Garret's Mission Blog: September 2-September 8, 2025 Week 10 Centinela Branch, Talcahuano Chile

Hope y'all are doing well. It's crazy to me that the kids are back in school (in Spokane). It feels like yesterday I graduated (and forever ago at the same time). Hope my Titans are doing well #rolltitians. Another week down here in Talchauno trying not to freeze to death. (jkjk)

summary/highlights

-last p-day we played basketball and ate pizzas with all the elders in our zone (p-day vibes are crazy). It was very mid basketball, but it was a lot of fun.

-last p-day we had noche de hogar con presidente (family home evening with president and his family) (fire). We had burgers afterwards.

-Tuesday ran into some Jehovah's witness. They were talking about "un mundo sin guerras es possible" (a world without wars is possible). We had a nice conversation with them, and they had a lot of respect for us missionaries.

- Wednesday had zone conference, pretty lit. Our zone has missionaries from the US, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Canada, chile, Mexico - all very nice people.

-Wednesday I pulled a tanner and banged my head on the top of a door frame very bad (the doors are very short and normally i'm used to ducking though them, and sometimes a usually nick my head but this time I smacked in pretty good. I fell on the floor- muy torpe (very clumsy), and then at lunch the lady we ate with, hermana zulema, gave me a frozen chicken bag to use as an ice bag.

- Wednesday ate some comeplados (like hotdogs, with tomatoes and avocados)

-intercambios Thursday

-church was good yesterday. We had testimony meeting. The branch is small in size but strong in faith.

Intercambios:

Thursday I had an intercambio with one of my zone leaders Elder Leguizamon (he's from Argentina), in his sector Centinela A. This was a very productive exchange. We set a baptismal date on the exchange - a baller 14 year old named Benjamin. Elder Leguizamon and I work in the same branch so I get to see Benjamin at church. I learned a lot from Elder Leguizamon and that was the best day of the week.

Actual missionary work stuff:

It was one of those weeks in our sector in Centinela where we didn't have a lot of amigos to teach a lot of lessons to. So that means we had the wonderful opportunity to find people and walk a lot. It was still a good week though. We had days with lots of street contacts and meeting some very interesting people.

One day we contacted 53 people, which is kinda insane. We have a lesson tomorrow night so I hopefully (and I believe in us), we will have someone to teach this week.

The contacts:

My Spanish is getting better and I'm speaking a good amount in all of contacts!! vamos! how much I understand is a different story (in lessons and in other settings it is wayyyyy easier to understand than on the street)

it's funny when I'll say something and the person we are talking to will turn to Elder Macias and be like "what did he just say? I have no idea what he is saying"

Random stories/ events

We were walking on this atajo (shortcut) like this sketchy trail in our area back to the chapel from lunch, with Elder Macais and I and the other 2 elders we share the branch with and this guy had like the biggest knife I've seen. He tried to shake hands with Elder Richards, but Elder Richards was like "no, no". But the guy put the knife down and stepped on it, and we all passed and shook his hand. Later Elder Richards said that the man said, "oh the knife isn't for you. It's for someone else." That's unassuring

During my intercambio with Elder Leguizamon, we had a lesson with a woman who was just baptized and her friend. The woman who was just baptized has a husband, which is important because you can't go in the house a woman unless there is an adult man in the house. But they were at the friend's house and there was not a man there so we couldn't go in. So they just sit up a table for use in the hallway . We had "once" (which is like late night snack/dinner for the Chileans). We had compleados and cake. After Leguizamon was like "that was my first double date" lol.

We had a member meal that was very funny. They were talking about something that I had no idea what they were talking about. Elder Richards (the only other person who speaks english) was like they are talking about daylight savings. I was like ohhh they do that in Chile? And the lady turned to us and was like, no english in this house. If you speak one more word of english i'm going to kick you out. Later in the meal, she was like "I understand all english. I just can't speak it". Elder Richards was giving her english phrases to say in Spanish, "like what do you like to do", and she was like I don't know I don't know. Then during the spiritual thought, they asked her a question, and she literally started talking for 30 mins before she got cut off.

This meals are very interesting especially cuz i don't speak Spanish

Daylight savings is clutch:

We sprung forward and now have an extra hour in the night of light. The sun used to set at 7ish and from 7-9 it was rough out there, but now it's only from 8 to 9. So that's pretty clutch.

Spiritual thought:

Prayer is very important it is our way to communicate directly with God. Elder Dieter F Uchtdorf said, "

Your prayers do not have to be loud or eloquent or grammatically correct in order to reach heaven." I really like the part when he said grammatically correct, cuz i pray in a foreign language lol.

This email was very long not going lie, so if you made it this far and read the whole thing you're a real one.