Bennett:
This week was fun and very very wet. It rained so hard here that we had water leaking from the roof in our house! The river rose and filled everything in. So, now my days and area are filled with floating bridges and boats everywhere! The area is getting super worked now. We have 3 more investigators being baptized this Saturday. We are super excited for this week. This is also the last week I'll have with Elder Espinoza :( the dude is such a homie! I'll miss him a lot. So I'll have a new companion next week. The zone is doing just great. Being a zone leader is fun and has taught me a lot about kindness and patience. We will have 13 baptisms this month. It should be a great March. Elder Espinoza and I are doing fantastic work the area Bellavista. We have give or take, 20 investigators and 6-12 investigators in the church on a weekly basis so we are literally working like it was our last change. (hold your applause for Elder Espinoza)
Iquitos is fun. Now we are going into winter so that means it will just rain more like 3 times a day instead of 2 and the temperature will be the exact same, if not hotter. Having 19 months is kinda weird. Everyone looks at me as if I had 20 years more than that. Along with my group, we are the oldest North American missionaries here in the mission. Like we are SUPER OLD here. There are not a lot of people close to our time in the mission. Also, I'm making some bracelets for the missionaries as a little gift for their work this transfer. There are some cool red seeds here in the jungle. I hope they'll like them 'causeI I've been working my butt off to make 'em!
Love you all!
Here's some floating bridges in my area. It's about 10 feet to the bottom under them. All the surface is covered with plants! During my time on these bridges I've seen huge piranhas and electric eels and turtles, lizards and all sorts of animalitos. Also, the bag is full of the seeds I've using for the bracelets and they aren't painted! Red and black is the natural color of these seeds!
Jackson:
Hey guys!!
I'm in Puerto Montt today!! But I'll get to that later!! This week was really awesome! I'm saying that because if I don't I'll break down and cry! haha I miss the beach and sunshine of California! This was the first week that it really felt like winter, it poured and rained and wailed and howled! We got hit with a huge storm from the mountains and it covered us for almost the whole week! It was sunny on Monday, so we left the window open that night and I woke up at 3 am in a soaking wet sleeping bag!! It started to rain and I sleep right next to the window! I was so cold, I still don't feel warm from that still. It's pretty hard to know that it's going to be like that for the rest of my mission!! But despite that, this was an awesome week!! We worked really hard with the members! The branch here has been hit with a lot of trials lately and although we can't do much, we can make cookies. And who doesn't love a huge gringo with a horrible accent(me)?! Juan, who was baptized last week, got the priesthood this week!! I love how quick he moved forward! I had the privilege to confirm him last week and to give him the priesthood this week! Its the first time that I've done either of those things! It was a unique and emotional moment for me to say to someone "Receive the Holy Ghost." the power of God manifests itself in the power and firmness of those words. The same thing goes when confirming the priesthood upon an eligible young man!! I'm excited to see Juan serve the Sacrament in church next week, the first young man to do so in this branch for 5 years!! Even though I've only known Juan for a few weeks, it feels like my son is all grown up and I'm an empty nester! Is this how it feels to be old dad?! haha
This was the first week of school in Chile! I live here and I don't think I'll ever get the reverse seasons thing down! But, since school is starting up we will be able to see everyone a lot more, because they'll be sticking around for school!! Another highlight of the week was seeing Eileen, an inactive young woman three months ago, come to church, take the Sacrament, stay all three hours, and go to the young woman's conference in Chiloe, which is a 7 hours by bus and not cheap to get to!! We stayed the night with Elder HOBBS!!! WOOH HOOH!! He and I are gonna have a ton of fun after the mission haha! But I'm in Puerto Montt today, and tomorrow, then off to Valdivia for a zone conference on Wednesday! Then finally back home to San Jose!! I'm still studying Portuguese every day!! Learning other Latin languages is so easy!! I love learning!! Life is real busy here! Its challenging and I love it!!
I love you guys!!
