So first thing first, there is no Thanksgiving here in Chile. No hay Dia de Gracias aqui. Thanksgiving is specifically an American Holiday. I don't know if I will do anything to celebrate.

This past week was kinda lazy. Except I worked with the President of the Mission on Tuesday. And there was a Talent Show on Friday. But other than that...

President Dalton has a little bit of time every third month or so to go out with the missionaries. He picked two companionships (that I know of) and worked one afternoon with them. It was nice because every lesson counted as a "with member lesson" and we drove around in his Ford Explorer. He knows what we need to do to be successful in this mission so it was a great learning experience to work with him.

 Then on Friday we had a talent show. It started at 9 pm and went until 1 am. We left at 10 but the acts I saw were good. I especially liked the Youth of the ward. They did two sketches. The first was the joke "How many members of this church organization does it take to fix a light bulb?" The second was two musical numbers from the Disney Movie Enchanted. As the Obra Missional we did a sketch about two friends who are in the pre-earth life. One will be born in the gospel and the other will not. The one makes a promise to find and teach his friend the gospel. It was spiritual and funny too. Our Mission Leader is new and he was very nervous to get in front of the crowd. (it was a full house. we had 3 investigators at the Talent Show and the other elders had 2). 

It is usually around 70 to 80 degrees here but the suns rays make it feel hotter. I have not taken a pic with my mammitas yet (sorry, I was lazy) and I cannot send pics today because the Ciber we are in does not have USB ports on their computers. I could use a floppy disc though. Go figure.

My clothes are holding up still. My shoes for sports and service are pretty beat up though. And a few shirts have stains... the one with the huge pizza stain was not my fault though. I was a victim with that one. and apparently I need more ties. Usually the missionaries give ties to their converts and special members of the ward before they leave. I have only given one to Elder Stratford so far but I can definetly see how fast I could go through ties.

The investigators are doing okay. Mario is getting ready for his baptism on the 6th of December and I think Maria Araya will be ready by then too. When Elder Stratford left some of the investigators lost interest too which is sad but it is their choice. We have found some new people and some people that I met during my first Cambio have regained interest. You just never know.

I think that is it for this time. I wish you all good luck with your endeavors. I always pray for you. Love you all. 

Dad, I hope you can get all the horses you need before it really starts to snow. I will not have to worry about snow or shoveling snow for a little while. 

I know the time will pass by quickly. I just wish I could have started my mission with the spanish and knowledge I have now. I feel that by the time I switch sectors I will feel confident with my spanish. Obviously I will have to keep working and studying to improve it but I think I will be confident in my conversations. (especially with Elder Riveros as my companion. LOTS of Spanish practice)

I hope you guys enjoy Thanksgiving. Also, today I learned about a Church project called "He is the Gift". There is supposed to be a lot of effort put into this so I hope you guys can use it too. 

Love you Dad. Thanks for being an example.

Jake, Sounds like you had a good time at the tournament! Congratulations Jake! 

What do you mean it was your last recital? You should continue practicing piano for as long as you are able to. It can be hard, and I know it is not always fun, but when you can play any song you want because you are so good then it will all be worth it.

Moses 1:39 is a good scripture.  Love you bud. Have fun with the cousins.

Kaitlin, I still itch and why did no one else mention that Dennis and Becky are serving a mission in Canada?! I did not even know they had sent in papers.

As far as Spanish jokes, take a joke in English and translate it. It is about as simple as that. There are some jokes that apply specifically in Chile and others that apply specifically for Missionaries but I am not very good at jokes in Spanish (to which my companion can attest).

Love ya sis. 

Mimi, I hope you feel better now. To not be able to speak is killer (I have had a little experience with that recently).

And there have only been like four things that I have not told my mom. I am not THAT stupid (and certainly not that brave). The story of my mission so far is that other people laugh and I still don't understand the joke. A few other things happened but to sum it up in one sentence, its like that. 

Love you Mimi. Enjoy Thanksgiving. 

Elder Hunter

Jake:

If you are going to play with the big dogs you might get a little beat up. That is just the way it goes. In this picture it is steak. I think it was steak... now I am not really sure... hmmm. Well, it was meat so I ate it.

Love you bud, Elder Hunter

Dad:
Sorry you were sick. I have a little cold right now too but its nothing bad. Its just that cold that goes down to your lungs and makes my voice drop an octave. 

You guys have snow? I wish we had snow. It is getting hot and it gets hotter every day. I don't know if I can survive the heat down here.

I am glad my story inspired you for your talk. The apostles often use parables like the Lord did to teach. I think it helps people to comprehend when they can picture something physical.
Tell Grandpa and Grandma that I love them. 

Thanks Dad. I love you. Elder Hunter

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Kaitlin:

I never read "The Help". You cannot use a quote from something I have never read. How am I supposed to recognize it? Therefore, the statement about bad grammar stands. (at least use quotation marks next time)

It is very hot down here and it is supposed to get hotter. Elder Riveros and I are getting along just fine. The Spanish is coming. I use the dictionary a lot now.
Enjoy the snow. They are kids down here that don't know what rain is let alone snow. 

Love ya sis, Elder Hunter

Mom:
I got the letter that you sent over a month ago. Elder Stratford cut my hair the first time and Elder DeLaMare cut it last Monday. My hair is very short right now but you get what you pay for. (and this haircut was free)

I will try to speak in English or in Spanish and it comes out as Spanglish. So neither one is doing very well at the moment. There was definetly a transition period but Elder Riveros and I get along fine now.

The shopping thing just depends. We never carry very much money on us but we are discouraged from using our card too much as well. The money thing goes like this. 1000 pesos is about 2 dollars (1000 is the smallest bill). So we just double the price more or less. If a box of cereal costs 4000 pesos it costs about 8 US dollars. The bills and coins have the amount written on them so that helps. Budgeting skills are being tested but I do pretty well.

I ended up on the roof because Elder Stratford fell through the roof during a service activity earlier in his mission. When he landed a rusty nail went through his shoe, his pants, and into his leg. So he kind of does not like roofs now... go figure.

Our apartment is higher up on the hill. We are well within the safety zone for a tsunami. We used Raid to kill the fleas but I think there are still a few somewhere in the apartment. Elder DeLaMare, Elder Pineda, and I all got bit. Somehow Elder Riveros has avoided the fleas entirely. The bites still itch... so yeah. For our barbaques we normally grill chorriso which is a type of sausage (i think).

So Matt finished his mission? That is awesome! Send him my regards but I wont be able to see him for awhile.

Mom, I love you, but there are some things I do not believe you would react well to. So yes, in letters to other people sometimes there are other details. This does not happen a lot but it happens. I write in my journal every night so you can read that after my mission if you want to know.  Or you can convince the other people to talk. Either way.

I usually get between an hour to 2 hours to use the computer on Pday. It depends on what else we have to do that day. It can take a little while to read everyone's letters but I love getting messages from everyone so don't stop writing.

This week we had zone conference. That is why I received your letter. (the letter might get to the mission office beforehand but I don't receive it til one of the leaders goes to the office and picks up the "pouch".) We had a meeting with our new mission leader. He is excited to work. Great things should happen if he and the ward continue to have this kind of "animo". We had an activity called "Puertas Abiertas". It was an open house of our chapel. It was not a "Grand Slam" as far as activities go but there was definite success and the ward had fun doing it. I was in the baptismal font with Elder DeLaMare and we demonstrated how to perform a baptism (sin agua).  On Sunday I had an interesting experience. Cambell (not sure if that is how you spell his name) is from Australia. He is here on a service program to teach kids English. He speaks VERY little Spanish. His host family is a part-member family. He leaves Chile in 2 weeks and decided to finally go to church and see what it is like. I acted as an interpreter for him during the lessons. I really hope I did not confuse him more but he said he had a good time. We had a family home evening last night with a recent convert. We taught her daughter the Restoration. Tuvemos cualquier miembro alla. It was good but I felt like we were ganging up on her a little bit.

I think that is it for this week. I forgot my camera cord (sorry) so maybe next week I can send pics. Love you Mom. Tell everyone else I love them too. talk to you next week. Elder Hunter

Okay. Sorry about last week. After we dropped off Elder Stratford at the mission office we went shopping in Centro. But then when we needed to go pick up Elder Riveros we could not find the right bus. We finally got to the Bus Station but we were a little late. Then the member that was going to pick us up had truck problems so we had to call around and find someone else. By the time we got back to the apartment we did not have very much time left for PDAY. We got on to write just a little bit and then we had to shop for the week. Now that I have that explained, this is what happened last week.

We (Elder Stratford and I) met a Columbian couple that just recently opened a bakery (don't know if I wrote about them before). Jose and Blanca are very receptive and Jose had practically memorized the Restoration Pamphlet by the time we saw them again. We can only teach them while they are working, which is rough, but they are eager to learn. We often eat while we teach them too. They have some REALLY good empanadas, pizzas, and chaparitos. They are reading the Book of Mormon together and they read 2 or 3 chapters each night.

Next, we did more service on the roof of Maria Araya's house. I was the only one to actually go up again. I am glad to help but there are some BIG spiders on that roof and I don't know what spiders are dangerous here in Chile. But that is not the great news about Maria. The great news about her is she has gone to a Relief Society Activity and has come to church twice so far. She has a baptismal date set for the 6th of December. She may need a little longer than that to feel prepared and to receive her answer but the goal is the 6th. Mario Guerra also went to a Priesthood activity the same night that Maria went to the Relief Society activity. The ward is doing a good job of welcoming them in.

There were a lot of people who were sad to see Elder Stratford go. He took a lot of pictures and we ate a lot of food the week before he left. Halloween was interesting. It was just like a normal day for us but there were a lot of kids out in the streets. Also, the 31 of October is Evangelical Day here and the Evangelicals HATE Halloween because of that. 

I cant remember if I told you but I climbed that hill again. I did not puke but I was still dead tired at the end. The view was a little clearer the second time and in truth it was easier going up. I am not sure if I was really THAT out of shape the first time or if I just needed to eat a better breakfast.

You may remember that I wrote about an investigator named Paolo. Turns out his name is Pablo. Neither Elder Stratford or I had any idea until he wrote down his facebook account for Elder Stratford. He talks so fast that we could not understand him. 

So my new companion is Elder Riveros from Paraguay. He has 8 siblings and he is the first missionary. He does not speak English. His personality and teaching style are very different from Elder Stratford so it has taken a bit of adjusting to work with him. He is a good Elder though. With his help Maria, Mario, and Lydia (spouse of Jose Riquelme) all have baptismal dates for the 6th of December. I think only Mario is a guaranteed baptism that day but we will be working hard to help prepare the others.

I gave my first blessing of comfort in Spanish to Mario Guerra right before he left for Peru again. I have officially given a blessing of comfort, a blessing of health, and an anointing in Spanish. Well, actually several anointing's and two blessings of health but who is counting?

Our apartment had fleas this week. Elder Stratford left his mission without ever having a problem with fleas. Lucky guy. Flea bites itch. I believe we have it taken care of now but fleas really suck. I understand why dogs and cats scratch themselves so much now.

I hope this week makes up for last week. If I have time I will try to send some photos too. Love you all and you are always in my prayers. Until next week.

Elder Hunter

PS The new names for the week are Elder Hoonter, Hermano Hunter, and Elder Brock.

I am sorry. Crazy day. No time to write. My new companion is Elder Riveros from Paraguay. Picked him up at 3 30 today. 

I will try to write a lot next week because I had a lot to write this week anyway. Gotta go to work now.

Love you guys. I am praying for you. Stay well.

Elder Hunter