Week 3 Santiago MTC

March 31, 2015

Hey guys!!! I cant believe you went to lagoon without me!!! haha but its awesome to here you guys had fun. First off, Elder Taylor´s first name is Steven. Elder Muir just joined our companionship making it a trio.... so that's pretty cool. Elder Muir´s first name is kyle. I love them both to death! Elder Muir is hilarious and Elder Taylor is basically my twin. What´s not to love about that? haha anyway, its been super busy here. The MTC is super stressful at times with all of the work and all of our investigators but I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. Last Pday, Elder Taylor and I went to Lider which is there version of a Walmart. We bought a bunch of candy. There is one type of candy in particular that we love. They are soooo good! Even journal worthy haha. They are called Bon o Bons. Its like a mix between a kit kat and a reeses. I've been eating lots of new foods like weird beef stews, green beans, salads, weird types of fish haha. I've had more new foods here than I've tried in my entire life! With every meal they serve fresh baked bread. I've gained like 2 pounds just from that so I have been staying away from the bread. Over all, the food is great. We have to teach investigators everyday and that is super hard considering we don't really know the language yet. Even though it's so hard, I absolutely love teaching. There is something about teaching the gospel that really interests me. I could do this for a living haha. Guess that's why I am on a mission. This last Sunday we had a devotional in which we got to listen to Elder Holland speak to us about missionary work. I have never in my life felt the spirit so strong. The devotionals that we get to listen to here are exclusively for missionaries. You cant find those videos anywhere else. Later that day we got to watch the video about President Thomas S. Monson's life. That was amazing to see how humble he was at such a young age. He was a Bishop over a ward of over 1000 people at age 22!!! Sunday night for FHE we played a game with the Latinos. We had to teach them basic english phrases and they taught us spanish phrases. After that, we had to compete with other north American districts about the spanish phrases and the Latino districts had to compete over the English phrases. I've never had so much fun in my life hahaha. I actually won all 4 times I went up. Even though they were easy phrases, I was still proud of myself hahaha. Today my companions and I are going to go to the mall and shop a bit and then go get empanadas somewhere. That's crazy about Antofagasta! I haven't heard anything about that! It will give me plenty of service opportunities when I get there. I can't believe it's been 3 weeks already! Anyway, it sounds like things are going pretty well at home for the most part. If I want to have time to send pictures I gotta wrap things up. I love and miss you guys so much! Mom, I love you and you are in my prayers. I hope you get better. Dad, I love you too. I miss hearing your stupidly funny jokes hahahaha jk (you're funny). Rylie, I love and miss my middle child buddy. And Regan, even though you use to drive me nuts, I miss and love you so much. Tell Tori I love her.

The pictures I sent are from last Pday. Its cool cuz this is like the only MTC that allows this much freedom. We get 3 hours to go wherever we want really haha. We can hop in a cab and go across town if we want. Its so cool. Elder Taylor and I went to a mall and then to Liders (Walmart) and then bought empanadas. I took a couple pictures of the temple because its literally right behind the MTC. Give me some advice on what kinds of things you guys want to here about because I feel like I'm always running out of things to say. Its so hard to read everyone's email and respond to all of them and at the same time attach and label photos. I have to resize the photos so that i can email them. Its hard to do in an hour haha. Anyway, I love you guys! Until next week.

Elder Spanbauer

This is a picture of everyone living here at Alcantara.

 

 

Santiago Temple

Empanada

Candy from Chile

Week 2 Santiago MTC

March 23, 2015

Hey guys! This week has been amazing! Its been super busy but fun at the same time. I have had some pretty rough days here and there where I feel like I'm not progressing and I've had days where I think I'm practically Chilean hahaha. My Spanish is improving a lot.... I am so grateful for the gift of tongues. My teachers are amazing. They all speak English and Spanish so it has been extremely helpful to me in learning this language. They hardly ever use English so it forces us to speak in Spanish. My companion and i love each other! (not in a weird way). We truly are brothers from different mothers haha. I have never met someone so much like me! Yesterday I had to say goodbye to my Latino friends. Elder Cárdenas was my favorite! They all left for their missions this morning so that was hard. As of right now, we are the only district in the entire MTC until tomorrow. That's right, there is only 8 of us in the entire MTC so its kind of lonely. Tomorrow we get a ton of new North Americans and a bunch more Latinos!!! I'm super exited for that. There are a couple guys from Arizona coming and a couple from like Colorado and Utah but none from Idaho. oh well! We have been practicing teaching investigators (our teachers acting to be investigators) everyday and it has been very frustrating. Its so frustrating to not understand someone that is speaking right to your face and you have no idea how to respond. However, yesterday Elder Taylor and I had to teach twice and both lessons went great!!! I understood about 85 percent of what the investigators were saying. I truly love the MTC and everyone here. My district is amazing! My Companion and teachers are amazing as well.

Week 1 Santiago MTC

March 16th, 2015

Hello Family! I just wanted to give you an update about life down here in Santiago. Like I said earlier, it´s so beautiful here. Also very hot so my companion and i have to turn the AC on high in every classroom. Elder Taylor is my companion. He is from Mesa Arizona! is seriously like my twin. We look similar, we think the same and we just click. I couldn´t of asked for a better 1st companion. The MTC is extremely stressful but also very fun. My teachers are chilean so that is cool. My spanish is improving a ton! Still pretty clueless but i´m alot better than I was 5 days ago. I can now understand most conversations, but making my own sentences is hard. I can speak pretty good but not grammatically correct. The food is soooo good. I´ve tried more new foods here then I have in my entire life! they eat fresh bread with every meal which is good and bad haha. I´ve eaten potatos, salad, and yes... I tried avacaodo and mayo on my completo (hot dog). The people here are so amazing. I LOVE LATINOS. They are so helpful when learning the language and they are also trying to learn english. I thought that was really cool. I tought Elder Cardenas how to pray in english. He is the funniest guy i´ve ever met. I had a chance to play soccer (futból) with the Latinos and they were extremely impressed with how good I was for beeing white haha. I´ve taught one lesson with Elder Taylor to a fake investigator and that was fun. A little emberassing considering there was times where she would say something and we had no idea what she said. We would just look at each other and then try and change the subject haha. That´s mostly just a language problem so I think once I can get past that, it will be a lot easier. We have a swiss Elder in our district and his name is Elder Perrier. He only speaks french so it´s extremly hard to teach him but he has the most possitive attitude ever! I taught him to say "what are you talking about willis?" hahaha. It is so funny. Tell Rylie I said good luck at state and tell Regan good job on the band concert. I´m glad to hear you guys are doing well. I´m sorry you´re not feeling very well mom. I hope you get better. Over all, I love the MTC and I love CHILE. Next Pday I will have more time to write. I love you guys!

im having trouble uploading photos. ill send some next week. I failed to mention that i am actually staying somewhere else as apposed to the MTC. we are staying in a place about 15min away from the mtc. Its like a giant mansion house with a million rooms. its sooo cool. next pday i will send photos of the house and my companion and whatever else i take pictures of. also, today i get to go through the santiago temple and do a session.

Leaving for MTC in Chile

March 10, 2015 we are off to the Airport at 4:30AM to catch Elder Parker Spanbauer's flight to the MTC in Santiago Chile. Excited for him and the people he will be serving, but a tearful goodbye seeing him leave for 2 years.