It's a Little Chile Down Here...But Kinda Warm in Brazil: 100 degrees at Christmas Time!?!

Visiting the Temple in Santiago -- It is warm summer time there!

Dear Family,

Wow, I´m sorry to hear that Uncle Neal (Stacy Moffitt's dad Neal Hopkins) passed away, but it makes me happy to hear that everoyne is peaceful and in comforted spirits about it. It sounds like you guys all had a really evenful week, and its good to hear that Phil is helping out with wrestling too -- I know that he loves doing that.

This week was actually a really really good week for Elder Sercovich and me. We were very busy, and we taught a few more lessons than last week. And it is SO HOT HERE! It's kind of hard to celebrate Christmas in 100 degree heat, but oh well -- we need to make the best with what we have, I guess. All of the houses are decorated with Christmas lights and plastic snowflakes, anyways. Let's see..... Elder Sercovich and I had a leadership meeting on Tuesday with President and all of the zone leaders -- those are always fun. And then, we taught a class to the zone on Thursday, and those are always a lot of fun -- I really love those, as well. And I think the reason why I love them so much is because I have the coolest zone in the whole world -- they are all really hard workers and Elder Sercovich and I are seeing lots and lots of progress in them. We also got permission to form a zone chior and we will be performing at zone conference on Wednesday, and then we are going to a metro station on Sunday to sing christmas carols. That should be a lot of fun -- they are all really excited for that. Elder Sercovich and I have been finding new families and people to teach and that has been really cool. We are trying our best to work with names given to us from the ward and to work with references from the members, and it has been working really well actually.

Mercedez is still doing really well, Claudio too. We have been teaching Mercedez and Walter in members' homes for the past several visits, and we have been seeing the fruits of that when Mercedez goes to church -- she has friends there now, and people to sit with and talk to, and that helps a lot. I think that the miracle of the week happened on Sunday as well. For the past several weeks we have been teaching a less active family, the Pavez family, and they have not been coming to church for about 10 years. They were a referral given to us from a neighboring member family. Well, long story short, they came to church yesterday and it was awesome. They had a greally good time -- lots of members recognized them and chatted with them, but they key to getting them to come back was simply bringing a member to the lesson the night before. We visited Hna Pavez and her daughter with our ward mission leader and a ward missionary and they hit it off really really well. The ward missionary (Hna Salas) did a really good job, too. I feel like I keep learning the same lesson over and over again -- that if someone wants to be a successful missionary he or she NEEDS to work with the members -- there is no other way to do it.

Dad, I am happy to hear that you are reading Everyday Missionaries. President Wright was actually just talking about that book the other day. I'll be sure to read it when i get back. Oh, also, we went on a temple tour with Mercedez this week and that was a really good time.

Anyways, i just want you all to know that I love you very much. Thank you for your great examples, and for your love and for your support. Keep on being amazing people and guiding lights for those around you.

Until next week, with love,

Elder Schwartz