running out of titles

So that was definitely a week. Sorry i am running out of ways to start these letters. So sorry about this slightly awkward prelude that i kind of always start with. Anywho.....

So this week was kind of normal until thursday. Normal in the sense that we worked our butts off like always and basically walked all day. But thursday we woke up and my comp and i had service to cut some ladies wood. But my comp was sick. Not horrible but still sick. I was to but i wasnt going to admit it so we went to the ladies house and i cut like 4 meters of wood in the morning. So that was cool. Actually felt dope. Also realized that while i can walk for 8 hours straight and be fine, my work stamina has gone down. I can still cut wood for 2 and a half hours without a break but it did get me tired. So thats some news. But the sister in our ward was super greatful that we could help her out. She lives with her son who is like 9 so she needs help doing some stuff like that. So good times. 

Friday and Saturday were incredibly unproductive as far as knocking doors goes because of the Expo. The expo is a HUGE event here in Loncoche where artists from all over Chile come to sell stuff and everybody comes to eat and do rides. Basically it was a county fair. Like seriously felt just like it. So my comp and i went and we contacted more than 70 people in one day. I gave out 2 books of mormon and a ton of pass along cards. Met some cool people. Funny story so we are leaving when we see this guy that made me stop. Its a big guy with a pearl snap western shirt tucked in to his jeans with a camo hat on.  And he is a big guy, walking with a kid that is dressed the same and is getting distracted by a laser pointerlight. I literally stopped my comp and said oh my goodness that is a redneck. So i went to contact him and found out....he is from missouri. He doesnt speak great spanish so it kind of gave it away when i asked where are you from and he responded Loncoche and pointed a lot at the ground. So i repeated the question in english and he was just like oh im from Missouri. Super funny. He is a baptist preacher here to grow his churches in this part. But its funny here in chile when i see a catholic priest or an evangelical pastor i can talk to them and we get a long really well because we do have a similiar purpose. But i get the feeling more and more that you cant do that in the states. Just something cool about Chile. 

But i saw a ton of cool stuff at the expo including.....a rodeo!!!!! Finally saw a chilean rodeo it was cool. I walked in and watched a lot bit and kind of got hooked so i got in it but in Chile you dont yell or act excited at rodeos. I found that out after yelling. The entire stadium turned at looked at me. (Mom i feel like i should blame you. Just something i feel like i inherited from you.) But it was still cool. I just held up a little photo of jesus and everyone went back to avoiding eye contact with me. At times i love being a missionary haha. 

So friday Elder Parkin came to do a baptismal interview for the other elders so we had a bon fire out back. Dug a hole and had hot dogs and marshmallows. Pretty ghetto but it was fun. We used wire hangers for skewers. Fun stuff. 

So the other fun news this week is that we are getting kicked out of our house. Apparently you cant rent the house we are living in. We did not know that until the government came snooping by we found out. So we have like 23 days to find a new house. In a town where noone rents houses. So prayers would be appreciated in that part. So we are looking. Hard. 

The expo was awesome and i am basically done tourist shopping. Got something for almost everyone. 

I love yall a ton. 

Elder Galbreath

Just kidding!

So this week was good but pretty normal so as far as cool exciting stories go i am lacking this week. Sorry. 

Love yall

Elder Galbreath

Just kidding that’s not my email. Not kidding how we didn’t do anything exciting this week though. So sorry no exciting stories.

So, this week we had zone conference, but only one district leader had to talk so that was cool. We all thought that that would mean it would be shorter but oh nay nay. It really just meant the Zone leaders wanted more time. So they took a while on the presentation of how if we are distracted by anything in Chile we are sinners and aren’t worthy to be missionaries. Ask me how I feel about our new zone leader. Go ahead. 

So after that fiasco we got back and went to lunch. It was cool we have good people to have lunch with, Tuesday we teach them after because they are a part member family, Wednesday we have the primary president who is really nice, Thursday we have the BEST FAMILY EVER for lunch. Seriously they are super awesome. Then Friday an inactive lady gives us lunch in a pot and we bring it home. Its good food but it’s weird she doesn’t want to share with us or anything but if something happens and we don’t have lunch with her she like gets upset and chews us out because she is worried about us. So we are working on her. Saturday is our mission leader and his overworked, overstressed but kind hearted wife. I always feel guilty eating with them but i try and help as much as I can. Then Sunday we are usually on our own. So I usually cook something for my comp and I. 

But on Thursday we went back to La Paz which is that sector way out in the boonies to the south of Loncoche, it was a really good day because we found 5 people to teach, and like every door that answered was really nice and gave us a number to call them and find them next week. So that was amazing. I’m convinced that if we plan ahead of time and give the Lord time he will place people who are prepared in our path but we have to be praying and asking for it. 

Sunday was a verrrryyyy interesting day. My comp and I got to the chapel and opened it up and got some stuff ready for the service and waited until like 10:20 when the branch president still hadn’t gotten there. So we called him cause he has a lot of medical stuff going on and this week he couldn’t go to work because of his back. So I called and he sounded super sick so our mission leader stopped by his house to get the keys to his office. Which said keys proceeded to break upon entering the key hole. And break off inside the keyhole. It was pretty impressive. So we spend the next hour almost trying to get the darn thing out to no avail.But it was probably the funniest priesthood class i have ever been a part of. An old branch president, a mechanic mission leader, and a recently baptized unemployed guy all going ham on a door trying to pick the lock. Good times. Only in the mission.

Thanks for the photos, but we received word from Hermana Bluth that they will probably not be able to return to the mission because of the following treatments that will be necessary. They did find cancer in his tumor but it should be able to be beaten by chemotherapy and treatments. PLEASE keep praying for him and his family. I am super sad to not be able to say goodbye to them but i know that God does have a plan for us. 

Other than that I love y'all and have a good week!

Elder Galbreath

Howdy Neighbor

So wow, yeah yalls week was definitely bigger than mine. High 5 for that.

SO this week was pretty cool though not gunna lie. So to start off we had to go to Freire tuesday night again to stay the night because we had to be in Temuco at 8 in the morning. So we stayed with the other 2 elders. This next piece of advice could save your lives someday please pay attention. When talking to a peruano and a chileno in spanish late at night DO NO ATTEMPT SARCASM. Usually we take the mattresses down, put them next to each other and sleep sideways on said mattresses. I jokingly said ehh lets just keep them normal in your bunkbed and we will just sleep 2 and 2. They believed me and bought into the idea pretty hard. So they put me(the biggest person in my zone) on the top bunk and my comp shared the bottom bunk with the chileno. So head to feet. Luckily i had brought my sleeping bag so we were ok. Super fun times. Especially considering i usually sleep diagonal and curled into a ball because if i don’t i am to big for the bed. So my feet hung of the edge that night. Super comfortable. But the next day made up for everything. So Elder Bednar came to Buenos Aires and did a conference with the South American South area missionaries. That means Argentina, Chile and i think like Paraguay but not sure on that one. But very small area. But his conference was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It started out with technical difficulties and then after like 30 seconds of him talking but us not hearing anything it got fixed and we ended up watching the rest. But he is such a good speaker. He talked about like everything from note taking to how to teach. And at the end he did a question and answer session with the missionaries that were at the conference center in Buenos Aires. But he started out explaining that there will be very few times in the life of those missionaries where they will be able to ask a member of the quorum of the 12 questions in  as small of a setting as 800 missionaries is. So he advised against certain types of questions. His example " Where is the sword of Laban?" He just looked dead into the crowd and says i don’t know. I don’t care. Neither should you. Then he explained we should ask questions that would lead to an answer that only someone in his position could answer, such as what are the concerns of the first presidency and the quorum of the 12 for this area? It was an amazing conference and I'm sorry i don’t have the time to write it all out for you. Then after the conference we had an intercambio (exchanges) with the Zone leaders. I worked with Elder Dayton. Nice guy, it was a good day we enjoyed it. We got here at the same time so it was interesting to see how we have changed. In other words how everything has changed. Like almost literally everything. August 13th was a long time ago. But it still feels like yesterday. 

Anyway so the other day we made fried oreos. And yes they were delicious. Then Elder Yson and i woke up early to do insanity. So i think we almost burned off some of the calories we had eaten the night before. It was glorious i shall not lie. Worth it. 

Also to explain the picture of the cat, the other elders got home and found a cat in front of the house. So obviously they picked it up and carried it in the house and put it in my comps bed. Where it proceeded to cuddle with his teddy bear for a good half hour. Until we came upstairs. It was pretty hilarious not gunna lie. MY comp took a video of it. 

I am so sad that Brother Hickman passed. He was definitely the biggest old man boss ever. "You preach, I drive" was that guys motto for the 4 years we were together and he used that every month. But he taught me so much that i use that in my companianship almost everyday. Everytime Elder Eyring talks about the "old man who taught him the importance of....." i always think of Brother Hickman. That really stinks that he passed away. Send my love to his family.

Ok so last notice. President Bluth went to the states this week because he has a tumor in his throat that is stopping him from being able to talk. So the doctors here in chile sent him back to the states for an unknown period of time. So while we are waiting we are asking 2 things as a mission. 1 prayers, and lots of them, and 2 the mission is doing a slideshow of papers that say we are praying for him. For yall it would be just a paper that says "We are praying for you in Washington." In the bucket is an example simple but a guideline. If you could send that to me in email next week i would appreciate it. You can color it or do whatever you want. Thanks i love yall

Elder Galbreath

So i thought about something i would like in my package. If you could send me a rubiks cube that would be cool. And any other little mind games like that. I miss thinking and im training to get that part of my brain back in use. (maybe a little booklet of like math wouldnt hurt) 

Also thank you for teaching me how to lead music. Since Elder England plays the piano like a boss i lead the music every week and Hermana Bluth complimented me on how well i do it. So thanks mama.