Feb. 10

well quite frankly this week was pretty incredible!! we taught 34 lessons this week in total! we are doing what we need to be doing not just walking around trying to find people we are TEACHING people! its awesome! there are so many people here we can contact a ton of people and yesterday was the best day of the them all. so to start off Saturday after lunch i felt like i needed to fast so i started my fast and things started going pretty well. had 5 of 6 lessons and its was cool. woke up sunday and we went to church and during sacrament meeting a few of the youth bore their testimonies about the EFY that they went to. as the last one got up to bear his testimony I started noticing that around him he was glowing. haha crazy i know but just hold on. i thought that i was just seeing stuff and needed to eat but as he was bearing his testimony his ¨light¨ or auora got brighter as he started really talking and feeling the spirit. so at this point the gifts of the spirit are starting to pop into my head. haha after a lady in the ward was giving her talk and i could see the same thing with her and it was the same. when she started to REALLY bear her testimony her glow got brighter. and during church and after during the meeting i kept seeing it. we had a meeting with the bishop and i could see a faint glow around him and yeah. then we went to a members house for lunch. i ended my fast thinking that was a pretty sweet experience. and went down stairs to eat. as we were eating the mom commented how her family had reactivaded themselves the last month. and that her daughter, Millaray,  that is 10 isnt baptized. The girl then told us that she wants to be baptized. haha it just fell into our lap! it was crazy sweet! after lunch we taught her the first lesson and  set a date for baptism. haha march 2. my birthday. haha it was crazy! and it is going to be a sweet birthday!

Besides Millaray, we have 1 baptism for sure this week and it could be two if we see more effort from one guy. and we are working on a third that is just nervous about what her kids will think if she gets baptized. and tomorrow we are going to do the activity for the refrences. haha so yeah it was pretty sweet week to say the least!

there are a ton of hills here. ha ha we walked up a hill the other day the was probably 1/3 of a mile long. haha and that was to start off the day! tons of hills here but i just gotta enjoy it! and also this week we had lunch with the mamita and both her sons are Boy Scouts! haha we talked for a good 45 min about scouts and the older son is going to try to buy me 4 patches that say Boy Scouts Chile for me. should i buy more?

also we gave a blessing to a lady and her husband had a companion in his mission in Chile, Conception, 1989-1990

oh and if you send anything my way soon the bishop here love stephen kat perry and if you can send him the cd The Best Of, with the song ¨until the next time¨ and the new light CD he would be a very very happy man. haha just take the money out of my account if you do send anything.

well the fruit here is way cheap so we I have bought a ton of fruit yougurt and oatmeal and in the moring I cut up fruit in a bowl and eat the fruit with oats and yogurt. and an omelet also usually. haha and then we have lunch at a members house which is usually pasta or rice and meat or something like that. and then we eat dinner sometimes but most of the time i just buy a pear or a slice of a watermelon for dinner. and yeah sometimes we cook eggs in the night too. but dont worry im not starving myself im just only eating when im hungry. haha

did you talk to max and kelly about Elder Marriot?

all is well here!

Elder Ethington

Feb. 2nd

haha yeah yesterday i kinda realized that it was the superbowl but i hadnt heard anything about it! haha sounds like the denver donkeys got trashed!

well i got transfered! right now im in Viña del Mar, nueva aurora. all i can say is holy hills! haha its pretty incredible! i have a pretty sweet view of all of Viña and also all of Valpariso! our ward alone is bigger than all of Los Vilos and so we have a lot more people to work with and alot more members!

it was pretty hard to say goodbye to the familia sanchez this last week. but we gave them the papers for the goal to go to the temple when the son turns 12. haha i almost cried but i kept myself together. and elder villatoro finished his mission also so we had to say goodbye to him also and that sucked. haha i just want to like a maniac until i leave so i can help everyone i can.

 yesterday we had 2 baptisms. 1 was for the ward and the other was ours. i got to baptized the little guy, his name is sebastian ( he was the wards baptism) and my new companion Elder Campzanos  baptized the other! so that was pretty sweet!

 and we have one other that is ready for baptism and another that we commited to baptism the first day that i was in the area. but after that we dont have to many people to teach. well to say the least i think i am seeing the Lords hand helping me use the methods from that book. i try to use it whenever i can. my comp is district leader and our first meeting that we had, he had me introduce the contacting method because the district is having a hard time finding new investigators. in 3 days the Hermanas found 7 new investigators and everyone else is having success also. and he has yet to see the refference method haha. its different not having my trainer. haha ill just say that. thank you for my work ethic mom. haha.

oh so my zone leader is from layton, Elder Marriot, turns out he is friends with max and kelly and his dad works with gary! haha what a small freaking world!!!

haha also our bathroom broke and so that was pretty sweet.

i hope things liven up a little! if you want something to do here and there, if you could find activites to do for family home evening that would be sweet!? and also how is greg and his family?

true and faithful! i like it! we have the challenge to read the book of mormon 4 times this year and its sweet! im realizing how awesome the gospel is! its kinda sweet! we have tons of examples in the scriptures for the situations that we are in! like nephi he was true and faithful to the end! and truely wanted the best for everyone through the gospel! true and faithful. haha i wont kill my companion hopefully haha!

 love you mom! thank you for your examples and everything you have done for me. haha its helps to here from you! love you!

elder campozano is from ecuador, the capital. and yeah everyone that i have talked to here in the ward has complimented me on my spanish. alot of them think that i have been in the mission for a lot longer that 4 months so that is really cool and satisfying to hear. thank you for making me take those spanish classes in jr high and high school! haha it has helped a ton whether i knew it or not!

thank you! I hope we can use the book for everything its worth during my mission! haha mom i only have 5 weeks left before i hit 6 months! its crazy!

 

nope! this next week im going to buy a coat and some sweaters for the winter as its starting to get cold and night! and its gets cold faster in Viña and valpo so its will probably be starting soon.

Elder Ethington

Jan 27th

the food of the week is cinnamon rolls! we made some dang good cinnamon rolls for elder villatoro.s going home party! they were perfect! 

that is insane that you have lost 20 pounds! send a pic  when you can! thats a ton of wieght in less than a month! congtrats!

i missed a few days this week with the exercising so this week im going to amp it up. i did however go from 10 second burst to 15 second burst with the jump rope. the 10 second wasnt wearing me out by the end, enough. haha i think i went through withdrawls this week from the candy. i was way tired this week and i realized it was because i didnt have any candy. haha pretty stupid huh! but now im feeling a like i have more energy. now i just got to get the fat down! i have lost 4 punds so far also even with the fat i gained from the candy!

 the lady that we found was last week had a date for baptism but couldnt attend church so we will have to change it. but it was because her mom had heart problems this week and she told us the she will attend no matter what as long as her mom is alright, but she didnt attend so hopefully it her mom is alright! But she is awesome! she told us during the lesson of the resturation that she believes this is true! she kind of bore her testimony when she said it so that was awesome! we also commited another guy to baptism that has had the lessons several times so that was sweet also! he wasnt able to attend sacrament because of work but he want to be clean from what ever he has done! so thats pretty sweet to!

Familia Sanchez is doing good! The Dad is one big fat drama queen so they probably aren't getting married but they are happy. we couldnt visit them this last week because 2 weeks ago we had lunch with them and when we left the dad said that he wasn't there to "support her elders" and when he left for work he didnt give her any money to buy food for the week. and i guess he has done that a few times since we have began teaching them in december. but most of the time he only leaves them about 20 bucks which still isnt a lot at all. that was a rough week for hma gabriela.  so yeah to say the least that kinda pissed me of a little. so we have stopped teaching the dad for now but we will see what happens.

the training is over! and i am ready to using everything to bring people to christ and especially use that book (7 habits of highly effective missionaries)! we do need to find more people though!

cool experience with the spanish this week. so when we were having the party for elder villatoro a older couple from canada walked into the chapel and were a trying to find someone that could speak english. me and the the scramm couple  started talking to them. when i was talking to the lady elder villatoro came over and i told him that they were from canada, all of this in spanish. and when i turned back to the lady to tell her that he could understand english really well, i guess i said it all in spanish. haha and i had no idea. i thought i said it in english. its was really cool to see the progress that i have made in these short 3 months in the field!

im going to print off you study thing and study it. also i realized how short a time a have to work for the Lord! with elder villatoro leaving i understand why people want to be missionaries and how 2 years really isnt that much time! i love the work and i cant wait to find even more people to teach! and finishing my training also just makes me want to work even harder!

i wanna go fly fishing in the mountains when i get back! thatd be sweet!

love you dad! 

Elder Ethington

tu hijo

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/