Wow alrighty this week was definitely a little bit different than all the other weeks in the field and in a very good way! Since Elder Bennett has never been in Catemu he doesn´t know the area haha obviously but this means that this week I had to do our planning and before usually Elder Anderson did all that! So the first night was a little frustrating cause I didn´t know what to do or what was best or who we should visit and all these names of roads and streets that I didn´t know and ahh it felt kind of overwhelming! After awhile I finished up the plans for the day and stuff like that and bingo we are ready. Before I go on, another thing.

With Elder Anderson I never made my contacts, the goal is to talk to ten different people everyday and see if you can visit them or help them with anything and basically just have a conversation then invite them! I never really did that much with Elder Anderson for a bunch of different reasons like I was scared to talk to people cause I was afraid I wouldn´t be able to understand them and I didn´t know what to say to them or a million other lame reasons.

So the first day with Elder Bennett, because a ton of different streets here don´t have names, we would be looking for a street and we wouldn´t be able to find it but there was a person standing around so I would go ask them and I was soo shocked this day because all day long, any time I went and talked to someone for help finding a house or just to talk I could understand EVERY single word they said. Every word. I could ask questions and have a real conversation. We never got lost and found the people we needed to and new people. The gift of tongues is real. And it is an amazing gift of the spirit. After that first day out with Elder Bennett I have learned so much about the spirit and have so much more confidence in myself and in my spanish, no my spanish is still terrible haha but I have come such a long way from day one. Such a long way. I know that what Nephi said about how God has always prepared a way for us is true. I´m not ever going to lose my trust in that after that day! That day I made 20 contacts and before my highest in one day was like five, maybe. Haha and this week I made all 70 contacts! Woooo! Now I love making contacts, first I just try to be their best friend and it is just like getting to know someone(which I love doing) and then when they know that I truly care and have some trust in me I tell them a little about our purpose and our goal as missionaries and if we can come share a little with them and get to know them a little better! 

The reason I am writing Tuesday is because we had a special conference yesterday with Elder Nelson of the 12 apostles! His wife, President Viñas (president of this area in the church) and his wife! Wow that was so neat. I´ve never shaken the hand of an apostle before! It was a very very good conference and I would like to share a little something that Sister Nelson talked to us about. She talked about our premortal life a little bit. And if we could look into our premortal life for like 10 minutes what we would see. First of all in the premortal life we were preparing to come to the world so I kind of think of it like we were making our goals and plans for the kinds of the things we were going to accomplish in this life. So if we looked into our premortal life and we watched the last 10 minutes before we came to Earth what kind of things do you think you were telling yourself? If you had a list of goals and things you needed to do in your earthly life what do you think they were? Sister Nelson also said how if we aren´t accomplishing and doing those things on that list we made for ourselves before this earth that we will never find true happiness because our spirit knows there are more things that we said we would do. I hope that all made sense, I think that is a pretty neat concept to think about though!

Everyday is an adventure out here and you know I love adventures so I am very grateful to be able to be here in a foriegn country where I still don´t speak the language! Haha:) It really honestly is amazing here and the people are more than incredible. I absolutely love them and would do anything to help them.

I need to pubblicly thank my mother for everything you have done for me cause I am constantly asking for favors even though I´m not even home and you always do them. Thank you so so so much mom. I love you! 

Thank you for your emails as always! I´ll talk to you all in like six days! I wish you the best!

Love,

Elder Gunnell