Week 8 Vallenar

May 4th, 2015

Hello everyone!!!! Como Estan? Things down here are amazing!!! The missionary life is sooo awesome! It is a ton of work but its so rewarding. Okay, where should I begin? So much has happened. So first off, we are struggling to find new investigators to teach so we have been visiting many less active families. Vallenar is a pretty good sized little city and we live pretty far from everyone else. We probably walk about 10 to 15 miles a day. Uphill and then down hill. Its exhausting but its so fun. We have been visiting with the Dominguez family. They are all members and had become less active. We taught them this last week and invited them to church and they came!!!! They are the most humble family I have ever met. They have a little girl that is 3 years old ´´mas o menos´´ and she is the cutest little thing hahaha. I'm really starting to get to know the people in the Rama which makes it more fun. I'm not just saying this because I feel I have to.... The people here are amazing. So a typical day for me is like this.... we wake up, then we work out for about 30min and then eat breakfast. My breakfast consists of a bowl of cereal with crushed oreos in it haha. Its so good so don't judge me. Then we shower and get ready for the day. We then have one hour of personal study and after that we go work for an hour. After that, we return to the house to study for two hours as a companionship. Next, we go eat at our mamitas house. The food she prepares is usually some type of soup with who knows what is in it haha. Its usually pretty good though. Then she gives us a salad. Now in Chile, salad is different than a typical salad in America. A salad can be raw potatoes smothered in mayo or simply tomatoes and onions chopped up in a bowl. Then after that, we eat the main course. It is usually rice and some type of meat. For example, today we had salmon!!! Ive eaten some pretty crazy meals but I always finish them because the people here don't have much and its a courtesy thing. Yesterday, I ate a whole potato!!! hahaha. Anyway, that's enough about food. After lunch we get one hour to study the language. After Language study, We work from about 4 to 10 at night. When I say ´´work´´, it simply means contacting, teaching, lots of walking...ect. haha. Then we plan before bed for the next day. On Pday, things are different. We wake up and go to the chapel in downtown Vallenar to play volleyball for a couple hours with a bunch of other elders. There are a lot of gringos in this area haha. Oh!!! the other day we were on our way to an appointment and there was a guy in the street with BLOOD all over his face. As we walked past him, he grinned at us. Elder Leon just kept walking and pretended like it was normal. Elder Leon is an interesting character. He is serious when he needs to be and super funny also. He literally doesn't know a lick of English so its really stressful at times but he has soooo much patience with me which I love. Next weekend president Dalton is coming to Vallenar to teach and interview us so that's cool. Oh, yesterday, Elder Leon and I were sitting looking over Vallenar for like 5min because our feet were dead and a guy walked up to us. Elder Leon was on the phone with another elder so I was like freaking out haha. Anyway, I was able to hold a conversation with him until Elder Leon got off the phone! The mans Spanish was really.... well..... Chilean haha so it was hard to understand him but I did it! Anyway, he wanted to know more about the church so we told him about it and he said that the missionaries could teach him more! He doesn't live in our sector so we don't get to teach him but either way, hes my contact hahaha. Anyway, that's about all I have time to write about now, Until next week!!!

Elder Spanbauer