Week 79

New Sector! Portal del mar is my new sector and i`m with elder Romero from argentina. He just left his training, so he has about 3 months in the mission. The sector is awesome and my companion is awesome too, so it`s going to fun here!

One thing that was superrr funny, but also kind of sad, is one of my companions Elder Wilson was going to finish his mission and fly home last wednesday, but on the way to the mission office, the mission president called. He told him that he couldn`t go home yet because the chilean pilots went on strike so they had to reschedule his flight and everything so he stayed with us for like 3 days. His reaction was awesome. Good thing is, he left saturday night so he should be getting home today. 

It`s christmas! We had like 5 families invite us over for christmas already, so it will be a great christmas. This ward has like 120 active members, so it`s a lot more like a ward from the states.

Anyways, i`lll send some more updates next week!

Elder Pollock

Week 78

Well, i`m finally leaving calle calle! Haha i`ve been in the same sector for 5 changes (about 8 months). I`m going to Puerto Montt 2, pretty close to my other sector calbuco! I will be with Elder Romero, a pretty new missionary from argentina. I`m excited to get to know the new sector! I`ll be there on wednesday.

Only 2 more weeks till christmas! Christmas is definitely the best ime of year, especially because the people are nicer and more open to talk to us at this time of year.


Anyways, here`s some pictures like i promised!

Our christmas tree set up with chess board, our favorite thing to do besides basketball

The new soccer ball i bought

My chill couch for p day

My christmas package! Thank you family!!! Also, my carta moroni got here, which is my flight plans for when i get home in june. All missionary`s get it 6 months before they go home

Mac and cheese, the best.

My new Chilean ID 

Week 75, 76 and 77

Sorry for missing so many weeks! I haven`t had much time to write, because i`ve been having to use my writing time for some things I've been having to do as district leader.

We got a new bishop! The new one is super awesome, and the ward is going to change a lot. We already have scheduled ping pong night every Wednesday to try and get more kids to church, we started doing an english class about 3 weeks ago, and it has been super successful. I`m teaching it, and there are about 8-10 people every class. We do that every Saturday.

I got my Christmas package from my family, so i`m super excited for that! Only 2 more weeks until i get to open that. It`s kind of hard to resist not opening it.

We've been waking up 30 minutes early every morning to get that extra exercise in, so that`s been fun. I`ve been practicing a lot of soccer lately, and i can finally juggle the soccer ball as much as i used to when i was playing before. My record right now is 583 without dropping it.

It`s still been really hot here, and it`s only supposed to get hotter. It`s a little weird to be dying of heat in the middle of December. 

We found a cool investigator named Claudia, she has a baptism date for 2 of January and she`s pretty cool. She`s really ready to learn and she has been praying for help to stop smoking.

Anyways, those are the updates, i`ll send some pictures next week because i don`t have my camera with me. Sorry for falling behind with the emails!

Elder Pollock

Week 73 and 74

These two weeks have flown by! We have been working with a lot of people lately, but our focus is Nadia. She is a friend of Camila and she is 27 years old. Her sister is an active member. The only reason she can`t get baptized is because she is living with her boyfriend, so she is going to have to move out, or get married before she can get baptized. Other than that problem, she has come to church a lot and she is a really good investigador, she`s already read all of 3 nephi! 

The weather has been changing a lot lately. It used to rain all the time here, but now it is super hot. Like 70-80 degrees everyday! I definitely like the rain better, because you can`t escape the heat since no one here has air conditioning. The mornings are always really nice though, so we`ve been playing basketball almost every morning with the other elders in our house.

We watched meet the mormons with the ward this week, it was awesome! If you guys haven`t seen it yet, you should watch it this week because it`s super good.

Besitos

Elder Pollock

Week 72

This week we had changes! Me and my companion are staying! It`s kind of crazy because i`ve been in this sector for 6 months, and in valdivia for almost 11 months total. At the end of this change, i will have been in valdivia for more than a year and in this sector for 8 months. Good thing i like this sector! haha

We were able to cook french toast and bacon and drink chocolate milk for breakfast this morning so that was fun. We also went on a hike in the forest.

More updates coming next week, because it takes up all my time to send pictures! 

Elder Pollock

This first picture looks like the bus from Call of Duty Zombies

The Second picture is us after eating breakfast in bed and watching ¨The District¨ which is to help train new missionaries. It`s cool, because we have 2 elders in the house training and 2 elder getting trained.

Sunset

Sunset again

Cooking

¨Mega bed¨ for wating the district

looks like the bus from Call of Duty Zombies

Forest hike

Week 70 and 71

This week was pretty funny because we focused on talking to people in the street, but in fun ways! Because sometimes the people in the street don`t want to talk to us because they`re intimidated and shy.

One day, we brought my soccer ball with us and i challenged the people to see if they could juggle more times than me, and if they could they would win a candy. Obviously, no one beat me, but we gave them candy anyways. Another one is my companion used his camera and asked the people if he could take pictures of the flowers in their yards and that one worked pretty well. People here love talking about their gardens.

Another one which was the best, is that i pretended to be scared of a dog and the dude invited us into his house and we ended up teaching him a lesson.

Besides that, Camila wants to go on a mission! The sister missioanrys have been helping us a lot with her and Camila has been going with them to teach people. She has a calling in the stake to teach the book of mormon class and she has tons of friends in the ward. She has also introduced us to her friends and we`re going to be teaching one of them this week. She`s preogressing extremely fast and is awesome

Week 68 and 69

These last 2 weeks have been great! The only bad thing is that i have had the flu for the past couple of days, but i`m getting better.

Camila`s baptism was yesterday! She is 24 and her profession is singing. She sung on the voice Chile and she also performs in concerts in Chile. She`s going to go to mexico and san francisco next year to do a tour. We found her knocking doors late at night one night, and she progressed really fast! I had the opportunity to baptize her and i also played a piano song for her baptism. She was super happy and the baptism service was really spiritual.

The ward we are in right now hasn`t had a baptism for more than a year so it was good to finally  get one and get the members more excited about the missionary work.

One funny thing that happended, was that when we were filling the baptismal font, the water heater turned off and we didn`t know it. On the surface, the water felt warm, but when we got in it was freezing cold. Not a very pleasant experience at the time,. but now it`s really funny!

Camila's Baptism

Week 67

This week was crazy and super fun! All the missionary`s who are training had to go pick up their new companions from the mission house. I got to see a lot of my old companions there, and it was fun to see all the new missionary`s. I still remember being a brand new missionary and having no idea what was going on haha. My companion is Elder Peterson, he`s in the picture with the mission president and his wife. He is a really outdoor-sy person and he`s really cool. He doesn`t speak or understand spanish, just like i was when i first got here, but i bet he`ll be speaking in no time.

Camila, went to church this sunday and is getting ready for her baptism on the 10th of october. It`s a perfect date, because it`s right after general conference. It`s also awesome for my companion to have a baptism right at the beginning of his mission. Although she can`t understand my companion yet, she`s a good sport about it and she tries to encourage him.

Also, Nadia, one of our investigadors that`s the sister of the relief society president, went to church and brought her boyfriend. They both liked it and we have a family home evening with them tonight!

I`m super excited to go to general conference this saturday and sunday, especially with the 3 new apostoles that they`re going to be calling. 

Stay tuned for the next episode 

Elder Pollock

Week 66

This week we had the independence week of Chile! We couldn`t really do anything this whole week because everyone was really busy preparing for the holiday and there was tons of people drinking in the streets. On 18 and 19, we were told to either be in the church or in the house the whole day because president didn`t want us to be in the streets with all the drunk people.

We spent a lot of those 2 days playing chess with the other missionary`s, playing basketball, playing american football, frisbee, sleeping, studying, etc. It wasn`t bad, it was just like having another p-day!

We also went to a ward activity and a stake activity for the partys, where we watched people dance the national dance of Chile ¨La Cueca¨, played sports, played some typical games like a sack race, and ate meat and empanadas (They`re like hot pockets) . 

Camila didn`t get to church, so we rescheduled her baptsimal date for october 10th, but she is still progressing really fast. I have 4 and a half months in this sector, but my companion, Elder Truman, is leaving! Kind of a wierd change, but i`m happy. I`m still here in Calle Calle as district leader and i`m going to be training a new missionary from Utah, Elder Peterson

Week 65

This week we went to a baptism in the district, Cesar, and we were able to bring camila and Jovel to the baptism! It went really well and Camila is really excited to get baptized. Cesar, the sister missionary´s  investigador who just got baptized, is 23 years old and speaks perfect english. He also has been thinking a lot about serving a mission, so that would be super cool if he could do that.

One thing that`s kind of sad is one of the sisters in my district might go home and has to have surgery this wednesday on her knee. 

This week coming up is going to be super crazy because its the independence week of Chile. The actual day is the 18th of september, but the chileans love their parties so the parties start today and go until the 21 of september! 

For p day today we went to the top floor of a fancy hotel and took pictures, and now we`re going to go play chess and play piano in the house! 

Here`s a couple pictures of the view

We went to a park to explore!

A member sent this photo to me (Jordan's Mom) over Facebook!

Week 64

This week i interviewed an investigator of the sisters in my district to be baptized, Cesar, and he passed! He is super ready to be baptized and he knows everything. The missionarys taught him really well. He has his baptism this saturday, so that`ll be awesome! Even better for us, because Cesar is friends with Camila and she`s going to go to the baptism. Camila still has the baptism date for september 26 and she`s progressing and learning really fast.

Last week we played basketball and american football with the zone because it was sunny out,. and this week, we`re going to go play some pool (Billards) and bowling with the zone because it`s raining.

I introduced Elder Luna, a missionary from mexico, to french toast and now he`s an addict haha

Anywyas, these are the updates for this week, later!

Elder Pollock 

Week 63

We has stake conference this week, and we had 4 investigators there! Juan. Jovito and Raquel, and Nadia. That is a huge success, because it is really hard this time of year for the people to come to church because it`s super cold in the morning and always raining and the people don`t have cars. 

We had 6 members leave with us throughout the week, and we had 12 lessons with member, which is a record for me. The members have been helping us a tonnn now and the lessons are so much better when we have that third testimony of a real member. 

Camila has a date for baptism sptember 26 so we hope all of that goes well.

We`re going to play some football and basketball today with the zone to take advantage of the sun we have today, because it`s been raining every day for the past couple weeks.

Elder Pollock

Week 62

We have had problems finding our investigators this week, but we were able to visit less actives houses and a couple investigators with the members every single day this week, so that was awesome. The days went by super fast because we were going from lesson to lesson to meeting to lesson.

Also this week, we went to the leader meeting with the presidents and afterwards the president came to our house to surprise inspect the house! The good thing is, we had cleaned like 2 days before and the house was spotless, so the only thing the president and his wife told us we needed to do was throw away the old books and liahonas that we have. (We have tons of liahonas, all the way since 1987)

We have like 3 family home evenings planned this week with the members and investigators so we`re going to et good this week!

Anyways, thanks for the letters everyone!

Elder Pollock

Week 61

My new compaion is awesome, he has like 7 months in the mission, he`s from Las Vegas, and he went to BYU Provo before the mission. We`ve already done a lot of great things here in only one week!

One really cool thing was yesterday, we were next to our house at night at 8:53, and we had 7 minutes until we were supposed to return to the house to plan and go to bed, but instead of going home early, we decided to knock one last door. When we knocked a 25 year old lady came out and said ¨hey i`m camila, finally you guys passed by again, i`ve been reading the book of Mormon and i have a lot of questions.¨

She also has friends that have gone on missions and she is super interested in the church.

We`re going bowling today and going to play some pool so i`ll send pictures of that next week!

Lately, i`ve been reading from the teaching of Brigham Young book, and it`s really good. I`ve learned a ton from it, so i would reccomend it to anyone.

Elder Pollock

Week 60

Changes! I`m staying! But my companion is leaving. I`m going to be companions with Elder Truman, who has like 9 months in the mission. I`ve already met him before and he`s a super cool guy! In our house, we`re going to have all gringos again, 4 of us, and one of them is just starting the mission so that`s going to be a pàrty. 

Lately, we`ve been playing chess in the house for p days and in the night so i`ve ben getting pretty good. Only 1 elder in the house has beat me before. I`m basically a chess wizard now.

I`ll give more of an update next week on everyone because i`m running out of time, but i finally got pictures this week! This Is an awesome wool jacket that i bought with wolves on it. it only cost like $25.

Until next week

Elder Pollock

Week 59

It`s august already! Time`s flying by, i feel like july didn`t even exist. It`s super wierd to be in august with hail, rain, wind, lightning and cold! This winter is definitely not as wet as last winter, but it`s a lot colder. I usually wear my thermals, my white shirt and my dress pants, a sweater, 2 coats, rain pants on top of my other pants, a scarf, hat and gloves. I`ve been in colder weather before, but it`s different in the mission because we`re outside a lot of the day, as opposed to while i was at home or at byu, i would always be playing a sport, inside the house, a car, a retaurant, etc. Some days we`re outside for 4 to 5 hours straight so we have to wear tons of clothes to keep warm.

The people we found 2 weeks ago juan and jakelyn are super awesome. We found out that jakelyn is a less active from a long time ago, and that juan is not a member. We gave them a new book of mormon, and they both came to church this sunday. Jakelyn even went up and shared her testimony in front of everyone of how she knows she needs to come back to the church and help her husband! 

Also, Francisco, a less active that has been returning to the church since before last cambio, has been doing super well also. He`s still on the path for going on a mission, and we teach him a lot. We`ve even got his less active brother and sister to come to church with him also. He has a huge desire to go on a mission and i`m super excited that we`ve been able to help him with that. 

Elder Pollock

Week 58

The best thing about this week is that we had a youth conference with tons of stakes from our mission and with out zone in valdivia. We had about 30 missionaries and 300 youth, and we did a misionary training preperation type of thing. We taught them about the mission, how to do contacts, how to teach, etc. We even split up in groups and went out for an hour and did contacts in the streets and knocked doors with them! I also got to see a lot of youth from my other sectors like los encinos and rahue, so it was a really good activity, especially because we got to help excite the youth to go on missions. 

I found out that matias, a youth from rahue that we were teaching, opended his mission papers! That was one of our goals in rahue was to help him go on a mission, and it sounds like he`s finally going to go! He said he`s going to submit them in october or november at the latest.

Sorry, ive gotta find some stuff to take pictures of because it`s the emails are so much better with pictures`

Elder Pollock

Week 57

We haven`t had the chance to progress this week with Jovito and Raquel because Jovito had surgery, but we did find 2 other families this week! One of the families even went to church this sunday and they said they loved the church and were definitely going to come back, their names are Juan and Jaqualin. We had to give joel to the other elders like i said before, but we found 2 more families to replace him so i`m super happy about that. We passed buy Joels work today to give him a muffin at work and he said he has an appointment with the other elders tonight! 

One thing i`ve been doing on the mission is reading all the liahonas, and they are so good! Not only are they the word of god through his prophet and apostles, but they are also astounding and accomplished people that we can have as examples in our lives. I don`t know why i didn`t read them before.

I`m pretty sure i have changed a lot on the mission, because i even read liahonas on p days, and that doesn`t sound like something i ever would have done at home in my free time haha. 

Elder Pollock

We did service as a district this week! We helped build someones house that recently bruned down.

Week 54,55 and 56

Sorry i haven`t had time to write anything the past 2 pdays, i`ve been responding to birthday emails! 

Anyways, we had cambios last week and my columbian companion left and i have a gringo from West Virginia as my companion now Jacob Grow. 

In these last 2 weeks, a lot of things have happended, but there are 2 things that really stuck out.

1. Joel, 27, one of our best investigators that is defintitely going to get baptized, moved houses and is now in another ward and we had to give him to the other elders :( We`re sad because he was progresing really fast and he was also inviting all his friends and family to activities with him. I know he`ll be baptized though so i hope i`ll be able to go to the baptism!

2. Jovito and Raquel, have recently made a goal to get baptized before the end of the year! They have to get divorced, and married before they can get baptized, but they have both said they know the church is true, the book of mormon is true, and that tey will be baptized as soon as they can.

There`s 2 highlights from the past couple of weeks!

Also, we went bowling last p day with a couple members i knew from the beggining of the mission, Richard, Yenny and Alayna!

Week 53 Birthday!

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!! I promise i`ll reply to everyone when i have more time next p day, but i`m running out of time for this week.

My companion and the other elders in the house surprised me today with a cake so that was awesome. Members from my old sector invited me to go bowling next pday, and tonight we`re going to the mamitas house for something.

Also, i bought my self soccer cleats and a soccer ball to play in the mornings with myself haha.

I had a awesome birthday, thanks everyone! 

This week is going to be awesome, because we`re going to the stake center to watch meet the mormons in spanish (It just came out it spanish) and we`re hopefully going to have a lot of investigators there.

I`ll write everything else in my next email, see ya!

Elder Pollock