Jan 6th

its was pretty sweet! ill upload pics of new years on flickr! we spent new years in the house of the married missionaries. we were with the hermana and Elder schramm . but yeah. its was sweet! fireworks over the ocean lots of food and we just were hanging out! we also visited almost all of the members in our sector too,that day!

Familia Sanchez is doing good! this sunday we all fasted for the dad to have a change of heart and come to the gospel. and as a side note i cannot thank you enough for The Highly Effective Missionary book! it has changed everything! my companion before this week has recieved 2 referals from members in his mission and both ended in baptisms. we have recieved 8 referals from only 2 families (one being familia sanchez) who ever you meet that is going on there mission either force them to buy this book or buy it for them and throw it on the plane with them! it has changed everything! we are able to talk to way more people through the methods in this book and the fruit of that is sure to come! I Know It! THANK YOU SO MUCH MOM! your wisdom once again is above all other humans! haha but really thank you!

the dad of the family jaime, is changing also. last monday he was kind of  bad mouthing us with hma gabriela and after hma gabriela told us about it. on tuesday he apologized in front of everyone for what he had said. and them after that he started asking questions about the book of mormon and told that he has started reading it. and we hadn´t asked him to read at all! so yeah he is changing and the fast is going to help! he comes back from work this tuesday or wednesday and he took the book of mormon with him, so we will see what happens! Hoping for the best!

we have 2 new investigators and they are both open to the lessons so we will see what happens and hope for the best!

but also with the methods in the book we are teaching more lessons and talking to way more people! thank you again!

 

the grill was at a members house but i want one like it! and the chicken, might i dare say, is equal to dads..... yeah... it was that good!

haha dad seems to have the josie jinx now! Watch out for that one mom! more than the others!

 

Thats sweet that you got the package! and im glad that everyone got there stuff! ill send another one if i find some cool stuff!

 

I got my packages too! HOLY CANDY BATMAN! Im not going to have to buy candy for a solid month with everything you sent me! and thank you for the peanut butter! but we actually have it here in the store! but the JIF stuff is way better than this stuff! and thank you for sending stuff for elder artiga! that made it alot more easy to share with him everything instead of it being all for me, his fam wasnt able to send him anything, so that was great! it feels like a weird cousin to christmas for me right now, haha something like that!

 

tell ely to play hard and score 4 points for me! and email me haha!

 

love you mom

Elder Ethington

su hijo

Check out his new photos on the flickr post on the right side!

 

 

Dec 16

yes the son was baptized this yesterday right after church! it was sweet! we had a way sweet activity on friday! it was for christmas and there was 70 people at the activity which is a ton here. the most they have had come to CHURCH this year is 89. so 70 people at the activity was a big deal. and i have learned that latinos like to argue and blame. lets just say there are problems between the mombers from gossip and just not being nice people. haha and they expect the missionaries to do everything. haha but its was still a blast! im loving it here in Los Vilos. oh yeah i didnt get changed so im in Los Vilos for 6 more weeks. nobody in my district changed which is way rare but its really cool. we are a big family right now. its fun!

haha tell ely if it was my choice i would get the mail here whenever i could! haha! haha and snow too! i wish i had that also!

thank you for the number! i will send the package today! they said that it is about 10 days for the package to get to the united states so hopefully that is true! and presents! its fun to focus christmas on Jesus Christ but after that im going to miss the breakfast christmas morning! That is pretty much the best part of chirstmas now that i dont have it!

oh HMA Schramm showed me the christmas card! beleive it or not i actually miss seeing all those cheesy cards you make! haha i didnt think that i was every going to say that!

haha the grand sleepover! where really nobody sleeps! how was it? im excited to see the video or picture! and grandpa! hahah i can imagine him crying and gasping for air while watching the movie! haha he is honestly more funny to watch then the movie sometimes!

 

yeah i set up my account with my thomas.ethington@myldsmail.net i will be calling there at about3pm, mountain time! so i will be only 2 days 5 hours and 40mins haha. not that im counting! haha im going to the house of our mission leader! and in south america they stay up late the 24th and when it hits midnight they open up their presents so the 25th is a day way more relaxed! for them haha! so one the 24th we are going to go sing to the members a x-mas song and give them cookies that we cooked today! the district is putting names in a hat and drawing and buying presents for them.

HMA schramm and E' schramm went to salamanca and they brought back a letter from Hayley but that was it! but we are having a zone conference sometime in this next 6 weeks so i will for sure get it in the next month or so!

love everyone mom it make everything go smoother!

love you! 

Dec. 16

(Did the Barras family get baptized)  yes they did! it was honestly one of the best days of my life! haha I came to Chile to help people! And that is exactly what we did! It was seriously so cool and I haven't been that nervous for something in my whole life! I'm not sure how many times I said the baptisms words that day but it was A LOT! It was only the mom and daughter this saturdaybecause the younger boy had to go to a fundraiser for his school. thats catholic haha. but it was more because he went with his dad and he doesn't get much time with his dad. this week we should have his baptism on saturday! but yeah. The mom asked me to baptize her and the daughter wanted E' Artiga to baptize her so thats what happened! on friday it was the daughters birthday but she had her party after the baptism saturday so we went to that also and we watched shreck 1. haha it was pretty sweet!

the zone conference was really cool! E' Svec of the 70 and his wife spoke to us. that guy was straight Chileno. it was way hard to understand him. chileans do not say the S at the end of the word. so 2 is do and 3 is tre. haha but i understood his wife. it was fun! heard from pres and his wife and they challenged us to read the book of mormon once every 3 months for a grand total of 4 times this year. haha. its going to be tough but i want to do it! when we were coming back from the conference (which we only got a roll and and apple for lunch because they were in a hurry! and we had to get up a 4:30 in the morning to leave to breakfast was way early!) we got stuck in a traffic jam on a mountain haha. for 3 hours. a semi full of grapes rolled. and right when we were leaving another truck driving past us had a tire of the edge of the road haha. it was a litte crazy! but we got free grapes out of it! 

but that doesn't sustain you when you haven't eaten in 12 hours! we eventually had dinner at 11 o'clock when we got back. however i didnt get my packages! i will get them after x-mas it looks like. which sucks haha but there isn't anything i can do about it. but the zone leader told me that they have at least one at the house.

those trampoline places are fun! and pizza! they have pizza here but its not the same!

its definitely getting hotter here! it is only a little bit more humid here than our house. but i still sweat. haha if i get sent any further north things are going to get really intersting with the heat and my attributes of sweating like a pig. haha yeah we will see what happens! and we have changes this week so there is a posibility that i could change but for new missionaries pres usually keeps them in the same place!

the allergies are fine which is awesome! so far nothing her bothers me whick is really nice!

the forgien comp sucked for the first 2 weeks but now its a huge blessing! my spanish is flying! and i only studied once  this week haha whoops. i can understand almost every conversation that we have and if i dont its because i dont know the word that was said. which is really nice. i taught half of the lesson yesterday with the fam. barrasa sanchez. its fun. the gift of tongues is real haha. that is for sure! also during the conference  i met a elder from enterprise utah and he has been out the same amount of time as josh and my spanish is equal if not a little above his and he has the gringo accent. and i an latino elder in my district has told me before that i don't have a gringo accent. haha that was humbling! I didn't realize how much I have been blessed. thank you for your advice of having paticience and making mistakes! applied that right of the bat and that has made a huge difference! very grateful for what i have been given! like an awesome mom :)

LOVE YOU MOM!

im having fun here, so enjoy yourself there!

read the scriptures if you need help with anything!

love you

Elder Ethington

(This email came 5 minutes after the one above!)

MOM!  THE MOM AND DAD JUST DECIDED TO GET MARRIED!!!!!!!!!! LIKE 1 MIN AGO THEY CALLED US AND THEY ARE DOING THE PAPERS RIGHT NOW FOR THE MARRAIGE! CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!!!!!! AHAHA I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY! 

Dec. 9th

haha for some reason im not even surprised that all this is happening to josie. haha it seems like if anything ridiculous can happen. it happens to her! walking disaster is right! i hope she feels better! for good!

ill be honest i miss the snow! it doesnt really feel like christmas without the snow! haha this whole week it was like 50 in the morning and then 80 during the day. its very much like the weather in utah! haha.

well they have a baptism date for this saturday! yesterday they had thier interviews and they all passed. and by they I mean the mom, daughter and son. the dad left for work for the week and when he left they were separated and H´gabriela said that she wants to be baptized and it came to a head that her and jime were going to serperate. but when jime left for work he called us at 10 that same night and said that he wants to support her and do his part in this! he is like a child. also thank you SO MUCH! for the advice. i finnaly cried this week :) on wednesday H´gabriela was trying to figure out what she was going to do about jime and all that, and i told her what you said about change and having patience! thank you! it was spot on and we both cried haha! that was pure inspiration on your part THANK YOU! everything has gone a lot smoother since then! THANK YOU!

we talked with geraldin the JW. but only talked. haha she doesnt have adults to talk to so we just had oncé (its what they call late dinner here) and talked with her. that is one thing with here they have late dinner and all it is, is bread avacadoes eggs and ham. and herb tea. I love it!

yeah Schramms are nice. they came with us to a lesson with fam Barrasa and they helped a ton and we are very grateful for that!

im in the zone Illapel, but im in the district, Los Vilos. haha but i will remember that if i get to be in illapel. haha i kind of hope i don´t! it is like an oven there! its not even the middle of summer yet!

haha yeah its crazy that christmas is here. it doesnt really feel real! they are a few houses that have lights but it is not the same! haha but its is still fun. we had a christmas/ night of sweets activity on friday and it was sweet! there was a ton of members and a ton of cake and chilean plates! me and my companion made scones with family barrasa and they had a little sauce thing they made for them! it was sweet! they have cake here that is almost like  your tres leche but yours is much better. and if you put manjar on you tres leche. WATCH OUT! that would be deadly! they celebrate the same as us i think haha. and the family barrasa invited us over for christmas to so that will be fun. the son carlos. he is a lot like ely! haha its really funny but it really sucks sometimes! it makes me miss everyone! but really ill survive! haha im going to have a good time and i also get to talk to you all on christmas so that is going to be sweet! only 15 more days!

i hope my package gets here too! haha it has been almost 2 months! we have a christmas conference on friday with president and also one of the 70 is going to come speak to us also! but more importantly i hopefully will get your packages! or something! haha i hope! 

thank you for everything and i love you! you are a huge example to me and i look for your support when i am on the other side of the world right now. im here so others can have the same happiness that we have.! i love you mom! you are my hero!!

elder ethington

Make sure to watch Thomas's MTC group sing "How Can I Be"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/100846156@N02/11174799906/in/photostream/

Nov. 18

this week went by ridiculously fast haha. it literally feels like i just wrote you all yesterday! when i got here we actually didnt have any and now we have 6 VERY good investigadors and 4 others that could be good! 5 of the really good ones is a family and the husband and wife are married which is not very common down here. they were way excited to hear the lessons and 20 minutes after the first lesson they came to our activity at the church for the ward. its crazy! the dad even looks like he want to be baptized to which is even more rare than them being married! when we tract everyone has gate to we get to yell HALO! infront of the gates! the first time i didn´t it we got a contact. haha. i got lucky! we walk a lot but it doesn´t really bother me. all i did in golf was walk haha. and now im not trying swing a club so im pretty happy haha. the inserts are working way good and i can tell they will help even more when we walk more.

our first zone conference was pretty boring. wow. 4 hours of powerpoint. 1 brake. haha and i understood what was being said but i had to concentrate that whole time haha. it was in illapel. that is one thing that has clicked is that 80% of the time now i understand what is being said without concentrating and just listening and most of the time if i dont know what was said its because i dont know the word. very grateful for the gift of tongues. its my best friend right now!

well president is kind of a stick to the rules guy. haha. i dont know how many times i heard ¨your a representative of Jesus Christ so you need to follow the rules with exactness¨ it is important and im doing my best to represent Jesus Christ . after the first day of stuff i actually felt bad that i had my ukulele with me. haha but ive made the goal to learn how to play the hymns with it and maybe to a song or two with it. but he is a nice guy with a big heart. i like him!

yeah i wasnt able to sent the little army man doll thing but i will try to sen it again!

 i actually really miss watching football. especially going to games that was a blast!

well the people here are very backwards. they all have suped up honda civics and then they live in a metal shack. with a 50 inch plasma flatscreen tv. haha i dont really understand it but oh well!

 

we have lunch at a members house everyday except for our p-day. (lunch is the big meal here) and i have yet to eat something i didnt like so all is well! haha.

i actually played(the piano)  in church yesterday! i had to play for the sacrament a song i had never even heard of so that was interesting to say the least! that is one thing also, other than family and friends, i miss music more than anything. haha i really like playing the piano because i can do something that i actually understand haha.

for christmas if you could somehow send 4 things i will be happy! 1 chia. 2 coffee creamer, the icecream kind 3 ukulele chord book with chords strum patterns and if possible church songs. 4 a piano arrangement book for hymns!

thats it and i will use them quite often!

one thing here in chile that is delicious is MANJAR! you have to look it up and make some! it is great!

also could you send me the carmel popcorn recipe and also dads sodapop chicken recipe! and his sauce that he makes!

it feels pretty good to be a real missionary. haha i have waited a long time for these next 2 years.

 

 

Make sure to click on the flickr pictures on the right to see his most recent pictures!

 

November 11

i will send a letter next week with a postcard but it probably won't get there till like christmas haha! that mail is way slow!

sorry i haven't wrote we didn't get a p-day last week because we left the mtc! its was a somewhat crazy day and i made some really good friends in the mtc!

well halloween was pretty bland haha. except that night everyone was going around where we sleep and trick or treating and we started getting loud and so pres. allred came out and told us that we could trick or treat as long as we were quite.. and then a kid dropped his bag of candy, people started yelling and so did president haha. we didn't get to trick or treat for very long! haha. thats crazy that you hardly used that much scones! usually we don't ever have enough!

 

haha that is alot of toilets backed up all at once! kind of glad that i'm not the there to help with that! but it do wish i could have heard grandma say that! thats hilarious!

i haven't got the goodies yet but we have a zone conference on wednesday so i might get it then!

im excited to find more people like that lady and see who i can help!.

well everyone in my district is latino. haha so i hear spanish 24/7 but its good for me! my companion is elder artiga! he is very pacient with me which helps a lot! my spanish is slowly getting better! haha

my companion is very cool! he's from guatemala and is very nice! and pretty funny also! 

Im in illapel, los vilos. basically it looks like the town that nacho libre lived in haha!

ill try to upload pictures onto flickr! and the video!

everything is going well. i am learning how to have patience with just about everything. and learning to laugh at myself about 20 times a day!

 we went by bus (to get to the mission) and we are able to use some computer store(to send emails)  haha. its pretty ghetto!

 

 there is 4 compainonships (in the town) and we do have a mamita! she is very nice and she can even clean suits too! and right now its actually pretty cold! especially at night! like i have 3 blankets sweatshirt long pjs and socks on haha! and very windy!

 

haha during the mtc we saw a city bus that had been taken over by crazy fans. they had two flags out the side 4 people on top of the bus going 30 mph and smoke rolling out of the windows. haha crazy latinos! 

 

 word of the week is BACAN. its means freaking awesome!

 

Amanda's  BACAN Update:

The Vina del Mar Mission has a website and they are really great about posting pictures.  We found these great one's of Thomas and his group on their first day in the mission (I only cried a little when I saw them:) .

A little info on where Illapel is and what it looks like:

 

 

 

October 30th

its really good! my spanish is 100 times better than it was last week because my new companion (that reminds me of Greg) doesn't dominate every lesson and now i have to speak! the gift of tongues is real! its crazy! yesterday we went contacting and i can understand 75% of what everyone says and if i don't its because i don't know the word they said! contacting is very nerve racking at first but it is so fun and even just talking to people in a park you can feel the spirit when you talk to them. its so crazy! and yesterday we went on the bus and metro! its a blast! and no i haven't seen any gypsies yet haha!

bro saunders is one of the best seminary teachers ive ever had!

if you see him tell him that he is going to do great things and he is there for a reason!

yeah my other comp left beacuse he is fluent in the language and now he is our zone leader.

there is about 20 of us going to vina and most of the are pretty cool!

well the completos are really good its basically just a hot dog with avocados and tomatoes and other stuff but they are really good!

thats cool that you saw katie! its going to be cool to have everyone in the field! ive talked to almost everyone so far! pretty fun stuff!
to Ely:

Good to hear from you bud! i heard you are missing me! don't be sad! just think of the day when i come back and get to see you! have someone take you to that big hill we longboarded down and ride it! when i get back we will go do that the first day i get back! that game sounds pretty fun! and thats awesome that you caught that many fish! we will do that when we get back! write down stuff that you want to do when i get  back and those weill be the first things i do when im home again! hope you are having fun!

love you bud!

so this week my district sang that How Can I Be song for family home evening for the whole MTC! i will have to uploard it when im out in the field beacuse its to big of a file! its was way fun and i've wanted to do that for a long time!

things are freaking awesome right now! thank you for the quote!

love you so much mom and i can wait to see you all again.

LOVE YOU!

thank you so much for that quote! (from scot My creed that I follow in life is a quote by Emma Wheeler Wilcox- "There is no chance, no destiny, no fate that can circumvent, hinder, or control the firm resolve of a determined soul." When you add the power of prayer and the power of action to that it is awesome what the Lord can achieve through you.")

i know you could destroy those state records! that is the coolest thing i have ever heard! and i gaurntee that you will get even stronger because you are are way competitive and you have something to work for! YOU ARE AWESOME!!!!!! go destroy some old farts!

that is the inspiring thing i have ever been told dad. I have a page for the things you send me and I am shaking from writing it down and saying it in my head. thank you.

i was sent to chile for a reason and i found out one reason why yesterday. so we went contacting in the street. and another missionary started talking to a lady about the gospel and she said she didn't believe in god. but she did believe in The Secret. no one else in my district  knew what she was talking about. i was able to talk to her and tell her how i applied it in my life with the gosple. I should her in the introduction how it said Ask Believe and you will recieve an answer about the book of mormon and all things that you need from our heavenly father. we gave her the book and i have never been more grateful for your guidance in my life than in that instant. when you told me i had to read that in like 10th grade I didn't want to but i had a feeling that i should. you were inspired to tell me read that and i know it was because it was so i could talk to that lady about the gosple. THANK YOU!

I miss you guys a lot but when i look at the pictures of you guys i always am alittle sad but i make myself think of the joy i will have when i see you all again!
 keep the quotes coming they are something i look at when things get rough!

I LOVE YOU!!

Thomas