"we had a baptism!!!!"

catalina parra was baptized this saturday march 26th and it was such a cool experience!! in this mission baptisms aren't super common every week or every change, so when elder marshall and i were able to see cata and her older brother jose who is a recent convert walk into the water together there was a very special calm and also extremely exciting feeling  that came over me. we have been working with cata for about 4 weeks and she was ready since the beginning. she has great sincere desires to be a true convert and she even told us that she wants to serve a mission now!! she is only 13 but its never too early to start preparing. 

the baptism went super well, about 40 members and family showed up to support cata and jose and after the baptism we went and met the rest of catas family and had a small once to celebrate. yesterday in saccrament meeting cata was confirmed by the bishop mora and his counselor and cata is officially the newest member of the barrio calle larga! it was a great weekend and a great motivation to keep workin hard and find more people. 

questions:

1.  Assuming Catalina was able to get baptized, give us some details.  Who spoke?  who baptized and confirmed her? 
the young womens counselor spoke about the holy ghost and catas older sister maddi spoke as well, jose her older brother baptized her and bishop confirmed her.

2.  what was the best discussion you taught this week? 
this week we have been teaching the boyfriend of a member with her family and we had a great lesson about the evangelio of jesus christ and we focused on repentance and baptism. we did an example about how to take the sins out of our lives and explained how the baptism is a commandment and how it cleans us. we bore testimony and explained how we have seen the effects of the atonement in our lives. the father of the javiera, who is the member girlfriend, explained about his own life and the spirit was super strong in the house. thats why we need the members help to invite the spirit and share their own experiences as well. javier is the name of the boyfriend and he now has a baptismal fecha for the 23rd of april. 

3.  Did you find a pair of shoes? is there anyone in your area who could re-sole them or is it just better to get new ones? 
ya i got a new pair that should last well over 4 months. its easiest to buy a whole new pair. they dont repair shoes very well here. and its expensive too.

4.  Do you ever use the public bus or other public transportation or is it mostly walking?
ya we take small buses all the time called micros and we take taxis too. they are called colevtivos here and they are cheaper than a normal taxi. we walk a ton too as you can see with the picture of my shoes ha

5.  Have you learned much about the Mapuche indians in Talca?
ya they are the only indigenous group left in chile and they are the only real natives that weren't over run by the spaniard invasion a long time ago. they live farther south though.

6.  Have you been to Cerro de la Virgen?
no not yet. 

7.  How did you celebrate Easter?
easter here is not just one day, its called semana santa (holy week or sacred week). in chile they turn on tons of shows and movies about christ and his resurection and life and all that but its super catholic. all the movies and tv shows are made by the catholics but everyone watches them. the city shuts down, everything is closed on friday saturday and sunday and its a super catholic tradition with croses and shrines and candles and virgines and santos all over in the streets. we had a prertty normal day on easter sunday, went to church had a nice lunch and then went to work like normal.

8.  Do you run into many people in Chile who speak English?
not very often. in the campo never, but here in talca or in rancagua we find gringos every once in a while

9.  When was your last zone conference and what did you do?
we had our conference 2 weeks ago and we had a 4 hour meeting about how to use the members better and apply what we teach. we listened to some long talks by some elders, i spoke in our conference and then pres warne and hermana warne spoke as well. after we had tacos and ate with both the talca zones combined.

10.  What did you pull out of your quote jar this morning?
this morning i forgot to do it but the other day i pulled a quote out from trey that said," hey i hope your mission isnt janky!!" love trey ha.

this week was super good and the baptism was a great way to finish the week. love you guys talk to you all next week!

love,

elder pacheco

here are some pics to prove how much we walk
and some of catas baptism!!