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