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| Elders Richards, Walker and Stam |
Mom,
I'm doing great. We didn´t go to the temple on Saturday, but we did get to go today. I got to do my first session in Spanish, and I was really surprised at how much I was understanding. I understood almost all of it. There were a few words here and there but I seriously understood all of it. Goes to show how bad Chileans and my companion speak, I still can't understand them at all. It did give me a little bit more confidence though. I think that I'm gonna come home from my mission sounding like a Chilean. I have no idea what we are doing for Thanksgiving, and I think that it's just going to be a normal day for us. I think that our house is going to do something though. Elder Ware and Elder Richards both really like to cook, so I think they're going to cook something for us, which would be awesome haha.
The conference was seriously so awesome. I still can't believe Elder Nelson did that. I want to be able to do that haha. I think that when I hit the 18 month mark in my mission, I'm going to start studying either French or Portuguese. Fabian is doing really good! We got him to come to church for the first time, and he really liked it. He is having troubles praying on his own, but he is definitely progressing a lot. I don't know if it costs a lot for couples to get married hah.
Our ward apparently is really bad with helping. The stake is really worried about our ward and they have really been looking to the missionaries for help. They told us to start teaching the members about missionary work, and to make sure that each household has a Preach My Gospel. It would be awesome if you read Preach My Gospel, you can learn a lot from it. Yes we are getting a new bishop. Well if you want to start helping out the missionaries, ask them if you can do divisions with them. Missionaries are supposed to teach lessons with a member present.
The postal thing here is really weird. I feel like they don't even have a real postal thing. They don't have mailboxes, they just throw the stuff through the gates on to your front porch. And when people send letters, they send them to the mission home, and every Monday we get all the stuff that arrived that week. It's weird but pretty easy.
I think I'm at the point with my Spanish where I'm about equal with the understanding and speaking. It's just the Chileans. Put me in Peru or Mexico and I would be practically fluent and I could understand everything. Elder Raine is from somewhere in Utah, don't remember what city, but he is going to Utah State after his mission. Elder Raine goes home in eight weeks. That's so crazy. He only had like 19 or 20 months when I got here. It's almost sure that I am going to leave the area, because we were in a true white wash, and I am just coming out of training. But you never know. Things with Elder León have just gotten worse, then Elder Ware yelled at him because he is super prideful (Elder Ware was his old companion) and he's not helping me out at all. It was awesome haha. But Elder León realized it and he is working on being more humble.
It's super ghetto in my mission and it's really dangerous for white people. If we do come to Chile, we are staying downtown. Seriously, you would probably get shot in our area. Unless we rent a car. But yeah, we have to be really careful if we do come here.
When we eat at the house, we have to cook our own meals. The eating schedule is weird here in Chile. They don't eat breakfast, then they eat a huge lunch, and in place of dinner they have this thing called once, where they eat just a little. It's weird. And most day we have lunch with members, so we don't have to cook our own food very much. A maid would be nice though, we all clean for like 20 minutes a day and our house is never clean, I have no idea how it happens.
Today has been absolutely dreadful with the heat. It's just getting worse and worse, and it's so dry too. I wake up every morning with a completely dry mouth and it sucks, I would take the cold anyday. We definitely have to go on some kind of trip when I get back. Two years of doing the exact same thing every day is going to kill me. I don't think I'm gonna be able to speak English when I get back either. I'm already losing some of my English ha ha.
So funny story, on Sunday I was bit by a dog. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but we are supposed to tell the mission nurse if we get bit by a dog. It broke the skin, so they said that we had to go back to the exact same clinic that we went to for Elder León. What they told me really surprised me. They said that I couldn't shower for two days, that I have to take antibiotics for a week, and that I need to have five anti rabies shots over the next money. So that is how my week went. The dogs here are freaking crazy. It was a German Shepard that bit me too. It didn't get me that bad though, just barely broke the skin. The funny thing was the dog just came out of no where and bit me for no reason. But yeah, whatever. I'm trying to write you all Christmas letters, but Elder León likes to make up his own rules. He said that I couldn't write letters unless it was P Day. Which is not a rule. But whatever. Have fun on your trip!
Love,
Elder Stam
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