Tons of blessings given to us!

 Hi everyone!
  Well now I've completed 3 weeks here in Chile! I'm really getting used to it here now. I'm starting to be able to wake up better in the mornings, and I'm pretty used to the schedule now. And the spanish and the work is going pretty good. More about that in a bit. But this week has been both exciting, but also a little disappointing. So I'll go through the weeks events: (I have been jotting down notes of things to write throughout the week, I'm a much better planner now than I was before, haha).

   So,  Monday was P-day. We didn't really do much, we relaxed a lot, which was good. We went to McDonalds for lunch, which was good. An odd thing, while we were sitting in McDonalds we saw probably a 12 year old walking by - smoking. That was pretty shocking. Anways, I was really missing chicken nuggets, so I had those. The sad thing is that they don,t have ranch here. The only ranch they have in the stores is super expensive. There's a couple things here that are basically luxuries that are normal back in the States. Take peanut butter for example. Here it costs about 3.000 for a jar (3.000 is 3,000; here the commas and dots are backwards). That's about $6 dollars! That's one thing I miss back home, just normal American food. But the food here really isn't too bad, so I'll live.
   A couple random thoughts: right now we're teaching a guy named Marcelo. Hes 16. He has a baptismal date for the eighth of November. He has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith, and he also prayed about baptism and feels good about it! So I'm excited for him, but he needs to attend church. We taught him about the word of wisdom. Evryone here drinks coffee or tea. So it's pretty hard, but there's some stuff that tastes like coffee but is made from wheat or something, so we give them that to try.
   Another cool thing is that my comp Elder Jorgensen has a book of Chilean slang. It has everything a person could ever need to learn the words here! So I've been using that a lot. Chilean spanish is pretty different than other spanish I've heard, but I guess that happens a lot in many places, everywhere has their own slang.
   Tuesday was a really cool day. We saw a ton of blessings given to us! We had been feeling down about the work, but then we saw a lot of blessings on Tuesday. We knocked a door of an inactive lady, and she told us she wants us to teach the rest of her family! She has a 12 year old nephew named Jeremías. He's a nice kid, but at the moment he's in the hospital; not quite sure why. But he gets out soon and we'll be able to teach him. Also on tuesday, we were just walking down the street and a lady stopped us and asked us where the church was. She told us she just moved here and she had been inactive, and she wants us to baptize her daughter! The church is so true, I know it without a doubt. Also, I know the Lord is guiding me to where I need to be, and I'm doing exactly what I should be doing.
   So lately we've been buying a lot of suckers. It's pretty funny, in all the negocios (the small stores found in some houses) they sell suckers for like 50 pesos, which is about a dime. and I just can't pass up on a deal like that, haha. Another thing I tried is called manjar (pronounced mahn-har). It's basically a dulce de leche type thing, I don't know excactly how to explain what it is. But it's kind of like a caramel but super good. Just a couple random things, haha.
   So contacts here are pretty alright. We try to do 20 contacts a day at least, which we usually do. My comp is training me well, making me do contacts even when I don't feel too confident. Even though I can, I still need his help to do them, and he's really helping me by forcing me out of by box you could say. Most people either listen, say they're busy, or say "I have my religion". That's what we get the most I'd say. We went to another sector because my comp is the district leader and he had to do a baptismal interview for another sector. I went on a split with one of the zone leaders, his name is Elder Glissmeyer. He's 2 metro 5 tall. 2 meters and 5 something. I don't know exactly how tall that is, but he's huge, and people always just ask him how tall he is while he's in the street.
   On Friday we had an activity we planned. It was a noche de juegos (a game night). It turned out pretty well, a lot better than we thought it would. We had some investigators there and it was fun too. And on Wednesday we had an English class. No investigators came, but we talked with a member in English the whole time. Most people here take English classes.
  On Saturday we taught a reference from one of the zone leaders. We had to walk 30 minutes just to get to her house, but it was worth it. it was a very solid lesson and she seemed to be genuinely interested in the Church. Our sector is huge. I think it would probably take 45 minutes to walk from one end to the other, and that's walking at Missionary speed, which is basically a sprint. And that's just the portion that is in the walkable distance, there's some other places in our sector that we have to take a bus too cuz they're so far away. But they're going to be sending another pair of Missionaries here the next transfer, so that should make it better.
  Sunday was a little bit disappointing. We were expecting at least 5 or 6 investigators in church, but only 2 came. Its frustrating when they tell you they'll be there but then they don't show. It's just something that we can't control. But other than that it was still a pretty successful day.
  A couple other random thoughts. I'm not sure if I told you this earlier, but we can't play soccer here. Basketball too. There have been Missionaries injured so they're stopping it for a while. Oh yeah, they also celebrate Halloween here. It's not as big, but they still have it. Another random thought, there's a new convert named Rafael who's really cool. He's 19, and has been in the church for like 6 months. And he comes out with us, and even sometimes he comes at night just to share a scripture with us. Hes got such a strong testimony, and is working on his papers for a mission! OK, one more random thought. You know the whole kiss on the cheek thing they do in some places, like in Europe, for example? well they do that here in Chile. I hope you know what I'm talking about. Well we as missionaries aren't supposed to do it. Luckily I haven't run into anyone who's tried it, but it happened to Elder Jorgensen the other day. Either you could just go with it, or tell them your not supposed to. Just something funny.
  Alright, and today. Today we went to a hill nearby, called Cerro de la Virgin. It's basically a hill with a big statue of the Virgin Mary on top. Its probably like 20 or 30 feet tall or something. The funny thing is that theres also a statue of Jesus on the cross too, but it's probably like 12 feet tall. I took lots of pictures. You can see all of talca from on top, and theres a great view of the Andes too. We ate at some place and had someting called churrillana. Basically it's a pile of french fries with some sausage, pork, and eggs on top. It was pretty good, I enjoyed it.
  Well as you can see I was much better prepared for this weeks email. I think I managed to remember everything I wanted to say. I love you all, thanks for writing me, and continue to encourage people to write me. The church is so true, and this truly is the Lords work. Love you all a ton, and I'll talk to you next week!!

¡¡Ciao!!
Elder Ryan Mayberry