October 12, 2009

Howdy, howdy, howdy to you!

I'll just start by giving you the mailing address for the mission:

Elder Trevor Vincent
Misión Chile Concepción Sur
O'Higgins 940 Of. 503
Casilla 3560, Concepción, Chile

I'm not sure if the address for packages is different, but I imagine it would be the same. It would be a good idea to find that package (Dad might know where it is) because it also has the information for when I need to sign up for school again. But there's that address for you! :)

I'll bet you're very excited to get things going on the house. Don't worry about feeling 'spoiled', count your blessings that you live in an area of the world where you are able to enjoy such things. But I think it would be great to get involved in some humanitary activity - experiences like that could do everyone a bit of good, I think.

Thanks for getting up early to send the letter! Elder Kester and I actually got on the computers a bit early this morning (8:30) because we had a zone activity in Los Angeles at 11. But when I saw that I hadn't recieved an e-mail from you yet I decided I would only use half my time this morning so I could respond later. So here's a few updates and things I thought you'd appreciate:
1. I remember you mentioning something about Sara talking about animals in her letters home. I really only have one animal to talk about: dogs! THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. There's no such thing as a dog catcher here, and everyone has guard dogs (every house has a fence around it, I'll send pictures sometime) and those dogs just love to make more little dogs. There's dog poop everywhere, and you can't walk down a street without getting barked at. Sometimes I just want to punch the dogs right in the face to get them to shut up haha. So yeah, that's just about it for animals. Oh, and there's lots of cows.
2. The other day one of our investigators called us in the morning and asked us if we could go over and help her paint her house - which we did. It turned out to be a bigger job than we had anticipated, so we spent about 4 or 5 hours cleaning the front of the house and painting it. I didn't like the color she chose (orange), but we got it done nonetheless. And she went to church on Sunday! And she wants to bring her kids next week! So that family is moving right along :)
3. My ears hurt very much during sacrament meetings on Sunday because, well....nobody can sing. And nobody knows any of the hymn save one or two. Soooo...yeah...painful.
4. The people - generally VERY nice. You could be arguing with someone and they'd still offer you a drink or a piece of bread or something. And then there are the people who aren't so nice. The other day we tried to talk to this lady in the street and she wouldn't even shake our hands - she just shook her head and said no (to which Elder Kester said, '¡Super amable usted!'). And then the other day a car drove by and this guy leaned out the window, yelled something profain and showed us his beautiful birdy. Haha, great stuff. No matter, we're working hard, and we're loving it. There's this lady that likes to give us free frozen juice and milk, and she's not a member! We'll have to work on that :)
5. Since we're in a smaller branch, sometimes there are sundays when either there is nobody that is ready to give a talk or teach a lesson, so guess who the branch president thinks is always ready?....the missionaries! Yaaaayyy...? Haha yes, we have given many a lesson or talk with about 5 minutes heads up. Good stuff.

Well, that's about all I've got for this week. I don't think I'll have time to send pictures this week, but if I have enough time I'll do so. It was great to hear from you! I've got an e-mail from dad I've got to check as well, so I'm going to go do that.

It's always great to hear the updates on the family! I'll look forward to hearing from you next week! Love you!

- Trevor