May 21, 2012

It's about time you replaced that tree in the front yard. It was really pitiful looking and depressing. I would love to do something better with the back yard when I get back home. There is lots of wasted space at this point and we are not doing much back there. Also, I won't be bothered by eating around bugs when I get back, so we'll be able to eat outside more in the summer.

I really don't have much to say this week because we are still looking for people to teach at this point. This week we found 3 people, two of which lived in other sectors, so we had to just pass the reference to the other sector.

That would be great if Grandma and Doreen go to Hawaii. She should enjoy going there and she has waited long enough I think. From what Elder Parker and Elder Wells said (both have lived in Hawaii), the weather in Hawaii is pretty much perfect all the time, so it sounds like you can't really go wrong. 

We did have zone conference that is every 3 months in Antofagasta this week and I got to see Elder Christenson from the MTC, who is now serving in Tocopilla and was Elder Lopez's companion two transfers ago. We always get along really well, so that was nice to see him.

I am also going to do a strange cultural fact of the week whenever I learn something new:

In Chile, it is rude to ask people what they are cooking or to lift the lid on a pot, even in your own house.

I feel bad I don't really have anything else to write, but I will talk to you next week.

Also, I don't really want to write more because this keyboard is terrible.

Love 

Jord

May 14, 2012

I´m going to keep this short because I really have nothing to say after talking over Skype yesterday. 

About our investigators, we have one lady who is really prepared to be baptized, but she never comes to church when she promises. So, we really need to get her to just go to church this week no matter what. She has been prepared to recieve the gospel by experiences throughout her life, but she has trouble committing to go to church.

We have two other potentials. One will take a lot of work if he actually decides to investigate the church and another one that is really hard to get teaching opportunities with because he is military and is always out of the city on assignment during the week.

Right now we are really in the finding phase to get people to teach. We have a lack of people right now.

I will try and get all the pictures captioned right now because I have some time.

I really loved talking to you yesterday and I look forward to the next one in 7 months.

love

Jord

May 7, 2012

Life this week was a little crazy. We had a baptism in the ward that we had to be at, and also had our own baptism for three people on Saturday - none had been interviewed, so we were running around alot.  Then Saturday night we received the transfers for today - Elder Valle is leaving for Arica so we were running around to all the houses of the members and people he knows.

So first things first. Elder Valle is going to Arica tonight and he is going to be a zone leader there. I will be staying here with Elder Lopez (different Lopez, from Utah) who is coming to be my companion. I will be killing Elder Lopez (I will be his last companion) because he only has one transfer left and I will be Senior Companion for this transfer. 

We had three baptisms this week. It was the mother and sister of one of the recent converts in the ward. I have been significantly more impressed with them in this last week and I think that they will do well. 

The other baptism was a blessing. We recieved a referral on Monday, contacted him Tuesday and taught him Tues, Wed and Thurs, interviewed him Friday, baptized him Saturday, and confirmed him Sunday. All this happened since my last email. That is what can happen when someone passes you a reference of someone who has been to church 4 times on their own.

As far as the lessons with Dayssi and Efrain go we will not be going anymore because of the transfers. We will be passing the reference to the new Elders there and I hope they will continue to go.

As far as the message from President Bruce goes, it was about a drop in enthusiasm in the work that we received about a week ago. His response was basically just "your problem is internal, fix it" and was exactly what I needed.

I got the workout and yes, I think I have gained weight, but I am planning on fixing that because I don't like it, although I don't have a scale.

Love Jord

April 30, 2012

After all that happened this week, I am going to start with the good. We had the wedding this week and it went really good. Everything was on time and the decorations looked really good. Me and Elder Valle were there and we sat at the table of the family, which I thought was really strange, but Elder Valle felt was really normal.  It was a civil marriage and it all felt impersonal, and she talked about some books they can buy to help their marriage and some weird stuff. Apparently there is a really limited number of people who can do marriages here which is something different. Bishops or ministers can't even officiate a marriage.

The Baptism of Ismeal went really clean and was good. But now we get to the bad part... this week was super stressful for us because Daysi and her brother didn't get baptized. There are three children in that house all with the same mother and different fathers and Daysi´s real father called and put a whole lot of weird stuff in her head.  It put a lot of doubts into her mind and we really don't know what is going to happen with her right now, but we were there everyday last week for like an hour and a half or more and couldn't do anything, so I really don't know.

Things with Elder Valle are good, but I was feeling a little down. It came across in my letter to the president and he sent me a reply that kind of put everything into perspective for me. I kind of came to the conclusion that I need to change something about what I am doing in order to change what we are doing together.

I am really not getting better at soccer. My absolute distaste for it is overpowering any little bit of desire I have to play, so I'm just not playing. I did play Basketball today which was nicer.

Also, it doesn't feel like 6 months (Jordan reaches this milestone next week).

I really want to start working out, but I really need to have an actual workout that I can follow or I just get lazy. If you can try and find me a workout that is six days and focuses more on upper body, that would be helpful. If you can, it would be best to send it in text form for me so that I can print it off easily.

Love

Jord

April 23, 2012

I am getting really tired of the weather here. You look at the temperature thing and see 20 degrees everyday and think that this is the greatest place in the world. I walk outside in 20 degrees in the place with the strongest sun in all the world and 20 degrees feels like 30 degrees and there is nothing but dirt. I need change...its always the same.

I don't really know what to say, so I´ll just start talking with my fingers and see what falls out. We are going to have three baptisms this week. One of them is the boyfriend of the daughter of the bishop. He's the one who has basically been in a holding pattern until he gets married on Friday and then baptized on Saturday. That is pretty much a guaranteed baptism in my opinion.

The other two are a girl and her brother. The biggest problem for the girl at this point is that she doesn't want to wear a skirt to church, but we are feeling pretty good about that. I think her brother  is a hundred percent onboard and loves the missionaries (me), so he is pretty good too. Their parents would probably be good to go as well, but they are living together and are not married, so they cant get baptized right now. However, the dad was at church this last week. These two are not actually from our sector. They're from the sector above us which also go to our capilla (chapel) and are without missionaries so we are working there because our sector is the smallest in the mission and we can get there really easy.

We are going to have a wedding in the sector this week which should be pretty interesting. I think that we are going that this week, at least for part of the time, to support him since he is the one getting baptized. I don't think this is a common thing here in the mission.

Oh... we get to talk on Mother's Day. You should get a webcam because we can use Skype and I think that would be better than talking by phone (personally). I think I am also going to try and send some photos using the Skydrive method. Tell me how that works in the next letter.

Love, 

Me

April 16, 2012

That is good to hear that the missionaries are having success on the homefront and that they are getting good help from the ward. You would think that we would be able to get a lot of help here because people don't really have schedules, but it goes the other way. People are never in there house when you make plans to arrive at a specific time. That being said, it is looking like we are going to have either 3 or 5 baptisms on the 28th which is cool. You mentioned that the missionaries there are teaching only the mom in one family, but that is super common. It is good when they get baptized if they can stay strong, but we are really making a push on teaching families in the mission because they stay stronger most of the time.

That's good to hear that Spencer's going away stuff went well. It sucks that he is still having some issues with his visa and stuff. I know the song you referred to that Savannah and Carissa sang at Spence's farewell (In the Hollow of thy Hand). There is a CD called The Return Missionary Soundtrack and it is on there, but in rock form. Elder Lopez played it in Tocopilla all the time. That being said, I had never really listened closely to the lyrics, but they are super good.

The visa paperwork here for us is as follows: You get a visitor's permit to the country for 3 months when you arrive. Within that time you have to get your solicitud de residencia (application for residence) which lasts for 4 months. This paper is the middle step while they process your visa, which usually takes 3 months. They send your visa which gets stamped in your passport and you have 30 days to register your visa, because the Centre of Investigation and the government aren't joint. Then you go back to the government where they take pictures and send for your carnet (book) which comes about three weeks later and is like a drivers license that you must carry all the time. Right  now I am waiting on my visa and it should be ready by the end of the month.

I am going to be honest when I say that the P-days are kind of lame. All we do is play soccer and there are really no sightseeing opportunities except the Portada, which is a big rock in the sea with a hole through it.

I went for interviews with the President this week and asked him about using sky drive to upload photos and he said it was good, so once I figure it out (it is in Spanish), I will send you a load of pictures.

My current challenge in this sector is not that I don't meet people but that Elder Valle doesn't really tell me much about the people that we visit. So, I often have to figure out if the people are members, less active or investigators by what is being said, so I'm not contributing as much to the conversations. Also, the Latinos are super good at talking about anything for long periods. This is good if they are talking to you, but if they are talking to your Latino companion, then you pretty much can't say anything cause they dominate the conversation. However, I heard from a couple people that President Bruce is looking to transfer the mantel to the younger missionaries - it is sounding like most of my district, if not all, may become senior cmpanions. I feel really good about that because I feel like I need a challenge. As you know, I pretty much do just what I need to in order to succeed and I feel like I need some pressure to get me working harder.

Until next week, 

Brother Jordan

April 9, 2012

The Chileans are pretty hardcore about their Semana Santa (Holy Week). They all got Friday off and we had an activity in the church to celebrate it. People kept asking if the Semana Santa was a big deal back home, but I really think most consider it an opportunity to have a day off and look for chocolate eggs (which I still want to do when I get back BTW). It does seem like most of the holidays here are either Catholic (not surprising because everyone is catholic here) or related to the family.

I have to say that I don't think I am going to be eating turkey for 2 years. We eat a lot of chicken here, but it is not the same. Also fish. I have had quite a bit of fish. It is really fresh and the people here generally cook really well, so right now I am really just maintaining my don't ask what it is policy and eating whatever they put in front of me. Except olives... the olives here are the most disgusting thing that I have ever tasted.

When they look at my pictures and see Austin (Jordan's cousin's 4 year old son) everyone asks if it is me and I tell them no, but that he is my little buddy and I miss him so much, so the feeling goes both ways.

I don't think I told you but our mamita here in Gabriela Mistral is the best in the whole mission. She cooks lunch for us and does our laundry like all the other mamitas, but she also gives us breakfast and once (like a small supper) of bread and Ecco which is like the fake coffee stuff you can buy in Canada, but its super popular here. I don't really like Ecco, but I found out that if you put some milk and enough sugar it starts to taste like hot chocolate so I'm really enjoying it now. Plus, I have my whole amount of money to basically buy junk food which is making me really happy.

The Earthquake a few weeks ago was in Conception which is way south and I didn't really hear much about it. I heard from Elder Revi told that it was an earthquake, but it was pretty small and one person died, but it was because he freaked out and crashed his car. But when I was in Tocopilla I felt a tremor and it was pretty cool and really weird. It was kind of like a train passing really close to your house and making everything shake a little.

That is interesting about the dump of snow you got. The weather here has been the same for 3 months...everyday...I miss seasons. All they have is summer which is hot and then winter which is like a cool summer. It's not the same.

Honestly, I am finding this sector kind of boring. This could be because the sector is small and all the places we go seem to be the same, but I think it might be a little bit of the fact that Elder Valle works pretty different than Elder Revi and I don't really like it as much, but we will see. The amount of people we are teaching is really small and I don't really feel like we have anyone solidly progressing, except for the boyfriend of the daughter of the bishop, Ishmael. He isn't really progressing, he is moreso just in a holding pattern. He gets married on the 28th, then baptized on the 29th and confirmed on the 30th.

The place where we live now is the upstairs floor of our momitas house and it is super good. It is smaller, but for 2 people we have plenty of space.

You can tell people that I am doing good. la idioma esta progressando y yo siento mucho mas mejor ahora. Tambien yo estoy trabajando mas ahora que antes para mejorar mi español. Antes yo no hice casi nada para aumentar mi habilidad de hablar pero ahora yo estudio como 1 hora el mejor parte de las dias y yo puedo ver la diferencia en mi habilidad de hablar. Pero es interesante que las cosas que estan mejorando no son las cosas que yo estoy estudiando. Tambien ésta semana dos personas me dijo que you estoy hablando muy bien si yo solamente tengo tres meses en Chile, pero you creo que eso es mas porque you practico mi pronunciacion cada dia para que las personas puedan entender las cosas que yo le digo. (Approximate translation: The language is progressing and I feel much better now. Also, I'm working more now than before to improve my Spanish. Before I didn't do much to improve my ability to speak, but now I study 1 hour a day. It's the best part of the day and I can see the difference in my ability to speak. It's interesting that the things that are improving are not the things I'm studying. This week two people told me that I am speaking very well for only being in Chile for 3 months. They think it's been longer because I practice my pronunciation every day so that people can understand the things I say.)

I have been really pitiful in taking pictures here, but will try and take more on my  next P-day so that you can have them. You should tell me any pictures that you want me to take so that I have an idea and maybe sort of a goal when I take them.

Oh I don't know if I told you this either, but Elder Wells and Elder Parker from the MTC are in my zone and Elder Parker is in my district, so P-days and zone meetings are super fun.

That's all I have for now, so till next week.

Love 

Jord