¡Hola mi familia y mis amigos!
I have been so excited for the last few weeks waiting for Tiffanie´s mission call to come! It brought me back to the day I got my own and walking around with it to all my classes at BYU, waiting to open it that night! I absolutely know that the Spanish speaking people of Richmond, Virginia are in need of my incredible sister after May 9th!
The baptism turned out really well yesterday! I don´t think I have written about Aníbal yet, but he got baptized yesterday with Paula and Lucas, too! Aníbal is 23 years old and an inspiration! His parents are less active members who have not been to church in 20 years, but all of his cousins and uncles are active in the church, and Aníbal has been noticing of late how much more united his cousins are than his own family, and how much more happy and secure they are in their lives. We knocked his door a couple of months ago, he let us in, and then began reading the Book of Mormon and hasn´t put it down. He already has plans to serve a mission in a year and is talking with his career counselor to push back his last year of college in order to serve for 2 years. There were a ton of people at the baptism because all of Aníbal´s extended family came, all of Paula´s extended family came, and many of their friends also. President Gillespie, the mission president, came to the baptism too!
It was really neat to introduce the mission president to my recent converts and investigators that were at the baptism, because many of them commented on how powerfully they could recognize that he was truly a representative of Christ. It made me aspire to reach that level as well, and it requires a long road of discipleship, virtue, and humility to harness the light of Christ continually. Lucas was as big a stud as he ever has been and welcomed the mission president and his wife to the chapel and thanked them for coming to his baptism and told them all about how much he has learned and what a difference the gospel has made in his life.
The bad news of the baptism is that we didn´t end up with pictures!! The two ladies that took my camera and Elder Diaz´s camera apparently don´t know how to use cameras and, although we thought they took 3 or 4 each, didn´t take a single picture between the two of them. In the hustle to get the baptism started, we didn´t think to check to see if the pictures turned out or not. However, there was a third camera that was being used by someone, so we are on the hunt to find out to whom belonged that mystery camera so that we can get copies of the pictures. We think it was the camera of one of Aníbal´s cousins.
Last Monday, we met Aníbal at the chapel with his brother, Cristian, who is atheist, to play ping pong! Cristian is a really good ping pong player, and we invited Allan Letelier from our ward, also, who also has a talent for ping pong. They battled it off and turned out that Allan has a bit more skill, because he won in the end, but they had some pretty impressive rallies, standing a couple feet away from the table and smashing the ball across back and forth. Cristian is a pretty funny guy, and brought a picket sign to Aníbal´s baptism that said "Arrepientete, pecador!" (Repent, sinner!)
This morning, we had a zone activity in Quintero, still my favorite place in Chile so far, where we explored la Cueva del Pirata (pirate cave) that is there on the beach. We hiked around the beach and on the rocks and went spelunking a bit to get into the cave, which opens up to the sea and has a current running into it. Pictures will of course be included, because the beach was absolutely gorgeous. The waves get pretty big, and there are pelicans skimming the ocean, and tide pools here and there. We found a bunch of leech things, crabs, and other mollusks in the tide pools, and really enjoyed ourselves! Gotta love Viña del Marrrrrrr (pirate joke)!! Because of the activity, we don´t have much time for computers, so that´s about it for this week. I love you all!!
Love,
Elder Kimball
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