Week 8

Hola!

     Another good week! I am progressing in the Spanish very slowly, but it is coming. We are teaching a few investigators and have baptism dates for two of them, I hope we can help them be fully prepared for baptism. My companion and I are getting along really well. He has these numchucks that he bought here that he likes to twirl around every now and then, it is pretty funny. The food is OK here, I havent gotten sick yet or eaten anything gross. Yesterday we had cow heart and noodles with a lot of bread. It is pretty hot during the day but around 6 it starts to cool off, I am super tired by the end of each day which is good. we typically have around 4 or 5 lessons each day, I am able to participate more in the lessons. I will be able to watch General Conference this weekend at the Stake Center but I dont know if they will have it available in English or not. I am going to try and buy an adaptor for my camera today so I can send some pictures. I hope everthing is going well at home.

Love you all!

Week 7

 I made it through my first week! It is definitely a lot better than being in the MTC because we are actually teaching real people. I am able to understand most of what some people say but I have no idea what little kids or old people say. The 18th of September was Independence Day for Chile, everyone was out and about, and they fly these little kites and they are able to get them super high in the air.

      The food is good but I haven´t been having a lot of fruit or vegetables and they drink soda with every meal, mostly coke. They also like carbonated water. The people are really nice, a lot of people say "Hello, how are you?" or "whats up" in English when they see me but that is about all they know in English. Also no one can pronounce Ebert, they all say it like "ever". 

      We walk almost everywhere but we have to take the bus to go to the store or other places outside our zone, I don't mind the walking but it gets super hot during the day and it is probably going to just keep getting hotter because their summer is during our winter. Our schedule is shifted one hour, we wake up at 7:30 and go to sleep at 11:30 because everyone is awake and doing stuff later at night when it is cooler. The nights go by super fast, it is like I close my eyes and the alarm goes off immediately, but I have been sleeping good and have energy each day.

       We are teaching a couple of people right now... or my companion is teaching, the most I am able to do is bear my testimony or offer a prayer. One man we are teaching is from Haiti, his name is Loucith. He is very mellow. Another man who we are teaching is in his 80's and the other day he was showing us this scrap book of his life and at the very end there was a picture of Obama and his family along with a note from Michelle Obama to this man. The note was in English so he couldn't understand what it said so we translated it for him. I think his son works for the US government or something  so that is how he got that note. There is this other family who are members that we visit often, Their home is one room, probably 20 square feet, very humble, but they are so happy and content with what they have. They have two small kids, Evan and Mizza who are super cute and love it when we come over.

        There were probably 30 people at church this past Sunday, they were all super welcoming, and the Bishop is way cool. One of the main things we are doing is trying to bring the less active back to church.

        I am loving the work so far and my companion and I are getting along fine. 

     Love you all!

Week 6

 I made it everyone! We flew out of Mexico at 8:30 pm and got to Santiago at 6:30 in the morning. I only got like 2 hours of sleep on the plane. It was really cold when we got off of the plane, probably around 45 degrees. It gets cold at night but then gets pretty hot during the day. Once we arrived we went to a church building that is in our mission and had an orientation and met our mission president. It is President and Sister Gwilliam, they are really nice. There are about 180 missionaries in my mission and this is the second smallest mission in the world, I like it though because all of the missionaries become really close friends. 

      There is this dog that hangs around the church that the missionaries named Dude and he follows the missionaries around and protects them, its pretty sweet. He was playing around with a brick in the parking lot when we arrived, it was really fun to watch. My companion is Elder De Leòn and he is from Guatamala, he doesn´t speak a lot of English but Im kind of glad he doesnt because I feel like I will learn faster with him. He has been out serving for a year and a half so he is a pro. We live in a small house with two other Elders who speak English which is nice. We dont have to go to bed until 11 or wake up until 7:30 because most people sleep in later here and apparently they have day light savings like every month or so which is funny. After we dropped off my bags at the house we started proselyting, I wasnt very nervous, I just say what I know how to say and let my companion do the rest. The spanish isnt that much faster here but they use a lot of different words than what I learned in Mexico and they use a lot of slang. We walk and use public transportation to get around, which is a little crazy sometimes. We went to the temple today which was really cool and it was cool to see more of the city. I hope everyone is doing well and I will try to get more pictures.

     Nos Vemos!

Week 5

Hey everyone!

I will be leaving for Santiago, Chile next Monday, our flight leaves at 8:25 p.m. so we will probably get to Santiago around 4 or 5 in the morning. Im not too excited about that, hopefully our mission president will let us sleep for awhile when we get there. Im kind of sad to be getting a new companion, we have become good friends, and our whole district has become really close, but it is O.K because almost all of us are serving in the Santiago South Mission. And I think that my mission is the second smallest mission in the world so we will probably see each other often.

     This week was really good, but Im done sitting in classes, I want to get out and start doing stuff. Yesterday we listened to a Devotional that was being brodcasted from the Provo MTC, and it was Elder Christofferson who spoke! It was nice to hear him speak again, he gave a really good talk and he was super funny. 

      Last P-Day we played Ultimate Frisbee for like two hours, it was really fun except we all got sunburnt. And there was another big fiesta going on outside the wall of the MTC, we could hear guitars, trumpets, drums, and fireworks going off. It was awesome.

      I love hearing from all of you and I hope things are going well back home, I will try to get some pictures of Chile that I can send next week.

Love you all!