Okay I wanted to write down my whole transfer experience cuz it´s been crazy. On Monday I went to Concepción to get some stuff done there, and also to get some suit pants fixed. I bought a really cool light brown suit back in Molina and wanted to get the pants fixed to my size. anyways i got that done, but on the way back to Tomé I fell asleep on the bus and forgot about them and left them on the bus when I got off, sooo I’m pretty sure they´re gone. Tuesday I had to pack and be in the bus terminal at 9:00am. I got all my stuff ready, but I now have so much stuff that I used that box you guys sent my birthday presents in to pack some stuff, some really nice stuff. I put all my shoes in there, all my watches, sunglasses, hats, souvenirs, and several other things. While getting off the bus that took me from Tomé to Concepción, the bus assistant hurried us off so fast and forgot to hand me my box, by the time I realized it the bus had already taken off...so I was pretty mad. For the last week I´ve been calling people in Tomé trying to get a hold of that bus company to see if they had my box and I didn´t have any success. I called the Elders there and asked them to keep trying, and on Saturday I got a call from Elder Hafen, who lived with me in Tomé, and he told me he had gone down to the bus station to try to get the phone number of the driver of the specific bus that we had used. He got a hold of him and the guy had my box!! That was a relief, but the story´s not over. I had elder Hafen check to see if anything was missing and he took everything out one by one, aaaand someone had sticky hands. My sweet Nike soccer cleats that I had bought myself for a 1 year mission anniversary present was gone, and also my black Vestel watch that you guys gave me before I came on the mission, so I was bummed about that, but everything else was there, so not all was a bust. wheew so that was my crappy traveling experience.
Chillán is a really cool city. My sector is really nice. The leaves are changing color and falling, and the weather is getting colder, PERFECT FOR BYU FOOTBALL!! but that´s not here unfortunately. My comp´s name is Elder Hinojosa. He´s a really chill kid from Santiago, Chile. More bad news though. Apparently God wants me to have medical experience to become a doctor after the mission, cuz after going through the whole Elder Conley ordeal, I get here and find out that Elder Hinojosa has a bad back. One of his vertebrae is out of place and you can actually feel it sticking out if you touch his back. We´ve been working as best we can, but it´s hard with something like that. He started his mission with Elder Roberts, my old district leader from the MTC, and apparently they worked so hard and walked so much that it through out his back haha. Anyways we´ve been going to a physical therapist everyday to have treatments done. He has electric shock put on for 15 minutes and then after they put Ultrasound on. This is done with the hope to get rid of some of the pain, but it hasn´t done anything so far. They said that if after a week nothing happened, that there was not much they could do. We went today and they told us that he has to be completely rested, no walking, no biking. So there´s a good chance that he gets sent home....so the story of my mission is killing chapels (every sector I’ve been to has had there chapel remodeled and shut down while I was there) and killing comps. I´m pretty bummed for the kid cuz he´s a really good teacher and we get along really well.
The ward here is easily the best ward I’ve been in in my entire mission. Last Sunday we had 151 people in church, the most we had in Talca was 120, in Molina 90, in Tomé 70, so I was pretty excited to see so many people. The best part was that they have priesthood that actually works!! Elder Hinojosa was telling me that he worked in the church offices in Santiago for a bit, and that they always talked about this ward in Chillán cuz they are the most responsible at sending forms, and getting things done. We have a lot of youth and a lot of support here. We have a great ward mission leader named Hermano Arenas, and about 13 ward missionaries that actually go out and visit the people we ask them to. So pretty much I’m in missionary heaven here. The climate here reminds me a ton of Talca. It´s very hot during the day, and at night it gets pretty cold. The city is the cleanest one I’ve been too as well. The people here seem to really have pride in the reputation that Chillán has. It´s also famous for it´s souvenirs, so that will be fun before I leave. I´ll be sure to get you all some stuff. We have a few good investigators, but we want to find some more people. Mostly the investigators that they have here have been investigating the church for a long time, or are eternal investigators, which i don´t like too much, but they´re good people. We actually are teaching some people here that are from Haiti. They´re the first black people i´ve taught so that´s been interesting too haha they speak french and some other weird mix of English, French, and Spanish, but they lived in Cuba for 6 years so they speak good Spanish as well. The recent converts they have here are awesome as well, and are very excited about the temple work, which is amazing cuz many find the temple to be a bit intimidating or strange here. One young girl was baptized, worked really hard and had her interview with the bishop and a week after her baptism went to the temple in Santiago and was baptized for some of her ancestors. Cool stuff.
We´re going to have a mini conference on Wednesday with the President this Wednesday, so then I’m going to ask President about all the BYU stuff. Being Zone Leader is a different experience. I find it funny that even when others mess up it´s our fault haha but it´s been pretty fun. I like being able to help out and teach other missionaries, and I know that once I get in the swing of things I´ll have fun and do well. I really like everything here, I live with two other Elders, the other zone leader Elder Nelsen and his comp Elder Sorensen. Both really cool guys, so we have fun.
We´re going to work as hard as we can, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be going out to work with members and let Elder Hinojosa stay home until President Humphrey figures out what he´s going to do with him. It´s a crappy situation, but we should get some good baptisms this month. We have a good kid named Carlos, who´s gone to church several times, but just needs to get the courage to be baptized. He knows it´s true, the ward has received him with open arms, and he already has made good friends in church. Pray for him. We also put a baptismal date with a sister named Evelín yesterday, whose daughter met the missionaries and 6 visits later was baptized, and now has been working with all her family and her friends. She´s great, and the mom has already read the whole Book of Mormon in a very short amount of time, and hasn´t been baptized only because of her husband who isn´t too thrilled to have us there. Actually he wasn´t letting the Elders in the house until he went to General Conference with his family, and loved what the Apostles spoke about on the families, and family history. He was really interested and now says we can come over to teach him more about that. Families are the key! I love it.
Anyways it´s been a very fast and interesting first week here. I´ll probably end my mission here as zone leader, and I wouldn´t mind it one bit. Everything´s perfect, and I’m excited to keep working and helping this ward and this church grow here in Chillán Ñuble, which is the name of our zone.
Love you all tons and hope you have a great week. I loved the email and it sounds like you are all doing awesome, tell David and Ashleigh congrats from me, I love them and miss all of you!
Love
Tanner
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