La Cucaracha...La Cucaracha...

Well I am still alive everyone! It has been a crazy week here in
Chile. Here is my week... we landed in Antofagasta and we got picked
up by president Bruce. He is such a stud! I am so excited to be in his
mission. He said that we were the largest group of missionaries to
come into the Chile Antofagasta mission. We had 8 gringos and like 20
latins. It was so much fun making friends with all those elders! they
are so funny! Its funny trying to talk to them is spanish and them
trying to talk to me in english. They all call me "Twilight boy Jacob"
haha. after the airport we took a bus to the church in antofagasta and
eat a great home cooked meal by our mission presidents wife. she also
is incredible! then we had like a 15 minute meeting where president
Bruce gave us a letter of our new companions and where we would be
serving. Right now, I am assigned to work in Alto Hospicio, Chile. The
sector Las Americas.. haha thats an apporpriate place for me to begin.
and my companion is Elder Deck from Argentina.. and he has been the
Assistant to the President for the past 5 months. So that means I have
the best companion in the world! I dont know how I got to be paired up
with him but he is a professional missionary! We might have to
"retire" his name tag like they do in sports because he is a ledgend!
He speaks a little english which is incredibly nice to have! Well
right after about an hour in the church we got on another bus.. to get
on another bus to go to Iquique( a 7 hour bus ride) add all that
travel combined with the planes. that was a long 2 days! but it was a
decent bus so i got some sleep. We then proceeded to get off at the
wrong bus stop (ooppps). Then we had to drag our bags forever and take
a taxi to the "pension" our house. We got there at like 4 Am finally.
We opened the door to the appartment complex we are staying and it was
A MESS!! it was incredible! trash everywhere! It is a tiny 2 room and
a kitchen in an appartment building. I was increibly thirsty and we
cant drink the water there, but luckily they had big jug of purified
water so I pounded like 4 glasses (remember this part). We went to
bed, woke up the next morning and went to eat at our mamitas house. we
knock on the door and introduce ourselves, me being last, I shake her
Hand and she starts to scream! I was terrified! I thought I broke her
hand! I have always had a firm handshake, but I have come to realize
everyone is really soft here. (oops lesson learned the hard way). but
i hope she will forgive me of that one. Well after that we went back
to clean the pension.. as we started cleaning we had so much trash we
filled up the chutes that people put there trash in. so in was backed
up all the way up.oopps. but as were are cleaning we come to find we
have a SERIOUS cockroach infestation!!  They are EVERYWHERE!! we spent
the afternoon with roach killer and waterbottles killing like crazy.
It was like real life Call of Duty... i wrecked! we honestly killed
probably 500. The were everywhere.. they were in our beds..in our
clothes.. in our fridge.. in our food pantry and to my disgust as we
were continuing to find more places to find and kill more, we opened
the water filter and there was a spawning pool of cockroaches. The
same water that I drank the day before had atleast 70 little cockroach
babies swimming in the water! hahah Gross!! but oh well I didnt get
sick! haha it was so much fun killing. we have 4 elders in the pension
with us. Elder pulsifer from Az. and Elder Maroquiin or something
random like that from guatamala. Way cool guys anywho. So we had a
blast tearing apart the apartment there. I dont think we will ever
kill them all but atleast we made a dent in their population.
anyways.. we then actually got to missionary work!! We like i said are
opening a new sector here in Alto Hospicio so we walked around
everywhere getting to know the branch president and the other leader
in the branch. We have a HUGE area and we cant have bikes or anything
so we have to walk.. there are also tons of hills. so by the end of
this transfer i should have some pretty toned legs. There are so many
unactives here! elder deck said. "1 in 10 people in Chile are members.
but of those 90% are inactive!" So we have a lot of work to just bring
people back to the knowledge that they once knew! So I think I reached
the peak of Culture shock in my 1st lesson ever.. So catch this.. we
are teaching my 1st lesson and its this single lady with 4 kids. one
of which is a few months old. So poor awkward white boy me is just
sitting there cause i have no clue what is going on and 5 min into it
the lady whips out her boob and starts breast feeding her child while
were there talking to her. I WAS LAUGHNG INSIDE SO HARD!! It was
strange to say the least.. and it continued for the rest of the time
we were there. Lets just say I made the best eye contact with a person
I ever have in my entire life! Poor little awkward me. Well Elder Deck
tells all the kids here I am from Hollywood in America and my name is
Zack Effron. The girls freak out! its too funny! people call me lots
of things down here... the kids call me Zack Effron, twilight Jacob,
harry potter, hogwarts (they dont pronounce the H in spanish hOWARD) ,
gringo. haha I just go with it! Too be honest though, this week has
probably been the most diffucult week of my life so far.. its is so
hard to be in a place where I cant talk to or understand people. but I
find joy in other things.. when ever I do say something is ether a
joke or something that is so wrong the people laugh at it anyways.
However in a week I have picked up a much better ear for what people
are saying. I still cant speak much.. but it is getting better. they
dont pronouce the letter S at the end of words and there are a lot of
words that end in S. so its hard to know the words they say.. they say
PO on the end of random words.. it means absoultly nothing but they
say it tons! So thats strange.. ive been trying to do my best and know
with time, work and help from above I will be able to do it! Well
Tonight we have an appointment with an investigator whos daughter has
been baptized and we found her the 2nd day. she is progressing and the
only thing holding her back is the concept of profets. we taught about
it all last night and committed her to pray for comformation its all
true and she said she will and she also said if she receieves and
answer she will be baptized. So im hoping and praying! Well Time to
get to work.. Thanks for all you do for me at home.. thanks for
reading my novel. I love you all and hope all in well there!

Love Elder Howard