I´m definitely learning and understanding more and more everyday. But I still am having a hard time understanding the Chileans. Especially the ones who don´t pronouce anything and it sounds like they are just mumbling. But I do understand more and more everyday. It´s funny, sometimes I will get compliments on my Spanish and sometimes people won´t even understand what I am saying. My companion speaks a little bit of English but not too much. But he definitely knows some English. Even though he knows a little English it is all Spanish all the time right now. What he usually did with his last companions is for one or two hours a day speak English so that he can learn more English. The Latino missionaries are encouraged to learn some English on their mission so we´ll probably start doing that soon.
The people down here are really accepting of everything but they never keep their commitments. That is the one thing that every missionary here has is their investigators keeping their commitments. But God has given everyone their agency to do what they want. As long as I do my job by teaching and inviting the rest is up to them to follow through and actually look for an answer from God. I can´t transfer what I know to be true to others, they have to learn and recieve an answer from God themselves.
It is definitely interesting not having a ton of people at church like I´m used to. But we don´t have to prepare lessons or anything which is nice. There are teachers and whatnot still. I wish I could play the piano or something, it would definitely help keep us in tune and on the right speed. Another thing about Latinos is that they sing really fast and have a hard time staying on the right speed.
Yeah our mamita is a member of our ward and everything. The mamitas have to be a member of the church. The food sometimes changes but it is a lot of chicken, rice, etc.. It isn´t terrible but it definitely isn´t the best things that I have eatten, just a little bland. Sorry I probably won´t be coming home with a lot of recipies of any delicious things.
That´s awful what happened to Grandma. That picture doesn´t look to great. Hopefully she will be good to still go to Portland with you guys. I will definitely be praying for her and hoping that she gets better.
One thing that you can tell Brother Cluff and the Young Men´s that I forgot to mention while in the CCM. But I wore the sunflower tie one day and I can´t tell you how many compliments that I got on my tie that day. I have never gotten so many people complimenting a tie. It was pretty funny because it was meant to be a funny/ugly tie but turns out it´s not.
Honestly there isn´t a lot of time to do a lot on pdays. They go by really fast and there really isn´t a ton of time to do stuff, but there are stuff to do. There are some hikes that we can go on that we plan on doing one pday. There is centro where there are a ton of shops and a mall and whatnot that I still want to go check out which we will probably do when we recieve more money in 2 weeks. But there is definitely stuff to do. I don´t know if I have mentioned this or not but there is a rule that we aren´t allowed to play soccer at all. Reason being is because there have been a few missionaries that have broken their legs playing and had to be sent home so the mission president put a rule. Everyone is hoping though once we recieve the new mission president that we´ll be able to play again. But we are allowed to play volleyball and non-competitive basketball, but there really isn´t a lot of time to do a lot. We´re also not allowed to go down to the beach during summer because you know temptations, but any other time of the year when there aren´t people there we are allowed.
So how laundry works down here as well is that the mamitas do the laundry haha. So we really don´t have to do too much! There is usually one mamita for cooking and one mamita for laundry but our mamita does both. But yeah the mamitas do all the cleaning and the ironing and everything. We just give her our dirty clothes every Saturdays and Tuesdays to our mamita, which is really nice that there are muliple days of laundry.
The weather down here is pretty hot. But we do get to wear our short sleeves everyday, kinda wishing that I got some more short sleeves. We only have to wear our suits to important meeting with the mission president and on Sundays during church which is nice. But it is always hot down here but my companion was saying that during winter that it can get pretty cold so I guess I´ll find out when winter rolls around.
Scripture wise I am in 2 Nephi reading the Book of Mormon with just one question. The question that I´m reading with is how can I become a better missionary and lose myself in the work. I have been learning a lot with just one question in mind while reading. The one thing that pops up all the time in the scriptures so far is keeping the commandments of the Lord. Blessings always come after you have kept the commandments and after a trial of your faith. Not a lot of cool stories right now because I hardly understand any Chilean right now. But one thing that happened to me and my companion this week is while we were walking a guy stopped us. He was telling us how Joseph Smith wasn´t a prophet of God and showed us a scripture from the Bible and stuff. We just stood there and when he was done talking we just shook his hand and left. My companion actually knows a lot about other religion and has scriptures to tear apart every other religion from the Bible. He doesn´t bring his Bible anywhere so he won´t bible bash with anyone. It´s really funny, in his Bible he has notes of a ton of different scriptures for a ton of different religions. I honestly don´t know what my favorite scripture is, there are a lot of good ones that I love but I don´t know which one is my favorite. I really like D&C 84:88 and I guess you could you use that one for the plaque but I honestly don´t know.
I love you guys a lot and think about you often!
Love
Elder Newkirk
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| Just some dog on the streets of Antofagasta |
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| Gets to watch these sunsets over the ocean every day!! How cool! |
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