LETTER #22 . . . Baptism of Miguel and Happy New Year!

Baptism of Miguel, January 20
Hello everyone i miss all of you tons! Did you get my pictures?? Last week right after i wrote you we went to a store that is kinda like Harmons and randomly ran into a family from Pennsylvania which happened to be members of the church and are living in Santiago! It made my stomach drop when someone in an english accent said elders haha but it was very cool.  (the photo was posted on last week's blog entry!)



 This week i had the cool opportunity to baptize this really cool kid named Miguel! He technically was taught all the lessons by the hermanas but i felt super lucky cause i have gotten to know him super well over the past couple months and he is my bud! It was super crazy cause i started to have memories come back from my own baptism and i was overcome with such a cool peace about being out here!! Eternal salvation is pretty cool and i'm glad i could have a part in helping people discover it.

Miguel and Elder T takin' a selfie!
We did an activity for companionship study one day where we went to the Port where all the cruise ships were coming in and we practiced talking about doctrinal topics with tourists and we ended up talking and teaching people in all kinds of languages. i feel so lucky to have this opportunity and to meet all these people. One of the people we taught was super atheist from Switzerland but it's so cool to me that people that believe in such different things can sit there and find common ground enough to have a happy conversation! 

We teach a couple lessons in Creole every week (i still can only say a couple sentences in Creole but i can read out of the books haha) and it's cool because in the Haitian culture they all go to church and all believe so strongly in God. A lot of them didn't have the opportunity to have an amazing education and there is a language barrier, but they are some of the coolest, most humble people i have met in all my mission! We got our friend Watson to commit to a baptismal date for the beginning of February which means we have a lot to teach from now until then.

ALSO HAPPY NEW YEARS! We stayed up til midnight telling funny stories about before the mission and we made a giant bed because we were with 2 other missionaries from Quellon that were here for zone conference. We sat there listening to dogs bark and fireworks go off for about 30 minutes and then we went to bed haha! Nothing like the holidays in Chile!

I STILL CAN'T SPEAK SPANISH REAL WELL BUT IT'S GETTING BETTER!

The chapter that has helped me the most while being out on the mission is Alma 26 and its such a cool chapter! If you are looking for a cool chapter to read then go read that chapter, it does not matter if you have read it a lot!

Anyways, everything is going good! CHURCH is only 2 hours woohoo!! Miss you guys tons. Keep reading scriptures and praying!!!! 

Love you all,
Elder Townsend


Serving a mission under president Nelson is very crazy and cool! The changes in the church are cool because we know that right now in this very moment the prophet is receiving revelation that we need! Sometimes we ask investigators "say there was someone living on this planet that could talk to god, and he sent 2 boys to talk to you, would you listen to them?" They always say yes and then we explain that that is what is happening right now but usually they still don't listen haha.


Inside the famous cathedral in Castro 


Remaking this photo of the Beatles below with Peter and Frankie from Haiti



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