I DON'T KNOW WHy, BUT THE PEOPLE HERE SEEM TO LIKE ME

A comment from Mom: Riley is doing GREAT!

On a side note, where is my son? Is this really him? For those of you who know Riley well, there are parts of this letter that just make me crack up, words I thought I would never hear (or read) coming out of him, but have always hoped. Let's see how many people can pick out the part I am referring to. Missions are truly amazing!

Querido familia y amigos...

¡¡¡¡¡HOOOOLAAAA!!!!! It was great hearing from everyone especially since I didnt hear from anyone last week. Thank you so much for all the love support and encouragement that I have recieved in emails, prayers, etc. you guys are awesome! Well it sounds like the new school year is starting off well for everyone back home with high school and middleschool. Its weird that our family is out of the elementary school days. Anyways I´m really stoked to hear about all the missionary work that has been going on in our ward back home! That is absolutely awesome. Keep up the good work :) and keep them coming to church.
We have a pretty good rama (branch) here in Pitruf but it could be so much better cuz less than half of the members come! They just dont understand how important it is to come to church every week and take the santacena (sacrament). So a lot of the work we do here is permanecer (reactivation) which is going alright. All of the menos activos we visit say that they will be at church and then like two of the 10 or so families we talk to show up. But hey those two show that it's working a little bit so its all good. :) Well this week was definitely better than the last one. I´m getting over the little bit of culture shock that I had and I´m starting to kind of accept the fact that I can't speak spanish haha. Right now I´m just trying to build up my faith more that it will come and am trying to banish the doubts that I have.

I don´t know why but the people here seem to like me. I don´t understand it. I´m silent most of the time and when they ask me questions they either have to repeat it like 5 times or I have to look at my companion for help but they still like me. Maybe its cuz I´m the newbie or because I can´t talk and they find it entertaining haha. Man, spanish is hard.

As far as missionary work goes we definitely could have had a way better week. We have a ton of references from the jovenes but it seemed like the whole week we spent most of our days walking across town back and forth to knock on doors and get no answer. When we did get a hold of some it went pretty well and we even kind of have another baptismal commitment (kind of because it is complicated) and we had like 7 people to commit to come to church. But when we made our rounds before church Sunday morning all we got were excuses or family members coming out to tell us that they are sick or not home. It was kind of a bummer, especially with Jonathan. He´s the kid that set a baptismal date and came to church last week. He´s like 16 years old and a little flaite ("gangster"). But he's really capo (uhmm...a stud) and is excited about the church but is a hard guy to get a hold of and he wasn't there when we went to get him for church. So we had zero investigators in church but I´m not too worried about this next week cuz we laid some good foundations last week for it.

We just have to pick up our pace, my papi walks slow and spends way too long talking with people. We will keep working with the jovenes. So I´m optismistic for this next week. Besides it's P-day and you can't help but to be optimistic on p-day :). I´m also starting to figure out how my companion operates and does things and how things work here in the field, it´s a lot different than the M.T.C, obviously. One thing that I learned to love to do in the C.C.M. (MTC) is to plan. I know it sounds kind of crazy coming from me and all but I now feel really uncomfortable without a moderately detailed written plan for the day. And my companion is a great missionary but is not a planner, and is extremely forgetful and he would just remember things if he wrote them down! It drives me crazy! hahahaha I know it's really ironic coming from me and all but this week I´m going to make sure that we have a good written plan before leaving the house and will remind my companion to write things down throughout the day. Haha I´m getting excited talking about it 

I´m such a nerd :D. We are going to be a lot more productive with our time next week.

Ugh there is so much to talk about and so little time. One thing that is great about Pitrufquén is the jovenes. There are a lot of them and some of them are pretty lame but the ones that are good more than make up for the rest. Our ward mission leader Alex is an absolute stud. He´s 21 years old and is studying in Temuco to become a dentist but he spends a few hours with us almost every day visiting less active families, visiting and teaching references, and even just doing contacting. He likes to play pranks on me sometimes especially with telling me to say things in spanish and giving me the wrong or opposite definition for it, the little punk, but he´s really awesome. And there are like 3 other jovenes who are good for references and who will come out to visit them with us and work with us. I´m also really grateful for my trainer. He has some things about him that really bug me sometimes and he doesn´t speak nearly enough spanish with me but he´s a ´good missionary and I´m learning a lot from him. We get along really well too.

Well this place is closing up soon for lunch but I want you to know that this is an amazing work and there is no place else I´d rather be right now. Oh and by the way we found a lady in the rama to do our laundry and i think we are going to hire another hermana to do almuerzo for us everyday so don´t worry, we are eating and even occasionally cooking :). Oh and I can only email family but I want to give a shout out to those who wrote me and let you know that I will be sending some good ol fashioned snail mail your way :) I really appreciate your love, stories and encouraging words in your emails. Oh and Bay email next week you lil turd!But good job with cross country, that's awesome man keep it up and I´m glad your liking high school. Well until next week I love you all and don't be shy with emails and or snail mail!

con mucho amor abrazos grandes, Élder Harper:)