Kyleigh Wittwer

Well hello from Chile everyboody!!

 

Chile is beautiful! The MTC is right on temple grounds so every morning when I walk out the doors or look out the window the temple is the first thing I see and its amazing. Its summer here so the weather is great and everything is green which is a nice change from Utah! 

My district is composed of two Elders and nine Hermanas. Those poor Elders! The hermanas in my group are absolutely hilarious. We all get along well (maybe too well we have to be told to be quiet a lot). We are the newest group of gringos so none of us know spanish really but we try to talk to the latino Elders and Hermanas during meals. I embarrass myself a lot trying to speak spanish but Ive come to terms with it. 

I got put into a trio companionship with Hermana Cook and Hermana Wright. They are both very musically inclined and make me feel bad about myself daily when they harmonize to every song that has ever existed. They are both absolutely crazy we have a lot of fun together. Trios are harder to work in to teach lessons because we all teach differently and we all have different ideas but its ok because I know that because its harder I am learning more than I might otherwise and its teaching me humility! 

Classes are difficult but I enjoy them. Spanish is coming along slowly but surely. They had us teaching lessons in Spanish by the second day here which was crazy! It wasn't a great lesson because our Spanish is so limited but it was a lesson all the same. We teach two or three lessons a day and we are definitely improving with every lesson!

The food here is a lot of rice and potatoes and interesting meat but I haven't had any meals that i haven't liked yet. The bread and ice cream here are AMAZING so Im doing my best not to eat my weight in ice cream every day. I've given up resisting the bread though... 

 This morning for physical activity we got a soccer game going. It was the latina Elders vs the gringo Elders and Hna Barnett and I jumped in on the latino team. I think everyone expected us to be terrible but we held our own pretty good and i even scored a goal! Our team killed the gringo team (of course) and so now every time Hna Barnett and I see the latino Elders we played with they pretend to worship us and act like we are super cool its so funny (and not sacrilegious i promise!). 

So funny story: on Sunday the mission presidents wife gave us this super long lecture about not flirting with the Elders and said about 1000 times DO NOT TOUCH THE ELDERS. Not a big problem in our district of basically all girls. But a few hours later at lunch my good friend from Colombia, Elder Martinez, came in to visit (he is serving his mission in the Santiago mission) and I ran over and almost hugged him but i caught myself and shook his hand. We are only supposed to take pictures on p day but we snuck into the stairwell to take one really quick (our companions came with us of course) and so as we were standing together and his companion took the picture Hna Brady (the mission presidents wife) walked around the corner. Of course. Elder Martinez basically ran away and Hna Brady lectured me (and my companions) about how taking pictures with elders looks bad and sends wrong impressions and stuff. I thought it was kind of hilarious but I don't know if Hna brady really likes me anymore... 

 Anyways I'm doing great and loving life. During the day i often am tired or frustrated but every night, no matter how good or bad the day was, I go to bed happy. I know that the Lord qualifies those he calls so I know that if we all keep working Spanish will come and we will be able to do all that God has planned for us. I love you all and hope you all have the best week!!

 

Love Hermana Wittwer