June 9th

haha well you know im here in santa julia!!! that rattle snake is coool and dads beard is gone!! haha that is so wierd!!!! haha its weird so see him like that and i dont even hardly see him haha.  haha that sucks that you ely goes back so school tomorrow but at least you guys got to take out the boat once! haah its pretty dry there and its just raining here !!! haaha and thats cool that elisa and aurora came down! tell them hi for me! holy cow!!!! DC sounds like that is going to be freaking sweet! i completely forgot about your buisness that you guys have got going but if you are going to DC you should be getting some really good people! haha DC is where the money and kind of important people are at! hahah you guys are going to get a ton of money!!!!!

haha that cracks me up that jordan came to the house"! haah her bailee and alyssa weere the ones that dropped off the goldfish if she didnt tell yo that haha and it is kind of wierd tht her parents are divorced!

Monday:

we had a sweet BBQ with the bishop and ate some freaking good food!!! haha that was basically all that we did that day!!!

tuesday:

it was just raining a ton and but lucky we had lessons planned all day so we were able to stay out of the rain for lot of the day! we taugh roberto and katarine for the last time and they had plans to get all of there marriage stuff figured out today! (MONDAY 9th) so hopefully they got all of that done and it would be cool to see them get married and roberto baptized!!! so then that night i got a call from president kaunlien and he told me that i would be called as a Zone Leader in the mission!! hahah freaking crazy and i didnt really know what to say!

Wednesday:

so we had change meeting and we got all of the figured out and now im in santa julia. its sweet! my comp is elder Valencia! he is from ecuador, quito! its super cool he is my 3 native comp and im excited to perfect my spanish! haha the funny thing about all of this is that we are opening a sector! haha both the missionaries before left so we have one investigator but we have no idea where she lives still! ahah. and just to top it all off my comp only has one change more than me in the mission and 1 change as a ZL haha. so we are just having a good time here in santa julia!!!! haha

Thursday:

we got to contact people in our sector. one thing that is good is that it is a big sector!!! and we finally got to meet like 3 members at a meeting that was at the church! hahaha

Friday: 

we had a meeting in Viña for the ZLs of the mission and it was super sweet! i learned a ton from the training and me and my comp finally talught together! haah and it was in a practice teaching 2 sister missionaries! haha but they said that we did it good! haha basically the second that we stepped off the bus from VIna into Santa Julia it just started raining caleta como dicen los chilenos! haha it was just a nice huge down pour but we went to a members house and got to know them adn it was super fun and cold!! haha i also got my package from easter!!! hahah love the starburst candy that was in there and the letters also!!! those weree sweet and good to read from you guys!!

Saturday: 

so we had splits with missionaries and i got to go with a missionary that i knew att the begining of my mission and it was kind of wierd at first that i had like 3 months less than him in the mission and im now his zone leader. haha he knew me qhen i didint know alot of spanish. but he is a sweet guy from costa rica! haha and a very funny guy! and he taught me how to do part of a rubix cube!!

sunday: it just kept on raining so we had like 6'0 people total at church and it was freaking cold in the chapel also!!! haah i lead the music in the ward and a lunch after, the wife and her daughters both said the i looked like micheal buble haha!!!! dang i miss listeing to his music!!  i thought that was super funny! haha we had to go help some elders i the zone break into thier pension because they left there keys in the house when they closed the door! haha i will say, the pension that we are in now is 1000 times better than the last one!!! haha! and we got to know the bishop and his fam.  his wife said that you also look very young mom!

haha its super crazy just how everything is going now! tell hi to everyone for me and give them a hug for me and tell them that i love them!

mom i love you and go have some fun in DC that super cool that you get to go there and know that what ever yo have to present you are going to do freaking good!! just be yourself! love you mom for you example! you letter meant alot to me! ill try and send yo a letter soon here!!!

elder ethington 

mosiah 16:8-9

the light of everything

Thomas Sends Ely the best Birthday Present Ever!

Thomas's Birthday Present to Ely!

June 2

June 2

monday-

we had 4 lessons this monday which is a ton for  only 3 hours of work on mondays!! it was super fun an we actually got to teach ailyne that got baptized in march! it was super fun to teach her and hang out a little bit with her. we taught a less actuve familiy that we have been trying to get to go to church for a long time and are super close to coming back to church! we actually have a bbq with themtomorrow before changes this week beacuse we dont know what is going to happen!

tuesday-

haha so we had district meeting and the zone leaders told us that they we going to be there. haha so we are waiting for the zl`s to show up and the asistents come in. haha that was slightly hilairious and freaked some of the missionaries out hah but it was a super fun meeting and i got to teach with one of the asistent and it was actually super fun. we are just simplifying everything that we are doing in the mision with how we teach and i learned a ton from the asistents it was awesome! and then we had interchanges from there and i went with elder porter and we just had a good time in con con,l which is the richest city in chile, haha one of the members is a taxi driver and i drove us around to 2 of the lessons we had and it was really nice not to walk!!! :)

wednesday-

we taught a less active and he has lots of family that arent members and we had progress with the fam. she watched part of the video that we shared and she the gave us once after so that was super awesome to see and eat! haha then we taught rodrigo, he probably isnt going to progress very fast and there was a 50% chance that he had broke the word of wisdom with certain substances before the lesson. haha and the bishop came with us and his blood sugar dropped super low haha that was a little scary!

thursday-

we taught roberto y katarine and they are going to get married! haha and during our lesson we were talking about the holy ghost and he just flat out told us that he wants to get baptized and now he has a lot more motivation to get married!!! hahah its so awesome!!! and we taght some converts from my old comp and they are doing good but they havent come to church in like 3 weeks because they are just getting there back destroyed from lifting concrete all day.

friday.

we had our ward activity as you all found out and me and my comp sang and it was horrible. hahaha ill just say that we did however have 3 investigators come to the activity and a bunch of people brought friends and stuff! haha it was super fun! after everyone sang to ely for his birthday we just had to take off running to make it back to the pension before 10!!! and i mean we were sprititing for a what felt like a half a mile! haha but we made it!!!!

Saturday!
we just taught roberto y katarine and they told us that they want to get married and they made the conection that the holy ghost is sent from Heavenly Father and then roberto read the pamphlet and did what it said and on his own went and repented and it was super cool!!! he was super receptive to the spirit and he is super excited to listen to us and he understands everything that we teach him even though its sometimes hard for him.! its so cool to see all of this happen!!! he did have to work a night shift that night but had plans to come to church at least for sacrament.

sunday.

so roberto didnt come to church but we had a family home evening with them and the bishop came with us and its was super sweet and the mom of katerine cooks was good food so we got to eat very well after we shared the message about prophets! it was super cool! and it was like a miracle that we made it there on time! we were all the way down the hill like a 20 min walk to get to the top. and we found a member in his taxi and he took us all the way to the chruch to meet the bishop for free! haha it was freaking sweet!!!! no walking!!!! 

haha today and tomorrow we have bbq for whoever is leaving this wednesday for changes! haha i freaking love the people here and they are going to have some good new MARRIED members here pretty soon!

love you mommy!!!!!!!

Elder Ethington

May 12

May 12

thank you mom and it was super sweet to talk to you guys!!! i know i seriously just freaking balled my eyes out but i promise you that i am happy and i am very happy that i had the chance to talk with you guys !!! haha and bishop is super sweet his wife reminds me of you and stacie mixed together haha. haha well if dad gets that bathroom done i will be super happy that i will have a bathroom even though i dont have a room for me!!!  hahah holy cow i cant believe that you guys are finishing school right now! and that ely will be in 6th grade! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!  give ely a hug for me! and tell him that i love him!!!

Monday. 

we did do a whole ton other than we had interviews with president and that was super sweet to be able to talk to him and he is a letter of the law guy but he is a good person that cares about us.

tuesday.

pday haha just hung out cooked some food for the week.

wednesday

we taugh the fam. castillo and they have some problems with accpeting the word of wisdom so we are going to work with them and have lots of members passing by so that they can be baptized soon!!! it would be super sweet to see them baptized soon but it is going to take some work and alot of faith to have it happen in the next 3 weeks!

Thursday

we had splits with the two elders that dont to much and so went there to help them out. haha there sector is just straight stairs so that was pretty fun haha. got to know there investigator that is going to get baptized soon and she just needs help getting to church for now. and i had a nice heart to heart with the elder that is more lazy of the two and it was cool to see him change right there when i just talked with him as someone that just wants to see him have a baptism in his sector.

friday.

well we only had one lesson with a menos activo and we just contacted for the whole day. haha building the investigator pool.

saturday.

it was actually kind of cool. i was studing the numbers in my agenda to see if there was anything that we could do to find a new investigator and i notice that if we had place 3 or more BOM in a week we had at least one new person and i then went and checked the numbers for the whole district and it held true in 90 percent of the weeks with 3 or more BOM. so that day we placed 2 BOM and its was kind of a miracle but sure enough some guy showed up to the church when we left the church for mission coorilation and he wanted to come closer to god and we taught him and got a new investigator. that was super sweet!!

Sunday.

well the sabath day consited of going to church. had to go down to Viña to get my passport from the ZL. come back. studies for 45 min. contacted for 45 min. read my scriptures while my comp was talking to his fam. then i talked to you guys for 55 min and cried trying to say good bye for 5 min. and then we had to run home haha. 

Today. 

haha i got all my papers filled out for my year visa in Chile so in one month i will have a card that says SOY CHILENO!!! YIPPPEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

haha its super fun to talk to you guys and i having a good time and have lots of excitement to work and find some new people to teach!!!!!!!

love you mom and i real cant thank you enough just talking to me and it was really really good to see you  and talk to you!

your number 1 mom

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!

Elder Ethington

April 28

April 28

well i will read more about grandpa with dads email but tell him that i love him and to read his scrpitures when he wants to feel better!

this last week we didnt go and help and i dont think that we will! it would be sweet if we did! but it was fun. and yes my comps parents had some pics of him. haha it was kind of a crazy week for him because his older brother got married on saturday so we made saturday a pretty fun day by contacting 40 people in the street and at the open market thing that runs right past the church,  we just stood 15 feet apart and just started contacting like crazy and it was a fun day! we found a lady that is going to be baptized very soon!! she works in a little store and she was wondering why God took away her great grandpa and other people in her life. so we gave her a book of mormon and she read alma 40 and before she read she felt like everything was way crazy and the after she read she felt way more relaxed. we showed her that that was the spirit telling her that it is true and then we had her read the pamphlet of the plan of salvation for the next day. ( we go by everyday when its slow) and she said that she felt the spirit again and so we put a baptism date for 11 of may and but she does live in a different city but we are going to baptize her anyways haha. familia castillo are doing good we werent able to teach them this week but we are going to have a way good lesson with them this week! and the little girl Millaray. we finally have hot water for the baptismal font so we are going to have her baptism 17 of may and its going to be sweet! me and my comp are just super excited to just contact people like crazies and also workin g with members! we had the first fruits of our labor this week and we had an "once" with a family and they invited thier friend who isnt a member and we just showed a mormon message and they felt the spirit way strong and we are going to have another lesson this week with them! its going to be awesome! adn the hermanas in the district are just destroying satan in there sector. its incredible! one day they had 7 lessons and 5 of them were with investigators! i love calling them at night because they are just so excited to work and it just SWEET!

so far i havent got my packages but i think i will in like two weeks maybe or something! haha but thank you for the shoe inserts! haha mine are wearing out!

thank you for all the family home evenings stuff and i now have a challenge for all of you guys! the video that i attached to the email is what i want you all to watch for a family home evening this week! its freaking incredible and just want you guys to sit down say a prayer and then just sit there for20 seconds in silence and relax and enjoy your life. then i want you to watch this video!!! it will give you goose bumps! i have watched this video 10 times this week and it gives me chills everytime! its awesome!

i love you mom and thank you so much for you love and support! im going to print off that quote and make it look super sweet!!!!!!

Elder Ethington

tu hijito 

April 21

April 21

ha ha well yeah this week there wasnt any major catastophes so we had a pretty fun week! it was really crazy!

but i will say that when we went thursday it was one of the best days of my mission! it was just so sweet to be able to help poeple like that! and i have never seen that much destruction in my life also! we were all walking up to the place and just kind of happy and when we got there it was just like holy cow. none of us had seen anything about it on tv and so when we finally saw it with our 2 own eyes it was nuts! it looked like some one dropped a bomb off in that place! why i like that day so much was because i could just take a freaking shovel and completley devote myself to something like that! i dont have to try and present something in a way that the dirt will accept  the shovel i just use everything that i have learned and been blessed with to demolish clear out everything! haha it was pretty freaking sweet to work like that! we stared up the hill at about 9:15 and then we finished at 5 and it was a blast! haha and then afterwards we came back to the pension and took showers and that is when i basically died haha. i have never been that tired in my life! haha i slept like a rock that night! it was awesome!

here is a pic of all the missionaries that when up in our group!..... sucks for the sisters! they only asked for the guys to come!

well that is awesome that you talked with them all haha tell Hma Gabriela Hola y vayanse por el templo cuando puedan!

haha our bishop es loco pero èl es buenisimo y un gran amigo!

haha sounds like ely is growing up haha! how crazy and wierd! haha but it will be sweet to see! how much bigger he will be when i get back!

haha this week i will break 7 beautiful months in the mission and it is going by so fast it can hardly understand it!

thats awesome that you went to the BYU game! how close did you guys sit to the court and all of that!

i did get quite a bit of fotos from them and if you could all tell them thank you agian for me!!

i actually didnt get my package for easters but i did sent ely and josie both a letter. this

after i write you guys me and my comp and going to destroy a buffet here. ill probably get food poisoning but man am i going to enjoy eating cheap chinese buffet food while i do it!

love you mom and we had a great week this week thank you for all of you support and it means a ton to read everything you can send me!

Love you!

Elder Ethington