Andrew Update - 6 March 2010

I'm fine - 1 Mar 2010

So ya the Earthquake, or terremoto was supposedly a 7.7 in my little area. I live in Rancagua, in the Stake Tupahue of the church, and I live on the street Monvoisin number 3062 or something like that. In the quake lots fell over, but not the house. The only really bad part was that it was at 3:30 am and I was on the top of a bunk bed, and I was so confused when it all happened. But it was fun. Some houses down the road fell, but Rancagua centro is really bad. The worst is in Conception, and we havent had contact with the missionaries there at all. Plus two missionaries from our mission havent been accounted from, from the sector Pichilemu, because the whole sector is underwater up to the roofs. Intense stuff here. The president isnt allowing us to work for a few days, because theres supposed to be another earthquake of the same size soon. But I want to know about Hawaii! The news said a 600 mph wave was heading to Hawaii, and that it hit 24 hours ago or something. I heard they were evacuating everybody, but I need to know what happened!! Ya Im writing in my journal a lot.. We are supposed to have a few baptisms here next sunday, but with the quake we´ll see if anybody postpones... Members here are so awesome, and all of them showed up at the house with food and water and stuff. The water and electricity went out for a day, which was really lame. But we had food and water storage, which we were so fortunate to have. We still cant drink tap water, so we have to filter it and stuff.. Well enough about that. I am loving it here still!
Dianna: I am losing weight because we only eat one meal a day: Lunch. Usually with a member, and its a HUGE meal, but we dont eat at all the rest of the day, except usually we eat once, (Own say), which is usually pan, palta, y tomates. (Bread, avocados, tomatoes.) I have had tomatoes almost everyday here! We just eat them plain most of the time. They are so much better than in the states! Plus if I buy a huge watermelon, a kilo of peaches, a kilo of grapes, and a kilo of tomatoes, and some avocados, it costs about 3 or 4 dollars. If that. So sweet! Im nervous to see who my next companion will be! Everybody in the house is so cool, and im afraid someone is going to come by and be all strict and mean and lame. I am so happy! I learned how to play Nearer my God to Thee, and For the Beauty of the Earth in a really cool way on guitar! I love learning to play hyms that I can sing along to! WOOT!! Lets see what else.. Language is hard, but everybody says im improving daily.. I hope I get a native companion next so I have to speak spanish more.
I cant wait to get mail from home, because there is just so much going on! Im surprised you guys werent worried more about the earthquake. I was totally expecting a letter of terror, haha. But yes the Lord is watching us, and keeping us safe. The zone leaders building is almost destroyed, so they have to live with us in our house, so theres six of us in this little house, but so much fun! So Lauren you gonna tell everyone I was in the biggest earthquake in Chile from the last 300 years? It was so early and I was freaking out because my mind was totally still asleep! Well Until next week, Chao Fam!

What? - 22 Feb 2010

So ya im totally waiting for some mail from home. I only get mail like once a week or every two weeks. So im totally looking forward to that. To reply to Dianna, weather here is in celcius, but its in the nineties a lot right now, but is getting a little cooler. We teach like 5-8 lessons a day, and walk around about 7 hours a day. We are always walking! Members are so cool with missionaraies! They love having you there, and feed you tons, and just love your presence! People here are so funny, because when you ask them about beliefs they say "yo creo en Dio no má" Which is I believe in God, no more. Then I ask them about if they believe in his son, Jesus Christ. Then they just repeat themselves "yo creo en Dio no má" they are just stubburn and weird! ... And when we walk down streets, people see us, stop watering their grass, and literally run inside. We seriously do strike fear in the hearts of the people here. Or sometimes at night we will knock a door, or really just yell "hallo" from the street, and people will turn off their lights and pretend nobody is home. Dorks. But even funnier is when people say "nadie esta" which is nobody is here. So funny! I have lost more weight, and even last night a member says she notices I am skinnier than that first night I was here in Chile, so kudos to me! I am practicing spanish so much, but the people here are so lazy when they speak that its so hard to understand them! Plus everyone loves to speak as if its a race. Oh well.. I can understand more now than two weeks ago, and hopefully in a few more weeks ill be a lot more fluent. Sweet. I cant wait to read letters from home! By the way if you want to know why I have really bad punctuation in my letters, its because there is not an apostrophe on the spanish keyboard. So it makes it a little difficult. So ya, I just want you guys to know my grammer is bad because there are not the necessary buttons. Well I love my companion, and the other two missioneries in the house. They love how I can cook, and I clean, and I act like the Mother sometimes, but its fun. My companion Elder Ollerton is definitely my Mother right now. I am being diligent at being obedient and I know I am being blessed from it. I love you all family! I cant wait to get some letters and hear about life! Then ill finally have something to talk about! Well time to go buy food and rest all day on my P-day which is on Monday! Woot! ¡Que les vaya bien!-Elder Nicholls

Chile - 15 Feb 2010

So ya its way awesome here. Our standards of excellence are so hgh! But im trying really hard to fulfill them. We find investigators like crazy! We teach lessons ALL the time on the streets and stuff, and go into houses lots. People like to feed us A LOT. Here, my schedule is from 730-1130, which is really cool. But usually we dont eat breakfast, and from 130-3 a member usually has us over for a SUPER GIGANTE lunch. Like one lunch, which my companion said is actually a medium lunch, had a big bowl of soup, a HUGE plate of pasta, a half canteloup, or however you spell it, fresh tomatoes on two giant rolls, and like 8 glasses of soda. AH! So much food! Then you dont have dinner really either.. so just one huge meal a day... But ya we contact people everywhere. I love it in Chile! Dogs are EVERYWHERE, and so are people needing the gospel! People here worship North America. They use english words a lot, and its funny.. Like instead of muy or mucho, they use super a lot.. like ¨super bonito¨ or super bien, and a Chilean word here is vacan, which means tight, rad, awesome, cool. So it´s fun. Also for shorts, they call them chorts, blue jeans are blu cheans, a razor is a gilet, (pronounced like gilette kinda) toilet paper is ¨comfort¨, nike shoes are nike, but pronounced like ¨like¨. there are a lot more, i just cant think of them right now.. My companion Elder Ollerton is so funny, and so good at guitar and piano! And he goes home from his mission in 5 weeks... lucky! I totally want to keep in contact with him after my mission. Here, your trainer is called your dad, and you are his son, and you are born in the sector you start. So my dad is Elder Ollerton, and i was born in Valle el Sol. People here speak castillian which is so hard to unerstand! ... Well Dianna, that´s so cool that you get to see people progress! I´ve only been here for one Sunday, but Im so happy to see people come, and to see people really changing their lives. Like one lady, Olga, which my comp hasnt visited in over 3 months, who said last time that even if she knew the gospel was true, she wouldnt accept it. So he stopped going. But I was going through the carpet book, (Area book, but in Spanish its called la carpeta negra, so we nicknamed it) I went through the antiguo section, (Old investigators) and saw her name, and we went to see her. He didnt expect results, but she surprisingly let us in and we taught, and she received so well! We invited her to say a prayer with us there, and in it she promised to God, in front of these two young men, that she will pray to him that night to ask if Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and that she is honestly seeking salvation. Awesome! Then me and Ollerton both had an impression to sing her Soy un hijo de Dios, (I am a child of God) and she nearly cried! I love it here! Also we visited this one family, la Familia Morales, and they are an inactive family, and me and Ollerton both opened up to a random scripture, and both were about family prayer! So of course we testified and having a strong unity in the gospel with the family, challenged to pray as a family, and they said yes. But a few days later we checked on them, and they didnt at all! So i went home, and made them a little makeshift prayer spinner, with pieces of paper and tape, and colored 4 sections for their names, and Im giving it to them tomorrow when we visit them. I really have a good feeling that it will help them to de it, because im going to put it up on their wall, and Latinos, especially here are really into symbolic things, and physical objects. So hopefully having a physical reminder there will help. Prayer is the first step and I hope I see them come back to the gospel! But we have like 10 progressing investigators, (probably more...) and like 20 investigators that have only been taught one lesson, and we still have to go back. But ya days are so busy! Just lesson after lesson after lesson! I love it! I love the food, and people, and everything here! Im glad to know youre having fun freezing while im drowning in my own sweat!! But I love it here. I am studying spanish like crazy, and want to able to communicate more! Dont give up Dianna! Never go trunky! I cant wait to go out tonight and work! Well I pretty much have to get going, so I hope you guys are all having fun! I wish I had an email to read from home this week... hopefully next week. Les vaya bien! Chao!-Elder Nicholls

I'm alive - 9 Feb 2010

Well I made it all the way here to Chile alive! Like an hour after arriving at the apartment, we went and gave a lesson on the palabra de sabiduria! (Word of Wisdom) Well that didn´t take very long at all to get started, huh? Well me companion´s name is Elder Ollerton, and he only has six weeks left on his entire mission! I´m so glad I have someone so experienced to teach me the ways here! Our apartment is pretty cool, 4 of us living in this little place, with a tiny kitchen, and tiny rooms to study. I love it! I am so glad I am finally here on the mission! The family we just taught is so strong in the gospel and have not even been baptized yet! I am soo looking forward to the next 22 months! I surprisingly understood just about everything that was said in the lesson too! I did not teach much, just bore the strongest testimony I could.. Well not much to say. I have been up for nearly 40 hours straight now and need to sleep. OH! So cool! So usually the schedule is 6:30 am to 10:30 pm right? Here, it is 7:30 to 11:30! Sweet! An extra hour I have to stay awake! Well I will have plently more to write about next week, but as for today, just lots of traveling, waiting for rides and people to show up to pick us up, and this short little lesson. I am going to do an all fruit diet with my companions this week. We will see how it goes! I love you all! Have fun and be safe and continue being awesome when I get home!-Elder Nicholls

Goodbye America! - 3 Feb 2010

I leave monday morning for Chile!!! Ok well this is the info I have, and I don't know what time zones these are all posted in, so here we go:My flight from SLC to LAX is from 11:10 AM-12:08 PM. I will have layover time there, From LAX to Santiago Chile, my flight is from 2:40 PM-6:45 AM. Ya. That's long. I'm going to die! So that's all I got for you. I'm writing an actual LETTER to answer you last letter to me, because I don't have much time on here. So did I tell you that in the referral center I called a lady and she wants to write me my whole mission? So ya. I have to set aside some of my non-exsistent time on the computer for her, leaving virtually nothing for my family... Oh well I'm late for a haircut, so I'll write more in the letter! Love you all!

-Elder Nicholls