The most important day of the year! My Birthday

And I wont be there to share it with you. But don’t worry tomorrow is our district meeting so I will be making the cake and partying with my district that day. Its awesome. 

So some cool stuff happened this week. Basically to start off it rained. But not like oh its sprinkling. 

I’m talking Chileno rain literally all day hard core with wind. Basically super legit for a while. Then it kinda sucks. But my rain pants work fabulously and the over boots as well. I was dry all day it was awesome. Great buys mom and dad. High 5! But that was super exciting but I got a little cold from it so I am coughing a bit but luckily there is a fall back. So chilenos are great at giving drugs out. I walk into a house cough once and they give me like 17 pills. So I've been sleeping really well and having awesome dreams about dragons and stuff. Its only slightly awkward when its during a lesson though.... Just kidding I only take the ones I’m sure about. And I'm getting better now. 

This week was also super cool like spiritually. So we visited this lady her name is J. Very nice older lady runs a little store like a lot of people but is having a little bit of monetary trouble so she hasn’t been to church in about 3 months because she keeps her store open. So we have been stopping by once or twice a week to help her realize that the best way to make money is to not work sunday and get the blessings that God will give us because its not really our day to work. But to no avail. And these last 3 months have been horrible for her. Just with her family and everything going on its been horrible. So we had a lesson just with her none of her family just her. And between me and my comp we pulled out everyone of her doubts and problems so we could help her.  The spirit really helped and me and my comp worked super well as a team to do it. And the end we gave her a blessing of comfort and she left with the resolution to come to church and close her store for a little bit to be able to do it. And then she got sick. But hopefully next week she will come. 

We also had a super fun lesson with a family here. They are called the Family R but we mostly call him Hermano Open the door. Basically he knows like 8 words in english like most people here and he always shouts that at us. But he is by far the coolest family in our ward. So we stopped by so we could set up a family home evening/goodbye to my comp who will be returning to the states next week. And when they found out he was ending his mission they all started crying and gave us both super good advice about ending the mission. I’ll share a little bit. basically she said that every mother can’t wait to see their kid and the missionaries who say they don’t want to go home make her sad because when her kid comes home he better be excited to see her. I liked that. I am excited to see y’all. But not for a while. But then he shared his testimony to my comp and I and it was awesome. I want y’all to know I'm in good hands down here in the hard south. Its great I love the people here. Well most of them. 

So to answer the question of mom. Kids do  not follow us. We have a dog that follows us all day though we call him Rocko because we kick rocks and he goes and gets them for us and brings them back. But only the ones he likes. He is hard to please at times. But the kids are either scared of us and run, stare at the white people, or cuss at us because its funny. Kind of depends on the age. But its great I love the people. 

So today we all(the boca sur 8) went to our chapel and played huge game of nerf wars. It was awesome. Most fun ever. Another elder here his dad is a tactical firearm guy and has a gun store so he and I wrecked house together. Very tactical it was awesome. And him and my comp and I killed because my comp just has fun and goes. It was a great activity as a group. Then we had sandwiches next to the chapel. I love the sandwiches here they are called mechada. I don’t know what type of meat it is don’t know if I want to know but its just good. With tomato and guacamole. Super good. My favorite pday meal. 

But that was kinda that. I Love yall. Be good. Love the lord, don’t squat with spurs on. 

Elder Galbreath! (still 18) until tomorrow!

Do they speak the same spanish there?

If they speak the same english in England as they do in WA then yes. Its same thing but different accent, with lots of little words and phrases they say here that don’t exist outside of Chile. Kinda like english in the south. Y’all ain’t a word. But it is. 

Also I almost died laughing at your video. Thank you. 

Boca Sur

So my new area is pretty legit. We are the nicer part of the armpit though so its pretty cool. We have like 800 inactives in just our sector. And we have 4 of them in our ward. Crazy right. So we are just kinda going and going with those. We have so many crazy people. Oh man I am going to have many stories from this sector. We have a lady who says she has the gift of prophesies. Its funny. She told my comp she saw him fighting before the mision and he is good with kicks. He jumps like a rabbit. Direct quote. Frickin hilarious stuff. But yeah.

So my comp is called Elder Ehlen. He is super funny. Makes for super funny times contacting. But his accent is super good so its really funny when he talks super flighty. Thats gangster here in Chile. But the zone is weird. I just need to get used to being in a new place I still dont feel like I am a San Pedro elder still though. But I'll work on it. I am enjoying being here though its pretty cool. 

So yeah. I have stuff to write about. But I dont remember what. Is that bad. Crap what did I want to say..........

This is annoying. 

So like yeah thanks for the compliments on the pictures. I feel better. Wow i am really sorry i can not think of what happened this week. Sorry. But lots of pictures!

Love 

Elder Galbreath, the one and only. 

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It's been a week

So this week may or may not have sucked the eggs of a grand chicken. I think it was thursday we had like 12 citas set we called them they all said we could pass by we had members set up to come with us and everything. And literally every cita fell through. We were walking around the entire day the only type of lesson we had was 2 prayers in different houses we squeezed into before they shut the door. It was horrible. I was so depressed like i just went home we planned a little bit I ate some pity pan and I went to bed. It sucked. 

But saturday was super cool like we stacked a poop ton of wood for a lady in the campo then like chilled in her house basically planning for an hour then she took us to our almuerzo. It was awesome literally her couches were the comfiest thing I have sat in since before my mission. It was awesome. So that was a beast day. Don’t think I told you though our ward boundaries changed so all of our campo is gone and the sector where we live is part of the other ward. So that’s weird. We still live there though. 

We have a kid in our ward who sent his papers in for his mission this week! The kid is super cool gunna be a great missionary he wants to go to the states for his mission so he is working like a boss to learn english. Gunna be interesting next week probably when he gets his papers. 

Elder Thompson is super cool. He introduced me to incense. He is super hippy like holy cow but he is super nice too. Really chill and smart. Having a pretty fun time together explaining how no we aren’t from Washington dc yes from the same state and no we didn’t know each other before hand its a big place. Literally every house. Pretty fun stuff. 

Spanish is definitely still there. I can communicate everything i need to and can understand pretty much everything. Still working on learning more. I have taken to translating the PMG for language study then seeing what i need to work on. 

The mission is super hard. But its awesome and I am gunna keep on pumping. The Mission President just changed our rules so we have more rules to follow and be more obedient. Gunna be hard its a lot of stuff. Here we go!

Love 

Elder Galbreath the 6th

Last week-

ok what the heck hawks. My comp is from Washington to so we are going to be a disappointed sector this week. Dang it.

So cambios happened. Elder Sanders is now in Temuco which is down south of my mission. It was weird seeing him get on the bus and leave. But yeah that happened. Then i was waiting in the terminal for Elder Thompson when the phone rings and it is Elder Thompson. He was letting me know he wasn’t going to be there until wednesday because he had to help finish the cambios with everyone. So I was like oh ok. So I worked in a trio with Elder Haynes and Elder Langeveld for a day. That was super weird, none of us were used to the others teaching styles or working in a trio. So we just kinda did it. It worked ok. But then wednesday came and Elder Thompson is here. 

He is from Washington! From Kirkland or something like that by Seattle/Lake Washington. He is very west side. Super hipster. Big glasses, plays the guitar like a boss. Just is kind of super hipster, but he is a super cool guy we get along pretty well. He scared me though at first we went to get him at the terminal and he said to me the first thing was "I have entered into a covenant with God to only speak spanish" in spanish obviously. I was like oh freak what on earth did i get myself into. But its pretty cool we just talk in spanish all the time and its cool. But i was frightened. Nice guy

So his first day we had a couple citas and took a member with us and it worked really well we put a fecha with a kid named Sebastian, this kid is golden. I think i have mentioned him before, but we stopped by and he hadn’t read the book of mormon because his sister took his but he is searching for it. That’s cool. And he accepted the baptismal date really fast and stuff. But he was going to Santiago this weekend and we have a rule in the mission if they don’t attend then the fechas falls. But he was like i have seen a chapel up there i’ll just go to that one. And he did! He attended up there by himself for the first time. Was awesome. Super pumped for him.

Another cool thing that happened was with MJ. So we were talking with her and she never reads or prays so she isn’t sure if baptism is right for her yet (duh) so we were talking and i just told her listen if you want to know you have to read and you have to pray. If you pray every day and read you will get an answer. And her parents don’t support her at all but i told her that its important what is gods will not her parents and she is going to read about nephi and his family. So Then i challenged her to be baptized the 14th of february. And she accepted.  It was awesome i have never felt the spirit as much as i had in that lesson. So here is hoping.

Hey ma. 

So the food here is pretty just kind of there. At times its really good though. We eat a lot of rice and chicken or potatoes and meat. And bread. The bread here is heavenly. Like holy cow. Great. Its horrible for the body but great for the soul. 

I  teach the plan of salvacion. To people who know something about it it is a lot easier but to people who have never heard about it it is much harder. But we use 1 Corinthians 15 to help and they are usually like oh its in the bible its ok then. So that cool.

Favorite lesson to teach is either 3 or 1 Gospel of restoration. Both are good. Super fun stuff. 

I love you mama.

Elder Bubba

I love you guys muchly have a great week!

Elder Galbreath XI

Cambios

Ok so big news of the week cambios are in! Elder Sanders is going to leave me after 3 cambios. Elder Thompson is coming. I’m pumped he worked in the office before this and is a really smart guy so I am hoping to learn a poop ton from him. It’ll be cool. Sanders is going to temuco to work with a guy from my district in the ccm actually Elder Pulsipher. Thats cool. And Elder Haynes killed (that means he went home after his two years) his comp Elder Baez who right now is probably asleep in the office but the elder that is coming to replace him is Elder Langeveld. Thats right my comp in the CCM. It’ll be interesting because elder Haynes and Langeveld are extremely similar, like its a little weird so they will either mesh and become one person or completely hate each other and destroy the house. For all of our sakes I'm hoping for the first one. So that will be interesting. 

But this week was good just worked super hard, got quite a few lessons this week. We had 2 lessons with a new kid we found named S. THIS KID IS AWESOME! He is super receptivo and listens and asks questions about everything. When we taught the restoration lesson we got done and he was like I don’t quite understand the priesthood part can you explain that again. You bet your two left boots that we can! It was awesome. Only catch is the dude runs cross country hardcore (saturday he went to compete in Concepcion to qualify for the national level) so he can’t come to church a lot. That sucks but we can work on that. And he will be baptized! We are working on some other people now to but he is kind of my sunbeam through the dark clouds now. I decided I was tired of sowing and I am going to reap this cambio. Its gunna happen doesn’t matter gunna happen I decided. So excited for that. 

We sent Baez off with a raging fire of his clothes and the appropriate tombstone. We aren’t gentle about dead people here in the Mission Celestial. (that translates into Celestial Mission if you didn’t know.) But it was weird seeing him die. I got a new pair of shoes from him, and a bag. The shoes are kinda like oh cool they are nice ecco shoes pretty much just like what Garrett bought in good shape and everything to. And the bag is for my crap because I have 14 pairs of pants and no room in my suitcases. But luckily it doesn’t matter how many bags you have during the mission. Baez did that and I thought it was smart. 

It is super fun to hear about you guys and the house. I loved your letters this week they are awesome. The address you should use does have Bio-Bio in it because that is the region which is like the state, that we are in. I got a package from Grandma I think I told you that though. 

I would definitely still be cool with a spanish childrens songbook if you could send one or i can just buy one and it will come to chile for me. That might be quicker actually just on lds.org. And cheaper. But tell me what you would like me to do. I am going to reteach myself piano so I'm gunna start on that again.

Love you guys muchly. 

Elder Galbreath XI

This week

So this week was super fun and a couple key points

1: So an elder in our zone bought a scale and so i was interested and I have lost approximately 30 lbs on the mission so far. BOOM yeah pretty happy about that.

But yeah the mission activity was awesome played some different games and some stuff with the mission. We all got mission t-shirts and mine was huge because apparently I am not even kind of a 2x or the shirt sizes here are weird. But it was super fun. We watched meet the mormons! It was super good the mission mom part was funny couple guys had wet eyes. But when they showed him going to mr mack for his stuff like every elder from Utah went Hey I went there that guy helped me! Then the airport scene was the same Hey I went there awesome. Friggin Utahans. But it was funny. We all wanted to know how he got his name tag already though. Something fishy. but yeah. then we finished it with all of us singing Called to Serve which in my mission is sung more like a war chant than anything else its awesome. And it was all 220 some odd of us it was powerful. but it was awesome.

So this week was hot as heck. I was dieing all day. We have taken to just asking for water during contacts because waterbottles last like15 minutes before empty now. So it works well the people here are all super nice and only one guy has said no in the 2 weeks that we have been doing it. So thats cool. But yeah very hot and all of our citas have been falling so we have had like a lesson a day and a whole lot of contacts. Not an ideal day. But yesterday we had a cita that was there and they were like yeah come in and we almost didn’t know what to do. So that was fun. But yeah.

And yeah we have just kind of been going. Sanders' last week here in Las Americas cambios are monday so we will find out who my new comp will be. Interesting and fun!

So fun thing I got a package from Grandma Galbreath! She sent me 4 killer ties, socks a calendar from Ag northwest and a little tractor keychain.

Super awesome the ties are amazing and the calendar has a bunch of pictures of home, different fields and stuff. Its amazing every since I got out here Ag is like all I can think about home. After the mission and stuff. I do miss the fields. It was beautiful back home. Enjoy it

for me. And the tractor I have literally shown like all of my investigators I'm like hey check this out! It’s awesome right? I am super pumped about it.

But yeah i love you guys I will try and post pictures but this internet is horrible so I don’t know if I can. Next week definitely.

Love ya

Elder Galbreath

Dads email:

Ok so first

1 Hi dad

Ok now that the important stuff is out of the way

There is a guy here who sells scripture cases here of leather hand carved stuff with pictures of what you want. Super cool stuff about 20 mill a piece which is about 40 bucks a piece. Which is expensive i know. I have been looking at them not sure if I'm sold but they are really cool. Ill send you the email and you can google translate it to see what you think.

And if you could compile a list of dates like birthdays anniversaries and such for me that would be awesome now that i have the calendar for the year and stuff.

And this is the cool part for you

So the other day we were talking with Jose who is an investigator and he had a ton of stuff go down, he lost his job, his wife was in a car accident and his son got scraped by a car kinda bad. Luckily no one is hurt beyond some scrapes though. So he is kind of at wits end dealing with everything and he kind of unloaded on us about his son who basically is a really nice kid and all this and is super selfless. But just the show of love for his son and his story made me miss you

pretty bad. I realize how much you do for us and how difficult it is for you sometimes and i just wanted to tell you i really do love you and appreciate you. I probably cant understand everything but I felt like I got a little glimpse and I was really humbled. Love you muchly

old man.

Your son

Elder Galbreath XI

Tranquilo

Last week we had two hours from 11 to 1 to do everything we needed to do and we were in the campo doing fencing stuff until like 1258 so I was technically not even supposed to email last week but I didn’t want presidente to have to deal with and angry mom. Sorry but it happened. 

So I am writing both of you because I have to fit two weeks worth of stories in 1 email. And the videos won’t upload they are to big sorry when this card gets filled I will send it home and you can watch it then. Sorry. 

Ok so christmas was legit like we went out to the campo with a couple families from the ward and had a huge asado (bbq) we had lamb. Slow roasted for like 3 hours over a fire. It was so tender it was amazing.

 Matching Christmas Jammies!

 They got socks from some members

And tomatoes and potatoes and sopapillas (basically a scone). Super good meal. Then we played soccer missionaries against members and with 3 gringos and a chileno against all chilenos I’ll let y’all figure out how that went. But I did score once so that was my proud moment. It was all luck but still. We had to be in the casa at like 8 that night so I went to bed at like 8:30. It was heavenly. Then yeah. 

So the day after christmas sucked cause no one was home. Then the rest of the week was boring.

So new years eve we would have dinner with a member but they cancelled on us so Sanders and I bought some pan and cheese and just did a little thing that was super good but Baez and Haynes were like heck no we need meat so they bought stuff to do their own asado. So they had churripan which is like a brautwurst thing and some pork. They shared and it was pretty good. Stayed up till midnight then out like a light. Not to exciting but Haynes and I chilled outside for a while just kinda talking so that was cool. Then morning rolled around. I am pretty sure almost none of the meat was cooked all the way cause we couldn’t really see the meat with the flashlight so I was super sick. Not fun but I got over it by like 9. and then we had an awesome Zone activity! Everyone from Los Angeles (minus Haynes and Baez because they didn’t want to pay) so two zones got together and we played real football (well two hand touch) and frisbee and did some volleyball stuff and some fun like relay races stuff. WACHITOROS! We definitely probably almost won I dunno. But if we didn’t we should have. We had the only candadian on our team. He is a really cool guy name of Duroscher. Built like a hockey player. Nice guy. We dominated the wheelbarrow race together. But anywho. Yeah so super fun activity. It was basically like just hanging out with a bunch of friends again back home. But you know, different languages. But still super fun. I wore my america socks!! Everyone was impressed.

So this week we had one day where we got like in every house we contacted and challenged people to baptism and it was awesome killer day. Then we had the next day where it was blazing hot and we couldn’t drink water cause we were fasting, and had 41 contacts (read as a lot) and almost no lessons. We figure we where in the sun for about 5 hours. Horrible. But on the way back home we were just dieing tired feet hurt thirsty when a member who drives a collectivo (basically a taxi but on a fixed route) picked us up and took us home. It was a tendermercy from the lord straight up. He takes care of the missionaries. 

But yeah sorry again about the email last week but stuff happens. Got super busy and yeah. But we got the fence put in out there. Looks good. Thank you for teaching me how to work.

Love

Elder Galbreath XI

this neighborhood is protected by guns.

Alarmas are alarms and Armas are guns. Thought this was hilarious

Oh esta semana. Fue genial!

Ok skype first. We get to skype anytime from 11-well later I guess on christmas. Before that it is basically a normal day. So I will talk to garrett about when and then talk to yall. I miss saying yall. Anywho so yeah we will do that I’ll talk to Sanders about when we will come but I’m thinking about as soon as we can so thats in your morning. But sanders and I are saying like 1130-12 our time so like 5 or whatever Garrett time. But here is the catch,. We get 40 minutes to talk. That is all. Not even the proper hour. Sorry but thats what presidente is saying and thats what we have to do. Just letting you know now. But next week I will try my connection with dad to seal it all up. But we will be using a members house so I don’t know what all is gunna go down with that stuff. But next week I will know. 

Questions

Literally everything i have learned in my mission has changed me and my testimony. I am no where near the same person I was and its only 4 months in. But one HUGE thing I have learned is about how important families are. Everything about the evangelio is about families. Everything we do from baptism to temple work is basically so we can live with our Heavenly Father together again, and be with our families while we do that. Like obviously there is other stuff but thats kinda of it in a nutshell. Families are so important and I was blessed to be raised in the best of them. (You have permission to sniffle but not cry here).

Blessings. Once again like everything. But I remember dads job thing was a big thing I remember and yours to. Also I feel just like the Lord is trying me and growing me and all the time I am just receiving the blessings of the Lord. The fact that I haven’t got hurt, just everything. There is no way I should even have half an idea of spanish yet but I’m doing pretty well. Umm but yeah little tender mercies of the Lord are what I see the most. We found a house when we needed it. We get  into a house when we feel like we are gunna die and need a drink. So on and so forth. My God is awesome. 

Serving is helping me grow so much. I love the Lord more than i ever realized possible but i know how little i understand about everything. The moment we start to think we have stuff figured out i realize i know nothing. 

Tell everyone their to help the missionaries out. lessons with members are something to kill for out here so help them out. Love them all.

Ok padres. So Skype thing im gunna try and get on at like 1130 my time. Please tell Gare-bear what time that is for him I think its like 530 but if not please tell him. This is the earliest I can get on. 

Ok so this week was crazy and honestly not gunna be able to tell you everything because it was crazy and my time limit is short. So ok here I go. 

Cambios were this week. We got a call from the assistant which usually means someone is training or being made a zl. So Sander is now a DL! And we are both staying here. Which is weird they usually separate the dad and son after the training. But so he and I are still going strong. And he gets the pjs now for sure!! so thats cool. My entire house is the same still Haynes and Baez. 

Umm Christmas program thing. It was...interesting.I The missionaries sang. WE sounded legit as heck. Booom. 

So one of our investigators se llame N was giving us a ride back to a members house when she asked Sanders if because we thought he was leaving if he would be able to go to her baptism. And we were like umm que? because she didn’t have a fecha. And then she was like yeah if possible like this year does that work for you guys??? So We are pumped to see what goes down with that because I have no idea what happened there.

WE offered a lot of service this week a bunch of members bought wood to be stacked so the first people they call are the jovene missionaries. So thats been fun. Cool story the shirt I am wearing over my button up in the picture is a large. Boom. Ok so it was still tight but still. No preguntas. But so yeah. Stacked a lot of wood. Then ate pan de pasqua to make up for it. Its like fruitcake or whatever that stuff is called that has like the gumdrops in it. That cake noone likes. Its not bad. Not many gringos like it but i do ok, i do. 

I love you both muchismo and will email the 22 and talk to you soon. 

Love you

Elder Galbreath