Loncoche

So if my mission had the boonies, well that would be Cunco but if it had another one it would Loncoche. Its so dope I love it. Really pretty down here as well as there are lots of hills and stuff around here. Hiked up one this morning actually. Super dope. So my comp is Elder Cederstrom, he is from AZ. Nice guy kind of reminds me of how I started the mission. Not quiet but not bursting with energy and happiness. Reminds me of how much I have changed. not saying he isn’t a cool guy honestly we get along well. He actually is a gun guy as well so that’s pretty dope. So had some fun times with that. But he got here with Elder Duffin so thats cool. Working with the new guys is fun cause it makes me realize how unprepared I was when I got

here. Seriously they (Duffin and Cederstrom) are both already better missionaries than I am so I'm excited to see where they go when they get a little time under their belt. Elder Parkin from my district is in my Zone and Elder Dayton is my ZL. Dayton got here with us as well. super weird to see them being important and speaking spanish and stuff. Honestly this cambio made me feel old. I’m not the oldest in my house but tuesday the other guys had exchanges so I was. They all have less than 5 months. That didn’t affect me until one of them mentioned that all of their time added up is less than my time. Dang wippersnappers. Seriously though not cool. I hate being old. But Loncoche is super cool bigger than Cunco but still small. Hard contacting here so we are working with old investigators and trying

to break this bubble here in Loncoche. I dunno how to explain it its just like this weird mist feeling here. So trying my best to get to know the sector so i can really start working it here. But this too shall pass and soon Loncoche will be the new.....I dunno what it will be but it will be good! Haha.

So this week we found this ex missionary who served in Chicago actually and he speaks perfect english and german. Don’t know how good it was but he really went on in weird sounds so I trust him. But he is very inactive not that he lives a bad life he just is atheist. Don't know which is worst. But he is really smart and knows a lot about the gospel so we actually talked a lot about stuff and well he did come to church sunday but after to talk to president as he is in the process of trying to get his name taken off. So we will see how that goes as he is super nice and we are actually teaching his sister in law.

Woohoo!!!.......

Other than that taught a couple people here and had some good times.

Pday we hiked up this hill that overlooks all of Loncoche and had lunch on this big pile of sticks and stuff. It was dope. Great view.

Umm i love yall!

Mom

The new house is dope pretty nice counter downstairs makes us feel classy and stuff. We live with 2 other elders a new guy from Brazil and another guy from Peru. Both good guys we laugh a lot and mess around a lot. 

No lost items in transit!

Pancakes....I miss those suckers. Buttermilk does not exist here. I cry a lot.

Hasta ver.

I am thankful for the opportunity to be able to be here and share the gospel with people who would never know. Thankful for my family and how great of an example everyone is. I grow in appreciation for my

Savior everyday for everything that he has done for me and all that my Heavenly Father puts up with me. Some day he will give me the biggest sigh as he hugs me when i return. But i am so grateful for everything in my life that has lead me to the greatest thing i have, a testimony of the gospel.

Have a great week of thanksgiving give everyone a hug for me.

Elder Galbreath

And that's when I realized I was Batman

Can’t hold me here anymore. And it’s official I am leaving Cunco. Going to another pueblito south of Temuco called Loncoche. It is the sector furthest south of the mission. So that is gunna be interesting. I am sad however to be leaving Cunco I really love the people here and have had so many great experiences here it will be hard to leave. But I am excited to go and see more things and have more experiences. My next comp will be Elder Cederstrom from AZ who got here with my son actually so he is pretty new. So that will be fun but also sad cause I have to leave Elder Duffin. Gunna miss this goober. But anywho so this week was actually super dope because they had a festival in Melipeuco called the Festival of the Baqueanos. A baqueano is like the mountain man type thing the people who live in the mountains here. Super dope festival the outfit of the baqueano is awesome. Totally would SASS that. Hair on wooly chaps, actually lots wear like berets basically and plaid. But it looks super dope. 

And the real cool thing is the knives they have. SUPER nice like big knives but the set is a fork and the knife all set in the leather sheath looks super dope. Almost bought one but didn’t have the money on me. But if I find one. But the festival was awesome because there was a ton of stuff like in booths and SO MUCH FOOD. Like probably every other booth was selling shishkabobs of meat and breads and so much meat. And a ton of places had like hardcore asados going on. Super dope. 

And these members had a fruit juice booth going on so we had a ton of free fruit juice. Super dope. And we contacted so many people in that place. Just everywhere you go just people and people. Awesome Also tragedy this week. (always comes after the good stuff) The aunt of our branch presidents wife died and they had been taking care of her for a long time so that was really hard. So we had her funeral and stuff this week. I also became a pallbearer. A privilege I had hoped would not come for a while but it happened. Here in Cunco the missionaries kind of do everything so we had to organize a bunch of stuff and go open everything and clean the chapel saturday morning. But it was an experience. So sunday we went to the cemetery and buried her and it was weird so the aunt that died wasn’t a member so supposedly her family had asked that Adventists and Catholics did stuff as well so we got to listen to the catholics sing and read

scriptures and the adventists as well. I will give this to the adventists though wow that lady could sing like a boss. Very impressive. But that was kind of our week really lots of walking and touching doors. 

Dad very impressive turnout for the match. And that’s funny to hear about Chandler, sorry that he has to deal with that though. I do enjoy hearing about everyone back home though so thanks.

Mom. Calm down I am looking for a nativity set. Doing my best but so far the only one I can find is a very catholic one where Mary was the center and I think there was a baby jesus in the background. So working on it.

Garrett. Oh wait awkward. Just kidding still love you be good.

Elder Galbreath

Temptation at it's finest.

Preaching to the Lamanites

Walked and walked and walked

Ok so good news monkeys are all much calmer now so we do have time I apologize for any complications that may have arisen because of the primate riots. So the last two weeks were good. So last saturday we had a zone attack or when all the missionaries go to a sector and work for a little bit. They all came to Cunco. Literally they contacted all of it. Super dope. But it was really good they did find a lot of people and so we are slowly finding out which ones are actually good and which ones really didn’t want anything and there are actually quite a bit of people who don’t exist. So working on that one. But it was super cool. Then that night we went to Meli to work. Had lots of people to visit including one guy who lives like 15-20 minutes walking outside of Meli. So we go and he is a super dope guy lots of questions but is super skeptical about all religion. He doesn’t really believe in the bible and is always asking like super deep hard question, but we always answer as simply as we can to help him and testify a lot. but so we did that then went back to an old lady we are teaching. Basically the opposite. Lots of repetition and everything about as clearly and simply as one can make it. But she is super nice. So we were trying to explain prayer to her and try and let her realize that it isn’t something written down. So trying lots of that. But we missed the bus from Meli to Cunco at 8. So acting under the assumption that there is a bus at 10 we start walking try hitchhiking and thinking if it don’t work whatever because the bus. There isn’t a bus at 10. So after like 3 and a half hours of walking our branch president calls cause he figures out what we did and starts chewing us out royally, and calls almost everyone of our ward to try and find someone with a car to come get us. so we walk...and walk....and walk....and about 1 someone gets us and we get to the house. So that was a fun day. And then in church the next day president chews us out hardcore in front of everyone twice and the hermanas in the ward. Well i was lucky to leave with my life. My comp of course doesn’t say a word and everyone just chews me

out then someone looks at him and asks why didn’t he say something and he says in exaggerated bad spanish well he is older than me i dunno. So they all return to me and treat him like he was innocent. Darn new kids. I still love him but dang it. But then wednesday we had interviews and that was cool. Got my temple recommend again. So I'm good now. And hermana bluth was teaching people to direct music and she asked if i knew how and i kind of chuckled and said yes i did so she had me show her a little. I explained moms story of callings in the church and she understood. Props to mom.

So other than that the week was long. Nothing real exciting until sunday when we had Maria (the old lady from Meli) come to church. So that was super dope that she could come and we were able to help her feel more at home and at ease with the church. It was great.

Last week heard a dope quote from Elder Hallstrom that goes what we are now doesn’t define what we can become. Really liked that. Made me think of the quote "The Lord doesn’t care who we were. Only where we are and, with his help, who we can become." The point of all the gospel is to change for the better (ex:Mos 3:19) so if you are the same person you were 3 years ago you need to change what you are putting into the church. So everyday be looking to change. Not necessarily become a cookie cutter mormon or a normal Christian but always be looking to change to be a better person, husband,wife,son, etc.. My thoughts that i share in the name of Jesus Christ.

Mom, sometimes in life the grass is just a little bit to high to see the hanging down things. Its times like that we have to move on and trust the spirit.

Questions

So dia de los muertos they don’t have and halloween yes but its not as big. Kids go around but more than anything its little kids and the teenagers go around throwing eggs at houses. Like its very common actually. Like everyone does it. I just don’t know sometimes. They do however have dia de los Santos. Its the day they all go to the cemetery and wash the graves of the family and stuff. Really big, like everyone goes to the cemetery. But that also means that there are a ton of people selling stuff so it almost turns to a quickly take care of the fam and lets go shopping. Sorry thats the only question i remember.

Love yall

Elder Galbreath

Groundbreaking

So this week on saturday was the groundbreaking of the Concepcion temple. Was super dope I loved the ceremony. Actually my old Stake president got to give the first prayer, saw a couple people I know in the choir and of course my Mission President. President Bluth actually got to translate for the Sister Teixera. Actually if you have ever translated for anyone you know its really not to fun and slightly stressing because the person always talks way to long before giving you time. But he did a good job. But very spiritual the dedicatory prayer was super beautiful. Inviting us all to realize what a blessing the temple is. Elder Gonzalez is our area President and he is a boss. So other than that amazing spiritual high the week was all pretty good. We worked like crazy in all types of weather. Seriously like it rained like crazy one day and then it would get super hot. Today it was hot in the morning but it definitely looks like it is going to rain here in like half and hour. Yay. Gotta love chilean weather. 

Huge props to the name of Smoke. Dope name. I like it. He looks pretty good too. Skinny but hey I'm sure Ma will take care of that pretty quickly.

So other than that we did service a couple times this week, chopped a lot of wood. And still have both legs so thats always good.

Ok so did an experiment this week. So for one hour I counted all of my sins of comission. So all of my conscious sins, thoughts and actions I counted how many I did. Then I took that and did the math to find that on a 16 hours and hard core watching myself I sin approximately 6,508 a day. I did all the math and I sin a lot. And thats only the things I do. I cant even imagine all the things I don’t do and how many that would add up to. But a lot. So then I started thinking about how Jesus payed for all of those. Also how he was perfect so he literally committed none of them. Talk about feeling unworthy. Really gave me a good look on how far along the scale of perfection I am. I’m thinking

like negative 1 million. But it was still a pretty cool experiment.

Well other than that we made french toast for a family home evening. That was dope tasted so good. Love american food.

Well i love yall have a great week!

Elder Galbreath

Woo Hoo

Well this was definitely 7 days.

So this week was just so chalk full of fun and interesting stuff so I’m just not gunna mention any of it.

Just kidding nothing outside of the normal preaching the gospel and trying to not be discouraged in my quest to become more like Christ. Its quite difficult. But here goes nothing right!

So this week couple fun stuff we walked out into the middle of nowhere. Well we kind of live in the middle of nowhere but we went even deeper. We always see lots of little houses and stuff on the way to temuco and stuff so we decided that hey why not go over there and knock those houses. So we did. Walked for like an hour and half only but knocked some of the country houses. But don’t get to excited the people in the country don’t want anything to do with us either. But we are indeed trying. We did have this one guy come up to us and invite us to go to his house like 5 kms outside of cunco and we could do like

a reunion and stuff. So hopefully this week that is coming we can go out and meet with him and his neighbors. I really want to do like the old style get up and present our message to a large group of people

like you see in the old videos of missionary work. That would be super dope kind of excited to try it. Hoping it works out. Then we also got to go see this hermana that just left the hospital last week and it was the first time we got to see her in a while. She is recovering super fast though and is already walking around. So

thats super cool very impressed. She actually made the long trip to the church as well and shared her testimony about how merciful the lord has been with her though. It was super powerful. Then our mamita

shared how she feels horrible cause she has like a bad cold and almost stayed in bed this morning. But the Hermana Vilches is like the coolest lady here. She is super strong in the faith. And her son Mauri just sent his mission papers in. So hopefully he will be getting his

call here in about a month. He is our ward mission leader actually. Super dope guy and really wants to go to the states. He is super cool. Our attendance in church was the lowest it has been with a whopping 15

people this week. CUNCO!! But so testimony meeting was short because well 15 people cant take a ton of time. And not everyone shared. But of course the white people did. Also had a less active member show up

so that was super cool. So this month has been super eye opening for me. Basically in our branch we have seen, 1 major cancer operation, 2 deaths in families, 1

old aunt almost die then get better, 1 family of investigators separate and she took the kids, and the normal problems of the mission. So I have been stressed to the max lately and had a very direct and honest prayer this week about how i needed more help from the Lord. I had been feeling like i was just trying to do it by myself. Then i prayed and after i didn’t feel anything. All i wanted was to feel a little bit of peace, little bit of comfort. But i got nothing. So i wiped my tears out of my eyes and went to bed thinking

well tomorrow. That night i had a dream. Nothing amazing but for me it was big because i usually never dream. Like i cant remember the last time i had ever dreamed. But that night i had one. Just my comp and i

walking down the street talking about weird stuff when we turned into the seminary building back home. Walked in like it was normal and i just said hi to a couple of people i remember from back home. Then we went into sister Payne´s classroom and were just there for a minute. I woke up and it was morning. I realized that was my answer. Nothing big nothing overly dramatic just going back to a place that back in high school was such a place of comfort and peace when i needed it back when everything was just hectic. I just wanted to share that with y'all to let you know 2 things. 1 the lord answers prayers in any way possible but it probably wont be the answer you are looking for but it will come. and the 2nd is i just testify of seminary and church buildings. I miss seminary for the peace it brought to me. Always went to the seminary building for lunch and it was kind of a part of my day to be there. I love the gospel and everything about it. This is the only true church on the face of this earth that can do all this.

So answers,

Yes i checked back on my bag but they didn’t have anything. Gunna check once more tuesday. I don’t know if y’all want me to buy a camera or anything or just have yall send me one. I don’t know the price down here I will check. I would appreciate another scarf, they are super warm. Also I know this is weird but maybe if yall find another camel? I actually use it a lot to teach so it was very nice. Or if not a camel some other stuffed animal of approximately that size.  No my photos were not in it. I have this card still, didn’t lose my home credit card, and I already got new scriptures.

Thanks for being patient with me.

I love yall have a great week!

Elder Galbreath

Ummmmm.......

Well this week was definitely full of interesting activities. Going to Concepcion, going to our local police department, general conference, all of it was awesome.

Yeah so starting out with the big news as far as yall don’t know, I got robbed this week. They took my sidebag from the bus terminal when i went with another elder to go see if the bus that pulled in was ours or not. So that is slightly really sucky. So list of stuff i no longer have, a bag, my carefully marked and loved scriptures, my camel, my carnet(id here in chile) my money for the month, my camera, temple recommend, my little study books i had been filling with scriptures, my scarf and those marking crayons i had. 

Worst time to get robbed is right before a huge trip where you plan on studying a lot. 

So the mission is letting me "borrow" a little bit of money to live for the month but they will take it out of future allotments. So this month may be interesting. Also the mission can’t technically help me with anything as far as getting anything again. So if its cool with yall i will have to be getting some stuff this week that is coming. Sorry I’m not happy about it.

But other than that black mark on my week it was super dope i loved it. 

So friday i went to Concepcion to do a return and report during my kids training. So that was cool got told how we all need to work harder cause if not our kids would suck.

But the cool part was definitely the general conference. Watched it in english except for like a couple talks I walked over to the sacrament room to check on everything. But it was super good i don’t have the time to express all my love for everything that happened but just know i was super super happy. Loved all of them. One talk I would like to stress is that of Elder Durrant of the 70. He talked about ponderize. Please if you don’t remember that talk go back and look at it its from the sunday afternoon session. I love the idea and am starting it today. Take a scripture, put it somewhere where you will see it often such as your wallpaper on your phone, the fridge or in your car and be thinking about that scripture during your free moments. You will memorize many scriptures but more than that you will have your thoughts constantly on good things and will be filling the commandment of "treasuring up constantly the words of life" I love the idea and am putting them on the cover of my agenda every week. Very excited to see all that will happen with this. And next week i will get to study another. But think deeply about these scriptures every moment you can. Super excited. 

Loved Elder Eyrings talk sunday i believe about the spirit. The spirit will make good things look better and bad things look better, that alone is reason enough to strive to have it. So really enjoyed that. 

Pres. Monson´s talk was very powerful and i was very worried but i took strength in the promise that angels will bear us up. There is a story in the old testament in i think 2 kings like 16 or something about Elisha being surrounded by an army but saying there are more with us than against us. Then the young man who was with him had his eyes open to see the scores of angels around them. I know that we cant see them but at every moment we have scores of angels around us and the prophet has legions to help him. 

I love the lord and the spirit that abounds from his servants. 

Love yall keep safe,

Elder Galbreath

Another week.

Hey yall! So this week was pretty fun didn’t do a lot but did some fun stuffs.

So last monday we went to the Colico Lake that is nearby. We hitchhiked out there it was super fun. Met a really nice guy named Jose that carried us out there. Then we just walked around chilled, ate sandwiches and had some fun. Very relaxing day. 

Wednesday we had our zone conference with President and Sister Bluth. It was cool, Hermana Bluth loves horses so she actually brought her bridle and talked about bridling our passions and our tongues specifically. As missionaries it is our most powerful tool. Reminded me of a story I think Sis. Payne shared with us in seminary. A young couple lived out in the forest and they had a cow who constantly got out. One day the husband was going to go to town to get supplies and he said sarcastically to the wife "Do you think you can keep the cow in while I'm gone?" She said she would try. While he was gone a huge storm rose up and when the husband got back all he found was a note that said the cow got out but...I think I can find her. He searched for them both. Neither had survived. Words are something that once said even God can’t kill them. So basically major palos to your incredibly sarcastic Elder here in Chile. But I'm working on it. So that was cool. Then I don’t know if yall have seen it a video called Missionary work and the Atonement it is with Pres Eyring and Elder Holland. Super great video that the Assistants showed. Pretty good stuff. The Atonement!!

Then we visited a sister in our ward who is in the hospital in Temuco cause she just had her cancer taken out. Ovarian cancer. So we stopped by and gave her a blessing and she is doing really well actually looks great and everything. So we are praying everything keeps going so well for her. 

Then the rest of the week was just the missionary grind until Saturday. 

Saturday we went to Melipueco and we were just touching doors cause all of our appointments fell again. And so we were going to this part when we heard this guy yell Elderes. We get lots of people kind of making fun of us yelling random english words at us so we didn’t really pay attention to him but then he said it again so we turned and said hi and he shook our hands and started telling us how he had completely changed who he was cause he saw the love of God and Jesus in his life and he wanted to accept our message. He had shared with missionaries before but he didn’t like it back then but know he loves it and loves that we have a prophet. So we were like uhhh....but then we recovered and shared a book of mormon with him and a day to pass by later cause he was leaving. But it was super dope so I'm excited to see where that goes. 

Also a member brought their best friend to church and I had talked to him before and we get along really well so I'm hoping he will really take interest in our message and accept it. Nice kid by the name of Sebastian. He is like 16 if I remember right. But nice guy we actually talked to him at the 19 celebration. We had a pull up competition. He beat me. But nice guy still. 

So yeah that was kind of this week. We got a lot of rain and cold this last week. The weather is just so crazy here. Never makes up its mind. But yeah. So loved the hot hands.

Well I love yall so much have a great week!

Elder Galbreath