When you work really hard, time goes fast!

February 4, 2015

Elder Stam at the Buin Zoo in Santiago, Chile

Dear Mom,

Yup six months in just over a week! I think back to the day that you drove me to the airport and that seriously feels like it was two weeks ago. I really think that the mission is going to be over before I know it. I can testify that when you work, time goes fast. That happens all the time in the mission field. If there is a day that we do nothing, it is a slow day. But if there is a day that we work really hard, the day goes by incredibly quick. Languages are a really weird thing. I have learned that Chilean Spanish is a lot different than traditional Spanish, so Cody and Josh might not to able to understand me perfectly when I get back. At 6 months we burn a tie. A year is a shirt. 18 months is pants. And the two years is a suit, but I am just going to buy a $5 suit in the ferria. You already talk to your mom for hours, I have no idea what you can possibly talk about for that long. I hope you have fun on the trip though!

My week was good, and the investigators are good too. We have too many investigators to tell you about all their lives, mainly because I can't remember every one and it would take too long to write every one too. A lot of them have been keeping their commitments though. We are teaching a family and they all were inactive, and we have gotten the daughter to come the last two weeks and we got the dad to promise to go this week. The people here just really hate paying money. This week we lost an investigator because of tithing. He was blind, and he doesn't feel much support from the church. He brought up tithing and he was really steemed about it and he told us not to come back. So we have to respect what he wants and we won't go back for a while.

Missionaries are always a little home sick. I like being away from home though. It's a new experience. And I can deal with change really easy. So it hasn't really been a problem for me. My patriarchal blessing talks a little about temple work too, so the temple is something I want to do a lot of when I get home.

I have read a little bit of Jesus the Christ here and there, and it's pretty hard to understand, but it is still really awesome and I want to study it a lot. Oh another awesome gift would be a Rubix Cube. Elder Purnell has one and he taught us how to solve it, so I want one of my own now haha. Lindsey posted a video of her singing?? Wow I wouldn't expect her to do that haha, and at least she is admitting that she can sing now haha. I have been thinking a lot about swimming and water polo lately, especially since it's a million degrees outside and there are a ton of houses with a portable swimming pool haha.

The Superbowl happened?? Man we don't hear anything here. I didn't want the Seahawks to win again haha.

This week I had divisions again with our new zone leader, Elder Peck. Another great guy, I am pretty sure that President Cook makes the best choices possible when he picks leaders haha. We had a really good day though. He came here with me in our sector, so I lead the sector and we had the most lessons that I have had in one day here. We had four lessons in one day, and we did a lot of contacts and got a few new people to teach. It was overall a good day, and he's another really good leader.

Today for P Day we went to the Buin Zoo, and that is definitely something that we have to do when we come here. It's pretty expensive, about 8,000 chilean pesos, ($15) but it was totally worth it. It was just a little bigger than the Hogle Zoo. It was awesome though, so I have three things that we should do now.

Well thanks for emailing me again, and have a great time in California. Tell the family that I say hi.

Love,
Elder Stam         

Elders Tecun and Stam at the Buin Zoo in Santiago, Chile