Monday, September 28, 2009

The Mail Has Arrived!!!

Hey Everyone,
Well I got the package and the letters from you Mom on the Sept 22nd at District Meeting. I might not get the other package and letters till Zone Conference in two more weeks give or take. It all depends on if they get enough to drive up here from Concepcion. I was really happy to get the package and letters it was like going back in time with the letters. Thanks for the package but the bad news is it is the wrong cord. That is the cord to my phone not my camera. But don´t send it I can wait till Christmas.
I think I can just put my memory card into a computer and upload that way for now. It is slower but I want to send some pictures so worries. Check in my camera box I thought it was in there and if not the instructions will tell you the correct cord. Its all good thanks Mom.
I want you to keep the hard copies so when my inbox gets full I can delete stuff and not lose it because you will have them. I can put them in my scrap book you could also save them in a file on the computer too if you want.
You can look up the church building on lds.org on google maps and then just look around at Cauquenses, and my area. My area is huge it would take about 5 hours on foot to walk from one side to the other or more. You can look up Victoria and Arturo Prat that is where our apartment is. There is a Catholic Church on San Alfonso, you can´t miss it it’s huge.
Thats awesome about the baptisms in San Jose South Stake this year. The key is teaching! Congrats on being “trained” pops, haha you scouter. Oh Spanish lesson, it is not correct to say me hijo....say hijo mio. lol or mi hijo love you pops.
Our church building has a satellite so we don´t have to travel which is nice and it will be my first church meeting in English in six weeks. I will understand. We just watch on a TV in a different room in English with the other two elders from Estacion which is like 15 minuets from here.
Well we found out that the Seven-Day Adventist Church, have missionaries in our area. They have name plaques like us so people keep confusing us. Except we have the fullness of the gospel.
Stuff is slow here as usual and we have 2 fechas for October in English and 2 baptismal dates hat is cool, we just need to get them to church. People here know it is true and will follow all commandments except one....going to church they are just lazy. And if they don´t go to church can´t be baptized...oh well I have lot of work to do. The weather has been both hot and cold so it is nice to have that lighter jacket. We didn´t baptize in September but now we look ahead to October. Its a new month with new goals. I am doing well.
I still cannot understand anyone but people say I speak really well. The elders say it is usually the other way around but you know me I have got to do things my own special way. I have been thinking about Christmas stuff and its nothing big but I will tell you next week. Its more stuff I need not want.
Well next week I get a new companion and Elder Farrelly will go home. He has his flight plans
but I am not letting him get trunky.
I want to send some pictures, I am
going to try and just plug in my card
to a computer. I was wondering if you
guys could set up a photo bucket online and then I could just upload them all to there. That would be faster and easier, because emailing them takes a long time and memory. If you could look into that, then you all could download them to your computer. Look into it and tell me it would be great. Don´t worry about the cord its all good just send it at Christmas.
Last week we got some bikes from members and did mountain biking. It was fun I have good picures and videos. I have got to wrap this up. I love you all and if I didn´t answer any questions you have just hold them for next weeks email and I will answer them. It is easier to write and answer questions then to just write whatever off the top of my head. Love you all I am going to try and send some pictures today hopefully.
Love you all, Eric

Friday, September 25, 2009

Hey Dad and Mom, it's Eric!

Monday, September 21,2009

LDS mail isn´t working so I am just sending this really quick. I am doing good and everything is good too, tell everyone I love them especially Mom. Tell them I am sorry but the email wouldn´t work.
Love you all a bunch. Talk to you next week.
Love,
Eric

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Laundry, Fleas and a day in the Andies

Hola
Hey how is everyone doing? Sounds like things are busy for all of you. They are for me too. We contact and tract for about 8 hours a day. That is what happens when you don´t have investigators, but we are working on it. We got into a home and taught a great lesson. The dad is just afraid of getting committed to the church, we will see. We don´t have another appointment with them for another week though and that gives them a lot of time to read and pray.
It has warmed up a little this week. We still don´t know what we are going to do about laundry. We will most likely have to wash them and get nails and rope and make the main room in our apartment a drying room. I had to wash some stuff the other day and it took three day to dry. Oh well so next Monday we will be up at 7 washing our clothes, we will see how it goes.
Thanks for sending that stuff. I want a lighter jacket for like preparation days and for days that are not super cold but you still need to wear a jacket. The one I have is plenty warm but it is not cold enough to be wearing it all the time. Clothes are just really expensive so thanks I hope it gets here. I haven´t gotten any letters or anything because nobody has brought it up from the mission home in Concepcion. So, I might not get it till cambios (transfers) or next zone conference. I thought Pres. Chavez might bring it up this past Wednesday when we had interviews but he didn´t, oh well. I pray it all works out and gets here. Money is just tight for missionaries down here and we have to travel a lot to go to district meetings and zone meeting every week. Thanks Mom I really appreciate it a lot you have no idea.
I haven´t fixed castidad (gnome) yet, haven´t been able to find super glue. So he is still broken. It just stinks he only made it 2 weeks and then got broken. Oh well I will live. I have so good picks of him and me that will start sending them when I get the cable.
I had a mini cambio with the zone leaders this week and so I stayed in Parral and my companion went back to Cauquenes with the other zone leader. Their apartment has fleas and they went to town on my hands and ankles. I can tell warm weather is coming. I put my flea collars around my bed and they seem to be working. Annoying little things! Well I don´t eat dinner I have a bowl of cereal for breakfast about 8 am and then we have lunch which is a pretty good size meal. It is the biggest meal of the day. We get 2 hours for almuerzo. We go eat at the member’s house then come home and take a nap. I don´t eat dinner because eating at when we get home at 10pm is too late. So I only eat twice a day but it fills me up. Don´t worry I am not starving myself or anything. I have lost weight though, I put my suit on Sunday and the pants are pretty big on me. I have to add 2 notches on my belt. I want to know how much I have lost. It is noticeable though to me least.
I am doing good, Elder Farrelly and I get along really well. We have good times. It is fun. We are not speaking any English this week so it is going to be hard, I pray for the gift and interpretation of tongues every time I pray. It will come but, you know me I am the very impatient with myself.
Today we had a zone activity and went to a lake about an hour from Parral. It was fun imagine a van the size of yours with 12 Elders 2 Hermanas and 2 large Chileans (the drivers of this shuttle van thing) all crammed into this van for an hour drive on the old Camp Ritchie road it was funny and fun. I have awesome pictures but you will have to wait for them sorry. I was actually in the Andies Mountains, it was beautiful. We just chilled, played capture the flag, Elders were doing card tricks, it was good times. I was just happy to not have to wear proselyting clothes. We had to get up at 5 though to get to Parral on time and we got back late so yes we are breaking rules but we have to email home. It was a fun trip and next week I think some of us Elders might borrow member’s bikes and go for a ride in the mountains.
Dad, here are the answers to your questions: We live in a 3rd floor apartment. We have a main room, a study room, a bedroom and a bathroom. The whole place is as big as the area of the kitchen, dining room, sewing room and desk area at home. Not that big! It is cinderblock and brick. Roads are some type of crappy asphalt and dirt. No Laundry mats they don´t exist here. The members help me, some of them. Sorry I really have to go but I love you all, time to get to work.
Talk to you later the 18th is Independence Day here, it will be crazy!
Love you all, Eric

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

hola mi familia, ¿cómo están?
How you all doing it was so nice to see all the letters in my inbox. I was so excited this morning to come and do email it is the highlight of my week so far. well it sucks that my memory card wasn’t in the boxes. I was really hoping it would be but oh well I just wanted to be able to look at those pictures. I don´t need another one I have enough space with the 2, I have here so no worries. That Powerpoint was super cool. I liked seeing all the pretty parts of Chile Cauquenes is pretty trashy but so are most of these smaller towns. It gets a little peligroso (dangerous) around here at night and so we try and get all our appointments at night. We don´t have much luck with that with only 2 investigators. So we are walking the streets and knocking doors until 10 pm most of the time. But we know which parts to avoid and usually walk pretty fast.
If you have looked at the weather lately in Chile, it has rained for the past three days straight. Missionary work stinks when it rains, nobody to contact in the streets and nobody wants to let us in cause we are wet. That jacket we got at Mr Mac is only water resistant! So....it works good if it sprinkles or rains for a little bit but, needless to say I have been wet for the past three days and it was not fun. I was soaked to the bone at least my upper half. Surprisingly my legs didn´t get that wet. Don´t worry I am going to get a real rain coat today one that is 100% impermeable haha. No big deal it is all good. I have learned my lesson haha.
The lady that did our laundry just doesn´t want to do it anymore. We convinced her to do it this week one last time since we are both like out of clean clothes. From now on we will spend most of p-day washing clothes. The problem is drying them, we can´t hang it up outside so our apartment will be colder and wetter, but we will live.
Well to answer your questions Mom here I go. We live in an apartment it is an okay size, bigger than most places in the mission.I hope I lose weight. Everyday we walk to one of our investigator’s house in the campo (country). It is a 45 min walk and we go out there three times a week. Our apartment is on the edge of our area so nobody lives close to us. Yes, missionaries in Chile are not allowed to wear sunglasses and we can´t have backpacks because if we get robbed we could get hurt taking off a backpack. está bien.
On Wednesday we had zone conference in Talca, its 2 hours north of Cauquenes. It was good except I couldn´t understand of anything because I can´t understand Spanish. I got to bear my testimony and my companion did too because he leaves at the end of this cambio (transfer). I have to get better at learning this sector because in 4 weeks I have to know it like the back of my hand. It is a big area. We have interviews with President Chavez this week in Parral tomorrow.
Because of the rain there we only 34 people at church yesterday, 20 less than last week. That is basically my week. Anytime Chile plays in the World Cup, I think nobody wants to talk to us even the members.
I am still struggling with the language. People talk to me and I give them a funny look because I have no idea what they are saying. I feel so stupid sometimes but all I can do is keep trying and expand my vocab. It is hard but hopefully it will come soon.
I haven´t gotten your letter yet cause we only get mail at Zone Conference, at interviews, or District Meeting. It all depends if someone can get the mail up here. They don´t make special trips but if someone is traveling up here they will bring it. Hopefully I will get it tomorrow, we will see.
There is stuff I need/want but since packages get stolen and stuff I am worried about you sending it to me. But i need it. Just put like a picture of Mary on it or something. People won´t take things if they look catholic, I don’t know! You can ask other people how to make it safer like the Blacks or Halls.
Here is the list (contact solution is 17 bucks here so expensive).
-contact solution 1 or 2 bottles
-my camera usb cable(so I can download to a comp and send to you)
-airmail paper/envelops
-a smaller jacket like fleece or something that is not so big and bulky.
-bath towel I only have one right now and need to wash it. Not a huge one just one from the house will be fine it doesn´t have to be new.
-another pair of sweatpants and sweat shirt
You don´t have to send it all at once cause if it got jacked we would lose it all. I just need the solution and camera chord right now. If you could do that that would be great. I love you. I hope it doesn´t get jacked, I will pray for safe mailing.
Food here is nothing special I crave fast food though but whatever I will live. I am doing good things are good but slow. I just want to understand Spanish so bad.
The saddest thing happened this week....I was taking a picture with Castida (my Gnome) and he fell on the ground and his foot broke off I am going to try andf fix it with glue. poor guy didn’t even last more than three months. I have got to wrap this up I hope you all are doing great sounds like you all are busy and stuff. I am busy too. I love you all so much and thank you so much for everything. I know the work I am doing is true, it is hard and frustrating but it is true. I know God lives and loves us all. I love you all
love, Eric