chicken hearts

Good morning family from villa sur. 

All is well here and i am loving life. This week has flown by and i dont know where time goes. Time flys and before you know it you are freaking ¼ done with your mission!!!!! It is so freakin insane. Sorry for the language, my comp likes the word freakin. Anyways i still havent gotten your package so either it is being inspected by the government officials or elder cummings recieved it... haha i dont know but maybe i will get it tomorrow. About phillip, i cant believe that he is home already. I remember him leaving yesterday. Time is a freakin crazy thing. 

About the pics, it would be nice to get hard copies but you can send me pics over myldsmail if you want.

So i wanted to say something about jansen getting his patriarichal blessing. I was reading mine, cause tracy told me to read it at least once a month, and it is so so so crazy how everything is coming true. I read a part that said “you will be called and sent to a strange land where you will recieve the gift of tongues...” lets see a strange land, there is no way chile could be called a strange land...haha oh man chile is the strangest land in the whole world!!!!!! My patriarichal blessing is so so so awesome. I love it, it is seriously personal revalation that you can be worthy to recieve if you just keep the commandments. 

But it is awesome i love every single day that i wake up. I am not going to lie, it takes every single ounce of energy, mind over body, to wake up at 7 every single morning but i do it. Satan knows your weaknesses and he tried to mess with you. Every morning i hear a voice in my ear wispering, “its ok, just sleep in for another hour, you will be ok. No one will know, and it doesnt matter if you break one mission rule, they dont really mean anything...and on and on the wispering goes. It is either satan or my comp, i cant tell which one but thats what i hear every morning. 

So the other day we were in the house of a member watching this movie that my comp has that shows members how easy it is to do missionary work. So i was watching it and in the movie a member invites the missionaries over to see a friend. The friend opens the door and sees these two guys who have name tags and white shirts and ties... when i saw that i was like “oh my heck, look at thoes two young men. Missionaries are so awesome, they are so cool. missionaries are seriously like the army of God!!!” then i reallized that, hey i am a missionary... hahah it was so funny cause i have always looked at missionaries and wanted to be one and thought that they were as close to gods as you can get. And now i am one of them. It is funny how that still hits me weird. It still hits me that i am thousands of miles away in a country at the bottom of the world. Its awesome!!!!!!!!!!

One thing about a lunch that we had. We went over to a members house and we sat down and she brought out this soup. They always have soup as the first little dish. Anyways, we start eating this soup and i find these blackish greyish blueish balls that are in my soup. I eat one and it is really rubbery and tastes really weird. So i ask the hermana what they are (bad mistake). Something i have learned is never to ask the hermana what is in the food. You just eat as fast as you can. So she tells me corazon del pollo. Oh i say, its chicken heart... ya, so now i have the knowledge of what i am eating. That makes it 10 times harder to eat it. Neadless to say, i ate all 6 of the chicken hearts in the bowl and the hermana was very happy!!

So marcelo, the guy i told you guys about that we had the baptizmal date with, we are having lots of problems with him. He is still living with his girlfriend and he wont move out. We have taught him and taught him but he wont. Then we found out that his girlfriend, who also wants to be baptized, might be pregnant... so ya we are having a lot of trouble and we dont know what to do. They had relations before we started teaching them but if she is pregnant then there is no way that they are going to separate. So they are still reading and praying and coming to church but they most likely wont be baptized for a long long time. 

Besides that we have a bunch of little kids that we are teaching that will be baptized soon. It is so fun to teach them, kids here are hillarious. We have daniel, nacho, vanessa, and nicolas. We watch the book of mormon stories that are cartoons with them and they love it. Nicolas is going to be baptized in the next 2 weeks and he is way excited. I love the gospel, i love it more and more every day. I am learning so much and having a blast doing it. I love hearing from you guys. Keep it up and have a awesome 4th of july. I will be kinda trunky but its all good. Jesucristo vive!!! Les quiero mucho mucho. 

Love

Elder hall

the word of wisdom, the sabbath day and the law of chastity...

Hey fam how is everything goin? 

All is well here in chile. That is so cool about garrett. I am so so so glad that he is alright. Tell him that he is awesome and that he has a mission to fulfill, the lord doesnt want him to go to his eternal home yet. I know that miracles still happen and it is always awesome to see them. So i havent gotten the package...still but i think it will be here tomorrow when we get mail...or the next Tuesday or sometime in the near future hahah.

So this week was a really weird week. First off it was a blast from the past. My comp when on divisions with this other elder in our district and guess who was my comp for a day...elder carpenter, my comp from the mtc. So that was really interesting cause i had to lead the sector and talk to everyone and really see if i could speak and understand spanish. It was awesome cause i did it!!! I am still alive and we did a lot of good that day. I could comunicate with the people and understand and everything. It was so much fun to see how much i have grown and how much more i know since i have been out of the mtc. I can speak a different language, crazy!!!

So that was fun, but this week has been really hard...i dont want to lie to you guys so i will have to confess my sins. Me and my comp broke a couple commandments this week. We broke the word of wisdom, the sabbath day and the law of chastity... now before you freak out let me explain myself. 

So first, the sabbath day. We went to church and we were waiting and waiting for our progressing investagator, marcelo to come to church. He didnt come so we went in and had sacrament meeting. Then after sacrament we found out that he is at the ferria, which is breaking the sabbath day...so we decided to go and get him. So we sluffed out on church and went to find him. We finally found him and got him to church but by that time church was almost over, but we got him and we tried to help him so its all good. 

What next, oh ya the law of chastity. So we were walking along and we were doing contacts in the street. We decided to contact this lady so we did. We talked to her and she was really nice and said that she wanted us to come over and teach her. So we got her dirrections and my comp shook her hand and she leaned in to kiss him. Then it was my turn so i new that she was goin to try to kiss me. So i shook her hand and pulled the stiff arm move like a linebacker but that was no good (she was a strong little granny). She broke the stiff arm move and started getting closer so i leaned back and started dodging. Remember it was my goal to not get kissed my whole mission so i was trying my hardest. Finally she found my weak spot and with unhuman speed she got me...ya well its not really breaking the law of chastity but for a missionary it is...

Ok now last but not least, the word of wisdom. We went over to a recent converts house to teach them. They offered us these home made chocolate things that were really good. So we taught them and then we ended and had 20 mins before our next appt so we decided to help them make some more sweets cause that is what they did for a living. So we wanted to do some service and have a little fun. So we are sitting there making this chocolate candy thing, talking and laughing and the hermano asks me to pass him this bottle. So i grab it and glance at it and it says bacardi rum, and i didnt think anything about it. Then suddenly i took a double take and realized that it says BACARDI RUM... so i ask him, you dont put this in your stuff do you? And he says, of course i do, it makes them taste better... so i ask him, you cook the alcohol out right. He says, no it would taste nasty if you cooked the alcohol out...so we realized that we had eaten a couple of these things that that we have broken the word of wisdom without even realizing it. Lets just say that we taught them the word of wisdom over again cause aparenty they thought as long as you dont drink it its all good...

So there was my week of commandment breaking. The missionaries are breaking the commandments that they are preaching. Haha it is awesome. So i dont know if i have told you this but our pension is freezing. It is seriously a freezer. It is colder outside then it is inside. We wake up every morning and huddle around our little heater that we have and try to do excersises. 

Lastly, we are still teaching marcelo and it is cool cause now his girl friend wants to get baptized too!!! So we are teaching them both and they are really progressing. They both came to church yesterday and are reading and praying. The only problem is that they live together and they cant get married cause she is married and is trying to get divorced but it takes like 6 to 9 months or longer to get divorced so we are working with them and trying to help them with that. They are awesome and will be baptized soon so we are excited.

It has been awesome and i am loving the work. This really was a really awesome week. I think it was the most i have done in one week on my mission. We are making a huge difference here and having a blast doing it. I love you guys tons and hope you have a great week. The church is true and i am going to repent of my sins dont worry. Love you guys. Keep praying and choosing the right. 

Love

Elder hall

new area called villa sur

hola familia buenas días de villa sur!!

Or for you who dont speak espanish, hello family. good morning from the south village. things are going great. so last tuesday we had transfers and that is where i met my new comp. his name is elder reece. He is from st george. He is really cool and we get along really well. I am in a new area called villa sur. It is in the city of santiago. Santiago is so huge it is incredible. About half of the population in chile lives in the city. So we have a huge sector but it is so cool. 

The first day that i arrived here was so weird. The city is a million times different than the country where i was. There are drunk people everywhere, girls catcalling, guys swearing, buses, cars, people everywhere...it is insane. But i love it, it is a lot more fun than melipilla. We have a great sector, there is going to be a lot of progress here. Already the second day i got here we taught this guy named marcello and i put a baptisimal date with him!!! It is awesome, he is goin to be baptized in 3 weeks. Also we found like 4 kids that are awesome and their parents are less active but want them to be baptized so we are goin to teach them and then see how that goes. 

This past Thursday we went into the middle of the city to get what is called my carne which is like my citenzship here. So that took like 5 hours. We had to literally go all around the city signing papers, taking my finger prints and my pics and waiting in tons and tons of lines. But finally i am legally a citizen of chile. Also when we were there i found something that i have been lacking for the last 5 months...SUBWAY!!! oh man, that made me so trunky. It was amazing and i will have to send ya some pics. It has been a long time since i have tasted my sweet onion chicken teriaki. It was pretty expensive and not as good as the states but it was amazing!!!

Dad, about that news that you sent me, garrett, that hit me really hard. That is so so so sad. You said you didnt know why he did it? I hope that he will be ok, i will be praying for him. Make sure you tell him fam that everything will be all right. Tell them that i am thinking about him and that i love them. Also this week i had this weird feeling that i should ask about adam. How is he doing? I hope he is ok. I have been praying for him and i hope that he knows that i love him. It doesnt matter what he is doing right now, everything will work out. 

So it was cool cause this week we got arrested by the carbeneros. They are like the police here but they dont really do anything...jk i didnt get arrested, settle down mom, i guess we are friends with them so they gave us a ride from one side of our sector to the other, it was really cool and hilarious to see the looks from our neighbors. The missionaries riding around with the fuz...it was a blast. 

So it is cool, there is a thing here that they do like 2 times a week. It is called the feria. It is when they shut down a whole street and they sell everything like a flee market. They seriously have everything. Shirts, food, knifes, candy, cloths, basically everything you can think of. So that is way cool. Everything is really cheap and it is fun to look around. 

Well i cant really think of anything else. I am excited to be here and i am sure i will be here for a while. This change we get to go to the temple with president and so i am way excited to do that. I love the temple so much and it will be a blast to see how it is in spanish. 

Les amo mucho!! Cuidase mucho y seguir escribiéndome. Se que Jesucristo vive y yo estoy en la obra del Señor. A veces es muy difícil pero se que yo tengo los ángeles cerca yo. La obra esta creciendo y todo esta bien en chile!!!! Excito!!!! 

(i love you guys tons. Take care and keep on writting me. I know that jesus christ lives and i am in the work of the lord. Some times it is hard but i know that i have the angels about me. The work is growing and all is well in chile. Sucess!!!)

Love ya tons 

Elder hall

pink slippers...yes pink

hey dad and mom and fam!!! 

it is good to hear from ya. i am glad you got the package and everything in there worked. the cd worked right? you were able to get off all the videos and pictures and stuff? i am glad everyone enjoyed their gifts. sorry its not that much but its the thought that counts right? and the "game" the candy that i sent, i love it. it is my favorite candy here. it is so amazing. it is manjar and these cookies and of course chocolate. i bought that box that i sent you guys and it was full of game at first but that didnt last very long. 

and it sounds like you had a great time on your ym campout. Everything here in melipilla is amazing. I am loving being a missionary and waking up every morning and being able to go preach the gospel to the world. It was cool cause with this one investagator we have been having a hard time with her understanding authority and priesthood and all that so i brought my priesthood line with me and showed her and it really helped but i need to get it in spanish cause she didnt understand anything but the names. But i will do that later. 

One thing that i have noticed here is that no one smiles. We were driving in a bus to go somewhere and i looked out the window and i tried to count how many smiles i saw in the middle of the city...i counted like 5 on a long bus ride. It is so sad and i hate it. But now i realize why we look so different to the people here. We have the gospel and we are happy. They reconigze this because it is weird to see 2 ym walking along the street with smiles on their faces. 

We had an incredible experience. We got to go to the hospital here in melipilla to visit a investagators son who has been having problems with drugs. So we went and i was so surprized on how clean it was. I was expecting dirt and grime and crap all over the place but it was a lot cleaner than i thought. It is definately not as clean as the hospitals at home but it was not that bad. Anyways we went and visited this guy and he had been there for a week and he was doing a lot better but he was starting to get bored. So he asked us if we had anything for him to read...we said that we did and gave him a book of mormon and he was really excited and said that he would start reading it imediatly. 

Then we decided since we were in a hospital me might as well go and see if there was anything more we could do. So we went and started walking around. All the sudden this lady comes running out and asks us if we can come say a prayer for her dad cause he is dying. And she wasnt a member, she was catholic but she wanted us to come pray for him. So we did and she said that after the prayer she felt a lot more calm and felt like everything was goin to be all right. So we kept walking around and we went into this room with like 7 people who were just in their beds and we decided to sing a hymn to maybe raise their spirits...or with our singing we could put them out of their misery...jk that was bad but ya it was awesome. We sang and they seemed like they were a lot happier when we left. I dont know wheither or not it was because we were leaving and had stopped singing but they were happier. 

This past Friday was way cool. We did divitions cause my comp is a district leader so he left and this latin missionary, elder villon, came and was my comp for the day. It was so cool cause the only thing he could say in english is “what passes crazy” so for the whole day i had to speak spanish. It was awesome. We had a great day and he understood basically everything i said. It is so crazy how fast i have learned spanish. I have tons and tons still to learn but 5 months ago i could say hola and that was it. Now i can hold on a convo with someone who doesnt speak english. It is awesome. 

We went to this house and i was about to go in when i realized that i had a huge piece of dog crap on my shoe. So i took off my shoes and was about to go into the house and all the sudden this hermana comes out with some pink slippers...yes pink. So i taught a lesson to her less active son in pink slippers. I felt really weird but at the same time something just felt right about it...jk but seriously the mission is awesome, you do everything and see everything.

Last but definately not least, yesterday was the last day of this change. So that means that someone was probably going to leave. So all 4 of the missionaries in our pension were sitting there around the phones waiting to hear who was goin to leave and who was goin to stay. Finally at like 10:30 our zone leaders called and told us that we had changes. Elder mecham is leaving and so am i. I am leaving my home in melipilla. It is so sad i love it here but i think it is time for a change. 

So today for pday i am goin to spend time going to all the members houses and saying bye. I am goin to pack, take pics and get all ready for tomorrow. Then tomorrow at 9 all the missionaries in our mission who have changes are goin to meet in santiago at the temple. The president will give me a name of my new comp, i will meet him and we will take off to our new pension and sector. I am not goin to lie, i am way nervous but excited at the same time. I am pretty sure that i am goin to get a latin comp and its goin to be really hard but i am excited for more experiences. 

And finally i am not a greenie anymore!!!! That is so crazy, i am officially a regular missionary. That is good and bad. Now i know a lot and i know spanish, mas or menos, and i am a lot more comfortable here. But the bad part is now i dont have any excuses when i mess up or do something that i am not suppost to do. I cant say, “sorry i am a greenie i dont know what i am doing” but its all good i am way excited. 

Well that is it for now. I will let you guys know how everything goes and who my new comp is and all the new and exciting experiences i will be having this week. Pray for me please cause i need all the help i can get. I love you guys so so so much. Happy fathers day pops. I dont know when it is but i hope ya have a great day!!!

Love you guys tons

Elder hall

PS. hey mom i just got your letter and it is almost time to get off so i will write ya a short one and the one i sent to dad is for the fam. first of all yes i got my garment tops back so that is all good. but if you wanted to you could send me another pair. it is always good to have garments. i am glad you guys got my package and everything worked. make sure to save the cd and dont lose it cause i am goin to delete all my pics. tell tyson that he is awesome and he is great example for me. tell him i love him and that i know what he feels like. being a missionary totally changes everything in your life. but i love ya mom i gotta go but have a great day.

PPS. mom sorry i almost forgot. it is your bday on the 12!!! happy bday mom. i love ya tons. i hope you have a great day and just know that your long lost son, elder hall, will be thinking about ya. i hope you have an amazing day. love ya tons. you are so awesome. bye mom :)

Awkward....

Hello family. 

How ya doing? All is well in melipilla. It has been a crazy week. We got to go to this city called taliganta for a conference with president jones. It was awesome. I love president so much he is awesome. One of my first assistants to the president was goin home so it was his last zone conference. He is tongan and he is so cool. He played on the byu team before his mission and so you will have to watch for him cause he said he is goin to play for them after the mission too. His name is elder tenifa. He is awesome. Anyways him and my “grandpa” elder talogo who also played for byu did the hauka for us. It was so awesome, i got it on my camera so i will have to send it to ya one of these days. But what was even cooler than that, president did it with them!!! It was so awesome, president jones is the man. 

Ya so you guys can send me pics i hope ya know...i would like to see some pics of my future motorcylce and of the dog and things that are goin on. I was goin to send some pics but this stupid computer is being dumb and i have a stupid keyboard and ya...anyways it is awesome. So yesterday at church i was looking through my english scripture case and i found this letter that dad wrote me like 2 years ago and i dont even know why you wrote it. But it just said how proud you were of me and how you couldnt wait for me to go on a mission and all this stuff. I couldnt help it but i just started bawling during sacrament meeting. I am sure that all the members thought that i was crazy... but ya it was so cool and i could feel your love for me as if you were right there. 

So one of the pictures i was goin to send ya before my computer went stupid was of me and my McElder. It is something that i make pretty much every morning. It is this amazing bread here with a egg, ham, cheese and some catchup, i have no clue how to spell that... ya it is amazing!!! You still need to send me some recipies of easy to make stuff that is fast and simple. Like dinners or deserts. This past tues i sent you guys a package so you should get it this week or next i hope. It has all the pictures in it that were on my camera. So if you could make sure you can get the pictures off the cd and onto the computer and they all work that would be awesome. Then let me know so i can get that off my mind. 

This week we were coming back from somewhere on the bus with my whole zone and we were just sitting there. I was sitting by myself and my comp was with another missionary behind us. These 2 girls, probably 16 or less, get on the bus and one of them sits down next to me and so i am trapped next to the window. So i was like hola and i scoot all the way to the window that i can. I start reading the conference ensign and she starts scooting closer and closer to me...so i keep reading and try to ignore her. I can feel her staring at me and i didnt know what to do. I could hear my comp laughing his head off behind me and i could feel my face going red. At this point she is seriously resting her head on my shoulder and reading the ensign. So i try to start talking to her and try to create space. So i tried talking to her but she would just giggle and say something that i didnt understand. But luckily at this point we came to melipilla. I seriouly jumped over her and ran for the exit. It was so akward and my zone wont let it go. They just keep on bringing it up and laughing at the greenie. Ya so that was my akward story for the week. 

Another strange thing that happened is i now have 2 garment tops...we got our cloths last night from this sister in our ward who cleans them. I get to the house and look and all my garment tops are gone. So we call her and she says that she gave them to me...so pretty much this sister has stolen my garments from a missionary... ya so today we are going to talk to her and see if i cant find my garments. I better be able to cause if she cant find them then i will have to go to santiago and buy garment tops. And what stinks more about that, they only have the celestial smile garment tops, the kind that dad wears. So ya i am goin to “bajar la cañe” or “drop the cane” on this hermana. Ya so that is exciting.

Yesterday we taught this guy who was a return missionary and a bishop for 5 years. Now he is excomunicated and cant come back to church because of his work. He is awesome, he has such a strong testimony of the gospel but he wont give up his job. I dont know how you can go on a mission, through the temple and be a bishop then lose it all for a stupid job. He knows the church is true, he just wont choose the lord over his job. I hate seeing people like that. It happens so much down here. You will have a bishop who will steal the tithing or do stupid stuff like that. So lots of the missionary work here is trying to help less active members get back to church. In our ward we have 800 members but only 100 come to church. And even members of the church who go to church sometimes dont even about joseph smith. 

The other day we taught this lady who has been a member for about 3 years and she goes to church a lot. She didnt know anything about joseph smith, tithing or basic things about the church like the word of wisdom. It is so sad but we are goin to change this. The missionaries in the past use to play investagators in ping pong and if they lost they would have to be baptized...i couldnt belive it when i heard this but seeing that the members dont know anything, i can believe it. The missionaries use to be so chueco, they would go to the members house and watch movies with them and play the guitar and stuff like that. No wonder they raised the bar. 

But ya, it is hard cause we find these awesome people and they want to be baptized and then the next week they dont even want to listen to us anymore. People come and go so fast. I never thought it would be like that but it is. So because of this we have to be finding new investagators every day. 

Time has flyed by. It feels like i just got to chile a couple days ago. I realized how precious every second is. I have tried to step up my efforts and make all i can out of every second. Tell tyson that i am proud of him and he is a great example. 

Well i better go but i love you all tons. I think about ya tons. Hope you have a great summer and we go into winter...thats 2 winters in a row but i am not goin to complain. Haha you guys are awesome. Tori, you better write me or...ya just write me. Tell everyone hi and that the work is progressing. 

With tons of love

Elder hall