October 5 update

The weekly email arrived early this week — a little after 9:00 a.m. Thanks to the blessing of modern technology, Bonnie was able to read the incoming message on my Blackberry while we were driving to Salt Lake to attend the wedding of a friend. Matt had us both in tears with some of the things he shared. We sure do love this missionary!

A great highlight of the week was General Conference. It looks like they were able to participate in all the sessions. We worried that it would be challenging to get as much out of the messages in the Spanish translation, but he reports:

they actually had a seperate room for the "gringos" haha so i got to hear it in english. so that was really nice.

We asked if they were able to get any investigators to come to the conference broadcasts:

yeah we had several 7 to be exact. haha the most since i've been here. it was good though they loved it. haha :D

And we asked if he wanted a CD with Conference talks to listen to. This was his response (spoken like a true missionary who also loves the Book of Mormon):

i wouldn't mind have a CD. haha mosly so i could listen to Elder Hollands talk over and over and over. if you didn't hear that one you NEED to look it up. and reading it... won't be the same. it was really good. about the Book of Mormon :D

Matt has adapted well to the new area. It's more prosperous, compared to his first area — "the people here are a lot better off. i mean A LOT better off." He noticed that they eat more meat in their meals and never any fish. We hope the people are still eager to learn in spite of that relative prosperity, but based on the attendance at the conference sessions, they are making good progress.

Finally, on a personal note. I had written to Matt earlier how I missed being with him at the General Priesthood broadcast. Our tradition for seven years had been to sit together (on the stand, based on my current assignment) then hurry out afterwards for an ice cream. I wrote to him: "I was terribly lonely sitting by myself in General Priesthood meeting. I was hoping you were able to attend in Chile, and tried during the meeting to imagine you sitting somewhere in Maipu or Santiago and listening to the talks. Elder Ballard talked about fathers and sons and how they can help each other and be close; it brought back lots of good memories of doing things together." Matt wrote this, which touched my heart:

i was also in there for the Priesthood session. haha i turned to the elder next to me and said, "my dad is sitting all alone in conference." afterwards while going home i passed a little store and bought ice cream haha my companion and i ate it with brownies. haha :D but yeah i missed you too dad. elder ballards talk just about killed me haha afterwards i said "i miss my dad!" haha some of the elders laughed haha.

We sure love you, Elder Kenison!! haha God bless you. Keep working hard.