April 12 update

Elder Kenison had some great news this week, and some great photos to share (after several weeks of doing without), which is always a joy for his family and friends!

The big news was two baptismal services. We asked if the baptisms he was expecting last week actually happened. He responded:

YES!!!!!!! it was AMAZING!!! we had so many issues come up. SO MANY! we could find a tunica for Jocelyn. the time kept getting changed. and everything. it was crazy. we wanted to have the baptisms at the same time but Jocelyn couldn't so we had hers at 9:00 and Aracelli's at 1 after church. it was AWESOME!!!

The first was for a young woman named Jocelyn. It appears from the subtle clues in the photo that Matt performed the baptism (click on photo to view larger):

He identified the people in the photo as Elder Tucto, Eduardo (the boyfriend of Jocelyn, a returned missionary, we tried to get him to baptise Jocelyn but Jocelyn said no don't know why.) then Jocelyn, her dad, and mom.

The second baptism was a younger girl named Aracelli. Matt wrote, her dad is the brother of the bishop. but inactive for a long time. but he's going to church now and hoping to be able to baptize his daughter :D i hope so too. Looks like that worked out!

This was the update about additional investigators:

well we have 4 other people with baptismal dates. one family of three, familia Martinez Paredes, they're really awesome. the Dad has a testimony and everything. but the mom and daughter are kinda struggling. they say they pray. but we don't know if they're praying sincerally. but the dad got his answer and wants to be baptised. the mom and daughter have a date, or a goal, and are still asking to see if they need to or not. so hopefully all is well.

the other fetcha, baptismal date , is with Ayram (aw-ie-ram) she's like 15. but she's awesome haha she's been going to church and mutual. reading and praying. everything. the thing that helps is that she lives really close to the church (like from the Melvilles to our church) haha but she's doing really great too :D

and there's Rosa. haha she doesn't have a fetcha :D ('fetcha' is just shorter than 'Baptismal date' haha) she was smoking a lot. like a pack of 10 cigarettes a day. and now she's down to like 3 a day. which is good. the only problem is it's taken since October. also there have been some struggles with a member. the member, a good friend of Rosa, says "the Word of Wisdom isn't important, just stop smoking and get baptized and then you can start again." so Rosa has been having a hard time. the thing that is keeping her going is that her son was really sick. like dying. and the missionaries passed by and gave him a blessing. and he got better (i don't know if instantly or over time but he got better) so she's been wanting to listen because she has an amazing testimony of the Priesthood. :D

This next photo was fun — Matt wrote, my attempt at french toast :( i miss ya dad :(

This photo was taken a few weeks ago at a mission conference. It shows Elder Kenison and Elder Poulsen, his neighbor and friend!


Finally, here are a couple of interesting pictures. I asked Matt recently if he can see the mountains east of Santiago. The maps I've looked at indicate that the high Andes mountains are not far from the city! And these photos confirm that suspicion. Matt did mention that the mountains are hard to see on many days because of the haze; but they look beautiful in these shots.

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