9.26.11

So 2 more missionaries moved into our tiny appartment, they´re not in our sector, but theirs is right next to ours, and their hous was pretty crappy, so they moved in with us haha and every other morning we started doing the P90X Ab ripper workout video haha it intense, but it really wkaes ya up haha so its prettyt fun having 4 in the appartment now. This week was pretty good for us. not a lot of new people to teach, but we´ve got some good ones. we had this one 18 yr old named jackson in church and Eduardo that got baptised last week got confirmed, and was wearing a suit and everything, he looked like a completely different person! but it was way cool. and jackson said he´s going to be baptised on conference sunday at the stake building, he´s already inviting a bunch of his friends to his baptism. and we also had a mom and her 2 kids come too, this is the lady that studied with the jehovas wittnesses for 3 years. but she´s really cool, and is loving the church, so i think we´ll be seeing that baptism soon too. :) and when we were teaching Jackson at a members house all of a sudden the lights just randomly went out, and it was perfectly nice weather, and they were just like oh yeah that happens sometimes, the electricity here in chile isnt the most reliable thing ever. Turns out that most of the country´s elctricity goes out at the same time every once in awhile lol their all used to it haha it only took a few hours to fix, so we taught the lesson using candle light haha it was actually pretty cool haha other than that not too much has been happing here in my part of the world. oh i did meet a kid named Elder. and the reason that thats his name is pretty sad lol so i guess some missionary wasnt as obedient as he should have been and ended up leaving a girl pregnant, and the girl named the kid Elder cuz she thot that was his name... so yeah i dont know if i should laugh or just do a face palm... haha but yeah im still alive, still working and missin you all.
Love,
Elder Philpott

9.19.11

lets see how was my week... welll not much has changed here. we figured out that the unofficial sport of chile that all the kids play here is kite flying, but its not the putting up in the air part that makes it fun, its when the little string they use breaks, and the kite goes flying. THEN all the kids go running full speed thru the streets chasing it down lol and thats why they like it i think. funny stories.. not too many, but i did have a laughing attack one day, cuz we were in the street walking and a member was out in front of her house with some of her college age kids, so we stopped in the sidewalk there to talk to them for a little bit, and then this girl walked over to one of the kids named coty and started talking to him next to us, i guess she was an old school mate of his, and then for some reason or other she started crying, and my comp saw it, and being the sensitive girl-boy he is instinctivly ran over and started talking to her and was like "umm are you alright? cuz were missionaries, and we help people n stuff" and then there was just an awkward pause and she didnt really say anything, and then the mom that i was talking to was like "you wanna come in for a drink?" and my comp heard that and then pulled a napoleon dinamite and ran into the house awkwardly.  i started dying laughing, but i dont think he thot it was too funny lol The only other big events this week were the Diez y Ocho celebration, and Eduardos baptism :) the ward had an activity the 17th, and we played a bunch of trditional chilean games and they danced the Cueca, the national dance. and it turns out that tug of war is a traditional chilean game too haha so we played that with them and my team always won of course, but on the game of guys vs. girls we were pretty much tied, and then all of a sudden the rope broke, and all of us went flying in opposite directions and then crashing to the ground lol i tore some little holes in my pants cuz i landed on the keys that were in my pocket, and one of the sisters hurt her arm landing on it lol so that wasnt the best idea in the planet, but it wwas fun for the most part. Then on Sunday, we had Eduardos baptism. which was kind of a surprise for us. we went over to his house friday with the district leader to give him an interview, cuz we thot it would help him progress, and we told him at the end to pray and ask he should get baptised, cuz he was lacking a lot of self confidince, and then we left the house, and like 10 minutes later he called us and was like "Hey i got an answer, im going to get baptised tommorrow." so we got all the stuff together and had a great baptism. he was one of the most ready people i think ive ever taught, he accepted everything we taught him and tried soo hard to live it, and 3 weeks later he was baptised. the lord really is preparing people for us to teach, its just us that have to be obidient enough so that the lord can trust us with them. and now he´s talking to his mom about it and she wants to read the Book of Mormon, so we´ll see what happens there now :) so yeah i guess you could say it was a pretty good week :)
i really wish you could see some of the stuff i see. my whole view of the gospel has changed, i thot i had a testimony before the mish, but it turns out i only new the dictionary answers to all the questions, there is soo much more to discover when you actually apply what you learn and actually appriciate everythying the atonement means and use in your life daily. and read the scriptures and listen to the spirits testimony of them and get answers to questions you have. it really makes me feel like 10x the person i was before the mission. ok i´ll end my talk there lol but this work really is marvelous.

 

I miss and love you all and will see you in a little over a year :)

 

Until then, Love

Elder Philpott

Chilean Independence Day and a Baptism



Tug o War - a national game in Chile



Red, white and blue are also Chile's national colors

Ahh - Too cute Elder Philpott

Eduardo's baptism

9.12.11

Things are good for me still. the suns comeing out a lot lately, which is a good and a bad thing.. lol good cuz its so nice outside, but bad because.. well lets just say chilean girls arent quite too modest lol and theres quite a few good looking ones, but after being in the mission for 9 months everything up to your comp looks attractive lol anyways,  we had a pretty good week this week. we ahd 2 really good investigators in church. So that was exciting. But not much has happened this week out of the ordinary. we did get a message from the appartment place saying that they were going to cut our electricity on the 10th cuz we havent paid yet. and im not sure if thats our fault or not, cuz we kept forgetting to turn in the recipt, but i thot that it was paid automatically, but we called the mission accountant and i guess he fixed it cuz when we came back that night it was still on haha so that was a relief lol my comp had the runs on wednesday, so we had to run from members house to members house so he could use the bathroom :P stupid uncooked chilean food :P but we´re both good now for the most part haha ya never truly get used to the food here :P lol but life goes on. all the little chilean kids playin with there kites, we sent off Rafa on his mission, he always went to appointments with us, i gave him a tie as a leaving present. but yeah.. not much happening lately.. lol maybe next week will be more eventfull.. :P

but i miss and love you all and will talk to you next week, but until then,

Love Elder Philpott

9.5.11

Hola,

its starting to get hotter. but the weather here is also being really dumb some days, like it´ll be cold in the morning and then the sun comes out and then it starts raining really hard for like 5 minutes, and then stops, the sun comes out again, and then it starts hailing! like what the heck is wrong with this place?? lol but not much has happened this week. we got the numbers from the mission president, and last week was a bad week for everyone i guess.. cuz the whole mission only got 99 baptisms, which is pretty darn low.. we usually get like 130 at least haha so its good to know it wasnt just us. Oh and after we got done with email last sunday, we were walking back to our house, and then all of a sudden we see all these police officers and big truck of them goes by, and as we walked a little further we saw a bunch of college students in the middle of the street infront of the college doing a march on the school, just like all the other schoiols around here, they think that education should be free, so they´re all on strike. but nothing happened there. but all the riot officers were alll in lines with shields and ready to march if anything happened. but nothing ever did. all the big riots are up in santiago. The other big "national tragedy" was that a famous morning news reporter died in a plane crash the other day no his way to an island off the coast, and almost everyone we talk to is all broken up about it and has cried over him, and our bishop was even talking about it on the pulpit sunday morning. i guess chileans really love their news casters.. they were even putting candels in their catholic virgin boxes at night. its a little extreme i think.. lol but thats chile haha church was alright. we were expecting like 7 good investigators to come that had family that are members, but they didnt. we ended up only having 2. and one of them was this guy that we met just that week. we were doing door contacts and he came out and talked to us a little bit, he´s kind of socially awkward, but he let us in and we talked with him for awhile and found out that he lives there alone and is out of work right now. so we sharred the message of the restoration with him and left him a Book of Mormon and came back saturday, and he lets us in, and the BOM was out on the table open, along with the pamphlet we left him, so we talked some more, and put a baptismal date with him for the 25th of this month and he´s really excited for it, and says he´s really wanting to change his life. so he´s probly one of our best investigators right now, and he had a great time at church. so i think we might be seeing that baptism :) but other than that not much out of the ordinary has happened.. hopefully i´ll have more to talk about next week, But until then, i love and miss you all and will be seeing you in a little over a year from now, so be safe and have fun :)

 

Love Elder Philpott

8.29.11

ok so i dont have much time.. actually, we´re leaving right now :P sorry thyis is soo short... But yeah the elder did have to go home, cuz i guess he fractured his Fibia too :( so that was sad..

Thats crazy that you guys felt a temblora! i mean tremor haha 5.8 is nuthin lol but now you know what a night feels like here lol glad it wasnt too devastating tho, cuz we only heard about it from members and didnt really have many details :P

but things in Chile are still good. not much happened this week.. it rained a ton. and they changed the hour here ahead 1 hour, so im ahead of you guys an hour now. and when you guys go back i´ll be up 2 haha so idk why its like that, but it is haha :P this sectors good though the appartments im in are right down the road from the mall, so i can always see all the movies im missiing on the big billboard haha :P Theres a lot of street performers here too trying to make their way thru college. they usually juggle in the street at the red lights and go collect tips before it turns green, some of tghem are actually really good. theres one that does it with flaming sticks haha but if you dont have that talent, you just go to any big grocery store and bag peoples food for tips, cuz the stores here dont have paid baggers. Every once in awhile you see random horses walking around town, and it seems like the people dont even notice that they´re there lol just like all the nasty dogs that poop everywhere here :P as for work, its going alright. not amazing. the only real investigator with potencial is the 23 year old named Anita that works delivering babies. she´s been bringing the Book of Mormon to the hospital to read it in her down time. so im thinkin thats gonna be opur baptism for september. other than that we´ve just been doing a bunch of door contacts, and having fun listening to all the people making up excuses as to why we cant come in. most of them are pretty funny. like yesterday we called on an intercom, and the lady answered and was like "Hola, who am i talking with?"
 "The LDS missionaries"
 "Ohhhh... umm this is a recording.. theres no one here right now." *CLICK* lol we got a good laugh out of that one. other people think were from the CIA and that our badges have cameras in them ahah and then you always get the kid sent out to lie for their parents that says stuff like "oh my moms not here right now"
"oh ok so can you ask her when we can come by then?"
"yeah sure" and then they walk back in ask when we can come back lol its pretty sad..
But thats how it goes here haha but we did find a less active that day that said she wanted to come back to church but didnt know where it was, and that she had been waiting for us to find her, so that was a cool one :) and the rest of her family arent members, so looks like some baptisms too ;) haha So yeah thats whats up this week.. not too much craziness.
Anyways, thanks for the email :) i miss and love you guys soo much and cant wait to see you all :) but until then

Love and remember,

Elder Philpott

8.22.11

Chile is good :) its a lot better place when the sun comes out haha. but its actually kinda ugly here when i think about it haha i cant wait till i get transferred to a beach sector haha the people also make it a little ugly lol not that they´re ugly, its just the stuff they do.. like it seems like the latest accessory in teen fasion here is having a baby :P cuz its seems like EVERY girl that is from the ages of 13 and up has a kid if they´re not members(and even some members too:P) and theres TONS of drunk people here. actually funny story, the other night, me n my comp were waiting on a bus, and we saw this drunk guy in the middle of the street with cars going past him, and then he walks up to us and starts saying what little english he knows and asked us for money, but the this police officer came over and stepped between us, and then a patrol car pulled up next to us and the officer handcuffed him and put him in the back lol right in front of us haha so that was pretty funny lol Other than that, not too much has happened, OH except for this morning. so we all got together this morning to play soccer at the church, and it was going well for a little bit, but then Elder Scott got the ball and started going for the goal, but then he tried turning and fell on top of the ball and his leg was under him. and then when he layed on his back and put his leg up, we could see that he had dislocated it badly. like his foot was turned sideways.(picture to come) so we called the ambulance and they took him away. we havent heard how hes doin yet, but no one felt like playing anymore after that, so we went to McDonalds (yes there is one in this sector:) Im not so sure i trust the hospital here tho, cuz right across from the hospital building on the other side of the street there´s like 5 different funeral homes hahah The work is going good. we had a baptism yesterday. it went great. She was a golden investigator. she always was just hungry to hear everything and understood it all, and is just the sweetest person. the only really bumer is that her husband is a jerk about it all. he actually slammed the door in ou8r face one time when he answered the door. so we always have to go earlier in the evening when he´s not there. but now we are also teacher her daughter that works delivering babies and preparing them for their baptism in the catholic church haha so this will be cool if we can get her baptised :) but yeah other than that, we´ve got a few other reakl good investigators that really have desires to change their lives. so thats always a nice relief from all the hard people :P haha but the hunt goes on. And im doin good. being fed good. this sector is huge tho. so a ton of walking. but its all good.
Love, Elder Philpott