder blades. He also said that my trap is tighter than he
has ever seen. The wife of the bishop works in massage and muscles and
I had her check it also and she said the same thing. I have been
taking pills but nothing helps. I´ve tried to not sleep on it but It
still aches in the morning. I talked to presidents wife and she set up
a time to go get it checked. I was worried she was going to call you
guys. I knew she would. Did it worry you guys? What else did she have
to say? I absolutely love her she is a hoot. She is totally spoiled.
President is loaded and she told us one day during a conference that
¨President makes the money and she spends it.¨ It is quite funny. She
is totally decked out with jewelry and purses. She is hilarious
though. She basically is the mission mom.

This week we will have the interview with Benjamin to be baptized this
week end. We are pretty excited. He took our phone the other day to
see what day his baptism was. He also put an alarm in his phone to
remind him of everything. for ex... lessons, interviews, baptism...
He is awesome. We had a really cool lesson with him and a joven in our
ward. They are pretty much best friends now. But the kid in the ward
is about 6 feet tall and he is pushing 5.

What´s the latest on JD? How´s he doing? Anyone else?

Tell Grandma Torgersen to feel better and that I love her. You guys
can´t sell their house. We´ve got too many memories their. And if we
were to go down there where would we stay?

Tell Traci and Dan I will be praying for them.

You tell me I need to label my pictures... I do. and you still have
troubles with it. Her name is Antonia. She´s ten years old and the
cousin Of Cristobal. Also I will find out the address and full name of
our ropa lady. She is awesome. We were playing soccer and I ended up
getting a grass stain all up the side of my shorts and garments. I
took them to her and said sorry hermana but I don´t know how your
going to clean this. I feel bad whenever I have something really dirty
or a lot to clean. She told me not to worry. She even cleaned the
extra sheets I had (since I haven´t washed them since I got here.
Finally bought a second set) She is awesome. She makes sure we don't
need anything and always gives us bread or cake when we pick up the
clothes.

We talked to our Bishop this last week for about an hour for ideas for
the ward, contacts, and lessons. He told us all about the funny
situations he had. He told us he was doing contacts in an apartment in
a hall. His comp spread out across the hall, got above the door with a
book of mormon and he contacted the house. The lady answered the door
and he introduced himself and said that he had a sacred book from the
heavens... Just then his comp dropped the book into his hands. He said
the lady busted up laughing and ended up getting baptized. He gave us
some great Ideas for contacts and I´m excited to do some. Speaking of
that. Ask Chris where his letter is...? Dad said he sent it but I
never got it.
Also ask dad if he has any creative ways to do contacts or ways to
teach lessons. Anything he can remember from his mission or maybe
people in the ward. I´m just about sick of contacting door to door.

Well this week we decided to drop some people that weren´t keeping
commitments. I hate doing it but they weren´t progressing. This week
we are going to focus on finding news.

Well not much else happened this week. I love you guys and miss you tons.

Con amor,
Elder Torgersen

Chilean Weather Baby!!!

Hello Friends and Family!

Well this has been quite the hectic week. We have had some crazy
weather and it has rained for almost a week straight.

This week has been insane. Friday I had to go to another sector while
our DL came to do our interview for Antonia. Of course, I had to go
work with the Weird Elder. We left our house at 4:15 and went to take
a colectivo. He flagged down a number 32. I asked him isn´t it a 40
that we take to go to your house. He told me that he had been there
longer so he knew the number. Guess which number it really was... A
40!! We ended up being really far away from their house and had to
walk forever. We got to the house, I dropped my stuff and was ready to
leave. He messed around doing who knows what for about an hour. He
went to the bathroom and messed around. During this time I´m telling
him, Hey we gotta go. He finally is ready by about 6. We lost about an
hour and a half because of this stupid elder. He has 2 cambios less
than me and thinks he can boss me around. So... we finally leave the
house and we go to do contacts. He turns to me and says ¨can you
contact this house. I´m not very good at it. Can you show me an
example?¨ I ended up doing almost all of our contacts. I told him he
needed to do contacts to get better. Our lunch was kinda small so by
about 9 I was starving. I told him I was going to a negotio to buy
something and he tells me ¨no, we need to be diligent.¨ The whole time
I´m thinking, Ok and wasting an hour and a half is...? I was ready to
drop this kid. He also had on his big rain coat,rain boots, a huge
umbrella, and everything in plastic bags. It wasn´t even raining!! It
had rained in the night and the ground had puddles but it wasn´t
raining. He made sure to walk around every puddle, (he had rain boots
on up to his knees). The next morning our Zone leaders who live in the
same house asked him if we are going to do service. He tells our ZL that
he didn´t want to lose his energy for the day by doing service. I
asked him what the reason was of why he was here then if he wasn't
going to serve. He kept quiet. I was miffed at this kid. He´s really
strange and wears a cowboy hat while working. The members think he is
really weird. Even the members in our ward ask us who the Elder is
that wears the cowboy hat. I´m not sure what to do with him. We found
out he is getting transferred tomorrow. We just finished my 5th cambio.
I think I will have one more cambio with E´ Gordón.

Antonia passed her interview and Saturday we were supposed to have a
baptism. Saturday morning we had winds from 60 to 70 MPH. These
Chilean houses were being ripped to shreds. The metal wavy, roofing
was literally being ripped off of houses. The tops to the chimney
pipes were being ripped off and blown into the air. Trees where broken
off, up rooted, and destroyed. I sent some pictures of Centro De
Chillán. There were huge trees that snapped and had smashed a car. The
members all had the radio on and it was saying not to leave the house.
Our ropa lady was really worried about us. We ended up having to
cancel the baptism because no one would leave their houses. Saturday
after our mini cambio I got a little post it note that said, ¨my
brother from another mother, Elder Torgersen.¨ I opened it to see that
our bishop had given me a talk for Sunday on Fasting and a generous
fast offering. Sunday we got to church and didn´t have any power
because of the storm. I had to give my talk without our lights and a
microphone. This was my first talk where I had written something and
ended up teaching without reading or saying what I had written. A lot
of people told me after that my talk was really good and I actually
spoke perfect Spanish. I felt really calm and felt like I relied on
the spirit. It was an awesome experience. To finish it all up, We had
the Baptism after church.

Well we had an awesome Noche De Hogar with our bishop and Benjamin.
The Bishop gave me a BOM, D&C, NT, and Principles books like Ainsley´s
little Book of Mormon. They are so cool. Benjamin had a blast at this
NDH. His Parents love us and last night we went to visit him and his
dad ran over shook my hand and gave me the biggest hug I´ve ever
gotten. His parents are awesome. I think Benjamin will be an awesome
example for his family.

We are still talking to Robinson about getting baptized again. We are
going to try and baptize his daughter soon. We should have a lot of
baptisms this next month.

Last week I bought the camera I wanted. I found out the camera usually
cost $220. and I got it for $80. It was on sale on top of the discount
the member got me. She said if I wouldn´t have bought it that day it
would have gone up again. I´m really happy with it. The pictures are
amazingly better and I got it for cheap.

Well not else has happened. I love you guys and hope you all feel
better and will stop getting sick.

Con Amor,
Elder Torgersen

Bakan - good, cool, awesome

Hello Friends and Family!!
Well this week was amazing. We have had a lot of success this last
week. Lot´s of great stuff happened. I´m really gonna work on my
letters so that they won´t be worthless...

Well four months later.... And I can say that prayers are eventually
answered. Remember the USB pendrive I lost.... Yeah I was cleaning out
my back pack to make sure nothing would get ruined with the rain. (It
has been pouring rain this last week). I was taking stuff out when I
felt something hard in a really small pocket. I reached in and pulled
out.... MY PENDRIVE. About four months later and I finally found it. I
had thought it had fallen out of my backpack. I´m not like mom and
have stuff appear in my hands. For me it comes 4 months later.

It has been pouring rain and has been super cold. I found an awesome
deal on a couple sweaters. The coat has been awesome in the rain. My cheap shoes I bought are amazing. My comp has been complaining that
his feet are wet from the rain. He got mad because when we got home,
after stomping through puddles... my socks were completely dry.

When I got here in Volcanes the house had a speaker system with a sub
and 5 speakers. This last week we got bored one night and started
cleaning. I fixed our sound system and ran speakers to the kitchen,
our clothes room, our bedroom, and even the bathroom. When we are
taking showers or cooking we can listen to MoTab or Church music. You
should have seen the look on my comp´s face when I started putting the
speaker in the bathroom. He thought I was crazy. He thinks having
speakers throughout the house is awesome.

This last week we had service building onto a house for an older
couple. I wanted to punch the hermano that took charge of it. He
started building from the bottom up on the wall of this house. The way
he was doing things was driving me nuts. We were building an addition
to a house and were building a wall out of 2x4´s He put the bottom
down and started building up. I tried to explain that you build
everything on the ground and then lift it up into place. but no one
listened. He was nailing down the vertical 2x4´s using a plumb, but he
wasn´t even doing it right. It was driving me nuts luckily we had to
leave soon after. It drives me nuts when someone takes charge when
they have no clue what they are doing.

This week has been awesome as far as Investigators. We have found a
ton of great people. We have 2 solid bautismos the next couple weeks.
One is the cousin of the kid we baptized the first week I was here.

The other is young kid about 12 that we found doing contacts. His mom
had shared with the missionaries but hadn´t ever been baptized. He is
awesome. His name is Benjamin. He wants to get baptized so bad. The
ward here is awesome. They accept investigators and RC with open arms.
The first time he came to church the bishop and the counselors invited
him to YM and really paid attention to him. His dad and older brother
would come home while we were teaching and the dad would go upstairs,
come down, shower, go back up, and stay there. This last week we
expected him to do the same but he went up and ended up coming back
down and took a seat behind us. He started listening. Then the next
time we went to their house he actually sat down with us and offered
to drive us to our next cita. We gained the trust of both parents and
we are working on the brother. I really hope we can baptize the whole
family. That has been one of my metas since I have been here. It would
be so cool. During one of the lessons, Benja asked his parents ¨why
don´t you guys go to church? It´s great.¨ The parents told us they
would come the next week. We don´t have to do the inviting... The kid
does it for us. He told us an awesome story the other day. He told his
religion teacher he was getting baptized. The teacher told him he was
wasting his time and he told his teacher ¨No I´m not, they talk about
the prophet Joseph Smith.¨ He is so awesome!!

We had a really spiritual lesson the other day with a single mom. She
has three kids and is having trouble with them. Her 16 year old drinks
and smokes. She told us that she felt something she had never felt in
her life. We explained that it was the spirit. The only thing is she
drinks, smokes and she works as a person that reads cards and hands...
I don´t know what that´s called. She told us she basically does stuff
a little sketchy. She told us she felt so horrible with her life that
she felt like she had killed someone and didn´t know how to get rid of
it. We taught her about BAUTISMO and how she could have that feeling
taken away. She was crying by the end of the lesson. She told us she
had some things to fix before she could get baptized but accepted a
fecha. The only thing is... We haven´t been able to find her lately.
Pray that we find her and she still has the desire to get baptized.

We should have a baptism this next Saturday. The cousin of Cristobal
the kid we baptized the 1st week I got here. She is amazing. Super
smart. She´s only 10 but catches on really quick. In church on Sunday
we couldn´t see her and were super bummed because if she didn´t go
yesterday we couldn´t have the baptism. We looked at her aunt, where
she usually sits, and she wasn´t there. We looked a couple rows
forward and she was seated with another family. We could only see the
back of her head and me and my comp were debating whether it was
really her. She turned her head and we realized it was her. My comp
and I silently fist pumped and bumped fists. It was so awesome. She is
really excited to get baptized. Pray that everything goes right and
she gets baptized.

Also we have a family that everyone is members, at least we thought.
The son that is about 28 didn´t show up on the registro and told us
that he doesn´t remember the date he got baptized. He told us that if
he can´t find the paper he isn´t getting baptized again and won´t go
to church anymore. We are trying to work with him because he has a
daughter that is 9 that isn´t baptized. This family has straight girls
from ages 13-3. They are the cutest little girls I have ever seen. The
youngest one reminds me of Clara. I´ll have to take a picture with
here because I swear she is a Chilean version of Clara. But pray for
their family that they will have a change of heart or find the paper.
He is also the one that wants to change rare Chilean coins for the
state quarters from the states. If you guys could send me some of
those it would be awesome. :)

Also our ropa lady is awesome. She has been really nice and does
whatever she can to get our clothes cleaned as quick as possible. She
even hand washed a couple cheap ties I had baby shampoo. She works
miracles. I was wondering if there was something you could get at
Williams Sonoma or something from your work that wouldn´t be to hard
to ship down here. She has been washing the missionaries clothes for
about 30 years and is just the nicest lady. If you can get anything or
have any ideas... It would be great.

Well I love you guys and miss you tons. I enjoyed speaking with you
guys last week can´t wait for the next time. Gotta write some other
emails!

Con amor,
Elder Torgersen

YEAHHH!

Hello Friends and Family,

Well this week has been kinda funny. Lots of random, funny things happening.

First off, we had Conference this week. Elder Duncan of the Seventy
came to speak to us. He was awesome. I took 6 pages of notes from him.
The night before the conference we found out 4 elders were coming to
stay in our house with us. Wanna take a guess at who it was...? Yep
you guessed it. Last comp, E´ Andrade. Let´s just say the night ended
quickly before it got awkward. I did find out that RAUL AND RAQUELL
ARE GETTING BAPTIZED!!! They were supposed to get married Saturday and
baptized today. We will find out if that happened today.

I did get my package of the coat and the Vitamin C. Thanks, it´s been
getting cold and rainy.

Last week I bought two pairs of shoes for about $20 each. I got a
brown pair and a black pair. I´m going to save one pair for later.
They are actually really nice. I also came clear to Chile to buy a tie
for a dollar from the SLC airport. In the city there are ropa
americanas and I can buy ties for really cheap, usually not the best
ties but I have found a couple cool ones.

This week I found a bag of 1,000 pesos in 1 pesos in our house. I also
had about $80 in reembolsos. ALSO good news... We got a new fridge and
the water problem fixed. We no longer have to go outside to turn the
water on and off.

While at lunch the other day we were talking to a kid that just got
home from his mission in Columbia. He just got called as the Elders
quorum pres. While at lunch his mom brought out one of the biggest
lunches I have ever had. After, He brought out this box filled with
giant Ants. Next thing I know he pops one into his mouth and eats it.
He had brought back a box of hormigas colombianas from colombia.
Thought you guys wouldn´t believe me so I took some pictures of us
eating ANTS! I still cant believe I ate them. They weren´t that bad
though. Yeah, crazy story of the week. I ate ants... One of them had
wings and I had little ant legs stuck in my teeth.

Nobody down here can remember my name so I am known as Elder Thor.
There is a family with a little kid that is about 6 that thinks I
really am Thor because I´m gringo. I felt a little bad the other day
because a girl of a family we were teaching called me ¨missionary¨ and
I said you don´t know my name by now... She got a little embarrassed
and ran off. I had to go apologize to her...

Gotta say Ethan looks pretty ballin in a tux with the truck. Tell him
to stop being such a punk. Little punk needs to go to seminary, clean
up and start acting like a decent young man. Instead of being mean to
the little girls, offer to take them to Walkers to buy a slushy. There
is no point in fighting with little sisters. One, because they are
girls, and two, they are family.

If you can take pics at Chelsey´s wedding and send me pictures of Ally
and her Husband (holy crap that is weird to say). I need to approve of
her pick.

I don´t know who has been sending letters because I haven´t really
gotten any. The last Dear elder I got was from Zach Hulsey. I have his
letter ready to send. Tell him I will send it next week. I have a
couple others like Camille, Elder Harvey, and Kim. Tell Jodee I wrote
her one but lost it when I moved houses. Tell her I´m writing it. I
think I wrote her an email but haven´t heard anything. I will be
praying for Traci. I got a pretty funny letter from her the other day.
Also, an awesome letter from Grandma Kratchen. I got the letters from
the little girls in the ward. Also tell Ansley I love getting her
letters but she needs to say something other than ¨are you having
fun?¨ This definitely isn´t a vacation (and no I didn´t get a spring
break)... But yes I´m having fun.

I was wondering if you guys could buy me a somewhat crappy camera like
a Sony, canon, or samsung. Maybe dad can find something at the pawn
shop or at costco. I just need something small, skinny, and takes good
pictures. I´m often too scared to take my Nikon out and I need
something that is small and takes good pictures.

Well I´m excited to talk to you guys on Sunday. I still feel like I
just talked to you guys. Well I love you guys and miss you tons.

Con amor,
Elder Thor, I mean Elder Torgersen