First of all, what a crazy week. Wow. My head hurts from everything that has happened.
I arrived in Chile on Tuesday of last week. My flight was all-night to Santiago, Chile, and then a couple hours to Puerto Montt. From Puerto Montt, the mission president and his assistants met us at the airport, and then drove us down to the mission home at Osorno, Chile, an hour and a half away. Something that I was impressed with is how clear the roads were. In every other South American country, the roads are always jam-packed with cars. But here in Chile most people are very poor, and gas is expensive, so there are not that many personal cars. Most people take colectivos, which are kind of like taxis. Osorno and Puerto Montt remind me a lot of Santa Fe. They are the biggest cities in the entire southern half of Chile, so most people live in the countryside. I'll probably get to see more of the countryside after my next transfer, which might happen in a few months.
At the mission home we received a lot of training that comes with a new country, like our visas, and budgeted money, and so on. That night we slept at a hotel down the street a bit. The next morning we had more training, and then we met our new companions. My companion is Elder Carter.
Elder Carter is amazing. It is incredible to me how much he knows and how much love he has for all the people. He is the most sincere person I've met yet, and he has taught me so much. In a nutshell, he's awesome.
After we met our new companions, we traveled to our assigned areas. I was assigned to Puerto Montt, so we caught a bus back up there, and then took a colectivo to the missionary departamento (apartment). Which was tiny. Because in Chile, all houses are tiny. But in a good, cozy kind of way. I thought the mission home in Osorno was nothing special, but here in Chile, it's like a mansion. I didn't even unpack, and then Elder Carter and I got to work. First we met with a less-active family, and got to know them a little bit. Then we met with one of our investigators, Claudio. We taught him a chapter from the Book of Mormon, and invited him to be baptized. He said he would if he gained a knowledge of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. So we taught him how he could receive and answer to his prayer. We then asked him to offer a kneeling prayer, which he did, which was awesome.
The rest of the week, we've been teaching less active members, talking to people on the street, and trying to find new investigators. It's been tough at some times, but if you just remember the purpose behind all of it, and that the Lord is on your side, things look a little better.
Gosh, there are so many things I want to tell everyone about Chile. I'm sorry that this email won´t include many spiritual experiences for your uplifting, but I'll try to include more of those next time. Let me get all of the differences out of the way first.
First, no one here has heating in their houses. Most people have a water heater that runs off a barbecue gas tank. It heats the water as it flows through the pipe to your shower. It works with the sink too, but since gas is so expensive, we only use the heater for our showers, meaning we wash all our dishes by hand, with cold water. But besides that, the only heating anyone has is a wood burning stove. Which means that it constantly smells like campfire here. Literally everywhere. But I got used to it on the 3rd day, so està bien. People don't have heating because they can't afford gas, not because it's not cold here. It's always cold here. It's only really cold when you're not moving around, but we do about 7 hours of scripture study a day, so we don't move around a lot during that time. So you just have to suck it up and get used to the cold.
All of the houses in Chile have tall, metal fences and gates surrounding the front yards. So when you want to knock at a door, you stand by the gate and yell, "Alllo!" Almost never do you actually knock on someone's door, or ring their doorbell. Which makes contacting people in their houses really hard and awkward, because you're basically having a conversation with someone from the bottom of their driveway up to their front door. But that's just part of the culture here, I guess, so it doesn't bother anyone but me, haha.
There are also tons of stray dogs. Like tons. If I'm on the street at anytime and I can't see at least one stray dog, then there's something weird going on. Most of them are pretty friendly, but you never want to pet them, because they all have fleas. Some can be kinda mean though. On my second day, I wasn't paying much attention and a dog just ran up to me, growled, and bit me on the leg. I've never been bitten by a dog before, so I was kinda surprised to learn that it hurt, haha! But the bite didn't break the skin, so I don't have to get rabies shots, thank goodness. The dog did rip a big chunk out of my pant leg though, which is not bien because my clothes have to last me two years. But what's nice in Puerto Montt, is when the dogs start to circle and look like they're about to attack, all you have to do is reach down and pretend to pick up a rock, and they scatter.
The one thing that I have a really hard time getting used to is the meal schedule. People here don't really eat dinner, they just have one big lunch at about 1:00 in the afternoon. This first week, I didn't have any money and therefore no extra food, and so I've been constantly hungry. We have a lady that cooks the lunch for us, but she usually cooks one pot of something, and then four of us divide it evenly. So I've been eating a ton less recently than normal, but today I get to buy food for the morning and evening, so I'm very happy.
Here in Chile, the brand "Great Value" is kinda different. There aren't really any brands from the United States here. There's two McDonalds in the entire southern half of Chile. But "Great Value" at home is kinda like the generic, skimpy brand that you buy if you're trying to save money. Here, "Great Value" is an expensive, really nice brand. Kinda funny.
Also, crosswalks here are funny too. In the city, there's a fair amount of traffic, and since it's South America, people drive crazy. But there's a law where if a pedestrian enters a crosswalk, people have to stop. It's kind of a big deal to break that law. But the streets here are constantly wet, because it's always raining. So a couple times we've gotten to see anti-lock braking, or the lack thereof, when cars come screeching and sliding to a halt as we cross the street. Exciting, but my companion is fearless.
I'm sorry to everyone that sends me replies. I absolutely love them, please keep sending them, but I don't have enough time to reply individually to everyone. The rules in the mission field are a little different than the MTC, and I have less time to write, so I can only write this massive email. But please keep replying!
I love you all. I'm having the time of my life.
-Elder Thomas Crotzer
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