So I'm not sure what I said in my last letter, but whatever I said I totally meant that I was going to COnstitución. Definitely not going to Concepciòn, that's it's own mission.
Guess who I'm sitting like 5 feet away from as we speak?!?! Elder freaking Edwards!!! We came up to Talca for P-day today because our roomate is Argentinian so he needs to go to Santiago to vote, and the Talca zones played soccer against each other this morning so I've gotten to spend the morning with Elder Edwards! Pretty cool right? It's kinda weird seeing someone who I knew back home here.
This week! Goodness I have no idea how to start, the first week is of course so crazy and I just don't have a lot of time so I'll try to cram as much as I possibly can in this letter.
Entonces before I came here I told you all that I would likely be surprised by how little Spanish I understand and I'll likely have a lot of the same difficulties that I had my first week in the CCM, and I was very right. In fact, those difficulties were amplified, however, the blessings have been compounded. SO I want to tell all you all about the tender mercies of the week because they are absolutely countless. I understand less than 5% of the Spanish out here, which is hard, but I'm very greatful for my speaking ability because I've still been able to teach people and build relationships with the investigators and the ward members. This is a big life adjustment but I'm in a wonderful place with a lot of wonderful people. Interestingly enough, I'm actually relearning nearly all of the lessons that I learned in the first weeks of the CCM. For some reason once wasn't enough, I suppose.
Conti!!! Conti is easily the coolest place that I have ever been in ever. That's tender mercy number 1. You all should go look at google images and go explore with google street view or something because Conti is absolutely amazing. In the main metropolitan area there are hundreds of tiny little Chilean homes that sprawl all over rows of steep hills. Everywhere there are shortcuts and nooks and crannies and cool places to explore, it's fantastic. Beyond the metropolitan area there hills that are fuzzy and green and huge and everywhere, and there are very tall skinny trees all over them. The trees and the hills here are absolutely beautiful. The buildings, not so much, but there's something really cool about the way they sprawl all over the hills here. There also a neighborhood of nicer houses and aparment buildings up high on a hill that's called Villa Verde, which we have most of our success because the people who live there are people who's homes were destroyed in the earthquake and resulting tsunami that happened a few years back. Then there's the beach. Oh my word. It is so gorgeous it's hard to believe it actually exists. I cannot possibly describe it so I'll send pictures, google images doesn't show you the right parts though so that won't help if you wanna know what it's like. The only thing sad about being in this sector is that I'm going to be really sad to leave it.
Mission life! It's different our here for sure, but it's not very difficult and I'm getting used to it quickly. The schedule here is a little different than most missions first off, we wake up at 7 and go to bed at 11 in the winters and we wake up at 7:30 and go to bed at 11:30 in the summers. We also have 2 hours for lunch and no time at all for dinner. This is because Chileans usually eat an obsene amount of food (multiple courses and everything) for lunch and they either don't eat dinner at all or they eat something called once (pronounced OHN-say) at 8 or 9 at night which is usually very small. So every day a member feeds us lunch (and we need 2 hours because they reeeeally like to talk and lunch here takes a while) and then we don't eat again until we get into our apartment at 9:30. There's also no heat in the apartments here, which is a little bit of an adventure but it really isn't actually that inconvinient once you get used to it. Also we do a ton of walking here, I'd be surprised if we walked anything less than 8 miles in any given day. That Villa Verde place I was talking about takes about an hour to walk to from our apartment, and it usually takes us a half an hour to walk to places in our sector that are closer to our apartment. So a lot of walking, but I haven't been in that much pain yet which is a blessing for sure.
The people! The people here are inhumanly friendly and receptive. You probably haven't heard this from a lot of missionaries emails, but tracting here is actually extremely effective. Here's an average door conversation:
(we knock and a lady comes to the door)
Lady: Hey guys come in come in!! (opens door wider)
Us: Heeeey do you have a spouse in there?
Lady: Nope.
Us: Aaaah sorry we can't come in unless there's another man in the house, it's
a rule of ours, do you know who we are?
Lady: Nope.
Us: Do you know about the church or have had missionaries pass by before?
Lady: Nope.
Us: (explains who we are and what we`re doing) can we come back Saturday?
Lady: Yeah totally come back I'll try to have my husband here!
Us: Sweet!
SO yeah they're extremely friendly. We have a lot of investigators right now, the only thing about missions down here in Chile is that it's reeeeally difficult to get your investigators to progress because nearly all if not all of our teaching appointments fall through every day. So the people are really receptive, the problem is being able to teach any of them often enough to be able to get them to baptism. The first two days I was here we didn't teach anyone, even though all our plans (both plan a and b) were full of people to visit. So shoota, but when we do get to teach it's an awesome experience.
Gah I don't have any time! My roomates are a ton of fun though!! I love them all so much. I also have Elder Anuarve (of Argentina) and Elder schley in my aparment. They're an absolute blast, it's another big blessing that I have the three Elders with me that I do. Remind me to tell the lazer pointer story until I tell it, because it's hilarious but I don't have time.
Entonces I wanna tell you about all the tender mercies of the week but out of lack of time I can probably only fit it one or two. So here goes! It's a mission rule that we can be out until 10:00 if we're teaching a lesson that we consider really important, and last night that was the case. All four of us (we took the other companionship along so that we could teach her without a spouse being there because he always works) were teaching here about the Book of Mormon and were trying to set a baptismal date with her. It was an amazing lesson, I followed what was going on alright and I was able to teach and share and bear my testimony multiple times and I got to extend to her the invitation to be baptized. Sadly there are a lot of complications which I will probably talk about more in future letters so she couldn't commit yet, but it was alright. When the lesson was finished it was about 9:30 and it takes about an hour to walk from her apartment (in villa verde) to our apartment, and that's at a fast walk. So shoota. We decided to wait for a coletivo (taxi) by the top of the hill but after 5 minutes it became aparent that one probably wouldn't pass by. So we all said a prayer that a coletivo would pass by so that we could get to our apartment by 10:00 and be on time. From the CCM I gained a testimony of God's willingness to enact miracles for his children if they have faith, so I was confident that a coletivo would come and we'd be on time. My roomates were getting a little nervous however. That's when a car came around the corner, stopped right next to us and asked us if we were going down the hill. It turns out that they were members and they lived in the exact same apartment building as us and they were already heading back to the apartment. They gave us a ride and we got to our apartment at 9:58. That was pretty amazing, I thought. God really does help His children, and I'm sad that I don't get to share more experiences of this week right now because He has given me so many tender mercies this week. Everything from the view of the beach, to the ability to teach our investigators and less actives well, to tender mercies like the car coming just in time. Whatever we give to God, He will give us blessings ten fold of what we could ever give Him. Always. He loves each of us so much. With that, I must bid adiu. The details I haven`t been able to include this week are in my journal so maybe I'll be able to write some next week,
Love,
Elder Fox
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