Antuco

For pday today we got up really early and drove to Antuco, which is like 10 minutes away from Argentina. It was hands down the most beautiful place I have ever been to in Chile and it probably takes second or third place from before the mission. Long story short, I only have 10 minutes to email.

This week we had transfers. Everything went pretty smoothly and only one person almost got deported. A group of 11 missionaries left and we got a group of 27 so the mission continues to grow!

We all took "the Bomb" together on wednesday and it didn´t quite have to effect we were hoping. We heard that it just flushes you out but instead it just made our stomaches hurt. Either way, we should be parasite free.

We went to a pueblito to do a baptismal interview yesterday and she turned out to be a witch. Her house was covered in old stuff and chains and she literally had a cauldron boiling over an open fire.

Alright, Thats all I have time for. I´m going to see if I can at least attach one picture from Antuco.

Here are a few more photos....

Los Volatines     September 18

Fiestas Patrias

This week started out like usual. Lots of paper work, lots of traveling, and a ton of preparing for transfers. However on thursday we celebrated 18th of september, the Chilean fourth of July. But here, their independence day is way big. Even bigger than christmas. School is off for the week and people party so hard that at least 15 people die each day from thursday to sunday due to alcohol/drug consumption. 

We, on the other hand, decided to celebrate it the classic chilean way. We woke up early, did a our studies and went to the lake to fly volentines. I had forgotten how fun but how difficult it is. I learned that there is a difference between "kites for children" and volentines, they don´t mess around here.

After taking a couple videos and braking all of the volentines we went to the office to make hot dogs and watch a movie. Later that evening we went to the ward activity and ate lots of poorly cooked barbequed meat and watched everyone dance the Cueca. This week I am going to take "the bomb," a parasite medicine designed for gringos in south america so I should get rid of all the damage I´ve done so far. Then we finished up the night deep cleaning our apartment because it was too dangerous to go outside after eight.

It´s sad to think that it´s my last 18th of september that I will ever spend in Chile but my digestive system will be pretty happy.

Next week we have transfers again. this time there aren´t as many people leaving so it should be a little bit easier but there are still 30 people coming so not too easy. 

Wish us luck!

Elder Thompson

Ps. I´m putting a bunch of pictures on dropbox, check it out.

Operación Pino

This week started off pretty slow. Everything was pretty much done in the office so we had time to work as missionaries. On Wednesday we got a big package of new phones for the missionaries. The office elder from the other mission told us that when they got their new phones, the phone guy in santiago (Mr. Pino) messed up and deactivated like 20 of their old phones. So I emailed Mr. Pino and told him to be careful. But sure enough one by one people would call to tell us that their phone doesn´t work. When we lost about 15 phones to the "plague" everything went silent. People stopped calling to report that their phones don't work. We looked up online the check the damage but instead of only 15 phones not working, 70 phones stopped working. People stopped calling because almost none of the missionaries had phones. We quickly had a meeting to see how we could fix the problem and after thinking for a while, we realized that the only way to do it would be to split up and drive to every single sector in the mission to deliver new sim cards. We called it Operation Pino.

So I went with Elder Anderson and we chose the route through the coast and up through Angol while the other Elders went straight down to Temuco and Loncoche. We left at about 7:00 pm, bought some drinks, cookies and other unhealthy road trip food and headed down. After a full night of getting lost trying to find houses and pass out sim cards we finally got to Lebu at 12:30 and slept on the floor there. The next morning we got up early and got on the road. First stop was Cañete which was beautiful at that time of morning and the road from Cañete to Purén was even prettier. That morning we decided to make best use of the opportunity and stopped to look at views and took a bunch of pictures. I only wish the pictures could really capture how beautiful this country is. Sometimes it was just breathtaking. When it was time for lunch we bought a couple 2 feet long hot dogs and sat in the back of the van looking off a giant canyon with a cool looking bridge. 

We finally finished that night at about 12:00 again and went right to sleep. The next day all four of us were just exhausted. But 70 companionship's now have communication outside of their pueblitos.

Yesterday one of Rachel´s old companions came into the office to give me a package and it hit me hard that Rachel was home. Watching videos of Rachel was even weirder. It made the end of my mission a very real thing. It´s kind of scary to think about so I´m not going to do it.

That´s about it for this week, I´ll be putting a lot of pictures on dropbox today btw

Elder Thompson

Gnarls Barkley

This week started out pretty tough. There were the usual deadlines and an abnormally large pile of other things to do. But yesterday I think we were all rewarded for the work we did. We woke up and made the usual breakfast burritos. After getting to the office, we got a call from president who informed us that the elder that was going to leave the mission that day decided to stay. Then we all went to President's house for our interviews which were followed by an awesome Hawaiian haystack lunch. After getting some some stuff done in the office we remembered that we had to play something at the talent show that night. So we obviously chose to play "Crazy" 10 minutes before it started. We played and it turned out pretty well. They also made us play sound of silence again.

But besides that, the week was pretty bland.

I still can´t believe that Rachel is going home. I was going to write her about it but I realized she would never read it. Weird. Make sure to send me tons of pictures and videos of when she comes back. 

Scripture of the day: Luke 2:52.

It splits up Christ´s path to perfection into 4 main categories. Aka what we should do/the goals we should put to grow up and eventually become perfect.

hasta luego,

Elder Thompson

"Crazy"

Elder Zaballos