Serve to Love

Sector- Batuco, Chile

Companero- Elder Pereira

Carta #31

Family!! Hello!!!!

Haha!! Yeah, the earthquake was pretty huge up in the north and effected a ton of people!!! There have been a few earthquakes here where we are but they're only like 6.4 haha!! but its pretty cool to feel all these earthquakes and tremors. They haven't effected anything where we are yet. And the tsunami in the north never came so thats good!!! Here in Chile it's pretty normal to have earthquakes like that!! haha It was pretty cool one night there was a hugggee one that shook our house so much!! And everyone just went outside like running haha but it didn't go for too long. If it would have gotten any stronger it probably would've been pretty bad!!! ahaha But it was so cool to feel the whole earth shaking so strongly it was weird!!

Well today was changes and I got changed out of my sector in San Felipe...It sucksss I didn't want to get changed!!! And now I'm in a sector called Batuco. Its in the country also and we have bikes, but its pretty ugly and theres like nothinggggg here hahah!! And the members don't give us food so we have to make all our own food everyday. Its pretty hard! I have a companion named Elder Pereira he is from Uruguay. I dont know if he's cool yet because I just became companions with him like 20 mins ago!! haha hopefully he's cool!! Because my last two companions were pretty cool!! Elder Wiseman goes home today and he was super happy on the bus ride over there!! My new companion finally isn't superrr old in the mission haha he has like 1 year. So thats better!! I don't have to deal with people on the verge of going home!!

Map of Batuco

My New Sector

Batuco in the Winter

Haha!! Sounds like all you guys liked General Conference!! It was pretty cool!! I loved Thomas S. Monson's talk on the first and great commandment which is loving God and your neighbor. That was super super good and its something that all of us need in our lives. And really, if we have those attributes then almost everything else comes along with those attributes. Like if we really love God then we will obey His commandments and do what He wants us to do. And If we love our neighbor then we will want to serve people and serve everyone around us. I loved that! I heard a quote this week that was pretty cool from my companion Elder Wiseman ¨You dont serve people after you love them. You serve people and then you love them.¨ I love that quote!! Its so good and so applicable to all of us. That through serving other people we learn to love the people we serve and we learn to love God as we do that in the process. Conference is always super good and sweet to always hear the words of the prophets!!!

I downloaded like 5 talks from Grandpa Simpson on my ipod and I always listen to them!! theyre super good!! and I never realized how much of a boss he was until after he died!! haha it sucks!! but its cool listening to the talks because he mentions his son Steve in one of them, hahah its cool!!! The talks are so great and I learn so much from listening to all the talks by the apostles and by the prophets and general authorities.

I hope that you alll loved general conference and learned something from it!!!! I hope that you all are doing well!!!

I love you ALLL!!!
Love,

Elder Dirkmaat