Reflections of a True Millennial

Hola a todos, Another good week in San Clemente! This week one of my companions Elder Izquierdo finished his mission and returned home Peru, and on Tuesday we got two more missionaries here! The new missionaries are Elder Miller (one year in the mission, previously in the office, from Utah) and Elder Vasquez (brand new missionary, from Peru). They are both really great and excited to work. We cover different parts of the city, but end up doing a lot of activities together and all live together. It has been fun to have more missionaries here, and we are all motivated to work even harder. This week Elder Bustamante and I started to do a lot more door contacting. I can see that it is definitely not the most effective way to find people, but it is necessary. We found a few promising people, and hopefully can return to them. I feel like a true missionary when we are walking down a two lane road surrounded by fields to get to the next houses outside of town. Our investigator Maria is doing s...

Hola hola, So yes I am safe from the earthquake. It was way far north of us, but we did feel it here in San Clemente! We were in a member´s house teaching and then the light started swinging and it felt like the couches were vibrating. It was a super weird sensation, but almost unnoticeable. It only last about 10 seconds, but then we felt it again a few minutes later. No damage at all here, but apparently pretty bad up north, and the whole coast was on tsunami alert. I prefer hurricanes to earthquakes.. Anyway, this was a good week. Friday was the 18th of September, which is basically the Chilean Independence day (not sure of the exact history). So everything shuts down for the whole weekend, and everyone is celebrating. We had tons of asado (barbecue) and empanadas with different people. The asado here is super good, and usually includes chancho (pork), vacuno (beef), and chorripan (a type of sausage). We also ate fried and baked empanadas de pino (the filling is a mixture of beef and...

​My eyes might be closed, but I am too lazy to upload a different one ​ The sand is black here, it is really weird ​ ​

Hola! The title of my e'mail comes from a bus company here named Talca, Paris, and Londres (London), and I thought it was clever. This week we did a lot of traveling, and it was a very different week! On Wednesday we went to Talca for Zone Conference. Presidente and Hermana Warne were there and the main theme of the conference was making and keeping goals. This is so important. As missionaries we are always setting goals, but sometimes it is hard to remember them and focus your efforts there. Afterwards we had a great gringo lunch of meatloaf and mashed potatoes (mashed potatoes are actually very Chilean, and called pure (like pureè) here). On Wednesday night we took a bus to Rancagua for a New Missionary Conference on Thursday. Rancagua is about two hours away, and it was nice to go on a little road trip. We stayed overnight at the assistants house, with about 15 other elders. We have a Noche de Hogar with everyone, and very good milkshakes (which makes me want to buy a blender fo...

Hola hola! This was a pretty good week. Things are going well here in San Clemente. On Monday night we had a Noche de Hogar (family home evening) with Yohanna (a recent convert, along with her daughter) and her nonmember husband and kids. We showed a super old video "Las Familias Pueden ser Eternas" (that you could find on Youtube), and it went really well. I hope her husband and son will eventually be baptised so that their family can be together forever. Afterwards we had authentic tacos that my companion Elder Bustamante made. Everyone was amazed that a gringo like me was loading on the jalapeños. Chileans are super wimpy when it comes to spiciness, their aji is like water.... But anyway, it was a good night. This week we also set 4 baptismal dates! One is with a lady that got our number (via mormon.org , I think) and called us to come visit. She lives in Aurora and we have to take the micro to get out there. She is Evangelic and her son who lives in the US is a Mormon. We...