Amo mi Calama :)

Heellllooooo!

This week has been absolutellyyyy fantastic. I seriously can't explain my happiness. :) This week has been super great. And something that made it even BETTER is knowing that little baby Milo was born!! :D He's going to be a pretty tall dude. :)

Where to start. :) There are two experiences específicamente that I want to share. :) First of all, we did change chapels and they officially started the remodeling today. They've been unloading stuff at the church allll day long. I think it'll be more like 8 months of remodeling.... They said 3 to 8 months. But there's loottts of stuff. :) The other chapel is pretty far away, but we got there well yesterday, and didn't have AS many people as normal at church, but this chapel is a little bit smaller, and the sacrament room was full. So that's a good sign at least. :) Now just for the 30 members that didn't come....we'll be a pretty full house. :) Love it. :) We had LOTS of investigators that were going to go to church yesterday, but JUSTO we ran out of minutes on our cellphone on Saturday night.....so we couldn't call or pick all of them up.... But the miracle is that 2 people still went so we were pretty happy. Yesterday was a pretty stressful day, but we made it through alright and saw lots of miracles. :)

One of our new investigators from this week's name is Katty. She's from Ecuador and has been living here for a couple years. She works here and sends money home to her son, and wants to go back as soon as possible. Her son is 5 years old, so naturally she wants to be with him.... But the Lord knows our circumstances, and Katty has felt pretty lonely here in Chile. She doesn't have any family, etc, so when we stopped by looking for a less active member, she opened right up with a bunch of questions and we set things up to come back the next day and teach her the first lesson. When we got there, she had read the first pamphlet ENTERO and told us exactly what had happened, almost as if she was the missionary....it amazed us. We brought her a Book of Mormon, and invited her to church. She was pretty hesitant about accepting the Book of Mormon, but took it and said that she would read it and that she would go to church with us for all 3 hours. :) And she did. She left as soon as sacrament was over (we're finishing with Sacrament meeting now), but she gave us a hug as she left and started crying. We are very excited for Katty. :)

We also had an amazing experience with another family that we've been working with. I don't know if you remember me talking about Claudia, Pablo, and Claudio.....? I honestly can't remember if I've talked about them.... But! We had a great experience with them this week. They have been reading the Book of Mormon for this past month that we've been stopping by, and they love it. We found them in our Area Book from a couple elders that were here last year that got transfered and then no one ever stopped by again.... So we called them up, set up an appointment and have been stopping by ever since. We read with them this week 3 Nephi 11, when Christ comes and teaches the people about His doctrine. We invited them to be baptized, and lo and behold.... Pablo was baptized when he was 14!!! Missionaries have been stopping by for monttthsss. And he hasn't ever told anyone until this past week. Even Claudia was shocked. Anddd he recieved the Priesthood before he became inactive.... So we were pretty blown away with that lesson, but he shared his experience with us and said he knew that this church truly has the truth. He kinda had a Joseph Smith experience as a young boy, and went to lots of different churches and learned about all of them, but this church called his attention the most. SO. We are going to put a bit more focus in them so that Pablo can become active again, and possibly baptize his family..... :D Claudia said she still wasn't sure, but this week will be going with us to CAMILA'S BAPTISM (pleaseeeee keep that in your prayers, that all will go well for Camila's baptism this weekend....) and Pablo said yes. Sooo. We're pretty excited for their family. :D The Lord truly works in mysterious ways. AND what's more is that Claudio last night asked us about the picture at the beginning of the Book of Mormon with Nephi and his family in the boat, and so we explained it, and then Pablo chimed in and started explaining the Liahona and that it worked according to their faith and obedience, etc. DAH. Qué felicciddaaaaddddd. :D

So if I could sum up the week in one word it would be GENIAL. I love being a missionary and I love this work. I know that this is the Church of Jesus Christ, and that it was restored by the prophet Joseph Smith. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I love my Savior and His great sacrifice for me. I know that through Him, one day I will return with my family to live in the presence of my Heavenly Father.

I hope you all have a FANTASTIC week. :D

Con muchísmo amor,
Hermana Tuft
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Hello mis padres queridos! :)

I was SOOO happy to find out about little Milito. He's adorable. :D I can't wait to meet the little guy. :) I'm just looking through your emails as I go so I can answer and respond to everything, so here goes! :) Hna Albornoz's tooth is doing well. :) She hasn't said anything about it, and everytime I ask, she says it's good. :) She's had lots of health problems in the mission, so most of the time her stomach is bothering her, and she has been forbidden to eat with mamitas cause they give us lots of food. Luckily, our mamita Ely right now is SUPER great and doesn't get offended if we can't finish and cooks pretty healthily. Pero a pesar de eso....I've still gained lots of weight here in Calama. No. Importa. :P Things are going well with our ward council. We've become a lot more united and work a loooottt more together. We just changed relief society presidencies a couple weeks ago, and I couldn't be happier with the new president. :) So things are going well. :) Aaand I can honestly say that my health has been super good. Everrryoonnnee is sick right now with pretty bad colds, so we've been eating our fruits and veggies, saying our prayers, and keeping really bundled up so we don't get sick. A sore throat here and there, but overall great. :)

I loved hearing about Jenn's experience last year! I would love to write her, if it would be possible to get her email..... It's interesting because I feel like now at the endish I have so much time to write everyone.....so I don't know if that means my letters home are shorter or what....whoops. :) I hope Lindsay has a great time there in Arizona and doesn't get toooo burned. :) She went with Kaelyn Staheli right?? I'm also super glad that the fire there didn't get too bad.... That's a scary moment.... And Mom, I don't have sound on this computer, so hopefully I can change computers right before I get off and watch that video. I'm excited to see it. :) (I will post it for anyone else interested.)  http://history.lds.org/article/sister-missionaries-video?lang=eng

I'm really glad that you guys got to go up to Brigham City for Pioneer Day. I bet Grandma and Grandpa really enjoyed that. :) I thought that Grandpa wouldn't be able to be here before Spencer left, so to know that he is doing relatively well is fantastic. They are always in my prayers. If he's still with us in November....the first thing I want to do is go up to see him. :) I know that this is the Lord's timetable though, so I put all my trust in His hands.

Yep, to answer your question about loosing hair. We all lose hair here in the northern part of Chile. It's normal with the terrible water here, cause there's so many minerals and crappy stuff from the mines... Hna F. talked to me about it, and knows that it happens to everyone... :) It also gets super fried from the sun and the water, hence my hair has changed colors..... But we use lots of moisturizers for hair and I wash my face with the little towelettes that you sent me. :)

Thanks for all your support. I love learning from all your weekly experiences and thoughts that you share. :) Always gives me a great big smile. :D Also, thank you so very much for keeping our investigators in your prayers always. We can't pray enough for them. :)

Until next week! :D

Loveee,
Kristen