New Companion

June 10, 2013



Mom,


Things in Llanquihue are pretty much the same as they have always been. Slow without many people to teach. It is the same old story.  I will talk about that a little bit later on in my email.


My new companion is super legit. His name is Elder A. He is from Florida. He is a big Tongan guy! He is super sweet.  I am very pleased with the cambio.  He sings and plays the ukulele every night, which is sweet. He plays football. He has a full ride scholarship to play middle linebacker at BYU after the mission. How sweet is that???  Before the mission he worked as a fire dancer at Sea World. He is just super cool. Haha. The longer I am out in the world, the more aware I am made that I live an ordinary life and I don´t have a lot of talents. But hey, it’s okay.


Llanquihue is a mess. Everything is a mess here. They brought in two Hermana’s that just finished their training, and they don´t speak hardly any Spanish. They don´t know how to start a fire, so we had to take our calentador over to their house. We don´t have a fireplace or a calentador right now, so it is freezing in the house. The Hermana’s didn´t have a cell phone for the first three days. We live like a 45 minute walk away from them. One of the Hermana’s was super sick, and couldn´t call to tell anybody. We just happened to pass by to take something to their house and we discovered that she was sick. I gave her a blessing and then she ended up having to go to the hospital.  We still don´t have a Mamita.  There was a problem with her bank account or something, so she doesn´t have the money in her account yet. She isn´t going to start feeding us until she has money. So we have been on our own to feed ourselves... which has been interesting. It looks like we are going to have to go the next week, too, without a Mamita.   The whole cambio just wasn´t very well organized. At all. Everything that could go wrong with the cambio has. And to top it all off, we still only have one investigator.


Having been in Llanquihue has been tough. Elders get here and feel depressed. Elder A. says he feels down here. All the people in the streets are just angry looking and not friendly. He says it isn’t like that in other sectors.  Also, it is pretty rare to have a sector where there hasn´t been a baptism for so long. It has been 8 months since Llanquihue has seen a baptism. In his last sector they baptized a ton of people. He says that in other sectors, missionaries’ don´t knock doors because they have so many teaching appointments. I couldn´t believe it. I have spent the last 4 months knocking doors all day every day. I don´t even know what to think. I just thought that is how the mission was. By the end of the cambio I will have been here for 6 months. 6 months. 1/4 of my mission spent knocking doors and not teaching many lessons. It is a miracle that I have made the progress I have made without having any people to teach.


Even though the last week was tough, Elder A. and I get along very well. We still have a good time. I got some mail. I heard from Kinzie Payne! That was exciting. I really like getting mail. Carter already left on his mission? Did you go to his farewell? It was a really nice letter.
Hey, another thing I realized is how good it is to have music. Elder A. and I have been able to listen to music lately because he has an iPod. I haven´t been able to listen to music since my first cambio.  It really helps to elevate my mood.


I am excited for the sleeping bag to get here. I don´t know why, but it is just exciting. It is just something to look forward to.


Our only investigator named Sixta is really cool.  She taught me to make bread and she made me a hat. She knitted it or something like that. She came to church and had a really great experience. She said, Eso es lo que faltaba en mi vida = “That is what I was missing in my life”. There is hope for her. If we can just get her in the church one more time she will be golden.


Tell Adrienne that I wrote her a letter like two months ago! I don´t know what happened to it! I sent it! I will write another.


I gotta go. Time is always short. I will think about sending a picture next week. I don´t really want to, because I am getting chubby and I am embarrassed. We will just say... being with Elder V. for six weeks was tough.. I ate a lot of cookies. It made me feel happier… but now I am flabbier. Haha. It’s all good.


Elder Warren