May 27, 2013

FYI - I guess I sometimes tend to express the frustrating things that are happening more than the good things, but know that I am really happy and enjoying my mission experience.

I know I said this last week, but we had rain!!!!!!

I have been lazy with my workouts again, but I have already asked Garrett to get me going on a workout when I get home to fight my skinny white boy syndrome. I guess I am kind of a skinny brown boy right now - at least arms and head.

We played volleyball today. It was fun. I am happy.

That is cool that the sink you order finally came and you'll be able to finish off the bathroom, but send me pictures. Seeing is better than reading in this case.

Tell Grandma happy birthday for me and that I miss her.

For my other news, check out my recording this week.

Love you guys a ton,

Jord

Summary of audio clip...

We just got back from the zone activity today. We played... wait for it... we played a little volleyball and then some soccer. We played for about an hour and a half and then soccer for a bit. It was sweet! It wasn't really competitive, but it was really fun. I can still hit and pass better than most or all of them, but I'm not really very good anymore.It was just fun to play. We were originally going to have a BBQ, although they're not that great here - the meat isn't too fabulous. Then they changed it to have Mexican food, but nobody really had money so we just played volleyball. We did go to the mall afterwards and had KFC - hmmm... good stuff.

This week was really hectic. The beginning of the week was somewhat normal, then on Thursday we went to Antofagasta at 5 am for a conference. It was really trunky because Presidente Bruce talked for about 15 minutes at the end about getting married. He also shared some other stuff and so did the assistants. This isn't Presidente Bruce's last conference, he's got one more before he leaves. The last conference he'll do the full thing, including introducing us to the new mission president - not directly, but he'll tell us a bit about him and how things might change and stuff like that.

Friday I did baptismal interviews for my district - that took up a lot of  my day. We only worked in the sector for about 3 hours and then I was outside my sector from 3:30 - 7:30pm. When I got back we went to the church from 7:30 - 9:30pm. It was good because my district did really good this month. We had more than half the baptisms for the zone. The goal was 16, but we only got 12. They had some bad luck in Tocopilla - they were supposed to have 5 and they didn't go through. Out of the 12 for the zone, my district had 7 so I was pretty happy with that. My companion and I didn't baptize this month, but we'll be working on that for next month. Elder Steiner and Elder Galvan, the other missionaries in the pension, had 1 baptism. I didn't think it was going to happen, and then it did. Armana Madrano and Armana Bravo had 4 baptisms and  the other armanas had 1 last week and 1 this week.

On a culinary note... I made wraps with the Chipotle Mayo I got last week, which is fantastic. I had it with... (english words???)... chicken crunchies??... crunchies of chicken?? They're like little chicken patties and they're good. Super lazy, but that's what we did and they were good. My companion bought Caesar dressing to go on them - he was a little more traditional.

I haven't had a hot shower in about a week and a half, mostly because we're too lazy to go and buy gas.

Oh... here's something that happened. It probably shouldn't have happened, but it did. On the bus going back from Antofagasta there was a movie about a surfer dude who died surfing some huge wave. After that a Chinese commercial or something came on and we thought there was going to be some Chinese movie, then a bootleg version of Ironman lll came on and we were all so happy. I mean we shouldn't be watching movies, but it was playing on the bus and it was pretty awesome. We didn't get to see the whole thing but it was pretty good. I can't wait to see it all in high definition blu-ray.

That's about it for the week.
Caio! Jordan

May 20, 2013

Sounds like a number of things around the house are up for repair. I am glad to hear that you are saving up a few things for me to do when I get home - really I am. I think I've been able to really use my handyman abilities here in the mission.

I am actually afraid that I am going to be horrible at everything when I get home. I will probably have to teach myself math and science again. Really... the only thing that I will be able to do is speak Spanish...cool, but not amazingly useful if you can't remember how to add.

That's good that dad is tackling something new with his motorcyle repairs, but make sure he doesn't mess up - brakes are useful!

Love Jord

Audio summary...

A couple of interesting things happened this week - the armadas (sisters) who are in my distsrcit had a baptism this week so I had to go and do the interview one day. It looks like they're going to have 4 more baptisms this coming week - they are so much better than we are right now. Really, I'm not even joking.

Aside... there a dog that's outside the pension that always follows us for 2 or 3 blocks and then goes back. He followed us all the way to the Stake Centre to do the interview. The Stake Centre is about 30 blocks away, about a 45 minute walk. Kind of funny.

Last Monday we made cake. It was a Betty Crocker cake - it said soft and moist. It was ok, but  not really great, fantastical goodness. The cakes here always seem to be dry... I'm not sure why. Yesterday we made mashed potatoes and gravy - Elder Steiner had some gravy from home. That was pretty good. 

In keeping with my pattern of telling you stories of people we meet on the street, here is one from this week. First of all, there are many less actives in Chile. This guy walked/stumbled up to us and he told us he was a member and didn't drink tea, coffee or pop, but wondered if we could take some of the money he had and go buy him a box of wine. I think in his mind this made perfect sense, but we didn't. We laughed about that for a little bit.

The biggest announcement of the week... there was rain in Calama! For the first time in my whole mission I saw rain. Literally, I have not seen rain sine I arrived in Chile. It rained for about 10 minutes at about noon and then about 15 minutes about 6:30pm. It's really weird because this is the driest city in all of the mission and it rained. It was amazing... it was awesome! It was super, super cold and overcast, then it rained and everything was wet and I loved it. It was so fantastic, I loved it because that just never happens. I hope it rains again... but it's not going to.

This week was pretty routine. We did go on splits with the elder's quorum to do some of their home teaching visits. They struggle with doing their home teaching here and often don't do it so we thought it would be a good opportunity to help them.

We didn't have any of our contacts in church again this week. It's frustrating... it's not all their fault as we don't seem to be very good at getting people to go to church... not sure why. I  really wish they would come because that leads to baptisms. We need to focus more on getting people out to church. We're struggling with that right now, but that happens sometimes. My district is doing pretty good overall. The armadas always do good.

The kids here have 4 days off school so lots of people have gone on vacation for the weekend, but they'll be back soon as they're back to classes on Wednesday.

This week I'm going to make chicken wraps. I bought some chipotle mayo... it's awesome! It comes from Mexico. Lots of the thing I seem to like aren't made in Chile, except Rametas - they're like little potatoes sticks covered in cheese. They're really good. Maybe I'll bring some home, or you  can try them when we come back.

I love you guys, caio!
Jordan

May 13, 2013

To answer the questions you had...

Arica was the only sector I have been in for only one transfer.

Special cambios usually happen every transfer, but I have never been part of one (either me or my companion leaving)

I was talking with an elder here whose brother served in the Alberta Canada mission and he said the same about the BBQ´s - Canadians are better BBQers than Americans... by the mouth of two or three witnesses.

For this week we just bought a Betty Crocker cake (really expensive), but I might try the cake recipe you sent me next week.

Everyone has a microwave here, but it is not used to the same extent as back home.

Jordan was able to Skype us on Mother's Day. It was great to talk to him and "see" him too. He looks well - not dramatically different than when he left, although the online resolution was not 100%. The time continues to go by quickly while being in the mission field. He is currently serving as district leader for 2 sets of elder and 2 sets of sister missionaries - this is a new assignment, but he admitted the sisters simplify the job because they always work hard. 

Him and his companion have been doing some more significant cooking lately for some of their evening meals - this has been great, but he is looking forward to a number of different foods when he returns home. 

He reminded us of the importance of reading the Book of Mormon and make sure we keep it up on a daily basis. They had 2 baptisms a couple weeks ago and are working on establishing their teaching pool again.

We tried not to focus too much on his time out, or remaining, but this was his last phone call home. The next time we speak it, will probably be in person. 

May 6, 2013

I really have no idea if the White Night (all baptisms in the area done in one service) is specific to our area. As far as Sebastian goes, it was supposed to be more of a family thing instead of just from the missionaries so they chose to do it separately.

Believe me, I am really appreciative of the church back home now. The structure and organization seems to be in place far more. Schedules and time also seem to be more significant to us at home - people are far more unpredictable here when it comes to setting up appointments and committing to times in Chile, especially in the North, from what I understand.

Finishing the Book of Mormon in a month is really not that hard in the mission. I took almost a week off of reading because I was so far ahead of where I needed to be. It is even faster in English because the translation is 100 pages longer. When you finish though, make sure to start again. One good option is to buy the cheap blue copies and mark everything you like and then go back and look at what you marked. Also, I don't really read slower in Spanish anymore.

I love you guys and I´ll actually talk to you on Sunday.

Jord

Audio summary... to come
 

Woohoo! Happy 18 Months without me in the house... yeah! This week we had cambios - I think I forgot to mention that to you. the big news is neither of us are leaving. elder Lopez and myself are both staying for 6 more weeks in the barren wasteland that is Calama. The other companionship in our pension also stayed so the 4 of us are in the pension for the next 6 weeks unless there is a special cambio. It was really nice because we had a normal P Day today. The only difference is that I'm going to be district leader again. this time it will be a little different because I'll be the district leader for the sister missionaries. There will be 8 all together in my district - us 4 elders and 4 sister missionaries.

A couple interesting stories... we got waved down by a drunk guy yesterday. He started talking to us and he said he was the devil. We asked him his name and he told us it was Luis. I didn't actually know the devil's name was Luis, but apparently it is... (ha, ha). He was super drunk and didn't really know what he was doing but we talked with him for awhile. Then, about 1/2 hour later, we talked to another guy who was under the influence in some manner. We were working with the "seamie" (sp?) which is a list of the members in the sector - active or less active. We go and see if they are still living at the address listed. This guy was outside one of the houses on our list so we asked him if this family lived there. He just started talking about all this random stuff in really bad Spanish. Then he thought I didn't know Spanish so he started talking in really broken English, but we understood even less. He told us about how he used to live in Miami and some weird stuff. We were kind of trying to get away, but he wouldn't let us leave for about 20 minutes. Then he said to hold on and he went around the corner to pee and we took off. It was pretty funny at that point.

Last week when we went to the store, Elder Lopez didn't really want to get anything so I bought hamburger, cheese, buns, ketchup and avocado to make avocado/cheese burgers and they were delicious. Actually I made 4 of them. They were really good, but expensive - about 4500 pesos, which is about $9 for 4 burgers, not including the cheese and stuff which isn't really cheap either.

Today, Elder Rodriguez called - I love him. He's great. He told me one of my converts from Antofagasta, Eduardo, just got the Melchizedek priesthood a week ago. That was sweet. I was so glad to hear that. You always baptize people and wonder how they'll do and if they'll stay active and continue to progress. He got the Melchizedek priesthood - I was so excited!

We went to the store today and I bought a baking pan, one of the deep ones. Can you send me a cake recipe I can make with yogurt, one of those really soft ones. But it has to be yogurt, not sour cream because they don't have sour cream here. It doesn't even exist. It would be great to get for next week or the week after. We're getting pretty intense with our baking and cooking action.

Most importantly of anything, our Mother's Day phone call is coming up. My last phone call home, in case you're not keeping track. I'll be calling Sunday evening about 8pm here - we just had a time change so you'll need to figure that out. We contacted Margaret, a lady here, and we can Skype from her place. We know it will work because she's from Bolivia and Skypes her family all the time.

Oh... we had interviews with President Bruce... how could I forget about that? Last time we talked about some stuff including why I'm here in the mission. Not just in the mission, I know that, but why I'm in the Antofagasta mission at this time, with these people and what impact am I having. This time I was still considering that question somewhat. We talked about where I'd served and some of the patterns he's noticed and much of what he said are things I've been thinking for awhile as well. President Bruce is awesome. I wish I could finish my mission with him because he's so amazing. He is really in tune with the spirit - pretty much every interview, it's like he reads my mind.

We are teaching currently in the sector, but probably don't have anyone progressing to baptism this month. We're looking to find people that will keep going into next month which would be nice.

I love you guys and I'll talk to you soon!
Caio! Jordan

April 29, 2013

I have indeed finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish and while I don't really like just reading. I prefer actually answering questions and studying specific subjects - it's always a good excercise and you learn alot of new stuff doing that. I would like to say that if you are still reading to keep it up and that if you aren't, that you start and finish before I get home. Not really that hard - it's like a hundred pages a month.

I am glad to hear that Jacek is doing good and recovering quickly. Also good to hear that he had the better of two options as far as the surgery goes. Although not as cool as saying that he has a titanium heart.

As far as our cooking goes, it has not really been driven so much by me as by the options that we have as far as ingredients. On top of that, Elder Lopéz has been to Utah 4 or five times for like a total of 9 months or so, so he knows the food from there too.

I think that you should buy a Dodge Challenger or Charger...just saying. "Buy it, Sunny, buy it." (Quoting Uncle Blaine)

I am sure Buddy will recognize me when I get home. If not, that will give me the opportunity to start from zero again.

Oh yeah and mothers day and my final call home is coming up soon so if you can verify all the skype stuff.

I love you guys,

Jord

Summary of audio...

This week was super, super, super busy and not very normal. First of all I had to go and do errands, including my visa work because they only have 1 year visas here, so I had to get my second one. They sent me to Tocopia to do that which is where I started my mission, so everyone I knew was there. I took the morning to do my stuff, then we had until 5:20pm to go visit people. I did all my stuff and visited 1 before lunch, 1 during lunch and 1 after lunch. It was sweet. I was so happy because I went back and I could actually talk this time so people could understand me. I don’t know if you remember some of the people I talked about when I was here. I visited 3 people – Carla and her family. She’s like one of the YSA back home. She’s working and doing good. Then I visited one of my converts and then another girl, Fernanda who was YSA too. I wanted to visit 2 more of my converts, but 1 went inactive and one wasn’t there. One thing that was cool was that when I was there at the beginning of my mission Fernanda started her mission papers and she received her call to Salt Lake City. She was supposed to leave last September but because of visa issues she kept getting delayed, so she was there. She actually left yesterday for the MTC in Provo so that worked out pretty cool.

I went and saw my Francesco Rapheal - Raffa. He's doing really good. He's got the priesthood and everything now. His grandmother is pretty sweet, she's an active member and is supportive of him so it's not really surprising. It was really cool to go back and see all those people I knew before and to be able to actually talk to them now. 

On Friday we had our Talent Show, which we put together. Originally we weren't quite sure how it would go over, but it turned out really good. We started about 1 1/2 hours late because the guy who was bringing the speakers to play the music didn't show up until then, which really sucked. But... that's fairly typical here, people often aren't on time. We did a little act and I've got the recording which I'll try and upload for you to see. It's kind of like blend of the Twelve Days of Christmas and Old Mac|Donald's Farm. I thought I'd give you some background otherwise you won't understand anything because it's in Spanish. All in all it went really good.

On Saturday morning  at 11am we had the baptism for Sebastian who is 10 years old. We had to get up around 5:30am to go and fill the font. Nothing went smoothly from there... it was a bit of a nightmare. The caliphon, or heater for the font didn't work, but we eventually got a hold of a guy who had fixed it before. He was able to come, but it was about an hour later. He was able to fix it which was great so we carried on. So at 11am Sebastian and his family arrives and no one else is there - not from the primary, or the bishopric, or any of the quorums or auxiliaries, so that was really bad. The uncle of Sebastian's mom, who was doing the baptism was getting annoyed with us because no one was there, but there wasn't much we could do about it. We tried making some calls, but no one was available so our zone leaders came because nobody from the Bishopric was there to preside. The font ended up being cold too because the caliphon stopped working again... not nearly as smooth as planned.

In the afternoon we had the baptism for Marco, the other kid we have been teaching. They had what was called the Night of White where they bring together all the baptisms from all the missionaries and do them at the Stake Centre. There were 8 baptisms and they did one service which was really nice. This meant we didn't have to plan it or fill the font... we basically just had to show up. That was interesting as it was the first time I've been to this in the mission. The next day both of them got confirmed which went fine.

As far as food goes this week in the pension, we made burritos with meat, beans, tomatoes, cheese, lettuce and some taco sauce. That was really good. Then the next night we didn't have any meat left and hardly any tortilla so I told my companion to make himself burritos and I took what was left and made kind of a taco salad. It didn't have a lot of the stuff, but it was the closest thing to a salad that I've had here. Most of the salads they make here are tomatoes or tomatoes with a bit of lettuce or onion or something - that's what they call a salad. Not really what I'd call a salad.

That was about it. We were pretty much busy all week and didn't have any time off or downtime.

I love you guys and will talk to you later,

Jord

April 22, 2013

Well it sounds like everything went really good on your vacation and you were able to get a lot done, which is good. I think that I would definitely like to do that ATV thing the next time.

Hey... I told Garrett and I'm going to tell you...no complaining about the cold. (Jordan's missing the seasons currently. We'll see if that lasts when he returns on the doorstep of winter.)

I can't really say that I am seeing a whole lot of difference from the missionary age change being in the field yet, but I'm sure that the Elders in the office are seeing it more.

Tell Jacek that I wish him well.

Audio Summary...
It's Monday and we're supposed to go to the Cyber so I'm just trying to get in a recording before we go. First off, quite early in the week we were walking back to the pension from lunch - we eat at the bishop's house because his wife is our mamita. This guy was walking around his car and then starts grunting at us... I'm not quite sure how to describe it. He kept on talking so we turned and looked at him and he said "Hey, hey, do you guys want some juice?" We all stopped and stared for a second because it was so random. This guy stops us in the street to see if we want some juice. Then he asked if we understood him. We said yeah, but I still didn't know how to respond so I was just staring at him. It was super weird. My companion was the first one to talk and he said "Yes, bueno, ok." Then he goes into his house and comes out with the juice. He said he sees us out all the time, walking a lot so here's some juice for you. That was interesting... and a first on my mission.

Another thing we've done... my companion and I realized we have a ridiculous amount of money, by missionary standards. I have a ton of money and he's got quite a bit and we haven't been eating so well so every week we decide on one thing we want to make that's super delish. We go to the store and buy everything to make, it doesn't matter how much it costs, we just buy the stuff we need, then we pick a night and make it. I said I'd make the first one, so we made Poutine. It was good - the gravy here is not really great and the cheese isn't fantastic either, but we enjoyed it. I really want some good Poutine when I get home - like from Costco or The Cheese Factory. This last Wednesday we made subs. We went out and bought some bread that's kind of like hotdog buns, some chicken, cheese, tomatoes and I made honey mustard sauce so we had honey mustard chicken subs. I'm not going to lie... it was probably one of the greatest things I've eaten here in my whole mission. It was pretty, pretty fantastic. Yeah... it was amazing! This week we bought refried beans, ground beef, tomato, taco sauce and we're going to make some sweet burritos.

I did get the pictures of San Pedro from the sister missionary so I'll upload them. I also have a few on my camera and so does my companion.

This Friday we're doing a ward activity here - a talent show. We're going to do a weird dance thing where you do it with 2 people and it looks like a midget. I'll be sure to get someone to record it because I think it will be pretty funny. We'll see how it turns out. We don't really know how many will participate. We should have about 5 guaranteed and we'll see from there.

We contacted this lady about 2 weeks ago. Her name is Aileen. She's got 2 kids and her husband and they moved from the south. We went to her house this week and shared a lesson with her and she expressed that everything we said really made sense. She said she was really glad we came and resolved some of the questions she had. Then she said, "I think I'd like you guys to come back." so that was pretty sweet. That never happens that someone asks us to come back before we can even ask them. That's super good because she was really receptive to what we talked about. She have shared with missionaries before - we basically talked about the Book of Mormon, what it is, how it came to be, etc. Yeah... it was a really good lesson.

This Saturday coming up we have 2 baptisms - Sebastion who is 10 years old and Marco who is also young. I've talked about both of them before. We'll have the 1st baptism at 11am so that's going to be an early morning because we have to get up about 5am to fill the baptismal font.

I bought mint chocolate Oreos this week - they were delicious! Last P Day we played soccer and beat the Lations - that was ok too. That's pretty much it. Next week I should have lots to say based on what we have planned.

We're reading the Book of Mormon in one month - the  month of April. I'm in 3 Nephi 20 and I have 8 days left. And... I'll tell you now that I have something I'm going to do, but I have to finish first, so you'll hear about it later. It's another challenge... woohoooo!... or should I say invitation.

That's everything for this week. I love you guys...
Caio! Jord

On the bus to San Pedro

San Pedro rock formations

San Pedro - rock covered in salt deposits

April 15, 2013

That is really weird that you have been running into so many people from back home while you are in Arizona, but then again, perhaps not. I tell people that sometimes it gets to like 45 C below (with windchill) and they just nod their head like they know what I am talking about. I try to explain how cold it is with examples of things, but I don't know if they can really imagine. Most people in my mission have never seen weather below freezing, let alone snow. They think that 15 C degrees above zero is really cold.

I have had some pretty interesting experiences here for sure. For example, the lady this week who had a Catholic church missionary sticker on her door and then denied belief in Jesus Christ, just to get rid of me. Or the lady who told me that she couldn't share with us because she was ironing her baby (like ironing board ironing). It makes more sense in Spanish...kind of.

My companion is pretty cool. He is from Guatemala City, Guatemala. I actually talked about him a little bit in the recording, but we get along really good.

I am going to try and get the pictures  of San Pedro this week and upload them next week so that you can see some of the stuff.

The amount of kids we teach alone might seem weird, but you would probably be surprised at the number of missionaries that go on missions without family support. There is an elder here that when he told his dad he was going to go on a mission his dad punched him in the face and told him that if he went he was going to be disowned, so you see a little of everything.

That is pretty much everything for this week. I love you guys, 

Jord

Summary of audio...

This week we tried to deal with a membership issue. Here is Chile there is a problem with people losing their membership records. No one really know why it happens, but it happens quite a lot. I think it's because people move around a lot and the ward secretaries struggle to keep track of them. In these cases, they need to be baptized again. There is one lady here, Tanya, and she's lost her records, but in the meantime, she has been living with someone. We learned this week that she is not going to be living with him anymore so she'll be able to get baptized and we were able to confirm it's all a go. These baptisms count for the mission. It's really cool because she's a really good person and a super active member... so it's pretty sweet. She's a bit different, but she's super funny. I think once she gets baptized she'll be a really strong member. 

There is a kid I mentioned last week - Sebastian. He's getting baptized April 27th. His whole family are members except his dad. He can't get baptized because he's living with Sebastian's mom and they aren't married, which is really, really common here. So, we're basically working with him until his baptism when his uncle is coming and will do the baptism.

The other kid were we teaching is Marco. We've challenged him to baptism, but he has to make up his mind now. He's really good and his mom likes the church, but says she will never get baptized. She's ok with him getting baptized if he wants to. Again... this is quite common here, where people say it's good for their child, but not for them, so it's interesting. It is nice that she doesn't have a problem with it. He's a super good kid. He comes and plays soccer with us some days.

Today for P Day, we didn't do anything too special. We went and played some soccer and then some basketball. I don't really like soccer much and even basketball doesn't thrill me that much, but some of the guys here are pretty serious about it. You know how I am... sometimes I play if I feel like it. One cool thing that happened though, we were going to play soccer and split into 3 teams. One team went off and took all the best players and the rest of us, including 2 members, split into 2 teams. We won every game - it was so funny. That was pretty cool. Soccer's still not my favorite, but sometimes it's fun when the teams are a bit balanced and you have a chance to win some games.

I hope you're all still reading the Book of Mormon as you indicated. I don't know if I told you that our whole mission has been challenged to read the Book of Mormon in 1 month - I'm in Alma 44 so that pretty good. It's only the 15th and I'm over half way through. All  the Latinos who can read English have to do so and the English speaking missionaries have to read in Spanish, so I'm reading in Spanish. It's good. I understand most of it except maybe the Isiah chapters, which are even challenging in English. Elder Lopez is in 3 Nephi, he's super far. He speaks fluent English - actually he rarely talks so I don't really know, but he understands everything. He watched conference in English. He's been to the States about 5x for a month each time. He's seen conference live more times than Elder Steiner, who lives in Utah. He understands English very well. He's flying right through it... and it's 100 pages shorter in English.

That's about it. Have a great week in Arizona and we'll talk to you next week!

Jordan