Dec 1 (3 days ago)

Hi momma!

1. I don´t have a new comp not till new years when we are transferred.

2. It all got deleted but I am not sure how and with the mission rules about music are only things that can be played in sacrament meeting and classical music so I can listen to all types of hymns but nothing else which kind of blows! 

3. I am always hungry but I eat a lot but I am down to about 170 I think.

4. I have plenty of money for food and the members feed us a ton.

5. We can go out to eat at restaurants but we use the mission money for it.  So we don´t usually,  we just buy what we want to eat in the grocery store and cook it at home on Mondays.

6. We can talk for about 45 minutes on Christmas day. We are going to call about 5 O´clock your time because it will be 7 here. I don´t know if we can skype or video chat but if we can I will try,  so send me your skype address.

De tu hijo 

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Hey Dad!! What up Viejo! Estoy muy bien aquí en paraíso! Esta semana era muy interesante porque tenía dos intercambios. Una vez con un Elder de Colombia y una con me líder de zona. Ambos eran muy buen y tienen muchos cosas que yo necesito desarrollar a ser un mejor misionero. Ponemos 2 fechas esta semana, ambos con mujeres. La primera es llamado Barbara y ella tiene 19 anos y ella tiene un hija de 5 meses. She is great! She likes to read the Book of Mormon and to pray, likes to listen and wants these things for her daughter as well which is awesome. She needs to attend church for the next 3 weeks to be baptized on the 21 but I think that if we can find some friends for her in the branch it will go a lot smoother and easier. The other is Elisia she is about 48, I think. She is very very religious and attended church for the first time with us yesterday and wants to be baptized on the 14. She reads the Book of Mormon a lot and has very strong feelings about the importance of family and how man and woman must work together for the betterment of the family. Which is kind of sad because her husband is a jerk and that is about the nicest word I could think of to describe him. We are also going to set another date with this woman named Maria Castillo. She is about the same age as Elisia and wants to be a member of the church and do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. She is one of the best investigators I have found on my mission so far. I am still with Elder Arriaza and we will be together till new years eve because that is the day of transfers but I am pretty pumped to be with him because we are teaching well. I feel like I am lacking a lot in my part of the lessons but all the other elders say that will come with more time and experience. I love you dad! I got the Christmas package. Elder Arriaza was pretty annoyed with me because he brought it on Saturday and had to carry it around all day on Friday because he was in Viña for a training. The package weighs like 100 lbs. He said to say thank you for including double of just about everything and loves the cliff bars. 

De tu hijo

Elder Chirstopher Ryan Barlow

Translation of Chris's letter:

What's up old man! I doing great here in paradise! this week was very interesting because I had 2 exchanges with an elder form Colombia and a zone leader. Both were great and I have a lot of things I need to develop in order to be a better missionary. We have set 2 dates this week both are for 2 women. The first one's name is Barbara and she is 19 years old and she has a 5 month old little daughter...

Elder Azarria loading Chris's Christmas package. Poor guy!!!