It's a good day to have a good day!

Hola amigos y familia long time no see. Hope everyone is happy and healthy. I'm not very good at responding and writing emails, sorry🙏. But to anyone who wants to know a little bit of my blessed life right now here are a couple things that happened the past weeks😁.

Mercedes is an abuela that we found and we've been teaching. She is very kind and gives us a lot of stuff to take home every time (sometimes too much😂she gave us cookies, bread, and an insanely big jar of papaya jam one time, which when we go to her house at 4 and then ride around bikes the rest of the day it kinda starts weighing a lot). She always tries to give us "once"(Chilean equivalent to a "little dinner")as well. The third time we were at her house she started setting the table with a decent amount of tea and coffee and bread. And eventually when we sat down at the table I said, "is it ok if we have water instead of tea😁?" She looked at me puzzled, then started explaining and showing us how to make it. It took a couple minutes of explanation from Elder Stoker for her to accept that we simply don't drink tea or coffee, and then she got us a glass of water. She is super awesome and has so much faith, she has said "i trust your words." Unfortunately, in her past she has had bad experiences going to different churches and had bad experiences with bad people in different churches. She thinks that she doesn't need a church, just her faith in her corazón. But she has been reading the Book of mormon, and wants to be baptized, she just wants more time to prepare. We did an English fast for a week as a zone. It was pretty difficult at first literally not saying a single word in English knowing I could communicate better with my companion. During the whole week I only slipped up and spoke about 20 words in English, and we won🙂. So hopefully the zone leaders will fulfill their promise and bake us 50 cookies. Our shower broke or disconnected so we have been using a decent amount of duct tape every couple days. This past week we have fixed and patched SO MANY flat tires☹we haven't been having the best luck😂.Elder Stoker wrecked on the bike and tore a hole in his pants.    We found and talked with this old couple on the main street of Hospital(the little town we bike to every day). Alicia y Hernan talked a lot and almost made us late for lunch haha but it was worth it. They recounted stories of their past and their faith. Basically they had been through so so much in their lives, Hernan has cancer, and Alicia was in a car accident where the car fell off an overpass and exploded. and that's just the beginning. My eyes started to well with tears as he said with misty eyes "we are good people but bad things happen to us". A couple weeks earlier he had seen us riding by their house and spotted the oil vile on Elder Stoker's belt and asked about it. We explained that it is for the healing and the blessing of the sick. And he remembered and asked us to bless his wife. We did (it was interesting though, when our hands were on her head, they both raised their arms to the heavens and started muttering stuff) and also left them with a book of mormon. I prayed earnestly that night that they would read the chapter we left them so they could learn of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and the peace that comes with it. General Conference was amazing, fortunately I was able to watch it in english. The world we live in has much conflict and sometimes we can't change that but as disciples of the Savior Jesus Christ, we should try our best and lift the hands that hang down. And end the conflict in our own hearts and lives. I'll attach some random pics. I love you all. And I love hearing from you and reading your emails.

Have an amazing week!

Elder Wastlund