Same Area, New Companion

At zone training meeting week of September 3, 2012

(NOT the new companion)

 

Familia y amigos! Hola, Comó esta. estoy super bien, con me compañero nuevo, y con la casa limpo (er), Yeah haha that's all I got sorry. Ya this past week was pretty good. Ya, here we go.

So this week was pretty normal with all of our converts baptized, we spent a lot of time trying to find new people, and we found a few, but we need more! I think this week was the most I have ever walked, but it was good. Also it was the last week that Elder Ariz was going to be in the area, so his motivation to do stuff was kind of nonexistant, but that's ok, we still got things done.

I had an intercambio with Elder Harrison this week, ya that was fun. I have discovered that Saturdays never, ever go according to plan, and this week proved that to be true. So this intercambio with Elder Harrison,  we were going to change at 1, and go to lunch at 2. Well we changed at 12, and then on the bus, going back to the house, lunch called and asked if we could come early, so then I had to try and figure out what stop to get off at, so ya that was an adventure, but I got off at the right one and we went and ate until like 2:15.  Ya usually we eat until like 3 or 3:15, so we had an extra hour more of stuff that we didn't plan, so we just walked around and did contacts, haha that was fun. After that we were supposed to have a lesson at 4, ya for the first time she wasn't there, so now there was another hour of more unplanned walking around trying to find people to contact, all in all it was pretty fun, and the crazy people really like to talk to us haha.

And now for the big news!!!  The first change!!!!!!!!!! My companion Elder Ariz already knew that he was changing, and then he got the call saying that he was going to Los Andes, which is where he wanted to go, so he was beyond incredibly excited, and then the change, Elder Richardson would be leaving to another sector too. Ya he was not very happy about that, and he beat himself up a lot. So we had super excited, and super upset about it in the same room. I tried my best to cheer Elder Richardson up, but there really wasn't much I could do. Ya all of this happened Saturday night, and it just so happened that I got sick this day.

So Sunday was Elder Ariz last day in Alberdi. So we went and said goodbye to all of the converts. Ya this is where the me being sick and him leaving thing didn't work. First for lunch, the family we ate with made 2 gigantic pizzas, and when I say gigantic, I mean the biggest pizzas I have ever seen. Ya well the people here don't know the meaning of a little bit. Ya I almost threw up.  Then we went to some people that he had baptized before I got here, but I have still been teaching them, and they made us lemonade from real lemons, tasty, but didn't help my stomach. Then we went to familia Arrigada, and they gave us pepsi, cake things, and an empanada.  Ya I didn't eat any of that, and was sent home with the empanada in hand. So then we went to familia Quispe, and they had made an entire dinner for us, ya I asked for a little, and still couldn't finish. Then we went to some members that helped us a lot, and we got more food, and ya I almost died. So it was kind of awkward because everyone was crying and saying goodbye, and I was like, "I'm still here" haha so ya it was fun, but it's hard to leave the people that you teach and baptize behind.

Now we come to Monday, Elder Ariz packed all night long, and had 4 suitcases that pretty much each weighed like 75 lbs or so, ya so guess who got to haul all of this up and down the stairs of the apartment, and the metro station. ya it was not fun. But I have a new companion! Woo!!! His name is Elder Nicoll, he´s from Arizona, and he did hurdles, and has done swing dance a little bit so he likes dancing! This is pretty much all I know haha, but we are getting along well, and he is helping me clean the apartment!! Ya I never thought this day would come, but we are going through and cleaning everything! So it should be fun. he is excited to work, and I think we will have a lot of success! So ya thats all I have for now!

Another random fact, the light switches aren't up and down, they are all left and right! Weird I know!

Well love you and miss you all! Have a good week!

My Mission is a Soap Opera?

This week on "The Drama of Nate's Mission", that's right, I'm starting to think that my life is really just a soap opera, and that there is someone filming me and making a ton of money haha.

Let's start from the beginning of the week!

Monday, P Day! Woo everything was fun, we got permission to leave our area, so we went into the city and had some crazy adventures there. Pretty much we just went shopping around, traded our American money to pesos, pretty much we just wandered around and looked at stuff because we were finally out of our area.  It was fun, I got some new music and stuff, and ya pretty much all that happened that day.

Amazing Tuesday! so we had district class, and those are always fun, get to go and talk to different people, but that was only the beginning. my companion and I were set on getting all of our contacts done that day, so I suggested that we do more street contacts, than just knocking doors. That's when we just took off. We were talking to everybody, we had a lot of lessons, and it was amazing. We were spiritally on fire and it was awesome. Never been so busy the entire time we have been here!

Wednesday, The fight! Wednesday started out good, we decided that we were going to try the same things and at first we were doing good. We had an amazing lesson with an investigator, and then we had some other things we needed to do and so we were doing that, and everything was fine.  Then we went to talk to the family we baptized that week, and they had gotten on Facebook and were looking at all my dance pictures and asking me questions (about the kinds of dances he knew, etc.).  Then one of them turned music on and so they started wanting me to dance for them, and they started asking more questions. (No he didn't dance for them)  Then as I was ready to try and share a scripture, my companion said that we were leaving. Ok? Ya so we left and he took off in his I'm grumpy walk. So I asked him if he was mad at me, ya probably shouldn't have done that, cause from there on it just exploded, and he came to the conclusion that we just weren't going to talk to each other. Ya well I didn't want that and I hate fighting with people, so when we got back to the apartment we just sat in different rooms.  So when the other elders came in they knew something was up.

Intercambio Thursday! Thursday we were both still mad at each other, and wouldn't even talk to each other, and pretty much didn't even want to be in the same room with each other, so we went on an intercambio with the other companionship (meaning I went with Elder Bell, and Elder Ariz went with Elder Richardson). I don't know what my companion did, but Elder Bell and I talked about it, and calmed me down about it. So that night when Elder Ariz and I planned for the next day, I knew what I was going to do to try and fix things. We planned and then at the end I said the prayer. In that prayer I said how grateful I was for Elder Ariz and how much he has helped me learn and grow (because in reality that is the truth). Elder Ariz really is a great companion, and I have learned a lot from him. So after the prayer, he said that he was sorry too, and that we were just going to act like nothing ever happened because it was stupid and never should have happened.

Everything's Good Friday! On Friday everything was good again, and if anything we are better friends now than we were before. We had a decent rest of the week, and we had a baptism this past Sunday, and Familia Quispe was confirmed, all 5 of them!!! A complete family into the church!!! Ya 7 baptisms in 1 change hardly ever happens during most missionaries mission. So ya I feel pretty good about that, and I am hoping that I can take that and keep on going with it.

The Quispe Family baptized on August 26, 2012

Nate baptized the mother and the father 

 

Sebastian was baptized by his father on September 2, 2012

 

Testimony meetings!
Testimony meetings here are a lot different than they are back home. Pretty much everyone who gets up is not up for more than 5 minutes.  They bear powerful testimonies about the Book of Mormon, Josè Smith, Jesucristo, oraciòn (prayer), Iglesia verdadera (true church) and ya thats it. They get up, bear testimony, and sit down, young and old. No long stories, no thankamonies, they bear true and powerful testimonies! I love it!!!

And now... some random facts!
1. In Spanish they don't have the word random. (ya I know I kinda freaked out about that, how random!)
2. They sell Duracell batteries in packages of 1. That was funny to see. They sell them in bigger packages as well but I've never seen a package of 1
3. Their jelly, ketchup, mayo, shampoo, etc. is all sold in bags. Ya I don't really use that stuff anymore, and they do have some shampoo in bottles.
4. All of their milk is in a box, and not refrigerated. You only have to refrigerate it after you open it, and it's not the boxes with the fancy top, it's just a box.
5. They have a street fair thing every Saturday and Sunday, and that's when you buy all the random crazy cool stuff.

Ya that's all for now, I'll find some more stuff.

¿Que hora es? Daylight savings time haha. so this past Sunday we had day light savings. Ya you would think not that big of a deal, well it took us half an hour to figure out what time it was, and we had to call someone to make sure we were right haha. We had diagrams and drawings and poems and everything to help us, but we still couldn't figure it out. It was ridiculous haha. The problem was we were thinking that it was the same as the US, and it's not. It's the opposite, the seasons are different here, so we are going into spring. Ya it's crazy.

Well I think that's all for now on this week of "The Drama of Nates Mission" see you again next week!

Baptisms!

Hola familia y amigos!

¿Comó estan? ¡Estoy super bien y yo tuvo 5 bautizmos esta ultimo semanna!

Haha thats all the desire I have to write in Spanish, but that's a little taste of what I know, and it probably is mostly wrong, but you´ll get over it.

Anyway on to my week!!!

 Ok so this week we started out with the sports day! It was crazy fun, and I loved every second of it. The problem was, my companion hurt his foot, and practically couldn't walk, so the rest of that day he limped around and it took forever for us to get anywhere, so we didn't get much done. He wasn't able to go to the store, so we went on splits and didn't have much time so I didn't get to buy some cleaning stuff, but I got paper towels. Then tuesday, his foot was still hurting him like crazy, and he wouldn't let me help him walk or anything so I finally convinced him to call Sister Essig, and ask what she thinks he should do. He called and then handed the phone to me because he doesn't know any of the medical English words.  So I talked with her and she said that he needs to rest it, and wrap it and ice it and stuff so I got him to do that. Then he said that he could still hardly walk so he needed to rest, and it was true he could hardly walk, and I knew it would just get worse if he didn't rest it so I sent him to bed. In all reality I wanted to do the same thing, but this was the first opportunity I had where I would have several hours to do something. Then our 5 PM appointment cancelled so I had even more time. So I cleaned!

I went on a rampage! My first target was the bathroom... that's right I cleaned the entire bathroom with paper towels, and some cleaner stuff that I found under the sink.  I found some gloves so it wasn't as bad, but I cleaned and scrubbed everything;  the sink, the toilet, and I found some scrubber thing for the tub, which had a ring of dirt all the way around it that came off, so it was super gross. But I got it cleaned, then I vacumned the entire apartment as much as I could, and I cleared off and scrubbed down all the countertops, and was almost ready to start scrubbing who knows what else, when my companion came out and said it was time to go. Then we slowly went along.

Then Wednesday was district class and interviews with the mission president, ya we were the last people to get interviewed and didn't leave the chapel until 9 that night, when we had to be home by 10. But the interview was great, and talking with other missionaries was fun.

Then Thursday his foot finally started to feel better, so we went to work. As we were knocking this apartment complex in the sketchy part of our sector, we went up to the doors on the second floor, and right as we were about to knock on the door, this huge dog started to come up the stairs behind us super slowly, and it was growling, and pretty much was ready to kill us. After about 4 minutes of us standing there frozen the dog finally got far enough past us for me to book it down the stairs and my companion was right behind me.  Then as we were walking to a member's house because we needed to calm down, we contacted this guy and he straight up said to us, "Sorry, but  I'm going to go do these drugs now," and walked away. It was the funniest thing I had ever heard.

After that crazy experience, we went to the ward activity.  Actually I  think this was on Friday, I'm not really sure. Anyway, while at the ward activity I shook the bishop's hand for the first time since being here.  It's funny because we watch all of these videos about working with the bishop in study time, and I didn't even know who he was until this week.  Then it got even crazier.  The Relief Society President came up to us and asked if we would help in a skit, ya ok I know hardly any Spanish and you want me to start acting... it was the funniest thing I had ever done. I was pretending to be a kid who was playing video games, and she came over and went off in Spanish and I had no clue what she was saying, but after she was done I just got up and walked over to where the other "kids" were. Ya then I pretty much just walked around having no clue what was happening.

 

Then on Saturday,  we spent most of the day trying to find clothes for the baptism of the Quispe family, a family of 5 and then on Sunday we baptized all of them. I baptized the mother and father of the family, and it was my first time ever baptizing people! and it was in Spanish! Haha it was great I didn't mess up or have to do it again, and the water was only slightly freezing. But we baptized an entire family!!! That doesn't happen very often, and we also now have another baptism for next week! That's 7 baptisms in one change. That's a lot, and probably won't happen again on my mission.

 

Well that pretty much is it! Love you all and miss you tons!! Stay safe and happy!

 

Con amor,

Elder Alder

 

Pictures from Sister Taggert

 

 

I just got these pictures from Sister Taggert.  She is the daughter of a member of our stake presidency.  She has been serving in Nate's mission for about 16 months now.  In fact, she and Nate are serving in the same stake and zone right now so they see each other often.

Nate says, "When it rains, it pours!" But Mom likes "My Nate is Back!"

This week's blog post needs to be titled, ´´When it rains, it pours!´´ and here's why!

This week we had rain almost everyday, now it never actually poured, but there were some big puddles, and everything got muddy, but the real reason for the title, is because this week it rained everyday, and the Lord poured out a lot of blessings.

So after the companion drama at the end of last week, I decided that I didn't care if my companion hated me or not.  I was going to do what I know I should do, and that has helped, but the thing that helped the most was the birthday party we went to. There is this family that I absolutely love, they are nice, the mom of the family totally understands me like as a person, and they are just great to be around, and apparently one of them is our investigator! Haha who knew! Communication between companions come on!!! Besides that, it was fun, we laughed, and talked and things were great, it finally felt like something normal, and for the first time, I didn't feel homesick. Well it just gets better from here.

So the entire first 2 weeks that I was here, to be honest, I didn't feel like a missionary, and I didn't feel like I was feeling the spirit the way I should be, but this week, I finally felt like I had the spirit, and that I was a missionary. So we contacted this lady that was actually on her way to her church, her name is Carmen and she said that we could come over and talk with her. So we went over to her house the first day, and we got talking and she said she didn't get why there were so many different religions that fight over doctrine. I'm thinking, I totally know the answer to that!!!! Wooo she totally is going to learn something our next lesson!! So we talked a little more, and set up another appointment with her. Well the morning of our lesson with her, all of our studies were directed to how to explain the apostasy to her, so she will know why there are so many churches.  When we went to teach her we talked a little, and then we started to teach. First thing she says is that she was taught by some elders 2 years ago, and she got to the point of baptism and then her husband didn't want anything thing more to do with it so they stopped, and that she didn't believe in José Smith. Well good thing we studied the apostasy huh! 2 birds with one study! Talk about revelation or something.  So we went on teaching and we were good. We taught the apostasy amazingly, I taught about José Smith and the First Vision, and then we tied that in with the apostasy, and then we got to the Book of Mormon. She had no more questions about José Smith, (because there was no way she could deny it) so she did the one thing she could do. She knew that everything we were teaching her was true, and she even knew that the Book of Mormon must be scripture, but the one thing she could do to deny everything was not take the Book of Mormon to read. Without that she could deny everything again, even when she knew it was true. so we have a return appointment with her later this week.

Next, the plan of salvation lesson with Juan Carlos, and Marina. I learned a very valuable lesson during this, I'm just sad that I had to learn it this way. Our plan was to teach them the plan of salvation and to set them with a baptism date.  Well we taught them the lesson and everything was going good, and then at the end I bore testimony, and the spirit was strong and the thought came to my mind, invite them to be baptised. Well I didn't, and just like that 2 seconds later we got off subject, and the spirit was gone. My companion tried the best he could to bring the spirit back, and we invited them and ya it was a crappy answer, and then we just got more and more distracted and there was no way we were going to get them with a date. Lesson that I learned, when the spirit tells me to do something do it right away, and don't doubt my Spanish, the spirit knows how to talk to people.

Then on Wednesday we had a class with the mission president, and it was way good. We learned how to better invite people to be baptised, and how to invite them to come to chuch with more power. (if only we had known that yesterday...) but it was amazing and we learned alot.

My Spanish is coming along really well. I can understand most conversations now if I listen from the beginning and know what we are talking about, if not, then I usually just zone out and have no clue what is going on. but it's coming along.  Most of my apartment has been sick... ugh no fun, but we have pulled out of it quickly.

I finished one meal the other day, turned over my chicken bone to see if there was meat on the other side, and that's when I noticed I had the spine, and the lungs, and some other organs... so I slowly turned the bones back over. Haha. Yesterday we had beets, but when I ate them I didn't know they were beets, it was that night when I went to the bathroom and it was red that I realized that it was beets. Haha!


Now for the big news, WE HAVE 5 BAPTISMS THIS SUNDAY! WOOOOO!!!!!! This Sunday we are baptizing familia Quispe. They are a great family, and they are ready and excited to be baptized. Now we´ll see if I'm big enough to actually baptize any of them. But I'm excited none the less.


I talked this Sunday. Well bore my testimony, but it was still fun. Then today (Monday) we had a sports day with everybody and it was way fun as well!!!



Well love you all and miss you tons!!!

Good and Bad Week

Last week started out tough, I didn't write down things that happened like I did last week, so this letter might not seem as exciting. Anyway... my companion this entire week only wanted to talk about girls, and World of Warcraft. Ok I can do that for only so long, but he is obsessed with the pictures of Kynaston I have... it's ridiculous, I literally have hid them, and he is mad at me for it, but oh well, sucks to be him, because he is ruining it for me.

Anyway, the week was tough, my companion has been in this area for like 6 months now so he is ready for a new area, and pretty much there are moments when he is just trying to pass time. He is a really good elder, and knows how to work hard, but it;s hard sometimes. Also he says stuff that I don't think is appropriate, but it doesn't bother him at all, and if I say anything about it, he says, ¨we're guys we are supposed to be that way¨ and I'm thinking to myself. NO! Just because you are like that doesn't mean that everyone in the world is like that, and you are only saying that as an excuse to be messy! So that was upsetting me, he wasn't helping me learn either.  When we would do companionship study he would say teach this lesson in Spanish to me, and then as I'm trying to figure out what to say, he completely ignores me and does other stuff while I have no clue what I am doing. Then when I would ask ¨how do you say this, or what does that mean, he acts all annoyed, and then I feel even worse and don't want to ask him anything¨.  Well we had a tough week with contacts and stuff and he would say, ¨ok this contact is yours, I'm not going to help you.¨ Once again I'm thinking, ¨what the freak! I can get to a point, and then I have no clue what they are saying, how am I supposed to do this without help?¨ Ya so pretty much the week went on like this the entire time, and the entire time I'm getting more and more upset, and more and more homesick.  

Then we had the intercambio, which I think translates to interchange, where I got sent to work with some other missionaries for a day, and I stayed over at their place while they sent someone to be with my companion. Now this is where things got fun. The companionship that I got put into was a trio, with an elder from Ogden, and an elder from Mexico. Well half way through the night, the oldest elder from Ogden was like I'm going to go with this member and contact this inactive guy, so you and the elder from Mexico go and contact. Well that was just great except I don't know Spanish and he doesn't know English... but we did it anyway and it was actually not that bad. I would start some, and then when it got to the point I had no clue what was going on the other elder would take over. Haha the best part of this is when we met this guy who was drinking that was Chilean, but spoke some English. So he would say stuff in Spanish, and then look at me and say it in English. but I understood most of the Spanish. So then he wouldn't know the word in English and ask my Mexican companion what the word was and he would have no idea what the word was, but I would know what he said in Spanish and say the English word, when I did that the guy nearly had a heart attack, he was all like ah you can understand me! And then some girl, I guess a friend of his came up, and she was completely wasted! She was practically falling over, and I had no clue what she was saying so we quickly said we had to go and got out of there. After everything we got the elder from Ogden, Elder Poole,  me,  and Elder Lara (the Mexican elder) and we all went back to their apartment. That's when we started planning and stuff, and Elder Poole asked me how we did it with my real companion, and I told him exactly how it was to me, we wrote names down and then that was it.  Then the questions continued, and I continued to answer them about companionship study and all types of stuff, and that's when Elder Poole said that he would talk to my companion about it. Haha ya that's kind of a problem... Elder Ariz is a great companion, but if you say anything about him to any other person, then you are a backstabber and have no loyalty... well you see where this is going. When we got switched back nothing was said, and I just did my best to struggle through and to make it to Sunday when Elder Ariz and Elder Bell would go to their meeting. Well they went and when they came back Elder Ariz was not happy with me. So we talked, and he straight up told me that I wasn't loyal and all this stuff and that I had been talking bad about him and he has all these problems and yada yada yada. Well I finally lost it and just started crying. I was beyond breaking and so I told him everything and he still thinks that he has more problems, and my only problem is having to learn a language, (don't worry it's not like that's hard or anything) but in the end we worked most of our problems out. He still said he doesn't trust me, and to be honest I really don't care. Ugh for some reason the Lord is really trying to build up my patience... who knows what for, but keep praying for me and I´ll do likewise. It's not all bad here don't think I'm a downer from all the bad stuff in my letters. Love you and miss you all tons!!!

First Week in Chile

The plane ride was good, long, but it was good. The food wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I did have to check my carry on, but that really wasn't a big deal, and it didn't cost me anything. When we got to Chile, we got off the plane, went and paid the money to enter the country, and then went to immigration. I got up to the desk, and she started speaking in spanish. I was done for... then she started asking all these questions, and asking why I was there, and I said I was a missonary, and all the stuff that I was supposed to say. After 5 mins of me staring at her and handing her paper after paper, she finally called someone else over, and they said something, and then she stamped my passport. As I stood there waiting for the others to get through, that's when the fun really started. The lady came back to me and asked for the flight itinerary again, and then they shoved all of the missionaries in a corner for an hour and a half while they did who knows what. They would come and go, and come and go, and then finally they just said ok your good to go. It was a pain in the butt, but at least we were let in.

After that we met the mission president and his wife, loaded our stuff up, and went to the mission home. It's really pretty there, but it's not even in our mission bounderies so. side note, the drivers here are crazy! I'm supprised I haven't seen an accident yet, because they drive so fast and so crazy. That includes Sister Essig, the mission mom. After we got to the mission home, we took some pictures, ate some breakfast, and had interviews, where the mission president told me I was going to have a native companion that spoke english.  He asked if I was ok with that, and I said yes (I should have said no... but oh well) we then took a nap, and had a meeting where we met our new companions. My companion's name is Elder Ariz, he is from southern Chile somewhere, and he is crazy, I´ll talk more about him later. we then grabbed our stuff, and went to the subway, or metro whatever you call it. After a couple stops there, we got off, and got in a taxi and it took us to our apartment. Now let me tell you, an airplane ride, subway, taxi, immigration at the airport, that is way to much for one day. But the day wasn't even over. We dropped my stuff off, and went to work. First thing I noticed were the dogs. They are everywhere! I have seen several dead ones, I have seen them fight, they are just everywhere! None of them have attacked me yet, so that's good, but some have been close. The first day we went and taught a guy part of the first lesson, and I had no clue what was going on. After that we went to another investigator's house, her name is Dannise, and first things she did was laugh about my name. Because my name is Elder Alder they sound almost the same, and everybody thinks that is hilarious... it's kinda annoying not going to lie, but there's nothing I can do so oh well. After meeting some more people, it was finally time for bed, and I pulled out the sleeping bag. Best decision ever! that thing is so warm, that is all I sleep in! Definitely glad we got that thing.

Wednesday
Woke up got ready, and went to zone meetings because my companion is the zone leader. They were long, and I had no clue what was being said, so I just sat there and tried to understand as much as I could.  I was able to get the basics of it, but it's way hard. After the meetings, we went to lunch at a members house. I thought I was going to die. You don't have to worry about me ever going hungry while I'm in this sector, you only have to worry about how much weight I'm going to gain while I'm here. The food here tastes fantastic, but there is just so much of it that by the end I am doing everything I can not to throw up.  The problem is, the people here are very poor. I'm in the suburbs of the city, so it's very getto looking. So when they bring you food you have to eat it or you offend them. Pretty much everyday is like Thanksgiving. It's horrible, I am literally sick everyday after. So because of the food, we have a bathroom time after luch for the 4 of us in our apartment to go to the bathroom. I'm glad for that time everyday. After we go to teach people.  I met a man with no voice. No voice, with spanish ya I have no clue what he is saying ever.  We had another lesson with Dannise, and we read in the Book of Mormon with her, and then I gave my testimony of it in spanish, and that's when I realized that I can invite the spirit with the little spanish that I know. Testifying of truths is powerful. Now this helped me a lot, because I was homesick, and I have been homesick quite a bit while being here, but that's normal... so oh well. While walking to different appointments, there was a man with a megaphone walking down the street yelling stuff, no clue what he was saying, but I hear him quite a bit, also there are like street venders, just a whole street of street venders. It's crazy.

My companion walks so fast. This is definitely a walking mission, and oh man do we walk. My legs are always burning, and my companion really doesn't care. We are lucky, and have hot showers in my area, but Thursday it never got hot, so I never got in, me and the shower have a love/hate relationship. What else, my companion took me shopping without telling me what was going on, so I bought conditioner instead of shampoo.  We buy boxes of milk here, and EVERYTHING IS IN SPANISH so it's a good thing my companion wouldn't tell me what anything said! But back to other stuff. Most of the people's houses here are tiny. Take our living room, just the living room, and put everything in it, and you know how small their houses are. It's cold here, so I am always wearing my thermals, and a coat, and even then I am still cold so that's fun, but I'm bundling up so it's not so bad anymore. We had lunch one day with a man named Hugo, ya that was fun, but they made the best chocolate desert thing that I had ever had. Our companionship studies include me practicing saying stuff to him while he doesn't pay attention to me, so that is difficult because I don't know if what I'm saying is right or not. One day we went back to teach the investigator that we taught part of the first lesson to, and he decided that he didn't want to hear anymore, and then taught me how to swear because I was new here and had no clue what was going on.

I have gotten sick, and felt like I was going to throw up at any second, so that was fun, but my companion let me go back to sleep, and that helped, the problem was the day I felt the worst, was that day that we got the most food. There are 3 things that I am afraid of:   3. getting mugged, 2. getting attacked by a dog, and 1. when people go into the kitchen, cause I know they are bringing out food. The members like to drink this stuff called ecco, which tastes and smells like coffee, but it isn't, and ya that was nasty! And they like to give us coke, good thing I love coke! ugh...

We stopped by the church at what I think  was mutual, and they were playing ping pong in the cultural hall, and one kid was dressed like someone from Grease, with his hair slicked back and everything. We were stopped by some crazy guy on a bike, some random lady came into the church after it was over, singled in on me and started blabbing away, nobody had any clue what she was saying, and then she just turned and left. Ya haha crazy people are fun.

Chuch was interesting, nobody played the piano, so we sang it acapella, the testimonies here are short and to the point, so that was nice, nobody was up there for more than 5 mins. and WE HAD A BAPTISM!!! My first week in and I already have a baptism under my belt. Not like I really did anything.

Now for my companion. He is a great elder, but he never tells me what is going on, so I just sit there and look stupid, he doesn't like to plan so I just follow him around not knowing what is going on. He talks in spanish really fast to me, and then when I don't understand he switches right to English, so I don't get the chance to figure it out. He has been in this area for like 5 transfers, so he thinks he has done everything and knocked every door, so most of the time we are at members houses talking to them, and once again I have no clue what is being said. The house is incredibly dirty, and he says that's just the way it is. He is the exact opposite of me in every way, he is a lot like Jason in the things he likes, computer games, and Anime, so it has been really hard, and like I said before, I've gotten really homesick, All I do in lessons is say, ¨I know what my companion has said is true, and it has blessed my life,¨ and if I can figure out what is going on then I say a little more than that, but not much else.

Everyday I go through feelings of ¨Its not that bad here, I´ll stay¨ to ¨I'm ready to go home, and I'm going to call and tell the mission president I'm ready to go.¨ But then we have a good lesson, and then more I have no clue what is going on, and it is hard, it really is hard on me physically and emotionally, but it has only been the first week, so this is expected, or that's what everyone keeps telling me. In 5 more weeks there will be another transfer and I will then have to lead my new trainer around, because my trainer will be moved out, looking forward to that! But it's not that bad here, the people are really nice, and the other elders that we live with are nice so they help take some of the crazy feelings away. But ya that's been my week so far. Oh we taught Dannise last night, and she told us that she was done with our visits. She said that she knew the Book of Mormon was true, and everything was right, but she didn't want it anymore. So that was hard on my companion and me. It's been tough, but it's been fun and exciting and crazy all at the same time. Keep me in your prayers!

Have people send everything to this address by US Postal service only.

Mision Chile Santiago Norte
Sucursal Correo Patronato
Casilla #60
Recoleta, Santiago
Chile