LA PENULTIMA CARTA

Let me tell you about my week.  Tuesday we painted the house of a really awesome membernamed Claudio Alcazar.  He is slightly handicaped but hes the coolest guy ever.  Wednesday i had last zone conference.  IT was fun and for lunch we had some really good hamburgers.  Friday I had an interchange with Elder Staton, the mission secretary who has the same time in the mission that i have.  We had a great time in the hobbit hole.  Saturday we had a huge asado with our branch president for lunch.  We ate a ton of meat and veggies.  and yesterday Chile won la Copa America!  They went crazy.  We were in our house about to go to bed and the whole world exploded and our branch president called us to to what happen and it was really funny. The good news is that today is a holiday so they have a day to recover from their partying.  

   

Isabel got confirmed yesterday and she was really happy and started to cry afterwards.  ALso there has been an investigator thatsbeen coming to church for a while and shes going to get baptized saturday.  Her namne is Susan and shes awesome and im really excited and a little sad to have my last baptism this saturday.  Also next monday we are going to have a party as a mission.  Also i started calling some of my converts for my last monday when i get to visit them before leaving.  I called Jennifer and shes doing really well.  I love you guys and hope you have a great week!!!

con amor

Elder Gardner

HOLA

This week went by way too fast.  Last monday we went to the legendary Guaton.  I ate a giant sandwich.  Theres been a lot of problems that happened in the lives of our investigators and we tried to help them out.  We have an investigator really strong named Susan that might get baptized in a week or two.  Isabel didnt get confirmed cause she didnt go to church cause she had a really bad week.  She is a single mother with 4 children and life beat her down this week, but shes still doing good spiritually.  

    

It was really really cold this week.  There were several nights where i would wake up cause i was so cold.  I really miss air conditioning and heating.  but im going to enjoy the freezing weather before i go back to the heat.  

   

Muchas gracias para todo.  Les quiero mucho.  YO se que Cristo vive

con amor

ELder Gardner

the hobbit hole shower

CRAZY WEEK

This was a really crazy week.  Tuesday we held the zone conference.  It went very well with only a few minor technical difficulties.  The church is starting a new program in South America called Capillas Abiertas.  It’s an open house for the church thats modeled after the temple visitors centers.  We are going to start trying it out in some chapels here in our mission and the man in charge of this program is Presidente Kahnlein.  Other than that this week we were able to find a woman named Ana.  

   

Saturdays are the P-days of the office people and of the assistants and president gave us permission to go play soccer with them Saturday morning and afterwards as a zone we watched again the Elder Bednar video that we saw a few months ago.  

   

Isabel didn’t get confirmed yesterday because her alarm didn’t go off and woke up late, but she’s still doing well and will get confirmed the following week.  

   

It was a crazy week and we ran from one side of the city to the other doing stuff but it was good.  I’m doing good and also I was able to see Elder Vitores the other day and he told me the haitians are doing good, they just need some Books of Mormon.  

   

Muchas gracias por todo. Les quiero mucho!!!  Yo se que Cristo vive.  Que tengan una buena semana. I promise to send pictures of the hobbit hole next week.

con amor

Elder Gardner

ZONE LEADER

We received this e-mail from Colin's Mission President this week:

Dear Gardner Family,

Greetings from the Chile Vina del Mar Mission. It is a pleasure to inform you of the new assignment of your son, Elder Colin Joseph Gardner, to serve as a Zone Leader.

Your son has demonstrated his talents as a leader in sharing the gospel and in showing forth a sincere desire to serve the Lord.

As a Zone Leader, his stewardship will involve the care and teaching of 10-20 missionaries in helping them become effective servants in the Lord's Kingdom. I have full confidence in his ability to serve in this important capacity.

I thank you for raising your son in such an excellent way and pray that our Heavenly Father will bless you as you continue supporting your son in his mission and in this new assignment.

Sincerely,

Raúl Antonio Díaz Navarro

Mission President

Chile Vina de Mar Mission

LAST TRANSFER, LAST SECTOR

Well i am now officially in my last transfer...and they changed me.  I am now finishing my mission in Viña del Mar as a zone leader.  My new companion is Elder Fowler from Arkansas.  He has 6 weeks less than me in the mission.  MY new sector is called Las Torres and they call us Las Torres en Las Torres because he is as tall as i am.  The change meeting was really fun i was able to see a lot of friends and Elder Stayner (the giant i trained)  Hes doing really good.  

   

Friday we had a council with all the other zone leaders in the mission so i was able to see Elder Webster.  Also they have given me my trunky papers and ill send you a scan of my itinerary.  My zone is somewhat crazy and high management because i have the assistants and the office people in my zone and we have to do things for them sometimes.  The good news was that we had a baptism yesterday. Her name is Isabel and shes awesome.  Also my new branch is the funniest thing ive ever seen.  There are a ton of returned missionaries and theyre all a bunch of goof balls.  There is a family here called the familia Campos.  They all have gotten back with the last 10 years from their mission and they're 4 brothers.  The oldest is the branch president, the other is the secretary, the other is the rebellious but really funny one named Glen, and the other is the young mens president.  They're some of the nicest people ive meet and they give us a ton of food.  I'm really excited to finish here and plus i have the center of viña in my zone which is a blessing.

     

Last night we did a training, meeting thingy along with a member of the stake high council for all the ward mission leaders in the stake and we taught how they could be use activities and ward missionaries.  

    

Our house is famous in the mission.  it is known as the Hobbit Hole.  The ceilings are very low and the walls, floor and parts of the roof are carpeted.  its a struggle.  It was sad saying goodbye to Calera.  ELder Vitores was really sad and cried when i felt.  He was a great companion.  

I'm really excited for this last change.  Tomorrow we have to wake really early in order to set everything up for the zone conference.  YO se que Cristo vive y que esta es su iglesia viviente.  LEs quiero!!!

Elder Gardner