April 22, 2013
Hola!!
Wow… I have a lot to say today! A lot of things have happened here this past week! I’m pretty pumped, actually. I don´t know why, but I am just excited today. I feel... energized.
I will be having a new companion on Wednesday. His name is Elder .... well, actually he is from Argentina so you say it ..... That is how they pronounce the double L sound. I talked to him for like an hour on the bus today because we went on a zone trip again. He has been working in the Colon Sector of Puerto Varas. He is a really nice guy. He doesn´t speak a single word of English, though. That will be a nice change of pace. Elder .... and I did well speaking Spanish sometimes, but other times it was just easier to talk to each other in English. Besides that, I am funnier in English! Haha. But yeah, it will be different speaking Spanish all the time. I think my Spanish is going to improve like crazy with him. Hopefully I don´t develop his Argentine accent, though; because the Chileans don´t really like the Argentine missionaries. Actually, they don’t like the Peruvians or the Bolivianos either. Yeah, but he will be here Wednesday and at least for the next six weeks.
Elder .... is leaving to Chiloé. Chiloé is a big island near Puerto Montt. I think he is pretty excited to go there. (Hopefully not because he is sick of me!) Anyway, I think I am going to miss that little guy. He has been a good companion and we have had some good times. We did receive the packages!!! How legit! I gave him his half of the candy... and he has eaten like two pieces. He likes to save things. He still has the candy that his family sent him for Christmas. Me? I ate mine and shared it with the familia Angel.
The zone trip today was pretty sweet! We went to Saltos de Petrohue again. Also, we went to Lago Todos los Santos. We went to Laguna Verde, También. Wow, southern Chile sure is a beaut! Everything is so green. So green! I have a lot of pictures that I want to send to you, but this computer isn´t reading my camera for some reason. I will send some good ones next week. But anyway, we traveled with 23 other missionaries to do some good sight-seeing and to eat lunch.
So I have a legit story to tell you. I was on an intercambio with Elder .... from Perú. We were working here in Llanquihue and we went in to share with these Evangelico people. They wanted to examine my bible. So I whipped out my biblia y libro de mormón. They started looking through my Book of Mormon to find the name José Smith. As soon as they found it, they started yelling at us! Like… loud. They were screaming at us and jumping up and down the whole time. They were asking us all kinds of stupid things and telling us that we were going to hell for preaching false doctrina a la gente. We sat there and smiled at them (all three of them) while they did this. Just try and picture someone yelling at the top of their lungs. Then they asked if they could pray with us. We said sure. So they started praying... now try to imagine every scary movie you have ever seen about an exorcism. That is what it was like. It was really creepy. They were legitimately trying to cast devils out of us with a lot of screaming and such.
So after we left there, I decided we were going to try and find this guy named Raul. Now let me tell you his story quickly. Raul was a total drunk that was living on the street. We had seen him a few times and he wanted us to help him. One day after not having seen him for about two weeks we saw him and didn´t recognize him. He had received a haircut and was wearing clean clothes. He was Sober! He told us that he had drank too much and ended up in the hospital after having some kind of heart attack. His borracho drunk friend’s didn´t come to visit him in the hospital, but his wife did. This was huge for him because she had kicked him out of the house and filed a restraining order against him. But she let him go back home. He told us all of this and told us to call him and set something up. We tried calling a ton of times and he never answered. We passed by his house a few times and he was never home. One time we passed by and his vecino said that he wasn´t living there, that he was still a drunk in the street. So we stopped passing by and thought Raul had been lying to us.
So, I am with Elder .... and I decided that we should go visit Raul. We knock his door and he invites us right in! We talked to him a little bit and found out that he has not had a single drink since he was in the hospital. He is indeed living with his familia again. And here is where the story gets legit--- He said, "right before you elders showed up I was sitting here wondering if God really cared about me. I was wondering if he loved me. I wondered what evidence there was that he loved me. Two minutes later, you elders knocked on my door.¨” Wow!!! What evidence that is that this really is God´s work. We talked to him about prayer. We invited him to pray with us in the lesson and he DID! That never happens with anybody. He said he wanted us to come back and teach his family! We have an appointment to visit them today. Anyway... that is the story of Raul. The rest is still unwritten, but we are going to invite him to be baptized today.
I hope you are having a lovely week! I really liked the packages. It is really nice of you to do that for me! The BACKPACK!!! Ahh... I feel like a real missionary now that I have ditched the shoulder bag. Totally sweet. Adrienne has some cute kids! I show the picture to everybody and they all love DeShun´s hair.
Don´t worry about me, mom. My toes are looking better. I stopped soaking it in salt water and I just keep it clean and it looks a thousand times better. It doesn´t hurt at all and it isn´t infected anymore. The fleas... I hate them. But I am still working hard and focusing. I am on track to finish the Book of Mormon again here pretty soon. That will be three times on the mission, twice in Spanish and once in English.
Love you!!
Love, Elder Warren
Makayla… your email was a hit. Me gustó. I will write you a letter today. And... Elder Brindley isn´t a merleiver... (He doesn´t believe in mermaids... or Bigfoot.) Que triste
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