3.26.12

Life is good here. the work is going alright. we only had one person in church this sunday :/ and few lessons. but this week should be better. the only problem is me n my comp are having some problems getting along. He says he doesnt want to be my companion anymore, and has been talking seriously about plans to go home early. im trying to convince him to stay at least one more cambio and its working for the most part. but he gets sad easily when we dont have success and feels like going home all over again :P i guess his family is thinking about moving to another country for work, so he´s really worried about that, and a bunch of other stuff back home. so whenever something goes wrong here he gets mad and blames me, so its kinda hard right now. but im learning alot about forgiveness, patience, and most importantly attitude. remembering that "life is only 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it" 

other than that, the only other things that happened this week are that i had to do a whole bunch of stupid stuff and run around to a bunch of different buildings to figure out how to get my 2nd visa so they dont export me from the country or make me pay a fine or something. so that was a huge headache, and made my comp even more mad that we had to keep trveling back n forth from san Carlos to Chillan to do all the peperwork :P but i got it now, so im legal now. 

The other thing was last night at like 6 there was a huge tremor here. it was centered it Talca a few cities north, but we felt it really strong here. the united states said it was 7.2 but here in chile they said it was only 6.4 lol they always make it lower here. but it was crazy. we were sitting in an investigators house, and we see the curtains start swaying back n forth and feel the earth start moving and the house creaking so we opened the door and looked outside and could see the trees and powerline moving a lot. and it lasted for a good while. and the grandma that lived there started freaking out cuz it reminded her of the earthquake. but then it stopped shaking and life went back to normal. haha but other than that not much has happened. my comp has been sick this week. im feeling much better and just have a stuffed up nose now. 

Oh yeah i also bought a guitar for my birthday lol but this time its a decent one with steel strings and it was pretty cheap, but it plays well.  haha ill try to send a pic sometime.

Chow,

Elder Philpott

03.19.12

Life is till good. not much happening. yesterday we had stake conference. there were a lot of people there, so the room got real warm, despite the fans on full blast and the windows open :P and i was feeling sick all day so that didnt help much either. yesterday in the evening i went to the doctors to see what they could give me cuz i was feeling a fever, body aches, stuffy nose and a pounding headache :P usually i just force myself thru the sickness and work anyways, but this time i had to stay in bed :P So we went to he doctors and they said i didnt have a fever. which was a big relief cuz if they have to give you a shot here in chile they give it to you in the butt cheek! lol so i was happy to avoid that experience lol they just gave me some pills to take haha 

BUT i actually did get a shot this week. we had a big conference for the missionaries and they just randomly told us all to pull up our sleeves and go to this room and stand in line, so we did it. and theres this crazy old doctor that probly served in world war 2 and was giving injections to all the missionaries, and he didnt put it in lightly or make it look painless, he was like jamming the needle into everyone trying to scare them i think lol but you really didnt feel anything. but it sure looked scary how he was doing it lol

not much else has happened recently. i heard a funnny story from an investigator. we were talking about lions cuz i told them i worked at a zoo before the mission, and they were like "yeah every once in awhile the circus comes by here with their lions, and ya know the dogs you always see walking around in the streets here?? well you dont see them when  the circus is here, cuz they feed all the stray dogs to the lions" lol didnt surprise me at all. i ve been in chile too long to be surprised by something like that lol

But life is still good. fall is coming up, so im excited to not be baked by the sun all day long. and when next summer comes i´ll be on a plane home, so CHOW CALOR!

See you all in 8 months and something days!
Love, Elder Philpott

Nacho's Baptism, Good Bye Penco, and My 21st Birthday

3.12.12 HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY JARED!!

Chile is good. this morning the other 3 missionaries i live with (E'Paz, E'Hepworth, and E'Lopez) woke up early and went down stairs and cameback up wth a cake they bought for me and woke me up and sang happy birthday then rubbed some frosting on my face . which is a lot better than the normal thing to do here which is push ur whole face in the cake haha so i got off lucky.

So yeahthis sector is pretty good soo far. My new comp is E'Lopez from El Salvador. My 3rd latin comp. and E'Hepworth is from Utah, E'Paz is from Honduras. theyre all pretty cool. My comp is really funny, but a little socially awkward sometimes, and likes to tickle me. lol in the zone here they call him Mr.Tickles lol luckily for me im only ticklish every once in awhile. Oh and one day we were walkin down the sidewalk and he was like "hey go say hi to that guy and see what happens" it was an old man wearing a suit that was from the 70s, so i went up and was like "hey how ya doin?" and he was like "hey there young man! It sure is a hot day today, have some candy to cool off." and he gave us 2 pieces of candy and walked off. then my comps like "theres a few secrets to this sector that come in handy" lol

The house here is really nice too.. well when compared to the last house i was in haha this one doesnt have fleas at least haha but the shower here doesnt stay hot. it goes between hot n cold every 3 minutes :P but this house is pretty big at least. there used to be sister missionaries in this sector until last year. The ward here is about 70 or 90 people on average. But they havent had a baptism here since january, so were gonna try to fix that.

It was really sad to leave Penco though. We had a big Family home evening with the campbell family, Joselyn and Nachos family, and some other members of the ward. And we had a very emotional time. everyone was saying somestuff about how i had an impact in their lives and started crying, and then Joselyn talked about how i changed her and her families lives forever. and how she feels soo happy that she found the true gospel and that she cant wait till she has her own family to get sealed in the temple to them

and how just everything in her life was changed because we knocked on their door one day. so then i had to say my farwell, and started crying too. cuz i then realized how much of a difference i really had made in their lives. i think the whole mission has been worth it just for that. Its crazy what the gospel does for a life. I dont know the first thing about how to make someones life better, i just teach the lessons and have them read the scriptures and go to church, and their lives fix themselves and they put a permanent smile on their faces because of it. its crazy.

i mis and love you all and will see you in 9 months

love 

Elder Jared Philpott

3.4.12

Ive been good. Things have been kind of difficult numbers wise cuz no one goes to church, so the zone leaders are on my back, but looks like i wont have to worry much about that this week. cuz i just heard cambios this morning, and im getting transferred to a place called San Carlos near the city of Chillan(chi-yan) so today im gonna be saying goodbye to a bunch of people. And not gonna lie, it´ll be pretty hard. but thats how life in the mission is.. :/ speaking of life in the mission. our gas ran out this week on thursday. and with cambios coming up no one wanted to buy more, so we were taking cold showers all this week pretty much haha its a nice way to wake up in the morning :P Oh and this week, we also had a baptism!!  i baptised Nacho, the little brother of joselyn yesterday after church :) pretty good way to finnish a cambio i guess :) they´re a really cool family. but their mom still has a pretty hard heart and doesnt want to accept that this is the true church, even tho she has has many experiences and testimonies saying that it is. with time i guess. Its been pretty fun in this sector tho. Theres been a lot of drama and problems too, but for the most part it was a great experience. i got to see a lot of cool things. In the church building here there are these marks alongside the steps going up to the chapel from this one member that died not too long ago that was really old and would arrive every sunday before the meeting started, even tho he had to use his crutches and could barely walk, and the marks on the wall were from where he would support himself with his crutches on the way up the stairs. Pretty motivational story for me. But yeah lifes still good. i think im getting ANOTHER latin comp. that makes like 3 or 4 now haha. but im not gonna be a district leader anymore there. So thats a little relief.. haha but all in all life is good.

thanks for the letter and all you prayers. they are all much appriciated :)
i miss and love you all.
Love Elder Philpott