April 5, 2010

Jeff is now an uncle! His brother Greg & wife Laura officially made Jeff an uncle for the first time. Greg sent him some just-born pictures of Logan DeLong via email.Jeff's take on who the baby looks like at this point:

Hey!Wow, that's so cool that there is a new edition to the DeLong family! You are a grandma now :) He is a cute kid, I think he looks a lot like the both of them. I guess that's how it should work right? Haha

Yes, Greg and Laura will be great parents, no doubt about that. I can't wait to get to meet Logan.

I enjoyed conference a lot! I used to think that time went on forever during conference, but it goes by super fast now. I think it's cuz I take notes.enjoyed conference a lot! It sure did talk a lot about families and the different roles and responsibilities that everyone has. Kinda fun for Greg and Laura now that they are new parents.

I told him about the beautiful weather we have had the past few days, typical spring weather only earlier this year.

The weather here is still ridiculously hot! It should be cooling down by now, but I think that the terremoto (earthquake) messed everything up.

Elder Jenkins is just about ready to leave, ha, he'll be leaving next Monday. Wow, that is so weird. Today we will be going around and visiting all of his converts and other friends that he has made these two years. We do have some people (María and her daughter Caroline and this lady named Valeria) who are progressing really well :) I think that they will both get baptized. And Marisol will get baptized in June, hopefully I still be here.

Ok, well hope that you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder DeLong

March 29, 2010

I asked Jeff if he had a good week.

Yes, this week was good even though it was a little tough. Every day all our appointments seemed to fall through, but that just happens some times.

I told him I liked the pictures he sent, especially the one of him on the slide:

Haha, you like the one on the slide? That's in the courtyard of our apartments. There's a little pool and playground.

His current companion, Elder Jenkins, is a zone leader and just about to go home.

Yea, it's fun that he's a zone leader. I've learned a lot about how things work as a zone leader, and he is just really fun to be with. Too bad that I'll only have one change with him :/ I'll be on my 6th companion after Elder Jenkins.

He recently had a zone conference, and thought that Richard G Scott would be in Chile at the same time & maybe speak at their conference:

The zone conference went well. We always learn a lot and leave pumped to teach the gospel. Elder Scott was not there, so maybe he didn't come to Chile? I don't know. It is conference time already, hard to believe huh? I'm excited to hear what the prophets have to say.

Update on their investigators at this time-

Marisol is good, she is still really excited for her baptism. But she has to wait until June 11th to get married, I guess there are a lot of people at this time that also want to get married. Which is good, here in Chile there aren't many married couples. It's using the biggest stepping block for people to get baptized here. We have other investigators that are progressing well too. Getting them to church has been the biggest problem for most of them, so we are hoping to get a few to go to conference.

He hasn't said much about the earthquake in Chile, it doesn't seem like his area has been
affected much at this time.

There are still quakes pretty often. There was one last night that I woke up for. But it's not scary when you're on the ground, only when your 16 levels up, ha.
Yes, the weeks just zip on by, especially now that I almost have a year. Everyone says that time goes by even faster the second year, so we'll see I guess right?

Some thoughts on self-discipline:

One definitely needs self-discipline as a missionary. I thought it'd be more strict, or that I'd be under a tighter watch as a missionary. But that's not the case, there's all sorts of opportunities to be disobedient if I want, but that's where the self discipline comes into play, and training yourself to not want to be disobedient but to always do whats right.

Well thanks for everything and for the box that will be coming :) I am always praying for you, have a great week!
Love,
Elder DeLong