April 25, 2011

So today is the last day of this 3rd cambio, 2nd with Gibbs. And guess what, I found out I am being transferred. Not terribly far, but I’m leaving Lebu, my 1st sector, crazy huh? I don’t know if you can tell but I’m trying to mess with you and hold off telling you where I’m going as long as I can because it’s funny. Well I can’t make it that long, here we go: I´m going to Lota.

The sector is called Lota Medio. The Zone Leaders are in Lota Bajo and we will be living with them, in an apartment so that should be fun. My companion is Elder Jackson, and I still have not had a Latino companion yet, hahaha, the only one in my district from the MTC, it’s a record. But the cool thing about Lota is that its only like 1-1.5 hours from Concepcion so I can go there any P-day I want to. So I can go to the office and get mail or packages that day, and I can chill in a huge city in Chile, and not just be stuck in small Lebu. I’m excited, especially because Gibbs told me that Jackson was his favorite companion and me and Gibbs have been having a blast so we should have a good time, me and Jackson. Plus the 2 Zone Leaders aren’t Latino either so I’m in another English house. Crazy!

So me and Gibbs found a frog this week and of course took some pictures with it, it became our pet for about 15minutes before we set it free in the back yard because we needed the pot to cook some food, hahahaha. Don’t worry I cleaned it after.



This week we pretty much said our goodbyes because I had a feeling I was leaving, so it was more of a visiting week, we talked to Stephanie a lot, but she didn’t go to church yesterday because her son got sick again. That was very very hard. She just needs to go one more time and she hasn’t. It’s tough to take because I have been working with her for 2 cambios. It’s just tough. I had to say goodbye to her as well and leave her unbaptized. But hey, I left a for sure for the next elder so he better be thankful. It’s just super sad because me and Gibbs wanted to baptize so bad together but hey that’s life, and life happens right?

I said goodbye to my favorite family too, that was very hard. Very few families actually stuck out and were nice and helpful and loving, but Jessica and her family did. Digna is Jessica´s mom, and Jessica´s daughter is Camila. They were so nice and fun and helpful. I loved going over there with Gibbs because they would always give us food when we didn’t eat anything that day. But yah I will miss them for sure, and I want to come down and visit sometime before I go home, all 18months in the future.

So Easter Sunday was yesterday and man did that make me miss home, because it was NOTHING like home. Starts off with church. So at home there are some great talks and songs about the season and all that right? Well, the missionaries spoke for this branch. I gave a 2 minute thank you and goodbye talk, and said in the most broken Spanish ever that all the blessings I have are because of the sacrifice we are celebrating today, type of thing. It was tough and very nerve wrecking as I’m sure you could guess. And the talks were to be on the missionary work, so nothing really about the day. Then we went home and saw that the other elders had lunch with a family and we didn’t. So we looked around the kitchen to see what we could make, and noticed we had nothing, so my Easter lunch consisted of Chile's version of ramin noodles. A little different than ham huh? We then went and said my goodbyes to families and were given some French fries and eggs at Jessica´s house. Which is an amazing combination just so you know egg over easy and some fresh homemade French fries. But yah that’s what I ate all day, interesting huh. It just didn’t feel like Easter, it was kind of sad; I missed the Easter back in the states.

But today I think we will just be hanging out with the Lebu Boyz because we are all being split up tomorrow. I’m going up to Lota and Steele is going all the way down to Temuco. Way far. And Gibbs is staying put, so yah. We might go to the beach one last time, although I have a beach in Lota so I’m not missing out. 

The weather this week was crazy. Its more bi-polar here than Utah, and you know how crazy that place is. It rained very hard every other day, and the other days it was sunny. When it rained it was something like 40degrees and when it was sunny it was something like 85degrees. So crazy. But yes those coats are amazing, everyone else gets wet but I don’t it’s awesome, it’s so great to be Oregon prepared. And I got some rain pants, don’t know if I told you that, but I did so no need to worry about that, because I got some. They are very blue though and its funny with the black jackets, but whatever, I’m dry. The timberland shoes work good for about 3-4 hours of rain, but any more and the water gets in. I know that will happen with any shoe, but just so you know. They are good if it’s not an all day rain. I might get some rain boots in Lota if it gets bad. But that is where I will be spending the winter, so yah, my first summer was Lebu and my first winter was Lota.

I also am almost out of money for the month so I might be taking some out of my account today for my trip up to Concepcion tomorrow.  But yah that’s an FYI.

That was my week. So Andrew, are you now doing spring term? That sounds... fun, hahaha burn out stinks so don’t let that happen, have lots of fun, por favor. oh and go to that water park in Provo I think its Thursdays that they have the last 2 hours of the park open for like 5$ and it’s so much fun, look into that, because that place is fun for the cheap days. 

Trevor, Prom, wow. Big bro. way to go. Don’t make my mistake and listen to your date about directions downtown, hahaha. (You know it was funny Alyssa and made our night )

But yah, thanks for everything, have a great day, and I will update you next week from Lota!

And then mother’s day is soon, can’t wait for that either!

Love you all

Elder Kyle Allen

April 18, 2011

Next Tuesday is transfers so I think that I am leaving Lebu, but I won’t know until this Saturday so I have no idea yet. A lot of things could happen as you all very well know, I could leave, I could stay, Gibbs could leave or stay, we could both leave or stay, and Lebu 2 could be closed completely.  So yah a lot of mystery this week.

Well, we visited Stephanie a lot a lot this week. She said every day we visited that she would go to church on Sunday, and followed all of the challenges that we left her. Like always, because she is amazing. But on Sunday morning we got a call from her, and she said that Simus (her son) was sick again and that she was taking him to the hospital. So we didn’t have her in church, and she still only has 2 assists so we can’t baptize her because she needs 3. So this combio me and Gibbs got beat, again. We can’t baptize her and count it for this combio so yah, we will be leaving a golden investigator for whoever is here next. We are very sad about this, but we aren’t going to rush to baptize her next Monday because that’s not in her best interests.  Anyway, so the baptism is off, but she will be baptized, no doubt about it, and she will be an amazing branch member. I’m excited for her to do that, eventually.

So last week was a lot of talking to Stephanie and we visited Jessica´s mom Digna and talked to her a lot. She is progressing because she is opening up to us and asking questions and goes to church every week with her daughter, but she won’t be a convert anytime soon because she is old and is a little hard headed. She doesn’t want to change anything. But yah, we´ve watched the Joseph Smith movie with her and I think she felt something, but I’m not sure.

But yah it was a really uneventful week full of nothing really exciting.

Today we went to the beach because the weather is going to start getting really bad. Fall is starting so the rain season is beginning, and I’m not going to lie, rain as a missionary is miserable. It soaks you to the core and no one is outside, and no one wants to go to church. Ugh, its brutal. But, everyone is envious of my amazing rain jackets, they all have ones made here in Chile and they aren’t repellent like mine, mine beads up and runs off, and their's kind of soak in. plus they look really dumb, it’s funny, like big blue gnomes.

But yes, we had a zone activity today and played football on the beach. Lebu vs. Cañete pretty much. It was fun, my ankle started acting up but I wanted to play so I played through it, probably not the best, I have a feeling tonight I will be paying for that choice. But we won, it was awesome. It was also way funny watching Latinos try to understand football American that is. We pretty much used them to run the kick returns and the running plays because they are very agile little people. But can’t catch or throw worth beans. Way funny.

Me and Gibbs also found these sand dunes in our sector that are tall and that we like to run and jump off. It’s so awesome, you get very high and then fall way fast and have to roll to not get hurt. Hahaha. Well Gibbs does it more than I do because I’m very protective of my ankle.

But yah, so we are going to have a calm week, and have some fun, the internet has been weird here so I’ll try to upload pictures if I can but if I don’t sorry. Chile is weird like that I guess.

Well I love you all, stay safe, let the newly called missionaries know that’s awesome from me, and seriously seriously SERIOUSLY enjoy the states. You very possibly could have a car, you will most likely always be in a ward not a branch, you will always have meals from members and if not, you have restaurants all around you can go to. And you get to speak English, yah learning a new language is nice and exciting, but I feel worthless as a comp at 6 months because I still struggle with it. Like Erik told me, sometimes, you just wish you could say what you really want to and you can’t. Anyway, congrats to them. But, they don’t get to say "ya po!" so ha! Stinks for them.

well I love you all, have a great week, stay safe, stay sweet, stay classy

love you all
Elder Kyle Allen

April 11, 2011




Elder Lundgreen and Elder Allen

 Well today we had a zone activity and went to a place that in English would be named eagle rock, I think. I don’t remember the name in Spanish either but I know I took a picture of the place so look there for where I went. The cool thing about it is that from the top you can see the mountains that separate Chile and Argentina on one side, and the ocean of Chile on the other. If it was a better day it would have been perfect for pictures, but we did the best with not being able to plan and see the weekly forecast and all.  But yah, that was so much fun, minus the whole putting 14 missionaries in a minivan and driving up a dirt and gravel road for about 2-3 hours. Ha-ha we stopped a few times because some people had to throw up, the funny thing, is that all the people that threw up were Latinos, weak huh?  But the view was amazing! I wish I had my SLR because point and shoot cameras just don’t do it justice, at all. It was an amazing view. We had lunch up there and had some fun.

Mountains between Argentina and Chile

So this week we got a call out of the blue from Patrick, who we haven’t heard from in weeks. He said he was in the hospital and wanted to see us. We went over and found out he has blockage in his colon and intestines and is in the hospital for 2 weeks. Poor kid, he is 16 years old. Anyway, we visited him of course and gave him a blessing, we will visit him again this week, but it was a nice shock to see him calling us.

We had interviews with President this week in Lebu and that was awesome. He is so amazing and really knows what he is saying. I don’t want him or sister Swenson to leave. Because Sister Swenson is one of the sweetest people I know, and has really helped me lately. But yah it was a fun interviews. The assistants had this contacting bingo game we played and it was so much fun. There were types of contacts we had to do written down and types of people we needed to contact, but they were things like, that have 5 kids, and stuff like that so we had to find out. Anyway, it was a really fun way to contact and we actually contacted a huge amount. Our whole zone did it, so Lebu1 (where everyone contacted) has so many references its ridiculous and we didn’t get any, sad day.

We also had to move our baptism of Stephanie back because she didn’t go to church Sunday. Her grandmother is a member of the church and she is not a good influence on her. She is inactive and wants Stephanie to investigate the church for 6months like she did before she got baptized. So dumb because Stephanie knows everything and believes it’s true. We want to see her baptized so bad because she is so amazing and we have worked with her so much these past two cambios. I really don’t want to leave with her not baptized, that would kill me.

So we are planning on going over to Stephanie’s house every day this week, make sure nothing happens to her or any other doubts are put into her mind by her grandmother, so we can baptize her on the 23rd, which is the last Saturday of this cambio. That’s our plan for this week, sounds awesome huh?  

We are also working with a mother of a member named Digna and she is one that doesn’t really want to change but goes to church every week with her daughter and is nice. We talk to her a lot and hope that one day it will just snap in her head. We are just building up the love for missionaries right now so they can help her in the future. But she does listen to us and ask questions so she isn’t like a dead investigator, just way way way slow and all.

Andrew, you are awesome and I love you, same with Trevor and mom dad and Tillie

Tell the ward I love them and miss being in a ward so much, ha-ha. Tell Nip I love him, and Mork and all those other guys. I miss the home ward so much, not going to lie; singing A capella in Spanish is not fun, because no one can play the piano here, ha-ha.

But yah, sorry I don’t know what else to say, hope you enjoy the pics, that was fun and all.

I love you all and miss you so much
Elder Kyle Allen

April 4, 2011

So last week’s letter was amazing, I know it won’t always be that cool. We went to Boca Lebu today with Cañete 2 which is actually now Elder Lundgreen from my MTC district. He was our first district leader in the MTC and now he is in my first zone in the field. Actually Elder Gibbs my comp is his district leader so he is in my district which is pretty sweet.



yep, im the cutest guy in chile, what now latinos

Elder Lundgreen and Elder Allen

Elder Gibbs

We had General Conference like the rest of the world this weekend which was amazing. I’m not going to lie this was the first time I was able to watch all the sessions without falling asleep during one of them, crazy huh! Yah that was my accomplishment. I was also able to take 10 pages (front and back) of notes this Conference (how I stayed awake for the whole thing). Holland’s talk was amazing as always like dad pointed out, always great to hear someone express the love I want to express for the most inspired man in the world. Oh yah and I was able to get a small class room in the building (luckily the stake center for the Lebu district is in Lebu so we didn’t have to travel anywhere) for the broadcast in English, which was the most amazing thing about the week. It’s so much easier to get what they say when you can actually understand, although that one talk about the to do and to be, I don’t think I will understand that until I get the Ensign (yah we get them dad) because it sounded like a Dr. Seuss talk when it was given, I was so lost.

Some sad news:
So this week Stephanie’s little boy got pneumonia and its super serious, they won’t let more than one person in the room at a time and his mom won’t leave his side, so we can’t go in and give him a blessing cause no one else can go in, and we can’t be separated from each other. So it’s tough, she missed all the GC sessions, and she really wanted to go. We moved her fecha back to the 16th this month because she needs one more church assistance. And if the boy gets worse he will be moved to the hospital in Concepcion, hopefully that won’t happen. so yah, could you all think of him tonight, I know you don’t know him but she is our golden investigator and we don’t want any other reasons for her to move out of Lebu because well, she has had the worst trials of her life in Lebu. I know the Lord will bless her like he has, but it is still scary and all.

Stephanie

But yah, I have some exciting news!
So every missionary has told me, forget about bacon, you won’t find it in Chile. No one eats bacon here. And I was distraught. I was hurt to say the least. The best meat in the world, none for 2 years, um way hard. Well I was looking around the quico (rich people) part of bigger (the grocery store) and I saw someone restocking. it was where I buy salami so I was curious if there was a new type, because in Chile when something is gone its very unlikely that the same thing will come back, there is no such thing as restocking like the states, anyway, and they were putting out something for 3mill (6 us $) and it was a pack of bacon, 5 strips. Smallest strips I’ve ever seen, but I was in heaven. I showed Gibbs and he was shocked and baffled! We both bought a pack and will be making breakfast sandwiches on French toast bread this week and I am thrilled to say the least. During GC I kept thinking of the amazing breakfast feast I was missing, I took all that amazing food for granted. I missed bacon, and French toast and all that, it’s not existent here.

I just want to point out that the church already has all of general conference on the website, we are going to try to download some of the talks in Spanish and show Stephanie this week because she missed out and I think it would be really great for her to see the prophet and listen to his words because you can already download the talks in Spanish. What an amazing organization we have!

Well I don’t know what else to throw in here, I loved conference, there were a lot of great talks and I actually can’t wait for the Ensign, yep it was a great weekend and I hear you all loved it to, and had fun with your visitors.

I love and miss you all so much!!!
Kyle