November 18- November 24 , 2025 Week 21 Centinela Branch, Talcahuano Chile

Hope you guys be doing well, and have a great Thanksgiving! 

Summary/highlights

-Intercambio with one of my zone leaders, Elder Mackay

-Conference Multizona, with Elder Walker a general authority 

-Foods been pretty good ngl

-Learning a lot about a lot of things, the scriptures and Spanish

-Learning a lot of about patience

- Spanish is going pretty good still

-Haven't been having that much "success" in finding people to teach, next week we are going try new things and reset

Gratitude:

Some of these days be very long and hard not gunna lie, climbing hills all day and having to do pretty much everything. But, it's always important to have a positive attitude and mindset, and always be grateful for the little blessings and the ways that God has blessed our lives. I'm grateful for this opportunity I have to be here in Chile. The beautiful beaches and sunsets, the good food that the members make for us, and for what Jesus Christ did for me personally. 

My favorite quote ever is my President Nelson, "the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives". When our focus is on Jesus Christ and the things WE can control, then we will feel more true joy. 

But this is going away from gratitude now, but now, in my mission right now I'm completely focused on how I can help others come unto Christ, how I can help our friends get baptized and how I can help strength the faith of the members. But during my training (like 3 weeks ago lol lol) I was pretty much focused on myself, I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm confused. But now, I focus on how I can help others come unto to Christ, and there is more Joy in that. Sometimes the animo (like excitement) goes up and down, but the joy stays the same. 

But to sum this all up, we need (or we should try) to always be focused upwards and outwards- meaning serving God and serving our neighbors and as a missionary I can do this like pretty much 100% of the time. But I guess I would invite you guys focus more on the good things in life, and *let go of things you can't control* and above all focus on Jesus Christ. 

Happy thanksgiving- that was roughly about gratitude 

Oh, yea the title-random people on the street and everyone when they find out I'm from the USA they ask if I know Mr. Beast, or Trump. For like 3 months now 

Elder Mackay

Leguiz the beast

November 11- November 17, 2025 Week 20 Centinela Branch, Talcahuano Chile

Highlights/summary

-played some frisbee last pday

-district council

-two exchanges

-blitz

-made some new friends and taught a lot of people

-family home evening with like the ONLY young family in the Ward

-You heard me right, we've been baptizing so much, the Branch Centinela turned into a Ward yesterday

-we were finding like crazy this week, but not a whole lot of 2nd lessons

-comp study, poor elder roach. I make this man do like 20 minutes of practices with me to practice his contacting and teaching 

-I speak some spanish now from time to time-(big dubs here)(and other times I forget every single word ever in spanish)

-It was Chilean election day yesterday, and appearently it is like a law that you have to vote or you get fined. So everyone was asking me if we'd voted 

Being a Trainer in hoop terms:

Being a trainer is like being 2018 LeBron James. It be tiring at some points. Trying to help Elder Roach adopt that Michael Porter Jr. mindset, but sometimes he be having that Ben Simmions mindset. I´m trying to get in a companshiop that is like the 2013 spurs, but all the companshipes so far someone has been in their training. 

(someone let me know if you got that) 

Now in real words

Being a trainer you have to make like all the descions. Trying my best to give my Goat Elder Roach some confidence that it is okay to make mistakes. That is why we be grinding those practices. But it is a lot of fun and we have been doing the basics and all the stuff, and teaching him a lot not to be a robot, and like teach every single person differently. Because everyone has different needs, so we need to teach to meet those needs. 

But I be getting to do most (sometimes all) of the contacting and teaching, so my spanish is getting a lot better

Exchanges/ Blitz

Tuesday I had an exchange with Elder Gorinek, he is also new so I filled the roll of his trainer for a day. He's lit. He played football at Utah Tech and when we were playing frisbee he was insanely athletic. But anyway, he also doesn't speak the greatest spanish, but he was very teachable, so I taught him when his comp lets him speak on the street, to look the person straight in the eyes and said, "No hablo espanol, pero se que usted debe ser bautizado (o ir a la igelisa, o leer el libro de mormon), and he was just spamming that all day and that was funny. he would like stare straight into there soul and say it. But, we were working really hard and cracking jokes the whole time and found 9 people with interest. 

Exchange 2: 

We had an another blitz this week in another area in the zone. I worked with my distrist leader for 2 hours so that was pretty lit. He's name is Elder Holt. He wanted to do this. We can't have like a normal exchange because our greenies would be put together and they can't do that yet. But, we did like a 3 way exchange and Elder Roach and Gorniek went with the ZLs. But anyway, that was a lot of fun and I learned some more to improve my contacts. Our first contact was funny because we both tried talking too much, because we were used to having the greenies, and then we were like "oh yes, my comp can speak spanish now" 

Friends: 

We had like 8 or so first lessons but not a whole lot of peeps progressing- there was a venzuela fam and also 3 friends at church. Alejandra, Educardo, Hector.  They are all like 40ish. All of them are progressing slowly but surely. 

Scipture I like this week:

alma 34: 9-10-- this is tuff I'm not even gunna lie

My district

Exchange with  Elder Gorinek

Mini intercambio con Elder Holt

November 5-November 10, 2025 Week 19 Centinela Branch, Talcahuano Chile

(Transcribed from Garret's audio message) I don't want to write an email today, so I'm just gonna send you a voicemail. How have y 'all been? I've been doing good down here. The weather is like perfect right now, literally perfect. It's like... 60s in the afternoon. So it's like perfect without a sweater and then wear a sweater in the night. I'm training now, which is crazy because I was literally in my training like a week ago.

I'm training Elder Roach, the goat, from Arizona. It'll be a lot of fun speaking a lot of Spanish to the people on the street and people in the lessons all that good stuff. I'll be speaking pretty much all the Spanish. So I'm learning a lot.  

Tuesday, P -Day, because of cambios, played games with the elders from San Vicente, Elder Ren, Elder Winter, my companion, Elder Macias, in their house. Played some Settlers. I lost. Sorry, Grandpa. Ah, that's rough. 

Wednesday, we went to pick up our companions together. Thought it was good. And we were supposed to get there at 5 and the meeting didn't start till seven and we got there early anyway, because you know stuff like that you get there early so we were in Concepcion a lot and we didn't really work Wednesday like at all, which is fine.

Thursday was Ella Roach's first day in the field. We had lunch with the wife of the branch president. I told her to correct my Spanish every time I made a mistake. She correct me like 20 times that meal which is clutch because I don't have Elder Macius no more to help me out with that.

Friday had zone conference. It was fire.

Saturday, had two lessons with two inactive members and a big family part member family. We had two inactive members and part of their family come to church. So that was actually pretty lit, I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, but being a trainer's good. It's hard, but that's kind of the point. Gotta speak all the Spanish and make a lot of decisions, but that's normal because I got Elder Roach. He's still learning.

But being a trainer's fun. The mission is fun, teaching a lot of people. Well, trying to teach a lot of people. And yeah, that's about all I got for y 'all in English. (The rest is in Spanish but Kirt translated it to English) But I'm going to speak a little bit in Spanish for you guys. I'm Elder Christensen. I live in Talcahuano, Chile. I'm serving on a mission. 

There are four parts of Spanish. Reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Three out of four of these parts, for me, are very, very good. I'm just missing the ability to speak very fluently. This is a big challenge for me, but I'm learning a lot. I learned a lot of Spanish in my training and I'm blessed. I can understand almost all the words the Chileans say, but they think I can't because I don't speak very fluently, but that's okay. I'm going to learn a lot of Spanish this coming month. I improved my Spanish a lot since my Spanish class. I had four years of Spanish in high school and I didn't learn almost anything, but in three months here in Chile I have learned a lot of Spanish. And one thing is that the Spanish here in Chile is very different from all the Spanish of all the different countries. It's like a different language. And all the Chileans say that. 

I hope you guys have a good week. And send me an email. And yeah, that's about all I got for you guys. Hope you have a good week. Bye!

Garret's new companion is Elder Roach from Gilbert Arizona.  He is a greenie and Garret will be training him. 

Lo siento mi hermana favorita por la demora... Elder Roach de Gilbert Arizon es mi compañero

Sigmawahuana

October 28-November 4, 2025 Week 18 Centinela Branch, Talcahuano Chile

Hola! Hope you all are doing well! I'm doing great here. I would say this was an eventful week. Hope Halloween was lit for you all. Was pretty much a normal day here in Talcahuano, Chile, apart from like a few medium sized parades. 

(this is going to be very long- I haven't wrote it yet but, I promise it will be a novel)

I'm going to now explain the title so yall don't be having the wrong ideas 

We go transfer news Saturday and I'm going to be staying here in the area of Centinela in the city of Talcahuano and going to recieve a brand new missionary. This is called "training" and you become "their dad".

This was surprising news, because normally trainers are pretty experineced missionaries and can speak the language fluently. I'm going to learn a lot about missionariy work and about spanish this next transfer that is for sure. I'm very exicted to train a missionary, but if I get another Gringo (which it will most likely be)- there will be conversations when both our us are very lost. I have learned a lot of spanish, don't get me wrong, but I still have a lot to learn. 

Summary

-last pday, we played basketball and frisbee and than ate pizza with all the Elders in the zone 

-had some lessons but people not progressing

-had a baptism for the other elders in the centinela branch

-elder macias and the other other elders switched up on my Spanish, before i was announced to be a trainer they were always like "wow elder Christensen usted habla muy bien" (you speak very well) but now they are like "you need to lock in" real, cuz like what are these Chileans saying some of the time

-blitz, the whole zone working in one sector and I worked with Elder Winter.

-had some fire member meals this week. i swear they be giving me so much food

-we met our goals so we got to dump ice buckets on the zone leaders

-Monday was very chill because we visitied lots of members for elder macias to say goodbye. All of the members are  shocked that I'm probably going to have a companion that speaks even less spanish than me. 

*Exchange with Elder Winter* 

Had a exchange with Elder Winter in Centinela on his birthday, where he was bit by a dog and we had a wait in cesfam (the local hospital) for 4 hours for him to get the rabies shot. And we didn't get home until 12:30. Because the Cesfam is like 30/40 minutes walking from our house, and they call our area the "flaitenla" meaning ghetto centinela, Elder Macais made us call to have a member come pick up us. Obviously, not a soul was picking up the phone, they were peacefully sleeping. Elder Macais was like, I can't have yall be walking in the dark, so he was like very very close to calling the AP's to drive the car all the way from Concepcion to Talcahauno to drive us the house. Until, a member of our branch just spawned at the cesfam, appearently he was getting treated as well. So that was clutch. Poor elder Winter he got bit by a dog on his bday. pobrecito

spirtual thought:

Honestly thinking about being a trainer seems a little bit much at times. You have to teach them to do literaly everything, and have to make literaly all the descion for like 3 weeks, and speak all the spanish at times. 

But, one of my favorite and most popular sciptures says, 1Nefi 3:7, " I will go and do the things whcih the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them" 

The Lord got me frfr 

Exchanges with Elder Winters

CESFAM (hospital) with Elder Winters since he got bit by a dog

Garret found out that he is going to be training a new missionary next transfer

Last day with the Elderes from San Vicente