I LOVE EVERYTHING

AHHHH I´M SO GLAD YOU GOT TO SEE THAT PICTURE BECAUSE I WASN´T SURE HOW I WAS GOING TO GET IT TO YOU BECAUSE WE DIDN´T GET IT IN AN EMAIL AND ALSO I´M SORRY THAT YOU DIDN´T HEAR FROM ME YESTERDAY WE GOT OUR P-DAYS SWITCHED AROUND BECAUSE OF REASONS [They attended the temple.]

(these pictures are from Domino´s which is a completo place and I got a completo called the Dinámica) [A cpmpleto is basically a Chilean hotdog with everything on it]

Okay so, this week has been JAM PACKED but also has gone by, not so quickly as the other weeks, but very quickly. 

(these are photos right before we went out today and they´re in our cute little classroom; I couldn´t get everybody to look at the camera so I gave up. Such is life)

ALSO HERMANO SALINAS (Pascal´s husband) JUST WALKED INTO THE ROOM AND I FELT A LOT CLOSER TO HOME BECAUSE YOU JUST SAID THAT SHE POSTED THE PHOTO AND HE SAID THAT HE SENT IT TO HER AND I JUST HAVE A FEW TEARS IN MY EYES BECAUSE I´M REALLY NOT THAT FAR FROM HOME NOT REALLY NOT EN REALIDAD [The photo at the top of the page was shared by a friend of Andrew who he knew from his mission in Ecuador.  Her husband is a teacher at the CCM in Chile.]

(these are pictures of our Elders: the first is of Elder Muir and the second is  (from left to right) Elder Taylor, Elder Muir, Elder Spanbauer on the sidewalks of Pedro de Valdivia (just south of Pocuro if you want to look it up))

this is chis pops which I haven´t tried but i saw them and laughed many laughs

haha

and also we ate completos at El Pollo Grande again today and they were magnificent

I highly recommend them

highly recommend

this is a copycat photo of me playing in the fountain water outside the Santiago temple because I think of Andrew every time I go out there and yeah just yup

and also the other one is of district gr8 hermanas on the street because why not

these are all silly selfie photos that are terrible and rather candid but they basically capture the life of a missionary

silly selfies

pretty temple

yes yes yes

OKAY NOW I NEED TO TELL YOU ACTUAL THINGS BECAUSE I AM RUNNING OUT OF TIME HOLYCANNOLI

Okay, so, yesterday [Tuesday] we went to the temple! With our new group of Latinos, only four or so were endowed, which mean that all five of the new hermanas were going to go through for the first time, so, I had the privilege of being (I don´t remember what the word is in English) acompañante to Hermana Cardús. It was difficult because there was very little I could do to comfort her; my Spanish only goes so far, but I think she just needed a hand to hold most of the time. [While attending the temple for the first time is not a frightening experience, it's always nice to have someone with you to help you know where to go and what to do.]  She didn´t know anything about the endowment process at all, so I helped her a lot (and some other silly things happened with my audiophones a lot but that doesn´t matter right now) and was glad to just be able to be there for her. I didn´t know what I could tell her, but I managed to tell her something along the lines of just remembering that she was in the house of the Lord; she needn´t worry about anything. We sat in the celestial room together for a long time and it just all was very spiritual and reminded me why I am on my mission.

My goal with every investigator, every contact, every person, is the temple. There is no greater gift I can think of than being in the house of the Lord for a time. Going through with Hermana Cardús made me feel more connected to each person that I do work for. They´re real people; they have been waiting for this for a very long time. All of the people I´ve gone through for in the Santiago temple have been from the 1600s to the 1800s and their spirits have been strong there. I love the temple. I´m grateful to have had the opportunithy to spend so much time so nearby and even though it´s not in my mission, my mission is within 10 minutes of it and with the Santiago missions, it´s very easy to get permission to cross into other areas for a time, especially to go to the temple. I just love the temple so much.

[LDS Temples - Click here for more information about the how, what, and why we build temples.]

You would like it a lot too, Momma, the Santiago one I mean. The colors are all those blue and brown colors that you love: the whole temple is that color scheme (though a lot lighter, but still, I realized that yesterday and just chuckled to myself)

I´ve been having those out of body experiences a lot lately too. I still can´t believe I´m in Chile, though every once in a while it hits me and I fall over for a time and can´t move. 

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY SO MUCH

I LOVE IT

Today we were supposed to practice contacting, so I talked to the man in the special envelope store and gave him a pass along card and talked about missionaries for a little bit and I just

YES

YES TO EVERYTHING

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH

I LOVE EVERYTHING

Also, my health is well. I have yet to get sick (though there´s an urban myth that everybody gets sick going into winter because the temperature changes muy rápido, as in it´s 90 one day and 40 the next and then keeps going down) and my tummy has been fine. I don´t know how I´ve been surviving actually... I just haven´t had a problem yet... I´ve been... oddly fine... suspicious...

But anyway, we haven´t walked a whole lot, BUT 

DRUM ROLL AND MUSIC

WE´RE GOING CONTACTING FOR REAL TOMORROW IN THE PARK

AND ON FRIDAY

WE

ARE

TAKING

THE 

SUBWAY

AND

GOING

ON

SPLITS

WITH

REAL

MISSIONARIES

I MEAN

I KNOW THAT I´M A REAL MISISONARY BUT I´M NOT REALLY A REAL MISSIONARY NOT YET BECAUSE I´M STILL IN THE CCM I DON´T KNOW I JUST

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE I AM 100% READY TO JUST GET OUT THERE AND GET TO WORK BUT SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE I WANT TO CURL INTO A SMALL BALL because I am not ready to get out there it is a scary world I am not a real missionary yet oh no oh no

OKAY I HAVE VERY LIMITED TIME SO HERE I HAVE SOME BULLET POINTS THAT I MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE TIME TO EXPAND UPON WE´LL FIND OUT AND YOULL EITHER BE ENTERTAINED OR CONFUSED WE´LL SEE

-Hermano Riutor

-Frogs

-Papelito

-´Keep Sueñoing´

Okay, Hermano Riutor is hilarious. He´s this little human that is our teacher and he is just so funny and he doesn´t have a lot of hair anD BEFORE I FORGET I HAVE TO TELL YOU ALL THAT ALL OF MJY TEACHERS ARE DARN YOUNG

I KEEP FORGETTING TO SAY THAT

BUT THEY ARE SO YOUNG

MY OLDEST TEACHER HAS BEEN 27

AND RIGHT NOW I HAVE A TEACHER THAT IS 21

I HAVE HAD SEVERAL THAT ARE 21

HERMANO RIUTOR IS ONLY 25

THEY´RE ONLY SMALL PEPLE

THEY´RE AS OLD AS ME

But anyway, Hermano Riutor is the best. The other day we thought there was a frog in the comedor [dining hall] and he said that there aren´t many frogs here but there were in Argentina where he served and then he said something about you would walk down the streets kicking them but he said the wrong word because he couldn´t think of the word in English and it sounded like he said chewing and so then we laughed for about forty years about how funny it was and he kept pretending to be chewing on frogs and it doesn´t sound that funny when I write it down but IT WAS SO FUNNY AND WE WERE ALL SLEEP DEPRIVED SO IT WAS EVEN BETTER

ALSO THERE IS AN HERMANO HERE NAMED HERMANO PARDO AND HE CAN MOVE HIS EARS AND HE MAKES FACES AT ME ON A REGULAR BASIS AND WE´VE NEVER SPOKEN BUT WHENEVER HE SEES ME HE STOPS AND MOVES HIS EARS AND THE ONLY WORDS HE´S SAID TO ME ARe ´sí, usted puede´ [yes, you can] because I was smiling and I can´t move my ears when I´m smiliing so i said ´no puede´ [cannot] but anyway as you can tellby my rapidly worseining typing skills, i am OUT OF TIME RIGHT NOW BUT LET ME TELL YOU THAT I LOVE IT HERE AND I LOVE YOU ALL AND I AM SO GRATEFUL FOR LAL OF YOUR WORDS OF KINDESS AND YOUR LOVE AND SEND MY LOVE TO THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE

ALL OF YOU

ROBBY

ANDREW

JEFFREY

MOMMY

DADDY

GRANDMA

DOGS

CATS

ACTUALLY JUST LITERALLY EVERYBODY I SENT A WHOLE BUNCH OF LETTERS DODAY OH MAHN  I HAVE GOT TO GO I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

also i miss you sometimes and sometimes it is hard and i pray for you a lot but it´s not that bad but sometimes

sometimes it is

BUT I LOVE YOU SO MUCH ALSO JUST

SHOOT

OH MAN

I MUST FLY

CIAO FOR NOW

LOVE YOU GUYS LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU OS AMO

i just used vosotros

i just used it

i did it

OH YES CONGRATS TO TREVOR AND JACOB I SENT THEM NOTES TODAY ANYWAY LOVE YOU BYE

 [Two young men in our ward have just been called to serve their missions in Barcelona Spain and Sao Paulo Brazil.]

Until we meet again,

-Hermana Schomburg