me quedo

Looks like I’m staying in Lebu with my comp. But the other elders in the house are leaving and we are going to live alone just the two of us. We are still making plans of what we are going to do with all the space. 

This week was quite exhausting. But at the same time, very rewarding. We have been teaching an older couple who are very nice and very smart. This week, cristián told us that he believes its true and that he will be baptized this coming month! His wife still has the influence of her parents and family but we are pretty sure she will be baptized with her husband.

This last week, a guy stopped us in the street and asked us to help him with something, gave us his address and left. Not knowing anything about him or what he wants, we found his address and it was a giant and very old house. At first we thought is was a joke but we nocked the door anyways and he let us in. He sat us down in his living room and left. We sat there in front of his giant open fireplace and stacks of old pictures for a solid 10 minutes. We didn´t know if we should leave or go look for him. But he finally came back and asked us to translate his resume. That’s it. Later we asked our ward mission leader about him and apparently he is very well know here and is somehow involved in drugs. I´m not sure if he makes, sells, or just does drugs but apparently we can´t go back to his house. At least he seemed like a nice guy. We have a time set up to talk to him in the chapel.

Shoot, I’m out of time. Till next week!

Nothing says love like burning tires

This Valentines Day was quite interesting. On Friday, we left early in the morning to find a house for rent for more missionaries that are coming. We were stopped in the street by a member who continued to tell us about how all the fisherman are mad because they put a limit on how much fish they can bring in just then a big angry group of fisherman came down the street so we quickly ran into the chapel, being gringos, and not only the fisherman passed by but the mapuches and the Chilean gangsters called flaites. They continued marching until they reached the end of town and blocked of the road with cars and garbage. Then they lit it on fire. At this point we were on the other side of town until people started yelling at us to not cross the bridge that goes to the center of town. A little scared we called our leaders and they told us to go home so we waiting in our house as the world fell apart outside. The big group of angry people took over Lebu at the two entrances, one at the highway far away; the other was the bridge behind our house. We couldn´t see what was happening but we could hear explosions, screaming, and the undertrained riot police shooting sandbags in all directions.

This continued until three in the morning.

The next day we left the house early in the morning to see if it will be safe and everything was destroyed. There were families leaving town with their bags and other people just sitting out side looking at the damage. Now all of Lebu smells like burning tires. After lunch, they had cleaned up the bridge enough where we could cross on foot so we continued working but word is that they are going to decide on changing the fish limit today and if they don´t, they will take over poor Lebu again.

So that was Valentines Day. They rest of the week was pretty slow. People are still all on vacation so we just did a lot of looking for people again. 

That’s about it for this week. 

Elder Thompson

Bici

This week was pretty slow. Everybody is on summer vacation here so everybody we have was out of town. We did a lot of looking and a lot of finding but in terms of lessons, it was a little hard this week. 

There was a less active living with a non member that are both really cool but in a difficult situation. This week they got married and the husband got baptized. It was cool to see them make the change and how happy they are now. 

We talked to a friend of the ward mission leader named Enzo, who is Mapuche and lives out in the Forest. He has been a part of a lot of churches but hasn´t found one that he agrees with. We taught him a little and he was really excited to learn more. We are also going to start to teach him English and he is going to teach us Mapudungun, one of the languages of the Mapuches. We are pretty excited. 

Yesterday we decided that we wanted to try to find a waterfall for p day. But when we asked people where it was, they said it´s too far to walk. So instead, every time we passed by someone we asked them to borrow their bike. By the end of the day we all had a bike. It was awesome working on bikes too, we could visit anybody we wanted in very little time. The downside was that everybody was laughing at us. I guess even the people here have the image of missionaries on bikes but we never do it so when people finally saw us on bikes, it was apparently very funny to them. A drunk guy straight up pointed at us and laughed out loud when we passed by.

Today, we went in the direction they told us to go and found the waterfall with only getting lost a couple times. It felt so good to ride a bike again. Especially at the end when we went down a huge hill that lasted a solid 5 minutes. Now, we have to go back to work even though our legs can barely move.

That's it for this week, thanks for all the prayers! 

Elder Thompson

Dunes

Lots of wind as always

Meeting with friends before transfers

Saying goodbye to Lota

Saying goodbye to Lota some more

We found it!

We found macai berries

Spanish for English

My Spanish is getting a lot better. I made a goal to not speak English anymore and it has helped me a lot. Yesterday, one of the assistants called me and was speaking to me in English so I decided to speak English back and I couldn´t. The words just didn´t come to my head. I guess when Spanish comes in, English has to leave.

This week we couldn´t put any appointments with people so we decided to focus on finding more. We heard stories of missionaries offering tours of the chapel so we tried it. We had a table full of pamphlets and stuff, we had a short video that people can watch and some other nice touches here and there. We taught so much in so little time. I was really surprised by how many people wanted to do a tour. We hung out in the street and just asked people if they wanted to do it.

So now we have a good pool of people to teach. Now the key is to be able to find them when they are home.

We started to teach a guy named Juan. His wife is a member and wants more than anything to be sealed in the temple with him but he is a fisherman and spends all his time out at sea and doesn´t want anything to do with nothing. He also has been smoking since he was 8. The doctor said he is going to die soon if he doesn´t stop but that’s not important to him. We finally got the chance to teach him the plan of salvation and it changed him a little. We have been fasting and praying that he can understand why he is here. It is kind of a sad situation but when we taught him that he has potential more than just in this world, he took a big step in his life and we saw a little hint of desire to change.

We also found a group of 4 kids that are about 16 years old. They were hanging out playing minecraft and they let us in to talk. We asked one of the kids what his thoughts were about god and he told us that he believes there is a god but he thinks most people go to church and pretend to believe out of fear of not fitting in with a family or the culture. Another kid said that he is pretty sure that there is a god but everybody talks about feeling the spirit but he has never felt it and he doubts that the people shouting and shaking their hands in church are actually feeling it. They blew us away by how spot on they were. We explained a little bit about the difference between Christianity the culture and Christianity the religion and they really liked it. We are getting together again this Tuesday.

I have never mentioned how people greet each other here. Between guys they first shake hands, then hug, then shake hands again to finish it off. It was a little weird at first but I like it. Between girls and guys, they kiss on the cheek. Between girls, they kiss on the cheek too and if men know each other really well, they do it too. Just an interesting culture thought.

Hopefully next week I’ll be able to put pictures up because I have a lot. 

Love you guys!

Elder Thompson