This just made me laugh... :]

Birthday Photos

That is crazy about Ross and Jeff. It doesn´t seem like long ago when they left. This week has been pretty good. There is snow up in the Mountains and so my companion and I decided to take the bikes out and try and reach the snow. We rode about 25 miles and still didn´t make it. But we still got some pretty good pictures. Also, the other day we were knocking doors and found an ostrich. I thought that was pretty cool. I never thought that I would see an ostrich in Chile. The new president got here last week. I´m pretty excited. We had a zone conference last friday where he told us a little bit about him and his family. He is from Alpine and he was a lawyer. Things are going to be completely different with this guy. I think things are going to be a lot better. We have interviews with him this week. Sounds like your 4th of July went pretty well. We didn´t really do anything. Things are going good down here. It didn´t rain yesterday so there were quite a few people at church. Thanks for everything. Talk to you later.
Love,
Matt

Hey, things are going good. My birthday was pretty fun. As a mission we went to the temple friday morning. That was a good experience. They needed a couple of missionaries to do baptisms for the dead, and I got to help out with that. On Sunday it rained hard, and all day. And we had seven good investigators committed to go to church. But none went because of the rain. Chileans are such babies when it comes to the rain. We only had 29 people at church yesterday. Then after church the whole mission gathered together and we had a last conference for President Morán. I´m going to miss that guy. He´s a really good speaker, the problem is he talks for too long. But he always gives good talks. For my birthday the family that we live with made a cake so that was pretty cool. I´ve got a couple of pictures but the computer I´m on doesn´t have a USB drive. I got the package today. Thank you so much. Everything is great. The pants, the fleece, and the scarf. And espcially the long johns, I´m excited for those, because it is getting really cold here. And there isn´t any time of heating in the house except for a little space heater that the mission doesn´t want us to use because of the electricity bill. The new President gets here Tuesday, but it will be at least a week before I even see him. Things are going good. Thanks for everything.
Love,
Matt

Hey I´m sending a couple pictures this week. One is when we were riding the bikes, the other is just us in the pension. First of all, Happy Father´s Day to Dad. Yesterday was a good day. The Mission President went to our church yesterday and gave a talk. It was kind of ridiculous. Because of his talk, Sacrament Meeting ended up being an hour and forty minutes long. We had an investigator who has a 2 year old kid and the kid was going crazy because that is a really long time for a kid to be in Church. So our investigator was worrying about her kid the whole time and not really focusing on the Spirit of the meeting. It was kind of lame. This is President Morán´s last week as mission president. Next Sunday we´re going to have a big meeting with the entire mission as a last thing for President. And I bet that we´ll get to meet our new President there, even though his reign doesn´t officially start until July 1st. This year my birthday is going to be kind of weird. Although as a mission we´re going to the temple this week. And it just so happens that my zone is going on Friday. That will be cool. Last week when we found out that Elder Dickson was going to speak to us I had no idea who he was. And I looked in the Ensign and saw his picture, still had no idea. Then at the conference, when he walked into the room I realized that I had seen him before at Spencer´s ordination, and that he is related to Carl. But I didn´t talk to him or anything. Also Elder Oaks was here in Chile, but he didn´t talk to our mission. He gave a talk to all of the single adults in our area. Also, it started raining this week. It´s crazy. Santiago doesn´t have a drain system in the streets so the streets just flood. I got soaked. It rained for a day and a half straight. But it´s not supposed to rain until this weekend. That´s about it for this week. Talk to you later.
Love,
Matt

Hey, things are going good. It´s starting to get cold are it started raining a little bit this week. This last Sunday was not too good. We didn´t get any investigators to Church. And only 30 people went to Church this week. We´re in winter down here and apparently everyone is too sick to go to church. That wasn´t too fun. Tomorrow we Elder Dickson from the First Quorum of the Seventy is going to give a talk at a big conference with all of the missions around here. So that´s kind of a big deal around here. I took a little nap today and when I woke up my companion told me, ¨I´ve got some bad news, both back tires on the bikes are flat.¨ So we have to go fix those when we go back home. Everything else is going good. Just working, keeping busy. Talk to you guys next week.
Love,
Matt

Hey, things are going good here in Chile. This week was kind of boring. None of our investigators went to Church this week so that was kind of lame. It´s really hard because we have to take a 20 minute bus to go to Church on Sunday, and that´s not including the waiting, because Chilean buses don´t have schedules. They just come when they come. And we live closer to the Church than any of our investigators. So it´s hard for them. But everything else is going good here. My companion is pretty cool. We´re having fun. A lot more fun than last change. My last companion never talked, not just in the lessons, but he wouldn´t really talk to me either. Everything´s going good. Not much to report on this week. Talk to you later.
Love,
Matt

Hey, things are going good here in Chile. We had changes today, I am staying in the same area but I got a new companion. His name is Elder Woodfield, and this is his third change. This week was pretty good. I ran over some glass and popped my back tire, so we had to take a bus into the city to buy some patches and stuff to fix it. That was pretty lame. Also, some guy with a back hoe accidentally broke the water line to our house so we didn´t have water for two days. But now it´s all good. Other than that nothing too exciting happened this week. Oh yeah, actually something pretty exciting. I saw someone get hit by a car here in Chile. It was totally the pedestrians fault for jaywalking. The person didn´t die or anything, but it was a pretty good hit. Anyway, that´s about all that has been happening around here lately. Tell Dad to get his line of authority, so I can get my line of authority. Also, everybody asks if I have pictures of my family and I don´t have any. So could you send me some pictures, not e-mailed pictures, but real pictures. They don´t all have to be new, just some pictures of the family. Thanks.
Love,
Matt

Hey, things are going good here in Chile. We had a baptism yesterday. It went really well. It was my companion´s first baptism so he baptized her. We´ve been teaching her for a couple of weeks. Both of her parents are members and her two sisters are members. So she had been taught everything before we even showed up. We just had to get her to commit. But everything was good. She has a son who is turning eight at the end of June and after the baptism he came up to me and asked me when he could get baptized. So if I stay here for the next change we´ll have at least one more baptism. Sounds like you had a fun weekend up at Shaun and Jenni´s. I sent Robbie a Dear Elder. I hope he´s going to the Buenos Aires South mission. Alright I´ve got to get going. Talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

That is awesome about Robbie going to Buenos Aires. Give me his address and I´ll try to send him a Dear Elder or something. This week is going good. It is starting to get pretty cold, and it gets really cold at night riding the bikes. But everything is good. We´re teaching this lady and she has a baptismal date for this Sunday. So we´re going to be busy preparing that this week. Where I am right now is huge. On Sunday we took the bus to go to one of our investigators house, then we were going to take the bus to church to make sure that they went. We left the apartment, then waited for the bus for over half an hour. Then we had to ride the bus for about a half an hour to get to the investigator´s house. And when we got there the investigators weren´t there. So we had to ride the bus for another half an hour to get to church. We ended up getting to church really late. I felt really embarrassed walking in to the sacrament meeting really late. But when the members asked us what happened and we told them that the buses are horrible, everybody just understood. It was weird, I thought everybody would make fun of us but nothing happened. So I guess here in this area we can get away with skipping church just as long as we blame it on the buses. I´m going to send some pictures today so you can see what Pirque looks like. Thanks for everything.
Love,
Matt

My new area is awesome. Although riding bicycles around all day is a little bit more tiring than walking. I´m exhausted. But it is really fun though. We are living with a family of members. We´re the only missioneries that get to live with a family. It is really cool. The son of the family just got back from his mission 6 months ago and he is really cool. My new companion is really new. This is his second change. So I´m senior companion. In the mission we call the first companion or the trainer your dad, and your second companion your mom. So here in the mission I´m a mom. But it is fun, he doesn´t speak spanish very well. Everything is going well down here, talk to you later.
Love,
Matt

This week was a ton of fun. On Thursday we were able to go to the Temple. Having everything in Spanish was a little weird, but it was really cool. I got moved from my area, after 4 months. I´m now in Pirque, it is the only sector in the whole mission that uses bicycles because the sector is so big. It is a really cool sector, there isn´t anything like it in the whole mission. It has a bunch of ranches and vineyards and it only has one dinky supermarket. But it is really cool. Yesterday we had a baptism, I´ll send you some pictures. I baptized a guy named Luis, we´ve been teaching him for about 4 weeks now. Also the other companionship in the ward baptised two sisters so we had three baptisms yesterday, it was amazing. Also on Friday we had a Family Home Evening of the ward and I played ¨Come Thou Fount¨ on the guitar, while Elder Hansen sang. It was just a fun night all around. I´m really going to miss my first ward, but I´m really excited for my new area. I got to go, but everything is going great. My computer doesn´t work for pictures today, I´ll try to send some next week.
Love,
Matt

This week has been pretty good. We have a baptism scheduled for the next week so I am pretty excited about that. This last Sunday we had a bunch of people at church. Every week the ward is getting bigger and bigger. Everyone keeps saying that we are doing a really good job as missionaries, it´s pretty cool. This is the last week of the change so I might be moving next week. I actually don´t know but I´ve been here for 4 months now so my guess is I´ll be leaving. I kind of hope that I go, I want to get to know a different area, but if I do go I´m going to miss the ward here. It is pretty cool being in one area for such a long time, everybody in the ward knows me and it is pretty fun. But everything is going good, if everything goes well with the baptism next week I´ll be sending pictures. Talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

I watched all the sessions of conference at the stake center this last weekend. So I didn´t really do much work, it was a nice break. The talks were amazing. Elder Perry gave an awesome talk about members helping the missionaries. It was cool because a couple weeks ago our mission president told us the same thing and showed us some statistics. Let´s just say there is a lot better chance for converts to stay active when we get help from members. But conference was really good. The only thing is we didn´t have any investigators come even though three separate people promised us they would come when we talked to them on friday. I was bummed. But now I have a whole new appreciation for conference, and I´m not going to take for granted watching conference on the sofa when I get back. Jory just passed his one year mark and I´ve got my 6 month mark coming up in a couple weeks. Time has been flying. I´m sending some pictures of the baptism. Talk to you later.

Love,
Matt

That trip to Moab sounds like so much fun. We definately have to do that when I get back. Things have been going good here. I baptized a ten year old girl yesterday that we have been teaching for the last couple of weeks. Her family is inactive so we are reactivating the family and baptized the girl yesterday, it is really cool to see how the baptism is bringing the family together, and the ten year old girl is setting a good example for her parents. But it was really funny because she is deathly afraid of water. We knew that something was up because everytime we talked about the baptism the girl always had a ton of questions about the water. Then when I was getting into the font with her she was freaking out a little bit. She held onto my arm with a death grip. But everything went well. The computer I´m using today doesn´t have a USB port so I´ll try and send some pictures next week. The Bishop of the ward I am in right now saw a picture of Dad that I had on my camera and said that Dad looks like Einstein, I thought that was pretty funny. General Conference is next week and I am pumped. I don´t think I have ever been this excited for conference before. Things are going good. Don´t worry about my shoes because I don´t ever use tennis shoes. After that Christmas activity when we all played soccer a rule came out where we can´t play sports, so I never use tennis shoes anyway. And when I need some I can get money from my debit card that I used before my mission. And also, I need the home address of Dustin Berlin. Everything is going good, I will talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

We love pictures!

Things are going pretty good right now. We had Stake Conference last week and I guess I haven´t changed much, because I was dosing off during the meeting. My excuse is that it is my blood, and for proof you just have to sit by Dad one Sunday. But everything is going really well. Here are some pictures, finally. My new companion is really cool. We have a baptism next week if everything goes well. So I´m pretty excited for that. This week has gone by so fast. It seriously feels like you told me that the Christenson´s were going to Florida for 3 months like a week ago and now they´re back. Time has been flying by. Things are going really well down here, but for now nothing new and exciting to report on. Talk to you later.
Love,
Matt

This week has gone by pretty fast. I just completed five months in the mission yesterday. Time flies by pretty fast. My new companion is really cool. He only has one more change in the mission than me, so we are both fairly new. He is a little timid so I have been leading all of our lessons and stuff. It is really good for me because with my first two companions I let them take the lead, but with this guy I have started to do it. Mission life has been really good, and really busy. It is still scorching hot down here. We have stake conference coming up this week, so I´m guessing that getting investigators to church is going to be even harder than it already is. We have been teaching this lady for about a month now, and she wants to get baptized, but she smokes, and she is having a really hard giving it up. But everything is going really well. Talk to you later.
Love,
Matt

Hey, I just finished my second change in the mission field. I got a new companion today but I´m staying in the same area for another six weeks. My trainer, Elder Ramos, went back to Mexico today. That kind of sucks because he was really cool. My companion from the last change is staying in the same pension so I´m going to be seeing him a lot still. My new compion is named Elder Aguirre. He is from Honduras and doesn´t speak any english, so it´s going to be fun teaching him english phrases. This last week was really fun. On Tuesday all the Elders who came with me to Chile and I went to downtown Santiago, which is actually outside of our mission, to get our ID cards. It was really cool and there are some really cool Catholic Cathedrals in downtown Santiago. I got some pictures but the computer I´m using today is not working with the pictures so I´ll try to send them tomorrow. Things are going good, I´ll talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

This week has been pretty good. I got the package today, I was really surprised it came so fast. Thank you so much for everything. All of it was perfect. So I am sending some pictures. The first is me and my companion Elder Zárate. The other is a picture of the average bus here in Santiago. Elder Hansen, my buddy from the MTC, and I went on splits on Saturday. So we worked together all day, it was really cool. That was the day it rained. When it rains here it pours, and I guess in the winter it rains off and on all day every day. But it is fine with me, it kind of reminds of Seattle. We have changes next week, so in one week I could be in another area with another companion, but I don´t know yet. But everything is going good, not too much to report on. The other companionship in our ward is having a baptism next week. The whole family, wife and kids, of the guy that is getting baptized are members. And I know the family really well and have taught the guy a couple of times, so this baptism is going to be really cool this week because his son that is 18 years old is going to baptize him. We are pretty excited for that. Everthing else is going good, thanks again for all of the stuff. The bag is perfect. Talk to you later.
Love,
Matt

Pictures!

Mom just thought it would be funny to put me and my cardboard Edward up.

Matt and his companion, looks like he's lost some weight!

The bus system.

When it rains, it pours in Chile.

Hey this week has been crazy. On Saturday my whole zone was at a plaza doing a public presentation. Where half of the missionaries sing hymns and the other half do contacts. We have a little table set up with pamphlets and picures and this really drunk Chilean started singing with us, then he started preaching some apostasy, like God is a spirit and stuff like that, then he tried to stand on our little table with pamphlets and preach. It was hilarious, I honestly couldn´t stop laughing the whole time. We were going to have a baptism yesterday but the lady bailed on us because she got really sick and she´s moving in with her daughter who lives in Southern Chile. So wasn´t too good. Also, there is a guy in our ward who got his car stolen and his life is just going really hard right now and he needed some shoes for work, because he does manual labor. So Elder Hansen and I each gave him a pair of shoes. So I am going to have to buy some soon, but it is ok because I barely ever use them. One of our rules is we can´t play soccer because I guess missionaries get in fights when we play. But it was really cool to help that guy out. I´ve got to get going, I´ll talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

Life here is good, we have a baptism scheduled for this Sunday, so hopefully everything goes well with that. There really hasn´t been anything too exciting to report on this week, everything is going really well. People are funny down here, they like to bash on America. It is really funny, one old guy asked me if I was in Chile looking for Osama Bin Laden. I thought that was a little weird, but some people are just crazy. Thank you so much for sending all of the stuff. I think it takes about three weeks to get here but that is alright. I love you, talk to you later.
Love,
Matt

Viña del Mar is North East of Santiago so I am probably never going to see it, but that is ok. There are tons of inactive families here in Chile. So many that when we are knocking doors we usually find a family or two that hasn´t been to Church for years. So that is a big part of the missionary work down here, reactivation. But this week was insane because we found a ton of new investigators. The mission goal is that each companionship find twenty new investigators a week. But that is insane, the average is like six to eight in a week. But this last week my companion and I found twenty, we reached the goal and we were pretty proud of ourselves. But now we have a lot of work ahead of us to get all of these people progressing. On Wednesdays we have a zone meeting and at the end of the meeting we get mail, and I got two of your letters. One form Jan. 16 and one from Jan. 22. But also we got the rule that you can only open mail on Preparation day. We have been getting stupid rules like that every week since I got here. But I was talking to another Elder that has been here a little longer that me and he told me that the new rules every week started in like November. So I guess something happened and now he is cracking down hard. But I read your letters this morning so I´m going to answer some of your questions. Every day except for Preparation Day we eat a big lunch at a members house. Lunch is the big meal down here. But breakfast in the morning and a small dinner is up to us. But we don´t have time to cook at night so we don`t ever eat a meal for dinner. I am in a ward that has about 90 to 100 active members. The area is so big that there are two companionships in this ward. My companionship and Elder Hansen´s companionship. Elder Hansen was in my district in the MTC. The person that we baptized a few weeks ago was baptized three weeks after we found her. So I knew her from the beginning. Also, this week we have a baptism scheduled and this lady has a really strong testimony of the Book of Mormon so that is really cool. You said that you were going to by a memory card reader and send it, if you haven´t already sent it could you also send a pocket knife and a scripture bag. The scripture bag from missionary mall is way too big and is annoying. Elder Hansen told me that there are scripture bags at the Distribution Center that are good. I just want a bag that is big enough to hold my scriptures and a book of mormon and some pamphlets, but it also needs to have a shoulder strap. If you have already sent the memory card reader don´t worry about this stuff, it isn´t life or death, I can wait. Also, you said that you had to give a lesson on following Christ. I had to give a talk a couple weeks ago about that. And your lesson about enjoying the journey. That is really important. In my first weeks here in Chile I kept thinking to myself, things are going to be so much better when I know Spanish, and things are going to be better when ... But then I got that Christmas package with the Christmas card and Dad wrote on that, enjoy every day. And after I started to have that attitude things went so much better, and all of the little things came together, like Spanish got a lot easier when I stopped worrying about it. Thanks for everything, it was really cool to get those letters. I love you, talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

My companion was born in Spain and lived there for 8 years and then moved to Lima and stayed there until his mission. But he played Pro Soccer for a Peruvian team and when he gets back he is going to try to play for Barcelona in Spain. That is crazy. And Dad was crazy when he told me that I would get to eat seafood down here, because it is really expensive so they don´t really eat it here in this part of the city. But the food here is still really good. Oh, and I read out loud every morning, because if I didn´t I would have really ugly Spanish. But anyway things are going good here. It is really really hot. But everything is good. I really like my new companion, and he doesn´t speak any English so I´m speaking Spanish all day until we get back to the house at night and I can speak English with my buddy from the MTC, Elder Hansen. I got those letters finally, thanks for all of them. That was really cool to get a ton of letters all at once. Anyways, talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

Hey, I´ve successfully got one change under my belt. And tomorrow I´m not going to be a newbie anymore. There is a group of new missionaries coming in tomorrow. We had changes today so I have a new companion, but I´m staying in the same area. My old companion is an AP now. My new companion is from Peru so he thought it was pretty cool when I told him that Dad went to Peru. But it was pretty cool, I told him that this was only my second change and I had only been in Chile for 6 weeks and he was really surprised. He said that from my Spanish, he guessed that I had been in Chile for 3 or 4 months. That was pretty flattering, even though I don´t think I´m quite at that level myself. While you guys are buried in snow I think it´s getting hotter and hotter everyday here. But this change has been really great. I´m going to miss my old companion because he was really cool, but this new guy seems like he´s going to be a good companion. I don´t know when the next time I´ll be able to send pictures because when my companion left, he took his memory card reader with him. But it´s all good, we don´t really ever have time to take pictures anyway. That is so cool that Mike and Lindsey are having a boy. I can´t even imagine how excited Mike must be. So how many generations of members are on Mom´s side of the family, and Dad´s? I´ve got to get going, love you, talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

Pictures!

Matt's first Baptism.

Matt and his companion Elder Ramos in their apartment.

Two Letters

Matt's e-mail to us didn't send last week, so we got two this week!

The mission lets us use gmail and it is way better than myldsmail. Here´s some pictures of Chile. My companion is letting me use his memory card reader because I don´t have any other way to get the pictures on the computer. The picture of where I´m am in the house, that is my companion and I in our house. His name is Elder Ramos and he is Mexican. This week has been pretty tiring. We have been doing a lot. It´s still really hot down here. A lot of people having been asking me about my geneology. I guess because I´m white the people here think that all of my ancestors were pioneers. So in your next e-mail could you tell me a little bit about how many generations our family goes back in the church and stuff like that. Nothing really exciting happened this week. I haven´t gotten the letters yet but I´m sure they are on their way. Tell the Whettens thanks, last week I got a letter from them that had little notes from a primary class or something like that. Hope you like the pictures, talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

This is for this week.

Yesterday I had my first baptism. It was a really cool experience. We have an investigator who is really poor and at the end of one of our lessons this week, he told us that he would come to church if we brought him some breakfast. I thought it was a little weird, but we did it. In the MTC they taught us to do anything to get your investigators to church, so I guess that`s what we were doing. I was eating lunch in a members house and they had the radio on. I heard that San Francisco song that Dad loves and it made me think of listening to that song in the car with Dad. This week has been really good. Spanish is coming along. It seems like the less I worry about it the faster it progresses. I love you and will talk to you next week.
Love,
Matt

Matt's New E-mail

Matt has a different e-mail address, it's now through Gmail. It's kwajimbo@gmail.com

Another letter...

I actually have to teach the Gospel Principles class in Spanish this week. It is about prophets. Oh yeah, and I forgot to tell you, I had to give a 15 minute talk in Sacrament meeting last week. The Bishop called us on Saturday, so I had about 15 minutes before bed that night to work on it. But it actually went really well, because the topic was missionary work, so I used a bunch of stuff from my farewell talk. The people here all celebrate New Year`s, and they do it by getting drunk and staying up until like 4 in the morning. So these last two weeks haven`t been too good about teaching lessons because of the holidays. And my companion tells me that a lot of people go on vacation for like two or three weeks in January, so this month could be tough too. But it has been good. The other day we found a lady and taught her a little bit on Saturday, and she came to church with us on Sunday. I was really surprised because people will let us teach them but they rarely will come to church. So that was really cool. Hopefully things go well with her in the next couple of weeks. My companion is the district leader so he has to go on splits with all the missionaries in our district. He went to another area and another missionary came to my area and was my companion for the day. I was a little nervous because I kind of follow my companion around all day, so I don`t really know the area. But that day was really good. I surprised myself with how well I actually knew the area. I just barely got around to opening all the presents earlier this week because you sent so much stuff. Thanks for the ties, they are perfect. When I got down here I realized that I don`t want to wear my nice ties very much, so they were perfect. Thanks for everything else too, although you overdid yourself, like always. Thanks again for everything.

Love,
Matt