My new assignment is the Mission Historian. yay an office assignment, Im pretty excited though this was completely unexpected. President told me that he was reviewing my file and saw that I had some experience with Windows and Microsoft word. I thought in my head "what experience... Im no expert" and worried for a moment if I had exagerrated on the mission appication. After my first day of work though I felt like I was in my element as I remembered working on papers for school and making spreadsheets for some ward list for the richmond 3rd branch before the mission. I feel pretty confident. My trainer said that when he first started he didnt know anything, so Im confident I will be able to pick it up. President told me that this assignment ussually lasts about three changes, or four and a half months.

Im not sure yet what exactly are my duties as the historian. Basically I record all the stuff that happens in the mission, like baptisms and church attendance, in the mission computer and I send important stuff, like baptismal records, to Salt Lake City. Theres more but I dont exactly know what yet. On top of sitting in front of the computer, we have to do special assignments that the president needs and that could be anything from buying peanut butter to send to Easter Island to picking up and dropping off missionaries at the airport. Its pretty interesting. The bad thing is I dont get a whole of time to get out and do actual proselyting. That means my emails will be pretty boring for a little while without investigator stories. However I was thinking, this is actually a very interesting time to be in the office because were the first to hear mission news and I will be here when the army of missionaries come these next two changes (The first big wave to arriive in the mission after President Monson annouced the change in the age requirement). We´re expecting about 70 missionaries to arrive in our mission in the coming months. I think this will be fun and Ill try to keep the emails interesting by sharing what I can.

My new companions are Elder King from Utah and Elder Weigel from Arizona. Elder King was the historian and was training me to be the new one. Elder Weigel is the misson Secretary but is leaving to a sector at the end of this change. He is training Elder King to be the new Secratary. Were basically in a training chain right now as Elder King switches back and forth from training to being trained. Its a little complicated. Elder King has a laid back personality and tells a lot of jokes. He reminds me a little bit of cousin Ross. Elder wiegel is quite alert which I can tell has been a good quality for a secratary becuase they have a lot of responsablity including keeping all the missionaries in the mission legal citizens of Chile. He kind of reminds me of Lance Meibos. Theyre pretty cool, its like being with brothers. I can tell were pretty similar in interests. We talked for about an hour about old video games for the nintendo last night.

Im still not sure what to expect but I can already tell the office lifestyle is completely different from the regular proselyting schedule. Yesterday we were up at 6 in the morning to recieve a missionary in the office at 7 to recieve her chilean ID. We than didnt get back to the apartment until 11 at night after taking a missionary to the airport. Im used to living to a fixed schedule and getting as much done as I could during the time we had. Here we adjust the schedule to meet the needs of the things we have to do (kind of like the way I lived just before the mission, working at night and studying in the day). Its pretty crazy but I think it can be fun. We´ll see what happens.

With this change, I had to say goodbye to my sector. After being there for five and a half months it kind of became my life. Sadly I didnt have a lot of time to say goodbye. President called me at 830 in the morning, I packed my bags and I was out of the sector a little before 2. We went around trying to visit as many families as we could but in the early hours of the day everyone was working. We only got to find one family, so I left it to Elder Lizama to break the news. He will continue in the sector until the end of the change when he goes home for his operation.

The good news is that becuase we have four baptisms this week President gave me permission to return to go to them. That means I will have another chance to say goodbye to everyone and take pictures and everything. That makes me happy.

The baptismal interviews went well I heard so theyre ready to go. Im pretty excited about it. I will share pictures and stories next week.

Lots of love,

Jeremy.

PS My P day is Saturday now.