ive been traveling....‏ (June 22, 2015)

Well! we had a fun week this week! more adventures of life.

First off we had to travel up to El Salvador and Diego de Almagro this week to do something for the branches up there that i got assigned to do by President Dalton. El Salvador is like 2 hours away and up waaaaay higher than chañaral. i think its a little over 2 miles of altitude if im not wrong. so we got to go up some sketchy switchbacks on tiny little chilean roads with straight drop offs in a old 2 story bus! in the front of the bus! so that was exciting! when we finally got up to the top we were cruising a long jsut finine. i was estimating that we were gonna show up in about 20 minutes, and our bus started slowing down... crawling and then came to s shuddering halt and the engine quite running.... so the bus broke down!

 i would love to send a few more pictures of exactly where but it looks like they did an update to onedrive because none of us can get pictures on right now... so you will have to wait a few weeks. i will try and send a few of them by email. It w2as just the best wasteland of your life... pure rock and sand forever :) 

it was just such a funny situation to be in. they came up and informed us that the bus had died but that they had another bus coming to pick us all up. so were were ok. 

then all of a sudden. the bus started up again! and we started rolling! slowly... but we were moving! and about 200 meters or so in front of where we had stopped the first time... we rolled to a stop again, just that this time we were next to a small edge and not near an open plane hahaha... i think we were worse off.  but the bus came and picked us up and we made it to El Salvador, it was a super beautiful city. it was built by gringos when they used to run most of the mines here in chile. it was just so... organized, and well structured. and the streets were HUGE. it was awesome.

  

 We got up there a little after lunch time and we had called to ask the sisters who are serving up there where we could buy food and they volunteered to cook for us! 

so we got delicious tacos and a banana strawberry smoothie... i almost cried! i was super hungry as well but it was sooo deliscious. i loved it. we were so super grateful so i think we are gonna make them brownies or something when they come down this weekend for a conference with president.

Then we got to go back down to Diego de Almagro... that town also got hit REALLY hard by the mud... but it wasnt as far along on the cleanup as chañaral. there are still parts of the city that dont have runnign water, and most places only have it a few hours a day, and all over the city it was just bad. My comp and i wore the masks all day long because you could SEE the dust in the air it was so thick, plus, that dust is contaminated with heavy metals and other strong chemicals that they use up in the mines... sooo really really bad for you, and we were just about the only people walking around with masks. i was grateful for mine. that poor little place is gonna have a lot longer recovery process than chañaral.

We got back to Chañaral friday morning and went out to work! that night chile played bolivia and beat them 5-0 so there was a huge celebration until like midnight and almost everyone woke up hungover hahaha. the people here go CRAZY for soccer, i heard that next year we are gona have the Copa de America in the USA though? that would be sweet! 

The sister missionaries are doing great with the references we have given them, they are teaching all of the families sitll who all have diesires to continue learning and 2 of them even have baptismal dates! so hopefully they should be getting baptised in july! thats awesome to see them progressing! and the branch as well! there are always little things here and there that could be better, but i can see a great progression with the way the branch is working together and working to HELP OTHERS. we have a lot more particiaption. plus this wekk we got an awesome new family that is moving into the ward. they are 4 returned missionaries, an older couple with their daughter and her new husband who has been home for 5 months! and they all have all sorts of ganas to work! its gonna be great!

Sundays now mean so much more to me... its incredible how my perspective on that has changed. its such a spiritually relaxing and uplifting time for me. Its also a lot more stressful because of all the things that i have to do now, one would think that it would be easier in a smaller ward, but i think its pretty balanced, because we dont have as many people, but we also dont have as many helpers for the same reason, so there are always just a zillion things to do and a zillion different people to help all at the same time. but its wonderful to take the sacrament and just listen to the talks, its really the only moment of free calm time i have in the whole time im in the church and it has become so much more spiritual. I know that Christ has suffered for all of our sins and that he is always there trying to help us to be better. our eternal progression of trying to become perfected through Him is an every day struggle. and its our battle to fight.

The Gospel is true! we need to live it! we so desperately need it in this world. Its the best and only way to find happiness. this i know. I hope we can all be better everyday and do our very best to search for the impressions of the spirit, and become closer to Jesus Christ so that He can help us return to our Father and to be with our families. our eternal families, forever!

Have an awesome week! i love you!

Elder Gold