Well, this was an interesting week. Thursday I completed one year in the mission. AHHHHHH!!!!!!! We bought a cake and last night we sang Happy One Year, burned ties, and ate some cake. It was fun, but the ties wouldn´t burn all the way even though they caused a lot of smoke. But here in Chile they don´t have that many fire alarms so we were okay.

Last Tuesday Elder Rasmussen got sick. He had bad diarrhea and threw up a lot, along with a lot of pain in his stomach. We ended up staying home the whole day. He slept, or at least tried, and I read the March and April Ensigns and some talks from the October Conference. I also cleaned a little and ate some. It was a really boring day. Wednesday he was a little better, and we left about 3, but then he kept having to stop to rest, and from 5-6 we went back to the house. After that he fully recovered and has been better since. It was quite the experience.

We´re a little low on investigators and are looking for more. Adela is progressing great. She went to church again yesterday and has been reading in the Book of Mormon (she´s in Jacob) and two Ensigns that we gave her from Conference last October and April. She also has been praying and has had her answer for awhile. She believes that Joseph Smith is a prophet and the Book of Mormon is true and that this is the true church. But she´s been having doubts. Every time we go, we see that she has a question. We always pray at least one out, but for awhile we´ve seen that there´s a big one that she won´t let out. Finally, the other day she did. She has an aunt that listened to missionaries before and mentioned to Adela that we don´t have contact with women. Here in Chile, the custom when greeting someone is to kiss them on the cheek. (not with men, they hug) Obviously, we as missionaries don´t do that. Adela had noticed that even before her aunt told her. She actually told us that she has had this doubt for awhile but didn´t want to tell us. She just wasn´t sure if it was something racist or about the church or what because she had also noticed that in the church the normal members do it, just the missionaries don´t. So we, relieved, explained to her why we don´t do it. We showed her the mission manual that has all our rules and explained everything. I was relieved that that was her big doubt.
She also has had doubts about getting baptized. But we committed her strongly to pray about being baptized. She later told us that the prayer went well. She is now very excited and ready to get baptized this Sunday!! Yeah!! We also took her to a FHE Saturday with another Sister that is an RM. We watched the Testaments and she liked it. She made really good friends with Katy, the sister. That helped us a lot.

Last Friday we had divisions, and Elder Rasmussen was here with our DL, Elder Mendoza from Honduras. They passed for someone that we have taught lesson one, the Restoration, and we haven´t seen for a couple weeks. The mom, Paola, lives with a boyfriend so can´t get baptized, but her 10 year-old-daughter, Katalina, accepted a baptismal date. She´s really interested, and we have the advantage that she hasn´t been baptized for any church. We´re going to work hard this week to take her to church and find her friends.

On divisions Friday I was with Elder Young. Guess where he´s from. Blackfoot, Idaho, Snake River High School!! And he knows Grace; he´s fished there before. It´s a small world!! And he went to BYU-Idaho and we have several friends in common. It was way fun to talk with him. We talked all day and into the night. And after praying, turning off the lights and getting in bed, we talked till pretty late in the night. It was awesome to be with someone who could relate to me so much and that has a ton of similar experiences. It´s awesome!

Wow, it is FREEZING COLD!!!! I am wearing my heavy coat right now and it´s still a bit chilly. The temperature drops even more in the night. I´ve been sleeping in thermals, socks, a hoodie, earmuffs, beany, and two blankets. Tonight I´m going to add a third blanket. But it doesn´t help. In the morning it´s always freezing. Our house is not the best, and it lets the cold in really easy. We´re searching for another one. Hopefully we can find a better one.

Well, that´s it for this week. One year done, and one more to go. I hope it can go slower than they say.

¡Hasta luego!

Elder Murdoch

(Note to friends who are reading from Maili: Please pray for them to find better housing soon. He hasn't felt good since he had the swine flu last year and is going into winter again. Thanks! Love you all!)