Coquimbo Letter #1

Date: November 15, 2010
Area: Coquimbo, Chile
Companion: Elder Haney
 


Hooooooola!
I´m in Chile now! So this might be a longer email (and because I don´t only have 30 minutes!)

So, on Monday, I flew out at 2 in the afternoon, and got into Georgia at about 745 pm. Our next flight took off at 820, so we booked it off the plane, went clear over to the other side of the Atlanta airport, and barely made our flight. On the flight to Georgia, I talked with a lady who majored in Aerospace Engineering (but is in residential development) and has her multi instrument license (private pilot). Then we had an 11 hour or so flight to Chile. I slept, talked, and read. Then we got off, went through customs and immigration, then I met my mission president after! They are really nice and loving. Then we took an hour and a half drive to Viña del Mar. It’s kinda funny to see little huts on the way with satellite dishes on them. Some parts of the scenery reminded me of Oregon, and others like California or Florida. We stopped at an outlook in the middle of Valpariso and Viña. I took some pictures that I’ll hopefully be able to send. It’s really packed and right on the coast! Then we went to a clock made out of flowers, and were sent off in different directions in groups of 4 to find the mission home. We go lucky and found a study abroad study from northern Colorado (she had the sweatshirt) and she was going that way. Then, once we got there, we were taught on finances, health, the mission, and ate some good empanadas. Then we went in the yard and had to find our trainer in the group of the. I found mine right off the bat. Elder Haney from Boise, Idaho (he´s pretty sure he knows Tyler´s wife from high school!). He´s a funny guy and has a year in the mission. We get along well and he helps a lot with the Spanish. I´m learning, I can understand a lot, but talking isn´t so hot. But that´s okay because I know I’ll get it with time. Then we went to the mission office. There I found out that I was going up to the northern part of the mission. We took a 7 hour bus ride north. So I didn´t end up getting to our pension(where we live) till like 130 Wednesday morning.

I´ll talk about where I live. So, we live about a 10 min drive from out area, which is about 10 minute drive to the church from our area. We are looking for a new place to live, but it’s a bit difficult. The apartment has 6 elders including us two. We sleep on the floor (still on a mattress though), and our ¨desk¨ is a round plastic one with two other elders. It’s a tight fit, but we make it work! Since we have lunch in the same place as the church, we go from the place, to the church area, to our area, then back to our place. It’s costly to take that many Collectivos (like a taxi, but only one route), but we get more in the middle of the month, depending on how much we spend. There is graffiti everywhere, as well as dogs, everywhere! I think all the dogs in the streets is what surprised me the most. I guess it’s nothing like Valpariso though, as my companion says. It’s crazy! Oh, there´s an Elder from Argentina that lives in the same apartment, and he is hilarious!! He jokes around a lot and does really funny things haha.

I´m in Coquimbo, and opening up a new area! Coquimbo is also on a beach, and has the famous giant Cross on top of a hill when the Pope came here. Our area has a little bit of everything, a lot of richer houses and some in bad shape. But Elder Haney said the whole area is much richer than where he was is Valpariso. So, opening a new area, we have no Area Book, no ward (branch) list, no nothing! So these past days, we´ve been doing a lot of finding. Story time!... We found this woman while knocking doors, who wondered why there were some many churches. So we set up an appointment to come back the next day. When we went to teach, her friend joined in. We taught the first lesson, but didn´t have a Book of Mormon to give! After the great and spiritual lesson, we invited them to come to church the next day. She said yes. So at Church, we were greeting people, and she came! Church was good, they talked about the temple and the new missionaries gave introductions, I did get lost a lot in the Spanish though! We had an appointment with her at 430, so when we went, she of course had a lot of questions about church. So we answered them, helped her with English, then taught the 3rd lesson (The Gospel) to her and her friend. They were really receptive, and in the lesson, we extended the commitment to them to get baptized and gave them a Book of Mormon to read and pray. They accepted!!!! It’s so awesome to have a date set from the first week. We got 11 new investigators these few days, and the members are super helpful and excited about the work! This is a great area to start off my mission! Hard, but good!!

Another event that happened was that I got my ring stolen from me. So I’ve already been robbed of something. It’s okay though, it really didn´t have much sentimental value, but I’ll miss playing with it!

Oh, here, breakfast isn’t really too big, and they basically don´t have dinner, but lunch is huge and it’s usually at 130. It’s usually soup and bread, the main course, then they really like fruit cocktail with cream for dessert. I´m always hungry though! The members feed us lunch, and its a good way to get to know them, they´re so nice!

Hmm.. I think that about sums up the week as best as I can remember!
¨
I miss every single one of you, and hope that life is well for you! Thank you for your love in my life! Remember to love everyone and to be happy!!! =D

Con Amor,
Elder Whittle

P.S. I´m pretty sure that the mail service is really slow here. So use DearElder and I´ll be able to respond to it through this email. Or you can send my mom an email and she can forward it here.


Dad= How was Santiago? How was the trip? I bet it was a different experience.

Darbie= That´s awesome that you´re in a play! You´ll have to let me know how it goes.

Wess= I definitely took time to enjoy the MTC, it prepared me for here! And thanks for the advice.

Jarred= Man, it does sound like you had crazy week! I hope your labs and midterms went well. School sounds crazy! Although here can get pretty hectic too. You welcome for reminding you haha!

Grandma= Thanks for that awesome story! I hope I can help my investigators build a strong testimony like that.