Elder Evelo in Concepcion Chile: Bienvenidos a Chile!

Holy crap I'm in Chile!! The past 24 hours have been crazy! The airport was a fun expirience haha but im glad that I had other missionaries with me to help out. The flight to Santiago Chile was sooo long (about 9.5 hours) and we were given full course meals and everything, it was awesome! When we got to Santiago we had to run to our next flight and going through customs made it take forver, but we were able to make it to our flight right as they were boarding. Concepción is beautful! I took quite a few pictures on the plane, but its so hard to appreciate how beautiful it is from a photo. When we went to claim our baggage there were a bunch of missionaries holding a big sign saying welcome to the Chile Concepción mission. It was such a relief to see them haha. We took some pictures with them and then we drove to the mission office. At the mission office we had a bunch of training stuff about health and finances and stuff. And then after all of that we had a meeting were alll the new missionaries had to bear their testimony and then we were assigned a trainer! My Spsnish during my testimony was super bad haha but I found out that my trainer and first companion is Elder Bianco. I totally thought he was a gringo (American) and i was super happy cause i could speak english with him, but NOPE. He´s Argentinian and he speaks no English at all! Haha So ive been having so much fun not speaking english at all haha but i know i´ll be able to learn faster like this which is good. After we got our trainers we drove to our area or sector. My first sector is in Querihue which is about 2 hours north of Concepción. The weather is super awesome except for the fact that its about a million degrees haha. Querihue is a pretty small town and the people here are pretty poor. Almost evryone lives in super small houses with no A/C. But the people here are awesome! They are so nice especially to new missionaries like me who know no spanish. Well at least i think they are being nice... Anyways, the branch here has about 15 or 20 members, and the church building is in our casa/pueblo. Its super crazy how small the church is here but im getting used to it little by little. Out casa is pretty small but i like it. After i unpacked a bunch, Elder Bianco and i went out to teach some lessons. Oh boy was that fun haha. I pretty much followed him around cause i didnt know what he was saying to me haha, and during the lessons i just sat there crying in my head cause i didnt know what anyone was saying haha. It was pretty rough but I could tell how awesome a teacher Elder Bianco is and now i know that i have a lot of spanish to work on.

Things about Chile, especially in Querihue: There are dogs everywhere. Haha you cant look some where without seeing about 5 stray dogs laying around. We have this one dog that follows us around and its awesome haha. They told the new missionaries about dog bites but all the dogs here are super friendly. The money here is super inflated. Its about 620 Chilean pesos to one US dollar. So there are times when we are almost milionaires haha, but not really. Everyone here talks sooooooooo fast. Like holy crap its so scary haha. Every time some one talks to me i have to tell them to repeat what they said about 5 times haha.

The past couple days have gone by pretty fast. Everyday i am learning more and more. Elder Bianco and i are pretty good friends now and i can actually understand the majority of what he is saying haha. The other elders in our casa (elder Watson and Santos) are pretty awesome guys too. I like Elder Watson a lot cause he is from Utah and speaks english haha. Im actually starting to talk to investigators and the members now! Only a little bit but more than the first day! Elder Bianco still teaches almost all of the lessons but i say a couple things now and then.

This Sunday was pretty interesting. Like i said before the church is in our casa and it doesnt start until 3 which is awesome haha. But it was a good sunday cause we had 16 people there! Elder Bianco says there is usually around 18 people so thats not too shabby haha. It was cool though, and i got to give a small talk during sacrament meeting cause im a nooby. I can definitely tell that my Spanish is getting a bit better but i still need to learn a lot.

We took a bus to Concepciòn for P day so that we could get some stuff from the mission ofice and so that we can go shopping and walk around the city a bit. You cant see the ocean from inside the city but hopefully we will go take pictures and stuff a little later and I´ll send those next week. But other than all off that, everything is going really well! Super vacan! (vacan means awesome). Im so happy to be here as a missionary and to have the opportunity to serve these wonderful people. I love and miss everyone back home and i hope that everyone is doing great!

Elder Evelo