Chance's first letter from Chile!

hey mom!

i finally made it i dont know if you got my short message or not but i'm here safely and i left for chile that same day i talked to you. what happened is we got on the plane to texas and arrived and our plane leaving for chile had already boarded but they held the plane for us and a couple others. we walked off the plane outside and took this bus weaving through all the airplanes and found our plane and boarded it and left! ha ha funny huh. but i'm here and i have a latino comp named elder bentancur and he is awesome. he is always helping me and serving me and every once in a while struggles with me cause i don't know spanish but we get along. i don't understand anything the chileans are saying ha ha they speak so stinkin fast! it is so hard but day by day i am understanding more. i am not supposed to say anything negative about chile or anything so i will try to tell you positively. lets see- i love the fresh fresh air in utah and i take it for granted, i love your homecooking so much but i sometimes dont realize just how great of a cook you are, and i love my car so much even if it gets bad gas mileage. i hope that gets the point across. but dont worry mother i am just fine. the chilean life is very different than the mtc life, no comparison whatsoever. this is definately the hardest thing i have done and step by step i will finish my mission. my first house was just wonderful... yes i have already moved. my house had a grand shower of 2 by 3 feet and probably 50 square ft. we moved cause the house had problems and our new place is in a big apartment complex and we have hot water and a heater and a nice kitchen! we are living much better than any other elders! yes the weather is freezing here but don't worry i am buying things to keep me warm and next week i am buying long garmnets. i have not seen eric yet but i will sooon. crazy news.. he is in my zone! there are tons of zones and he happened to be in mine.more about chile well we had a ward activity on saturday and they had a bunch of little snacks and a stereo playing a random variety of music from kenny loggins to spice girls to crazy mexican tunes. it was hilarious and they were all dancing it reminded me of christmas in mexico that one night. man they had good food that night. my fav food here is berlines! they are fried pastry things with cream in the middle they are awesome! their big meal here is lunch and we always eat at a memebers house and have interesting meals. i love how chileans are so open about everything. they love talking about all the weird things they have eaten and how they prepare them while we are eating lunch... its wonderful!


Dad!

happy dia del padre! i hope it was awesome. o ya tell mom great job on her spanish that was killer. thanks for the email. my first impression of chile was where am i? ha ha its a lot different than the pictures but its wonderful. today on our p day we took a hike up the mountains and had a blast taking pictures of the city and running back down the mountain. we talked with this dude form missouri he spoke english and we shared some thoughts about the gospel with him. it was really cool cause i have been speaking so much spanish so it was a breat of fresh air. my comp and i have had several teaching appointments and we had a baptism yesterday!!!!!!! it was kinda already set up when i arrived but my comp said it still counts as mine so i have 1 on the score board. ha ha it was neat but i didnt get to see her progress and stuff. but the next ones we have set up should be amazing! its so cool preaching this gospel to people who don't have it. yesterday we were teaching this grandma who lives in a house of members we always go to. the family is amazing and so nice to us and i think this grandma is the dads mom. she always just sits their and doesnt talk much but is so nice. she has listened to the missionaries for years and has never accepted baptism for some reason and last night my comp was like let's go teach hermana nona and i said ya ok. so we went and the family was gone but she and the kids were there and we asked if we could talk with her and she said yes. oh ya -and she can't hear very well so we were shouting the whole time ha ha. so we began teaching her and after i recited the first vision in spanish to her the spirit was real strong and she started talking in spanish and i don't know what she was saying but i could sense some emotion in her voice and i knew it was good. she shared an experience with us about her past and how god has protected her and stuff and we continued teaching and at the end of the lesson my comp was like if you pray and get an answer and feel like you need baptism, will you in one month from today'? and she said YES. it was incredible. she said yes, but i need to pray and think about it, but i think i want it. she has been listening to the missionaries for years and finally has accepted the invitation of baptism. it was so awesome and the spirit was so strong and as we were closing our lesson the family walked in and we told them the news and they were so excited. the grandma couldn't stop smiling. it was wonderful and made me realize that i needed to come to chile to teach certain people that perhaps others can't affect. with my comp, the lord, and the spirit we can affect people that no one else can. we have had many other teaching appointments and are inviting people left and right for baptism, hopefully we can continue and convert more people. it's funny cause whenever i tell members where i am from they say, oh you are from the fabrica (which translates to the factory). ha they call missionaries from utah, missionaries from the factory it's funny. well i dont have nearly as much time to write as i have in the past. i need to go and i didn't have time for london and marcuss letters today tell them i love them and i will try to write them next week. one funny thing i saw in the street was some janitor worker guy who was sweeping the sidewalk with this giant palm tree leaf. it was hilarious he was just so casual about it and sweeping everthing into to neat pile it was hilaroius. i imagine your intense laugh dad ha ha. i showed my comp a pic of our family and he wants to marry london. everyonce in awhile he uses little words in english like wow and fetch and crap its hilarious. its absolutely hilarious when he does his rs in english tell london it sounds like fronk from father of the bride. tell marcus summer jobs are good and rewarding and he needs them to prepare for his mission. jobs are good. well i love you and send everyone my love. bye byeelder peterson

What's new with London?

Look who London met at the single's ward! SSSHHH...she kinda wants to keep this relationship on the down low (we don't want Jess getting her undies in a bunch).

Chance's Email 5/28/2008

how is it goin fam?????

i love you all so much and i never thank you enough for all the support you give me. i really am so amazingly blessed to have the family that i do! thank you thank you thank you! this was a wonderful week! we heard from pres monsons daughter last night at the devotional and it was so cool! her theme was "my father is a prophet" and she just went off on all the cool attributes he has and that we should all strive to have the same attributes! on saturday we had our zone conf and it was an amazing experience! we heard from 1 elder and 2 sisters and they told us their conversion stories! it was so powerful! the spirit is always so strong in zone meetings and i love it! some of my good friends here are: elder hawkes (sandy), elder street of (midway), elder weber (colorado), elder havea (tonga), elder collins (provo), and several others. i am getting to know so many cool people it will be sad to leave them in 10 days! wow 10 days and i'm outta here! i seriously cant believe it! i am so pumped i can't contain myself. i will let you know asap when my flight is. i get my plans on friday so i will let you know next p day.

i have continued to have spiritual confirmations as i teach lessons to teachers here and i get so excited everytime i talk about the plan of salvation. i did a pretty sick comparison to what my heaven will be like in marcus's letter have him show you. i know that heavenly father will always answer us whether it be through the scriptures or through another person or even our own thoughts. i love the spirit so much and i feel like a full reservoir in a monsoon.. i cant take anymore water (spirit) in my life cause im already overflowing! i am continuing to recieve the coolest experiences as i study the scriptures, it is not the same book as it used to be. it is more like my inspirational handbook now and a novel rather than the boring book it used to be to read. i think its cause i am applying it to my life so much more. i did another excercise about all of the attributes of the 2000 stripling warriors and how i can apply each attribute to my life and how i can improve on it. it is amazing how the scrips come to life when you apply them.

go ahead and send that suit back i will try to squeeze into it. hopefully, (but not really) i'll lose weight in chile so it will fit again. oh yeah, i also had to buy a new belt cause one doesnt fit anymore hahahaha, but seriously i'm not fat, it would be nice to have even more weight on. wow some choc covered rasberries sound delicious i never would have thought of that. i still have tons of cadbury eggs so im good on those for prob a year haha.

i am loving my district so much we get along real well and i have a stronger testimony of service. i have a cool exp: whenever i get up and tell myself im gonna have a good day, i have a good day! we really are the masters of our own destinies, and we can determine our attitudes. it's not up to other people but it's up to us.

that's so cool that you have set up the blog and everything, that makes it so much easier for me cause it makes me feel like everyone knows whats going on although i need to send letters still. mom thanks so much for the packages you are awesome and dad thanks so much for the stories and inspirtational talks you give me they are awesome. i love hearing from you every week! as i read that thing about heber c kimball i couldn't agree more. my circumstances aren't nearly as hard as his but i know heavenly father and jesus christ should always be number 1 in our lives. i also loved the words of pres faust when he says sometimes we just need to be unpopular and say this isn't right. i love it. i wish i would have done a little more of that before my misssion. i know standing up for whats right has such an effect on others cause it did on me.

well i am running out of time so i need to close. dad, my comp has his priesthood line of authority and it's so stinkin cool! is there anyway you could send me that so i can show my investigators? i love you so much and thanks for the letters and goodies. keep going strong- eternity hangs in the balance!!!

elder peterson

Doug & Chance's Trip to Thailand

Okay, so they went to Thailand clear back in March but I'm just figuring out this whole blog thing so cut me a little slack.

Way back in January (right after our trip to Mexico) I was filled with gratitude. There must have something in the water we drank in El Pozo because I haven't been able to recapture that depth of gratitude since we've returned. Needless to say, I was in a giving mood! Chance happened to be the lucky recipient of that gracious mood. Why you ask? This whole mission thing has kind of gotten him a slight case of VIP treatment from yours truly. Okay, maybe it's been a wee bit more than slight. Maybe I over did things. London and Marcus started referring to Chance as "King Chance" for the last 2 months before he left. Well, sue me. So, when Doug won a trip to Thailand from Educators ...I sacrificed my seat on the plane (remember the water?) for our very own VIP, aka "King Chance".

By the look on his face in these pictures it was well worth it!