Chilean New Year and 400 new ties!

January 7, 2015

Mom,

I've come to realize that the latinos can't teach Spanish, because they never learned it. My Spanish is fine though, I just struggle understanding latinos, but I can understand the gringos just fine. I can talk, read, and write so it's not a huge deal. My companion has been here for three months, and he really doesn't know the sector at all. It's the biggest sector in the mission, so I can't really get to know it that fast. All the people we are teaching are the people they were teaching before I got here. Elder Tecun doesn't like to do contacts haha. And yes, my house has a kitchen. Somewhat.

That talk was actually my third talk in Spanish haha. I like the members in this ward a lot more, and I have a lot more friends in this ward already. They're awesome haha. I use the knife for letters, packages, cutting my fingernails (lie), just anything that I need it for, but I really do use it a lot.

Don't make the house too different, I might not like it haha.  But do whatever you want with my room, just make sure I have a room when I come back haha. If Heather wants another mattress I would say give it to her. I would really like a queen size memory foam mattress, especially after sleeping on tiny beds here.

So the new year was pretty interesting. We had to be in the house no later than 9 o clock, and our ward mission leader gave us a TV and we got permission from the mission president to watch two movies. So we got to watch two movies. When the new year hit, there were a ton a gunshots (people just shooting in the air), music, and parties all night. They also did the candle lamp things that float into the air, and there were a ton of them. It was pretty cool. Walking through the street the next day was pretty interesting also because there was confetti and beer bottles everywhere. It was a pretty strange experience.

Also this last week I got to do two divisions. One with my new zone leader, Elder Burhoe, and the other with another gringo in our house, Elder Melander. I got to ride a bike on both of them, because I'm in the biggest stake in the mission, and most of the missionaries here have bikes. They were both good divisions, I learned a lot in both, and a got a few good pictures too. It was really fun.

So every week I want to share a Mormon Message, if I can find one that I want to share. This week I want to share the Enduring Love one, it's an awesome video. :)

My companion also really likes to sleep a lot, too much actually, so I read him D+C 88:124. He laughed and went back to bed, but at least I tried.

I'm writing a little later today because we had a lot go on today. We woke up two hours earlier than normal and we went on a hike to Aguas de Ramón. It was a 9 kilometer hike to a waterfall. It was awesome and the views are incredible. I also got some good pictures there. So we hiked a total of 18 kilometers today, and I'm exhausted. After that we went to buy a Fardo, which is 45 kilograms of ties. It was thousands of ties and the missionaries in our house are going to split them all, I could have 400 new ties.

I complete five months in less than 1 week, which I find absolutely crazy. Time flies. I'll be home before I know it. Well have a good week and I will talk to you next week! Love you!

Love,
Élder Stam