Feb 15, 2010

G´day family,

Glad to hear everything is going good up there, I hope you guys are enjoying the nice weather. Its starting to cool off in the nights real good. Its still a little warm in the day but its not bad. Today for pday we´re going to go climb one of the hills close to our area. I´ll take some good pictures of the andes and the city. I hope there´s not too much pollution. It normally is pretty bad here in the summer. Glad to hear dad made it through his operation. I expect you both to be in the best shape of your lives when I come home. So just so you know, I have high expectations.

Well the work is going forward in Chile. Our mission is having more and more success right now. Us here in recoleta are preparing for a lot of baptisms here soon. We´re going to have one next week for sure and another the week after. And a lot more in March if I´m still here. Changes are the 1st of March. But we´re working a lot with the members right now. Doing splits and getting a lot of work done. Its hard right now because all the kids are off from school and so everyone is on vacation. And here in Chile is a bit ridiculous. People leave for vacation for 1 to 2 months at a time. And so this makes it dificult for the work. Our investigators will randomely tell us they are leaving tomorrow for the beach and will be back in March. And so, vacations end in March, and March is always a good baptizing month here in Santiago so we´re excited to get things going. I love the people here. There are great to talk to. There are always the people super pesadas (very rude or jerks) but the majority love talking about their lives and hearing about the gospel. Sometimes we hear some pretty sad stories about people´s lives but I know that in the end, thats why we´re here.. to give these people this wonderfull message of hope. With Christ, we find so much more meaning in the life and we develope an eternal perspective of faith and hope. All of this leads us to Charity which is the greatest of all. Its difficult to have charity but we´re here to develop this pure love for others, the same love the Jesus Christ and our Father has for all of us. I love the mission here in Chile. I´m learning more and more everyday and its blessing my life forever. Thanks for the support. I hope you have a fantastic productive week! Love,

Elder Webb

ps. Here´s a picture of a really common chilean dish. This meal is called "pastel de choclo" which literally means corn cake. It is basically mashed corn on top with onions and ground meat. And on top is chilean salsa or hot sauce (ají). The salsa is so good down here. Other meals really common is "casuela" which is like soup but it has a whole boiled potato, onions a big chunk of meat and corn on the cob in it. Another meal that we eat a lot is called "perrotos" which is basically a bunch of whole beans, like garganzola and a couple others I think. I really like that one. We also have "humitas" which is like pastel de choclo without the meat and onions. Its basically like a tamale.

Oh and I recommend that you look up "manjar". Its a chilean desert sauce thats way good. Its like carmel but not. Its made out of sweetened condensed milk and nothing else. You can make it easily so you should look it up and make it. Then eat it with some homemade bread. Speaking of... chileans eat nothing but bread it seems like. You would be in heaven mom. And all of the bread is like homemade. Its great!

Oh and yes I still have my glasses and I use them ocasionally. Heres a picture of me in glasses with a member that usually assists us with lessons. His name is Moises (which is moses in english)