As for the dogs, I'm pretty sure that they are all wild, because sometimes the dogs are within the people's gates and then I think that they are pets. There are also a few cats that almost always live inside the people's gates. I'm pretty sure that they are afraid of all of the dogs so they are usually not outside.
The people here are amazing. The work here is great, and I was really surprised with how willing so many people are to talk about the church. The other day we went contacting, and of the first three people that we talked to, all three of them seemed interested and wanted us to come back sometime. Contacting here is a lot different than in the states. Rather than knocking on people's doors, you stand outside there gate and yell "Alo!" and then they will open the door and talk to you. Sometimes they will open the gate, sometimes they don't. I don't know how they can tell if you are alo-ing at their gate or at their neighbors, but they always seem to know.
The food here is pretty good. But there is a lot of it! All at one time. The other day, we had potatoes and meat, which is a pretty average type of almuerzo (lunch). But the thing was the mashed potatoes were probably from 3 potates for each of us. Then there was a small sausage, called chorizo, that is about half the length of a brat, and a piece of pork that was probably almost the size of my hand but twice as thick. It was a lot of food. Then for dessert, the member gave us a piece of watermelon that was probably about a sixth of an average-sized, whole watermelon back home. So far I haven't found too much that I don't like here. There are a lot of hot soups which aren't as amazing when it is almost 90 degrees outside and you've been walking all day, but other than that it's good. I still don't really like olives. Tomatoes aren't too bad, but still not my favorite. Someone here made squash that was amazing, so I guess I do get to try some foods I didn't like as much back home.
In other news, we are teaching a few people pretty regularly here trying to get them ready for baptism. Yesterday, one of the newly baptized members came to church so she was confirmed yesterday. Her name is Andrea, and she is great. She is now a single mother of 4 after getting a divorce from her husband. She is going through a lot of hard times here but is doing really well. We are working on getting her son ready to be baptized- hopefully on New Years.
Another investigator is Carolina. Her mom, Ana, just was baptized a few weeks ago. Carolina is probably in her late 20s or 30s. She is going through a lot of struggles with things like smoking especially because she has some learning disabilities, so it just takes her a little longer to learn things. However, she is progressing a lot, so hopefully all will continue to go well so that she can be baptized on New Years as well.
There is another major investigator, Diego. He is only 14 years old, but is great. That's one thing that surprised me about here. There are a lot of really young teenagers who investigate the church and want to be baptized. The thing with Diego is he is fleite (I have no idea how to spell it but its pronounced 'fly-tay') which is pretty much a word for gangster here. But its definitely different than back home. Fleites are pretty much just young people that think they are super cool, hang out on the street, but they're not necessarily violent. The problem is they have their own accent and their own vocabulary. So pretty much I can hardly communicate with him because I can hardly understand him.
Otherwise, my Spanish is getting a lot better. I can understand most of what most people say, and hopefully it will keep getting better.
Something that we just learned yesterday was that the two elders that are living in the same apartment as us are being special-changed out and they are closing their sector. So there will no longer be missionaries in that area, at least for the next few weeks. The thing is, because we border them, my companion and I will continue to teach the investigators that are progressing toward baptism. The difficult thing will be that I will go on exchanges and so I will have to be alone with a member but without my trainer, so I will have to make sure that I learn everything really well because they leave the day after Christmas.
Alright I think that is about all for this time. I will talk more about everything next time. But that will at least give you an intro to how things are here. I am including pictures that are mostly from the MTC but I will send some more from Chile probably next week.
Feliz Navidad.
Elder Stollenwerk
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