Week #7

ALOHA. I miss hawaii this week as it randomly got REALLY hot. It is always cold in the morning and night but the HEAT came during the day. Ok wow I always freak out when I am writing because I always have so many things happen and I have so little time. BUT sorry no pics this week, I forogt my chord.

Anyways in no specific order there are some crazy things. So missionaies dont eat dinner here. We eat a freakishly large lunch, like very large, and i swear I am going to explode after after time i eat. Andyou have to eat it all. Not gonna lie, I have stuffed some things in my pocket. So we eat at 1:30 with members and then eat a snack when we get home at 9:30. Also today is Chile's independance day (equiv of our 4th of july). So I guess it a law here that everyone has to have a chile flag in their window or hanging up outside or you will get a ticket, so we had to go buy one under the direction of the mish prez. BUT i was trying to learn my vocab and i accidentally asked the person (pointing to the flag) if it was a bandera or basura. and that means flag or trash and they got offended because they thought i was calling it trash. i explained and then they laughed but it was pretty awk. Also i have to google translate my emails to my mission prez because he does not speak english. I also sang in the choir yesterday at my branch confernce and this dude came up to me and told me i was off key and i wanted to laugh because THEY WERE SO OFF and I know for a fact i was singing it right lol. I swear everyone here is tone deaf (oh and comp is the most tone deaf lol sometimes i cant even sing because he is like 3 notes off and i am lost in the song). I got my first door slammed in my face. Essentially, they opened the door and said no before we said anything, but i thought it was funny. Rules. We cannot eat shellfish or food from food trucks. It was awk bc a member brought it out on our plate but we weren't allowed to eat it, but she totally understood cause she has a daughter on a mission with similar rules. I also had a beet salad this weekend and it was the best thing ever if you know how much I love beets. Also the toilet seat and flush feature on our toilet is broken so we have to use a stick to pull the little thing up that lets water into the toilet bowl. Never thought I would appreciate a flush feature so much. Something cool here is the bebida express. At stores they have drinks that are super cheap in glass bottles. But the trick is that you have to drink it right there and give them the bottle back (hence express), a ton of people collect bottles here to turn in for money. DOGS. People just dont pay attention to them. They are everywhere and I always pet them and everyone looks at me haha and when i told my chilean roomates i liked dogs they were like SERIOUSLY. But there are really mean ones and really nice ones. Essentially I always hear dogs barking past every house I walk past. we have district meetings wednesday mornign and it is an hour bus ride away so.... nap time (one of my favorite times of the week). We also cover a little city another hour away called Colbun. It is legit farmland and its so small so missionaries dont live there but we go teach there all day thursday's. Our focus of who to teach are immigrants, families, and people between the ages of 9 and 25. Also, there is this dude Jorge who is a member and he does nothing all day everyday so he always comes teaching with us but I dont understand him at all and he does not understand my gringo spanish,so we basically sit in silence lol. Oh and lastly, my comp will call people on the phone and right when they answer he will stick the phone in the ear and force me to talk and literally every time he has to end up talking back because i just say si or no or please say that again slower, one time they hung up haha. BUT this week has been prety good. Saturday was one of the longest days ever. Nobody would listen to us bc everyone was doing crazy work for the holiday. LOVE YAL!

~ Elder Nord