I'M GONNA BE A DADDY!

Well family... Starting with the sad news firstly... My best friend Elder Mangum is leaving me.. These past 3 months have been some of the greatest memories, learning experiences, and fun I have had in my whole life. I'm gonna miss my bud Elder Mangum.  I am going to be staying here in Tierra Amarilla and I'm District Leader and Training a new missionary coming to the mission. I leave tomorrow on a bus to Antofagasta ( 8 hours) to go pick up my kid. I am so excited for the opportunity to help some of the other Elders here in my Zone, show a good example to them, and also learn from my Zone Leaders, Elder McCusker and Elder Soto ( Studs ) . As a District Leader you teach a little class every Tuesday to the 8 missionaries in the District and also we go on transfers with the Zone Leaders to learn from them a few times a cambio, and transfers with the Elders in my zone. I couldn't be more excited for the things to come from this new opportunity and am humbled for what the mission President and the Lord wants from me. Lots of thoughts going through my mind. Very excited though. I will find out if my companion is Latin or Gringo on Wednesday when I'm in Antofagasta.

This past Saturday went perfect with the baptism of Luis José. Short, simple, and spiritual. Elder Mangum baptized him and the next day I gave Luis José the Holy Ghost. Elder Mangum and I finished strong to end our last week together with a baptism. I guess you could have called it a ¨Super Baptism¨ I´ll explain that in 2 years to you guys hahah. Luis José is awesome. There is nothing better than baptizing!!! 

More Bolivians came over from Bolivia to work here in Chile. So we have some more Bolivian investigators. 1 who is really good is Juan Pablo. He is the cousin of Andres who we recently baptized. Juan Pablo came to the baptism of Luis José and also came to church the next day. He is very very interested and with the help of our recent converts Andres, Lizzeth, and Luis José it will help Juan Pablo a ton of making his decision to maybe one day get baptized. We are getting poured with blessings like him! Just as it seems we are running out of investigators to teach more come into our path. I honestly CAN'T DENY the help of the Lord. So many tiny miracles happen daily. It amazes me and couldn't be more humble with what we are seeing here in Tierra Amarilla. 

We get tested every once in a while though. The mission isn't all flowers and butterflies hahah. The other day we left the pension at 4 and tried getting into a house for 6 hours.... with no luck hahaha even our Mamita was busy. Days like that humble you and it's like baseball. You gotta have a short term memory. Some games you might go 0-4 with 4 strikeouts but your team still wins. It's like here. Sometimes we can't find a single person that wants to listen to us but yet we're still on the winning team. You just gotta shake it off and go onto to the next day and look at the positives. My feet got a real good workout that day haha. I love the mission baby!!!!!!!!!! 

This Past P Day we went to the mine where ¨The 33 Miners¨ happened. When the 33 miners were stuck underground for 73 days and it was like a national thing.... We went there and took some pictures. It was very cool to learn more of the history of what has happened here in our awesome town of Tierra Amarilla and Copiapó Chile. They are filming a ton of scenes from the movie here in Tierra Amarilla. And a few of the Members from our Branch are gonna be in it. In 2 years when we watch it together I´ll show you the streets I walked on and the people I taught hahah. Tierra Amarilla is famous :) 

I don't got much more to say other than how excited I am to train a new missionary (Hopefully a Latin to help with my Spanish) and also to learn from the other 8 Missionaries in my District and Zone as District Leader. I am humbled and confident of what's ahead of me. But like I said before, I am going to miss my best friend Elder Mangum. Such a stud missionary. Never saw him sad, upset, trunky, or anything negative. He is thee example of a missionary I strive to be. And working along side him for the past 3 months was the greatest time I have had. Seeing the change in the branch, seeing many of our friends change with the decison for baptism. I will never forget this time I had with Elder Mangum. We are gonna see each other again. When I'm in the stands at the Universtity Of Utah game against BYU. Him as quarterback and me yelling our funny Spanish phrases at each other hahaha. Gonna miss the kid. Not much more to say. Lots of strange feelings at this time. But the Lord will be with me. That I do know. Love you all so much! 

Con Amor Elder Paxman