Intercambio

 

Elder Brindley and Elder Warren

 

March 11, 2013

 

¡Hola!

 

Mom, we must be on the same wave-length or something. I ALSO got a haircut today. Tell Jenn that I miss getting my haircut from her. I went to the peluquería to get my hair cut. Let us just say that they don´t believe in being sanitary here. The scissors that he used still had somebody else’s hair all over them! Oh well. You get what you pay for, and it was only $2,000 pesos ($4 in the USA).

 

 

Did you send the red backpack? I have a black one somewhere in the house, you know. Haha. It will be fine either way. It doesn’t really matter what my backpack looks like, because I will be wearing it under my coat anyway. I do that so that all of my stuff doesn’t get wet and ruined. It is sunny today, but it is the first time that we have seen the sun since last Monday. It has been a very wet week. I can´t wait for the package!

 

 

Things are going well here! I mean, as well as they can for not having many people to teach. I went on an intercambio with Elder Wood last week. He is my Zone leader. So I packed up my little suitcase and went and worked with him in Puerto Varas for the day and spent the night at his apartment. He finishes his mission tomorrow. It was a neat experience to work with what some people would call the ideal missionary. He is super experienced and a good zone leader. I learned a lot while working with him. He is a good example of what I want to become as a missionary. Well, minus the fact that his “girlfriend” that was waiting for him, got married two weeks ago... that wouldn´t be so awesome. Haha. I would be happy to not have that experience.

 

 

You asked about riding the bus. We ride the bus maybe twice a week. We do a ton of walking here in this mission. Everybody walks in this mission. Biking isn´t an option because the dogs would attack us! They are always knocking people off of their bikes here and biting them! It is better to just walk and carry rocks or hit the dogs with umbrellas.

 

 

I finally got a letter from the United States! Well... sort of! It was a dear elder from the one and only Carter Payne! What a stud he is, going to Madagascar! That is totally legit! I am going to write him a letter today, so he should get it in about a month. Haha. Es un poco fome que-it takes a month to get a letter up to you people! Haha. Oh well! Can you get me the address of Nick and Nate? Their mission addresses? I would like to write them a letter and say Hola from Chile. I really have been so blessed to have such awesome friends. They really are a big reason that I am on the mission. They have helped me a ton. We will all be friends for life!

 

 

Here is a weird thought... I left home over three months ago. Time sure flies, looking back on it. I am halfway through my training with Elder Brindley. With the new cambio starting, I have some good metas to work towards. There is so much that I want to accomplish, that it is hard to limit myself to just a few goals. One of them is not to speak any English for the entire cambio. That will be 42 days of straight Spanish. That goal actually won’t be too hard, because I speak Spanish all the time anyway. P-day is the only day that I read anything in English. Everything is in Spanish. I study the scriptures in Spanish. I read the Liahona in Spanish. All of my journal entries are in Spanish. I translate all of my English thoughts into Spanish. Hopefully by the end of the cambio I will be ready to hold my own with the language. I can express myself, but not nearly as well as I can in English. That is the most frustrating part about speaking another language. I can easily share an experience in Spanish, for example: I shared my experience with tithing with a family the other day. They understood the story, but it would have been more powerful if I had been able to explain it in English. That is why I am choosing to totally immerse myself in the language. I don´t want to be satisfied with just being able to get by. I really want to master the language so that I can express myself clearly and powerfully. Elder Brindley is on board with me on this. He says that whenever he has gringo companions they always speak English together. But we are pretty dedicated to the whole Spanish thing. If I speak English I have to buy him a package of cookies. Haha.

 

 

You asked about what I buy at the grocery store? I buy eggs, yogurt, granola, 7 nectarines, 10 apples, granola bars, and some other healthy snacks. Today we are going to buy ice cream, because Elder Brindley wants me to show him how we mix ice cream at Cold Stone. Haha. Mom, they don´t eat tacos in Chile. The food here is nothing like Mexican food. We eat a lot of soup and a lot of tomatoes. We eat rice almost every day, along with potatoes. (My last two sentences rhymed!) They serve bread with everything here. I don´t eat it though, because I don´t want to get chubby. Speaking of chubby, I am still losing weight here. How much? Couldn´t tell ya, because we don’t have a scale. But I have had to make two new holes in my belt. So...Things are going well with that even though the members try to fatten us up. La familia Retemal bought us Big Macs in Puerto Montt and invited us over for once (own-say) which is like... dinner. The word once means eleven, so I don´t really know why that word is used.

 

 

Anyway, I gotta go! Love you! By the way, the speaker is awesome! I use it sometimes!

 

 

Love, Elder Warren

 

 

Makayla- You should be getting more letters! I mailed another one today. And yes, I can open your pictures if you send them in an email! So you best be getting on that! Haha. ¡Te extraño mucho! Y nos vemos despues de la misión, cierto? Espero que si. Tenga un buen dia y una buena semana! Tenga fe, vale? ¡Te amo mucho!

¡Chao!

 

 





 

The Imfamous Red Shirt Visits the Volcano Mar. 3, 2013

And the Waterfalls...