Hello Fam!

How is everyone? Sounds like its been a party at the house. I´m glad it finally snowed up there. It´s about time. Since January is almost over. Sounds like a lot was going on this last week.

I just about cried seeing the pictures of Mckay. I cant believe he finally got his call. Mexico City!! He´s going to die. I´m super excited for him.

That totally sounds like Ethan. Putting J Dawg stuff on everything. Where did he go Riding? Your emails are almost as bad as mine and you aren´t learning a new language. They are super confusing and freaking random. 

To tell you the truth this last week... Sucked. Citas kept falling, We were outside in the heat all day everyday. And all of our investigators were having the same stupid problem. They all needed to get divorced and wait to get married. It is so ridiculous. I hate how long they have to wait. I´m afraid they are going to lose interest. Raul and Raquel are golden though. They go to church every Sunday and give us really good references.

My talk went well. Everyone kept telling me,¨You learned Spanish.¨ really I just had Elder Teske translate it. Surprisingly I did a lot of it though. 

A little ironic but I think I´ve been exposed to more on my mission than I ever have been. Profanity, pornography, Smoke, Drugs, Alcohol, etc. Never thought it would ever happen especially on my mission, but I´m pretty sure Elder Teske and I drank alcohol this last week. We went over to an investigators house and we found out he was moving into the other elders sector. He was having to move stuff from his house into a truck. We started to help and he asked us if there were stuff we couldn´t eat or drink as members of the church. We told him the 5 things-Tea, coffee, drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. After awhile he brought us drinks. Mine smelt really funny and the first sip was a little funky but my comp kept drinking it. I took a couple more sips and decided not to drink anymore. While we were moving stuff out I went into the kitchen and smelt the bottle of soda they had given us and it wreaked of alcohol. I´m not 100 % sure we drank straight up alcohol but we think it was in the cup when they poured the soda in. We felt horrible for the rest of the day. I can tell you now I´m going to watch what I eat and drink for now on. The smell haunts me every time I take a drink of anything.

This last week me met a guy from Switzerland that had moved to Chile 18 years ago. His accent was wicked. I could hardly understand him. It was really cool. ha I couldn´t really tell what language he was speaking. 

I never thought I would buy a fanny pack... But it happened. I bought a fanny pack. It was the perfect size for my scriptures and it is a little easier and less sweaty to carry around. I got a bag just like a couple other elders in the district but mine cost $15 cheaper than theirs. It isn´t quite a fanny pack but it has a shoulder strap and kinda looks like one. Fanny packs are really popular down here. It´s awesome. Everyone has them. They are kinda handy.

I had a mini cambio with an Elder this last week. Elder Scott. He is from Ogden, Utah. He broke his leg really bad here in Chile and had to go home for two cambios. He had just gotten back. We were teaching a lesson outside and a plane flew by. He asked me, ¨how far away do you think that plane is?¨ I said,¨I dunno maybe a mile.¨ And he replied with,¨Nope it´s 20 months away from you buddy.¨ He thought he was pretty funny. I got my first Greeny joke. 

I´ve never been so happy in my life. The Elder from El Salvador is going 5 cities away from me. Last Tuesday I almost punched him. Every Tuesday we have District class. We take a bus to a city called Parral and meet as a district and then as a zone. Our alarm was still set for 8:30 because of P-day so we woke up at 8:00 wondering why the alarm didn´t go off. We woke up, got dressed, and ran to the bus. I had grabbed a couple snacks to eat for breakfast on the way. During our district class while my comp was doing a practice with the other Elders, the Elder from El Salvador walked over. Opened my bag. took a bag of chips and walked back to his seat and started eating them. I was ticked. Then next thing I know he takes one of my pens and starts using it. Elder Teske basically had to hold me back from completely killing this kid. I´ve definitely had to learn some patience because before the mission I would have dropped him. He ended up losing my pen (one of the nice ones I got from Grandpa). The whole district is ready to kill this kid because he is such a baby. He has been calling a girl in our ward and talking to her for over 30 minutes almost every night, and the other day Elder Scott told me they spent 5 hours over at a members house just chilling. Then he borrowed a bike from a member and ended up getting a flat from a nail. The member came to get the bike and he completely lied to them. I guess he has lied about a lot of stuff and Elder Scott has called him out on it and then he freaks out because Elder Scott is listening in on his conversations. The kid basically does what he wants. It makes me mad because none of the leaders will do anything about it. I almost cried when I found out he was leaving. 

Hopefully this next cambio will go better. I found out my Papi is going to a little town in the campo. Sounds like my English is only going to get worse. I´m super excited. I will be comps with an Elder Andrade from Honduras. He was Elder Scott's comp when he broke his leg. I talked to Scott about him and he said he was really cool. SO hopefully he´s not like the other Elder. We swear we had the only two Latinos that don´t like sports in our district. So i´m hoping he does. 

We found out this week that in the city we are in there have been a group of people that kidnap kids from 5 to 10 years old, Kill them, take out the organs, sell the organs, stuff the body with sawdust and leave the bodies in a field with about $600 for the funeral. It makes me sick that someone would do this. I honestly haven´t missed seeing TV or any of the news. It freaks me out that this has been happening close to where we live. It is so messed up that some one would be that messed up. 

While we were writing these emails I felt my first Temblor. Or fist little earthquake. It was awesome. Any other time it has happened I have been asleep. I was pretty excited. 

I also was wondering if you could have Grandpa  Kratchen send me a story of his Conversion story.

Well this next Sunday we should have 2 Baptisms. The reference we got from Raul and Raquel. Lorena and her daughter Anais. I absolutely love this little family. The mom is awesome and the little girl is really funny. I´m super excited. The mom brought her Boyfriend to church and he really liked it. We have taught him and he is pretty excited. I guess we´ll see what happens this next week. 

Well I love you guys. Hope everything is going well. Love you!

Con Amor,

Elder Torgersen

"End of Cambio"

Hello Everyone! 

How is everyone doing? Sounds like this past week was really crazy with work and the wedding. Hopefully it all turned out well. Mom didn´t tell me that Dad went down to work. I didn´t know that. I thought you guys were going down just for the wedding. I heard they were moving but I didn´t know the house needed work on. Did you guys take pictures? You guys need to send me pictures of stuff.  Also I´m glad you guys enjoyed the picture of the dog. I about died laughing when I saw that thing. haha Also my card is working again. So we are good there.

Well this week we had a lot going on. We had to go to a city called Chillan for a Mission Conference. We had about 50 missionaries there. President talked to us about the numbers from 2011. In 2011 we had 1030 baptisms for the Mission of Concepcion. President talked about the next year and the goals we are setting. This next year we are setting the goal for 1200 baptisms. It was all in Spanish but i´m surprised how much I understood. It was great. At the end of the meeting president called me and Elder Teske to the front in front of everybody along with 3 other companionship's. I had no idea what was going on and I honestly first thought ¨Crap, What rule did I break?¨ He read us our numbers from the last week and asked how we got them. We had found 11 news and 8 in church. He asked us how we had so few contacts with 11 news. This last week we really focused on getting to know people before jumping into missionary mode. It was amazing how effective it was. President asked me and I had to explain how we did it but in Spanish. I just told them we changed the way we contacted and started talking about their kids or their car or the flowers in the front yard. It completely changed everything and our numbers. I did after the Conference get another package that had pj´s and ties in it. I really liked the Young and Reckless shirt. A bunch of elders saw it and tried to steal it. The Chileans love my white paisley tie. ha ha it is really funny what they think looks good and what doesn´t. I´m still waiting for the razor though. Did you send that?

Elder Teske had to do a mini cambio to go and do an interview for the other elders. This time, Luckily, I went with Elder Davis. I learned a lot. Mainly because he wouldn´t talk in the lessons. He really forced me to teach the lessons. It was the complete opposite of elder Teske because Teske talks the whole time. I was really surprised at how well I did. We had found and taught 8 new people. One was a guy that works for an automatic gate company and is interested in learning English. We went over to teach him a little English and ended up slipping in a lesson about the Gospel. All of the Chileans either know ¨hello, how are you, or swear words.¨ The guy didn´t know what it meant but he kept saying the F word. We had to tell him it was really bad and to not say it anymore. He has a wife and two daughters. One of the daughters is in love with Justin Beiber and I told her that he´s my cousin. It was really funny. The other daughter is older and a little bit snaky. We kinda have to watch out for her.

Elder Teske was talking to the president of our ward and tried to get a talk for me. The president asked if he was leaving this next cambio and so he said ¨great, you two can give talks together.¨ So Elder Teske and i have talks this next Sunday. I´m a little nervous. 

On Thursday we had service again, But this time was a little more exciting. While we were doing service we found a spider. We being smart missionaries decided to pick it up. ha ha. Then we decided to get pictures with it. I´ll send you guys the results. 

Well we found out that Raul and Raquell have to wait 10 months because Chilean laws are stupid. A lot of our investigators have some stupid problem with divorce or marriage. It makes me so mad because then they have to wait a freaking long amount of time to get baptized. Victor is also not progressing so we have kind of decided to stop teaching him. We are just going to see what happens with him. We have found a lot of news so hopefully we have some good ones. Raul and Raquell gave us a money reference. It is a family that has a ten year old girl that loves primary. We are hoping to baptize them next week. We think that next Monday Elder Teske and the elder from El Salvador are leaving to another sector. 

Well not much more. Today was pretty busy. Love you guys. Miss you all.

Con Amor,

Elder Torgersen

January 9th letter

Hola

¿Como Estai? How is everyone doing? This week was quite crazy. We had lots of stuff going on. so here goes...

First, Raul and Raquell.... Got their divorce. They are planning on getting married as soon as possible. We are hoping nothing goes wrong and can get baptized this week or the next. 

On Tuesday, at district class I received a couple letters and a package from Grandma Torgersen. She sent me licorice, gum and a Christmas card. So tell her thanks a lot. The licorice is great. I also got a couple Dear Elders. I was pretty excited about those. I got one from Zach Hulsey, CC Almeida, and a Christmas card from the Lairds. I was pretty excited on Tuesday. 

Last Monday I bought Ethan a Christmas present. and  I also bought two ties. I got two really nice ties for about $8. It´s crazy how cheap stuff is here. I might need to buy a couple more White short sleeve Shirts I run out by the end of the week and it´s too hot to wear long sleeve. I can get them for pretty cheap. 

Also I need you guys to check my account. My credit card wasn´t working. 

While doing contacts this week I found my second phone in the street. We ended up calling one of the numbers on the phone to find out that a little girl had lost it and was really worried. They family was really happy to see us when we brought it to them.

We had an investigator tell me the other day,¨me gusta su manera de ser.¨ She liked the way I am. I didn´t understand it but elder teske started busted up laughing. This week has been the week of snaky investigators. We had two girls and a boyfriend that we were teaching this past week. The girl ended up dumping the boyfriend who was from Brazil. They had planned on getting married in Feb. She called us on Saturday night to tell us she needed some counsel from God. She asked if she could come over and we told her that the phone was fine. They ended up coming to church the next day but were basically snaking it up.

On Thursday we did service again at hermano Alberto´s house. Elder Teske found a White potato looking thing. He went to take a bite out of it and I told him not to. He still did it and after about 5 seconds of it being in his mouth he ran to the bathroom. He wasn´t very smart this week. He ended up burning his tongue and it felt numb for the next couple of days. He also was trying to fix our fan and broke the plug on it. So now we have no fan in the house and its been freaking hot. The stuff he has been doing this week have kinda bugged me. I have definitely had to pray for patience this week.

We had a really good investigator ¨Die¨ this week. They were a couple and the wife wasn´t ever really into it but the husband was. They called and canceled a lesson and told us they didn´t want to learn anymore. We knew it was because of the wife. She was always grumpy when we went over and she was pregnant. 

Raul and Raquell got us a great Ref. It was a mom and her two daughters. She is awesome. Raul and Raquell are so awesome they aren´t even members yet and they are better than more than half of the members. 

Last week we finally finished Visa and ID cards. About time since it has taken two months.  

I got an email from Nicole last week. I asked her about the comment she made at Ainsleys baptism. Sounded like she was pretty serious. You guys need to give her crap about that hah. 

We were supposed to have a couple mini cambios this week but of course the Elder from El Salvador was ¨sick¨. Anytime a Chilean is sick they take them to the hospital and give them basically an all purpose shot. They gave him a shot and he claimed he couldn´t remember anything. The Zone leaders made him go to Conce to get some tests done and i guess he had a reaction to the shot. Every week me and Teske are having to settle something with him and his companion. It is getting to be ridiculous. He told his companion last night that he was the devil and they weren´t having any success because he was so disobedient. This was coming from the elder that fakes being sick every week and sleeps in until almost 10:30 everyday. Every one is really getting sick of him and the crap that he does because its not only affecting their work it´s affecting the whole districts work.

On Saturday night we had another barbecue with a part member family. The dad isn´t a member and we went over to teach him. They grilled lamb on a grill. It was really good. The meat was really fatty and tough but the flavor was awesome. All he did was sprinkle salt on it. It was awesome.

Well not much else has happened this week. I love you guys and miss you tons.

Con Amor 

Elder Torgersen

Happy New Year

Hola!

How is everyone? Sounds like everyone´s Christmas and New Years went well. Sounds like the party was pretty fun. 

For New years we went over to Jose´s house. He is the guy in the picture of me holding the little girl. They are an awesome family. He is willing to move out of the house to get baptized. We had dinner with him and they had a huge barbecue for us. I felt like it was a Chilean Tucanos because I´d finish a piece of meat and next thing I new there was another piece in its place. They cooked a ton. We had Steak, grilled chicken, ribs, potato salad, green beans, and bread. Jose and his paraja Angelica had their son and daughter over. Each are married and have two little girls. One of them was the little girl in the picture i sent. The other little girl is a little older and is really shy. We were supposed to be home at 11 and got stuck at his house til 11:30. We got him talking about being a carabiñero and he just kept going on. He told us that after our mission if we come to Chile again we can come and stay with his family. If you guys come to pick me up in two years we are definitely visiting him. He basically told us ¨Mi casa es Su casa.¨ He Is SO AWESOME! He told us he was going to buy us a Christmas present but didn´t get to Santiago. He is going to get his 3 Carabiñero suits and have us all put them on and get a picture dressed up as Chilean cops. He is also going to get us Carabiñero pins to wear on our suit coats. He said he also has another surprise so we´ll find out about that by the end of January. 

One of our next door neighbors who is a part member family invited us over for once and a lesson with the dad who isn´t a member. They always drink a hot drink, coffee, hot chocolate,Pero etc. and eat bread with ham and cheese or something like it every night. They have a daughter that has a kid that is about 5 years old. When we were all making our drinks they brought out the pot with boiling water in it. They poured some in the kids cup and he didn´t know it was boiling and took a huge gulp from his straw. he screamed, Spit it out, and started crying and screaming. It had burnt his mouth and all the way down his throat. Before we could do anything the sister took off for the car to go buy medicine. I am always the one that gets the idea to give a blessing so of course i asked if they wanted us to give him a blessing. We gave him a blessing and by the time we were done he was pretty much asleep. We checked with them a couple days later and they said he was fine like nothing happened. I was so glad because the dad isn´t a member and he witnessed all of this. He told his wife he promised he would go to church everyday this next year so I guess we´ll see what happens.

Well... I was really getting used to Chile and the food and everything until I found this.... 

...I had laid down on my bed to read before bed, looked up and this little friend was about 4 feet above my bed on our slanted ceiling. We ended up catching it in a jar and have been feeding other bugs we catch in the house.haha It is so nasty.

This last Sunday we had 75 people at church. 5 minutes before sacrament meeting we had 20. It is so depressing. People were up until about 5 in the morning on New years. No one was at church.

 

 That´s cool Ethan will be transferring. Just make sure he chooses the right friends over there. Tell him to stay away from the funny green leaf and any needles. He doesn´t need any steroids. 

We haven´t heard anything about the new Strength for Youth. I´m glad they changed the modest clothing thing. That is about to make me throw up down here. We saw a lady that i swear was around when the dinosaurs were that was wearing short shorts and basically nothing up top. She was wrinkly, old and saggy. I just about threw up. Even some of the members are a little edgy. Most of the people I see wearing such little clothes... Really shouldn´t be... because usually they aren´t good looking at all. It is really a problem down here.

Well i´m going to try and write some more emails but that's about it. We are waiting for tomorrow to see if Raul and Raquell´s divorce goes through. Pray for them. We really need their divorce. Well i love you guys and miss you all.

Con Amor,

Elder Torgersen

Numero Dos

Hola Familia!

How is everyone doing? Utah had any snow yet? It´s still blazing hot down here and only getting hotter. It´s throwing me off because I´m not used to not having snow and being with the family. I did although get a third package, it had a feliz navidad sign and the ensigns and everything. I think there is one more but I don´t know whats in it. I´m guessing the ties? How many did you send? Also don´t waste any money, space, and time sending more seasoning packets and Ensigns. We can get those here. It was nice getting the Ensign a little early but i don´t think it was worth the money it costs to send it here. I feel bad every time I look at the price on these packages. I will be able to use skype on Sunday so I´m setting up an account today. I only get to use it for one hour.

Well this week has been a week of ¨trunky¨ thoughts. (bags are already in the trunk/wanting to go home.) Christmas isn´t going to be the same. To tell you the truth it´s going to suck. This week has been a little tough thinking about family, friends, skiing and Christmas. The week has also been a little crazy so I haven´t had much time to sit and think. We had 2 service projects and mission Conference for the outside missions. We helped the older guy in our wood with his fire wood again. This time it was only me and Elder Teske. I ended up going through a whole pile of wood pulling nails. He kept getting mad at me because he wanted me to pull nails the way he did it. Even though I was doing it faster my way. It was really funny. On Saturday we helped a family with Cement. I definitely felt Chilean on Saturday. I mixed Cement by hand in the street, watered the dirt and street, and swept the dirt. They often don´t want to pay for cement mixers and so they do it by hand in the street. They also for some reason spray the dirt and the cement, I understand spraying the dirt to keep down on dust but the cement part, I´m a little confused. They also sweep the dirt. I´ll have to get a picture of them sweeping dirt. It´s really funny. Mixing cement in the street was awesome. It was really hard and really hot outside but I now know why a lot of Chileans have really bad backs.

Mission Conference was with all of the missions from a city called Chillan and north. It was the ¨Outside¨ half of the mission. Any of the missions that are south by Conce are the ¨Inside¨. Both inside and outside have there perks. Inside gets mail and packages every week. We on the other hand don´t. The truck they drove up was chuck full of Christmas packages. We had a huge lunch of really good chicken and potatoes. We had 3 different work shops from President and his wife. It was really cool. We watched a video they made for the mission with pictures from all of our activities and zones. Elder Teske sent in a picture of me with my first Completo without me knowing and they put it in.

President told us about how we need to use the members to help in our lessons. After we baptize our investigators we need help from the members to help be friends. He also said they needed a calling. President told us a story about an older guy the had joined the church. He was paralyzed on the whole left side of his body. President saw him out in the hall during classes and asked what he was doing. The guy had told him that he was in charge of ringing the bell for classes. President told us that if it wasn´t for that simple calling to ring the bell, He wouldn´t be there at church. He told us the importance of getting new members a calling even if it´s as simple as ringing a bell. Conference was almost like a Spiritual recharge.

On Saturday night we had a ward party. It was a complete let down. We invited over 100 people and like 20 showed up. They absolutely love fruit cake down here. It´s so gross. Elder Teske decided to have an eating contest to see who could eat a kilo of Pan de Pascua. Of course no one showed up so we had to be one of the eight to eat it. It was so gross. It was quite a sad Christmas party. Nothing goes as planned down here. It has really bugged me because people don´t plan anything until the day of and nothing goes right. If we talk to an investigator or member and ask why they didn´t come to church or something they usually say, I was tired or I was being lazy. The excuses we get are amazing. We knocked a door and a guy came out and said, ¨Estoy ocupado¨ We asked him why and his excuse was that his sister was in the shower...? He was drinking a beer and watching soccer. It drives all of us missionaries nuts. We all share stories of the excuses we have gotten but so far the sister in the shower was the best.

This Sunday we had a surprise though. We had a taxi Driver that the rest of his family had been baptized tell us he didn´t want to get baptized yet. He kept changing his mind and finally Saturday night we got a call saying he wanted to. Sunday we had our second baptism. It kinda bugs me but our investigators think that since I don´t speak very well that I can´t perform a baptism so they automatically choose Elder Teske to baptize them. It´s still a baptism but it just bugs me that they think i´m not capable of doing it. We went through with the baptism and everything went great. They now have a full family baptized. They are waiting for the little kid named Ricardo to be baptized. He´s still only 7. I love the kid though. He´s hilarious. His dads name is Ricardo so they call him Ricardito. They add the -ito or -ita to every word here. It just means small. During service the guy asked me to hand him the hammer with the -ito on the ending of the word. Its really funny.

Jose is doing great he has given up drinking tea and the only problem is, he was married before and not divorced. They are now having to get divorced but that could often take up to a year. His paraja/girlfriend was willing to move out so that he could be baptized. So I guess we´ll see what happens.

The other day we were knocking doors and an older lady answered. She let us in and I really thought it was Mckay´s Grandma. It was like a Chilean Grandma Walker. It was hilarious. She looked exactly like her.

I´m going ahead and buying a bike here. My bike has almost killed me twice. I can get a better bike for about $60 at Lider (Chilean Walmart.) I´m gonna be here for awhile anyway and I´ll try to sell it if I leave to the ¨inside¨. I´m also going to use some money to buy some other random stuff I need. I was also wondering if I should get my suits dry cleaned. They haven´t been done since the 4th week in the MTC. I was wondering if I should trust the Dry cleaning and get them done?

Well I love you guys and hope everything is well. Hopefully the Elf on the Shelf will report good things to Santa and maybe Ainsley will get some good presents. Love you guys and miss you tons.

Con Amor y Feliz Navidad,

Elder Torgersen 

Weekly letter

Hola Family,

How is everyone? How is the weather up there? Snow yet? We are starting to get into summer and it has been completely blazing hot here. I´m definitely missing snow. It doesn´t seem like its December. It doesn´t seem like Christmas yet. It´s really weird not having snow, and having it be so hot.

Well, today we just moved houses. There are 2 sectors in Linares and the house we were living in was more on our side and the other elders were complaining about having to ride their bikes to their sector and back everyday. They ended up renting a house in their sector that was worse than the house we were living in now. We found a newer, cheaper and better house a couple weeks ago and today we moved everything in. We were supposed to be having 2 more elders in our house and sector but they said that will happen next Cambio. So this month me and Elder Teske will have a big house to ourselves. It will be really nice not having to deal with other elders sitting in your study room with a bowl of cereal or something making a mess on my stuff. I found the other elders, multiple times, in our study room either making a mess or eating my food/candy.

Well, this week I had my first mix up of words. A family asked me what food i liked here in Chile and I said I liked the Fruit. They asked me what kind of fruit and I told Them ¨durazno, frutilla, and cerveza. What I said was peaches, strawberries and Beer. What i had tried to say was Cherries. The family gave me a weird look and then busted up laughing. I then realized what i had said. It was hilarious.

I´m really starting to love Chile. They have a lot of weird things but they also have a lot of really cool things here. My companion and I ride around with our kickstands down on our bikes because, for some reason, Chileans freak out and yell,¨Su patita!¨ It´s really funny because they act like if you don´t put it up, It´ll catch on something and kill you. I had a truck load of people yell ¨Su patita!¨ Me and Elder Teske always bust up laughing. I guess it´s just one of those things to keep us from going insane. Another thing is, I love having little stores on like every corner. They usually have little glass bottled sodas for like 25 cents at these stores. The people are really nice and always invite us in for juice or a soda even if they don´t want to hear our message. One thing I´ve learned is they love the Simpson´s and pretty much anything American. We have an investigator that loves movies and always asks us what we liked to watch before our mission. He has a really Nice TV/Computer/sound System For a small house In Chile. He plugs his computer into his TV and watches movies a lot. The other day he and his wife were watching Transformers and they saw the white Military Guy and they were like,¨Hey, that looks like Elder Torgersen.¨ I have been called Justin Bieber and now the military guy from Transformers. I don´t think there has been a day without being called Justin Bieber. 

We have 4-5 really good investigators right now. One of them Is Jose. He is the Chilean Cop that acts like a little kid when we come to teach him. He always runs up the stairs and tells us to wait to get his Book of Mormon. We had a Noche De Hogar with them on Sunday night and made Brownies (Chilean style.) He loved it. The wife is a member and her daughter was there and she had a little girl there that absolutely loved me. She was the cutest little girl. They also have a grandma living with them and she´s a tad bit crazy. One time while we were there she pinched my cheeks just like a Grandma does. It was really weird. José is a stud though. He is so excited to get baptized. He will probably be my first baptism. 

Earlier last week I had to go on a Mini Cambio with the Latin companion in our house. The one they had been having trouble with. He drives me nuts in the house so I wasn´t very excited to work with him. It ended up helping my Spanish and wasn´t as bad as I thought it would be. During a lesson somehow He and our Investigator started talking about movies. He started talking about a bunch of horror movies that are Rated R and asked them if they had seen them and was telling them that they needed to because they were awesome. After the lesson I asked what the crap he was doing and  I basically got after him and told him We were here to teach people about Christ AS representatives of him and he´s asking if they´ve seen some stupid Horror movie. The stuff he does sometimes just blows my mind. 

I´m glad that Dad still calls my name when he needs help for something. Maybe you guys will start to realize how much you relied on me to stuff. I´m surprised you guys figured out the boat. Also I ´m glad Ainsley is praying that I speak the RIGHT Language. For a time there I thought I was speaking Japanese. I`m glad IMO speaking the right language now. This Sunday I realized the Chilean ward was a lot like New Harmony. There´s a lot of old people and only four young men. 2 Priests and 2 Deacons. We had a kid that is my age get called as the Young Men's President. He is currently working on mission papers. I talked to him on Sunday and he said he had to go get his mission physical. He wasn´t too excited ha ha.

I´m not sure about Skype yet. I don´t know what time or even where right now. I´ll let you guys know next week. I finally got 2 packages though. You said you sent 4? I got the 2 Christmas packages. Did you send the package of ties? It would be nice to have a better bike. The only thing I´m worried about is trying to get it from cambio to cambio. Our new house does have a stove so stuff like cake mixes and brownie mixes would be awesome. I feel bad for how much it costs to send stuff down here but some of this stuff I kinda need.  I´ve been too scared to spend any of my money. I guess I need to get over that since both Mom and Dad keep asking why I haven´t used any of it. I might use some later today for a New pillow and a few cleaning supplies. The pillow I have is a piece. It has lost most of the cotton. The president said there isn´t really a rule against spending my own money. Most of the stuff is reimbursable. Cleaning supplies will be so any of the money I have spent from my own account is being reimbursed. If you could get me some DVD´s and an Ipod it would be great. Also the razor I said. The Remington R5150. I don´t want to buy one down here and then not be able to use it anywhere else like home. Does Ethan or Dad have anything they want for Christmas. At this point a package won’t show up until after but I wanna get something for them. Any ideas?

Well I love you guys and hope everything is well. I pray for you guys daily. I miss you all!

Con Amor, 

Elder Torgersen

¨Despues de todo que Jesús hizo para nosotros, El dar el máximo es el mínimo que podemos hacer.¨

Weekly Letter

Hello family!

How is everyone doing this week? Sounds like the wedding was fun. My companion and I laughed pretty hard at the picture of Santa at the temple. How was the rest of the wedding? Anymore pictures? The picture of Mom and Michael didn´t work.

Well, this week has been a little rough. Tuesday afternoon during studies, we got a call from a lady in the ward. She asked us if we could go down to the Hospital to give a blessing. We hurried to finish getting ready and got our bags, prayed and left the house. My bike that i had been riding has broke multiple times this week and has slowed us down. The pedal on my bike broke off and Elder Teske had to basically drag me a couple miles to the Hospital. We gotten there not really knowing what was going on. We found where we were supposed to go and ran up 5 flights of stairs. We later met the Grandma and mom of a 1 year old baby. The baby had a disease of some sort that had gotten into her blood. We found out that the mom had the same problem with a little girl about 2 years ago and had passed away. It was then happening to the second child. We went in to give the blessing, but were 5 minutes too late. They had problems with the baby and no one could go in to the room. The last time we heard it wasn´t getting better. It was really rough. The mom was in tears the whole time we were there.

The problems in our house with the other two elders hasn´t gotten better at all. The Elder from El Salvador has been doing anything he can to bug his companion. I really look up to his companion because he is so patient. I wouldn´t have the patience he has had. Just with living with this kid has made me want to punch him so bad. The Elder from El Salvador had been talking bad about his companion to members and investigators, he takes his companions stuff and uses it without asking, and he won´t help in planning or participate in companion study. The kid is just straight up prideful. He won´t listen to any of his leaders and president is ready to send him home because this is the second time he has done this. It´s driving me nuts because everyday my companion has to go and settle a stupid fight between them. It´s distracting us from our work and none of their investigators are progressing. It also takes away from our study time. The end of the cambio is the 12 so we´ve all held off on punching this kid because its only another week. I really look up to his companion though, his patience is amazing. He never raises his voice and is always calm.

My patience has definitely been tried this week. Almost everyday there has been a problem with something. I swear I have the crappiest bike in all of Chile. The thing has broken almost everyday. Its been tough to focus on the work and not all the crap the is happening. It seems like we´ve had more negative things than positive. 

This week was full of crazy things. We were walking to a cita and we saw a huge puff of smoke coming from behind a house. I turned to my companion and said,¨wow it looks like a house is on fire.¨ We went to the house where we had the lesson and the field behind the houses had caught fire. The smoke was getting so bad that all of the fire alarms on the houses were going off. We had to help the lady we were teaching get all of her little girls inside the house and close the windows and doors. The smoke was so thick that we could hardly breathe and it looked like we were crying. After we talked to a member that lived next door and she said it happens every year. I got pictures so i´ll upload them. We didn´t have time to go home and shower so we had to go to our next lesson. We went to the church and a member walked by and asked why we smelled like smoke. He thought we were smoking it was so strong. 

This week we did our first legit service project. My Companion and I and the other two elders helped an older guy with random things around his house. He had a bunch of firewood that needed to be cut by hand with a tiny hand saw, chopped and then stacked. He gave the Latino Elder in our house the job of taking out nails of the wood. You could definitely tell who had worked before the mission. I took out like 15-20 nails in the time the kid had one. The guy had me use a pick and a shovel to loosen up dirt and move it by buckets. He needed about 5 inches of dirt taken out. He told me what to do and then left to help the others. about 10 minutes later he came back and I was done. He told me he didn´t think i´d be able to finish that quick. It was really funny. The tools we were using were all hand made and awkward. He then had me chopping fire wood. The head of the ax I swear was going to come off. It was a lot of fun. He told us he wanted us back this next week.

We had a cita fall and we were forced to do contacts at the worst time of the day, 9:30 at night. Elder Teske contacted a house and the lady said No and slammed the door. After he said, ¨I don´t know what happened, I buttered that contact up and it was pretty much perfect.¨ I jokingly told him it was because he was being prideful. He laughed, told me to shut up, and then said,¨Okay Mr. Humble go contact this next house.¨ I walked up and knocked the door. A lady answered and I did My contact and she said,¨Oh elders come on in.¨(but in Spanish) We later found out she was a less active but her husband wasn´t a member. He was a big tough policeman. By the end of the lesson he was in tears telling us he was going to church with us the next day. The wife asked me if I had had any baptisms. I told her i had only been here a month. She told her husband he could be my first baptism. He came to church with us and read the chapter we told him to read. He wants to get baptized as soon as possible.

Our other investigators are doing great. We should have 4 baptisms in December. Raul and Raquell are excited to get baptized. We just talked to the parents of a girl that is 17. She was really nervous about us talking to her parents. We met with them and they invited us to ¨once¨ It is like their small dinner for the night. We drank a pero kind of drink and ate bread with a sausage. The parents loved us and we taught them and just talked for about an hour and a half. She should be getting baptized within the next two weeks.

For the most part the food has been really good down here. They have guys driving around in cars or horse buggies selling fruits and veggies. We have bought peaches, cherries, strawberries, and bananas. The fruit is so good. I have strawberries with every breakfast and then munch on cherries throughout the day. We had a mini cambio one of the days the other two elders were in a fight. I had lunch at one of their members houses. The lady gave us two huge plates of food. I almost finished all of it, but then she brought out dessert. she had made jello with cookies thrown into it. The cookies were all soggy and gross. We were trying to force it down when one of our bikes outside fell down. The elder and the lady ran out to look and see if it had hit any of her plants. While they were doing that I took 4 huge spoonfuls of jello and scooped it into his bowl. He came back and ate it all without noticing. After lunch i started busting up laughing and had to finally tell him. He laughed pretty hard. I guess karma had to get back at me because we stopped to get his bike fixed and the guy brought us out Mote con Huesillo. It was so gross. It was like dried peaches and a wheat that looked like corn in a watery juice. It was nasty.

I was trying to fix my razor and found out from the owners manual that it can only be charged with 120V. I guess that's what we get for $20. The next razor up from the one i have has an automatic adapter in the charger that changes the voltage. If you can and it´s not too much trouble see if you can get the Remington R5150. I think i´m going to send this razor home when I send presents. Tell Ethan he can use it. I don´t know how much of a trouble it is to send stuff but if you could send that along with the DVD´s and CD´s it would be great. I think i´m also going to use some of my money to buy Scripture covers. A guy down here makes custom leather covers for about $50. I can choose pictures and he somehow puts them into the leather and makes custom cases. Speaking of scriptures can someone try and find a good way to highlight scriptures with colors. I´ve been trying to find a good way but cant. Also Only give My email to family and really good friends. I can´t email everyone in an hour. Tell everyone that Dear Elder still works and I get mail every Tuesday. I haven´t seen the packages. I´m sure i´ll get them. We only get packages and some mail once in awhile. 

Well I've got to go. Hopefully this letter was better. I love you all and miss you

Con amor, 

Elder Torgersen

P.S. Here´s a couple pictures from the fire and a picture of a school. A lot of the schools are on strike down here. I guess it´s all a mess.