Christmas week

this week was probably the craziest week of my mission. with that being said, we really didn’t get anything done. we literally had 4 lessons with investigators. that is a record low on my mission. but, it was still a really good week. 

one of the days this week my comp had a fever. i think i might have given it to him. when he came with me i had a cough and a sore throat. anyway i thought it would be nice to stay in the house but it was super boring. there isn’t really anything to do in the house, but whatever. i did take the first nap of my mission. it was only for an hour but it was still nice. all in all it is definitely better to be out in the streets contacting. 

because it was the week of christmas, it was super hard to find people. everyone either had family over or were out of town. it was really frustrating but that is how it goes. we ended up doing a lot of service. we helped a family dig up their yard to plant grass. i ended up getting blisters on my hands from using the pickax. let me tell you that blisters on the hands hurt a lot...just fyi. it was nice to help the people. this week is going to be the same cause the new year is just as big or even bigger than christmas. 

for christmas eve we had a huge dinner and a family home evening with a family in the ward. i literally haven’t eaten so much in my life. i honestly thought i was going to throw up. it was good to relax and laugh with the family. 

and it was good to talk to the family christmas day. the hour flew by. i didn’t think i was going to go that fast. i thought i was going to be more trunky after the call but it didn’t really effect me which i am happy about. 

thanks for all of your love and support. i love you all so much. 

Christmas in Chile

this week was pretty crazy. it is always good when it is crazy.

so this week i got my new comp. his name is elder troncoso from santiago. he goes home this transfer. one thing that is funny is his accent. his accent is supppppper strong. one of the worst i have heard in chile. i can understand him but there are sometimes where it is harder.

we found 3 new people this week which we are really happy about. but only one has real potential. one of the 3 lives outside of our sector and the other one that we found is co-living. it is harder to get these people to progress. there is hope for them but it is just harder.  but the last one that we found is a 14 year old boy. he is really cool. we taught him about the restoration and really wants to learn. we are really excited for him. he lives in the richest part of our sector. in his yard he has a pool. that might not sound very impressive but we are in a 3rd world country and i haven’t met anyone in 7 months with a pool. we have one lesson with him tonight so we will see how it goes.

we had a family home evening with our  investigators and they are doing really well. they are both really excited for their marriage and baptism. we are excited for them.

dad asked some questions so i am going to answer them.

we receive lunch every day from the members. it is usually chicken and rice with a salad. for dinner we are on our own. i usually make hotdogs with eggs and soup. (yes you read correctly. i’m am making eggs now). or we buy something off the street corner. we have to be careful with food form the street because it can be sketch. my last comp learned that the hard way. luckily that day i didn’t have money so i was saved.

for comp study we usually just do practices for the lessons that we have planned.

and Christmas here is weird. a lot of people here have Christmas trees but that is about it. and Christmas isn’t that big of a deal. what is big is Christmas eve and new years eve. we are planning on having on having a huge Christmas eve dinner with a really rich family in the ward so it should be good. i’m excited.

 You can also see the video by clicking here.  

the mission is going good right now. we are working harder and are seeing more success. i am still learning a lot. i know that this church is true. i love you all. thanks for all of your support.

Love those photos!

Laundry time

 After a hard day's work

  

 You've got to love his smile! 

 This is a picture of Sam's dog bite.  I had to censor the picture before posting it onto the blog because it was on his upper thigh.  We need to thank his companion for saving his life by kicking the dog away before he ate Elder Magnusson alive!   

all is well down here in the south. i’m just just drowning in my own sweat. but its all good. i’m surviving.

So nothing really exciting happened this week. but we do have some good news. 2 weeks ago we found a girl that was golden. she was visiting her boyfriend for the weekend because she is from santiago. we had a super good 2 hour lesson with her and all went well. she was really prepared. i didn’t write about her because i thought i would never see her again, but it turns out that she moved into her boyfriends house this weekend. this is really good and bad. We have a chance to teach her but she needs to get married and not co-living right now. but hey, we will work with it.

one of our investigators we are working with  is doing ok. we had 2 lessons with him this week and they went well. he was out of town yesterday so he couldn’t come to church but we are going to keep working with him.

our investigator couple is doing well. we were able to see them this week and still everything is going good for their baptism on the 17th. they didn’t go to church this week though cause they were out of town.

This weekend we had a chance to sing in a missionary-member choir. it was made up of 12 missionaries and 15 members. we have been practicing for about 2 weeks and this sunday we went to a plaza and sang. there were a ton a people watching us and we think that we got a lot of references from it. we will see what happens.

so this week we got transfer calls. so i’m staying in my sector and my comp is going to another part of rancagua. the comp that i am getting is from chile (santiago). i’m going to be his last comp. he goes home in 6 weeks. we will see how this change goes.  he is a good missionary. so this means that i have at least 3 more months in this sector which isn’t a bad thing because things are getting better. we have a lot of potential.

the mission is going well. i’m happy to be here. i am learning more and more everyday. thank you for all of your love.  sorry i don’t have more to write about but that is what happens when you contact all day. the church is true.

It's almost Christmas time.

it's almost christmas time and it doesn’t even feel like it. But every time i tell someone that down here they think i’m crazy cause this is all they know.... super hot, really sunny, with zero snow. being from california, i guess i don’t really know christmas with snow, but still.

big news this week is that we found someone to teach.    we still have a long way to go with him, but he said that he has a desire to change his life. he has a baptismal date for the 2nd of january but he still has to get married so that probably won’t happen. we are happy that we found him but we just need to work with him now. his work is crazy so he isn’t home very much but he is willing to meet with us. we will see what happens with him.

we are still working with our other couple. they have a marriage date for the 15th of jan and a baptismal date for the 17th. we are really trying to focus in them cause it is around this time that people back out of everything. they are doing really good. the testimonies this week in church were perfect for them. we will see them tomorrow so lets see what happens.

crazy story of the week. so, i need to go to the hospital every week for the next 5 weeks for shots for the dog bit. kinda stupid but its what i have to do. on thursday we went to the hospital and when we walked up an ambulance pulled up. when they opened the door we saw a man who had been shot 4 times. once in the head, once in the neck and twice in the stomach. we watched for 2 minutes as they did CPR in the ambulance. blood was running out of the ambulance like a river. i honestly have never seen so much blood in my life. after the 2 minutes i literally thought i was going to throw up. we talked to the diver of the ambulance and he said the man probably wont live... really sad. i had never seen anything like that in my life. my goal as a lifeguard now is never to do CPR. i don’t think i will ever forget that moment. ever.

for the first time in my mission it is a little bit hard to write in english. i have struggled a little bit in this letter with formatting sentences and everything. i guess that is a good sign.

things are going better. i’m changing my attitude about this sector and things are getting better. everything about the mission is about attitude. i know that this Church is true and that the book of mormon is the word of God. i know that we have a living  prophet today and that if we follow his word we will be blessed. where my testimony is really starting to grow is with the Atonement. i know that Jesus died for us and all we have to do is repent and we will be blessed. thank you for all or your prayers. i love you all. Happy holidays.

These two videos talk about the Atonement:

You can also see the video by clicking here.  

You can also see the video by clicking here.  

ps this week we find out about transfers. we will see what happens. i want to stay here for at least one more change but we will see what happens.

"We are already in December!!"

it’s crazy that we are already in december!! time is finally starting to pick up down here.

So this week has been a lot like the others. i feel bad cause i feel like i write the same thing every time in this sector, but there isn’t too much to write about. We did pick up a few new good people this week that i hope to write about next week. We will see. One good thing is we are starting to work really hard with this couple that are going to get married and baptized in the first part of january ( i think i wrote about them before). the wife is ready. she is golden but the husband still has some doubts about Joseph Smith. he believes it is true but he doesn’t know for sure. we are working with him to increase his faith. i think he is ready but he doesn’t think so. we still have a month and i know every thing will work out. we are going to fast with him this week.

You can also see the video by clicking here.  

so i few weeks ago i wrote that it would be a miracle if i didn’t get bit by a dog.... well yesterday I GOT BIT!!! we were trying to find a house by some apartment buildings and there was a guy sitting outside of the apartments with his dog. as we walked past the dog jumped up and before i knew it, the thing was bitting the back of my leg. it held on for about 2 seconds. when it let go i tried to kick it  away, but missed. it went in for a second bit but my comp kicked it away. the owner got the dog and then cussed my comp out for kicking his dog. ahhhh are you serious?!? my pants are ripped and bloody and you are yelling at my comp for kicking your dog... whatever. i showed the mission nurse and she said i need to go to the doctor tomorrow to get 5 shots. shoot man i hope i live.

this week i went on divisions with a zone leader and an assistant to the president. it was suppppppper good. i learned a lot about teaching and contacting which i am trying to use more. it was a really good day. both of the missionaries are really humble and really good teachers so it was good to see how they taught. i can definitely feel myself improving as a teacher because of all of the examples around me.

this week it is going to be in the upper 90s early 100s..... that is too hot for a shirt and pants but we will survive.

i feel good about this next week. thank you for your prayers. i love and miss you all!!

This week was pretty normal.

This week was pretty normal. nothing too special.

so, because we have basically no one to teach we did a fast this week. let me tell you that fasting in the mission is killer especially in the summer. i thought i was going to die of thirst at the end of it. but we survived. and we are hoping that it pays off. we found some good people at the end of this week. we are hoping that they progress.

here is the story of one of those people. we were walking to a lesson with a less active when we past a man sitting out side of his house. we past him but he called out to us asking if we wanted something to drink. he invited us into his house and said that when we turned the corner onto his street he literally saw a light surrounding us. he said that he had to talk to us. he said that his daughter joined the church 3 years ago and he sees the same light whenever he sees us. he told us that he wanted to know what it was. we started to talk to him a little more and it turns out he is divorced and his mom just died as soon as he started talking to us about this he started to cry. he reached over and got a bottle of vodka and before we could stop him he took a huge swig. we both felt the spirit leave the room. i have never felt it leave that fast. it was like someone has literally turned off a switch. he told us the only way to deal with his problems is to drink. within 3 minutes he was gone. he wasn’t the same. we ended up leaving promising we would come back. but in that moment i realized why we don’t drink. it literally drives away the spirit. we are going to go back this week when he isn’t drunk cause he is good.

there isn’t a whole lot to write about. we are spending most of our time contacting and with less actives. i’m getting so much better at contacting. i don’t really mind it anymore. at first i hatted it but now it is just normal. plus with my comp my spanish is getting so much better. i no longer struggle with grammar. my grammar is pretty good. the only thing that is hard right now is my accent and vocabulary. but i know that it will improve with time.

a lot of you guys have been asking me a lot of questions that i’m going to answer cause there isn’t really much to write about.

1. the food here is really good.  a lot of rice  eggs and meat but it is different than the states. i don’t know why it is different but it is. we have salads at every meal but i haven’t had salad dressing once. its because they put a ton of lemon juice and vinegar on the lettuce. its going to  be weird to have ranch again. plus i’m starting to like eggs. i can now eat them with out anything on them. i still have trouble with hard boiled eggs but i am getting to like them.

2. i thought coming to the city would mean that there wouldn’t be any dogs. but that is false. there are still a ton and they still want to attack us. this week i kicked 3 dogs that tried to bit me. if i escape the mission without getting bitten it will be a miracle.

3. in this sector we have a walmart... well kind of. it is a store that walmart bought out and so they carry a lot of great value products. it is nice to have cereal and stuff from the states. but it is a little more on the expensive side so we have to be smart.

4. there are places everywhere with computers to write you all. they are pretty cheap but sometime they are really slow. i have pictures to send but this place that i am at is really sketch so i’m not going to send them cause i don’t want to mess up my camera.

not much info. next week i'm hoping to write that we found more people to teach. have a good week everyone.

"Thank you for all your love and support"

this week there isn’t much to report. honestly, i cant really remember what we did.

we have people to teach but we they really aren’t progressing. it’s really hard because we know that we have to stop meeting with them but we won’t have anyone to teach. it’s going to be an act of faith and we are going to do it to find more people.

the good news is this week is that  a couple that have been investigating the church for 2 years decided to get married and baptized. we are pretty exciting. the court system here is really messed up so the soonest that this can happen is january 16th. we are pretty excited for them. we have to keep meeting with them because many times people back out last second.

this week i did a division with an elder in the most dangerous part of the mission. i thought i was going to get shot, knifed, or who knows what. it is supppppper ghetto but, because the people are so humble, it is one of the most successful parts of the mission. we had a lot of good contacts and had a lot of success. we stick out so much in that sector because we are two north americans in a white shirt and tie.


it is soooooo hot now. we are talking in the 90’s plus. it kills being in a white shirt and pants all day. i would much rather take the winter than the summer. i wear sunscreen everyday and i am still burning. in fact we contacted one house and some women came out and as soon as she saw me she told me to wait cause she had a gift for me. she ran back into the house and gave me a tube of sunscreen cause she doesn’t want me to get any more pink. it was pretty funny.



my comp is doing well and is almost done with his mission. it is pretty different being with a native. we are working hard. just a little fun fact about him is he is missing his right thumb cause when he was 15 he got it caught in a pump and it ripped off. our fist hand shake was a little awkward. he is a cool guy.

thing are going good as usual. thank you for all of your love and support. i love you all. the church is true.

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

Elder Magnusson figured out how to download pictures.  Hallelujah!  He didn't send any explanations on who's who or what's what in each picture.  We are just happy to see his smiling or expression filled face.   

first and foremost, happy birthday to the man that gave me  life. i hope you have a good day tomorrow. I love you dad.

So I am here in down town Rancagua, in the sector Recreo. ok, it is soooooo different than my last area. first off it is one of the richest sectors in the mission. in one of my last letters i said that i miss grass. i take that back. Grass means that the people are rich and want nothing to do with us. almost every house here has grass. like this secor is realllllly rich. like there are parts that would be nice in the states and that is saying something. i have had more people be rude to me here in this past week than my whole mission.

that being said there are still people here that like us. we don’t have a lot of investigators so we spend a lot of time contacting. we spent the whole week  in the street contacting and on saturday it payed off. we found 3 new investigators. we are pretty excited about them. we have appointments with all of them this week so we will see how they turn out.

my comp is pretty cool. he has 20 months in the mission so he knows what he is doing. I have a lot of trust in him. he is on fire. he is doing really good. i am happy to be with him. he doesn’t know a word of engish so my spanish is doing really good right now. and i mean that. things are starting to click in my mind . we are on foot which makes us talk in the street so things are improving with my spanish.

we live in a really nice apartment building. which is completely different than my last sector. my old house was one of the worst in the mission.  we live alone but there are 2 other sets of missionaries that live a few doors down from us so we hang out with them every night which is fun.

the ward here is good. we have lunch everyday with the sister missionaries which is pretty fun. also the ward is huge!! like 120 people come every week. that is pretty good for chile. in my last secor we did a lot to keep the branch afloat but here we don’t have to do much which is nice.

i don’t know what else to write about. things are good here but it is definitely going to be a hard sector. that’s ok though. it will help me with patience.

thanks to everyone. i am doing really well. i love you all and the church is true.

"There is a special place in my heart for the city and people of San Javier"

hey sorry this computer is soooooo slow so we will see how much i am able to write.

ok, first order of buisness is i am heading up north. i got transfered and i am going to the heart of rancagua, a sector called Recreo.  im pretty excited about that. i talked to some people that served in the sector and it sounds like it is good. im am being placed with a companion from peru that has 2 transfers left in the mission. his name is elder Ancajima.  i'm excited to have my spanish improve by having a peruvian companion.

it was sad to say goodbye to everyone yesterday in chuch. i have really come to love the people here. i really couldnt have asked for a better first sector. i have learned a lot here. there is a special place in my heart for the city and people of san javier. when i got set apart, i thought it was going to be hard for me to love a group of peple that i don t even know. i cant believe i said that. that was really selfish and dumb of me. the love that i have for these people is to great to describe.

it was especially sad saying goodbye to the sister that was baptized last month. she is doing so well. she has plans to go to the temple in 2 weeks. she paid her tithing and fast offerings yesterday. plus she bore her testimony. i am so happy for her. i hope i have a chance to come back to san javier later in my mission to see her.

This video explains what it means to pay Fast Offerings

You can also see the video by clicking here

it is going to be weird going to the city. here down south it is all just campo. i dont know what the word is for it in english.  it is kinda like farmland but it is also the culture. i dont really know how to describe it.

there isn't anything else to write about. i am excited for the adventure that lays ahead of me. i know that im going to learn a lot this next change. it all starts tomorrow at 8:30 on the 4 hour bus ride.

thanks for all of your prayers. i know that this chuch is true.

"I know that this Church is true."

this week was really hard but we are pushing through.

basically we have a half investigator that is progressing. i say half cause he came to church the 2 sundays before this one but missed yesterday. we have an appointment with him tonight and we are going to try to put a baptismal date with him to try to encourage him. other than him we don’t have much. we are seeing some special things with some less actives. for example we met a less active by total "luck" on the bus and invited him to church. and he came!! this never happens. normally you have to visit someone at least 4 times before they come to church. we talked to this guy for maybe 3 minutes. he has been out of the church for 10 years and he said he misses what he had. plus he said that his mom is really interested in the church so we need to stop by this week. the problem is he lives 30 min away on bus so it is hard to plan for.

speaking of buses you don’t know what crazy is until you have been on a south american bus!! we have to take the bus at least twice a week to Talca which is 40 min away for our district meetings and p-days. i’m telling you it is nuts. there  is never sitting room (standing room only and you are packed in there).  that is one thing that i miss of the states, the liberty of sitting comfortably in a car.  you gatta love south america.

funny story of this week.... we went to a baptism of a pair of missionaries in the zone. they planned the program 15 mins before it started cause that is just what missionaries do. they didn’t have any one to lead the music so they asked me to do it. thanks to mom and her teaching me, i know how, so i said yes. well in this building there wasn’t any music books. the only people that had them were the elders. so no one knew the words. what ended up happening was out of the 40 people that were there, there were 2 people that were singing. a sister missionary and me. it was terrible. it was like i did a solo. allllllll of the elders were making fun of me. i’m not going to lie, it was pretty funny.

this week is transfers. i find out what happens to me on saturday. part of me wants to stay in san javier but another part of me thinks its time to go. i say that because i feel like you learn more when you are out of your comfort zone. i have gotten pretty comfortable in san javier. we will see. if i do go, i am really going to miss the sister that was baptized. she is doing so well and there is a special place in my heart for her. she is such an amazing women and to have seen her make this change in her life to become happy again. it will be sad to leave her when i do have to leave.

i know that this church is true. thank you for all of your prayers. i really can feel them.

elder mag

Hola, Elder Magnusson

Elder Magnusson assures me that his is taking plenty of pictures.  He hasn't figured out how to download them onto a computer.  In the mean  time, I decided to  scour the Internet for any picture sighting of Elder Magnusson.  I found these pictures on chilerancaguamission.org

"Everyone in this world just wants to feel loved."

hey ya’ll! today has been crazy!!! we got our writing time cut cause we did a lot today so if i don’t write you a personal letter and i normally do i’m sorry!

well, this week has been pretty slow, but there were still some highlights.

First, our convert received The Holy Ghost yesterday!! it was so sweet. the branch president gave it to her and he gave her an awesome blessing. it was perfect for what she needed and wanted. she said that she hasn’t felt this happy before in her life. it is so worth all of the hard times to watch her change her life.

another highlight of the week was the weather. it was either 95 degrees or above or rainning. im not even joking there was no in between. let me tell you, the heat is hard but it is a thousand times better than the rain. no one wants to talk to you in the rain and no one is in the streets so raining days = hard days. the heat is hard cause pants and a buttoned up shirt with a tie is killer. i have been wearing short sleeve shirts for about 3 weeks now and i already have a killer farmers tan. i cant even imagine what it is going to turn into. its bad!!

so i have figured out a good way to tell how much i am going to understand someone before they start talking to me. all i have to do is check to see how many teeth they have. if they have them all, i can get about 90% of what they say which is pretty good. if they have half their teeth, we are looking at 45-60% and if they have no teeth... game’s over. i might as well not even try. lisa, do you understand what i’m trying to say?

two things that i am figuring out that i miss a lot is carpet and grass. you have no idea how good these two things are. i miss soft warm carpet that you can walk around bare foot in and i miss freshly cut grass. these two things seem really dumb but when i get back to the states i’m never going to take them for granted. everyone here either has tile, dirt, or concrete instead of carpet and rocks and dirt for grass. the only place that has these two things is the church which has a 20 by 30 foot space of both. this is why i love our church so much.

one thing that i figured out this week is everyone in this world just wants to feel loved. it is a basic thing that all humans want and need to feel even the most crazy people in this world.  love is the reason why some people do dumb things- they are looking for love in the wrong way. it just hit me as we were talking to some crazy dude in the street. we need to follow the Savior’s example and love everyone, even when it is hard. i don’t know why i just realized this but it is so important. love everyone. there is a reason why they do certain things.

You can also hear this video by clicking here

there isn’t much info in this letter but things were pretty slow this week. there isn’t much to report when we spent most of the week contacting. hopefully we have more success next week. i love you all. the church is true.

"One can't describe the life of a missionary."

first things first.... right when i signed off last week i forgot to give a shout out to my big sis rachel so happy late birthday. i honestly remembered but things happen.

and happy birthday to mom on the 15th. hope it is a good day. remember the birthday present i gave you a year ago? i broke my finger on that day. i cant believe it was a year ago.

next thing.  the baptism this sunday was super good. Our investigator was baptized by her friend that introduced her to the church. it was a really good meeting and all went really smooth except for he was 15 min late but it’s all good. every thing in chile is late so we just kept the tradition going. i must say though i don’t like not starting on time. but ah well. i don’t know what else to tell you about it. it was just a solid service. the best part was seeing the smile on her face the whole night. i know she is happy right now.

we found a new guy to teach. we have taught him twice this week and he is really interested. we gave him a baptismal date for the 7th of nov so hopefully things work out. he didn’t come to church yesterday which isn’t good. we have a lesson with him today so we will see what happened. BUT our other investigators came to church today which is sweeeeeet. it was testimony meeting.  i think that they really liked it.

this week i gave a blessing to a guy who has eye cancer and other health problems. (See James 5:14-15) i have known him for the whole time that i have been in the mission field so i am pretty close to him. he asked me to give the blessing. it was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. it was 100% guided by the Spirit cause i am not even joking-my spanish was perfect during the blessing. after it was all over we were both crying. it is an experience that i will never forget. the Spirit is real.

this was a pretty good week. i am happy for the experiences that i am having here. i know that they are changing my life. that being said, transfers are coming on the 31st and i kind of want to leave just so i can progress more. i feel like i have stopped progressing here in san javier and i would learn more in another sector. but i happy to be serving the Lord and building His kingdom. one can’t describe the life of a missionary but it is a good life. things are going good down south.

"I have a great love for the humble people of Chile and the Gospel"

this week was pretty crazy.  I’m not going to lie, but i like crazy rather than slow so that is good.

our sector is pretty big so we spend so much time traveling and we even have bikes. if we just had cars we could get soooo much more done. but its all good. i would rather have bikes than walk. walking is nasty.

we are having a hard time finding new people. i don’t know if it is just our attitude or what but after our investigator gets baptized this week we aren’t going have much. i think we just need to spend more time contacting. we are going have a heart to heart with our other investigators tomorrow so we will see how that goes. i hope they want to continue to hear us. they are such a good family. we weren’t able to teach them this past week cause they were out of town. i hope they didn’t loose all interest.

Our investigator who is getting baptized on the 11th is doing great. we finished all of the commandments this week and all went well. she said out of everything like tithing, word of wisdom, and law of chastity she is going to have the hardest time with fasting. that was a shock to us but she wants to do it. she went to conference and loved it. the one thing that she said she was lacking was a testimony of Pres. Monson. but she said that when she was watching him speak she felt the spirit sooooo strong. she is ready to get baptized. the service is this sunday so we are pretty happy.

conference was pretty sweet. in our stake there are 2 zones of missionaries. the stake has a room for just the north americans of conference in english. it is sweet. there are about 20 or 25 missionaries that speak english and it was seriously a party in there. we have some of the funniest missionaries in the mission here and i haven’t laughed soooo hard in my life. every one was high on sugar cause we all went out and bought candy for the weekend. i’m not going to lie. it was really hard to focus on the last session cause i bought a big bag of peach rings and ate the whole bag in less than 30 min. i honestly thought i was going to throw up. it was totally worth it. And the only mcDonalds  in the mission is 5 min from the stake center so in between all the sessions on saturday all of us went there. the people thought we must have been idiots cause we are a bunch of gringos speaking english dressed up in suits but it was so much fun. i never thought i would appreciate mcDonolds. but american food is so good.

this week were were riding around the most poor part of the city on our bikes and it just hit me that i am in chile, a 3rd world country trying to teach these people how much God can help their lives. i have been living here for over 3 months but it just hit me. i love what i’m doing and i am learning so much from these people they are sooo humble. i have a great love for them and the gospel. thank you for your prayers.