Wow mom, every one in our family is so old now!! Britt is a woman and Hannah isn`t a little thing anymore... That's crazy!!! ha ha Hey I had a great week this week. Guess what happened in the transfer meeting? There is an Elder Barlow who all his mission has been in all his sectors for 6 months and he was in an area with a companion who had six months in the sector already. Both of these Elders thought, well Elder Barlow will stay and elder Arpires will be going but a miracle occurred! Our Heavenly father decided to call Elder Barlow as one of the new zone leaders of the mission and sent him back to the zone where he started his mission! I am so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It´s seriously one of the greatest blessings I have received during my mission! I love Ovalle and I have received one of the greatest blessing a missionary can receive. I get to see converts and members who I knew and loved and be with them again! Seriously super awesome! My new comp is from Utah as well and he is going to go to BYU. Super Cool!!! We have 2 investigators with baptismal dates and had a couple of training meetings with our president. I also had the great privileges of seeing one of the smallest branches of the church in the mission because it´s part of my sector. There are about 20 members who attend and like 3 men. I had the privilege of addressing them and know what?! Never in my life have I felt so much appreciation for the members of the church. These men and woman are living saints who have decided to be valiant in the name of our father in heaven! What a week of blessings and miracles.  Here in this area, me and my comp have 3 branches.  In our main branch lives one of my favorite families from the mission. I don´t know if you remember the family from my first area with the blind uncle and is full of girls.  I love that family with all my heart. Well they attend my branch. Mom I seriously felt just over joyed at the news that I was going to be able to see them again!!

This coming week me and comp, Elder Crofts from Ogden are going to give a replica of the training meeting we received from the president and we will be working hard to find lots of new investigators. We get along pretty well and he is just a really chill guy, really obedient and works hard. He got here on the plane with me and we actually met in the airport in Utah.

Ovalle

Hey mom and dad!! What crazy news! Everything is changing! I have changes this week and you guys had changes last week! I will probably have a new comp! We had a really hectic week with all the teaching and lessons, which was awesome! 

I am tired, I'm tired all the time. These last couple days I have felt a little better but physically I am pretty gassed.  I feel like I'm getting to the metaphorical wall that you guys hit when you run marathons. I keep getting skinnier but I think I have a tape worm.......... jk  Spiritually I am good and with all the crazy stuff going on here in the mission and at home I am pretty excited but Waking up early is getting harder and harder. Waking up on time has even become something that I have to force me self to do. I have been praying a lot to have self control.

This week we taught 17 lessons which was awesome and we found some really interested people. It's really a miracle that the church exists in the way that it does. In 3 weeks we have found  people who have been catholic or other religions and  just decided that what they had learned their entire life was completed by the doctrine of Jesus Christ. The power of faith and the power of the truth. It divides all barriers and cuts through all darkness like the sun piercing a cloudy day. Isn´t the gospel great! I think of all the things I have learned from my mission and the greatest thing I have been able to learn is about the nature of the trinity. Something you guys did, which I love was that you taught me the principles of the gospel and made sure that the puzzle of my life and identity had at least the boarders put together. The mission has helped me put all the other pieces that form the picture into place. I know I learned all the things that I have been teaching here at one point  or another but it was just kind of a mixed up wad of truth and information but I didn`t really know how to apply it in my life. Being here and teaching it has brought me the clarity of who I am and how the gospel works and flows and where its going to carry me. I would invite you and the family to study preach my gospel. Read chapter 3 which talks about the principles of the gospel at night with the girls and I promise that they will be able to see a little more clearly of how everything has a connection.  

I had a thought the other day about the priesthood ordination. When we are ordained to the priesthood, they don´t give us the priesthood but they confer it upon us. I was thinking about that and the association this has with keys. I don´t know if this is doctrine but I had a thought that every man in the world already has the priesthood but it can only be unlocked by those with keys or by those who have been authorized by key holders. Its really interesting because it relates in that many are called but few are chosen. Why are they not chosen because they have decided that they don`t wish to have their inheritance. They trade it for a metaphorical bowl of gruel. I was studying in the book of Alma and was reading about the war chapters. Its interesting that the Book of Mormon has so many chapters about war and almost always it talks about the consequences that it has upon men. We have so much responsibility and god has trusted us with so much power. Just like the men of the Book of Mormon, we see that in the wards and stakes of the worlds when they decided to be righteous and follow good everything works out and they are blessed, but when one leader decides to be prideful and usurp the authority which god has granted him, all suffer and there are consequences for generations. They Book of Mormon is the saints guide to being a righteous priesthood holder.  

Elder Barlow!!

Christopher Astudillo was baptized, can't believe how chubby I was, humbled for the trust the lord has given me....

What??????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Emma Finished her mission!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??? O my fetch........ Moooooom! I am so old................................... today I transferred all the photos from the beginning of my mission from one flash drive to another and I was so fat when I got here oh my goodness! I was like a chubby sausage! Its disgusting... Wacala (gross). I just realized that all the missionaries who I got here with me have already finished their mission and that basically there is no one here now that has more time then my group. 

Christopher Astudillo got baptized yesterday and it went super well. He was pretty pumped when he left the water and just started to smile really big. He got up to bear his testimony after the service. It was really simple but I could tell that he had been cleansed of his sins and that he could feel a cleanliness and a spirit he had never felt before. His mom was really happy and this Sunday he will be confirmed a member of the church of Jesus Christ and he will be ordained to the office of a deacon. I hope I can stay here for a while because I would like to see his progress.I was going through all the teaching registers of this area and the lord has placed some of the best missionaries that I have met on my mission here, in this area. It gives me pride and humbles me to know that the lord has placed his trust upon me and that he has trusted this area to me and my comp. All my mission I have tried my hardest to work hard and to be a good obedient servant of the lord and I honestly believe that I have been an excellent missionary. I don`t say this to toot my own horn, I say this to give thanks to the amazing parents that I have had. You and dad taught me what it means to work hard and to be self-sufficient. To love the Lord and serve him the best that I can and I would say that if you guys had an interview with the lord about how hard you worked in raising me he would say, Well done, thou good and faithful sservant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 

Love Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Hey dad,

Everything has gone by so ridiculously fast. I told mom about this but I wanted to tell you too. I am in a area that is pretty complicated to work in. I have been going through the area book and looking at the missionaries that have been here and It´s very humbling to see who has been here. All the elders who have been here are some of the best missionaries that I have met in my mission. I want to thank you for having taught me to trust in the lord and for teaching me how to work hard. I love you for the great example you have given me and I know its because you were a good missionary as well. 

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Christopher Astudillo's baptism!!!