The best story i think i have this week has to do with kissing...

Familia!

Hey guys!

Its been another great week in Arica! Last week we set goals as a Zone to try and work for more lessons to investigators with members present and to have more people in the church, we have been working with a lot of less active members and worked really hard this week to make sure that all of them were in the church! We didnt have all of them that we wanted but we had a good number of people in church! we brought 6 less actives so hopefully we will be able to help them continue going!

This we we also tracted into a lady, she is a tourist guide for cruises in the mediteranean, but she came to chile to have her baby, She lives in Athens and her husband is currently on a cruise boat in the mediteranean. We have only taught her once but she was really nice and they were excited about having us back!

We also have been working with one less active (Pamela) who is seperated from her husband and had been trying to move out of her parents house. we helped her move and everything and she has been really posotive about going to church and really excited to listen to us, she said it was harder in her parents house because they didnt want us to come over. but the other day when we went over she asked us to help her niece out. she has been having lots  of family problems and was feeling really down about everything, so we invited her to a family home evening with Pamela and her family and she loved it. Yesterday in church Pamela couldnt stop telling me how much better she was feeling and that she wanted to talk to us again. it was awesome!

We have also been waiting this whole week for a big decision of some court in holland. Peru thinks that they deserve more of the ocean and they have been petitioning to change the boundaries, which could be potentially fatal for the city of Arica, there has been TONS of hype over the whole deal but i doubt anything is gonna happen. just lots of hype

Im going to do more of my papers tomorrow in the morning and i think that within the next few weeks i will be getting my Chilean carnet, which will be fun! I will be totally good to run around Chile doing all sorts of shenanigans ;)

But the best story i think i have this week has to do with kissing. I was told that going to Chile with blonde hair and blue eyes there were gonna be lots of People whistling at me and stuff like that... and it is very true. ive been asked more than once by girls in the street for kisses, but the bigger problem... has been the drunk old men! Ive been repeatedly hugged and attemptedly kissed by drunks. especially this week! I had one that asked me for a "favor" and then blew me kisses as we kept walking away, another who told me he loved me and tried to kiss me. And the worst was this saturday. The most drunk person i have EVER seen was walking/trying to not fall over in one of the streets we had to go down. IT was a narrow street so i could really escape but he came up to me with arms wide open so i grabbed his wrist to keep him off me as he hugged me with the other arm and tried to kiss me. the whole time saying very strong swear words in english mixed with random singings of the words "love of my life" i just kept walking and strained my neck to keep out of the reach of his lips. then when he almost feel over i ducked under his other arm and got away. Yes, all three of these experiences just this week. And they are not the only ones. I dont know why this happens so much to me! but thats the way it is haha.

The theme for this week has definitely been love one another. We know its one of the greatest commendments... so im sure we could ALL use more work on it. If more people were just more loving, the hold world would be a lot better of a place.

I love you guys lots! youre awesome!

Elder Gold