5.30.11

 Here's my report from this week haha:

 Not much interesting happened this week... a lot of trips to the "campo" or out in the country on bike :p haha it's tiring, but the people out there are great. We found like 4 good families in a row haha and they're soo nice.They always send us home with some fruit or some homemade pastry ór something it's so nice... but some people in the campo are just really old catholics haha and dont want to change anything, and usually can't hear anything we say, so sometimes we just like to be goofy, and we`ll be talking to them and be like "so you´re catholic?" And they`re like "oh yeah" and we´ll say "oh really, so how long have you been in apostasy then?" hahah and they don't understand what apostasy is, so they´re just "ooohh way long back since i was a little baby" hahaha and then if they´re really old we´ll be like "oh so can we go ahead and start your temple work then?" lol :D and they´re just like "uh huh" lol :D it makes the day go a little faster, but i'ts not all fun and games.  It's a lot of frustrating work too.. especially on sundays when we´ve spent the whole week visiting our investigators and traveling out on bike for a mile there and back and then having a really spiritual lesson and reading the Book of Mormon together and then having them tell us they want to go to church, and then when sunday morning comes and we´re standing out front in the cold waiting for them and they never come... thats pretty depressing.. knowing the blessing that they´re missing out on. Jesus made it a parable of a great feast that everyone is invited to, but all the people invited made all sorts of excuses and didn't come. Thats how I see it now too... So it's such a heartstrain to see these spiritually starving people miss out on it, but it also gives me even more determination to work the next week. So the work goes on, and we find new people in hopes that they will come and see what it means when we tell them, the true church of Jesus Christ has been restored on the earth. But that's the missionary life. haha and its worth every minute of it.

So yeah life is still good. haha I miss and love you all,

Love Elder Philpott

P.S. I finally got the package the other day :) thanks so much! the pants fit great :) and all the snacks are just what I needed lol I especially loved the combos haha it made me feel like I was on a camping trip again hahaand the photos are just what I needed too. so all in all it was a great package :) thanks guys.

5.23.11

Hhahaha are you still using the same computer?? looks like it lol WOW scout FINALLY died??? how are you feeling about that? i heard you´re going to invite some ppl to the funeral service lol send my condolences :D but i really am going to miss making fun of him.. haha i was actually going to ask if he was still alive in this email hahaha Aw im glad Andrew was there, whats he up to now anyways? Aww i miss dallin. he´s so cute. i cant wait to see the other 2 that are on the way :) that will be so cool :)
wow eli graduaTED FROM SEMINARY??
anyways thats so crazy everyone is getting so old.. including me. i still wake up some mornings and just wonder where the time went and convince myself that im really on my mission. But then i feel a temblora or hear the guy selling potatoes outside yelling and it all comes back to me and i realize i am in chile hahah and making the best of it :) Life is really pretty darn good here most of the time. But only when im doing my best and working. cuz if i slack off a little bit or start thinking too much about my needs, it makes the day go slow and life seems just difficult. but the one thing that i always look forward too is teaching the restauration lesson. Bearing testimony of joseph smith and telling them that if they read and pray about this book they know three things:1 that Jesus Christ our saviour and redeemer 2 that joseph smith was a true prophet and 3 that this the restored church on the earth in these days. and then bearing my testimony to them, about all of it, just brings the spirit in soo strong, and then afterwards we get them to say the closing prayer, and its always soo sweet and genuine coming from the investigators. and then we walk out of the house feeling like our feet arent even touching the ground..  its amazing everytime. And the other day i had a neat experience when we were teaching a lesson, and we got on the subject of the book of mormon, but we didnt have an extra copy at that time, so we couldnt leave her with one, and then while we were talikng to her, i looked behind her in a bookshelf, and saw a little book with white pages about 5 inches wide, and i thought "hmm i wonder.... nahhhhh.." and then the i just got this enormous feeling that i should take the chance and ask, so i decided to follow it, and in the middle of talking i was just like
"what book is that?"
"which one?"
"that one over there on the left"
and then she pulled it out and wouldnt you know it, it was the book that proves this message is true. we found out that her dad talked with the missionaries along time ago, and he had one that he never read, already marked for them to read 3 nephi 11. so we committed her to reading it, and she said she would, and went back later that week and found out she read it and wants to learn more. So yeah i was pretty happy with that, its good to know i am actually in tune with the spirit sometimes.
One thing thats really funny about chili is that you hardly ever set up scheduled appointments with people, you just drop by and see if there there haha. and it works like ten times better than trying to schedule something haha and they´re always soo nice and invite us in and then give us some pop and usually some kind of pastery or snack of some sort. its great.  so yeah life is pretty sweet most of the time :) and were pretty close to getting some baptisms, so ill tell you how that goes, i dont wanna jynx it haha but im pretty sure they´ll happen. anyways it was good hearing from you guys :) just know that im doin fine :) i havent gotten ur package yet, but im pretty sure ill get it this wednesday at mission conference. :) So thanks for that. I gotta go back to work now haha i love and miss you all.

Love,
Elder Philpott

5.16.11

Hey mom :)
It was so nice seeing you guys too. i dont have much time, so im just gonna have to write a quick weekly letter
we´re just so blessed to live in the states. A little example, there´s trash EVERYWHERE. the people just throw the garbage wherever they want, and theres just piles on the sides of the roads. its pretty nasty. But it is a beautiful country. Saturday we went with a member on bikes to the top of this huge hill and took pix of Teno from the top, and did some mountain biking on the way down haha it was sweet. but a hard climb to the top, and afterwards we were super tired haha but it was great. And the spanish is going great. I actually feel way more comfortable talking in spanish than in english now haha i always feel so awkward with all the other missionaries when were playing soccer or at a meeting. its wierd. The people here are all really nice, and they usually invite you into the house for a drink. and its NEVER water. always pop or juice. its disrespectful to give someone a glass of plain water here. So i drink a lot of coke haha Ive had to eat some wierd stuff this week. well only one really different haha This week i had a nice soup with poatoes and some sort of cow meat, with the bone, and after you eat the soup and meat your supposed to suck the marrow out of the bone haha so i did, and it wasnt too bad, but it tasted like cow haha so that was kinda different, the other thing i had to eat this week was cow stomach. haha we went to a restraunt that we go to every week to eat, cuz its owned by a member, and they just serve us whatever they have a lot of, for free. and this tuesday it was cow stomach haha it wasnt bad, but it was really rubbery and you have to chew it a lot lol other than that, they eat a lot of the same foods, just in different ways. Oh haha and the other day we went to this one house for an appointment, and they had a cute little boy, and i looked and realized that he was wearing an Ohio State sweatshirt! haha so yes, there are even buckeye fans in Chili :) haha not really, the people here just go to these "Ropa Americana" stores and buy whatever looks cool haha ive seen michigan sweaters here too haha And this week me n my comp were in this little poblacion and there weere all these kids there playing basketball, and they saw me n were like hey gringo! Do you know how to play basketball??? cuz they think that everyone thats gringo is a basketball player haha but i was like yeah i do haha, and they kept asking us to play a game with them, so finally i was like "alright! we´ll play, but if we win, you all have to come to church sunday!" so they were all like yeah!  so we shool on it and we played them with one other person on our team and beat them. And just so you know chileans ahve no idea how to play BBall haha they just play it like soccer and run into you n stuff haha its really funny. but none of them came to church of course. but after the game, we went accross the street and knocked on a door, and a lady answered it and sayed it was so great that we were doing stuff like that here the community, and said that she wanted her kid to come to church, and so sunday we had an new investigator there named williams. so that was a fun experience haha we were waiting on a few other investigators, but they didnt show. but that wasnt much of a big deal cuz they didnt have much hope of getting baptized cuz they werent married. just like EVERYONE IN CHILI!!! it drives me crazy. we´ll have a great lesson with the spirit really strong, and they say they want to be baptised and are gonna read and pray, and then we find out that they´re not married! :( :P :P it drives me nuts. now i see how mitchell felt :p it just makes me wanna get a punching bag or a drum set i can take my anger out on! ... hhh but life goes on and we find new people to teach. so the work goes on. and no i havent gotten ur package yet, but thats no surprise. i cant wait to get it tho. i love and miss you all so much. so ill talk to you next week. but until then

love, elder philpott

5.9.11

Jared with his MTC companion in Concepcion

Stuff i forgot to tell you in the call last night... well things are still good as always. we´re teaching tons of people right now, but that doesnt mean much, cuz its only like a 1 out of 5 baptism rate here :P but all of our investigators are really solid. the only thing is that didnt come to church yesterday! :P so that was a bummer, and now we have to set their baptismal dates back cuz you have to attend church 3 time before you can get baptised. But they´re all great people. And they have so much faith. Its the most beautiful thing ever hearing the prayer of a brand new investigator. at the end of every first lesson we always invite them to say a prayer at the end. they´re
always nervous and dont want to, but we just bow our heads and wait haha and when they start to pray its so cool. They´re just like "Heavenly father..... ummmmm thank you.. for my family and for these missionarys... please bless us with health and please bless my grandma that is sick, cuz she´s a good person, and i like to go over to her house and have lunch." and then they just start really having conversations, its so  so so cool. and i think my favorite thing to see is poeple changing their lives. Actually it was kinda funny, this week, we were talking with this street vendor that i bought a little hand made, bone, pocket knife from, and he was smoking a siggarett, and we were like "ya know you shouldnt do that, its just wasting money and not good for you" and he´s like "huh. yeah ur right" then we left and didnt think anything of it. and then saw him on the street again a few days later, and he came up to us and was like "hey! I took your guy´s advice and i stopped smoking! look, i just use mints whenever i want a ciggarett!" i just thought wow. what the heck, we try and try to get some people to stop smoking so they can be baptised, but they never really do, and this guy we talked to ONCE stopped smoking completely. it was funny. but i think going to go visit him sometime this week and try to set a baptismal date with him. so we´ll see how that goes. but yeah things are still good here. i can understand almost everything everyone says now, and take directions and everything. and its really funny when chilleans want to point somewhere, they use their lips and not their fingers haha so that was interesting to learn. Until next week......
Love, Elder Philpott

Mother's Day 2011

Jared not only got to call home for Mother's Day, but he got to Skype!  It was so great!!  All of his family was at his Grandpa's house and so everyone got to see and talk to him.  He's doing great and seems well and happy.  His Spanish was incredible as well.  It was a fast 30 minutes, but everyone was sooo happy to chat with him.

5.2.11

(a litte bit from a letter to Aryan) He had just found out that his Grandfather had passed away.....

So yeah i did get to talk to mom and dad the other night. pres already told me the news when they called. it was sad to hear, but i was prepared for it from moms last letter. it didnt sound too good. It is sad tho, its wierd to think that such a usual part of my life just changed forever. no more goping over to his house to watch the buckeyes and eat steak, or christmas there or anything... hhh but lifes always changing. so theres nothing we can do but try to make the best of it. anyways.
Here, not much is new. Later today me and a few of the other new missionaries are going to Concepcion for a training thing :p so ill be there till like wednesday. But things are good here. We got a new branch president thats from here in Teno, which is a good sign that the branch is doing better haha Oh and this week i had a nice visit. It was my teacher from the mtc! haha Brother Adams came down to visit me, Elder Thomas, Sister Child and Sister Young, because we were the last district he taught before quiting at the mtc, and he served his mission in the one right above us, so he decided to come down for a few days to teach with us, and then go back up and see the people from his mission. It was wierd seeing someone from B.C. time, or Before Chili. lol but it was great. He said im speaking really good spanish. And i guess thats true, because last night when mom and dad called, they said i had an accent already haha So yeah im lovin it here still. the people are always so nice. Just the other day, we were doing contacts, and we went and talked with this one guy at his house for awhile, and then later that day we saw him, and he bought us some french fries haha it was nice. and especially nice because it was later in the day, and we dont have much to cook with in the house haha Last night what we ate for once(pronounced own-say) was cheese puff and mayonaise sandwhiches :D haha not the most healthy thing in the world, but it got the job done haha but more than not i usually come home feeling stuffed haha so dont worry, i am being fed well :)
Love,
Elder Philpott