Monday, February 15, 2016

Week #7

Well everything´s going good. Starting to get used to everything after being here for a few more days. The Spanish here is pretty crazy but I understand more and learn more every single day. But one of the members of the ward said that I spoke Spanish really well and understood a lot more than another missionary she knew that had 3 months, so I´ve got that going for me. Hopefully in the next couple weeks I´ll be better and actually understand what they are saying. 

My companion is great, he is an amazing missionary. The trainers are always the best of the best of the missionaries. He has been helping a lot and been giving me a lot of opportunites to improve in Spanish. I´ve have been able to get 2 people with a baptism date on the 12 of March. But the thing about the people in Chile is that they never keep their commitments and usually are never ready by the date you set. Like for this Saturday we have 5 people with a date for Saturday. But only one will be ready for that date. So we´ll see what happens.

The flight was pretty good. Didn´t sleep a whole lot and there was a little jet lag but everything´s good now. Yeah I made a purchase at Cinnabon in the Santiago airport, but I actually didn´t have any luggage fees which was nice. I was able to bring two suitcases of 50 pounds. But yeah an over night flight is not all that fun.

Living conditions are alright, different but it´s good. So how feeding works in this sector is actually really nice. We have a mamita who cooks us breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We live above here and just go down grab food and go back up to our house. The breakfasts and dinners are pretty small. Just bread and something called Echo, which is pretty much coffee. It smells and everything like coffee but instead of coffee beans it is made from wheat so we can drink it. But I have to drink it with a lot of sugar in it haha. And for lunch we have sooooo much food. My first time having lunch we had the first plate then my companion said you ready for the next plate? It was pretty funny but for lunch they always have two plates of food. And if you don´t eat every single thing off your plate they think that you didn´t like it. So it´s definitely a little different. But on the weekends we get meals from the members, so far from this last weekend the members cook a lot better and feed us really good, but there hasn´t been anything that I havn´t liked. All the food here has been pretty good just a little bland.

With transfers here no one knows. There have been missionaries that have only stayed in an area for one transfer period or in an area for like 7 months. It is all just called from the mission president and wherever the Lord wants us at that time. So it all just depends but aparently it is usually longer.

I actually really enjoy the 7:30-11:30 shift. We are out at 10 usually till 12 in the morning. Then head home and do companion study, eat lunch, and then language study. Then after that we are out of the house again around 4 and out till around 10. We go and meeting with whoever. Members, less active, investigators, or whatever. We usually don´t just go knocking on random peoples houses, either references or people who we know live there. But how it works here is that you knock on their gate and yell out "¡Halo!". Most of the time people don´t come out and there have been times where we have seen people and they just don´t come. I have even had someone yell out "Ninguna persona aquí", which is "No one´s here." It´s pretty crazy but it is a lot of fun.

Still haven´t gotten the package yet. Probably will take longer than you expected but I will let you know when I get it.

I was able to meet a lot of the members yesterday. There were 62 people who attended sacrament meeting. We had 5 of our investigators there as well which was cool. There really aren´t a lot of people. We had like 5 people in Elder´s quorm including me and my companion. And then there is the Bishop and one councelor. We don´t even have someone who can play the piano... It´s quite different but all the members are great! And the baptism is this next Saturday!

I love you guys all so much!

Love 
Elder Newkirk
Elder Newkirk, Elder Wild, Elder Jennings at the CCM

Leaving the CCM for Chile

Elder Newkirk and his district/trainers

Elder Newkirk and his district/trainers

Elder Newkirk and his companion Elder Villegas

Where the studying happens

Bathroom area --- not sure why the pop bottles? Need to find that out! haha

Apt area

Elder Newkirk and his new Avenger sheets!  :)

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