Hooooola familia y amigos!!
IM ALIVE. and Im loving it. so forgive me first off because im going to stop putting many caps in my letter. because reason #1 i know im not in the usa anymore... this keyboard is different and all the letters and such are in different locations. im having a hard time typing hahaha.
but im alive!!! im here! im actually in chile and teaching real people and speaking spanish and having te best time and best experiences already!! hahaha. so ill just start from the plane ride...
but first, HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY TO MY MOM!!! on the 25h of august!! i hope it went well! I was thinking of you!
We woke up and went to the airport at 6, and got on a tiny plane to LAX. then from there to santiago, a 15? hour flight (p.s. it took me like 10 secons to find the question mark on this keyboard haha) on my plane to santiago i sat next to a chileno who was basically the boss of chrysler in all of chile. i was able to talk with him a little bit and make conversation and such... but i wasnt too completely successful. But anyway so i just slept away pretty much all of the flights! like usual... haha. it was awesome. there 16 of us traveling together i think. anyway we didnt have much layover time in between, especially with boarding early for international flights and such. so i wasnt able to call much :/ I got a hold of mom and dad and jen, and left a quick message on curtis phone, but thats it :/ i was sad. i wish i couldve talked to all the fam haha. but it sounds like the message got sent around at least!
okayyy but so we landded in concepcion finally and we were greeting by our mission president, his wife, 1 senior couple, and a bunch of office missionaries to help us with our stuff. we all said hi then piled in a van to go to the mission office! We were then sent out to start our visas, take pictures for the president, and other important things right off the back. I had an interview with my MP and he is awesome! He said he would give mom and dad a call sometime!! hopefully he got to that. but then after all that we went to a church nearby and had a quick dinner of dominos pizza (its new here) with all the trainers and then had a meeting with everyone, everyone got paird up with a companion, and off we went!!! sO THat all went pretty quick...
BUT... so im sure youre all wondering what its like, whos my companion, where am i, first impressions, blah blah blah...
So my companion is Elder Sutterfield from Springville utah, and hes been here about a year. hes awesome and we get along well. I{ve been assigned to the Longaví area (you can all google earth longaví, chile now and see where im at!)... and heres some thoughts from the first week.
Its definitely not the usa because its august and i am FREEZING. hahaha. the first day i got here it was just pouring rain all day and cold. I am ALWAYS wearing my long compression shorts and socks at all times. i sleep with them on too haha. its pretty cold. i also wear my sweatpants, a shirt, and a jacket, while inside my sleeping bag, with 2 blankets on me. its really really cold hahaha. my hands are freezing now as i type this!
Longaví is the poorest area in the Chile, Concepcion mission. Its crazy. literally theres no way to describe it but everyday i just think wowwww no one would believe this! They all just need to see it!! The people are really poor and their houses for families of 4 are just a little bit bigger than my dormroom at BYU. There{s no such thing as carpet here, and all they have is stone,tile and cement floors. its freezing cold outside, and theres no such thing as heaters or insulation.... so their just begging for freezing cold houses haha. pretty much all the time their kitchens/living rooms/every room minus a bathroom and bedroom are just one room together. Their houses are usually just one "tri-room" and then a bedroom. i still have yet to see a bathroom in someones house, but i imagine that theyre there hahaha. They have to have wood stoves or something lit all the time to heat their houses. , but most of the time they dont even have that going unless its late at night. so its always just cold haha.
it rained my first two days ive been here, but its been sunny since then! but its still really cold. but at least im not wet haha.
so we live in a small pension (apartment) too. it has a kitchen, some extra space, a room, and a bathroom. 4 of us live together in it. its alot of fun and all the people im with are cool! haha. the two other elders we live with are peruvian!! and they barely speak english, but theyre trying to learn a little bit. its the funniest thing here because im new so everyone wants to try and show off their english to me and its all TERRIBLE hahaha. but i teach them english things and they teach me spanish so its a good trade! so anyway im living with elder chirinos and elder vargas as well. theyre awesome and really funny. i teach elder chirinos funny little phrases to say in english to tease my companion. for example, i taught him "i can seeee youuu..." as he peeks through the door. its the funniest thing with his heavy accent and everything and we bust out laughing everytime! We have eletric heaters in our rooms, and it is seriously my best friend. we wake up at 7 to have 30 minutes of exercise, and i just lay a blanket on the floor and do my stuff right in front of the heater so i can be warm. literally like 95% of the time were in the house, im just sitting right next to the heater. hahaha
so yeah its really poor here. idk. google earth it and look! haha. We ride bikes everywhere, and we RIDE... as of now it looks like I will still be in good enough shape to complete that Cougar Conditioning Test for the lacrosse team when I return from the mission because we just ride and ride and ride our bikes everyday. haha my legs are dead. we always have to go to "los cristales" everyday and its just so far away. and my companions been here for forever so its nothing for him and he just FLIES and im pumping my legs as hard as i can to try and keep up haha. ah theres just so much to tell!
so theres dogs EVERYWHERE. just hanging out on the street and everyone has a pet dog. and there are also roosters and hens everywhere as well. just roaming around. haha. the dogs never shut up. and it doesnt bother the people one bit. well be trying to contact people and talk to them and their dog is just sitting next to them going CRAZY barking its head off and it doesnt bother them one bit. its already hard enough to understand the people because of how they talk, but then i have to try and hear and understand them through this dog barking too! haha its so hard.
so yeah The Chilenos speak SO fast. and they just slur their words and have so much slang.... I'm lost. hahaha. They use the word "Po" ALL the time... and it literally has 0 meaning. the just through it in their sentences all over the place and everything and it means nothing. it makes understanding even weirder and harder hahaha. although i have been able to understand more than i thought i would! but its still barely any. I can speak most of my thoughts and stuff, but once it turns into a conversation and they reply to me... i just stare at them blankly and then turn to my companion for help. sometimes they do the same thing for me when im trying to talk to them!! hahaha. For example...
we were contacting and we met Roberto. He was a nice guy and let us inside to talk some more. my companion ended up giving a really good first lesson, and at the end we were ready to invite him to be baptized! *remember this is like day 3 for me* so my companion turned to me and one way or another i understood that i was going to be extending the invitation! so i turned to roberto and in my spanish (i had even memorized this line in the mtc) i bravely said "roberto, will you follow the example of jesus christ and be baptized by someone with the proper authority?" and after i said it he pursed his lips and looked at me for about 5 seconds. meanwhile i was thinking "wow! hes thinking about it! whats he gonna say?!" then finally, he turned away from me and looked at my companion and basically said "im sorry... i have no idea what he said, help me out?"hahahahahaha. oh man i died. i just laughed and said "no me entendio?! dang it!!"hahaha. my companion then fixed the situation and roberto said maybe he would. hahaha. what a story for my first invitation to baptism!! hahaha
the people here are really nice. except alot of teenagers like to mess with us and when they see us theyll yell "hey! hello!" in english and they think its hilarious haha.but everyone else is way nice. sometimes the girls here are too nice haha. another funny story...
last night my companion and i went to a door and they just randomly let us right in no questions asked. so we went in and there were 2 women and 4 girls in the room watching the movie "sister act" (in english! hahaha) super funny. so anyways super long story but it was a really weird situation. and finally we got their attention and shared a message. but since i dont understand spanish, i didnt understand or realize how "nice" the girls were being to elder sutt and i... haha. apparently they said some interesting things. but i just thinks its really funny because i didnt figure this out until after we had left the house and my companion was telling me everything that happened hahaha. a lot of the girls here and older women find the american elders "beautiful" and so we call them "snakes and dragons" hahaha and apprently we have to be careful. its pretty weird. haha.
the food here isnt bad at all. i actually like it alot haha. i just eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast each morning, and then we eat lunch with the members each day. and then we barely eat dinner ever. this is how it works in chile: they eat a small breakfast. then at lunch they eat SO MUCH FOOD. their lunches are huge. and then their lunches fill them up for the rest of the day. and they dont eat dinner. they eat '"once" which is just like a small little something around 6. but we dont even eat that. point is, im hungry alot and eat snacks all the time haha. but they eat normal food. spaghetti, pasta, eggs, hot dogs, soup, potatoes...... the thing is the serve all that stuff at once on one plate. hahaha. so the food is all food i like! but they put the most randommm stuff together. my first meal was pasta with an egg on top of all of it, with lettuce and tomatoes. really random. but its good. i like it. haha. the one thing is that NO one drinks water.... and all i drink is water. the only thing people drink is soda and coco cola. which i dont like either. haha. so i force through it and drink it usually. but sometimes if my companion or someone wants the drink, when the person isnt in the room or when theyre not looking, well switch cups really fast hahahaha. so funny. whatever.
this email is really long. so lastly, ill just tell you about the branch im in and the people were teaching. The branch has about 70 people. nobody knows how to play piano at all, so i of course gladly step in and do that :) the branch president is awesome, and the people are really funny. were teaching about 7 people, with a few others. its crazy. theyre all awesome. and being a missionary is crazy. why, you ask?? because i havent even been here a week but these next 2 weeks my companion and i have to plan 2 weddings, and 2 baptismal services for people. hahhaa. oh man. im 19. planning a wedding for 2 couples. oh man. life is crazy. but i love it. i love teaching. i dont say much, but just try really really hard to listen and understand whats happening at that time haha. at different times ill bear my testimony, but nothing too much.
but OKAY. im tired of writing. this is a ridiculously long email. thats kind of a run down of how the first week has been and what life in chile is like. i'm loving it. this is seriously awesome hahaha. i of course miss everyone ALOTTT. but im so busy and trying to figure things out it doesnt distract me now haha. I knowwww 100% this church is true and im happy to be able to bring this message to the people of chile!! okay. no more. please.
I love you all and miss you so much! this is so much fun haha. i just cant wait til i can actually speak and understand spanish. hahaha. but alright, love you and miss you!!!
-Elder Heyman
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