Elder Cropper #4

It was great talking to you guys yesterday! 

MOM I forgot to wish you Happy Mothers Day and Give you your mothers day present! HAPPY MOTHERS DAY yesteray! We were going to sing for you. I thought about sending you a card but I guess they dont do cards in chile because I couldnt find any. I will record Elder Powner and me singing and I'll send it next week.

So don't worry about the athsma thing if it gets bad I'll just go to the docter. Last night I did what you said and took a shower. Doing that and also having the clean blankets helped me. I didn't have any issues last night. I have also changed the time I take my allergy meds to right after studies instead of right before I go to bed. I feel like those allergy meds take a long time to start working but once they work they go for the 24 hours so that's why I switched it. Try fidiling around with different ways to send them. I know that dad sent me a picture from is iphone with him and miss america so maybe you could do that. 

It was really great to talk to you guys last night but also kinda hard. I can see why they only have us do it 2 times a year. If we did it more we would become so unfocused. So Elder Powner and I reviewed our week yesterday during the night and decided we weren't pushing hard enough. We had 4 baptisms last week and I think we became a little comfortable with that. We erased those names of those investigators from our white board because they arent investigators anymore and now we really only have 3 investigators. 1 is Enrique but he didnt come to church yesterday so even though he had a baptisimal date we have to makie a new one for 3 weeks out. Maria Jose is progressing but she couldnt go to church yesterday because she was in Santiago. Plus she is breaking the law of chastity by living with someone (a common thing in Chile) so we can not make a date with her until she gets married, so were focusing on that. The other investigator we have is a mother in a family. Her kids are members and she is not because her husband didn't want to get baptized. They are living togeather as well so we first have to get them married before we can set a baptismal date. It's going to be hard to work that out though because the husband works in the north and his schedule is something like 2 weeks there 1 week here so he isn't here very often. He is here this week though so we are gonna figure that one out this week. We have other investigators but I wouldn't say they are progressing. Basically Elder Powner and I need to find some goldens this week to really give the work here a boost. So this week is gonna be the do or die week!

That's really cool to hear about that lesson [you taught to the ladies across the street.] Have those Elders asked them to be baptised yet?  If not they need to do it the next lesson. They also need to get them to church. And guess what there is a built in ride that lives across the street.

That's awesome to hear about the house for Anne and Michael. I think that Atlanta will be a good place for them. We've never had someone live in Atlanta so this will be cool. Good luck finishing school Michael and giving your speech!

My interview with president was good. He said I had made a lot of improvments from when we had last talked. He specifically said my Spanish was a ton better. I met with the APs as well while Elder Powner was in the interview and they said they were excited about the progress I was making and that they felt I was creating a good foundation with the help of Elder Powner to do great things after my 12 week training was up. 

I thought the insight from your meeting with the GAs was interesting. I really liked those questions.

Allright everyone, I am gonna go have a great week! Mom good luck on your final paper! Michael finish school like a boss. Anne, Dad, and Jane keep on keepin on!

Love,

Elder Cropper

PS I will know this saturday if I stay or go so next letter I will tell you.

Elder Cropper - Week #3 in Chile

I LOVE YOU GUYS!

ugh man great day.

Mother: Thanks you for sending the charger. I still haven't received any mail yet so I don't know when it will come. My companion says be should get mail every week but they also said it could take up to a month.

Ok so I eat a lot of hot dogs. They are cheap and taste pretty good. I usually eat them later like in the night for a snack before bed. For breakfast I usually eat cereal. We are fed every single lunch by members. Lunch is the main meal here they do not have dinner. Because lunch is the main meal we have one hour and a half for it. They feed us a ton!!!! In Chile you have to eat everything! and many times I have felt like throwing up but ate what was on my plate because it can be offensive sometimes if you leave a ton of food on it. I do not starve! They only thing that's stopping me from gaining huge amounts of weight is the walking we do. Let me repeat food is not and never will be an issue. I got a little sick my first few days but who cares about that. My big problem is I have a ingrown toenail. I called the mission nurse last Friday and she told me I needed to get a piece of cotton underneath the nail part so the wounded part can heal and the nail can grow out. She said it would kill and it did. It hurt really bad that day but now it's doing good and I dont really feel it. If it starts to hurt I take some ibupfrofen or whatever for it. Hopefully I don't need to get surgery because that would require me leaving my area to go to Viña for the day. It's only an hour away but it would cost money and suck! We wash our clothes in a washer that we have in our house and then we dry them on the line. We never do door approaches like they do in the US. It's all about street contacts here. We basically say hi to them ask what their name is and then testify about our message. if they stand and listen we testify more and maybe give them a Libro de Mormon. If they say they aren't interested then we ask them for the address so we can pass another time. My companion is good. Heavenly Father knew I would need a companion who could help me not freak out and get used to being here. He is from northern Colorado in some small town. He has 17 siblings. But his parents are divorced and both remarried so that is why. Most of them live togeather though so his house is really crowded. He has been in the mission for 10 months. 

Dad: 

That's really cool that the Iowa mission president prays for all of his missionaries by name. I wonder if my president does that? Why are you going to New York, what are you going to do there? That's awesome that you get to meet with an apostle. I will be looking forward to your email next week (or whenever he comes) to see what he said to you guys. I know 3 nephi 11 very well. It is the primary chapter we give out on street contacts when we give a book. Another good chapter on baptism that we like is 2nd Nephi 31. 

Well I have some time and I have finished mentioning all the things on my list so I'll just tell you more about my life. Sunday was day light savings so we got an extra hour of sleep which was sick! We went to church and obviously Elder Powner and I are "taking out the trash" because we had so many people come to Church (from Menos activos (less actives) and investigators that we are meeting with) that they actually ran out of sacrament and had to bless more!!!! heck yeah! Anyways we have a baptism this Sunday no biggie or anything. It is our investigator Antonio and His son Martin. They have been investigating the Church for a long time but have felt like in the past the missionaries kept pressing them to be baptized. He liked how we didn't try to pressure him so after meeting with him for a couple times and when we thought it was appropriate to ask him if he would get baptised we did and he said yes! rock it! We have a good amount of other progressing investigators so we will see what happens with them this week. We found a golden family this week mostly golden though because of the 8 year old son whos like God crazy. He basically begged his parents in the lesson to take him to church this Sunday and they smiled and said yes. But they weren't at church! Elder Powner and I think they went to another chapel in the area which is actually closer than our chapel but in a different stake. We tried to visit them yesterday but they weren't there so we will see how today goes (we have an appoinment with them). Oh funny thing about Church yesterday. 30 min before sacrament started our ward mission leader came up to us and told us we were giving talks about missionary work and that he was sorry and had forgotton to tell us. I just laughed and said ok. I think I was so calm because of faith and because of disbelief. So yesterday I gave a 8 min talk in Spanish that I prepared in about 30-45 min. I think people really liked it but I don't think they understood much. We have interviews with the president this week so that will be fun. oh yeah HOLY COW Mary is going to Ohio! that will be so cool. I wonder how long she will be there for. Kinda crazy to be planning to preach in a foreign language and then be english speaking for awhile. I cant wait to get her letter next week. So they don't have snakes in Chile but they do have turantulas-big spiders. My companion and I were walking out in the boonies to go find a menos activo member and right in the middle of the road was one the size of my hand! crazy stuff. well maybe not the size of my hand more like my palm. Well it's time for me to go hopefully I haven't forgotten anything I wanted to say to you guys.

Love you all! this week I am about an 8 Dad! When an investigator does what you asked them to do your a 10! 

Elder Cropper