Third line to the top!

I am still trying to figure out the writing on a different day thing! It is very hard to sit down on Friday night and write an inspirational letter when I haven't had the whole day Sunday to reflect and be inspired. I love getting the letters though! I wonder if it is hard for him to write a different day or if all the days just kind of run together? I like that he is on the top of the list of all missionaries in the mission. Not too long and he will be home again. Wow! The first year is definitely the hard one and now we just get ready for the things he needs to do when he is home. It doesn't seem possible that we can be this close already. Weird to say and think about too! 8 months and change!

Okay. The reason you can be excommunicated is that we have a pretty uncontrolled access to mission money and personal information that misused could lead to super-serious problems and crimes. That´s why. It would be really easy to, for example, give my friends 20,000 pesos for no reason. Therein lies the danger.

So nothing I'll actually do will get me in any problems.

I actually did get the tree of matchboxes. It's pretty cool. It's the envy of the senior couple missionaries who do the mail and the baptismal records. I just opened day three - holographic stickers for my study book thing. Excellent.

The missionaries haven't always been terribly diligent about getting out to the sector here, but the sector does exist and we do work it starting at six or six thirty every day. Usually we just do routine stuff and leave. Once a week we have to get some bills from the Area Office in the middle of Santiago (at the temple's distribution center thing) and go to negotiate rent and Common Costs at apartment complexes (I don't know what those are in english - it's the utilities and repairs to the whole building all put together and charged to every one). The administrations are typically very poorly managed, so you have to be ridiculous about getting receipts and and confirmations. Lots of assertive(?) phone calls.

The sector here is young and new, and fairly rich. In my last sector, in the middle-low income area, there were two people, maybe three in my ward that had cars. Here every family has one, some even have two. Most people here work in business jobs, not labor, so they are more available for teaching.

We planned the other day and came up with five people we'll baptize before March. President King's vision is one a month per companionship, so we'd be doing pretty good.

The senior missionary couples are very different. The other night we went down to wash our clothes with the Packs, Elder and Sister Pack from New Orleans. They invited us in, then gave us, in order, soda, grilled cheese, brownies and ice cream, chips, and Butterfinger bars they get from home. Elder Pack is a church educator, and Sister Pack is a big time piano teacher. He's pretty much just a Cache County guy, but she's as south as a white person can be. Jambalaya anyone? Their mission is really cool - he does the mail, and she teaches local member kids piano. (She's been here for some three years, so some are actually getting good.) I thought southern hospitality was a legend. It's not. She just had a recital. She brought three days of baked goods to the recital and the Chileans ate every single item in fifteen minutes. They really like brownies here, apparently.

(I guess this could be a belated thanksgiving theme.)

I think what makes the Packs so likable is that they give, but not only that. They give whatever completely willingly and give thanks for everything they get, be it from God or from others. They've understood that it's a pleasure to give. It sure is fun to work with them.

The voice on the audio that's not me is Elder Monsen, currently residing some five minutes from your house. He's actually related to Elder Christensen at about the same obscure level, so we've made an official after-mission gang plan. Elder Monsen just applied for BYU, having only two or three changes of six weeks to go. He wants to go to summer to get in easier.

(Speaking of this, can someone go on and find out the dates on that stuff? I will need to start doing some things soon-ish.)

Elder Spencer didn't appear in the audio, but I'll be with him longer. Elder Monsen will leave the twelfth to be a zone leader in San Miguel, near La Cisterna where I just was. He (Elder Spencer) actually is going to medical school too. He'll remain for at least another change. In the office, it is imperative that your language skills be perfectly functional for english and spanish, So it's very unlikely I have any latin companions here - and my companion definitely won't be young ever. I had been three changes with missionaries who didn't know how to speak really - it's odd to be not the only one who understands. I really like working with older missionaries - the problem is there just are that many left. I am on the third line to the top in the missionary board. Only like eight months and change left... Is that terrifying?

I talked with my office mates and we concluded that nothing is keeping Kelsey from being in the Skype. Of course, if it were distracting or private, not. But it's not. So if she'd like, invite her. I have the twenty-fourth to the twenty-sixth at whatever time for and hour or so. I'm really at the disposition of you. (that's a spanish idiom- "however you want".) Let me know - and get that dang fiber optic cable plugged INTO the computer. No wifi business.

I've already made some computer innovations, like using Microsoft Access for references. Elder Monsen is very organized, but doesn't really do computer things very much. Every financier improves in there way, and mine is upgrading the computer stuff, which I can do. And I may help with the end-of-year-movie.

It really is difficult to concentrate of the mission mission sometimes. But it's a new challenge that can already see helping me, especially for keeping the spirituality of the mission with me after. I'm happy to be here doing something at which I can succeed that really helps people.

Love,
Elder A Conrad Crist