December 13, 2010 Part 1 (with pics)

Hola my loved ones! Greetings from Santiago.

We came down town today and I saw the big ol' Christmas tree in the town square deal so it got me in the holiday spirit AND I get to call you in 12 days...but whos counting. We got rules on our call today. They can´t be longer than 40 min (lame) but I will be calling from Andrea´s house. (friends with mom on facebook) She is super great. She just joined the church in May and just moved to our branch, and she speaks English so its even better... haha:)  That is the plan for now...unless I get transferred but I hope I don´t. Here they mostly celebrate on the 24th so we will go to the Bishops house for that and then the 25 we can just chill, visit some people, and call you. Write Andrea about her number and details with all that. I´m not sure what will be best. If I use my phone card will it take a ton of min for just one min here because its international? or if its cheaper I can just call you and then you call me back if it will be better. Let me know what you find out and what I should do.

This week has been an interesting one. I wrote down a lot of things to tell you so my letters arent lame rambling. So... last p day we went to Santa Lucia. Basically you just walk up a lot of stairs and stuff and you get to look out over all of Santiago. Its pretty sweet! (pictures inculded). And then we also ran into our old investigator Sandali, who dropped us and she said she took an box knife to school and cut three peoples arms because they were bugging her. I have no idea what the deal is there...super crazy.

We (me my comp, and Andrea) got talking about weird things they do here in Chile. So here is a list of things that I don´t think I have told you-

They always point with their lips

They have farias (shopping things on the side of the street with anything and everything in them from onions to laundry detergent, to clothes

There is PDA everywhere- it pretty much sicks me out

It´s normal to call people fat

They open their cans with a knife instead of a can opener

There are a tons of pregnant little girls running around (even more than back home)

Whenever you order drinks they bring them out on a platter

Thats all I have for now. But other things this week... We were going to an apt and this little boy who was probably 3 years old called out from behind the gate (everyone here has gate/fence things like in Mexico) and he had a spiderman toy. He was so cute and said his name was Juan but he changed it to Avatar and he has all these powers... haha:) he said "check your cell phone, I just put a whole bunch of games on it with my mind" ha:) It was so stinkin funny. Then when we said goodbye and walked away, he yelled out, ¨Behave yourselves¨ it made my day.

Also this week, we were walking to a store and like always these guys were cat calling and saying "Hi Hi" and all that jazz...so we just ignored them like always and went into the store but one of the guys followed us in there (it was his families store) and said "I was greeting you and you just ignored me"  and we said "No, you were just bugging us." and then he gave us some candy. So it all worked out... haha:)

Here are some pics...

Me at Santa Lucia last week

 

Us Sister Missionaries ( My Comp, and her old Companions- who are out in the field in the middle of nowhere- haha:) and Myself) at a Peruvian Restaurant

 

 

Elder Young and Elder Driscoll (the office Elders) loving the Peruvian food (just whole chickens and a lot of salad) oh and the Inka Cola as always!

 

 

Me and my favorite Christmas tree that I snuck out of the package :)

Me and the wood statue at Santa Lucia - the closest I´ll be getting to a guy for a while... haha:) Oh, except the drunk guys the other night who kept talking to us and moving closer and touching my hair!! haha:)
Oh the random little things that happen (they just pop in my mind so when I randomly go off, I hope you can understand)

 I´m going to continue this on the next letter because I want to send a video and there isn´t enough room in this email so

TO BE CONTINUED.....