Finally we had a week that went slow! Last week seemed to last a little longer. The bad part is that it was a rough week. A lot of real important lessons fell through. On top of that it’s been really cold, and Tuesday it rained, making it almost impossible to do anything except visit the members. We had very few lessons the whole week and didn’t get too much done.

Eliana wasn’t here this week. Her family lives in the South of Chile, and her mom has been really, really sick. Last week she got worse so Eliana went to visit her. Saturday night the mother passed away. We imagine that Eliana will be returning this week, so we’ll be able to teach her again. We’ll definitely teach her the Plan of Salvation. Hope we can help her. She is really interested and really wants to be baptized.

Patricio wasn’t at his house when we went to pick him up for church yesterday. We waited, but no one came out. So we went without him, and he didn’t get confirmed. During priesthood he showed up. He had gotten in a fight with his little brother (they live with an uncle) and spent the night outside of the house. We don’t know where. So he’ll have to wait till next Sunday to get confirmed. The bishop here, as is encouraged in his leadership manual, likes to "get to know" investigators before the baptism. I say "get to know" because he technically can’t interview them till they’re members. But he has to be with us during, so we visited with him and Patricio. It was great. The bishop encouraged him a lot to finish his studies, find work, get to know members, etc. I think it really helped Patricio realize that he will be loved in this ward. It was great.

A while back, Elder Rasmussen and I contacted a lady named Margarita and her 13-year old son, Gonzalo. Later, Elder King and I passed by once and soon after lost contact with her. The other night we found ourselves in the street, all of the appointments fallen through, with nothing to do. We started wandering, talking with people, trying to find someone to visit. We showed up right outside of the departments where she lives. I looked up and noticed the living room light out, and right then she showed up in the bedroom window. She saw us, waved, and asked if we wanted in. We had nothing to do, so we accepted. Turns out she had a question she wanted to ask us and was happy to see us again. We helped her with the question, teaching a lot about the Holy Ghost and how He can help us, "creating a hunger" as President May says, and then explained that the way to receive this Spirit and the blessings is through baptism. It was a great lesson. Tomorrow we will pass by again to teach more. We’re glad to have found her again.

My elbow is slowly improving. It feels a lot better, although is a little sore still, and I can’t use it with too much force. I can’t support myself against the wall, and pushups are out of the question. *sniff* But I’m without the sling right now, and it feels great. It should keep healing pretty well from here.

Well, the World Cup is now over. The final match was yesterday. It was kind of an upset. Germany was playing really well, as well as Holland, and everyone expected one of them to win, and Spain would be 3rd. But it ended up the other way. Germany was 3rd, Holland took 2nd, and Spain won the first place. I thought Spain would win, but wanted Holland. Although at the beginning I was rooting for USA and Chile. They both made it to the second round, but then got out. Well, there’s always 2014. Then I’ll be able to watch it.

Well, last week was a big trial, but this week will be better. We have several people to teach, and are way excited. It should be a good week.

Elder Murdoch