One of the most spiritual experiences of my mission, it was that powerful!

Nov 12, 2014

Mom,

The conference with Elder Nelson was so awesome. The first four talks were in Spanish and from people I didn't know, so I didn't care too much for it. But Elder Nelson's wife gave her talk in English and it was about the premortal life and how we all have a premortal checklist of things we need to do in this life, and how "Serve a worthy mission in Chile" is one of the things on the list. Elder Nelson also gave his talk in English, with a translator, but it was about the Abrahamic Covenant and I seriously learned so much from it. It was one of the best talks I have ever heard. At the end of his talk though, he started to bear his testimony in English, he got about three words in, when he decided to do it in Spanish. I am 90% sure that he doesn't speak Spanish. I seriously think that it was just the straight spirit speaking through him. He wasn't using easy Spanish either. It was one of the most spiritual testimonies I have ever heard and I think that it is going to be one of my most spiritual experiences in my mission, it was that powerful.   Just keep reading the Bible. You'll get through it. There's some good stuff in the Bible too.

Yes, absolutely no air conditioning. I'm used to the sun, but I'm not used to walking around in it all day, in a shirt and tie. It's so terrible. And to think that summer is only just getting started. I think I'm really going to like winter here haha. I don't know if they play soccer year round, and we haven't gotten to watch any. The president didn't even let the missionaries watch it during the World Cup. But soccer here is huge, as to be expected. They have a rivalry that is really really similar to BYU and the U of U. It's between two teams called Colo Colo and la U.  I've decided that I'm a Colo Colo fan. They're just better. But whenever those two teams play each other, it's dangerous to go outside. Everyone just parties and drinks and it's super dangerous. I almost wish that I kept playing soccer now though haha. We play soccer most P Days.  For exercises I usually just do a bunch of ab work outs, then arm work outs, then I ride a stationary bike that we have at the house. It's not much but it's better than nothing. We do walk like 6 or 7 miles every day, so that's good too. Other than that we don't really get to do anything more.

The teaching is going really good. We are teaching a lot of lessons, but also a lot of new people. It's pretty rare to teach someone more than once to be honest. They let us in once, but they don't answer the door the second time. We're teaching this guy named Fabian, who started out as an atheist, but he is slowing gaining a testimony. He is our only progressing investigator. He has a lot of potential. People here have a really bad problem with the word of wisdom and the law of chastity, so it's pretty hard to get a baptism because of those things. We are also teaching this couple who are doing pretty good, but we have only taught them once. It's pretty tough but I think it will be a lot better when I don't start out in a white wash area. The Spanish this week made a huge leap though!   It pretty much just clicked. It's not perfect, but definitely a lot better. It will be a while before I really get the Spanish down. I think once I hit the 18 month mark, I'm gonna start studying Portuguese. It would be cool coming back knowing three languages. Do you think that I can send a zip drive in a letter? If not,  how could I send it?

There is only one other missionary in the mission that played water polo, and I can't remember his name. Elder Babbitt and I just have really similar personalities. I don't remember where he's from but if I remember right he is going to go to school somewhere in Utah. I'm not just gonna forget about the Xbox. I talk with a lot of missionaries about video games. I made really good friends with a missionary named Elder Raine. He's probably my best friend in the mission so far. He's a super awesome person. He's gonna go to school at Utah State, and he is also a video game junkie. So I have a lot of conversations with him about video games, but that's alright. It's just a little sacrifice I have to make to go on a mission. A mission is definitely life changing, and I think that it has already changed my life somewhat.

If you send the package now I'm gonna get it almost a month before Christmas haha.  I don't think that I need anything else right now, but I am probably going to need more socks at my birthday. We walk a lot and I think that I am just going to shred through my socks haha.

The people's yards aren't big enough to have a garden. They really don't have much room for anything at all. The houses here are really weird. Their yards are like 10 feet by 20 feet, and that's their entire yard. Most people don't have a garage either. They can't park their car in their yard because every house has gates completely surrounding it. It's really hard to explain. You will just have to see when we come to Chile. I think it's gonna be a little dangerous coming to Chile too. You never ever see a gringo here unless it's a missionary, and we get made fun of pretty bad for being gringo. It's just getting hotter and hotter. It feels a little hotter here now than it ever got in Utah at the moment. It's hard being out in the sun almost all day.  We were told not to touch the dogs. There's a crazy amount of dogs here. I counted 88 dogs in three hours one day. It's pretty sad, and you even see a dead dog every once in a while.

You should do the lunch money thing haha. I have been eating pretty good. We usually have really big lunches, so I'm doing just fine. I have lost about 5 pounds, which is good because I weighed too much. Our day.. we wake up at 7:30 (don't forget we have a different schedule than the other missionaries), do exercises til 8, get ready and eat til 9, personal study til 10, companion study til 12, language study til 1, lunch, then work, meaning tracking, teaching, contacting, until 10:30. Then we plan until 11, then after that get ready for bed, write in our journals, and lights out at 11:30. That's a typical day. On P Day it depends. We sometimes just play soccer and relax, other times we go downtown or to a mall or museum. It just depends if we have money and if other missionaries want to do stuff. The living conditions are pretty nice. We have our own house, and four missionaries live there together. We have three bedrooms, one bathroom, and a living room in the house. We have to air dry our clothes though hah. And the food here has still been incredible. I want to find a Chilean cookbook.

 I think that a lot of people carry a knife or a gun or something, but I don't really know. It's pretty sketchy here, but the people don't really touch the missionaries at all. They know why we're here and what we're doing, so they don't really bother us too much. They just make fun of the white skin and they love to yell things in English which make absolutely no sense but it's funny. Sometimes I just want to talk really fast to them in English and just watch how stupid they feel after. Most of the people here are really nice. There's only a few people that are the exact opposite.

 Tell me how the Madrigals sound this year too and if you can go talk to Mr. Scott!  I think that we might be going to the temple on the 22 of November. Elder Leon and I are going to have a reactivation in a week or two, and I think that we are going to go to the temple with her. It's funny, all we had to do was just mention the temple and she started going to church again. I don't know for sure if we are going to the temple though. It would be really cool if we did. I want to do a session in Spanish.

Love,
Elder Stam

Wonderful email, made me laugh. Elders Stam and Leon highlighed in mission newsletter.

Elder Stam is from Murray, Utah.  He has been here in Chile for only 1 month.  He likes playing sports.   He has played water polo.  He loves music and video games.  He has played piano for 13 years and has sung for 7 years.  He is very interested in astronomy, and in two years he will be interested in women.  His favorite scripture is found in 2 Nephi 31:20- Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men.  Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father:  Ye shall have eternal life.

Elder Leon is from Colombia, on the North Coast.  He as been in the missionary field for 9 months.  He loves telling funny stories.  He likes swimming, baseball and soccer.  He loves the outdoor barbecue.  He loves music.  He loves to learn other languages.  He writes poems and loves talking to anyone.  His favorite scripture is found in Alma 29:9- I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it.  I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord commanded me;yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy.

November 5, 2014

Mom,



Well I have survived the first transfer in the mission field. It´s pretty weird to think that I´m already starting my third transfer in the mission. It´s been going really fast. I´m not enjoying the weather. I´m doing whatever I can to get out of the sun. It´s so ridiculously hot. And summer hasn´t even really started. One thing I´m going to miss for sure is snow.  It definitely doesn´t feel like November. I have been writing in my journal every day, writing everything that happened that day, so i don´t think I´ll forget anything. The days seem to be going incredibly fast though. It´s like I wake up, we leave for a half an hour, and the day is over.

 Halloween here was pretty similar as in the states. The only difference was everyone was drunk and partying, and there was a ton more kids in the streets. It was crazy how many kids there were. Other than that it was pretty much the same.  My teacher in the MTC has a pretty freaky story kind of like that, except the girl was actually posessed by the devil and her voice was super low and creepy. The devil is real. It´s pretty freaky.


No we haven´t been able to teach him (Jairo). He´s actually been ignoring us, so I think he´s a lost cause now. We just found him doing street contacts. We´re teaching English lessons to four families. I´m absolutely terrible at remembering names, so I can´t really tell you who. He´s (Elder Leon) practically fluent at English. He lived a pretty good life in Columbia. He had money, and he lived pretty close to the beach. I feel like the Spanish has stopped improving completely. I´m getting pretty frustrated too. I can understand almost everything if it is church related. Anything not church related, I can´t understand it at all. All the other Elders say that I am just going to wake up one day knowing Spanish, but I´m not so sure. It´s crazy. My companion is a little bit better. Not much though. I´m pretty sick of him. I´m gonna love getting a new one.

Yeah the MTC gave us spanish scriptures. Elder Dufour, our old district leader, said that our area is the nicest he´s seen, and he has 19 months in his mission. I assume that our mission is one of the poorest, but I don´t really know. For photos, I have a 1GB zip drive that I will put a bunch of pictures on then send it to you guys.

Once you get to Job in the Old Testament, it gets a lot better. I mean a lot better. I have Jesus the Christ in Spanish, but the book is an extremely hard read, and I don´t know how I´m ever going to read it in Spanish. It´s going to be weird having a niece or nephew coming home. It´ll be cool, but really weird too.


Elder Babbitt just really reminded me a lot of me. He was very, very similar to me, like we just liked all the same things, we did all the same things before our mission, so it was really cool. We had some cool spiritual lessons, like this one lesson we were teaching a girl that knew quite a bit of English, so I got to bear my testimony to her in English, and it was awesome. Teaching in English would seriously be so much easier. But after when we (Caleb and Elder Babbitt) were at the home, we just had a really awesome conversation about the mission and stuff and he gave me a lot of good advice. He´s the missionary I want to become because he has literally just forgotten everything back at home and he has completely dedicated himself to the mission. Which is what I want to do, but it´s pretty tough when every house I go into has an Xbox and Halo haha.  I have some pretty good strategies with contacting. Contacting isn´t hard. It´s just the stuff after contacting. My patriarchal blessing says that I´m going to hold leadership positions, and I think it would be really fun to be a leader. I really like going on splits so I´m looking forward to that.


We didn´t get a choir Cd from the year before, which is a bummer. I seriously think that Spanish music is so cool. It´s absolutely impossible to understand though. Elder Leon said that I would maybe be able to understand Spanish music on the plane ride home. We don´t really have any opportunity to give things to kids haha. Food. Just food would be awesome. We don´t really have time to do much, but food we always have time for.

We seriously missed from a missed field goal?? Ugh that is so frustrating. I wish I could watch the games. The soccer here has been crazy. They play a ton. There are two teams here called Colo Colo, and the U. I´m a Colo Colo fan haha.


Yes, we get a meeting this Saturday with Elder Nelson. We are all way excited, it´s going to be an awesome opportunity. Thanks for putting that in the missionary portal. It´s crazy how much my testimony has strengthened since I´ve left. Especially about the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is seriously so awesome, and it´s key to conversion.


Just a suggestion, you should put like $25 on my card every month, kind of like my lunch money, and whatever money I don´t spend by the end of my mission, I can use it to buy music haha.


Con mucho amor,

Elder Stam

Caleb says the food is seriously so good he could talk about it all day!

October 29, 2014

Elder Stam and his district the day they left the Mexico MTC

Mom,

I´ve had a pretty good week this week. It´s actually not humid here at all. It´s a dry heat. It feels like Arizona, like when Riley and I went there. It´s gotten so ridiculously hot though. I have a neck tanline from the collars on the shirts, and also a pretty awesome watch tanline.  It´s gonna be blazing hot when it´s Christmas! It´s gonna be a little weird, but it´ll be a different experience haha. It´s the opposite here, it never really gets too cold. It won´t ever snow, so I´m gonna miss snow.

 I think that the missionaries here are having a special thanksgiving dinner with the mission president, so that will be fun! It´s apparently going to be a turkey dinner, just like in the States. We´re not doing anything for Halloween though. I don´t know what we´re doing for Christmas yet. We get one of the Apostles to come and talk to us some time next month though!

Things are about the same with him (Elder Leon). All of his family were Catholic, but they all got converted about four years ago, along with Elder León. I did get my package as well. I didn´t think that you would be sending food for a year, but thanks! I´ll make good use of the food for sure haha. So it turns out his name is Jairo. Just pronounced like Heido. I´ve found that the names here are the absolutely hardest thing to understand. He´s good though. We haven´t had a lesson with him in a while, but I think we have a lesson with him soon. He is really interested and I really think that we´re going to baptize him.  We are teaching two families that I really like, but we might have to dump one of them because they´re not making any progress. It´s a sad thing, but it´s necessary.  Most of the inactives don´t let us in, which is what makes it pretty hard. There are a few families that do though. So it´s not a completely lost cause. We do have like three baptismal dates though, so that´s a little encouraging. We do just about everything that we can to find people to teach though.

I feel like the Spanish is pretty much the same every week. I don´t really know how to improve it. I try to work on vocabulary words, but I just end up forgetting the words. It´s so hard. There are so many freaking words. Everyone says that it just comes, but I feel like there´s more to it than that. Elder León teaches the lessons with me. He´s practically fluent in English. It´s been pretty fun though.

I bought some music, and the thing that holds oil for blessings. I don´t know what they´re called haha. I might want to buy some scripture cases for my Spanish scriptures before the end of my mission, so I might need a little bit more money. I´ll let you know though. Each companionship gets a DVD player.

When we had the gun pointed at us there was just a guy in a car that pointed a gun and drove by slowly. Talking with the other missionaries, it happens a lot. Every missionary I´ve talked to has had it happen a few times with them. The truth is, I´m actually in one of the best sectors in the mission, so I´m pretty lucky where I am.

I´m trying to read the Old Testament still. We don´t have very much time to read. I´m in Psalms though, so I´m more than halfway done. I really like the scriptures, there´s some really awesome things in there. The Old Testament is really hard to read though. It´s pretty boring. I´m excited to read the New Testament though. I also have Jesus the Christ that I want to read. I would suggest reading that book.

Have fun on that trip (back East to see Joshua and Shelly)! It should be fun. After all this package food is gone, I´m gonna eat better and start actually exercising during our exercise time haha. I want to come back from my mission buff ;)

This last week I had two divisions. I went with the Zone Leader, Elder Babbitt on Thursday, and the District Leader, Elder Dufour, on Monday. I had some awesome spiritual experiences with them. They´re really awesome missionaries. Elder Babbitt is the missionary that I want to become though. He reminds me a lot of me. Every missionary has that one missionary that they want to become.

Oh I also had two CDs from when I did Honor Choir and All State Choir! If you can find those two I would really appreciate if you sent those too.

So I could talk about the food here all day. It´s seriously so good. Find the recipe for how to make a food called Churrascos. They also have this thing here called aji. Aji is like a kind of salsa, and it is amazing. You should find the recipe for that too haha. There´s this one lady that sometimes makes us lunch, and she told the Elders that every time she makes us food, she´s going to make us something we´ve never had before. She´s the lady that make us the wata. Well this time she made us hígalo, which is liver. Definitely one of the worst things I have ever had. So I´ve had liver and stomach now, and barely been here a month.

There is a lot of different music that I want to buy, so you should start saving me some iTunes money too. That would be awesome. I´m totally gonna get into Spanish music. I think it´s awesome haha.

Alma 26:35-37

con amor,
Elder Stam

Caleb is sharing his piano talents!!

October 22, 2014-

The last paragraph really made me happy!  If you know Caleb, you know how much he loves to play the piano!  The gun part was really hard to hear and put me on my knees.  I sent my son because I know God lives.   Caleb wanted to serve because he loves his Savior.   It's an act of Faith for all of us!!

This is the day Caleb opened his mission call!  April 2014

Mom,

This week has been good. I did a lot of different things so it made it go by a lot faster.  It´s weird that Christmas is going to be in the middle of summer, but oh well. Almost half way done with training. I can´t wait for it to be over.  It has sucked haha. Zone conference was good. It started with a talk by the mission president´s wife, then the mission president. We had an awesome lunch, then the assistants to the president talked to us, then we split into three groups and had three short lessons. It was about six hours long. And all in Spanish, so I didn´t get much out of it. Elder Leon is a really good missionary, I just don´t think that he´s very good as a trainer. He´d be a lot better with another latino. I didn´t really get to talk to president Cook, but I´ll just be patient and take charge if it gets any worse. My room mates both know about it.  Elder Ware was actually companions with him about 6 months ago. He had problems with Elder Leon too.  I just have to be patient with him. I also need to step up more and take charge. Because he just treats me like I´m a doll. I went on divisions with other missionaries yesterday, and they told me a few things I could do to make things better. I´ve been patient with him for sure. I haven´t really yelled at him yet, so there´s a start haha.  I would just about kill someone for some alone time. It´s been alright though. I´m adjusting. I gotta get used to it because it´s going to be my life for the next two years.

We have a few investigators now. We have one named... Heido? Jeido? I have no idea how to spell it. But he came to church with us one week and he actually stayed for the entire three hours. And after he was asking about baptism and stuff so he´s a pretty solid investigator.  One thing that has really helped us with finding people to teach is we teach English lessons! We´ve taught like three of them. All the people here want to learn English. I think it´s really cool and I love getting to speak a little bit of English to the people here haha.

 I´ve realized that I´m not learning Spanish.  Castellano is so much different. It´s so hard. The vocab is a lot different.  It has seriously been so hot the last few days. I am sweating like crazy all the time.  I now sleep on top of the blankets too.

We mostly buy food with our money, and use it for transportation.  Not really anything else. A little bit for P Day activities, but not much else. I only use the converter to charge the camera.  I do use everything that I brought though.

 I really hope we get to hear from Elder Holland.  I would die!  He´s my favorite apostle. I don´t think it would be too smart to go to the areas that I´m serving in if we come here. They´re super sketchy, and we are the only white people. Yesterday I went on divisions with a kid named Elder Stokes, and some guy pointed a gun at as at like 9:30 at night. I was talking to a few missionaries that have been serving for a while, and they said that it´s pretty normal here for that to happen. So that´s really scary.  No one has been shot yet though. (Gee, that sure makes his mom feel so much better!)

I don't know how Pres Hutchison can have to entire BOM memorized!  That's crazy! If the missionaries could do that we would be a lot more powerful.  I have all of DC 4 memorized in Spanish and I feel like that´s a huge accomplishment haha. That´s absolutely crazy.  I´m still trying to finish the Bible.  I´m in Job right now, and it´s been pretty boring up until now.  Job is a pretty cool book.

 So apparently in this mission quite a while ago, the missionaries did a really bad job. They taught a bunch of people, and they baptized almost everyone. The problem was, they did a terrible job with teaching and almost nobody was converted. You can look at the numbers here, and in our ward, we have 400 people in the ward. Only 45 attend. My old MTC companion has approximately 950 members in his ward, and only 40 attend. So that´s the problems with baptisms here. It´s almost all reactivation. The people here definitely act a lot different than the people in America, so it´ll take a little while til I figure out the people here and understand their culture. 

Speaking of piano. So I played for the ward right? Well after that, the person in charge of the ward choir asked if I could play for them. So I did. And when I played for them it was during the ward conference, so the stake leaders were there. After that sacrament the stake leaders asked me if I could play for the stake Christmas thing in December. So I´ve definitely been playing a lot of piano here.  Thanks mom love you!

Love,
Elder Stam

Temple visit, Spanish is tough and Companion trials

October 15, 2014

This is the mission logo for the Chile Santiago South mission!  

Mom,

My week has been pretty awesome. It went really fast, I can´t believe it´s already Wednesday. I´m okay with that though haha. We have zone conference on Monday, so we haven´t had it yet. I am looking forward to it though. From what dad told me, it should be really good. Which would be awesome because things here are starting to get boring. Haha mom I have plenty of food. I´ll start thinking about things I would like for Christmas.

I´m not really hungry. There´s just some days we get a ton of food, and some days we don´t get a ton. But we have plenty of food. We have lunch appointments most days in which we are fed a ton of food. So don´t fret about me being hungry haha. I´ve been making my own eggs and toast ;) My relationship with Elder Leòn is alright. We don´t really get along that much though. He treats me like I´m stupid because I don´t know Spanish. I just don´t really feel much respect from him. I don´t really feel like I´m being trained either and I´m getting pretty frustrated with him. I think that my next companion will train me more than he is. He doesn´t help me with the language much either. Whenever we go somewhere, he doesn´t walk by my side, and we walk in silence. Which I think would be the reason I´m not really learning Spanish. I feel like I haven´t improved. He´s been out 9 months. I love the other two elders I live with. They´re awesome, and both from Utah. I don´t get to see them that much though. Only at the end of the day and early in the morning.

We have a few investigators, but it´s hard to find them. It turns out that our mission is a pretty low baptizing mission. And the people here in Chile work a crazy amount. Most of them are hardly ever home, so we don´t have very many appointments. There are a few days where we have absolutely nothing and we are just walking around for 8 hours. It´s tough.  One of the 12 apostles are coming down here and talking to the missionaries in our mission sometime soon too. We´re doing some sort of a ¨Pilot Program¨.

The bread here is amazing. We had the wata at our house. A member made it for us and brought it to our house. We have a lunch appointment with members most of the time. A few days we don´t, but most of the time we do.  They usually just serve chicken, rice, and a weird salad thing.  I´m making it a goal that I´m not going to gain any weight on my mission.  They have some really awesome chocolate bars here. Nothing Hersheys though, which is disappointing. Hersheys is my favorite kind of chocolate.


The blisters are gone. I popped them and they went away. My feet have stopped hurting all together. I can survive the day now without dying from my feet. It was seriously so pretty up where we went last P Day. I don´t really know what to do about the pictures. Sorry. I don´t email with the other missionaries, so they can´t help me.

 I really hope that we get to watch Meet the Mormons. You should email the mission president and tell him about it haha. Convince him to let us watch it. I´ve heard some really good things about it and I really want to see it. That´d be cool if we could give it to investigators too.

Ah the Maze Runner came out?? I really really want to see that movie. I really like that book. Which is surprising because not many books keep my interest when reading. The weather here has been really good. It´s been extremely hot though. And it´s a dry heat and I´m gonna burn. I don´t think they have sunscreen here because latinos skin can´t burn. So you should sent me that in the Christmas package, sunscreen.

Life is just trials, but with the Lord in your life the trials are nothing. You should find a video called ¨The Atonement and Missionary Work¨ with Elder Eyring and Elder Holland. It´s one of the most powerful videos I´ve seen, and it´s meant for missionaries. It might be tough to find though.  The other day I had a feeling that a person I met I had know before in the pre-existence. We went to the hospital here to visit a man, and I could have sworn that I knew him before. We gave him a blessing and it was a really spiritual experience. It was really awesome.


The language has freaking sucked so far. It´s hard. The Chileans just talk so much differently. It sounds nothing like it did in Mexico. I don´t think Josh or Cody will be able to understand me when I come back. I´m not learning Spanish, I´m learning castellano. It´s quite different, and their vocabulary is quite different too. There´s a lot of different words.

I look forward to Wednesday too just for a break haha. Today, we got to go to the Santiago temple, which was awesome. It´s an absolutely tiny temple though. It´s seriously like a fourth the size of every other temple. We didn´t get to do a session, but we did baptisms and confirmations, and I actually got to perform a few of the confirmations myself. It was really cool. We also got to see a little of the Chile MTC, and I'm actually pretty grateful I didn´t go there. It looked like it would have sucked, it´s tiny! We got to see a little of downtown Santiago too, and it´s a lot like New York City! Almost the exact same actually. We went to a McDonalds for lunch, and it was amazing. It also had three floors, just like the one in New York. We also got a glimpse of the tallest building in South America, which is in Santiago.

Love,
Elder Stam

Elder Stam is doing well, but this one caused me anxiety!

October 8, 2014

This letter prompted me to send him a box full of breakfast food.  I think he is probably exaggerating the being hungry statement (I hope so) and teasing me a bit.  He was online and I asked him about it and he said "Ya I am a little hungry but it's okay because I had been eating too much",  that's it and he was gone.  It didn't make me feel much better lol.    

No new photos but this is one of my favorites!

Mom,

The weeks really do fly by. I´ve already been out for two months,
which is so weird to think about. It feels like a week or two. I´m sure that´s what it will feel like for me too after my mission is over. Chile is starting to feel like home, so that´s kinda nice. The weather changed really fast, and it´s really hot here now.
 I haven´t had to use that jacket at all for the last week. There are tons of stray
dogs. It´s a sad sight. I´ve already seen two dead dogs in the street.
Yeah he (Elder Leon) just wants me to study for another hour. It´s tough. He is an
amazing missionary, but not the best trainer. It would be a lot easier
if I knew what I was doing, and I spoke the language. But I don´t, and
he´s not really teaching me that much. Spanish is pretty hard to
translate perfectly. Some of it just doesn´t make sense lol. (He is referring to when we try to translate his mission newsletter).

I haven´t really cooked much at all. And I don´t really eat breakfast.
We never have food. And when we do, Elder Leon just eats it all. So I
hardly ever eat breakfast. The water here is safe to drink, but I
still use the filtered water bottle that the MTC gave me. Ecco is made
by Nestle. It´s pretty much just like chocolate milk, but it´s like
coffee. Mate is weird, but I like it. I love having other English
speaking elders. I would go crazy if I couldn´t ever speak English.


For now we don't have an actual baptism, we just set a date for him. He hasn´t been home the last week though, so we haven´t gotten to teach him. It´s
been tough because we were white washed into the area. So we don´t
really have any investigators yet. Most of the contacts have been
really friendly! There have been a few rude, but most have been nice.
Most of it has just been listening, but I get to teach a little here
and there in Spanish.  The mission is tough.  Say the wrong thing and you can screw the whole thing up. 

We were going to watch conference in Spanish, but the District Leader called
on Saturday morning before conference, and said that the new
missionaries could watch it in English! So we got to watch it in
English. It was the first time I was actually really excited for
conference haha. There were a lot of talks that I really enjoyed.  I
went a little crazy with the note taking, I took 43 half pages of
notes. I liked that they started doing the different languages too.

I realized that I forgot to tell you about once. It literally means
eleven in Spanish, but that´s not what it means at all. Instead of
dinner here, they have once. In once, they usually have pan (bread)
and ham and cheese, usually with avocado as well. A small salad, and
Ecco. Usually when we have a late appointment, they give us once. It´s
awesome.

I also had a food called wata on Monday. Wata is stomach. We don´t
know what animal it was, but it was definitely stomach. It was
disgusting. The weirdest thing I´ve had here so far. All the other
food I´ve had here has been phenominal though.

 The mission president actually told us not to carry our cameras with
us. Apparently the missionaries here get robbed a lot. So I don´t
carry it with me too many places. I´ve still had a lot of
opportunities for pictures though, I think I have like 180 so far.
 I really can´t figure out the sending pictures home thing. So
sorry.

Things are going good. The language still hasn´t come, and I still
can´t really understand anything, but I´ve only been here for two
weeks. I still have to translate in my mind when I hear it. If I
can tell the words apart that is. They talk ridiculously fast here,
and they fuse words together. Like if they were to say "Para aca",
they just say "Paraca" and it´s so hard to understand.
We get to go to whatever we want on P Day, with permission of
the mission president. We do laundry, we have a washer, and we can do
it whenever we need it. We haven´t had much opportunity for service,
but we have pulled weeds once. We´re picking up garbage tomorrow. So
just the usual.  I  think that we get to go to the Santiago temple next P Day, so that
should be really fun. They also have a special session in English, so
that´s even better hah.  But today for P Day, 8 of us got to go up to the mountains. We had a little picnic up there, and we got to play soccer too. It was one of
the prettiest places I´ve ever seen. It looked a lot like the Dominican Republic on the ride up.  I have some super awesome pictures of it. It was really really cool.  I had a lot of fun today. I unfortunately have three blisters on my left
foot now, and I can barely walk. I´m starting to get used to all the
walking now though.

Love,
Elder Stam

Caleb is doing well his first week in Chile! Played the piano hymns in Church!

October 1, 2014-
 No new photos again!  He has to figure it out!  UGH!! But so grateful to know he is doing well and positive.   I am so glad he has been playing the piano, he had to play the hymns in church already!  If you know Caleb, you know how much he LOVES to play the piano and how talented he is.  It's great having a missionary serving the Lord!!  We miss him a ton but we are so blessed this is what he wants to be doing. 

Elder Andrew Rietveld and Elder Caleb Stam at the Mexico MTC.  They are brother in laws (kind of), their siblings married each other. 

Mom,

I am adjusting really well to Chile. I´ve realized that I do well with change, because this hasn´t really had too much of an affect on me. The weather here has been phenomenal. It was a little cloudy the first few days, but the last few days have been hot and sunny. It gets pretty chilly at night though, considering we don´t go back to the house until 10:30. That coat you got me from Missionary Mall has been my best friend during the night. It´s actually warmed up a lot the last few days too. We got a heater for our room, and we don´t even use it anymore. It´s been nice. They also gave us two warm blankets.

Yeah the mission president is very on top of things. He is really good at what he does. Elder Leòn is an awesome guy. I´m starting to get a little annoyed though. He´s making up rules. He got mad at me for reading the Bible during personal study. And he also wakes up an hour early every day and wakes me up and it´s so annoying because sleep is precious. Other than that he has been pretty easy to get along with. He´s 19 years old. And the Spanish is alright. I still can´t understand the latinos, but I can understand the gringos pretty well. Elder Leòn has a pretty bad accent and he is very hard to understand. He actually knows a good amount of English. We are teaching each other the languages. It´s really pretty here in Chile, but it´s a different kind of pretty. Santiago reminds me a lot of Cabo. It looks pretty similar. Except there are a ton more stray dogs here. They are always passed out on the side of the road in the morning, and it´s pretty funny. There are mountains on the east side that look a lot like Utah.

We have a pretty decent house. We have a kitchen, bathroom, living room, and three bedrooms. They´re all extremely small, but it´s bigger than what other missionaries have haha. The food here has been awesome. I´m a little disappointed that they haven´t had avocados as much as I would like, but it´s been awesome otherwise. They have a few different things. They really really like Coca Cola and Fanta here, and they have two other drinks called Ecco and Mate (pronounced Mah Tay). Ecco is a coffee substitute, it smells exactly like coffee, tastes exactly like coffee, but it isn´t coffee. All the missionaries here drink it. And mate is weird. It´s just a plant that they put in a little cup, then they add hot water and sugar and drink it through a straw. It tastes a lot like grass, but it´s pretty good. The other two Elders in our house are Elder Ware and Elder Richards. They are both from Utah. Elder Richards is from South Jordan and I can´t remember the other one. They´re really cool peope as well. Super super easy to get along with. La Bandera is the stake I´m in and La Pensamientos is the ward I´m in. There are six missionaries in this one ward.  There is missionary work going on everywhere and it´s awesome! When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God.

White washed means that both of the missionaries are new to the area, and we have to start from scratch. Most of what we have done has been contacting. Proselyting and street contacting. It´s super tiring because we are just walking around all day. We wake up and do exercises for half an hour, have an hour to shower and get ready, personal study for an hour, companion study for two hours, language study for an hour, then contacting all day. We have taught a few lessons, and we have one person with a baptismal date already haha. November 1st. We have like 6 other possible baptisms, but I shouldn´t be too confident. We don´t have a cell phone yet but we do have a DVD player.

 I don´t have my camera on me so I can´t upload pictures right now, but I´ll try to upload some next week. I have absolutely no idea how the wifi thing is supposed to work here, it doesn´t make sense to me. But I´ll try to upload pictures for sure.  They are a little bit behind in technology in Chile. The iPhone 5s just came out, as long as the Xbox One.

We get to watch conference, but we have to watch it in Spanish, which is a little annoying because I don´t understand Spanish yet. We just attend the ward here, and only about 40 people go. Hardly anyone. Oh and yeah, I actually had to play the hymns in sacrament haha. Kinda funny.  In the October Liahona magazine, there is an article about Chile that´s pretty cool, so you should read it.

Love,

Elder Stam