My world got flipped upside down. I don`t even know
where to start. I guess I will start with my companion. His name is
Elder Mercau, he is from Buenos Aires Argentina, and he is 20 years old.
He is one of 3 members in his family of 8. He is funny, focused, and he
talks VERY Argentinian. He has said a few words that are really bad
words here in Chile but they aren't bad in Argentina. He uses like 5
words a day that I have never heard.
We are in the sector called Isla de Maipo, in the zone Talagante.
We are doing a whitewash, because neither of us know the sector. It has
been a sector of sister missionaries for 12 years now. We are the first
Elders here in forever. The sector is enormous. Its all farms. The
Maipo river surrounds us, which is why its called Island of Maipo. Its
pretty. Let me repeat. Its REALLY pretty. We have a lot of big
commercial vineyards. Endless rows of grape vines.
We have bikes, but they are girl bikes. They
are purple and pink, and I had to take off the basket it had on front to
not look too ridiculous. Its weird to ride a bike for 45 minutes and
see nothing but vineyards, and shacks with laundry hanging from a line.
Its nothing like Santiago.
Our house is a moldy dump. No surprise there. The sister missionaries that just left us with the following:
-no gas(to take hot showers or cook)
-no TP
-no investigators that are progressing
-no food
-no matches
etc.
We are literally starting from 0. NOTHING. Nada. Zilch.
Isla de Maipo is a branch, not a ward. The leadership is bad. Even my
greenie companion noticed how bad the leadership was on his first Sunday
in Chile. The members have NO energy or life. There was about 50 people
in church. But the branch president didn't even count. When I went to
ask him how many people there were, he just estimated. Dur dur dur
Our first night out in the sector was memorable. The sector is
about the size of Liberty, Huntsville, and Eden. And probably has a
population very similar. The people are really poor, or really rich.
They either live in a 4 wall wood shack surrounded by mud, or they live
in a mega mansion with a beautiful fence and pool and 3 cars. There is
some serious rich folk.
The sisters left us about 3 people to teach. None of them are
progressing however, and they are all girls. One is like 35, one is 15,
and one is 13. We can´t visit them alone, they aren't progressing, and
they couldn't even get baptized because they would just go inactive
immediately. In the last 2 years, 15 people have been baptized. Of those
15, 1 went to church yesterday. The one recent convert that went to
church is deaf and mute. No joke. 80% of the recent converts are
girls(because sisters always baptize 13 year old girls that are the
first members in their families and go inactive after 2 months)
My companion gave a talk on Sunday, because the Branch President
asked him to on Saturday. I watched all the branch giggle because of
his super heavy accent and weird vocabulary. I don´t think they
understand half of what he said. hahahaha
President put me as a district leader again, and at first I was
wondering why. Because here in the zone Talagante, there has always been
just 2 districts. President divided the districts, even though no new
sectors opened up, and made a third district. After 1 district meeting
here, I think I know why. The leadership in the mission isn't the best.
The other district leaders are young and inexperienced, and the zone is
really down as far as "results" go. President basically told me in his
email today that he put me as a district leader for that. My district
has 0 baptismal dates, and 2 progressing investigators. Yikes.
Welp. that's about everything. The location really is
beautiful. The little mainstreet is pretty cool. Its about the same size
as Torrey, Utah. Its just going to be a lot of contacting and looking
for people. And trying to give the members here a shot in the butt to
get them going. I had several members come up to me in church and say
"oh elder, its really hard to get into a house here. the people are all
stubborn." They are all old sticks in the mud
that don´t have the spirit of the work or the faith necessary to find
and baptize.
I recommend searching on the internet to see if you can find some photos of this area. its pretty.
Love you
Elder Van Dyke
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