Monday, September 27, 2010

Challenging Week

Hey Everybody :-D Howzit going?!
Things are going alright here in Chile concepcion south :-) It´s cold some times and always in the mornings but you get used to that and I´m finally getting used to the food :-D They use a TON of grease in like everything :-) but no, it´s a really cool place all in all. I haven´t felt very homesick since I´ve arrived which I´m grateful for. I do think of home but its not devestating to me :-D I was worried about grace though :-P We were having some sort of conference and during lunch Sister Swenson was talking to me and then she was like ´´Oh yeah, Did you hear about Grace´s accident?´´ I was like ´´uh . . . NO´´ I´m glad to hear that her toe is doing alright. Anyways, more about me :-D
So this last week has been pretty interesting for both good and bad unfortunately :-P Just to let you know I´m absolutely fine, it´s something else :-P During this last week we got two investigators to commit to dates for their baptisms. :-D I wrote more about them in a letter to Mom and Dad so you can look forward to that :-D Unfortunately i only wrote one letter :-P Next week I promise to write more :-D Anyways so there was that, and we also went to a baptism for Elders Wilde and Mondragon. :-D It was really cool :-D Elder mondragon was like ´´step up to the celestial kingdom mi amigo. Watch your step´´ :-D Too funny. I´m learning chilano more and more every day :-) I already know spanish pretty good but they didnt teach me chilano in the MTC :-D Also, I didn´t say anything before but the food here messed me up pretty bad when came the first week :-P I{m totally fine now though .-D SURPRISE. :-D Elder Bustos was telling me that everybody that isn´t a native to Chile has to get used to the food as well. He said that he had the same problem. But yeah i´m aight now :-D
Speaking of Elder Bustos, that´s where the bad comes in :-P We´re having transfers this week and we had actually thought that everyone would be staying in our district because Me and Elder Mondragon were brand new and Elders Wilde and Bustos were needed cuz they knew the area. Turns out that Elder Bustos is leaving and I´m getting a new comp :-P Unfortunately it´s not just that Pres Swenson wants to be funny. It was kind of important that Elder Bustos would leave. I´m still not sure about everything that was going on but I know that the other Elders found some letters and things that made it pretty evident that Elder Bustos was beginning to have a relationship with a member. Fortunately nothing happened, but the fact that this is even happening as missionaries is still pretty crappy. So since yesterday I´ve been in a trio with Elder Wilde and Mondragon :-) Already I think that my Spanish is dying :-D Just kidding. They are both really cool guys. Elder Mondragon likes to call Comp inventories a lot .-D I´m doing aight. It´s just weird to say that my trainer was with me for less than three weeks cuz he got kicked out of the sector. But you know, whatever .-D
Anyways :-D Everything else is aight. we are all chilling and stuff :-D At home we actually listen to a lot of music. I´m kind of mad that I don´t have my Ipod :-D Don´t send me my ipod though :-D I{m sure that if i had it then i would just hang out at home just listening to music :-D Things that I do need though, My gloves are with forrest so i´ve been needing a pair :-) It´s alright now cuz springs coming but it would be nice to have some nice guantes just in case. Speaking of awful weather, it´s actually not that bad here with the rain :-D It´s only rained twice since i´ve been here and i really like wearing my overcoat and making people think I´m the matrix coming to baptize them!
Unfortunately thats it for me :-P I´m trying to find things to type but i can´t :-P I´ll try harder next week .-D Until then Mom Dad Sam Meri Grace and Sophie, I love you all and Sed Feliz.
Sincerely
Elder

Monday, September 20, 2010

Letters and Pictures





Jamie didn't give any description of the pictures in his letter. We'll ask him next week.

Hey everybody :-)
Sorry that i didn´t email on saturday :-P Today´s not actually P-day but we´re alright to email cuz it was so busy on saturday. The thing is that in Chile on the 18th of September its there equivilant of our fourth of July except that the chilaens get a lot more crazy than we do. :-D We´re not really able to work the entire weekend not because its dangerous but because a lot of the people are too busy drinking or partying to want to hear anything about Jesus. :-) So we just rested. Its funny, the last two weekends have been the same. On Sept 11th every year a ton of riots and protests happen because of some thing that happened way back when but no one here has told me what.

Anyways, I wrote a little list this week to make sure to type down what I want you guys to know :-D First on the list is tremors or los temblos they call them here. I think that it was maybe the third or fourth day here when in the middle of the night the bed starts rocking. I´m thinking ¨jeez elder bustos (cuz its a bunk bed and I´m on top) What´re you doing?¨ Then i realize that everythings shaking :-D Fortunately for me i was so dang tired that i just went back to bed. It was kind of like a massage :-D In hindsight, maybe we should have woken up but i guess no harm done :-D

Now my comps. Elder Bustos is from colombia and he´s been out since june 2009. I´m glad that he´s my trainer starting out cuz if i had Elder Escobillana from northern Chile, then I don´t think I would have understood anything the first week. Elder Escobillana was paired up with an Elder Wilde from I think Ogden but we had a sudden transfer and now Elder Mondragon is with Elder Wilde (also from Utah). The people here when we say where we´re from call it the Fabrica :-) ONe thing that I´m glad the Elder Bustos is my comp is cuz he speaks spanish but not at extreme speeds like Elder Escobillana :-) He even speaks a little english when things are really confusing for me :-D

All of our investigators are pretty cool :-D Whenever we´re in the house they are always paying attention as long as the tv´s off. Me and Elder Bustos actually have a baptism date on the 9th of oct. :-D her name´s Coni and we have to teach a couple of lessons in the next couple of weeks but she´s really wanting to get baptized :-) Elder WIlde had a baptism on saturday too :-D

A cool little detail, the first sunday i was here the new chapel that was just recently built opened which was great for us because a big problem with getting people to come to church was that it was just so dang far away and they couldn´t afford to take the bus. Even with this new church it´s pretty far away but its definitely closer.

The language is going fine. I´m just now starting to understand mostly of whats being said. I can understand perfectly during lessons but before and after i still struggle a bit, but thats alright because it usually doesn´t have anything to do with me and I hardly talk a lot in english either :-D

The house we live in is kind of run down but kind of not. :-D We cleaned it the other day cuz i´m sure that the dirt in the bathroom was moving when i turned around so now its alright. We´re usually not there anyway during the day except for sleeping so its alright.

One thing that I thought was interesting is that we can watch movies and listen to music when we´ve got the time. the movies can only be disney and only when you can´t do work but we´re still able to watch some. The other day we watched toy story 3 and lion king one and a half :-D I didn´t finish toy story cuz i want to know what happens when i get back in ENGLISH.

Anyways thats about it. I´m trying to send the pictures but it might take a while :-P I´ll see if i can send them all right now :-)

Anyways Mom, Dad, Sam, Meri, Grace, and Sophie, I love you and be happy
Sincerely Elder Jamie McConnell

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

First Letter From Chile

Hey Everybody, Well I´m here finally in ConcepciĆ³n Chile where the keyboards actually are able to do espaƱol. :-) There is a ton to write about I don´t even know where to start. :-) Well first at the airport after Mom sam grace and sophie dropped me off, i learned that my flight didn´t leave for another two hours so i just walked around a lot until Forrest showed up. The group of missionaries he was in were late cuz of traffic so i mostly just hanged out until 2 o´clock. I actually ran into a friend from rexburg who was coming from Florida. Then forrest came and we eventually got onto the flight. Then Dallas where i probably had my last big mac for dos anos and then we got onto the flight to Chile. I fell asleep at around11 or 12 and woke up at 6 chilean time. We eventually made it to Santiago where I said my goodbyes to Forrest and then headed off to my next flight. I found out that i had lost my camera on the dallas flight so I was looking for a place where i could get in contact with the plane when this guy showed up and started helping out with my bags and tickets. I didn´t realize until later that he wasn´t actually like assigned to help the elders until after but anyways he helped me get my bags checked and took me to the american airlines office to see if i could get my camera. Ididn´t have pesos on me so he took me to a atm to get money but we couldn´t get any money off of the cards at first. I felt bad a little cuz by this time i figured out he wasn´t just helping me out for fun but he had helped me alot. We could only get i think 18 mil off of the debit card which is like almost 40 dollares and then i was on the flight to chile. before we took off a flight attendant walked up to me and gave me my camera. I don´t know how she knew me or how she knew the camera was mine but i´m glad that i have it. Eventually i made it to concepcio´n where pres and sis swenson were waiting and then they took me around the city for a bit and i got to see that building that was in all the newspapers back home that was on its side. Then we went to the mission home where we had almuerza with the asistants and then they took me to my first sector. When we got there, Elders Bustos, Wilde, and Escobillana were waiting for me. Elder Bustos is from colombia, elder escobiliana is from the northest part of chile, and elder wilde is from ogden. Elder Bustos is my comp. After that we got everything unpacked and then we went to a members house for the rest of the evening. For the rest of the week we did alot of the same things. We contacted and visited members and less actives and investigators.I hardly did much except walk with elder bustos cuz i cant understand anything that the people are saying:-) Elder Bustos AND me taught a lesson together once when before he tild me what parts i was going to do and that was fun. It was really cool to be teaching an actuall investigator. On saturday (shout out to Sam, three years :-D) the people off chile have like a ton of protests that actually get pretty dangerous. We didn´t have any problems here but we didn´t do anything that day because of the protests. Sunday was fun because up until recently there had been only one chapel in our sector that was pretty far away and a lot of our less actives and investigators wouldn´t come to church simply because they couldn´t do the walk. But recently a new chapel was built and the first sacrament meeting in it was sunday. Elder Bustos said we had like 14 investigators come to church :-D count it. Yesterday we had a zone conference with pres swenson which was pretty fun. THey played some talks and movies that were english so i was finally able to figure out what was going on. and thats pretty much it :-D
I´m doing alright down here in the other side of the world. I´m tired, confused most of the time, my feet hurt, and just kind of hanging out with my comp when things are happening around us , but i´m doing great :-) The first wek was hard but it was good all at the same time.
I want to write more but this stupid keyboard can´t freaking backspace and i´m going to go nuts in a little bit. :-D M ynext Pday is saturday and I´ll explain why then :-D

Things that are important:
THey still do dear elders down here :-D They aren´t delivered , we have to go to concepcion to get them which is like a twenty or thirty minute busride . Its the same way with packages and letters
I am understanding more each day:-DBecause elder Bustos is colombian, he doesn´t speak crazy spanish so i can understand him
Forrest has my gloves pillowcase and baptism pants so if someone can tell him to mail those, that would be great.
this keyboard is driving me up a wall so i´m going to wrap thins up. I´ll definetely write much better on saturday and answer the questions better. Until then Mom dadsam meri grace and sophie, I love you a ton, i miss you like crazy but its not making me sad :-) 19 months and 3 weeks is nothing to 2 years and it´ll pass so fast when i´m working so much :-) Stay cool and be happy
Sincerely
Fortunately the one and only
Elder McConnell

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

HE IS IN CHILE!!!!








Everyone:

Barbie and I received this EMAIL tonight from President and Sister Swensen with the pictures attached. He had an adventurous trip down to Chile. Once he got to Santiago, someone got a hold of his debit card and withdrew about $160 US from his account. Then he left his camera on the plane from Dallas to Santiago. Fortunately, he got his camera back but not the money. Considering that was the same day I was in Alaska and Grace almost had her toe amputated some people would be throwing their hands in the air. At our house we call that MONDAY!! Anyway, his P DAY is on Monday and so I'll be posting his EMAIL when I receive it. Thanks again for all of your prayers and support.

James and Barbie


Dear McConnells,

Attached are some photos of your son arriving safe and sound. We are so grateful his health is better and he's here at last. He's landed in a very sweet spot, with Elder Bustos from Colombia, working in the Camilo Olivarria sector of Coronel. Two other missionaries live in the house with them, one from Chile and the other from the U.S.

This mission extends from Talcahuano in the north to Loncoche in the south, about 5 hours by car. There are about 180 missionaries, a 50/50 mix of Latinos and Northamericans, plus some others from Europe and other areas of the world. The missionaries teach an average of 30 lessons a week and every companionship visits 10 inactive families each week, so they stay busy. The food and water are safe and the countryside magnificent.

There has never been a better time or place to serve a mission than right here right now. After the earthquake and the announcement of the temple here, the people have been prepared to receive the message of the Gospel brought to their door by your handsome son. It's a privilege to serve with him in this wonderful work of the Lord. Thank you for your support and prayers.

Sincerely,

President & Hermana Swenson