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.

Hey so it's Tuesday!

I’m sure you all almost thought you didn’t have to worry about hearing from me but haha surprise!!!!! So this week ,yesterday, we had a zone activity but because we have to rely on buses we had to wait to come back home. Unfortunately we had to wait 2 hours for a bus to pass. No idea why a bus didn’t come earlier like normal but we didn’t get back until like 6:30. And we had appointments so we had to go work. But good news is we got permission to write today instead.

So this week was pretty good we just kind of did mission stuff. You know zone conferences, exchanges, walking into the middle of nowhere to contact, and baptizing a 92 year old and her granddaughter. Yeah, you read that all right

So Tuesday I had an intercambio in Friere with a guy from my district name of Elder Sanchez. Cool guy from Peru. He is actually a lawyer legally licensed and everything. Convert of like 2 years. But he studied a lot before the mission so he and I had fun talking about books and stuff we had read. Both of us walked away with books we are going to read after the mission now. I’m excited. 

Then Wednesday we had to go to Temuco for a zone conference with President Bluth and the zone of Victoria. We are 2 small zones so we are together. But we had to be there at 9 which is impossible to do from Loncoche so we had to sleep all in Freire Tuesday night. Which is great and all unless you realize that they have 2 mattresses for 4 people. Gave my comp the couch and I took the floor. Wasn’t horrible. Slept on worse floors before of that I will not lie. Haha. But the conference was good we are really focusing on "teaching repentance and baptizing converts" so we talked a lot about that. 

Saturday was the big day. We have been teaching Berta and Katherine for a month now and the day of their baptism arrived. So we spent all day working on filling the baptismal font and stuff. And then we got a call from President Bluth saying how he was coming down for it. So that was like uhhhhhhhh AAAAHHHHH. Like I have always had that horrible doubt in the back of my head that says like oh no what if they back out, but that like doubles when President is there. Especially because Berta is 92 years old. And very deaf. She didn’t understand much she just liked how she feels when she comes to church and wanted to be baptized. But she is 92 and very old so we didn’t say no. But her granddaughter is 17 and she is super cool is thinking of serving a mission at this point. So we did that this weekend. Super fun days though. Everything went down good though actually we had our ward mission leader do the baptism so that was really cool. He wasn’t active when his son was baptized but he told me how that made him sad but yeah it happened so now he just has to take care of Katherine now. YYYEEEEAAAAHHHHHHHH hermanamiento!!! I think in english we say fellowshipping but I ain’t to sure at this point. But so that was super dope. 

Monday we went to some little waterfalls in Gorbea and it was super dope. Did some games and stuff and one of them was capture the flag. So I went hardcore and liked army crawled through bushes off to the side so I could get behind them and snuck up from behind to get their flag. I am also happy to report that it worked so we won capture the flag. It was super dope super happy about that. But really a fun pday. Also did some amateur rock climbing to get a rugby ball that fell into a river. Long story but it ends with us with the ball and the guy I was with was very dirty. 

I love ya’ll a lot and I hope ya’ll have a great week. Stay safe, be strong.

Profound spiritual truth cannot simply be poured from one mind and heart to another. It takes faith and diligent effort. Precious truth comes a small piece at a time through faith, with great exertion, and at times wrenching struggles. The Lord intends it be that way so that we can mature and progress“ (Richard G. Scott,Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge, Ensign, Nov. 1993,

Elder Galbreath

Happy Valentines Day

Well the day of love has passed. In other words absolutely nothing for a lone single missionary in south america. But this was still a good week so here we go.

So this week was pretty normal till Thursday. Because it is the beginning of a new cambio our district meeting was on Thursday so i did an intercambio here in Loncoche with a guy in my district called Elder Aravena. He is chilean and training a peruvian. So we worked together on Thursday, found some...interesting people. One lady we aren't quite sure if she was just super ditzy or drunk but she said yes to every single question, if the what are your opinion questions, but she also said yes to getting baptized. Granted we arent sure if she understood us but i had Aravena challenge her so i know it wasn’t my spanish, haha. Other than that we went to this place outside of town to teach and hopefully find some people so that was cool. Friday morning we go to Pitrufquen to get medicine for my comp because he has been under the weather for a while now so we met up there and he had called Hermana Balden to set up a Dr appointment in Temuco. So right after lunch we had to go take a bus up to temuco. But here in Loncoche the buses are less than punctual so the bus didn’t get there until it was 45 minutes late. So that means we were also 30 minutes late. So we finally get to the clinic when we find that the doctor had left but they fit us in with someone else and we had my comps appointment. So he thinks my comp has gastritis. So he prescribed him some medicine to help and we have to go back next week to make sure everything. But my comp is feeling slightly better so hopefully he is good. But we get out of the clinic at like 8:10 so we got to the bus terminal to find that.....there are no more buses. Yayy...... so we call the ZLs to see what they want and they tell us to call another sector in temuco and stay the night. Not much else we can do here. So we stayed the night in another missionaries house. The good news is they have a really nice house and extra mattresses so we did not have to sleep on the floor. But i woke up still pretty tired and we came back to Loncoche. So that was one heck of an adventure. Sunday another short adventure Elder Yson and I had to go to Gorbea because they do not have priesthood members to bless the sacrament. So every week some elders go over to Gorbea to help out. But being Loncoche the bus didn’t come till super late so we got there like 10 minutes late and wow I have never felt more like a movie star we called when we got into Gorbea and they sent a car to get us so we didn’t have to walk all the way to the chapel, we had like 5 people outside to greet us and found out they had delayed the meeting until we got there. Yeah we are kind of big shots here. Haha so that was my famous person experience.

We went to Temuco this morning to do my paperwork to get a new carnet as I just got my passport with the new visa stuff. So that was pretty cool. And also sucky cause imagine the lines you expect at like the DMV but like double that. About and hour and a half wait. Super dope.

So I love y’all keep going strong. I ponderized the standard of truth this week. It was super awesome I really liked it. Especially about how no unhallowed hand can the stop this work from progressing  (or something like that not sure how it goes in english) but it was really cool. This is the Lords work.

I love y’all more than you know,

Elder Galbreath

I'm a grandpa! My trainee is training

Elder Duffin called me this morning to let me know he is going to be training. Sorry just super pumped about that. I’m a grandpa Anywho so this week was super good though had a couple stuff go down. So we started off the week we did an activity in our plaza here in Loncoche we put up a whiteboard and a poster and asked the people “How do you show your love to your family" and had people write their answers on these little hearts we had cut out. It was cool talked to lots of people and we got some good people out of it. Fun little activities to get our name out there a little more.

Saturday we had our zone conference and had some good training stuff. But right after i made pancakes for the zone as a way of saying goodbye to those who are leaving. They turned out alright. Nothing great out of this world but alright. Only had one guy die in our zone this cambio Elder Espitia from Columbia/spain. He was born in Columbia but at like 12 he moved to Spain. But real nice guy helped the zone out a lot. But he is also tiny hence the photo in the bucket. 

Then after the conference we had to help a family move from their house to another one close by. Actually we are in process to find them a new house so we can get the house they are in now because it is like a perfect mission house. But that is on the backburner for now. So we went, ate lunch, ate a lot and helped move the big stuff right? So we are moving the refrigerador when they call us over and they had also made an asado! Oh my gosh so much food but it was so good. Had 2 plates of spaghetti for lunch then an asado. Great way to start a fast in my opinion. But so we ate again and kept moving stuff. So that took up like a ton of time with all the food and the couches and big freezer they have. But it was good. Then we went to visit a couple investigadores and that was the day really. Sunday was super dope so saturday we had taught this old lady and her granddaughter about tithing and fast offerings and committed them to pay after their baptism like normal but on sunday the old grandma who is 92 just came with some money and payed her tithing. So that was like awesomely super dope. Probably the coolest thing that happened to me during church. So after church we had our branch council which...well we showed up so that was good. Like noone was there. Super funny. But that is kind of our life here in small branches. So sunday night we were walking and just kind of contacting until we had to go back all our of appointments had fallen. So we were contacting and we went to this street we had contacted like a week before so we started to turn around when i got this hard ugly feeling in my gut so i was like no we are contacting here. So i felt better when we started contacting and we yelled at the gate and heard a guy yell come on in. So we started walking in and there is this guy working so we presented ourselves said what were are doing and promised blessings. He said come in and we walked into this woodshop.

This guy makes the most beautiful things i have ever seen in my life from wood. He starts telling us all these stories of stuff he has made and i am flabbergasted. It was so amazing. Turns out he had made a tree of life scene for a mission president in Osorno and has 2 kids that are members of the church. Super awesome very spiritual man very deep spirit. So that was super dope.

So i realized sunday I haven’t shared my testimony with yall lately. So i know more than anything else that God loves us and he takes care of us all the time. That he has never, will never and is not abandoning us. He is always by our side and showers us with his love at all times and in all places. He loves us so much. I know Jesus suffered everything for us to let us be here and enjoy what we enjoy. I know that when one repents of our sins we can feel better and cleaner than we have ever felt. I love the Savior. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and helps us draw closer to him. I have seen miracles come to pass because of the power behind this book and the restored priesthood. I love the scriptures and how i feel when I read.

I love yall

Elder Galbreath

Mission Broadcast

Well this week was super dope. Wednesday we had a super awesome mission broadcast. and did some cool little stuff during the week to end with a branch activity.

So here we go.

So Tuesday we just worked normal stuff nothing to big. just contacting and…that. Wednesday was awesome we had to go to Temuco and we had to leave at like 9 because we live in the middle of nowhere and you never know when a bus will pass by. So we left and got there at like 12 so we had an hour to go to lunch so we went to… Jacks. Expensive, slightly, worth it for a nice american cheeseburger, oh yeah. But because it is also right next to the chapel in downtown Temuco we had like 3 zones in that place. Guys made bank on the missionaries but they are nice and usually help us out a little. But it was super cool saw a couple guys from the CCM that I haven’t seen basically for a year now. Super cool to see them and hang out with them again. Then we all sat down in the chapel and watched this mission broadcast. It was probably the best broadcast I have ever seen on the missionary work. And one of the cool parts was supposedly if you are an elder and awake you were watching that broadcast in that moment. I actually saw Megan O’Neill in the crowd there. It was kind of funny. But Elder Bednar, Anderson, and Oaks all addressed us with Sister Oscarson and Bishop Waddell or something like that from the presiding bishopric. Or in other words AWESOME. Elder Bednar is a spiritual monster seriously. It was super good though. Then we got back and worked normally only had like an hour and a half to work though cause obviously we got back kind of late.

So then Thursday was pretty normal, we found a couple cool people and visited some investigators. Also the day was really hot. 

                               We finally got into a house ;)

So actually all the week was really hot it kind of sucked. But we got bored at night so we hog tied elder Quezada with some zip ties at night. It was pretty funny. Not gunna lie.

Friday was kind of the same thing. But no hogtying.

Saturday was a dope day. We went and played volleyball with this group of like 20 people. It was kind of lame not gunna lie. The coach just had everyone do like drills the entire time. It is a completely open group but they just train a ton. But we went to find new people to share with and it worked. Found like 3 cool new people to share with and a reference for Temuco. Also the biggest thing is we are trying to get more well known here in Loncoche. So 20 people now know more about us. It was cool. Then saturday at night we had a family home evening for the branch. Hawaiian night. Played minute to win it games. It worked, we played and we we did have Hawaiian stuff. Granted like 5 people came but hey details right. But we did our part. Also I wore a lava-lava. Super comfortable. Like wow, totally down for that.

Praying a lot for Bro Hickman and Sister Wilks. I just got a card from Sister Wilks. Tell her thank you and I love and miss her.

Lasagna sounds awesome. I made chicken again this week. Not fried just normal stuff. But it was good.

Love yall

Elder Galbreath

Hey...

Sorry couldn’t think of a cool subject line this week. I feel like that is the most stressful part of writing yall. Think of a good line.

So this week was good did lots of cool little stuff. So tuesday the ZLs came down and did an intercambio with us. Sounds good right? The problem is they didn’t tell us which usually isn't a problem we still had plans and stuff but they both wanted to work here. Like have 4 people here in one sector. So my comp and the one ZL

took the plans and Elder Espitia and I worked together just touching doors all day. It was long but it was fun to talk with him. He is a tiny little guy from columbia who moved to Spain when he was like 12 or something so he randomly  talks in vosotros at times. Its pretty funny. The english translation of that would be like imagine if a guy randomly started using scripture talk instead of speaking normal. Its similar. But it was a good day. The next day we had interviews with President. That was good but they changed our hour of interviews so we had to be over there are 9 which means the latest we can take a bus is at like 810. But there does not exist a bus at 810. So we left the house at like 7:30 to take a bus that passed at like 7:45 and we got there half an hour early. Which for us was pretty lucky lots of times we are late because there isn’t a bus. But we got there and had our interviews. Always good to talk to Pres and Hermana Bluth. They are pretty awesome. But then on the way in to my interview Elder Yson from the other companionship asked me for my phone to make a call. So i gave it to him because they had lost their phone a couple days ago. But afterwards i assumed he had taken it with him when he left the chapel. So we didn’t realize that he didn’t have it until we got back to Loncoche and he told me that had given it to the ZLs. So that was interesting. But the next day the other guys went to Pitrufquen to get the phone then to Temuco to recover the phone they had lost a while ago. So that was an event and a half. But we are now back online with our Nokia brick. Its bluetooth name  is BFG. Props to you if you remember that reference. (Mom you better get that)

But then last sunday we had lunch with a guy named Eduardo who we are helping reactivate, he has a testimony that is rock hard only let work kind of get in the way. But he told us that he was having troubles with the fasting. So we offered to fast with him this week. So sunday we did it. I just was praying that he would be able to keep going and be able to do it. At the beginning i asked just to make it easy for him and if it had to be i would take his trials to put it. Make it hard for me but easy for him. And wow it worked. I have never been thirstier during a fast. But we both did it and on sunday he told us how he didn’t even feel a little thirsty or hungry like he was afraid of. So now he is all fired up and back on track to be able to do it

again and keep going. He shared his testimony with us about that and wow it was strong. I share this with yall to let you know that i know that prayer really works. That when we ask for something righteous and have faith it will happen. I asked to let it be easy for Eduardo. And it worked. I had to pay a little more but hey it worked. So that was my awesome spiritual experience for the week. Prayer. ITs a thing. Also sunday a guy gave a talk about the word. How words can harm more than anything. He shared a story about how "all the bad feelings in the world got together and tried to figure out how to break up this marriage. Everyone tried something but love always conquered. at the end a little feeling stood up and said i can do it give me 2 months. And he left. 2 months later all the feelings got back together and this little guy came walking in and said its done. They are through. Everyone wondered how he did it because all of them had been trying for years. He said it was simple. My name is Criticism." It was super powerful and then he talked about how even the littlest word can destroy a relationship thats why we need to bridle ourselves and keep our criticisms in check. Super good talk.

Thats just about my week for yall. I love you and talk to you next week.

Elder Galbreath

wow

This week was super weird. Did alot of stuff. But of course the momentyou sit down at the computer you forget everything. So here goes trying to remember stuff.

So Wednesday we did an activity in the plaza here in Loncoche it was pretty awesome. We put a poster that said What are your goals for 2016? And had a ton of people write down goals and stuff. We gave out juice to everybody as well it worked really well. Talked to more than 150 people in like 3 hours and pulled a few really good futures out of it. Also ended up talking to some kids who are on the local rugby team here in Loncoche and Elder Yson offered to help them. So that was really cool. But behind every story there has to be a chaotic story right? So setting up for this thing was crazy we used the white board from the church and a table also from the church because it is like 2 blocks away. So Elder Yson and I being the bigger guys go over while England and Quezada wait with the stuff. So We start walking along rolling the white board but it is really slow and REALLY noisy. So we think Well if we lifted this up it would be faster. So i win being bigger so i pick up the white board throw it on my back and walk the next 2 blocks to the plaza. Uphill. I couldnt see anything but it was pretty funny looking i was told. I believe them. So we do all the activity and….i throw the white board on my back, put a jug of water in one hand and walk back to the church. It was a long day. But a good time. And worth it.

So the next day we did a service stacking 12 meters of firewood in this guys backyard so it could dry during summer. But the guy is old

and so stubborn we start going but one of the towers is starting to fall. So i suggest that we stop and rebuild it so it doesnt fall. He says no its fine its always like that. I dont know so we keep going. We get almost done with that stack and.....the end tower basically falls over. So Yson catches it before it goes and we start moving the wood so it will not all fall and get to the point where it isn't moving, but you can see that it is going to fall again. So i then argue with him for 5 minutes to let him take the rest of it down to be able to make it more stable. At last he let us do it and we started going. At last. So that took a good 2 hours for a service project that should have been an hour. Old people. They are annoying. Don’t get me wrong Dad i love you but still. Friday i went with Yson to teach Rugby to these kids. Well i taught how to push and not get tackled. Turns out that after 10 years of playing football as a lineman i do know how to push people. I completely destroyed these chileans. but then we started running and the tide turned slightly. I held my own but they didnt lose as badly. Stupid 2 hand touch.

Saturday we had another service moving a ton of dirt from the front of this house to  back. I was on shovel duty the entire time. About 3 hours of shoveling dirt into wheelbarrows. I could do it but i am not as good as i used to be. But my stubborness lets me keep going and not take breaks. So thats still good. But that was kind of the week. Im sure I'm forgetting something but yeah. Im doing good still working hard. I love yall

Regresar con Honor. Volver con Honor. its the same.

Javier and Catalin are doing great. Teaching some of the family now actually. Super awesome hope it goes well.

Love yall.

Elder Galbreath