Alex's 5th letter from Chile 9/21/10

Elder Leavitt & Elder You
with some youth from the ward dressed to dance the Cueca

(The youth danced the Cueca not the Elders. Although
I'm sure Alex would have loved to dance :)

Hey Everyone!

This week was insane. Literally everyone was partying all week. But before I get into that I will start at the beginning. On Wednesday we had exchanges. I was with elder Crockett who is from Utah and we were in El Manzano. It was awesome. We had a couple of appointments and most of them fell through so we were walking on our way to another when elder Crockett randomly just knocked a house. This 16 year old looking kid came out we talked to him and he was way receptive. We went in blessed the house and set up an appointment. So I helped him and his comp have a new investigator it was just cool to see him so in tune with the spirit to randomly knock a house. We then had an appointment with a kid named Diego and he is awesome. I talked so much in the appointment compared to usual and the family couldn't believe I had been in Chile for only a month. It was way neat. Overall way awesome day.

Then the partying started. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday we were not able to do like anything! It was like a 5 day weekend/holiday in Chile. Like on Friday we had a ward activity it went from 12 to 9! It was sooo much fun. So me and elder You started out by making some empanadas with some of the members, sang the national anthem ate a ton of food! Chileans love their meat. I had so much steak this weekend it is ridiculous. I tried to fly a Chilean kite, raced in a sack race and I got second place by the way haha. Played the equivalent of Chilean horseshoes and watched a lot of Cueca which is the native dance of Chile. They hired a professional Cueca dance group to come but also the youth in the ward did it too. Then to end the day I dominated some Chileans in basketball haha. They wanted to see if I actually knew how to play haha. Saturday we had a lunch appointment with the Cortez family turns out it was like a family barbeque so that was a way fun as well. After that we went to some recent converts house and ate even more food and they taught me how to trompo or also known as using one of the string top things. I actually got pretty good at it.

Elder Leavitt & Elder You making empanadas

Yummy! The final product

Sunday for me though was the best day. Samuel came to church and passed his baptismal interview so he is gonna be baptized this Sunday and he asked this sweet old man in the ward to baptize him. This man every time he sees Samuel gives him a hug and asks him about his week and how he is doing so I am pumped. Overall this week was a blast but I am also ready to get back to some real work haha.

Elder You´s name you pronounce as if you are saying "hey you there!" haha and he has one younger brother. I am pretty positive I will always have an hermana that washes our clothes unless the building we are living in has a washer in it which Elder you says there are some. I know I am super lucky. Basically we buy the detergent and then she washes them so no we don't actually pay her. On P-days we play soccer every week with our zone so we get together as a zone every week for the most part. Like I said this week was pretty slow so no we didn't find anyone new this week. Yes I am completely healthy now so no worries. I am gonna send a couple emails with pictures and what not cause I took a ton haha.

As for the spotlight I would think you could share some of my other stories I have shared with you. Talk about Chile and how amazing it is and that I know this is such an amazing work. That I am working hard learning and progressing. I don't know what to say haha. Well I love you all hope you enjoy the pictures and will talk to you next week.

Love,
Elder Leavitt

p.s. I saw my first rincon spider, these things are all over Chile and will kill you if you get bitten and don't receive an injection quickly enough

Kids from the ward dancing the Cueca

Elder Leavitt & Elder You at the Cortez Family Barbeque