February 21, 2011

Well nothing new.   Patrick, who we have been teaching, is 16 and is a musician and artist, so me and him get along great. He loves Paramore and sketched Boyd K Packer on Sunday.  (We had a satellite broadcasted stake conference and he was the speaker) and it looked freakin’ amazing. But Patrick is an evangelic (like 95% of Lebu) and his girl friend goes with him to that Church so we just need to get her to come with use and I’m sure it would all be better.

But ya, this week was normal and there is nothing to report honestly, kind of bland. Me and Elder Elder went on a split together, went to the highest part of Lebu and took some pictures, then hitch hiked down. It was fun; a 14 year old with no license drove us back.

We bug bombed the house and the fleas are still biting.

We have a new investigator who lived in Spain the last 2 years for work. She studied with the Jehovah witness´ for a few weeks but had doubts. We showed her that Jehovah is not God but Jesus, and that God is the father, Jesus is separate and the son, and the Holy Ghost is also separate. She loves learning and loved church so she is great, we haven’t taught her a specific lesson yet because she just keeps asking questions which are awesome and we love, but we have given her the restoration pamphlet and the plan of salvation pamphlet. She has read them I think, and loves them. So she is awesome. She has a kid but the dad is back in Spain so there is no issue like that. We aren’t sure if she smokes or drinks yet so we need to find that out. She has a baptismal date for next month. She wants to take it slow and “know all she can about the religion" before she gets baptized. But hey,  at least she has a date, we love that and it’s always great to be able to report on Sunday. Lebu has some great people, you just have to really work hard to find them, and it’s so hard to do that sometimes, but we are doing our best.

Elder Elder will likely be leaving Lebu in 3 weeks when cambios are so that will be super sad cause I love the guy and we always do inter cambios because we get along great.

I don’t know what else to report because it was so normal. A butt load of contacts that got us no one, lots of slammed doors, sunburns, and a few awesome lessons with Patrick and the woman from Spain. Our investigator well is not very full, but that the life of a missionary huh?

Here are the answers to your questions for this week
Has the weather started to turn to fall yet?Possibly, I don’t know, apparently Lebu is weird compared to everywhere else because it’s on the ocean and all

How cold will it get there in the winter?
I hear very very very cold. and rainy. so exactly like Oregon. I’m excited

Are there any grocery stores there?Yah but not like you know in the states, the only thing refrigerated is coke and beer. Milk eggs and cheese are just on shelves. it’s weird. and expensive.

 What do you make for breakfast, lunch and dinner?Depends if the members feed us. I make a lot of cereal (but without sugar in the milk it’s not bearable.) and eggs. because eggs cooked are amazing. and no one has dinner here. so no dinner. but they have a form of coffee that’s ok to drink, not against mission rules or WOW called echo. its soooo good mom, hahaha I drink that at night a lot.

Everything still OK?  Yes,  you could say that. kind of ready to leave Lebu and move on, but scared to at the same time.

Still staying well?
For now yes, as it gets cold though, no promises.

 Is the language coming along any better?Apparently I speak better but I don’t feel it. so I say no, but some companions say yes, I don’t really think so at all.

Do you try to speak Spanish in your home? 
There are 4 gringos living in the same house, what do you think? hahaha no we don’t speak Spanish. it’s just what happens when you get us together because we speak Spanish all day

Love you all so much, and miss you like crazy

Love Elder Kyle Allen

Monday February 14, 2011 Happy Valentine's Day!

Living as a four-some does if fee like a party house? 
YES, but shhhh pres can’t find out! Just kidding, but it’s really fun being with 3 other green-go´s for sure!

How is the cooking going? 
Whelp, its fun, haaha. It’s good; I did it a lot in college which was good. But there are also no fast food places here at all so that stinks and it’s kind of annoying but just means I have to really cook. It’s fine, I like to and all, but the cleaning isn’t so fun.

Have you told Elder Elder that I read his blog?  Creepy?
Course I have!
And I quote from Elder Elder directly as he stands over my shoulder "well I feel a little violated from the fact that a lady, that I completely don’t know, is reading about me on the internet. But it’s cool beans."  So there you have it mom, straight from Elder Elder himself, no joke.

We went to the beach again today, but we also went to the caves this week not just the beach and they were sick! I loved them and the waves were crazy and all. But all the rocks killed my ankle so I didn’t play football with all the guys and all but that’s ok, I got sunburned all the same.

We had interviews with president as you heard and that was awesome, he’s and great guy and I don’t want him to leave in July.

We had what, 12 earthquakes the past 3 days? Something like that. Yah they are so fun. No damage, these houses are built for that kind of thing, but it was crazy still. I was on my bed, it has wheels and my room has tile floor, and my bed started to move across the room, I stood up and started to surf it. I know the earthquake is still fresh in the minds of the people here (especially with the movie that will come out only in Chile, of the earthquake, in a few weeks on the anniversary of the quake) but come on, enjoy the ride right? I did at least.

We had 2 baptismal dates for this coming Saturday and we’re teaching them and prepping them for that, and Wednesday we went to their house and saw no one was home. For that family, that NEVER happens, so we asked the neighbors about it, and they said they went to Santiago for the month and won’t be back till next month. They just up and left.  It devastated us, so we won’t be baptizing that family this month.

We do have an awesome investigator named Patrick.  I think I mentioned him last week. He contact us and asked us for a pamphlet and said he had a green one (Andrew guess which one that is!!!!!)
3...
2...
1........
times up Andrew! The correct answer is plan of salvation, 25 mission points if you got that one right, I got it right when he asked, I was so proud.

We visited with him and he is awesome, he even changed into nice cloths to look like us on Sunday, hahha even ward members for years didn’t look as good as him. But he has a girlfriend and they may have some challenges with the law of chastity.  We shall see.  I think he wants to be baptized, he has a date I just hope he doesn’t fall through as well; we will hang with him a lot this week because he is so fun and funny and knows a little bit of English. Oh and he plays the drums and get this, he is learning the piano and bought a book with "classical" music, the book ended up being a Mormon hymn book. Ironic???

Amy Brinkerhoff sent me their Christmas card.  Please thank them. That was very nice of her to think of me, cause I miss Amytime, no joke.

Oh, I have to thank Denise for the gift card.  She sent me another one of those 25$ MasterCard cards and I was reading the back of it, and it says something like, "accepted in all US locations that accept MasterCard." It was sweet and I appreciate her gift but I don’t think it will work here. Unfortunately, the country of Chile is one of the few US locations that does not accept MasterCard, go figure. But thank her please.  I will try and find a way to use it. 

All this has been fun, yes I’m slightly happy today because it is Valentine’s Day and all and the best gift ever on this holiday is freaking hearing from family.

Anyway, love you all, have a great holiday and I miss you all dearly!!!

Kyle

I´m feeling much better after those pills I got from Hermana Swenson.

My last week wasn’t that great because we took the week to show the sector and meet investigators. Unfortunately, we didn’t teach much, and it was sanctification week (first week of a new cambio) so we had to get 200 contacts and that took up a lot of time because we already have investigators we need to work on, and we didn’t have time for that, but did it anyway because my comp is district leader and we need to set an example for our district (FYI, I hate contacts more than anything).

My companion is Elder Gibbs, did you not like the NCIS joke last week because I thought it was very cleaver. He is from Utah like 85% of all the elders in the mission, so yah that’s always fun right?  He has been out the same amount as Elder Elder which is like a little over a year, I think maybe more.

This past week we had to find a new place to stay so that kept us busy. The crazy thing is that President hates 4 elders per house because it’s more of a party at night than what we should be doing, but he gave us permission to get a 4 person house. We found a really nice, for Chile, house that is in the middle of where our 2 sectors meet so we are so excited. And it’s cheaper than getting 2 houses so it’s like a win-win, right? So now I get to live with Elder Elder for a cambio, so that’s kind of awesome. We move in tomorrow after our zone meeting in cañete so that’s what tomorrow will look like for us.

We have another baptism set for the 19th for 2 kids (yah most of our investigators are kids).  The girl is very touchy feely and its slightly creepy. But they need the Gospel, right? We had a great experience last week.  A new investigator stopped us in the street and asked for a pamphlet because he had the plan of salvation one and he wanted another. It was awesome; he came to church with us, and even put on a suit. Most members don’t even dress up, so Patrick is pretty much amazing. But he has a GF and I’m sure they are living together because everyone does once they hit the age of 12 (very sad).

That’s my exciting week last week, it was really long and slow actually so not very exciting I’m sorry but that’s what happens when you get a cambio, I’m sure you understand that.

Oh the pics, we hit up the sunset at the beach here in Lebu, because it’s in our sector and we wanted to see if there was anyone living in the houses along the beach (maybe a good place for 4 missionaries?). The answer was no, but the view was beautiful. Even if we looked for people longer than in any other street,  hahaha

Love you all, got the package last Monday I forgot to mention because I was at the office, thank you so much, the fruit wraps were amazing, and people now agree that organic can be good.

Love you all