Welcome to Paradise #2

Hey all!  Hows it goin?  Sadly I have very little time to write this week, but I'll be as fast as I can!

Hospital!  I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it.  There are much more trees than there are houses, and everything is very spaced out.  It's surrounded by gorgeous mountains, and there are more dirt roads than paved roads.  It's kind of how I thought Chile was going to be when I got my call!  So I'm super excited to be here!  It is one of the largest sectors in the mission, however.  We have bikes in the sector, but it still takes about a half an hour to travel between places (2 hours+ walking.)  I love how rural it and pretty everything is and being able to see the stars at night for the lack of street lamps or really anything.

With that said, it's easily the wealthiest part of Chile I've ever seen ever.  The houses outside of the normal poblaciònes (hospital and champa, for my father who went and explored on google maps) have front yards and back yards, and a lot of them actually have pools.  I've never seen a pool in Chile until I've gotten here, now I see them at almost every house.  So where I am is rural, but it's a super rich kind of rural.  The houses are comparable to the ones in Utah in size and general niceness.

Including our house!  Easily one of the nicest houses I've ever seen in Chile, and easily the nicest house that missionaries have ever had ever.  We have a lot more space than we need.  We're four missionaries, and the house is likely the size (or larger than) the house we have in Alpine.  There are two floors, a kitchen, two bathrooms, a dining room, a large living room, two study rooms, a bedroom, and about 4 extra rooms that we do nothing with.  It's incredible!  We also have property full of fruit trees, we have almonds and peaches and pears and apples and avocados.  We also have a swing set and a slide.

The only downside is cleaning the huge house... we actually had to get fumigated this week for a flea problem that exploded as soon as we got to the house.  Fleas are the worst things ever, and I've had problems with them being in my houses ever since I got to Conti.  I didn't know they gave grief to anything but dogs, but apparently here in Chile they like humans too.  BUT it's okay because they should all be dead now.

So this sector is another famous one for not having a lot of success.  I've heard that it ''never changes.''  But if there is anything that I learned from Conti and Paniahue, it's that everything is in the attitude of the missionary.  Absolutely everything.  In Conti we were in one of the best places and we had nothing in the way of progression, and in Paniahue we were in one of the worst places and had success up the walls.  Everything is based in the faith and the diligence of the missionary.  I learned a ton from Elder Leguizamòn and Elder Barbosa when I was with them about these two attributes, and I'm confident that this sector is going to see progress this change.

My comp!  Is awesome.  His name is Elder Mendez, and I think he'll easily turn out to be one of my favorites along with Elder Hadlock.  He's from a place in Mexico called Macatexas, and he's 24 (I don't know why I keep getting comps that are so much older than me, Elder Barbosa was 23.)  He does have less time in the mission than me, but not a ton.  This is first sector, but he's been here for way longer than normal.  To my understanding, in most missions there is always a senior comp and a junior comp.  In this mission, much more often than not, both comps are just co-comps.  I've been co-comps with all my companions since my training, with Elder Mendez included.  Elder Mendez is a lot of fun but he's super smart, obedient, and has a strong testimony.  He was a convert who left on the mission as soon as he could, about a year into his membership of the church.  

So that's about all the time I had!  Our bikes got taken from us this week for repairs and we also had to spend a whole day not working due to the fumigation thing, so sadly we weren't able to do much in the way of visiting investigators, but I did meet a few people that I'll be sure to talk about next week!  I also didn't get to meet the branch yet because there was a multi-stake conference this Sunday with all of Chile where they showed a broadcast from Salt Lake City.  President Nelson spoke in Spanish, which I thought was pretty cool.

A few favors!  Could someone send me ''A Consecrated Missionary''?  Also could someone studious who has time research The Church of the Light (''La Iglesia de la Luz'' if it doesn't exist in north america)?  I'm hearing more and more about it and seeing more and more missionaries from it and I'm getting super curious.  They seem to also preach of a restoration type thing, the church started in Mexico.

That's all the time I have!  I love you all!  Have a great week!

Love

Elder Fox