week 67: Changes in the mission & Changes in others

December 4, 2017 (transcription of audio letter)

Hey guys, Elder Olson here. This is week 2 of transfer 11. We're just on our way to the computer terminal to send emails. So yeah, it's been a really good week. We had changes. My new companion is Elder Lee from Lindon, UT. So that's cool. He's a really cool guy. We get along really well. We've been having a crazy week. A lot of cool stuff has been happening. A lot of success in the sector just out of nowhere.

Changes happened so we took Elder Davis and most of the zone to the terminal. Every companionship in the zone had someone leave and somebody new come. So that was fun. We had like a big change this time which was good because last time nobody changed out of their sector. There was one companionship that had a change. This time it was a lot bigger change. I had a lot of people that I know come up here including Elder Christarious(sp?) who was from my group. And then on Thursday we had a leadership council for all the zone leaders which was really fun because almost everybody from my group who got here to the mission with me and was in the MTC with me are all zone leaders at this point. The ones that weren't just went up this change so I got to see a few of them which is always fun.

We had some cool experiences in the street finding people. We've been using a lot the new Light the world initiative which is awesome. It's great for us because it makes it way easier to share with people.  Just like, "Hey can we just share a 2 minute video with you about Christmas?" And the people are a lot more receptive to that, so that's cool.

The other day we had a cool experience with that. We'd just got out of a visit, just come out of an investigators house, and we have a plan to talk with a minimum of 15 people. The whole zone, every companionship, has to talk with at least 15 people every day no matter what. So we were contacting people in the street and my companion goes and starts talking with this 15 year old girl and I came back around and started talking to her too. She's in school and we pass by her house and showed her the video and talked to her for a minute and asked her what time she CAN meet and she said basically any time like right now at this time. We were like "well can we pass by your house right now then" and she was like "yeah" so we walked with her to her house and we went in with her family of four. Which was awesome. They were all super super nice. So that was kind of a cool little miracle we were able to see. And then right after that we found another family that we contacted in the street a little while ago as well. So we found a lot of new investigators this week. So then we also found another family. The mom is from Brazil. We contacted her in the street and we were talking from here and I noticed her accent and I said "Ah you're not from here, you're from Brazil aren't you?" and she said, "Yeah, I am from Brazil." And I said in Portuguese, " I speak portuguese" and she was like Oh REALLY! and started talking to me in Portuguese. I don't actually speak Portuguese so I told her I was joking. So she was like really excited and super super receptive so we got to start teaching her and her family this week. Her husband is also a really really nice guy.

We've been working with a guy named Jorge this last week. We set a baptismal date. He seems to be really really really really receptive with a lot of potential to progress. He came to church on Sunday. He doesn't have any significant barriers that we can see for him being baptized. He's recently divorced and now he's just out of a job so he's kind of packed in to a rough time. We found him at the exact moment he needed it I think. So it's been really fun to work with him. We are going to continue to work with him.

We have an investigator named Lena. I think I may have mentioned her. She was in a car accident a couple of years ago and broke her femur and is stuck in a wheelchair. But she wants to come to church and we have a member who is going to fellowship her really well and he offered to take her to church but she said she woke up feeling really bad and had to take  a lot of pain killers this Sunday so she didn't come. We're also trying to help her quit smoking so she can actually get better. Because she's actually not going to get better if she keeps smoking like this.

But other than that, I hope you're all participating in the Light the World program...that service calendar, the 25 ways we can serve in 25 days. Sometimes it's kind of hard to find HOW we can serve other people, even if we WANT to serve them. So it's a great way to start, to jumpstart, to get the ball rolling at least until Christmas to serve people. As a missionary, I obviously have a lot of service opportunities and can really can see the difference it makes in MY life.

I reminds me of a poem. I don't know who the original author was but I heard it shared in a Brad Wilcox talk, which goes something like this...

I tried to find myself, but myself I could not see.

I tried to find my God, but he eluded me. 

I tried to find my brother, and then I found all three.

I think that there's a lot that can be learned from that small little poem there.

I hope everybody is doing well. I'm doing great. I'm excited for Christmas. Take CARE!

This sandwich is called El Misionero

Christmas in Summer in Chile...Nativity viewing in shorts

Elder Lee is 6'5" ...tall guy 

week 65: tough week as far as investigators

November 20, 2017 (transcription of audio letter)

Hey everyone, Elder Olson here, this week 6 of transfer 10. 

This week's been a tougher week to be honest. We had a lot of appointments planned out with a lot of investigators. We had some high goals and a lot of plans. We expected to have a pretty full week. But in the end, all of our appointments fell, the whole week, every day, every single appointment fell except for I think 3 appointments in the whole week didn't fall. It was tough. It was kind of a tough time in the companionship for both of us I'd say not because we didn't get along but because the sector was just tough this week.

But it really hasn't been too bad.

On Wednesday we did exchanges with Elder Tyce and Elder {?} in Requinoa. So my first exchange in the mission I went on, I had like 3 days in the mission, and Elder Haar and Elder Tyce and I were in a trio and we were both super new. Elder Haar didn't speak any Spanish and I spoke hardly any Spanish and Elder Tyce still spoke Portuguese and Spanish mixed together so we could hardly understand each other. But we had a blast anyway. And I had Elder Tyce in my last zone in Curico as well but we never had a chance to do an exchange together. So We finally were able to an exchange together on Wednesday of this week. So that was fun. We found a ton of new people. We set a baptismal date with one of their investigators. Their investigator has a problem smoking. His name's Felipe. He's come to church a lot of times. They have a really well Fellowship I think the word is in English. they're really good. We also practiced some Spanish Freestyle rapping. Elder Tyce is a Thug, hahaha. He's a good guy. Really into Rap and that kind of stuff though.

In the week, the most interesting thing was that we had an open chapel, a tour, at a church in Doñihue  one of the little country towns in our zone. Really pretty spot. But that was really tough as well. Mostly for the other Elders of Doñihue. They'd been prepping it all week. They had everything set up. They'd invited a bunch of people and all that. And then only 2 people came to the tour. One of them was an investigator they already had and the other was an investigator we contacted in the street who it was actually kind of a miracle almost because she was coming by on a bike right in front of the church and I stop her and start talking to her and I'm like, "Yeah, we're having a tour of the chapel here. I would love to show you a little bit about what we believe and how the building is and all that." So she's thinking about it and then gets a phone call and she's on it for like 5 minutes and I'm waiting there patiently and then she finally gets off the phone and before I say anything she's like, "Yeah, ok. I'll take a look." So she went through and we were able to get her information so the elders can teach her later. But she was the only one who went through off of the contacts which was crazy because we contacted quite a few people around a little less than 40 people in the street in front of the chapel. But Doñihue is a tougher place. It's really small. They're all old catholic people who live there. It's tough. And also the street where the chapel is doesn't have a lot of traffic. We sent other people to other parts of the city trying to get people there but it didn't result into much in the end. But that is alright because that night we all got a baptism in the zone. The Elders of Requinoa had a baptism of a Hatian. So that was pretty cool.

That was pretty much our week. I'm just kind of hanging in there. We took a good look at what we haven't been doing that we ought to do so we can step it up in the sector this week cause it's been a tough week. But we've just gotta keep on keeping on. 

Church yesterday was really good. The branch presidency spoke. One of the talks that called my attention was really good. It was talking about, well all three meetings yesterday were focused on home teaching, visiting teaching and caring for each other as members of the church. It reminds me of Mosiah 18 how as part of the baptismal covenant we promise to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort and how we've all promised to do that when we were baptized. So that's something that I continually want to improve on...looking for those service opportunities for other people and I hope you guys can all look for those service opportunities as well.

As far as our contact goal, we've been doing pretty well. We had a few days where we contacted 20 or more and a few days where we contacted between 10-15. In general we've gotten more than 10 contacts every day even when the schedules have been very busy running back and forth from place to place. We've been talking to people on the way.

I really appreciate your prayers for us this week especially because we're coming to the end of the change. We're going to find out transfers this Saturday so that'll be interesting. It's pretty unlikely that Elder Davis and I would stay together another change. You never know, but it's pretty likely that one of us will go. Probably him because he has more time in the sector. But we'll see what happens.

So if you guys could just pray for us that we will be able to find new people to teach and also be able to get investigators into the sacrament meeting because it's been a couple weeks since we've gotten anyone there.

Love you guys. Really appreciate you and hope you're all doing well. Take care!

Elder Olson

Companionship Unity featuring my watch tan line

How we take care of bugs

Week 63: Halloween as Missionaries

Transcribed from audio recording November 6, 2017

Hey everybody, this is Monday November 6, 2017, the beginning of week 4 of this transfer. So this week was pretty normal, until today.

The beginning of the week we had Halloween. But for Halloween we didn't really do anything different. So here they celebrate Halloween, but they've only been celebrating it for the last 15 years? And they celebrate it because it's a holiday in the US and they wanted to get in on that. So it's not HUGE. A lot of people don't like it but a lot do, mostly for the kids. I don't know if I've seen any adults who dress up, mostly just kids who go around trick or treating. So for Halloween my companion and I dressed up as each other. We switched plaques, not plaques, nametags. We switched jackets, watches, I gelled my hair and did it differently so it would look kind of like his and we switched bags and took a picture. So you'll be able to see our halloween costumes there. I thought it was pretty good, pretty clever. A lot of people confuse us for each other anyway because we're both white...and about the same size and hair color more or less. So that was pretty fun.

After that, in the week, we're finally done with all of our meetings. We're back to just normal missionary life. We did have district meetings on Tuesday, we went out to Requinoa(?) which is a little...well all of the sectors in our zone are out in the country more or less. They're like outside of Rancagua. Our sector is the only sector, well our branch is the only branch that is actually in Rancagua and all of our sectors are actually outside of Rancagua. There's another zone in our stake here in Rancagua that has all the wards and branches that are actually IN Rancagua. We get all the outsiders. So we went out to Requinoa for a district class. It was good. It was kind of funny...We saw Elder Tyce and Elder Inuwe(?), the Elders from there in Requinoa, they brought their Matés, which we thought was kind of funny, they kind of followed our example there. We're getting the new guy kind of addicted to Maté as well. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. But it was a good class.

On Wednesday, we went to the district class in Do ñihue which is actually our district. We went there. And Doñihue is really pretty. I like going there. It's really close to the mountains, it has a really big reputation for being the center of a lot of country culture I guess you'd say. Out here the cowboys are called Huasos. They have kind of a different style. I'm actually going to try to by a Huaso poncho today, it's called a Manta. Doñihue is really famous for that. It's a really really pretty little town.

And then after that on Thursday, the Hermana's called us late at night and asked us if we could help them with an investigator who has a drinking problem and was going to set an appointment with a psychologist in the morning. And they had told him that they were going to help him to go to the psychologist but they realized that they can't because they're two sister missionaries and them leaving at 6:30 in the morning with a drunk guy is not at all a great idea and so we had to help them out there.  So we accompanied their investigator to the Psychologist, well to the clinic to make sure he could get an appointment with the psychologist. So it was kind of weird but it was really good for him I think. He came to church this week. So that was the investigator. Well he's actually a less active member. He was actually baptized when he was 13 or 12 and he's been drinking for about just as long. He's been drinking since he was 12 or 13. But it's his mom who's the investigator. But he came to church with his mom, yesterday, so that was really good. It was cool they could see some progress with him because they've been working with him for quite some time.

We had to do a few favors for the Hermanas. And then we got a call from the assistants, last night and the Hermanas are having special changes. So that means one of the Hermanas is going to be leaving our sector here in Baquedano and they are going to be going to Buin. And the Hermana from Buin is going to be coming down here. And it's special because it's the middle of the change the middle of the transfer so they are going to be the only ones who will be changing. I think it's going to be good for our zone. The Hermana that's coming is supposed to be really good. I think it's going to help the companion of the Hermana who's leaving a lot. So I think it's going to be a good change. But that does mean that today we are going to help them. Well, whether or not they really NEED our help...I don't know...but supposedly the Hermana that's leaving has so much stuff that her and her companion and the two missionaries in Buin won't be able to handle all of her luggage. So I don't know WHAT she's carrying but Apparently she needs our help. So we will almost for sure be leaving for the terminal in about 20 minutes. Not sure though. So yeah, that'll be interesting. But it's gonna be good to have this other missionary in the zone. She's been an Hermana leader for the last few changes, but it should be really good.

Apart from that, this week's been pretty normal, pretty chill. We've had a few really good new investigators. We actually contacted one of them trying to find the other one. So the first one, Rodrigo, he contacted us when he was kind of drunk during the dies de ocho festival in September. He came up to us and was like, "I need to talk to you guys. You guys are awesome. I live right here." And we were like, OK. And we went back and he was still super receptive, but the area where we contacted him was a bunch of apartments and they all look EXACTLY the same so we went back and contacted all of the apartments that had his apartment number and while doing that we found another super super receptive lady and her three daughters. So we are now teaching them and also Rodrigo. I think Rodrigo has a good shot at being baptized. Well I think they all have a good shot at being baptized. We've got a lot of good investigators here. The trick for this sector tends to be getting them to come to church. We have one investigator, I think I mentioned him before, named Alejandro, he was super prepared. He'd been to church like twice before. He says he wants to be a member of the church. He basically considers himself a member already. He was waiting for us...when we knocked on his door he was like, "yeah Ive been waiting for you guys. I just didn't want to go to church by myself." He said he was basically a little shy to go on his own. So he's really great. It's been a trick getting him to stay for all three hours of church but we're working on it. A little bit at a time. Nobody can be perfectly ready for baptism.

So today we were going to deep clean the house but that looks like it's not going to happen because of the whole transfer thing, so we'll have to just give it a little light clean.

To leave you guys with a spiritual thought. Today's spiritual thought comes from Luke 21:19. "In your patience possess ye your souls." I'm working a lot on my patience and so I've been making a wall of patience quotes right in front of my desk so every time I look up I see my wall of patience quotes. 

So I do really like this scripture because I think there's a lot that goes into something so simple. But I can let each one of you pull your own meaning out of it. I hope you guys are all doing well, hope you have a good week. Take care. Ciao.

Elder Davis and I were each other for Halloween

Elder Davis nailed his impression of my smile

week 61: Sick Comp & Tender Mercies

Hey all,

Sorry for not doing a voice thing.

So, after transfers this has still been a pretty busy week. My bike pedal arm broke while I was riding so we are temporarily stuck to missionary work the old old fashioned way (walking). I am starting to lose weight here though (about 10 pounds, 50% because of the gym and 50% because of the size of our lunches).

On Wed. we had to go stay with my man E' Robinson in the office house bc E Davis had to do stuff for his Visa. In the end it didn't work out and we're doing it again tomorrow. After that E Davis got sick and we were stuck in the house all day. I took advantage of the time to write a spanish version of "Be Still My Soul" and clean the house again. I think my overall cleanliness as a human being has gone up about 100 points during the mission.

A lot of you guys asked me about Camilo (the wal mart water bottle flower guy). We've passed by but he hasn't been home.

The other day we had a lunch appointment fall and some members gave us last minute lunch. Tender mercies.

We had Leadership Council on Saturday. We set a goal for 35 baptisms in November, and 70 before new years. We also saw the new Christmas iniciative video which is exciting...

I am currently working on my meekness, which I am defining as humility + patience, two Christlike atributes which I wouldn't consider personal strong points. I'm loving what I'm learning.

Also in our meeting President told us that if we contact 10-20 people a day we will baptize 1-3 people a month. I am going to contact 20 people every day of this change that we don't have meetings. Help me with this! Please ask me how I'm doing with my contacting goal every once in a while.

We have a conference with Elder Bragg of the 70 this Friday (see genconf april 2017). We'll have a special leadership meeting beforehand, and I'll be singing in a small choir for a musical number. Should be fun!

Love you all!

Elder Olson

Neighbor likes to rock out...makes for interesting study time

Week 60: Normal but good

Alright everyone, this is going to be a quick recording because I had no time to do a recording again. I guess that was because today we had transfers. We did it a little different this change. We did it on our Pday instead of on Tuesday I think just because of the day that all the new missionaries were getting here to the mission.

So right now we are in the cyber, writing, and seeing as how I had forgotten to send a recording last week I'm gonna get a short one in this week.

We got the changes this last weekend and I am staying in Baquedano with Elder Davis, which is awesome because he's a good comp. I can definitely be alright here another change. It'll be good. Which probably means, well you never know, but I could be here another two changes because he could leave and I could stay but you never know in the end I guess.

Almost our whole zone stayed basically the same. Only one elder left, an Argentinian, Elder Ginardo?. And one of my buds from my zone at the beginning of my mission, Elder Tias, from Brazil, is coming up, well he got here this morning. But other than that, all the other missionaries in the zone remained exactly the same. So that'll be good. It'll be more of the same thing this exchange.

This was a good week. There was this reference that we got this last Sunday that I mentioned last week. We had the visit with him...it was great. We had one visit with him and then another visit during the week with his whole family. He accepted a baptismal date right away and is super receptive..ready to change. But he didn't come to church. His whole family had promised to come to church, they seemed really really excited about it but then they didn't answer the phone and didn't come to church. Not exactly sure what happened there. We're going to have to keep calling them and seeing what's up. But it's the first week. And it's not a super common thing for people here to attend church in their first week as an investigator.

Although, we did have another one, his name is Alejandro, who came to church just the first hour but he loved it and he said he was going to bring his family next week. So we're excited about that.

Apart from that...

The week's been pretty normal but a good week. We cleaned the house a bit more, that was good and actually got things straightened out. We changed the furniture from where it was so everything's a little more open. We got things swept out from underneath so that was all good.

Also, we were supposed to have a branch council meeting on Sunday so we got up early and we get there and (the recording went really muffled here but he may have said..."found out it was cancelled so that was nice.")

Apart from that, it's been a good week but the last week of changes is always kind of a weird week (muffled recording again) as missionaries we try not to talk about it and keep our minds focused but for me I always end up thinking about it.

(he asks himself, did anything else interesting happen this week?) We got all our goals as a zone which was good. It's the first week of the change that we made all our goals as a zone, so that was awesome.

Also today we're making our zone souvenir which is kind of a common thing but it's usually a t-shirt or something. I've done a hat I got a picture of a couple changes ago. But this time we got slippers, which I'll try to get a picture of, I'll try not to forget. We just picked them up this morning. The slippers are AWESOME! They turned out really good. They're not the best quality, but they turned out to be 2800 pesos which is super cheap, which is like $4...like max $4. So they're awesome. They turned out really pretty. That's kind of cool. I've always wanted to do the slippers. We were going to put President's face on the slippers, but I didn't want President watching me from inside the house always, that's kind of a little creepy, so we didn't put the President's face on them. We were going to put our own faces on them but didn't know how stoked the zone would be about that so we didn't do it. But yeah. It's been a fun week.

(he turns to his comp and asks, did anything else happen, comp?)

So, my companion and I drink an interesting amount of Mate' and so this week we bought a HUGE thermos which we fill with hot water and sugar, which is great for us, and then today for the changes we had to be in the terminal, we had to Wait in the terminal for like 4 hours. So we brought the thermos and the Mate' to the terminal and we got to sit there just drinking Mate' for the 4 hours. So that was kind of fun, it was different.

Apart from that it's all been pretty normal. Hopefully I have some more interesting stuff to tell you next week.

Oh, also something else that's pretty cool, this change a Seventy is coming to the mission. His name is Mark Bragg if I'm not mistaken. He spoke in general conference, not this past session but in October, not October, April. He spoke on (I think it was on) "Brighter and Brighter until the perfect day." I have it and I've listened to it but I don't remember it very well. So that'll be exciting to finally have a general authority down here. I saw my cousin in London shaking D. Todd Christofferson's hand and Elder Holland's hand and the rest of us down here are like, oh that's kind of nice. And when President Nelson came down to Chile he went Santiago and the Santiago missions and then he jumped our mission and went to the mission right below us. He went on both sides of us but didn't come to our mission so that was kind of... nice.... haha. But we're getting somebody so that will be kind of fun, something different.

So I hope you guys are all doing well. I'm here in the cyber and I saw the family just got a puppy. I bet you're excited about that. But I love you guys, take care! Bye!

rickety fan...it's so hot here!

singing a hymn with Elder Davis...We're no David Archuleta

week 56: Prepare for General Conference

9/20/17

Everyone,

Wow, I can't believe it's already conference season. I forgot to mention anything in my short recording, but I just want to say how grateful I am for the opportunity to listen to God's word for us in our time specifically. Few people know about this opportunity and even fewer take advantage of it.

Thomas S Monson is a prophet of God.

He knows the way.

Love you guys.

Elder Olson

(Audio Letter transcription...)

Hey everyone Elder Olson here, this is week 3 of my 9th transfer here in the Mision Chile Rancagua. Right now I'm on the bus going to intercambios, it's Wednesday morning right now. We're going to go to exchanges I think it's called. We're going to go do intercambios with the elders from Rengo, which is the city where my Aunt Marianela is from if I'm not mistaken. I forgot to mention that they were in my zone. I don't know how I forgot to mention that. But yeah, so...gonna maybe run into some family down here, you never know. We'll see if I can find em down here.

It's been a good week. We started off the week with interviews with President which went really well. We gave a training to the zone which also went really well...it was kind of a longer one because the interviews always go long. But it was good. I think everybody liked it and I think it kind of motivated everybody a little bit which is good.

Also this week the big deal was dios de ocho, the 18th of September, which is basically like the 4th of July for us, but here they celebrate it a little differently. Basically they just all get drunk and that's about all. No...the food kind of changes. A lot of seasonal foods for the 18th here. They make a lot of empanadas and BBQ, like Chilean BBQ, not American. And a couple types of drinks they make only at this time of year as well. So that was kind of cool to see the culture. They do a lot more dancing, the Cueca. Cueca is like the national dance here. It wasn't really a joke about the drinking. They all use it as kind of an excuse to drink. I'll see if I can send a video of the drunk people in the street. (it was too dark) We see a lot of drunk people just passed out in the road asleep. So that's kind of fun, kind of interesting and different. I don't see a whole of of that kind of thing in Utah. 

So we had some members invite us to eat lunch with them. We ate a lot of food. More than one member invited us to eat with them. And it was on Pday so we kind of took advantage there. We also cut the front lawn which was nice. But it was kind of a pain because you have to do it with a weed whacker instead of a lawn mower. It makes me feel more Chilean cutting it with a weed whacker. It's not much of a lawn but it was just waaaa-ay too long. We've been cleaning the house bit by bit. So we did that in the morning and then had to run to the chapel to pass the zone numbers and then after that we went and ate lunch with some members. I feel like we did something else too but I can't remember what we did. Then we ended up eating with some other members and then we went out to work like normal in the evening. We have to go in a little bit early this whole last weekend because it is a little bit more dangerous supposedly with all the inebriated people out in the streets. But for me all the drunk people just mean more people shouting "HEL-LO, Hel-lo!" in English so it was kind of fun.

So that's the majority of what's happened this week.

We have a couple of investigators that are progressing pretty well. One is named Francisco, he's a kid, he's about 11, he has a baptismal date for Nov. 11th, that's further out then it would need to be but that's because he's pretty much alone. His family is made up of less active members. But he reads the book of mormon and comes to church himself, and he loves it. But we've gotta make sure that's he's not just gonna get baptized and then stop coming... it's really difficult because he doesn't have that support system. It just makes me really grateful for the support I had from my family. And then we have some others...a father son named Filipe and Filipe, they both have the same name. They've also come to church a couple weeks now. And they also have a baptismal date for the middle of October. They've got a good chance of getting baptized. The dad just really needs to...well we haven't gone over the word of wisdom with him yet. We were focused on getting him to church and now he's started attending, we're going to teach him the word of wisdom and help him quit his smoking. It's an addiction I guess but it's not a huge problem for him either. It's one or two every couple of days. It really shouldn't be all that tough for him to just leave it.

So since I'm on the bus, I hadn't really prepared a spiritual thought to share with you guys so this is going to be a short one. We had a short time to write today. I don't know if you can hear all the country music in the background... 

But love you tons. Have a good week. Talk to you later!

Elder Davis trying Mate

Mate Adventures

Cueca Dance

week 55: Hello Rancagua!

9/11/17

Hello!

So this is the first week of transfer 9 now. It's crazy. Time is really flying. I'm going to apologize in advance for the background noise. I forgot to record in the morning and now we're on our way to the cyber, the computer place, to write you guys. So now that I'm here walking, there's going to be a bunch of background noise and I'm probably going to be super scatterbrained but hopefully you guys can understand what's going on.

So yeah, we had transfers this week. I came to Rancagua. This is my first time in Rancagua in the mission. I'm in a branch here. It's a pretty big branch, definitely bigger than San Clemente but smaller than Buin, the last branch I was in. It's called Baquedano. It's pretty centric, central, something like that. It's the only sector in our Zone that is actually here in Rancagua. I'm a zone leader again here with Elder Davis from Washington. He's a stud. I like him. He's a solid 7 out of 10 hahaha. No, he's awesome, he's awesome.

Got here on Tuesday. To be straight, I've gotta comment on the conditions of the house that the last Elder that was there kind of left it. Not in tip top shape I would say. So we did a little bit of cleaning, did a little...honestly it was basically an exorcism of the house...because of all the stuff we had to clean but we almost had to do a real exorcism I guess because it sounds like the house is haunted apparently. Nah they were just saying some weird stuff was happening with the house before the change and the change before that. Having some weird stuff happen with an investigator but I won't go into too much detail. But honestly I haven't seen any weird stuff happen I think we're gonna be just fine. Basically the bathroom was really dirty. The sink had been clogged for like a week and it wasn't fixed still. So we got here and I spent the first couple hours cleaning like the necessities and then today I finished off the rest.

The sector seems really good. It's like a suburb. There's only one supermarket and there's bunch of chinese food stores. It seems like there's a lot of Chinese food in this sector. So that's kinda cool. But a lot more suburb. I've always been in sectors that are a lot more central that have more stores and a main street and stuff like that but this is my first sector that is just suburb, just houses basically. We got bikes. My companion's bike was broken so we had to take them to get fixed earlier this week to the office. It's kind of nice, the office is really close. I got to see my boy, Elder Robinson, who is from my CCM, MTC group, who I haven't seen up until this point in the mission. So it was cool I got to see him. I got to see him in the leadership council as well.

This week we had a lot of meetings. Tuesday we had changes, Wednesday we had a meeting to set goals and plans as a zone, and Thursday we had leadership council with all the zone leaders and sister leaders. And then Saturday we had to give a training to the District leaders and tomorrow we're going to have interviews with President. So that'll be fun. I'm excited for that. Looking at the zone (stats?), it looks a little more complicated as a zone than Curico. I don't know. Curico was kind of an easier zone than here. Last change there weren't any baptisms and it was really tough to get people to church in our sector last change. But we're already looking up. This first Sunday we had a couple investigators in sacrament meeting. One of the sectors already had a baptism. So we're already seeing improvements in the first week. We are already being blessed. I obviously didn't do anything...I just barely got here. We're just getting blessed to start out the change. So that was cool.

Today we did a pday activity and made Choripan which are like a hot dog with a sausage but a different kind of bread and then you put an aji which is like a spicy salsa. I don't know how to explain a lot of the food down here. You just have to see it to know what it's like but it's pretty common to see down here so that's a pretty common zone activity that we do. We did that and played football.

So our zone is almost pure new people. Every companionship, except for my companion and I, is a training companionship. So there are two companionship that have elders in their second change in their mission and then we have 3 who are brand new. We had a Filipino and two gringos. So we have a lot of new people. Hope we can keep them all excited. Not let them "die". Keep everybody, give them a lot of energy and an optimistic first look at the mission is the idea.

Other things that happened in the week: We got rejected pretty hard a lot of times. We've been looking a lot for new people. Both Elder Davis and I, in our sectors, have had a lot of success in finding people. But this week, we both felt like we were working hard, not only hard but really smart, but we both got shot down pretty hard a couple times. One investigator who had a baptismal date, I hadn't met him before, but we went to his house, and we called for him, (you yell, you don't knock on the door), so we called out "ALLO!" and we yelled like 5 times and then called him a couple times, but this guy did not...well we passed by his house a couple times and we were like "we know you see us." We just wanted to talk to him but if he didn't want to talk to us that's fine, but we don't want to waste our time passing by his house if he's not gonna want anything. But he came out and he seemed really mad. He came out and threw the Book of Mormon at us. He like shoved it through the fence and was like, "I DON'T WANT ANYTHING ELSE! STOP COMING BY MY HOUSE, STOP COMING AROUND HERE. STOP COMING CLOSE! JUST GET OUT!" I was like, " Oh, OK." That was kind of rude, I don't know. One that was out of nowhere. Usually people are pretty nice. If they don't want anything, then they say they don't want anything right away. So it's kind of weird to have somebody who's kind of receptive at first saying, "yeah, yeah," and then they have such a big change and be like that to be that rude I guess. I guess

But I guess I'm kind of spoiled. I know there are missions where people are a lot ruder than that. ...We're blessed. We're lucky.

I've got a funny experience. So we were contacting the other day and we go to call at a house and say, "Allo!" But we had been saying a lot of prayers that day, trying to go by the spirit. So Elder Davis, my companero, my companion, he goes to say "Allo!" but instead of saying "Allo!" he yells "Padre.." Like he was going to say Heavenly Father but yelling it...like he was going to start a prayer but yelling. but he was saying hi to the house, like knock on the door. Ahhhh it was soooo so funny. So so funny. I just about died.

That's pretty much all I can think of for now to tell you guys. I'm optimistic for the change. It looks good. A lot of good missionaries in the zone. The district leaders we have working with us are awesome, awesome people.  Elder Rogers and Elder ? are the names and they're solid. And another weird thing is all those trainees...there's a bunch of them from Utah. I have never had so many people from Utah in my zone. There's one from Salem, one from St. George, one from Orem and then me. And then there are two more gringos, one from California and one from Washington. There are only 2 Latinos, 3 Brazilians and 5-6 gringos. Which is really weird. I've never had a zone like that. My last zone I was like the only or 2 gringos. I don't know, there weren't a lot of us. But that's cool.

I love you guys. Take care. Read your scriptures. Say your prayers do all that good stuff obviously. Look for ways to help people. I hope everyone's ok with all the natural disasters that are going on up there. I've heard a lot about the hurricanes especially and a lot of crazy stuff that's happening. But we can always trust that God will take care of us when we're doing what he asks. Or if we are in a situation where it doesn't look like he's taking care of us, it's not so because sometimes we've gotta learn to do things for ourselves too.

Take care. Ciao!