So first off sorry if i spell a whole lot of things wrong, my computer has no buttons on the "s a m" so if those letters are missing thats why. haha super frustrating.
ANYWAY. Haha wow what a week!!! seriously, it has been so crazy everyone. I wish i could explain everything that is going on but i know i am going to forget some stuff. so, like i said, i am in the city of arauco and its super close to the beach, but we still have yet to go to it. i see it all the time, but i think this week we are going to actually run to it for exercise time. that will be so cool!
I dont even know where to start! haha the flight to chile was just ridiculous. seriously. we landed in lima, peru first, but our flight out was delayed a whole bunch so then we were late geting to chile. so then we were in the chilean airport and our flight to concepcion left before we even got there. so we have nothing. we ended up waiting in the airport for about 7 hours, trying to figure out how we were going t get to concepcion. finally we made a big enough fuss that they got us to the front of the 3-hour line and got us ticket out of there. So that was an adventure in its own! We then had lunch with the mission president and his wife, and that was nice. after about an hour there, they took us to a chapel where we got our trainers and then went to our areas! Arauco is about 2 hours by bus (i have never ridden in so many buses in my entire life. they are SO crazy and just pass whenever they want to. i think i might die by bus one day).
The first night was crazy. we visited a few families, i had not one, but TWO completos. The first was okay, but the second...oh man. Lets just say it wasnt hebrew national, and dad would not have approved. plus this old man that we live with likes his super soft, so he boiled them forEVER. hahaha throw on some mayo and mmmm! delicious. haha there have been a few of those, where i am just like "what in the WORLD am i eating???" but for the most part the food has been really good. they eat a lot of meat - chicken, fish, beef, sausage. lots of rice and ´potatoes too. its not bad! i have had more than my fair share of empanadas too. those are usually pretty good. and yes, we have coca cola at every meal. i have had water ONCE. everything else is coke, fanta, peach juice, pepsi. haha they drink so much soda here. i am totally going to get fat. Sorry mary! #YOLO. But we have lunch with members every day, then we dont eat dinner. IM SO HUNGRY. haha its just not their culture. they eat a meal called "once (own-say)" later at night but we work through it every day. we work so hard out here. I think we taught like 42 lessons this week, had a 150 contacts, and walked probably a full marathon. i just come home and pass out! haha i am seriously so tired every day. its insane.
So our baptism didnt go through. The kids Luis and Cristofer didnt show up, and we spent all day looking for them. they both should be baptized this sunday though! it was insane. sunday itself was probably the strngest day of my life. we went on splits so we could each bring different investigators to the branch for church, but Ramirez didnt show up forever. i was in this church alone with all these chileans speaking a MILLION miles an hour at me. I dont even know what happened, but all the sudden i was up on the stand speaking. i was SPEAKING. haha the branch president said my name at one point (in and of itself a miracle, NO ONE can say our name here. hahahaha its hilarious) and then was looking at me...so i spoke. I told some joke in spanish that no one laughed it, talked about my family, shared a scripture and bore my testimony. hopefully thats what i was supposed to do? i dont even know....hahaha it was an interesting day.
Other funny stuff...we helped a drunk man sunday night too! He was laying in this puddle so we tried to take him back to his house, but his freaking litte dog Jimmy was a little butt-head and kept nipping at our heels. Finally we just gave him to the police and he said goodbye. but honetly, sometimes i find myself doing things and i just laugh. like why am i talking to a drunk man in spanish?!? haha its hilarious sometimes.
Our member we live with is super cool. Our house is pretty small, actually its tiny. my head and feet touch the bars on my bed, and the distance from my bed to the closet is approximately a foot and a half. haha our room where we sleep is about a third the size of my byu dorm room. but its comfy and im so tired that it hasnt even been noticable since that first night where i was so confused. Oh, my face touches the wall in front of me when im in the bathroom...so thats just a little evidence of how small it is haha. I really do love it thogh. we have hot water for showers most of the time, which is such a blessing. a lot of people here dont have hot water for showers, so that really is a blessing. haha it is quite the shock when it turns off though! but i am super grateful for that.
Teaching has been so awesome this week. We taught some really cool families, and found some really cool people. its hard because we do so much visiting with less-active that its sometimes difficult to find time to actually visit everyone we want to. We have a lot of work to do with less active though. There are about 600 on our ward list, but only about 50 show up every week. Its just hard down here and a different lifestyle, so it isnt the custom to attend church every week. I love the people though, eveyrone is so nice and welcoming and really are helpful. We had an activity yesterday and a ton of people were there, which was really good. haha they all are so funny around me, because they try and speak their english or ask me to dunk the basketball or whatever else. I have heard "hello hello" and "one two three, what you doing?" SO many times. hahaha its super funny. either way, i love it. I already love our little branch so much, and i know it will just be easier when i can actually understand what they are saying. it only gets better from this point of my mission!
Today is Dieciocho here and its their independence day, so that is exciting. People are super patriotic here. you actually HAVE to have a flag on your house today or else you get a fine. but either way, every house has a gint chilean flag nd its so cool! It looks super pretty. I have been learning to dance the "cueca - kwehkuh", their national dance. Its not hard but HEY im a tengberg and i cant dance. Everyone keeps asking me what our national dance is...do we have one? I told some people it was the dougie...it was all i could do at the moment. So now this poor family just thinks all americans do the dougie. Hahahaha im teaching so many great things to people out here. I taught RAMIREZ how to say "SWAG" and steezy, so he should be just fine when he comes to the states to study after the mission.
Anyway, i need to go. This took longer to type than normal because of this keyboard, so i wil write more next week. I love you all so much! Thanks for your emails and your love. CHI CHI CHI, LE LE LE, VIVA CHILE!!!
Elder Tengberg
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