THEY CALL ME GRINGO FLAQUITO hahaha.

Here is Riley's first letter from Chile. His mission rules allow everybody to send him emails: ElderRye@myldsmail.net. However, he can only email back family. Everybody else will have to wait for a snail mail response. Querido familia y amigos ¡Hola! Well I´m sure that you have emailed me already but the lds.org website is down which means that mylds.net is down also which means that i am not able to read your emails :(. So im just sending you this from my old yahoo account. Anyways my first week here in Chile has been quite the rollercoaster ride. Its good but   I´m not going to lie my first week was tough. Anyways our flight landed in Concepción at like 930 and we were picked up by the president, his wife, and the assistants and taken to the Misión home which is pretty nice and has a gorgeous view of the city and the Bio Bio river. So we hung out there for a few hours doing orientation stuff and interviews with the president and we had our last American meal there. Then we went to the capilla (chapel) where all of us newbies bore our testimonies and then met our papis (trainers but we call them our dads). I was assigned with Élder De Leon who despite his name is a gringo. It was also at this point that I found out that our zone, Nueva Tolten, is the furthest south in the whole misión and that after my already 22 hours of traveling I had a 6 hour bus ride ahead of me. Fortunately we only went half way that night, cuz it was really late, and we stayed at a missionary home in Renaico and had once (dinner) there. We then woke up early in the morning and finished our journey to the ¨city¨ a.k.a. pueblo of Pitrufquén which is like in the center of the zone and the head quarters of the zone Nueva Tolten. We are like about halfway inbetween the the mountains and the ocean and are like a 40 minute bus ride from the southern border of the misión. We then went to the house where us and the zone leaders stay, unpacked, ate a snack, and went to work doing some street contacting, visiting members to get references, and then we went to a baptism at the capilla in the evening. Yeah I pretty much spent the whole day and week saying “como?” after everything someone said to me in spanish and hearing them laugh at my attempt at a response. They talk so fast here I can't understand pretty much anything that they say and I´m pretty sure my speaking skills have gotten worse since the M.T.C. or at least it seems like it. Even though we are on the verge of spring it is still very cold and very wet here. It rained on my second day out of the blue and it caught me without a hood or an umbrella but it hasn't rained since then. It is just very cold and very moist. In Fact our house is so damp that there are some mold spots on all the walls and ceilings and after two days all my books and papers, including the book of pictures you sent me and my scriptures :(, have been warped. I was really bummed about that at first but I bent them back kind of and am working on methods for warp prevention haha. When we entered our house for the first time I thought it was a complete dump but after being here almost a week in Pitrufquén I´ve come to realize that the house that we have here is actually pretty big and if it had some furnishings like a couch it would be nice. All the people have wood floors and stuff but compared with the U.S. these people are very poor and the houses are tiny. I am already starting to apreciate all the comforts of home that I took for granted before like 3 square meals a day haha. As of right now we don't have a mamita here so besides almuerzo appointments that we occasionally have with members we don't eat that much, but when they do feed us holy cow they feed us. They call me gringo flaquito hahaha. Speaking of food, diesyocho here was pretty fun. I´m still pretty sick but nonetheless I had a good time. Our p-day is usually Monday but since Friday was diesyocho we had p-day then instead. We watched a parade in the town square that was cool but took 3 hours since everyone and their mother was in it and then we had empanads and esado (barbecue).  We then caught the last 20 minutes of a chileno rodeo and played some fútbol in the street with the jóvenes. The jóvenes (teenagers) here in the Branch in Pitrufquén are way capo (awesome) and strong in the church. They give us references, come to lessons with us occasionally and laugh at my pathetic attempts to speak spanish and understand their spanish. The language is so frustrating but everyone tells me that it just takes time. Ugh. Its so weird too, some of the people here look really latino but some look totally white like blue eyes and light skin and hair but then they start spitting out spanish like everyone else. That will take getting used to. Anyways on diecinueve (the 19th) the district, which is kinda like a stake, put on a huge dieciocho activity at the capilla and no joke it went from nine in the morning to nine at night. It was ridiculous. We didn't stay for the entire thing but we stayed for way too long in my opinión. But that's always a problem in Chile. We stay at places too long because Chilenos just talk and talk and talk. Which is fine but it takes up a lot of our time. None of our contacts we invited showed up to the activity but miraculous one of them (Jonathan) showed up to church on Sunday. And even better he has a fecha! (baptismal date) yay! He seemed iffy about it but I think that we will be able to help him become more confident in his decision So I havent felt too much like a missionary because of our weird Schedule becuase of the holidays and stuff but now things are back to normal so we´ll be able to work a lot more this week and get back on the normal missionary schedule of work work work so that's good. My whole firtst week after the first day I was kind of getting discouraged and really homesick but it's getting better now. I´m sure it was just the culture shock and my lack of ability to do basically anything becuase of my not being able to communicate. I still feel pretty useless as a missionary right now since I can pretty much only just stand/sit there and nod and smile next to my companion but I´m more optimistic now and I know that I´ll get it eventually. I don't know how or when but I know that I will some way or another haha. Well that was basically my first week in a nutshell. Some things I want everyone to know before I finish though is that everyone can email me and then I can just snail mail back. I can email immediate and extended family back and snail mail everyone else. But I can receive emails from everyone. So there you have it. Well I think I had more to say but that's all I can remember right now. Just keep the prayers and the love coming because man do I need it hahaha. Well until next Monday, I love all you guys and even though I´m having a little bit of a hard time I'm still glad that I´m here. Cia Cia Con amor, Élder Harper J P.s. Coronado is better than ecco Brother Baker A note from Mom: I looked up what flaquito means and here it is: flaquito is a diminutive of "flaco" meaning tiny, people use it to call someone who is near to them and who they love who is too tiny (skinny). Also diecyocho is a huge holiday there. It is Chile's Independence Day.