Adjusting to Chile

Date: September 12, 2011 Area: Santiago, Chile Companion:Elder Metcalf

Hola Familia,

As to some of your questions: Elder Metcalf really is a great companion. Obviously there are some little things that he does that bug me but that is to be expected. I just try not to let them get to me. He knows spanish pretty well so I can ask him questions when I need to. He still has an accent though and so do I. I need to work on my accent though because I don´t want to sound like a gringo, but i´m not sure I really want to sound like a Chilean. Their spanish isn´t exactly the best- I want people to be able to understant what I´m saying when I speak. But I am getting the ear for it now. I can talk pretty well and understand most of what people say now which is good. The people in the ward are always complementing me on my spanish because they think its so good for only being here for 2 weeks. I think the year in Spain is finally paying off! Thanks Mom & Dad!

The area is kind of too small to use public transportation but we do do a TON of walking. Too much. But we are getting better about it. We started changing our focus this last week. We decided that how we were getting new investigators isn´t exactly efficient and effective. We read in preach my gospel that the best way to get good investigators is through the members. Since the ward isn´t that strong we have been working with them to get the whole ward excited about missionary work. There are a core group of members in the ward that are very strong, like a number of them who have served missions so we are using that as a base to get others involved. We are having pretty much at least one family home evening every night this week with different member families. Make sure you´re doing your family home evening!!! We´ve been working doing permeneced, or working with less actives too, because there are so many of them. One actually came to church this last Sunday with her family which was great!!

 

I still can´t really tell what the Chilean schedule is like, they all seem to be different. They are up at all hours of the day! But their big meal of the day is almuerzo (lunch) and they call dinner once instead of cena.. strange.

We tried to meet with Ronal last week but he wasn´t there when we passed by. We are going at the begining of this week and will hopefully extend a baptismal invitation to them. Maria and her two kids are still on for the beginning of October though we are going to try to postpone it a week. Here in Chile they must have attended church at least 3 times before they can be baptized-which is really hard to get them to do. But its really necessary because if they won´t come to church then they are´n´t willing to make the changes they need to be baptized and remain active in the church. So I hope she will come.

That would be so sweet to come down here for christmas after I get back!!! That would be so fun.

Food. The Chileans cook lots of the rice dishes and I love them- you know how I love rice. The completo was great! I had 4. They are so good. Its just like everything piled onto a hotdog! But I still think that my favorite thing is the empanadas. They are absolutely delicious! Question: in our kitchen we don´t have an oven but we have a stove. Most recepies need an oven to work, is there any way that you could pick out a few simple recepies that we could make on the stove? we´ve done spaghetti, rice, pancakes, french toast, breakfast burritos, olmletts. Simple things. Mom, how do you make that rice with the vegetables that I love? its like a wet rice that I´m pretty sure you made onthe stove.

I don´t know how I can talk to a teacher here but I´ll ask around and see if I can´t get some contact information for you Lindy. That would be really fun!

Mom, I´m glad that you were able to meet up with sister Honey, she is lots of fun! They are definiitely a great family. I hope the convention was good! Its great that you have the investigator inyour class. The Vargas´ seemed like a really nice family. I hope they go through with it. And Yes, I have used the rubber bottle for hot water... Its amazing. I´m really glad that you sent it! Thank you! but it is starting to warm up which is a good thing.

DaD: Thanks for the email. It is great to get a general update on everyone to know whats going on. Not much time left to respond, but thanks. I´m proud of you and you´re example that you are to me- you don´t even realize how much that is helping me here- so thank you! I love ya.

Yesterday was the 11 of September and here in Chile there are riots and stuff becasue it is the anniversary of when a dictator was overthrown or something like that. So all the kids go CRAZYin the streets with protests and vandalism, burning and breaking things. So we had to go inside early yesterday at 8. I went to bed an hour early too so it was nice. But walking around this morning it doesn´t seem like it is that bad...no se.

I have to say that the missionary work is definitely a lot different from what I expected. I haven´t exactly figured out if thats a good thing or a bad thing but I can definitely say that I´m learning a lot here- apart from the language. I guess one of the biggest lessons for me this week was that it is so important to control your thoughts. Your thoughts control so much of how you feel and what you do so it is iimportant to be the master of your thoughts and have the discipline and focus you need to be effective in whatever you do. I´ve been trying to do that in my time here, to focus on the missionary work but its not always easy. Its just a conscious thing that you always have to be aware of and take action to have control.

Well I´m going to try to upload some pictures but the computer isn´t working with them so i´ll try to get them up on another computer. I love you all and I miss you!!!

Les amo!

Elder Holland