Hello all!! I reeeeally regret to inform you that this MTC doesn't have a printer so I have to quickly read all your emails before I write which gives me essentially no time to write. Bummer. Oh well! Once I get out into the field I hope I get to write more, there is so much to say and nooot very much time to say it. So if my letter sounds rushed and lacking much flavor, that's proobably because it is! Yay!
Bienvenidos a Chile!! I love it here, despite the fact that I can't understand or communicate with anyone. That is a downside. But one of the advantages of being here at the Chile CCM is that every day I get reminded that real Spanish is far from the Spanish that the instructors speak. In fact, Santiago Spanish is the fastest in the world (from what I hear) and they don't pronounce their "s"'s at all! So when I get into the field I won't be surprised and discouraged that I don't actually know Spanish. I digress. I love Chile! It's just about as humid as Utah, in fact I can't really detect a difference at all. The mountains here are absolutely stunning when we see them, Santiago has a really bad pollution problem so even on days with good weather we often can't see the mountains (sad thing is the distance from the CCM to the mountains and the distance from our house in Alpine to the mountains is about the same, so yes the pollution is REALLY bad.) It's in the thick of winter here but not extremely cold, it's cold enough in the mornings to wear a jacket for certain but that's just about it. Santiago is a very large city, the traffic and smell is kind of like New York but of course the buildings aren't nearly as tall. There are some very pretty parks here though, we run about a quarter mile from the CCM to a park to do our exercize every morning and at the park we play soccer and basketball and such. The traffic is scary I'm not gunna lie, but as long as a native Santiagoan(?) is driving your fine because they are extremely skilled at dealing with this mess that they call driving. The road system is very odd hear I don't quite understand it, 90% of the roads here are one way roads yet people still manage to get places without a problem. It's enough to confuse me for sure. So, in summary, it's very different here! But I really like how different it is, I love being in a different culture among a new kind of people because I've never had any kind of experience with that before.
The CCM! In case you haven't realized the CCM is MTC in Español and at this point I'm so used to saying CCM that it just comes naturally, so I'm sorry if you're confused. The actually CCM is only one building that has about 10 classrooms and a lunch room that's about the size of two relief society rooms put together. There are about 90 people going to this MTC and about half of them are South Americans but all of us are going to a mission in Chile. We all sleep in another building that I still haven't learned the name of, but it's a place the church provides for people who travel great distances to get to the temple to sleep overnight for a few nights so that they can properly enjoy the temple experience. The missionaries (including Presidente Doll y Hermana Doll) inhabit the third floor of this building, leaving the rest for members. We see Chilean members in there all the time and it's really fun, since my Spanish has improved I've gotten to have small conversations with them and they're all very nice people. The other buildings in the complex are the chapel, the temple, and the distrobution center. It's a very small place but still good. Yeah, still good. Nobody here speaks English, which is probably really good for me but also kind of a struggle. The teachers even struggle with words sometimes and it's my favorite thing because I'm just so not used to that. The food here is.... challenging. But it's getting better every day. That's probably because I can now communicate with the lunch ladies and because I'm forgetting what real food tastes like. But hey, at least I'm getting used to it! We have classes 12 hours a day, but I haven't been very tired which I count as a huge blessing. I've been trying very hard to put forth everything I have and be as dilligent as possible and I believe it's paying off.
Spanish! Learning a language fresh is not easy, especially at the rate that the CCM goes. Only two days into the CCM they had us contact our first two progressing investigators (the teachers take on a persona and protend to be investigators for us. We set appointments and they go in a practice room so we can knock on their door and everything.) Everyone in my district but me and one other has had 3+ years of Spanish classes, so the advice to not compare myself to other missionaries has come real handy. I often have to take a step back and look at how much I learned this week alone, and then I'm just extremely greatful for the help I've received. First lesson learned this week was to compare yourself to the way you were tomorrow, it's really the only way to properly progress in anything, especially spiritual progression.
District! We have the biggest district in the CCM with 11 Elderes and 1 Hermana. Yes only one, it's very complicated because she doesn't reeeeally have a companion but we make things work. My companion is Elder Simmons! We met hin at the Salt Lake Airport. In speaking of airport, upon arriving at Georgia the rest of the Edlers in our district joined us and we all flew to Chile together. The sunrise over the Andes from the view of a landing airplane is one of the beautiful things in this world by the way. Anyway I digress. Elder Simmons! He's cool, he's willing to work hard and is very kind, so what more could I ask for!
I had some really spiritual insights this week that I really wanted to share but I just don't have time, I do apologize. I really hope I get to share them next week because I learned a lot this week. Hopefully will have more time to provide more details next week! Very sorry!
Love,
Elder Fox
Bienvenidos a Chile!! I love it here, despite the fact that I can't understand or communicate with anyone. That is a downside. But one of the advantages of being here at the Chile CCM is that every day I get reminded that real Spanish is far from the Spanish that the instructors speak. In fact, Santiago Spanish is the fastest in the world (from what I hear) and they don't pronounce their "s"'s at all! So when I get into the field I won't be surprised and discouraged that I don't actually know Spanish. I digress. I love Chile! It's just about as humid as Utah, in fact I can't really detect a difference at all. The mountains here are absolutely stunning when we see them, Santiago has a really bad pollution problem so even on days with good weather we often can't see the mountains (sad thing is the distance from the CCM to the mountains and the distance from our house in Alpine to the mountains is about the same, so yes the pollution is REALLY bad.) It's in the thick of winter here but not extremely cold, it's cold enough in the mornings to wear a jacket for certain but that's just about it. Santiago is a very large city, the traffic and smell is kind of like New York but of course the buildings aren't nearly as tall. There are some very pretty parks here though, we run about a quarter mile from the CCM to a park to do our exercize every morning and at the park we play soccer and basketball and such. The traffic is scary I'm not gunna lie, but as long as a native Santiagoan(?) is driving your fine because they are extremely skilled at dealing with this mess that they call driving. The road system is very odd hear I don't quite understand it, 90% of the roads here are one way roads yet people still manage to get places without a problem. It's enough to confuse me for sure. So, in summary, it's very different here! But I really like how different it is, I love being in a different culture among a new kind of people because I've never had any kind of experience with that before.
The CCM! In case you haven't realized the CCM is MTC in Español and at this point I'm so used to saying CCM that it just comes naturally, so I'm sorry if you're confused. The actually CCM is only one building that has about 10 classrooms and a lunch room that's about the size of two relief society rooms put together. There are about 90 people going to this MTC and about half of them are South Americans but all of us are going to a mission in Chile. We all sleep in another building that I still haven't learned the name of, but it's a place the church provides for people who travel great distances to get to the temple to sleep overnight for a few nights so that they can properly enjoy the temple experience. The missionaries (including Presidente Doll y Hermana Doll) inhabit the third floor of this building, leaving the rest for members. We see Chilean members in there all the time and it's really fun, since my Spanish has improved I've gotten to have small conversations with them and they're all very nice people. The other buildings in the complex are the chapel, the temple, and the distrobution center. It's a very small place but still good. Yeah, still good. Nobody here speaks English, which is probably really good for me but also kind of a struggle. The teachers even struggle with words sometimes and it's my favorite thing because I'm just so not used to that. The food here is.... challenging. But it's getting better every day. That's probably because I can now communicate with the lunch ladies and because I'm forgetting what real food tastes like. But hey, at least I'm getting used to it! We have classes 12 hours a day, but I haven't been very tired which I count as a huge blessing. I've been trying very hard to put forth everything I have and be as dilligent as possible and I believe it's paying off.
Spanish! Learning a language fresh is not easy, especially at the rate that the CCM goes. Only two days into the CCM they had us contact our first two progressing investigators (the teachers take on a persona and protend to be investigators for us. We set appointments and they go in a practice room so we can knock on their door and everything.) Everyone in my district but me and one other has had 3+ years of Spanish classes, so the advice to not compare myself to other missionaries has come real handy. I often have to take a step back and look at how much I learned this week alone, and then I'm just extremely greatful for the help I've received. First lesson learned this week was to compare yourself to the way you were tomorrow, it's really the only way to properly progress in anything, especially spiritual progression.
District! We have the biggest district in the CCM with 11 Elderes and 1 Hermana. Yes only one, it's very complicated because she doesn't reeeeally have a companion but we make things work. My companion is Elder Simmons! We met hin at the Salt Lake Airport. In speaking of airport, upon arriving at Georgia the rest of the Edlers in our district joined us and we all flew to Chile together. The sunrise over the Andes from the view of a landing airplane is one of the beautiful things in this world by the way. Anyway I digress. Elder Simmons! He's cool, he's willing to work hard and is very kind, so what more could I ask for!
I had some really spiritual insights this week that I really wanted to share but I just don't have time, I do apologize. I really hope I get to share them next week because I learned a lot this week. Hopefully will have more time to provide more details next week! Very sorry!
Love,
Elder Fox
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