Hey mom dad and fam

hey mom and dad how is it goin? 

i am doing fine i am here is chile just chillin...haha i love it here it is so cool. it is pretty much the same but still it is different. the culture is a lot different. how we knock doors because every single house pretty much has a dog and a gate. so we stand outside the gate and yell, ¨alo¨. then they come out and see who it is and a lot of the time they just say that they are too busy and they go back inside. but sometimes they will come and listen to you. they are so generous though. it blows me away. pretty much every time someone invites us in they will give us a drink. its crazy, think about two strangers you don´t even know coming by and you don´t have very much and you invite them in and let them have some pop or juice to drink even though you don´t have very much yourself. and the members are incredeble. they are so so generous. it was awesome, cause yesterday was ester i guess... and they had the primary make us these little easter egg baskets and they put some chocolate eggs and stuff in there. it was so cool. they are way nice. so, so far we have had a couple lunches at the members house. so lunch is the main meal here, which is hard cause i love dinner and they barely eat anything for dinner so that has been hard. the first day we had rice and this beef jerky kind of meet and broccoli and tomatoes and rice. as you may or may not know, i´m not a big fan of rice and i hate tomatoes. but i guess they eat a lot of rice and tomatoes. and they find it a big insult not to eat all the food cause they usually give you the best food they have cause they love the missionaries. so i am goin to have to learn to love tomatoes...:( haha its all good. anyways the next day we had this bow tie pasta with spegetti sauce and eggs on the side. the next day we had empenadas. these things are amazing!!!!! they are like hot pockets but a lot bigger and they have meet and eggs and cheeze and onions inside. mmm they are good. i am loving the food here. it is so so so good. also i love the people so much already. some of the members and pretty well off but others barely have anything but they are so happy its so amazing. there example to me is awesome. so my area is melipilla. it is right outside of chile. it is like the country kind of but not really. its awesome. my comp, elder hansen is so cool. he is such a hard worker and he is way nice. he is always helping me with whatever i need. he is from idaho. he has 3 older sisters and his parents. then we live with our distric leaders, elders despain and mecham. they are really cool as well. they are nice and everyone is helping me out so much. i love it here!!! but it is so hard. the first day i was here i was wondering how i could do it. i could not understand one word the people were saying. they talk so fast so even if i did knew a word i would not be able pick it out and understand it. but since then i have been able to start slowing the language down in my head so i can translate it. every day it gets easier. it is still very very very very very difficult but its getting better. i am being able to understand people a lot easier now. our appt is pretty small but it is really fun. so we got sent to melipilla, which the president just barely opened back up. so we are doing what is called a white wash. we come in, not knowing any members, converts, investagators, or the area. that makes it a lot harder but we are starting to get it down. i have given out 2 bom´s so far. i gave one out to a young man who was goin to school and seemed pretty interested. then, on my first day we found this guy named edguardo. and what do you know, he spoke english pretty good. so i gave him a english bom that i had. he was so excited cause he said that he loves english so he loves reading and talking in english. so i can actually teach him. he also wants us to call him ted... he is awesome, he will for sure be baptized some day. also we totally had a miricle happen. the first full day we had we decided to pray for a family to teach. so all day we were looking for a family. and so we come upon a lady and her 8 or so year old daughter. one thing that we always do is we ask if we can come over to their house and bless it and bless their family with anything they need. so we start talkin with this lady and she said that she wants us to come bless her house...and we didn´t even ask her if she wanted that. so we are like...sure we can come over and bless your house. she said she was baptized when she was a baby into the catholic church, but she doesn´t feel like it was real cause she didn´t have the choice if she wanted to or not. and she said she didn´t like the jw´s or the protostants!!!! ya, then she said that her son has been looking for 2 young men in white shirts and ties to come baptize him cause he hasn´t been baptized...so ya this lady, vivianna, is incredible. and so we called her back and her husband is totally fine with us coming over and teaching. so i really think we are goin to be able to baptize the whole family!!!!! i am so excited. the mission is awesome. it is so so so much work but it is worth every minute of it. i love the work. it is really hard, but in the end i know it is goin to pay off. every day the language gets better so that is good. i try not to get discouraged cause it is really easy to do so. but i totally believe in el don de lenguas (gift of tongues) it is so true. without it i wouldn´t be able to do anything that i am doing. ya oh ya, one thing i forgot to say is that it is their culture to kiss. so they women kiss and they kiss the guys too...so we have been taught to avoid this. what we do is when we shake hands we are suppose to hold our arm stiff so that they can´t get close. i haven´t had any problems with that yet cause we haven´t taught a non member woman yet, but i am sure it will come up later in the mission. ya, so the people here in chile are so beautiful. there culture is very european based so they wear thoes kinds of cloths and they look more european, they are awesome. it is so funny cause the little girls all remind me of aaliyah and mehkii. they are so so so cute. it always makes me miss aaliyah and mehkii tons. also we met this kid. he wasn´t a member but we started talkin with him. he is about 12 and he was saying how he got a bom and doctrine and coventents. and he loves reading them!!! but he got so upset cause he said he had a triple, but i guess they don´t do the quads in spanish so he was all mad that they didn´t do that, it was awesome. and he totally reminded me of landon, just the way he looks and walks and everything. the women in the ward are so loving. they act just like mothers to us, its awesome, so don´t worry mom i am being taken care of. president and sister jones are awesome too. we had a great lunch at their house the first day and then we slept and had some training. then we went to the top of this huge hill in the middle of the city and got to look over our secion. santiago is so huge, its crazy. then we went and met our comps and the president sent us off. ya so anyways, monday is our p-day. we get a hour to write our families and 15 mins to write the prez. so you can still use this but i can only check it on mondays. you can use dearelder also, that works well. pouch also works but president said it wasn´t the best thing to use. you can just use regular mail and that will work. he said that the mail system is very safe but don´t send any money cause that is illegal. so if i need money i can just use my debt card. ya so they have so many american things its crazy. all the young kids are always watching the american cartoons. as i am sitting here in the mall, i am listening to american music, like songs i would listen to at home, its insane. people just walk around in american shirts that i don´t know if they know what it even says...for breakfast every morning i usually have trix, but i am going to buy coco puffs today. they sell milk in these plastic bag things and they don´t refrigerate them. so we go to a regular isle and pick up some milk and take it home and put it in the fridge. everything here is a little cheaper than in america but some things like penut butter are more expensive. like penut butter the size of my hand is like 6 dollars. but it is nice here, it isn´t too hot. it is probably like 70 or so but it gets kind of chilly in the morning and night. the water is all good to drink. everything here is pretty safe. so sorry that i in this email i was just jumping around. there is just so much to say and i keep remembering things to say. so everything is good. i am healthy and strong. my comp makes me do my hair every mornin so that stinks and i have to shave every morning. its hard having 4 guys and one bathroom and not much time cause we need to excersize and eat and get ready and study and get out of the house. so ya this is my scedule.

• 730 get up and excersize
• 800 eat and get ready
• 9 personal study
• 10 comp study
• 11 language study
• 1130 leave house and go prosoliting
• 1 go eat lunch at a members house (by the way these people can talk forever!!!! it is crazy how long people down here can talk, so it is really hard to get out of a persons house.)
• 2-3 we come back to the house and have greenie hour, which is for me to learn the language and study more
• 4ish we go out and start teaching, prosoliting and whatever else we have.
• 930-10 come home and have planning session.
• 1030 get ready for bed, eat, say prayers(which by the way we are always praying. ALWAYS haha its awesome)
• 1130 lights out and your passed out in the bed. 

so ya, that is my life right there. yesterday we went to church. i stood up and introduced myself. every one laughed at me, and i didn´t know why or what i said but its all good...then they have class for only 15 minutes and priesthood for like 30 so church is only 2 hours longs, its sweet. so that is what i am doing down here, the culture and everything. if you have any questions send them to me and i will make sure to try to answer them. you can use this, or if you send letters or packages it goes to the mission home which address is in my missionary packet that i got with my call, ya know that little booklet. another thing, for p-days we have to wear our church cloths, which stinks but i will live. the only time we get to be in regular cloths is in the house, doing service or playing soccer. anyways, i better get going. this email is huge so i hope you like it. i love you all so much. once i get this schedule down more i will make sure to maybe email the grandparents if i can and shae and lyndsie. 

well love you all, the church is true!!! 

Elder Hall