Very Wet Elder Torgersen

Cowboy Josh

Hola Fam!

How is everyone doing? This week so far has been a lot better. How has everything been at home? I´m glad moms talk went great. I´m glad everyone decides to take cool vacations once i´m gone. ´´Oh yeah we´re going to Disneyland or yeah we´re going to Romania.¨ Where were these thoughts before my mission. You guys better extend the vacation to Chile for 3 weeks. Sounds like every thing at home is fine.

 

I told a couple of the members and investigators that you guys want to come back for Christmas. They are all really excited and are saying I better do it. They keep telling me all the stuff we could do when we come back. Personally I think 3 weeks sounds better :).

 

Why does Ethan need a new motor cycle... he just inherited mine. He doesn´t need a new one. Tell him He needs to start working. He needs money for his mission and school. If i told you guys during the summer... ¨i´m going riding, or i´m going boating you guys would freak and call me lazy and say I need to work to get money for my mission. I think it´s about time you guys start hounding ethan about that kind of stuff.  Also tell Ethan I eat empanadas every Tuesday after District Class. They are so good!!! There´s a little store in Parral that we could go to to try them. The lady makes them from scratch every morning and sells about 30 every Tuesday to the missionaries.

 

But I don´t know whats going on with my reception with heavenly father. The reception must be bad here but this last week I lost my USB stick with a ton of pictures on it. Luckily I didn´t delete them off my camera yet but I still can´t find it. I have been praying that I find it but haven't had any success yet. So Mom if you could... Pray that I find it. because I think god listens to you more than anyone. Who knows maybe it´ll fall into your lap like everything else you pray for.

 

Well I have some good news and some bad news. Well to start off... bad news. This last wed we had interviews with president. I didn´t get my packages so I´m having to wait til the next conference or big meeting. Which means I´m with out a razor or Excedrin for another while. I did although receive the Valentines day Card. That was really funny. Apparently Chris loves me and so does Ainsley (since she wrote three different things) But question... what was the mama Kohlert about haha? A bunch of the Elders saw that and were questioning me.

 

President basically told me he put me with a Latin to learn Spanish. He told me that he knows it is difficult to have a Latin comp and that I´m to learn the language and learn patience. Okay now to vent a little....

 

This week was a little better than the last week with the other missionaries and my companion but we still had a couple problems. One of the elders spends a ton of time in the bathroom. He also uses all the toilet paper. I had just bought toilet paper and told them it was their turn to buy more and to buy gas for showers. They basically told us no and walked away. The whole week they wouldn´t tell us where our lunches were or the addresses. On Sunday I over heard them ask the bishop for the address of lunch on Sunday. We started walking to lunch and the other elders started to walk another way. I took off another way because I was sick of the crap from the others and walked a quicker way. My companion started yelling at me saying they didn´t know the address. I told him they knew where the house was and kept walking. My companion always says, ¨wow, en serio¨. It drives me nuts. He said ¨wow en serio Elder.¨ and that's just about where I blew up on him. I told them that they hadn´t told us anything throughout the week and now he´s worried about if they knew where lunch was. He called me a ¨stupid Child¨ and walked off. I have never had someone say something like that and get away clean without a scratch. It´s like working with someone like Ethan times 10. I´m surprised at how much patience it really takes to be a missionary. When we got to lunch, five minutes after the other elders showed up. My companion didn´t say anything after that. We have dumb disagreements like that almost every other day. I don´t feel like I do anything wrong and all of a sudden he´s crying about something. Latinos are so different than the gringo missionaries. It has definitely taken some time to get used to.

 

On Sunday my comp made us all sit down and settle everything and basically threw it all out on the table. We got every thing settled and now everything is running smoother at our house. Hopefully it continues that way.

 

I´ve learned that being a missionary is like juggling. If we focus on one ball (or a family) the other balls drop. This Sunday we focused on Eduardo and his family. We went to their house early Sunday morning and made pancakes to get them to church. While making pancakes, I made everything, cooked, and then cleaned up. My companion sat there complaining about every thing i was doing. I told him to go Call the other families and investigators and he just sat there. I wasn´t to happy. We ended up getting Eduardo and his family to church but we only had one other investigator in church because he didn´t call to remind. It´s so frustrating because we get one family to come to church and to progress but then the other families drop and don´t come to church.

 

Saturday I finally had to go and spend some money. I´m sorry but it rained ALL DAY. It was pouring rain all day. You should have seen how bad it was. I bought a rain coat that is really waterproof and it didn´t look to bad. We tried to buy one at a little street side store but they were all used and funky colors and weren´t very waterproof. By the night I was dripping wet. I sent a picture hopefully you can see it. We were soaking wet. Luckily I wrapped my stuff in plastic bags before.

 

Nothing too exciting happened this week. We did although get our fridge fixed. It hadn´t been working very well and now should at least keep our milk cold.

 

Well I love you guys. Miss you.

 

Con amor, Tu hijo

Elder Torgersen

Weekly letter

Hola Family!

Well this week was a little better. It started off a little crappy but really finished up to be good. We had lots going on. I´m really starting to learn that fighting and yelling does absolutely nothing. I´ve really had to learn to just go with the flow and put up with crap even if i don´t want to do it.

This week we had lots of service.We could have had more service. It kind of bugs me because we are here to serve the people of Chile but my companion tells people all the time we cant help with something because it´s not in the morning. To me, it´s service. WE ARE HERE TO SERVE. I don´t care what time of day it is, or how hot it is, or where it is. We are here to serve. It really bugs me when a member or an investigator really needs help with something and he tells them we cant help. I feel like that is wrong. I feel like no matter when, where, how hot it is... we can help. I really don´t know what to do about it.

Another problem we had was one of our investigators had a wedding and they invited us to go. We helped set up the wedding the night before and told them we would be there. The next day my companion tells me that we aren´t going. The night before we had put it in our plans for the day. It bugs me because he had just told me that you stick to your plans no matter what happens because that is what you planned and that is what Heavenly father is expecting you to do. We didn't end up going to the wedding.  We had met the mission goal for contacts for the week by Friday which is 140. We had that plus about 30. I didn´t want to do any more contacts. Instead we walked down the street for an hour and a half doing contacts at the worst hour of the day.We had a total of 5 people answer the door and 3 were just complete jerks. The mother of the girl getting married is a member and she invited us to come and contact people at the wedding because there would be multiple people of different churches. It really bugged me. I just kinda had to let it go.

We were doing contacts the other day and I was standing by a fence and all of a sudden the biggest dog I´ve ever seen jumped up to the fence right next to my face and barked freaking loud in my ear. I´ve never jumped so bad in my life. It was hilarious. My companion almost died laughing. Speaking of dogs I got my first dog bite. We were outside an investigators house and all of a sudden their dog bit my calf. It bit and then ripped away. It didn't break the skin but it gave me a pretty good scratch and it was swollen and bruised for the rest of the week. 

We sit in the house during studies waiting for the guys driving down the street selling stuff. We each got 30 eggs for about $2. It´s a little sketchy because they don´t refrigerate the eggs. but no one has gotten sick yet. The eggs are huge though. We also wait for the sandia or watermelon guy to drive by because we can buy huge watermelons for about a dollar. We eat the watermelon with Harina tostada. It´s toasted flour but it´s so good on watermelon.

We have an investigator named Eduardo. He has a family of two daughters. We went to the ``campo`` or country in the mountains with him today. We started out teaching him English and then led into teaching about the gospel. He watches movies in English and sometimes he doesn´t learn the greatest words. He kept saying the S word and we had to tell him not to say it because it´s bad. He also say`s Oh my gosh but not gosh. We need to teach him the commandments. His dad lives in the mountains outside of Linares. His house was so cool. They have tons of raspberry, blackberry and apples out in random fields. He told us that if we come back to Chile we can take his horses and his motorcycles out. I guess there´s tons of trails every where to ride motorcycles. They also have a river through their property that the grandpa dammed of the river and they have a little swimming pool. But as missionaries we couldn´t swim. I took lots of pictures so I´ll send you some. 

The whole week had been kind of a bummer. We couldn´t get any members to go out with us to help teach, appointments kept falling and we spent a lot of time in the street doing contacts. We had a little bit of a disagreement in what to do and he just all of a sudden took off. So i had to follow him. While we were riding our bikes we found a lady that just looked completely depressed. Andrade stopped and asked her what was wrong. She wouldn´t tell us and kept trying to get away. He finally stepped in front of her and was like what´s going on. She told us that her son had died 10 days ago and she didn´t want to live anymore. We were on a dirt road that led into a field with train tracks running through it. We weren´t sure what she was going to go do but it couldn´t have been good. We finally calmed her down and got her to show us where her house was. We talked to her on the way to her house and tried to calm her down. We got to her house and were there for about 2 minutes when all of a sudden the front door opened. Her husband was standing there. He looked ticked. He took a look at us and then at his wife. All of a sudden his wife is in his face and she´s flailing around and screaming a yelling and slapping and punching. Then he starts to shove her back and at that point I was thinking holy crap We´re gonna have to stop this guy and it probably wont be pretty. I drop my bag and next thing I know E´ Andrade is in between them breaking it up. The husband starts yelling ¨¿Donde Estabas?¨ I´m thinking to myself... What in the crap is going on? She runs into the back room and he tells us that she has been super depressed and basically ran away. The family had been looking for her for almost two hours. She was really emotional and was screaming and crying. We finally calmed her down and had to basically force a lesson on her. The rest of the family ended up all coming out on the porch to listen to our lesson. We taught them the plan of salvation. I don´t know what happened but basically words were coming out of my mouth in full complete sentences. It so amazing. We went from here screaming, crying and slamming her hands on the ground to her sitting there listening to us. It was definitely a spiritual recharge that was really needed for the week. It made me really realize how blessed we are to have the gospel in our lives. It made me realize how blessed I am to have grown up in the family I have and to have parents strong in the church.

I will find out on Thursday if I´ve gotten the packages. We have interviews with president and he will bring the packages and mail. I started writing a letter toCayden last night but I´m not sure where to send it... I don´t know if I need to send it to his house or the MTC or to Paraguay. 

Sounds about right with mom praying. Unlike her others have to really pray sincerely to receive an answer. Things are just placed in her hands on a silver plate. That is really cool she found someone to translate the papers. If you guys were to come to Chile I´d want to go home and be released first. I´d even pay for my ticket because there´s too many things I´d want to go do that we couldn´t do as a missionary. There are a ton of places to ride horses, ride dirt bikes, and swim in rivers, waterfalls, and beaches. We don´t have much time to really explore the city. I´d want to be able to do that more. I´ve heard that they might be able to do it over the phone but that sounded kind of weird. We have a long time till that comes. But tell dad thanks for reminding me i have 1/4 of the way over with. I could have gone without that. I am not yet ready to come home. I need some more baptisms. 

 Yes I did get the picture of the new baby. That is really funny about Clara.  I started busting up laughing when I read she wanted pancakes. 

And... I´m not sure I have room to tell Ethan to go to seminary. I did the same thing.... As long as he´s going most of the time. As long as he isn´t missing too many days to not get credit. 

Well I´ve gotta wrap it up. Love you guys miss you tons

Con amor,

Elder Torgersen

Weekly Letter

Hola Fam Damnily!

Well where to start this week? This week was definitely the most stressful, homesick, humble, trunky, difficult, etc. week so far. We just got two new missionaries in our house. One is from Santiago, Chile, the other from Mexico. I´m the only Gringo in our house. It has been so stressful because they are so different than me. 

With my last comp he basically did everything and didn't let me voice my input. So planning has been a beast now that I´m basically in charge of who we go by and what time. I only have 3 months here and only know a couple parts of this huge city. My comp is the only member in his family and his dad died when he was young. His mom and his siblings don"t send him very much mail and he is yet to get a package. But this week has been really rough, My comp would get mad at me for the dumbest things. He got mad at me because I knew where the place was but didn't know the address, he got mad because i was sitting all the way back in my chair and wasn´t sitting the way he wanted me to, he got mad because I locked the bikes to the bike rack and not in the shade... just completely stupid things like that. I´ve had a migraine this whole week and with the complaining it just made it worse. 

We just found out that Raul and Raquell are going to fight their marriage thing because Raquell had the same surgery as mom and can"t have kids. We will find out the next week or two if they can be married. Raul wants to get baptized in a rio by his house. I think it would be awesome.

While doing contacts this week we contacted a lady and all of a sudden her little girl came running out. We kept talking and all of a sudden the little girl just started peeing. It was the most awkward contact ever. I´ll just say we set up a time to go back...

This week was just full of awkward, weird stuff. We are teaching a girl that is 20 that had a kid when she was 15. She has come to church twice and her daughter loves it. Every time we go to here house I have to take out all the stuff out of my front pocket because the little girl always jumps on me and takes my name tag and all my tarjetas and my planner. The last time we taught her, her friend and her boyfriend were over. First the little girl was climbing on my lap, then she was screaming, and then she was taking stuff out of my bag. Then next thing I know her mom is sitting right next to the the couch where I´m sitting and she keeps touching me. We basically had to end and leave. It was so awkward.

We had a week full of service. It kinda bugs me because people do work down here so different. And it´s all by hand. No Power tools. Anything that costs a little bit more money to buy or rent decent tools or power tools is just crazy. We put up sheet rock with screw drivers. The things we do here for service are crazy. They all mix concrete in the streets by hand. It´s crazy how much they do by hand. The guy we did service for just had a baby. He totally reminds me of Paul Blart, the Mall cop. He´s really funny. I´ll have to get a picture.

This week all around was just stressful. We had problems with bikes just about everyday. When we get flat tires, it´s always the back tire. just stupid problems kept happening.

Ethan looks bigger. That's funny he had to kick out a bum. Baileigh told me all about the stuff they found. Tell Baileigh I will write her next week. We have to take a preach my gospel questionnaire. So I don´t have much time.

Tell grandpa that I really hope he makes it on The mormon.org. Tell grandma to get better and Ask grandpa if he has written me about his conversion. Also tell him we will happily take the boat. :)

Well hope all is well. Love you guys and miss you tons.

Con amor,

Elder Torgersen

p.s. Send my coat in about the end of march/start of April. Who won the superbowl?