Easter and Eating Octopus

Dear Family,

It has been a very busy week for us, and this coming week will keep us equally busy.  Of course we have our office work each day, try to do some studying on Spanish, but in all of our free time we are trying to interest people in the church.  That is not an easy task.

We did have one success story in that Cleyde Colome left to go back to Ovalle wanting to be baptized.  We would have loved to see her baptized, but felt it better to send her back to where she lived so that she could meet the missionaries and members there and get baptized there.  That way she would be anchored in the church where she lives.  I called her today and she indicated that the missionaries were coming over tonight to teach her.  We are so happy that she is choosing this course.  We met her at her sister Ideide's home.  We are hoping we can now work on Ideide to see if we can get her more interested in the church.  She is a lovely person, and in many of the pictures that we are sending this time.  Wilson will be a harder sell, but I am hoping we can go that direction.  We have an appointment with them to play Rook on Friday night.  They have never played it, but we have found if we can get into the home and meet with them doing fun things we always are able to share the Gospel and gain their trust. With Ideide's sister accepting the Gospel, we feel we have a better chance of having Ideide join the church.

While meeting with Cleyde, we met Raul out in front of his home, and began talking to him.  He invited us to his home on Saturday, where we were excited to go.  While we were sitting there getting acquainted, he said, "Tell me about your Church."  Naturally we really had to struggle about telling him about the church, but we did.  We then drove to his home on Sunday morning and he went to church with us.  He really seemed to enjoy that.  We have an appointment with him again on Thursday evening.  His wife is in the hospital in Santiago with Pancreatic cancer.  She was supposed to come home on Wednesday, but they said she will be in the hospital 10 more days as she now has other problems.  We are hoping we can get him to come to conference and bless his life with the Gospel.

For Easter, Margaret made some brownies and we put them in sacks and took them to a number of investigators.  Some were not home, so we attached them to the fence.  Those who were, appreciated our thoughtfulness.  Margaret is always good at doing things like that.  We make a good companionship on the mission, because she is so good at caring about people and doing nice things for them and I try to talk to everyone about church and get new contacts.

It was fun to Skype with Laura, Mike and Amy and their families.  It seems the grandchildren are all growing up.  It was fun to talk to Michaela and Hannah about their plans.  We really enjoyed the egg fight, as that brought back a lot of memories.

We hope all of you have a great week.

Love,

Mom and Dad

It was a fun week, but a very busy one. Margaret Wanted me to take this picture of our dinner.  Most every thing is pretty normal, the drink is pineapple and then there is the rice.  The meat in the white dish was a little different, as it was Octopus.  I had eaten it once before on a Cruze ship, but it was cut up and did not look like that.  In this case, the tentacles were still lengthy with the suction cups in place.  I will have to admit it tasted good, but I wanted to close my eyes to eat it.

 Elder Hart and Elder Talbot.  Elder Hart was an AP and is now being transferred to Vallenar.

 Elder Hart, Elder Talbot, Elder Erickson, Elder Vasquez and Elder Rodriguez leaving the office for the day after the Antofagasta Zone conference.

 One of our many beautiful sunsets over the Pacific Ocean

 Pascal had an 8th birthday party,  It was quite the event.   She is the daughter of Wilson and Ideide.

 Pascal and her mother Ideide posing for the picture.

 Mom visiting with the he guests at the party and helping them learn English

 Some of the classmates of Pascal who were invited to the party.  Pascal and Ideide are in the back.

 The hired a magician to come to the party and he was entertaining the children.

 Wilson, the husband of Ideide serving in the kitchen.  His sister is seated.  He was caught off. Guard, as you can see

 Margaret teaching English.  Not appropriate to try and share the Gospel at a birthday party, but we did pick up some referral names.

 Even Hermana Lorenzo and Hermana Gemin was invited to the party.

Margaret posing with a new friend she made at the party who speaks some English.

 Pascal's birthday cake.

 Lighting the candles.

 Pascal's brother Daniel at the party.

 Hermana Lorenzo and Hermana Gemin getting ready to leave the party.

 Margaret posing with a new friend and her son.

 One more foto of Pascal as we are doing the final clean up after the birthday party.

Ideide,  Daniel, Pascal and Wilson.  This is family we would really like to get into the church.They are wonderful people and friends..   She is religious and Catholic.  He does. Not believe in any religion.  It is going to be quite a challenge.

 Huge cargo ships sail in and out of the Antofagasta Harbor.  This one is just leaving.  Note the tomatoes to the left of the picture.

 This was our Easter Dinner that Margaret prepared.  We invited Mauricio Rivera to come to the dinner.  Margaret met him at LIders.  His family is Catholic, but does not go to any church.  We have invited him to breakfast again on Tuesday and we have invited him to General Conference with us.