Alex's 61st email from Chile 10/17/11

Can you spot Alex? 

He's about 4 rows up, bright orange tie, turned sideways talking to the Elder next to him. There is a sister with blonde long hair in front of him.

Hola Familia!!!

Wow, where do I begin? Well Monday I finished saying goodbye to my branch. I am not gonna lie. I have never felt so loved by a group of people in my life other than my family. Everyone was crying when I said goodbye. On Tuesday as I was waiting for the bus I got a phone call from President King. He was like "hey I forgot to call you last night but I would like you to be District Leader in your new sector". So now I am district leader crazy eh?

I am now in Republica, in Carlos Valdivinos. My apartment building is on the street Mozart and it's like 200 something. I will try to get a better and more precise direccion for you if you can't find it. My companion is Elder Carcamo he is from Peru and is a greenie. My last 3 companions have been greenies. I have 6 months of training! His original trainer was Elder Sellers my old companion but he finished the mission last change. Small world. Elder Carcamo is awesome and is a super obedient and hard worker. Now all I am trying to do is teach him to have fun at the same time :) haha My sector is relativly big but I am now in one of the, if not most dangerous sectors in our whole mission. As soon as I heard I had La Legua I was like "I was wondering when that part of my setting apart will kick in when I feel like I need to get out of an area and protective angels and what not". La Legua is the most dangerous part of Santiago. The police don't even go in there. But I told Elder Carcamo I feel like we should go in so this week we are going to go hit up La Legua.  No missionaries have gone in there for a long time and it takes up about a 3rd of our sector.

My District is AWESOME. I have such a cool district. I am the oldest by far. I am the only one who has more than a year. I didn't know any of them before either. Mom I think I am famous in the mission because of you. Our mission is super young and at changes I kept having people saying "Hey! you are Elder Leavitt! I read you blog before the mission!" I guess they got their call, searched the mission via google, and the first thing that pops up is my blog.  It's funny you looked up Santiago norte and look for pictures and all my pictures come up. By in my district I have 5 missionaries to take care of, my comp, Elder Tognetti 5 months from Iowa, Elder Enemorado 6 months from Honduras, Elder Mlazgar 8 months from Mesa Arizona, and Elder Sosa 5 months from Argentina. My District is hilarious and I am so happy I have them as my district.

Alex & Elder Mlazgar from his district.

They are about 4 rows up, standing up, and have their hands over their eyes to shade from the sun. They are both looking at something.

My sector super flaite though. We have a bunch of apartment building that are deemed unlivable from the earthquakes so the goverment built little earthquake communities outside of the buildings.  Funny thing is the people just use the houses and their apartment to. I always feel weird when I walk into a building when it has a huge sign that says unlivable. Also I got to see a protest! Here in Chile the last few months the students have been protesting a ton where they fight with the police. They want free or cheaper studies or something. One time I got a little bit of tear gas haha it was cool though.

The stadium where the Cultural Celebration took place.

Can you see the Andes mountains with snow on them in the background?

Friday we basically spent all day at the practice for the huge activity on Saturday. Only the city sectors got to go to the practice but the whole mission got to go Saturday. The activity was amazing!! It started out with 3 speakers they didn't talk very long only like 20 mins or soo but Elder Cordbridge talked again. The dancers were amazing the skit was amazing. The soloist was one of my missionaries ward mission leader haha he is just good. I heard the two missionaries were missionaries from the north mission we were in their mission but they were gringos I know that. What white flags are you talking about? I know when Chileans dance cueca they twirl white hankerchiefs you talking about those?  When we were singing and right after yes, former mission presidents and some of the earlier missionaries went up onto stage. All of our mission went, the east mission, north mission, some of Rancagua and Vina del Mar went too. There were no genral authorities.  I knew alot of the youth who were in it. I didn't see Alan though. I saw Derrick (his sisters brother-in-law from a different mission in Chile)and I saw Jaromy Holland too (a young man from our Stake who is in yet another mission in Chile). Crazyness he is still a greenie. He just got here how lucky is that?

One of the traditional dances from one of the countries.

It was awesome after the activity ended all the missionaries stormed the field with all the youth. I saw families from Malloco, Lo Ovalle, and basically my whole ward from Talagante came and hunted me down. They were all soo happy to see me. It was sooo amazing the whole thing. Only downside was our seats. I couldn't see anything on the projectors or screens so we did miss alot and I couldn't see the stage very well either. But it was amazing. I hope they sell copies I have no idea.

My ward is kinda of an older ward. There are not many youth. My sector has once again 0 progressing investigators so it's to contacting once again but this last week we found 4 new investigators. Doing tons of contacts. It's not as dead as Islita was but it's there. We will just work hard once again. Not anything new for me now haha but now President threw in some other factors, dead sector, training, and district leader. Let's see how it goes. Pray for me I need it. But now I am trying even harder to be more obedient and more diligent. One I need the blessings in such a dangerous sector, but I need to be an example. But I have faith everything will be ok :) I love you all. It's just insane how fast the mission goes.  I need to get a move on or it will end before I am ready. Love you all soo much. Miss you guys I am praying for you all.

Con Mucho Amor,

                                 Elder Alexander Thomas Leavitt

 P.S. Alex didn't send any pictures this week. The pictures I have I took off of the Chile Santiago North Mission Blog that is kept up by the Mission President's wife. I was thrilled to see Alex in so many of the pictures. I also want to include what she wrote on the blog. She wrote:

"We had a wonderful opportunity to participate in a celebration of 50 years of the mission in Chile.  Last Saturday. we started off with a fireside with the Area Presidency, along with a wonderful youth choir.  Last night was the cultural celebration and story through dance , music and dramatizations. There were over 3000 youth that participated in the event.  Many have practiced every Saturday for the last 3 months.  They showed us dances from several Latin America Countries.   It was a wonderful evening ending with the introduction of the missionaries who had served in Chile, those who are now serving, and the future generation of missionaries in Chile.  Missionaries from the Chile Santiago North, East, West Missions and some from the Rancagua Mission participated.  They sang “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go” to the audience.  It was quite a site to see over 500 missionaries singing!  Hopefully, in 50 years, many of our missionaries can participate in a similar event.  As you look through the pictures take a good look at the beautiful Andes Mountains in the background.  Our mission includes the stadium we are in and into the Andes Mountains.

One of the sweet experiences is the number of missionaries who had brothers or sisters or cousins serving in a nearby mission.  They had a chance to get together with each other during the practice and evening event."

We had the opportunity to watch it and it was pretty amazing. We also got to see Alex singing in the choir. It made my day!

 The missionaries singing "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go"

I LOVE this picture of all the missionaries 

holding up Books of Mormon.