"Missionary Training Center life is OK"

we have hardly anytime to write so if i don’t respond to you personally, i am so sorry!!!

MTC life is ok. the days are just soooooo long. there isn’t enough room in the MTC so we are staying in a huge house about 10 minutes away and get bused over every day. we are staying in the first building the church bought in chile. its really old but in good condition. there are about 25 of us staying there.

like i said, the days are long. we get to the mtc at 10am and leave at 10pm. that is a solid 12 hour day. they are good about giving us breaks but its is so hard to concentrate. i thought that more of the day was going to be focused on learning spanish, but we only spend an hour and a half on spanish. all of the teachers are from chile so their english isn’t that good but they still do pretty well. we have 2 teachers in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, and 2 at night. some are better than others.

everyday we have fake investigators that we have to teach in spanish.. it is so hard because i literally know nothing. if i didn’t have my comp, i would be lost. he knows a lot more than me so that helps a lot! it is just such a humbling experience.

the food isn’t great. it doesn’t taste very good and it messes with your stomach big time, but i think i am starting to adjust ok. the bread, though, is amazing!! if there wasn’t bread here, i would starve. but don’t worry i do have a salad at every meal mom.

my companion is pretty cool. he is from mesa arizona.  he just turned 18 last month so he is pretty young. he is super smart. he graduated high school a year early and did college. it is hard to keep up with him sometimes. he is way different than me but that is good. he is so eager to learn and is always super happy. i have a lot to learn from him.

my district is awesome. we are starting to get pretty close. they are super chill to be around. the chile mtc is the only mtc in the world that lets missionaries walk around the city on P-day. our district walked around the city and went to the big store to get snacks. it was a good experience.

today we get to go to the temple which i am happy about.

i haven’t struggled with home sickness at all although, i think about how easy it was back at home all the time. it is really hard here and i get frustrated a lot. but i have learned so much this week. i know that there is no where that i am supposed to be right now then chile.

i know that this church is true and i love my Savior,  Jesus Christ.

A replica of Bertel Thorvaldsen’s Christus statue.

First Pictures from Chile

Layover in the Atlanta Airport on their way to Chile

MTC District

"I'm here in Chile!"

Family and friends,

so, i am here in chile! i made it safely. i met up with other elders and sister along the way.  in total, there were about 8 of us... i will send pictures later.

in the last two days i have had about 3 hours of sleep and still haven't had a real meal. they gave us a fake dinner on the plane which wasn’t that good but, it helped. after we landed, we had to go through security which basically meant people where yelling at us in spanish and they were getting really frustrated because we wouldn’t obey. i guess it’s going to be like this for the next 6 months. then we met some church worker that drove us to a mission housing place. we will be staying here rather than the mtc cause there isn’t enough room in the mtc (missionary training center). things are a lot different down here. the drivers are terrible! no one knows how to drive. i swear i almost saw 6 accidents on the way over here. things look ok...i should survive. i have to go and i love you all!

There is a documentary of that follows the lives of two brothers over the period of twenty years.  One of the brothers was called to serve a mission to Chile.   On the clip below, it shows some of his experiences in Chile.  As I watched the clip, I thought about Sam having the same experiences in Chile.  

The continuing story of the earthquake in Chile:

You can also see the clip by clicking here.   

You can find the clip on episode 4 between 0:30-2:40