Elder Parker Groneman: CHILE!!!

Wow....I have no idea of how to start this email.....

So the plane ride down didn't feel that long. Probably because I slept most of the time. After the picture at the flower clock the president gathered us around and pulled out a box of Book of Mormons and pieces of paper with an address on them. He then proceeded to tell us that he was going to put us in companionships and then we had to do 3 things. 1) Talk to someone and give them the book. 2) Get that person´s contact info 3) figure out how to get to the mission house (the address on the paper). Then he drove away leaving us in the city. Haha ya that was a fun experience. Everyone my comp and I tried to talk to either said they were busy or just didn't want to talk. There were a couple people who we couldn't even understand because Chileans all speak soo fast. We finally found a college-aged kid to talk to and we got his info and gave him the book. We didn't have much time to talk with him because he was about to go to class. The whole time we were walking away from him my comp kept looking back muttering ´Don't throw it away. Don't throw it away.´´ From what we saw he didn't which was good. Finding the house wasn't difficult at all. Everyone we asked was happy to give us directions. I felt so bad for one of the companionships though. Most of us arrived at the house after an hour or so. One of the companionships didn't arrive back until after 3 hours had passed. Turns out they couldn't find anyone to give the book to.

Okay, so now for the rest of the week. My comp is Elder B** (and no, his name is not J**). I'm in a city called Villa Alemana (GermanVille in English). We share a ward with the Zone Leaders, Elders H** and B**. Funny thing is that one of my friends (J** C**) asked me to find Elder B** when I got to Viña. Well, out of over 200 missionaries in the mission he randomly ended up as my zone leader. Kinda funny. Oh, my comp is also the District Leader. It's his first time being a trainer and being a district leader so he's learning two new things as he's trying to train me.

Anyways, Chile is AMAZING!!! Soo much better than the CCM. The food is fantastic. We actually eat lunch with the members every day because we don't eat dinner here. There's not a time in the schedule for the missionaries to eat dinner so if you want food then you bring a little snack with you. But the lunches are ginormous! So I haven't been hungry for dinner at all. As for the language....haha ya.... I am slowly understanding more and more of every conversation but I still miss about half of everything. Everyone speaks so fast it's hard to catch everything. And then like Utahns with their t´s, they don't pronounce their d´s half the time and for someone who is learning a new language that is super tough to work with. But it's okay. All the members are funny because when they start talking to my comp I must have this look on my face that says ´´I have no idea what you are saying´´ because then they either purposefully start talking way faster to me or they slow waaay down. Then they proceed to laugh when I still don't understand them. Ya, it's great. And I love how Chileans stay up late and wake up later too! MY PEOPLE!!! Because of that we get to wake up later and stay out later too which I am completely fine with!

So story for this week. My comp has been trying to find these two people who were a reference but he hadn't been able to catch them at home. We passed by their house on Saturday and again they weren't home. So we started talking to their daughter. The whole time we were on the doorstep while she half hid her face with the door. (side note) Earlier that day my comp was saying how he hated that everyone thinks they have to work on Sunday just to get money and then be happy. (end side note) So we start talking to her (C**). When I say we I mean my comp starts talking to her and I jump in only when I actually understand what they are even saying. So, he starts talking to her about church and then invites her to church. She said she couldn't because she works every Sunday. So, my comp pulls out a scripture saying how Sunday is a day of rest and we need to keep it holy. (Meanwhile I want to laugh because he was complaining about this very thing about 10 minutes earlier). Anyways, she says she´ll come to church. Then my comp keeps talking to her and I have no idea what is being said. Then my comp looks at me with a face that tells me he's waiting for me to say something. I had no idea what to say because I had no idea what they were even talking about. So in English he tells me to invite her to be baptized. So I did and she ACCEPTED!! We continued talking then set a date to return and teach her then we left. The next day, Sunday, we didn't see her at all at church so we were wondering what happened. We stopped by her house and asked her. Apparently she didn't understand our directions very well because she got lost and couldn't find the chapel. We were sad about that so next week we are stopping by her house and walking with her to church.