Santiago Chile

Santiago Chile

Monday, August 25, 2014

Rain, rain, rain

Hola familia y Amigos,

por favor perdonanme because I left my camera in the house this week, so I don't have any photos, but tons of awesome things happened.

first, I wanted to mention a couple of things from the past week that I forgot to write. number one, my companion is super awesome. before the mission he studied music and he plays the violin. he brought his violin with him to the mission, and 2 sundays ago he played in church while the other missionaries sang. it was super beautiful. it is a huge blessing to have a companion like Elder Munoz who loves to sing and loves music. Iove singing with Chilenos. they love to sing (despite wheter or not they can do it in tune). 

I should explain what our ward is like here in Quinta Normal. the ward is called Simon Bolivar. the chapel is two stories tall. the sacrament hall is in the second floor with the gym and kitchen, and the first floor has all of the classrooms. there are 6 missionaries in our ward. 4 are hermanas and the rest are us. our ward has about 150 in it that assist regularly, and is super awesome. it is also very cold in the chapel in the winter. I never used to wear sweaters underneath my suits or gloves in the church, but now it is necessary.

I want to talk about a person that we met the other day. his name is Alejandro, and he is a ninja. we were in the neighborhood, knocking doors, and he answered, and told us that he had actually been baptized when he was 8 and then after that didn't go to church again. he told us that we could stop by a couple days later, because he was a little busy, and while we were setting an appointment with him, he told us that he attends a martial arts class. fast forward 1 week later, and we stopped by his house and he answered the door in ninja clothing. he had been training, and he was wearing those cool footsy ninja pants that have a split toe like a turtle. He is super awesome, and wants to learn more about why we are here in this life.

also, the past Sunday we were returning home from a church meeting when Luis, a recent convert to the church, called us and asked us if we could give his wife, Carolina, a blessing. we arrived at his house and saw that Carolina was in a lot of pain because of a headache. we placed our hands upon her head and gave her a priesthood blessing. after the blessing Luis was dissapointed because nothing miraculous happened immediatley. the next day we got a phone call from them saying that Carolina had been able to go to sleep, and when she woke up the next morning she felt really good, and had a lot of energy. she said that she felt that the lord had blessed her for her faith. for those of you who are reading who are not members, a priesthood blessing is What Christ and his apostles did when they were on the earth. those that hold the priesthood of God can place their hands upon the head of someone who is sick and leave them with a blessing of health. this power or priesthood of God was restored through the prophet Jospeh Smith.

on Thursday we did something super fun. there is something here called Ferria, which is basically a farmers market but huge and takes up the whole street. this week we set up a stand with tons of fliers, pamphlets, DVDs, and books, all of it for free. it was super fun. we talked with a ton of people, and got to experience part of the culture here. it smells a lot in the ferria because you have stands with vegetbales, fish, and fruits. you can buy anything in the ferria. I mean anything. I walked by a stand that was selling Billy Joel CDs. that was fun.

on Friday, we helped an hermana pick Oranges off of her tree (because Gringos are taller than chilenos). it was super fun, because her son Kevin was on the roof of the house helping us and throwing oranges and us too. la hermana gave us a huge bag of oranges too, which we shared with the people we met in the streets.

On Friday night we had a family home evening of our ward. my companion and I were in charge of the refreshments. we didn't know what to do, so I decided that I was going to make pancakes with M&Ms in them. it was a last minute idea, and I thought it would fail. I forgot that Chileans have never eaten pancakes. THEY LOVED THEM. we now have a problem because they think that I can cook...Luis y Carolina invited us to their house on Sunday to teach them how to make pancakes.

On Saturday it rained a ton. that made me miss home a little (shout out to all of my Bothell Cougars out there). we had an activity in the church that night where the different age groups in the church had prepared food, presentations, and dances from different south american countries. when we arrived we were in the second floor of the church, in the gym. all of a sudden, the ground started to shake, and I thought that there was a car that was driving beneath or something, but the shaking didn't stop, but kept going for about 15 seconds, and it got more powerful. it turns out that there was a 6.4 earth quake that happened nearby. my first Temblor in Chile. Im officially a missionary here! there was a huge earthquake here in 2010 and the people are still sensative about it, so when the temblor happened, people started to scream. there are some pretty harsh memories from 2010 that are still lingering in the back of peoples minds, but don't worry, everyone is ok from the earthquake here.

Final thing, yesterday we received two free empanadas from some members in our ward, and we left them out on the counter during the night. this was a mistake because I forgot that sometimes we have a visitor at night. there is a cat that loves to squeeze himself through a slit (and I mean a slit) in our sliding glass door to sleep in our "warm" apartment. we woke this morning to empanada crums on the floor. I was angry. I love empanadas.

Thank you so much for your emails, pictures, prayers, and all that you do

Love,

Elder Williams

No comments:

Post a Comment