week # 7

We got to skype with Alex this week, which was just awesome! I can't believe he is so far away and yet it was like he was just away at college. Actually, he would have been home for Christmas but at least he is safe and having relatively good times! He sent a few pictures too which always makes me happy. I really miss him but realized his mission is 1/6 over! Hard to believe but only 5 more of those and we will have him back! Yay!!!!! He looks really skinny! He says he can put both hands in fists in the waist band of his pants. His shirts are probably about 1/2 inch too big on both sides of his neck. Sheesh! He has been sick as well as walking 10-15 miles a day so the weight has just fallen off. Hopefully he doesn't get any skinnier! I won't even recognize him!




I really haven't done anything since I talked to you guys. We basically went to church (and our investigators ditched us), tracted that day, got our shirts from the lady who cleans them, and then it was PDay. Today we all were super tired, and we have been for a few days. We heard it could be mold or something, so we cleaned the walls and stuff today, all day, with chlorine something that was awful. The house smells like a public pool today. Suddenly I've started getting really bad cramps out of nowhere. I guessed it was electrolyte imbalance from all the 'rhea. What I'm saying with all that is not a lot of stuff you want to hear about happened after that.

However, the week was a lot of stuff. I named the pictures so you can tell what they are if I forget to mention them. (The pictures kind of suck. I think the camera's wearing out or something.) Elder Lacambra moved in this week to replace Elder Silva, who is in the picture "in the pension" Elder Lacambra is from Spain. He already speaks Spanish, as you might imagine, but he speaks English like a missionary who's been out for a month. He can usually get you to understand what he means to say. It's funny though, because whenever the z or c make a 's' sound in Spansih normally, they say 'th.' It makes them sound kind of... metrosexual. There's been a lot of humor about that this week. The word 'civilización' has it three times ("thivilithathion"), and he says it every time he introduces the Book of Mormon. He's actually trying to get rid of it, but it's still really funny.

Also notable among these pictures is the one of the gonzales family. They are they with whom I had Christmas Eve. The one who wants to go to BYU and loves Google is the one who looks just a little older than us. It was a fun night, and they gave us ties! The ties were actually really legit, so we wore them the next day to Church.


If we reach farther back into the week, we also have the activity with President King and the entire mission. I finally got to find out who Elder Christiansen is. He's actually really cool. Elder Monsen is related to him in the same way I am in a different direction... or something. So we took a picture. We watched the Joseph Smith movie, admittedly in Spanish, then had some painting-monkeys time with our mission friends. I sat with my district from the MTC, of course. They really are in every place they could be. I'm in the suburbs, a few of them are out in the boonies, a few in the coast, and even one in downtown city center. One Elder is in the actual most dangerous part of Santiago. Half of their sector is off limits without a member. He says it's so dangerous and scary it actually becomes funny after a while. The Elder on the coast has a picture of a spider the size of a hand that was on a tree by his house. And he has flea bites... what the flip? I don't want to go out there very much. I really like where I am, on Pablo Suarez, where the most exciting thing they do is play mariachi really loud.

Well, that's all for today.

Love,
Elder Alex C Crist