YOOO! How's it going? People here in Chile keep telling me how tall I am, and women keep trying to kiss me---which I have to reject
= so pretty much nothing has changed from when I was in the United States. I have a feeling that this email is going to be very lengthy so here is the quick summary.
= so pretty much nothing has changed from when I was in the United States. I have a feeling that this email is going to be very lengthy so here is the quick summary.Summary/highlights:
I got to Chile this Wednesday, so I have been here 6 days. My trainers name is Elder Macais, he is awesome! He's from Venezuela originally but he lived in Brazil from ages 11-16 and Chile from 16-18 before his mission. We get the elite opportunity to teach a lot and talk to lots of people. We had a BAPTISM my first Sunday (which i obviously take none of the credit, but still insane nonetheless). (Way better than my brother Tanner's first Sunday IYKYK)
Language:
Um. So like I thought no matter how much I learned in the MTC, I would be confused.... Good news, I'm not as confused as a thought I'd be. Chilean Spanish is very hard, don't get me wrong, but I know with the Lord's and Elder Macais help I can learn it. (It will just be awhile)
Meeting my companion and learning about my area:
I meet my comp after we had meetings with president, I was very excited to get a latin comp so I can practice my Spanish. Elder Macais does speak some english, but it is probably not better than my Spanish, so we just speak in Spanish 24/7. I was excited, but then later in the same meeting thingy I was talking in english with one of the office Elders and he's like "oh yea Elder Christensen- good thing you have Elder Macais cuz you're going to one of the most dangerous areas in the mission" which I thought he was joking but I asked other Elders who weren't jokesters and it turns out he wasn't joking. Well, I got uncharacteristically scared for like the next 2 hours before we went to our area. After spending 4 days in our area, i this is one of the most dangerous areas in our mission, than I'm chilling and our mission is very safe. There are just lot of stray dogs (my comps previous comp got bit and had to get 6 rabies shots) and lots of drugies. I'll try to contact someone and Elder Macais will be like----Elder don't "él es peligoso" (he is dangerous).
Food:
The big meal of the day is lunch, and I've only had 3 lunches but they have all been very good. The members are very good to us. For breakfast and dinner we just eat food at the house, I haven't had a chance to get groceries so its clutch that my companion's former comp left mucho food like yogurt, apples, bananas, cereal, peanut butter. But the lunch is very big so my companion just pretty much eats the lunch and like a snack for both breakfast and dinner. But i'm excited today to go to the grocery store and get groceries for myself.
Missionary life:
All of the days of the have had the same schedule (all days for missionaries do) except for the day that I arrived and the second day. The second day out in the flield, my zone did something very unique (my comp tells me it is unique and i'll have take his word for it). We had district council (not unique but this next part is) and after distract council we had what's called a bli., All of the missionaries in our zone were in one area for 2 hours or so. I went out during this with one of the APs and he was talking to me in english and he had lots of good advice for me. He said that lots of missionaries when they go through rough times it affects their faith and their faith struggles, but he was telling be my faith needs to constant. I was reflecting on this and I think that my faith needs to be the reason I get through the rough times, I need to have faith that hard times on my mission and life are only temporary.
Sunday:
We had a baptism this Sunday! This was the most unique baptism and church service i've been too. Church started at 10 and the baptism at 12. My companion got to the church at 8 to fill the font up. But the church was trashed. We looked around and someone broke the glass and broke in. We called the branch president and because it was only the back half of the church he just put a whiteboard to stop it and cancelled 2nd hour and moved the baptism to 11:30. Sacrament meeting started 20 minutes late, and my companion was supposed to speak. The first speaker a very nice sister brought but her son and he kept trying to grab the mic, and we were hearing him speak more than her. He was a toddler so she set him down, which he went to play the piano for 2 minutes before she stopped him. I gave a testimony in sacrament, so all the people after came up to me after and knew I was very fresh missionaries.
Spiritual thought:
Lots of people in Chile and in the world think that this life is some mistake of some accident. But I was thinking about the scripture in Nephi (don't know the reference off the top of my head but) "all things have been done in the wisdom of him that knoweth all things". I know that I'm not in the Chile Concepcion mission and the Centinela branch my accident, and we are all not in this world my accident.
¡cuídense!
Tenga una buena semana, Dios te Ama!
1st day out working in Chile
My companion Elder Macias
My first baptism
The night before she sorted us into the 4 houses (im a griffindor according to her) and made the elders wear that color of tie. We had a 10 minute devo/conversation at breakfast about Harry Potter spirtual thoughts. 
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