Week 27 & 28

I didn`t have time last week to write a letter so this is both weeks in one!

For Christmas we did a TON of things! We had a Christmas Reunion with the Mission where we had super good food, candy, dessert, we performed super funny plays/skits that we`ve been practicing as zones, we played secret Santa, and afterwards we went to the central plaza of Puerto Montt and sung Christmas carols, In Spanish and English! Haha it was a super fun day and it was also awesome to catch up with some old friends from the mission! I even ran into a girl I knew from BYU Provo who was in my English class! Allyson Smoot!

Besides the Mission Christmas party, we had a branch Christmas party with our small branch in Calbuco. My companion and I did ANOTHER skit/play thing haha. 

Last p-day, we had permission to watch the movie Elf with like 14 other missionaries and so we did that! We watched it with the voices in Spanish, and it`s awesome because I understood almost all of it! I`m surprised how fast I learned Spanish. I can`t speak it as good as I can understand it, but I'm getting there! I can understand 90-95% of the conversations in Spanish now.

We spent Christmas eve with a family who was recently converted, and they bought us matching ties, a picture frame with a picture of us at the branch Christmas party, and some other stuff! We also ate dinner at their house and had a good time there! 

For Christmas Day, we took a boat to another island like 30 minutes away to spend the day over there with some other members and their family. The island was super small and it reminded me of the TV series LOST! haha but it was so pretty over there. 

The day after Christmas, I got to Skype my family! It was awesome to get to talk to them over Skype, because I have only written them by email for the past 6 months. I`m excited for next time on Mothers day!

Anyways, that`s all the fun stuff we did over these two weeks with the Christmas Holiday, but we also did a ton of work too and focused on the true meaning of Christmas. During this month of December, we had tons of success in the mission work. we had investigators in the church every Sunday, we had about 5 investigators at the Christmas party, we taught lots of lessons and met a lot of cool people that are interested in the church. 

I love this time of the year because families are together, having a good time, and it`s a perfect time of the year, especially with new years coming up, to make goals and change your life for the better. I have a ton of new year resolutions so i have my work laid out for me in 2015!

Stay classy,

Elder Pollock

Week 26

Hey this week i got my Christmas package from my Family! It was so awesome and refreshing to have some American candy like pez, laffy taffy, lindor truffles, tootsies rolls, etc. Also, we didn`t have any christmas decorations in our house, but now we do! I also pictures, music, ties, seattle sounders soccer jersey, missionary stuff, etc! It was a super great present! I have all this stuff in our living room right now haha

This week we taught a lot of people, and i have a lot of hope for one family of 3 in particular. The daughter just turned 8 and wants to be bpatized, and the dad isn`t a member, but the Mom is. We have been teaching the Dad, and he`s going to be thinking about getting baptized with his daughter! I think we started teaching them at the perfect time, because they are definitely a faimly ready for the gospel. It`s really fun to teach them too, because we have to adapt our teaching style to an 8 year old level!

Our branch here in Calbuco is super tiny. We have about 30 active members! My companion is the first counselor of the branch and i`m the secretary, so i get to do all the fun tithing stuff... Hahah but it`s way different being in such a small branch. There`s positives and negatives, but it`s pretty cool because everyone knows everyone, and all the members are super nice!

I hope you all have an awesome Christmas! 

If anyone has any questions about the church, the book of mormon, or why i`m here in Chile for 2 years, shoot me an Email! Jordan.pollock@myldsmail.net

Elder Pollock

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Week 25

I ran out of time this week to write a big mass email because this computer i´m using sucks! haha but to be breif, i changed zones to Calbuco, which is an island and it´s super sick! I´m sure you guys already saw the photos. I took a bus from Valdivia to Osorno, Osorno to Puerto Montt, and Puerto Montt to Calbuco. Like 6 hours of traveling in total.

The good thing is that there´s not much to tell this week anyways because my companion was super sick for the past week! He slept all day and didn´t eat barely anything. Luckily, he´s all better now and we were able to do stuff this sunday. It was fun to have a sick companion because i got to read a lot and sleep a lot too haha. It was a nice break.

Anyways, hope you guys enjoy the photos!

Have an awesome Christmas!

Elder Pollock

This is the view we have everyday! It´s awesome

 

 

We are on an island named Calbuco. I circled it on the map

Week 24

Changes! My companion is staying here in Valdivia, but I'm going to Calbuco! Calbuco is apparently a small island and a small town south of Valdivia. I`m super excited because I've heard it`s super pretty down there! Also, Elder Gonzalez is going to be my companion and this is going to be his last 6 weeks in the mission! He`s from Santiago and only speaks Spanish so my Spanish is definitely going to improve a lot faster because I'll be forced to speak it all the time. I`m super excited!

After all this time of being in Chile and speaking Spanish, I realized MY DREAMS ARE IN SPANISH!! It`s so funny. I never thought that would happen ha-ha.

On another note, we did like 12 or 13 hours of service this week. We helped some members paint their house, which took like 7 hours, then we helped people haul a bunch of firewood for about 3 hours and then helped an old lady with her yard for a couple hours. It`s always fun to give service like that here in the mission because it`s a nice change in the routine.

This week we taught a lot of people, and I'm super sad to be leaving Valdivia because we have a lot of investigators that I believe are going to be baptized soon. We have Peter and Aly, Benjamin and Nicole, Victor, Ximena, Daniella, Sebastian, Francisco, Javier, Heladio, and more. A lottt of investigators. It`s ok though, i hope there will be even more people waitng for me in Calbuco!

This week for p-day, we hiked a small mountain by our house, it was pretty relaxing because that`s what i always used to do back home, Hiking! Also, there area was almost the same as Seattle so it felt exactly like home. Here`s a couple pictures from that hike and more!

Everything`s great down here in Chile, thanks for your support everyone! I`m glad to be down here sharing the gospel and the Book of Mormon because i know it`s true and can help everyone. 

Byeeee

Elder Pollock




They don`t sell milk by the gallon here, it sucks! It comes in boxes and tastes weird.

 Also, here`s the coke section of the grocery store. Chileans love their coke. Seriously though, they drink it like every day



Week 23

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!!!

Unfortunately, they don`t celebrate that here in Chile so i`m a little sad about that.

We just had a super cool activity that we`ve been planning for a while, and it turned out super good! It was a role play of the Plan of Salvation. We all started in the chapel, which was was all decorated in white, and that was the ¨pre-earth life¨ and we reviewed the Plan of Salvation. Afterwards, we all passed through a curtain ¨Veil of forgetfullness¨ Into the Gym. When we were in the gym, We had games like bobbing for apples, watching mormon messages, kareoke, question booth, sock toss, etc. In these activities, you can earn tickets. I was in charge of the prize table, which consisted of cookies, bananna bread, brownies, juice, soda, fruit, etc. With their tickets, the people could buy these prizes, or they could save their tickets. At one point in time, we turned off the lights and we all ¨Died¨ and went to the judgement room. Depending on how many tickets the people had, they were assigned a kingdom of glory, Celestial, Terrestral, or telestial. It was a super cool and informational activity. Everyone liked it.

We are teaching a family of 6 and we`re super excited for them. They always give us food when we come over too, so that means they must be a good family haha. They get along with eachother super well, they listen to our message, and they realy participate in the lessons. Here in the mission, we call people like this ¨golden Investigators¨

Another cool thing we`ve been doing is we`re teaching these 2 twins, about 10 years old, english. They only missed one point on their last exam. It`pretty fun to teach them. Their family isn`t part of the church, neither are the twins, but they are recently starting to open up to us and share their beliefs and now they let us teach them about the gospel too!

On another note, for this P-day we went to the beach! It was super fun and very similar to the beaches in seattle. We played sand football, took pictures, hiked, climbed rocks, explored, ate pizza, etc.

Pictures to follow!

Being a missionary is awesome, thanks to everyone for getting me here!

Elder Pollock

Week 22-Russel M. Nelson

This week Russell M. Nelson, one of the twelve apostles, talked with us on wednesday! It was awesome and super spiritual. We had to wake up at 4:00 in the Morning to take a 3 hour bus ride to Osorno to get there before 9:00. All the missionaries in the Chile Osorno mission, like 250, gathered in the Osorno Stake  Center.

Elder Nelson has been my favorite apostol for a long time because he was a heart surgeon and that is my dream job. That, or Orthopedic Surgeon. I have tons of respect for him because not only did he have incdredible worldy honors, like being a heart surgeon, but he is also an incredible spiritual leader.

There are a lot of things to say about what he told us, but the thing i like most about what he told us is he promised us if we are obedient and do everything we can to be good missionaries, we will have more blessings in our family and our future family then we could have had in any other manner. 

One thing that was super funny this week was a member asked us to cut some of the carpet out of his house because it was ripped and it looked bad, so we did. He thanked us, and right before we were about to leave his wife comes out of her room, sees the carpet, and starts yelling at him for like 20 mintues! Apparently he never asked her if he could cut the carpet out Hahaha we just sat there and waited for her to stop yelling. After she stopped yelling, she stomped off into her room and before we had the chance to get up and leave, she came back and started yelling at him again for something! It was fun

The missionaries in our neighboring ward had a baptism so we went there on saturday. It was a great baptism service and the kid was super awesome. He`s only 18 years old but he has a super strong testimony and he might serve a mission so that would be awesome!

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Pollock


​Meet our cat Pancho, the Snow Wookie



 

 

These flowers are common in Chile, but they`re pretty cool

It was our mamita`s birthday, the member who cooks food for us everyday, so we bought her a cake and made her banana pancakes since they don`t know what those are down here.
 

Week 21

My first week in Chile we knocked a door and the lady was super nice to us and asked us to come back and teach her. We passed by her house like 10 times, but she was never home or she was alone, and we can`t enter a house when there`s a girl by herself, unless we bring a member. Finally, after many attemps, we passed  by her house one last time, this time with a member, and she was there with her 2 daughters! They really want to learn more and they are a super awesome family. We have an appointment with them next week again!

Lasy p-day, we spent like 2 hours in the hospital visiting elder Wilson, who had been in the hospital for 5 days at that point. He had a pretty serious infection in his digestive system, lost 20-25 pounds in a week, and the doctors said he easily could have died. We are all super happy, because he toughed it out, stayed in the mission field, and he left the hospital a couple days later after a long stay in the hospital. He`s doing a lot better today, and even played a little basketball with us today!

This p-day we got up early and ran, played hacky sack  basketball with like 8 other missionaries, and then got some pizza! It was a fun day. It`s always fun to relax a little bit after giving 110% every day of the week for the mission work. 

Our normal schedule is 

7:00-8:30 wake up, pray, exercise, eat breakfast, shower, get ready for day

8:30-10:30  Study

10:30-1:00   Missionary stuff (teaching, contacting, giving service, knocking doors, etc.)

1:00-2:00 Lunch

2:00-3:00 Language study

3:00-10:00 Missionary stuff again

10:00-11:00 Get ready for bed, plan

11:00 Go to bed

These pictures are of a cool flower in chile, the pizza we ate, and a cool area we found in our sector

Week 20

Happy Halloween!!!!

Surprisingly, the people here in Chile celebrate Halloween too! The kids all leave and knock doors for candy, just like in the states. The only difference is instead of knocking doors, they knock a rock on a metal fence, because that is the custom of knocking doors in Chile.

We had a costume party the day before Halloween, and then we had a lunch/game/karaoke night Halloween day! My companion and I were at the church from 11:00 in the morning until about 7:00 at night for the lunch activity. It was super fun though, we sang karaoke, played basketball, Frisbee, ate food, talked, celebrated someone`s birthday, jump roped, etc. It was super successful because we had a couple investigators there and less active members who met some of the cool people in our ward!

Here`s a cool story. Before the mission, I used to play a computer game called League of Legends. In the street one day, a guy in his 20`s was walking with his girlfriend to the university. I commented on his shirt, asked him who his favorite character was, asked him what level he was, etc. After that, we had about an hour discussion about the gospel, and he invited us to come over any time to his house! We watched him play League of legends for a little while and then we had another lesson with him. Who would have known playing a video game could help the mission work? Hahah at least I feel a little better now for wasting a lot of time playing video games before the mission...Anyways, that`s about it for this week!

 

May the Force be with you

Elder Pollock

Week 19

I gave  talk this sunday! It was about 20 minutes long and in front of about 90 people. It`s awesome because now i know my spanish is good enough to give that long of a talk. My spanish has been improving a tonnn in the past few weeks.

One thing that was cool, is that we always bring a member to church with us, Pedro, because he can`t walk very well. We push his wheelchair to church. It usually takes like 5 minutes to get there. BUT, this week we passed by, and he wasn`t there! When we went to church, he was there! Apparently he woke up early, and started walking to church with his cane. A trip that would take a normal person 5 minutes walking took him like 45 minutes. It was a pretty awesome miracle.

We had changes this past week, but my companion and i didn`t get changed! So, i have at least another 6 weeks  here in valdivia. I`m happy with that though because the ward here is awesome, we have a mcdonalds and a kfc and a mall here, and we have a lot of investigators and lessons. It would be cool to know another part of Chile though. 

Anyways, that`s my update for the week!

Hasta la vista

Elder Pollock

Week 18

This week was cool as usual! We had a lot of work, but not as much as the past couple weeks. We only had to speed walk between appointments instead of sprint haha.

This week we had exchanges, which is changing companions for a day. It was awesome because for that day i had a latino companion who didn`t speak english and i understood almost everything, and no one even commented on my spanish ability! They only commented on my accent, but they understood me. It`s amazing how fast you can learn a language when you`re surrounded by it. I`ve already learned more than my whole 3 years of spanish is highschool.

Also, i`m officially done with my training! After 6 weeks in the missionary training center, and 12 weeks in the field, you finally finish all the training programs and stuff. 

We also have changes this wednesday, so i might be staying in Valdivia or leave to some other random city, but we don`t know yet! I guess we`ll see next week.

Anyways, i didn`t have much to write, so i just took random pictures and wrote about them!

I`m glad to be out here working in the mission field! I know the book of Mormon is true and that`s why i`m out here. 

Black Falcon out

Elder Pollock

This is the church building our ward goes to. There`s a lot of buildings here in chile. There`s like 3 more church buildings within a 15 minute walking ditance. All the church buildings have huge fences and walls surroundings them to keep out the gangsters and grafitti and dogs and stuff. 

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This is a pretty typical street here in chile. 

One night we didn`t have a ton going on so we played on a swing set.

Week 17

One thing that was cool this week is we had a family home evening with 2 famlies in the ward and it was super fun! We ate, played games, watched a short movie, and had a short lesson. Family home evenings are super fun in the mission because they`re usually a lot more fun than lessons. I`ll have to get the pictures from one of the moms!

We were invited to a birthday party of a 10 year old, (He really wanted us to come) so we went to go drop off a present, and they invited us in to have cake and stuff! There were like 3 parents and like 15 ten year olds, and then 2 american missonaries. It was extremely awkward. But hey, at least we got to watch them play minecraft, we got cake, and we got cookies so it wasn`t too bad! 

We are soooo busy in this sector. The members are giving us tons of references and we literally dont have time to do everything! Because other than the references, we are teaching like 5 less active families, we need to talk to people in the streets and knock houses, we are visiting members and we are teaching like 7 or 8 investigators so it`s super hard to fit everything in. At least we`re busy though, and the high amount of references must mean the ward members trust us, so that`s good! This area is super productive, and we have 2 investigators with a date for baptism. 

BUT, i might be moving sectors because we have changes in 2 weeks. I`ll know if i`m staying or going by saturday. I really want to stay because this sector is super good and we`re seeing a lot of miracles, but i also want to go to expereince another part of Chile! But i`m happy either way!

Also, this is a side note, but me and my companion had a war with 2 little 6-7 year old kids the other day. We walked by and they pretended to shoot us, so we ran away and hid, they chased us, we died, and then we became zombies so that was a highlight of my day! 

Anyways, time is short, talk to you all next week!

May the force be with you 

Elder Pollock

We went bowling again!

 

 

Hugeee completo (It`s like a hot, except it has avocado)

This is what our mamita makes for us everyday. (The picture with spaghetti) We eat at her house every day for lunch. She always makes us really good food!