10-12-09

Hola! ¿Como estan? I hope that all of you are doing really well. I am doing well, and now I´ll let you know how the last week has been. It has been good, hard, but good. The trip was so long, and by the time we got to Osorno I was so tired. The mission president and his wife are so nice and it was good to meet them. The first night we did a lot of orientation stuff and then we stayed the night in a hotel.

My first area is called Calle Calle, which means street street. I am in a town called Valdivia. My companion´s name is Elder Bryan Reeder, and he is from Mesa Arizona. He is soo cool and a great trainer. I am learning a lot from him. So this first week has been hard just because I can´t understand the people here. But it is getting easier. They just speak so fast, and I guess the speak the fastest Spanish in the world here, and they don´t pronounce very much, so it is really hard to understand, but mostly just because I am not used to it. But it is getting easier. We have a momita, who makes us lunch everyday and she and her family are members of the church, she also does our laundry and the church pays her for this. They are so nice. The food here is good, the bread is good, and we have eaten soup and pasta and meat this week.

So I have a cool story from the first week, from the first day. It is hard to understand people, but my first night we were tracting and I wanted to try to listen to what Heavenly Father wanted me to do. And then I just saw this guy and I felt like we should talk to him, and there were plenty of other people around. But we talked to him and it went well and he wanted to come to church with us this week, which sadly he didn´t, but a lot of people missed church because the time changed that night. But we are going to talk to him today, and hopefully it goes well. It just shows me that God really does direct us. I have had a lot of good experiences this week along with the hard ones. Some people are nice here and some are not just like in other parts of the world. But we found a family and taught them a good lesson the other day and we are going to see them again soon.

But I guess I don´t have much time today so I will write more details next week, but I am doing really well, I am learning and learning. I really like testifying of the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ.

I am sad that I don´t have much time today, we are busy but I love you so much and am so thankful for you.

Love, Elder Brian Sheahan