December 23, 2013 Rudolf:)

Dearest family, friends, and loved ones!

Well. I love you!:) Merry Christmas, how are you? What was something unexpected that happened to you today? Did you see a funny hat? How is your health? Hmmm.... :)

Will you pray for Elder Graham´s family? 

Today. Basketball at the church? "Want to come Albert, dearest neighbor? Well we´ll pick you up!! You teach P.E. , played for the Catholic university! Ballin´:) Hey how´d it go reading the BoM?! Ok, half the chapter, not too shabby, questions??! Well, keep reading! 

"Alex Lopez, you are a ninja playing futsal, you must know that. We´re stoked that you enjoyed church, want to meet with us more, AND just read the whole darn BoM, who doesn´t?? Little by little. Keep listening to my good comp., and your good friends Benjamin Ribas and Gabriel Lobos. They´re good kids. 

We give a church tour to Patricio and Franco. Franco wants to sing at Juliard! You got it bro! Patricio teaches us a little of Budishm in the church. We sit Indian style on the carpet. 

Random people on the street. FRIENDS and FAMILY! If you can find a flight, arrive here by friday at 8:00 pm, I will PERSONALY reserve you a seat at our Family home Evening and we WILL eat cookies, learn of Christ, and play games togethor with the best branch in the world. 

Highlight of the week? Last night. 10:45 PM. So Elder Graham, will you count MAC? Thanks..... 

Singing. ¨Whhaaa???:) no me diga! ¨

Pizarro family. 2nd best family ever! Noche de Luz, Noche de paz, Reina ya, gran solaz.....

"We love you missionaries!!!! ;) Son los mejores!! Take this simpre offering of Chocolate Chip cookies gorilla poops, and brownies!!!!!!!"     (Jaw Drops. We sing to Alberto and wife next door. The spirit is felt.)

Es bueno estar aquí;)

I´m grateful for music. SUPER grateful. Primary program, primary songs. ¨I want to be a missionary now!! ¨ Check. ¨I am a Child of God. ¨ Double Check;) We sing ¨Biansícos¨ (Carols) with the ward to less actives and investigatores. God knows and loves his Children, because in addition to those planned, we run into 2,3,4,5 unplanned! :)

Mision Christmas Party. I read this scripture! With emphasis, practicing 9 times! I wear my best red tie, (borrowed). I almost* forget to smile:) I meet Hna Nelson- "HEY your brother home taught me at BYU!"

 6 For unto us a ^achild is ^bborn, unto us a ^cson is given: and the^dgovernment shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, ^eCounsellor, The ^fmighty ^gGod, The ^heverlastingFather, The Prince of ⁱPeace.

I testify of Christ! He is a perfect, loving, jumping, inviting, listensing, perfect being. He speaks spanish, English, and Portugues better than I. He is the Son of God, OUR savior and redeemer. The BoM, the whole world testifies of these truths. He died for us. He healed the high preist´s ear that led him to his death. He forgives me. Merry Christmas! I love you all. 

 10 Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.

 11 And behold, I am the ^alight and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter ^bcup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in ^ctaking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the ^dwill of the Father in all things from the beginning.

http://www.mormonchannel.org/christmas-videos?v=2919740155001&cid=HPFR122013274&im=true

Elder Tasso

December 16, 2013 Christmas

Futbol at the Farm, only the Sisters can score. Hna Middlestedt (my District) had 2 Goals!!! Nuts!!! 

Slow down, and mind that cow. Dodge the pies! The horse is docile, don´t freak out.  Ahhhhh, and he kicks the ball in the river AGAIN!!!! That´s ok, we´ll just fish her out. Highlight reel, Hna Periera, with Paraguyan/Brazilian blood, shoots it at my FACE. No way José, not here. Get out of town. Want Hamburgers???! Can you say ¨Wow, Sister Guzman cooks REAL well? Service orientacion award is split between E. Christensen y Alfaro for this OFF the HOOK activity and Sister Guzman, for hosting it in her home. Zone activity or familiy reunion at sundance/powder mtn? Thanks, thanks, thanks again to our radical ZL. Planning ninjas they are. 

P.S. We ALMOST win the leg race, and water baloon toss. 

Elder Graham, want to pray to find investigatores, for a miracle, and to have ¨once,¨ because we are CLEAN out of food in the house? ¨Hagámoslo¨

1 Hour later. 

Elderes come to the church ASAP if you want 18 plates of food and to Hang out with Presidente Barreiros. Uhhhhhhh... PADRE CELESTIAL 

God has not ceased to be a God of miracles.

Who wants a steak? Scuse me, a STAKE. Melipilla will be a Stake in 18 months, thanks to the good efforts and tithes of the good members here. BOYS PAY UP! That means we need male tithe payers:)

Miracles and cat fights to come. Satan will fight, but CANNOT win. 

All you need is love AND obedience. AND investigatores. Remember Isidora from Primo de Rivera? Veronica, her dear mother will be bapitized!!! She says, ¨In a year and a half¨ I´ll be a missionary! Miracles happen. Patricia, less active from Santiago is in the REactivation process (Family home Evening power) and her kids are excited about the gospel. 

Preidente Barreiros a Elder Tasso a su mamá Dice- ¨Your mother should be very proud of you, you play very well, you have a gift, thank you for your music.¨ I feel special inside. 

Pops- Chile is pretty ethnic. It´s economy grows at a 5.5% right now, the most in the world, i do believe. Therefore sometimes we eat Chinese food. 

I testify Jesus is my savior. I´m grateful for him this christmas season. Someone so so perfect died, and lived for me. 

E. Tasso

December 9, 2013 CHRISTmas:)

This past week we had success as we did FhEs with the members. 

Last night we shared a nice christmas message/LdM pitch with Tamara and Alejandra, two friends of the Silva Jara family. Sister Susanna and Brother Harold are pretty darn great. It´s been great working with them, since my old sector, en Clara Estrella. 

We ate something very very delicious, apple crunch, from Sister Castillo in another FhE with the Reyes family. They´re cool, less active, but we see that Dillon and maybe Johann, their son could be missionaries in the future. ¨Hey THEY could be missionares, we gotta help them serve the mission!!!!¨ says Elder Graham. 

Highlight of the week? Get this choir action! The oh so dandy Maldonado family, (oh so creative) prepared with the district missionares ¨The Restoration¨ in MUSIC!  With video shots of us in action ¨hey howdy, how´s it going, neat-o, that´s your child, is it not!!?¨ Shots of the restoration, and shots Christ movies. 

As we sang I felt so so so strongly the spirit. I´m singing, filled with light. Does my throat hurt, my chest explode? Is that the spirit or do I have a case of out-of-practice vocal chords? Definitely both. Both for sure. 

I´m grateful for Christ. For the BoM. How does one express the light that is felt from reading that book:)??

We´d really love your prayers for Rosario. Saturday she felt like she wanted to get baptized, but for SOME reason, she likes the sisters more than us. That´s ok with me,. ok, I understand, they are much prettier, but sadly they can´t teach her, they have their own investigatores. So if you could pray so Rosario has the desire to come unto Christ, through us, to be open to Elder Graham and I, that would be spectacular. 

Benny face congrats with your right foot shots! Keep that up! Hryum good job with you grades and juggling, with soccer! Anna tell me how the ACT goes! Steve face, hows it going? How´s ralphie? Have you gone skiing?!:)

Tyler, thanks for the Banana, Orange, Apple comparison. I was able to share it with Elder Graham in a hard moment, and in a FhE with a newly active sister. Did they cry? Maybe. It helped, thanks!

Dad, have you thought about having a foreign exchange student come to live with the fam before? Maybe from France, could help out Anna with her french?:)

Elder Tasso

December 2, 2013 Greetings from Melipilla

We´re working with Street vendor Mauricio. He´s really funny, they both know PRETTY well the BoM. Their kids are both members. Jesus likes to fight, we´ve been praying that he´ll fight well, AND with sportsmanship. Daniel, their other son (MA) we picked up for church Sunday, and we´re going to go running with him in this really cool country loop Wednesday! They give us free Sopaipillas, which are hot and delicious.  We had a great lesson with his family yesterday. They both want to be baptized, but don´t want to get married. "Did John the baptist ever ask Jesus about his marriage?" In truth we need your prayers so that Mauricio can stop smoking and drinking, so she can feel comfortable with him as a husband. That´s the real doubt. As we read the BoM with them yesterday all of these doubts and solutions came out at the same time:) Thanks for your prayers!

Elder Gram and is a spanish machine. I feel like we finally got a good system down. He says something in English/spanish and I repeat it for him in Spanish, and then he does. I tyed weight watchers, and it worked for me:)

I´m playing the piano for the primary program, it´s awesome, there is an AMAZING spirit that carries those hymns. It makes me so so happy to be able to play and learn them!!! I never got to learn very many! 

We´ve got an awesome choir presentation coming up, this SATURDAY! As misionaries and as a district, we´ll be SINGING the restauracion, with hymns themed for the 1st vision, God is our loving heavenly father, etc, combined with a video presentation of us misionaries working. It´s PRETTY exciting stuff! 

Yesterday as we practiced I felt really really grateful for music. The zone was there, and I felt a strong desire to really get to know all of them, talk with them. I had a great conversacion with Elder Gutierrez about his burns, which before, I had never ventured to inquire from where they came. I testify that Music, AND hugs bring people togethor. 

I´m grateful that God sent me here, because this branch is really creative. They organized, as a district, skits from every branch. Our´s did 3 Nephi 11, an what´s neat, is that Brother HAROLD SILVA from Ochagavia before, was JESUS. As I watched I felt ¨Wow. We have such an amazing opportunity to work WITH this branch. They really know what they´re doing. Shoot Elder Tasso, we´ve got to have a lot of FHE with the members and their friends and neighbors.¨

Today we played futbol.... in the grass!!!! That made me happy, it´s a lot easier, to run, to play, to pass, in the grass:)

Mom face, you got 5 on the "wow your mom is really young, fit, athletic, beautiful," count. Mom and Anna, it´s true, you ARE really fit, beautiful, and athletic! 

Mom thanks for the package! Treats, nuts, fruit, and socks!! All was in great need, thanks! :)

The Book of Mormon is so so so very true. I just finished it, and started it again. 

 8  Y además os exhorto, hermanos míos, a que no neguéis los^adones de Dios, porque son muchos, y vienen del mismo Dios. Y hay ^bdiversas maneras de administrar estos dones, pero es el mismo Dios que obra todas las cosas en todo; y se dan a los hombres por las manifestaciones del Espíritu de Dios para beneficiarlos.

I testify that God loves every one of his children. We ARE all difierent! It´s good to be different! God gives us lots of gifts, and lots of different ways to administer them. 

I love you all, as does Christ our savior. 

Elder Tasso!