Good Things Happening in San Felipe

The weather is crazy here!  The last few days have been FREEZING!!!!!!! but we are managing and things are going really well! :)  Having a latino companion and living with other latinos is really discouraging sometimes... because they only have to focus on the doctrine.  I have to focus on the doctrine, learning the culture here, learning about these people(where they live what they do what they like to talk about their families, etc) Spanish( normal Spanish and Chilean Spanish).   Lots of stuff!  Haha, but it's cool and I really enjoy it :) y si yo puedo hablar muy bueno en espanol. lo es muy facil actualmente. yo tengo que hablar y pensar cada dia en solamente espanol entonces estoy aprendiendo muy rapido. cuando hablo, yo puedo decir que you quiero decir sin dificultades usualmente. :)   But it is very hard to type in Spanish, so I'm going to type the rest in English for the sake of time.  Next Monday will be transfers so my companion will be heading home and I will be receiving a new companion!   My companion now believes that I will be staying here in San Felipe and my new companion will move here with me!  That would be kinda cool since I already know a lot of the people and the bishopric and investigators!  Plus I keep getting told how lucky I am to start here in San Felipe because the Spanish is much slower and easier to understand and learn!  The work is going pretty good here! My Spanish is coming and I can speak pretty easily now.  The words come to mind really quickly but my accent and the conjugations are not always correct... but it will come with time.  I have a good study routine that I have found that works really well.  The people and other missionaries keep telling me and Elder Dykstra that we are leagues ahead of where missionaries usually are at this point in their missions.  That's always a really good confidence booster!!  We also have a baptism this Saturday for Myrian!  My companion says I will be the one doing the baptism so that will be really cool! We did have noche hogar (family home evening) in the house of Cheril (Myriam's daughter)  it was really cool.  Lots of good food and investigators of the other missionaries come which was also really awesome!   All in all things are going really well here and the language and doctrine are coming along!

 Fine Dining Companions!

Shrimp and mushroom ravioli and Arizona fruit soda on the back porch.  Awesome!!!

The Past Week!

Enjoying a burger in Los Andes.

In-grown Toe Nail Surgery!

Things were pretty crazy this week!  First I'll start off by talking about my toe surgery!   We arrived to the doctors office to find that a lot of the doctors don't have the stuff that you need for your surgery so they write you a list with their signatures and you go to the nearest pharmacy and buy all the stuff yourself! Haha it's pretty funny... but we bought the numbing medicine, the needles and syringe and the cleaning medicine and returned.  He injected my toe in 2 places with the numbing medicine and then started to pull the nail out of my skin (only the right side or part of it, not the whole nail, but it was the part that was stuck in my skin).   Let's just say that the numbing medicine was HORRIBLE and I could feel everything except just a little less that normal.  It was terrible... but he cut the right side of the nail off and then wrapped it up and sent me home and I had to rest for the next few days.   The medical system is so different here!  The only really nice thing about it was the doctor who did the surgery is our branch president!  The bad thing about this is that he is a heart doctor.. not a foot doctor!  The more I think about it the more I realize that he probably has never done this before and never studied or anything to do this!  Crazy!  We also had zone conference this week which was pretty awesome!! Really long, but really helpful :)    The work is awesome!  We have 2 with a baptismal date! (Ximena and Myrian) Ximena is great and really wants to be baptized but .... smokes alot!!! We have been trying to help her to quit but its really difficult. The other day we bought nicotine gum for her (which is freaking expensive here!) and made this little cigarette case with pictures of Jesus and scriptures and such haha its pretty cool!  Hopefully this will help her!  Next is Myrian.  She is the mom of a recent convert in the ward.  In two weeks we will have companion changes.. I'm not sure what's going to happen.  I know I will be changed for sure because my companion will be going home!  But I might be staying here in San Felipe or headed to a different sector... but I will be finding out soon!   My last day here could be the 28th,  which is the day that we have out baptisms!!  All in all things are going really well here and I'm improving each and every day!

San Felipe Blues

Four hard-working elders walking the farm roads of El Llano.

The internet is slow here and yeah the rats are interesting... but funny!  The exterminators came this week.  You asked about how long my companion has been out?  I am actually his last companion :) He goes home the 28th of this month! The work is pretty good! We have some progressing investigators right now.   Myriam, Ximena, Roman and Carol.  They are all awesome and really fun to teach and we have 2 baptisms the 28th of this month on our last day in this area :)
Thanks for sending me the books! It's annoying how the mail works so slow here.  I still haven't recieved the package with my drivers license in it.   It's been a good month or more for that stupid package.   Thanks for sharing that information from the lesson last Sunday.  I've really been struggling with confidence this past week and that was exactly what I needed to hear!  Another prayer answered :)   I have an ingrown toe nail that is really infected and hurts when I walk for a while.  So I had to be on antibiotics and inflammatory medicine along with this cream stuff!  Today I ahve to have the nail cut out!  I might only be here for one transfer and this is the last area of my companion, so not sure what's going to happen... things will be fine!

Colo Colo Soccer Fan and Rats..Big Rats!

Elder King and Elder Chung sporting Colo Colo soccer jerseys!

Things are awesome here!  The weather is a good mix between cold and warm, but I'm getting used to it so I don't really notice it anymore.... The days are crazy!  We get up at 7:30 in the morning,   exercise and then have an hour to shower and have breakfast and get changed.  After that we have personal study for 1 hour, then companion for about an hour and a half to 2 hours, then language study, then after that we head to a members house every single day for lunch, then out to work!  We usually have between 2 to 4 scheduled lessons a day and then just contacting and knocking doors!  We have 2 areas, the first is is San Felipe, and the second is out even further in the farm country.  The town is called El Llano!  It's way cool but it is ALOT of walking, and the work is good but hard!  Somedays we will knock the doors of an entire street and not have a single person answer, and other days we will be invited in or be able to schedule appointments for others days with entire streets.  It's really hit or miss!  But the lessons are good and my companion pushes me really hard to improve.    We will be mid-lesson and he will just stop talking/teaching and just look at me:) hahaha and he won't talk, so I have to!  I hated it at first... but now I really like it and it's getting to the point where I will interrupt and say things on my own!!   I use Grandpa's coat almost every single day :) it fits perfect and keeps me really warm!  This week was crazy because we have giant rats in our house that keep eating our food and sneaking into the house!!  We had to throw away most of our food... and then deep clean the entire house and order an exterminator for this next week!  The creepy part about it was the other night I was in the middle of my personal night prayer and the other elders had just turned the music off and started to do the same and then we kept hearing these squeaking noises.... we all finished our prayers and continued to listen to them and looking at each other like what in the world!  We listened closely and heard at least 5 or more rats running around in the ceiling just above all of our beds!  It was gross but pretty awesome too!  By the way,  I bought a new back pack and a soccer jersey to match my companion!  It's for the soccer team Colo Colo.  Haha it's white and pretty sweet! But things are really good here!

1st Area: San Felipe !

Elder King with new companion/trainer Elder Chung from Peru. 

I am in Los Andes!  Somewhat.. it's a town called San Felipe!  It's awesome :) It's a smaller town.  My companion and trainer is again way awesome!  His name is Elder Chung.  He is from Peru, but knows English really well!  I was asked how my Spanish was in my meeting with the president and how I would feel about having a companion who's native language is Spanish but knows pretty good English, and I welcomed the challenge!   He is extremely sarcastic and hilarious!  We get along really well :)   The apartment we live in is more of a house!  We share it with 2 other missionaries!  One from Logan, Utah and the other from Peru as well!  We all are really good friends already! Our house is nothing extremely fancy but not poor either!  We have what we need except... it doesn't have heating!!! So we have to use portable heaters.   Only one can be used at once because it uses too much electricity so it flips the fuse when we have the lights on and the two heaters on... so during personal study in the morning we have to keep switching off having the heater on in our room!   The earthquake last week was AWESOME!  We only felt the after shocks of it and the others were a little scared but I was over flowing with excitement!  They all looked at me so funny!   I had to explain that we don't have anything like this in Utah.  The work is EXTREMELY hard both mentally and physically!  I come home every day completely exhausted from trying to translate everything and the miles and miles that we walk each day.  Check out the giant hot dog!!!  They are called Italianos and they are amazing!  It's a foot long hot dog with avocado, mayo, ketchup, and a spicy sauce that I love.  Easily my favorite food down here by far!

Enjoying an Italiano hot dog.  My favorite food in Chile!

Last Week in the Chile M.T.C.!

A group picture of all of the elders and sister missionaries staying at the mission house called Alcantra with the mission couple Brother and Sister Gilbert on the left side front row.  Elder Jordan King is on the back row, second from the right.

Hey guys!   Yeah, the weeks and days are flying by!  It seems like just yesterday that we were just arriving and now we only have a week left!  We have so much going on this week that it will fly by as well and before we know it we will be in the field!  I also found out that empenadas are amazing!!! It's a really popular food down here in Chile!  Its like a really amazingly good hot pocket!  This week for one of our classes we get to go ride the metro and learn about how to use it!  When we do that we will head into the heart of Santiago!  We got our new roommates!  They are awesome!  Elder Medina from Argentina and Elder Condor from Peru.  They are hilarious!  We have lots of fun hanging around and talking with them!  We went contacting twice this week.  It is much easier than we thought once we relax and just talk to people, and now I'm excited to be able to do it a lot more!   Since we go into the field on Tuesday next week and p days in the field are on Monday, you guys won't hear from me till the week after next week...  but love and miss you guys sooo much!!!  Things are great here and I love it:)

Week 4: Pero Nosotros Son Gringos de Utah! Nosotros No Sabamos Frio!

New Spanish Scriptures!

  We only have 2 weeks left in the MTC!  This week we move up into Spanish only for the remainder or our stay in the MTC, and the investigators are really difficult so we have to work pretty hard with them!   The weather is amazing here!   Usually not a cloud in the sky and it feels about 60 degrees or so.  Haha we love the weather!   Everybody else is cold though... pero nosotros son gringos de Utah! nosotros no sabamos frio!  Everybody thinks the house we are staying in is haunted!  The cold water keeps getting turned off somehow.  The knobs to turn it off are pretty difficult to get to and nobody is owning up to turning it off.  A few weeks ago, a girl couldn't sleep for like a week because she said she felt a "presence"watching her the entire time.  It was way creepy! I bought some scriptures in Spanish, and a Spanish hymn book, and today I bought a Libro de Mormon book so I can keep that one in its own case.  The books are weird here! They don't have quads. The Bible is separate and the b.o.m., pearl, and D&C are in a triple combo!  My new case is way cool though! It has a llama on it :) hahaha  I'll send a picture home!  Oh, and today during our P day we got insulted for the first time!!  It was awesome!  As we walked past, this guy yells in perfect English, which was weird... but he yelled, ¨Go back to Utah!¨ hahaha...We all just laughed because it was pretty funny!   Love you all and miss you guys!! Can't wait to hear from you and talk to you again next week :) Things are amazing here and I love every minute of this experience!  -Elder ¨ Rey ¨