Alex's 10th email from Chile 10/25/10

Alex in front of a field

Hola family!

So first off mom I got a dear elder from Michelle Marshall this last week and want to write her back. It has her San Diego address but I know she is going to school back east and need her address so if you could get that for me that would be sweet. Also I got your package on Tuesday. It had been opened up but I think everything was still there, the jump rope, Reeses and one CD and newspaper stuff. Was I missing anything? When you send packages I was told to tell you not to list what is in there and to just list it as missionary supplies and put pictures of Christ on the box. So ya I don't know if it works but people swear by it.Thank you so much for the package by the way. The CD is awesome and hopefully there are more coming my way because I have a total of 2 cds and songs start to repeat. If you can, I don't know how you would, but could you get me the songs off halo? It's an xbox game and it has some sweet songs I could workout to that are mission appropriate if I remember right.

This week was amazing by the way! We found 4 new investigators and one is this amazing guy named Eugenio. Let me tell you a little about him. He has to be at least 65 balding white hair, a total of 3 teeth, lives in a shack out in the campo. His shack has one room with a little side kitchen, no running water, a total of 2 light bulbs, no wife, no kids and a cat. He is amazing!! I first met him on Tuesday with his shirt off chillin on a chair outside his shack. He is soo ready for the gospel. He told us he has resorted to just believing in God and Jesus Christ because there are so many churches and they all say different things and it is confusing. So we shared with him the Restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith. Oh and to top it off he can't read. He was so receptive. We gave him a Book of Mormon and told him although he can't read it just having it will bless him and he can look at the few pictures in the front. He loved the pictures in the Book of Mormon. We asked him if he would pray about the things we taught him and he said he didn't know our prayers. He thought we had memorized prayers. So we quickly told him how to do it and he just dropped to his knees, opened in the name of God and then immediately closed in Christ's name. We told him next time we came by we would help him in understanding prayer. It was funny. We came back on Friday and taught him how to really pray. I remembered how much he loved the pictures and brought him 6 big pictures of Christ thinking he would like them and he did. They are now up in his shack. It just amazes me how ready he is for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in his life. It is soo true what it says in the Book of Mormon when it says the poor, meek, and the humble are the most ready and receptive of the Gospel. Eugenio now has a baptismal date and is progressing. I am so excited and happy for him and hope that all things end well with him and he gets baptized because he is so ready and I know how it will bless his life. We are now trying to figure out if we can get him the Book of Mormon on CD or something.

Alex has always been an animal lover.
It looks pretty lush and green doesn't it?
I know I'm a little bias but I just think he is one of the cutest darn missionaries!!

My suit pants hem thing came out again but Hermana King sewed them up for me. She is awesome. So I am sending her the most amazing chocolate bar ever that I found down here. They are called Bon Bons and they are so good. I will have to send some home or something cause I can't even describe what they are. They are just delicious and cost like 40 cents. If I am not careful I could get fat. But weirdly and oddly enough since coming on the mission I have lost 5 pounds. Don't ask me how that has happened.

Having planted many gardens I say this looks like an onion field.

Samuel is doing good and still wants to go on a mission. Ya, it is weird to think in less than two weeks that I am no longer considered a greenie and I will have been in Chile for like close to 3 months. The other guys, not to talk myself up, but I think my Spanish and understanding is better than theirs except like one other guy who was kind of ahead of us anyway. But they are all good and doing awesome. At greenie meeting we just had meetings about teaching the basics and what not. Teaching is awesome. I am starting to really talk a lot more.

I am amazed at the amount of public peeing I have seen. It is hilarious haha. I probably can't even count the number of times I have seen people peeing on walls, buildings, just everywhere right where people are. Haha it is soo funny. But the best one happened this week. We were walking through this ally way and this guy is peeing. So we walk by and he says "discupe" or like "my bad." We are like "it's all good man." Then he starts asking why we were wearing short sleeves and if we were cold - it was night time. We said "no it feels awesome right now." All the while this guy was taking a leak haha. Also I have seen a ton of people just passed out in the middle of fields it is quite hilarious.

Like I said, he's an animal lover.
Brandon came home hating dogs after his mission. Alex is obviously not there.
Maybe they don't run in packs attacking things in Chile.

Well I love you all miss you all and hope you are all doing great. I will add some pictures from my campo adventures I have been on. Dad to answer your question I don't send all the pictures I take but most of them and ya for sure if you can find a website that can load my pictures quick I would be down for that. Ok, love you all, the church is true, Chile is legit, continue to be firm in the church!

love you all!

Elder Leavitt