Hey everyone!I was glad to hear from Mom and Dad and get filled in on the goings-on around that neck of the woods. I wizzed passed Thanksgiving and didn´t even realize it was Thanksgiving until I went to bed. Turns out this country isn´t grateful for anything...JK. Well this week has been what I had always imagined missionary work to be like. Lots of rechazos, lots of bad bad things, more rechazos, and then......when all hope is lost....LIGHT at the end of the tunnel. We started the week off by going on splits into eachothers sectors. Basically my comp and I have CV 1, and the other 2 elders in our pension have CV 2. So we split things up and ALL went to CV 1 in an effort to find new investigators. 3 or so hours later, and somewhere between 40-60 slammed doors and Chilean finger shakes of disapproval..we came back with almost nothing. We got one appointment. The other Elders were the same. Brutal day. The other bummer from this week was our appointment with our investigator Jaime, whom has a baptismal fecha. We met at his sisters home, because his house is really dangerous(he lives with flightays and they have attack dogs...no me gusta). We taught him about tithing in the presence of his sister and 80 something year old father. His father reminds me of Gramper in that he is dillusional and just rambles about stuff. Well in the middle of teaching, the old guy just cuts in and starts talking about his son and how his son never gives him money and a whole bunch of other dillusional things. He is basically deaf so he couldn´t understand our pleas for him to shutup until the end of the meeting. We would start teaching and then suddenly he would cut back in about something totally random. He didn´t even realize that we were talking some of the time. It got to the point we had to just talk louder and not look at him because that way he´d eventually realize that he wasn´t part of the conversation and no one was listening. As funny as it is in hindsight, it stunk because our investigator(the son who apparently doesn´t give his dad money) became distracted. So those are just a few of the bad things that happened this week, others included spilling on myself, woman breastfeeding her 2 almost 3 year old child in front of us, and roommates making our pension filthy after my comp and I cleaned for HOURS. However, the week just got better and better with each day. On Friday, maybe Saturday, I felt my first earthquake. Technically they call it a temblor, or a little one, but it got my attention. That was sweet. Then I saw a couple helicopters and ninja turtles(cops) rallying a mile or so away from our pension. There was a huge showdown/arrest in the legua. Some flightays got busted and it was BIG news. That was exciting. Then I ate my first Ass. Yes. It´s a sandwich. Yes, its yummy. Pics to come. On Friday we also went to the Feria for the first time. Like a traveling street market. They are all over the place almost everyday of the week but I hadn´t gone to one yet. It was small by most peoples scale but huge by mine. You could buy anything from fresh palta(avacado) to hannah montana stickers. They are all the rage. Then later Friday night we hosted a movie night for our ward. The 4 of us missionaries planned it a few weeks ago. We watched the movie about Thomas S. Monson, ate popcorn, bebidas, etc. The ward liked it and we got some investigators to go. Overall a success. And the big highlight of the week was I finally manned up and performed self surgery on my nose. I had this tumor looking thing on the inside of my left nostril that has been there for years. It is really sensitive and sometimes hurts. With my companions help and the aid of some sharp objects, I cut out a nice portion of it. Pictures won´t do it justice. Now I can just hope it doesn´t grow back. Ha-that wasn´t the real highlight of the week. This is. After all this bad stuff went down, we came out with 3 really really good investigators. People who have been prepared. And, one of them committed to baptism. They are all humble people searching for answers. I´m so excited to teach them about the love our Heavenly Father has for them. This coming week looks promising.My little spiritul blip for the week comes yet again from someone whom I work with. I don´t know if I had told you about him or not, but I don´t think so. In our ward right now we had the best ward mission leader in the world. I´m confident of that. His name is Alejandro(mom would laugh at that name). He is about 40. Not married. And is a convert of 13 years. Before being baptized he was a total disaster. Lived from party to party, drugs alcohol, the whole bit. He came to a knowledge of the Gospel, gave it all up, and now is the most faithful guy in the world. He has a daughter with a previous love affair, she is probably 7 or so. He doesn´t have custody but loves her more than anything. Alejandro also goes to dialysis every other day. I don´t know if it was hereditary or because of his years of partying, but he needs new kidneys. His arms are always hashed and swollen from dialysis. As a result he can´t work. His tiny home and living expenses are paid for by the government. He has nothing. However, every other day, he comes out with us missionaries to teach. He is fantastic. He talks to EVERYONE. He is very frank. He will tell someone that what we have no one else can offer. He is very type A. He gets frustrated with members who arent active or aren´t faithful to covenants they´ve made. The other day in a correlation meeting he proposed an idea to create a big chart that tracks every single member of the ward and wheter or not they are reading the scriptures and praying daily. He wants it plastered on the church wall so that everyone can see who is and isn´t doing what they are supposed to. Obviously thats not going to fly, and he knows it, but thats how much he wants people to be doing what they should. I think I have sent some pictures of him before, but if not, I will today. He is just the most amazing man ever. Has nothing. Can´t work. Wants to be married in the temple more than anything. The other day he told me(after I asked him to repeat it 3 times) that he wants to go to Utah to see the temples, and especially the Cristus statue. He has pics of that all over his little house. I told him maybe I can stay here at the end of 2 years and he can take my plane ticket back home. He approved, because he doesn´t think he´ll find a woman to take to the temple here, so he can find a gringa in Utah. Anyways he comes out with us from 4 to 8 or 9 everyday. Sometimes 10. or 1030. He loves the work and can´t wait to share it with others.
My thought this week was that if we all had just a fraction of the animo that he has, this gospel would spread faster than we could imagine. I hope everyone, even in Utah, is excited to share the truths that you know to be true. Our Heavenly Father NEVER fails to bless those who try.
Hope everyone is enjoying the snow while I sweat to death. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and ate a lot. I love you all and keep you in my prayers.
chao
Elder Charlie Van Dyke
Mom- You mentioned you sent my xmas package. If anyone else is going to send something, can you make sure that it has 3 things in it: slackline, my blue and yellow hoody, and pics of the family. Preferably recent ones. Whatever you feel like though.
Now I need to quickly answer your questions
Ya I think President has something planned for xmas. Not sure what
Ya I can go to the temple but only when I get transfered. We do transfers by the temple.
Ya my comp and I cleaned. no more mold. But our latin roomies are gross. it went to waste.
Ya i´m taking pics. its hard to remember at times
Our area is a couple miles square. Would be bigger but 40 or more percent is not enterable. (the legua) its the most dangerous area in the mission if I haven´t told you before
Ya, if you want to send stuff, send to the mission home. Sending to my current address would be harder. Always send to the Maipu address.
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