Latest Letter

We sent Jamie a package to announce our "new arrival" but he had not received it yet so he got the news from an EMAIL that was sent to him. Also, I have posted a link to a video that Forrest and Jamie made as they flew to Chile. Just copy and paste to view the link. The YouTube link is below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o11eHGYtIKI

Here is the letter for the week!


Just to start ¨¨THERES GONNA BE ANOTHER BROTHER WHEN I GET BACK HOME!!!!!!!!!!!????!!!??! THERE CAN¨T BE CALLS FOR THIS???!!!!???!!! HOLY COW!!!!! For real though when I just barely read the email it was kind of like ¨¨hey by the way, baby´´ and I was like ´´Yeah, we already got Sophie, I was there, I lived the dream´´ but then I went back to read again and saw ´´expecting . . .Oh boy´´ :-D Well DANG!!! :-D I really don´t know what to say :-D other than holy cow.
. . . . . . . . I was gonna write an email but I lost my train of thought. Something about missionary work . . .
Oh yeah. HEYO Everybody!! :-D Howzit going?! :-D Things are doing alright here on the other side of the world. A little shaken up back but that happens a lot. This week was really really fast with a surprise ending as well :-D Never saw it coming :-D
This week was alright in that I´m not sick and we´re getting stuff done and I´m learning Spanish more and more everyday. Unfortunately with la gente we didn´t have a lot of success this week :-P We were able to teach a few lessons throughout the week but not nearly as many as usual :-P Everybody was busy this week (or sleeping which is busy in Chile) so we mostly walked around, did contacts and got tans :-D We got like 201 contacts which would be awesome if the reason that we got that many wasn´t cuz no one wanted us in their houses :-P So there was that and as well all the people that we are teaching currently are not progressing :-P We had two people come to church yesterday but they were both already members, just inactive :-P It was great to see them there still :-D I dont know. Its like ´´Dang. We asked them to come, they said they would come, we called them the day before to remind them that we asked and that they said, but they still didn´t show up´´. The thing is that I want to say ´´The people just aren´t interested´´ or ´´its their choice´´ or ´´they don´t want to do anything´´ but when I think that it feels wrong in my head. I´m wondering if we´re missing something but I have no idea what it is. I´m waiting for that angel that came to Alma the younger to come around and be like ´´ Well here´s your problem´´ and I can say ´´Of COURSE. Thanks shiny man´´ That might be sacrilegious but I´m in a funny mood :-D
Really though, I´m doing alright with all this :-) I guess we just gotta do everything that we´re already doing just a couple of levels higher :-D Yeah, step up. :-D When I figure out whats going on I´ll let you guys know :-D
I don´t really have anything else to say :-P I wrote everyone letters today and sent them as well so you´ll get those eventually :D At the time I was unaware of the new baby so thats why I won´t be loud in the letters :-D Another thing I wanted to ask is how much of a time difference there is between here and the states? Because we had a time changa awhile back and I heard that there might be a four hour difference now. I dunno :-P Maybe :-D
The people like to talk about me to Elder Valdivia wherever we´re at and they are sometimes kind of mean. I think it´s because they think I don´t understand so I always like to surprise them with a little ´´¡YO SÉ LO QUE ESTAS DECIENDO!´´ :-D Surprise!
I´m still in shock about the baby. Just letting you know.
One thing that I wanted to say is how the gospel really does bless people. Unfortunately the churches here are quite small compared to Utah :-P But you can see how different the people are when you know that they´re members. There´s more happiness and just this feeling of family with them :-) Sometimes you just want to hang out at the members houses cuz they´re so cool and they´re always inviting us anyway (Future missionaries, do not do this, its a trap :-D Make sure to always focus on the people who are sick and not those that are healthy. We are Doctors. We go to the sick) ANyways, yeah. Always remember what the gospel can do :-D
That´s it for me :-D Until next monday Mom Dad Sam Meri Grace Sophie and Mr. Surprise I love you all and BE HAPPY :-D
Sincerely Elder Jamie McConnell
p.s. . . . still surprised :-D

Weekly Letter

Hey Everybody! :-D
Howzit going?! :-D Things are going aight down here on the other side of el mundo. I`m not sick and that in it of itself is something to celebrate :-D Go FOOD.
There is not much to write about :-P The life of a missionary is pretty much what it says in the white handbook with people inbetween some of the spaces :-D Oh yeah, guess who had a baptism on saturday. . . That would be me and E`Valdivia :-D How cool is that?! :-D I think its crazy that all my life I`ve been thinking about going on a mission and baptizing and stuff and now I`m doing it! :-D It was really cool :-) I was a little worried at the beginning because no one showed up except for her family (bytheway her name`s Constanza Deniz Castro Rivas and she`s 8). Later I learned that that was pretty usual for baptisms here so it wasn`t that bad and she has a big family anyway :-D We`re hoping that she being baptized will help with the rest of her family getting baptized because she`s the only member except for one uncle. So yeah, that was cool :-) She`s a really smart and special 8 year old. We were kind of worried that she would go inactive after a time but I don`t think that she will :-) She`ll be just fine I think.
I don`t have much to talk about for this week so I`ll just tell stories. Elder Mondragon is from a high school whose mascot is the spartans so naturally we like to spartan kick stuff. Speaking of kicking a chair through a window, that`s what he did :-D Earlier I had dropped a chair down the stairs on him to make him mad so he came up the stairs with the chair and kicked it back down the stairs. Because there wasn`t anyone to get hit by the chair it hit the window and broke it. Talk about reverse karma :-D What else, Elder Valdivia hasn`t tried to stab me recently :-D Yay for no stabbing :-D The other day we had a weeny roast in the back . . .yard of our . . .house :-D It was really fun :-D Thats basically it for random stuff.
Recently a sister of the ward has asked if E`Valdivia could play for a choir practice every once in a while so those have been fun. I`ve pulled the whole ``I can`t speak spanish so ipso facto I can`t sing`` trick so basically I get to read and relax with pretty spanish church music. I think some of the people are catching on that I understand a lot more than they think I do :-D Spanish is still coming along great :-D I am starting to be only as lost as I was back in the states with english :-D The other day a family asked if I could give a pray in english and I was like ``. . . No sè`` :-D It was really weird to pray in english.
Everyday I`m more and more convinced that this is Gods work because whenever we`re walking to wherever for some reason or another we run into our investigators, and not just people in our sector. me and Elder V ran into a recent convert of his yesterday who lived more than an hour away from where we were. The other day we ran into a Evelin who we`ve been teaching and her family. She works at this mall that is like fortyfive minutes away from her house and we were there getting money from the ATM and we thought ``Hey lets go check out the computers`` so we did and there she was :-D This happens like all the time. I think that its so that our investigators can keep thinking of us between visits :-) Its really cool to think about.
That`s mostly it for me. Sam you can`t carry sophie around in a box, that`s not right. I almost peed my pants when I saw the picture but its still wrong :-D Until next monday Mom Dad Sam Meri Grace and Sophie, I love you and Be Happy :-D
Sincerely Elder Jamie McConnell

Jamie's Tour of his Apartment

Now, I could say that this looks a lot like his bedroom at home...

Weekly Letter

Heyo! :-D Howzit going everybody?! :-D Things are going aight here in the other america. We wake up we go out we come back for lunch we go out again we come back again and then we sleep. :-) Asi es la vida de los misioneros. Every time people ask how I am I say tired, which basically means great in missionary talk because if we weren´t tired we´d be doing something wrong :-D
Just to answer some questions so I don´t forget. The Dear Elders are sent to the mission office where they need to be picked up. Where I am right now in (or at least around to) Coronel is about half an hour to forty five minutes from the office. We try to go to the office every pday but that´s usually because we plan to do somethings else in the city. Usually if we are expecting something, we´ll ask our zone leaders to go and pick whatever up because they usually have meetings during the week in Concepcion. As for mail that comes from me, I´m not entirely sure how long it takes to get from here to there. The first letter I sent wasn´t written the same day that it was sent And I cant remember the date that I did send it. I did however send a little package with the thumbdrive in it last monday so when you get that you can figure out the amount of time it takes.
My companion and roomates are all really cool people :-) E´Valdivia, my companion, is from Arica Chile, and he´s super annoying and really cool. :-D Just to explain how annoying he is, for fifteen minutes after we left the house one day, he tried to stab me with a thumbtack. After that he stomped in puddles to splash water on me. When there aren´t puddles, he´ll throw the water thats in his bottle at me. The problem is that if I get really annoyed I can´t talk in spanish so I just try to avoid these situations. Something that I try to take advantage of is a game he likes to play. here in Chile for heat, cooking, heating up water, and sometimes electricity, they have these trucks driving around carrying gas tanks. The missionaries like to play slugbug with these gas tanks and E´Valdivia is no exception, so whenever I´m annoyed and I see the truck first, you can bet I´m not gonna pull my punches :-D But naw :-D He´s actually a really cool guy and a great teacher. I was worried that I´d get so frustrated being with him that I wouldn´t be able to teach but he´s never made me that angry :-) And there´s always the gas trucks :-D Then there´s E´Wilde and E´Mondragon. Their both from utah and their both really cool as well. E´Mondragon likes to play a game as well. He´ll occasionally yell down the stairs ¨HEY NEW GUY¨. I really love him. . . :-D Naw he´s aight. He helped me a ton when I was sick the first couple of weeks. He knows how to make a drink that the Chilaens here like to use for sick stomachs. E´Wilde is a really cool guy as and he doesn´t have any really creative and fun games that he likes to play either .-D Double bonus :-D
This weeks been alright :-) We had a bunch of our investigators come to church yesterday which was good :-) I think I said in my last email that we were going to have a baptism on saturday but we had to change plans :-P The mother and Grandma of the girl who had the date on the 9th felt that she wasn´t quite ready yet but we asked if it be alright if we moved it to this saturday and they said that would be fine. :-D Yay. So Coni (the girl who´s going to be baptized) and her grandparents (non members but regularly come to church) came yesterday and so did an entire investigator family. We found them like I think a week ago and we taught them a bit and they said they´d come to church and they DID :-D Really cool.
The language is coming along great :-D With families that I´ve know better I can understand better than with others. The problem I think is that I´m still just not used to listening to spanish yet :-P But no, I´m doing a TON better than I was :-D The trick is to take it all at once and then guess waht you think they said and then answer the best you can :-D If you´re right, Good for you. If you´re wrong, the Chilaens are expecting you to mess up anyway so they just laugh and talk again slower :-D Its alright when you know how to play the game :-D
That´s basically it for me :-P Sorry for not a lot of words :-P Until the next Mom Dad Sam Meri Grace and Sophie, I love you and Be Happy
Sincerely Elder Jamie McConnell

Weekly Letter

Hello Everybody! Recording Live from somewhere! :-D Hey Whats up? How`re things? How was conference? :-D
Things are going alright on the other side of the world. Spring is on its way so I don`t have to worry about being extra cold. There`s always a level of chilly here in Chile :-D Ugh I hate myself for saying that :-D Speaking of awful jokes here`s a spanish one. ¿Què hacen pescados en agua? Nada :-D Mom`s going to have explain that :-D ANyways yeah I`m aight. I wrote letters today and I copied all my pictures onto the thumbdrives. I`m sending one in the package and don`t worry I have a copy with me.
Seriously though, how was conference? It was pretty fun here. We get to watch it in english actually :-D They set up a tv downstairs in the stake center for all the gringos and everybody else watches in spanish upstairs. I feel bad because I had to listen to the first two talks in spanish cuz the tv wasn`t set up yet and there is a huge difference between hearing the speaker and a translator :-P I had a good time anyways :-) Exceot that none of our investigators came :-P Curses. I told one family that if they came that they`d recieve whatever answer they needed to get baptized and at the time they were like that sounds cool, maybe we should go ,and I was like (evil laugh) Now the First presidency and Los Doce Apostoles are gonna drop some gospel bombs on their heads and they`ll have to get baptized. But they saw through my trap and escaped :-P Sucks to be me right now. :-D Naw just kidding. It was a bummer that none of our investigators came but we still got a baptism on saturday coming up and none of our investigators have told us to stop coming back so i guess you win some you lose some. :-D
Speaking of not getting letters, I think that all the letters that were supposed to be sent to Chile when I was at home are either at the MTC or with some other missionary whose name is James F. McConnell the 4th. Very possible I know, but I`m sure he`s not as good looking as me :-D
Elder Valdivia. My godfather, is a pretty cool guy. :-) The other Elders describe him as a very big kid and he is most of the time :-D He`s also a great teacher during our lessons. We were teaching one time and the house began to shake and we were like ^^ITS THE HOLY GHOST!! GET BAPTIZED OR HE`LL CRUSH YOUR HOUSE!!!^^ :-D Naw, but we were teaching one time when the house began to move around. Later we joked about how the voices of angels shake the earth. Actually in the scriptures there are a ton verses about the earth moving around. Look it up :-D But yeah, Elder VAldivia is a really cool guy. I`ve heard that some of his previous comps got pretty annoyed with him and in Sams letter I explained a little bit, but I haven`t had any problems so far :-D It good to be companions with him.
Què mas Què mas . . . That`s basically it for me. :-P I`m actually very boring :-P About the address, everything goes through the office. I`d give an address that was closer but there isn`t one. The missionaries themselves do not have mailboxes. It`s alright cuz its not to hard to go to the city to get whatever. the Spanish is coming along great. I get more and more of the jokes everyday :-D and . . .Yeah thats basically it.
So mom dad sam meri grace and sophie, I love you all and Be Happy
Sincerely
Elder McConnell