Chilean Independance Day

Hi everyone.  Hows it going? good? good.  You all sound like you are doing great.  I wish i could have been there for the party McKenzie, but i don't think i would have watched the game. that sounds like the most painful thing in the world. Tell me, how is Izzy doing? has she finished that gigantic bone that i left her yet?

Well Chile is awesome.  So most of this past week was taken up by the 18th but before that on the 17th we had intercambios.  I went on splits with the zone leader.  He is Latino.... But he was from Argentina and i could almost understand him word for word.  I still don't understand why Chileans can't pronounce their words.  But the intercambio was awesome. I learned a ton and at the end of the day that Ward had a huge 18 party.  It was awesome! lots of patriotic karaoke and assada (Chilean BBQ).  I love the food here! it is amazing.  This week i have eaten problably around 15lbs of just meat.  It was amazing,  the empanadas are awesome! they put hard boiled eggs in them and this awesome grilled meat.  They are awesome. but the cambio went good and then when i get back to my sector i find that my companion has lost our phone. he feels guilty.... but we are borrowing a members phone, for some weird reason he has a back up phone, and all is well.    

So the 18th we had a day packed with visits, because we are only aloud to work with set appointments.  But all of them bailed on us.... So we spent most of the day in the cabaña.  I have made 2 hats since i have come here.  They are pretty good.  one was super small so i gave it to a little boy in the ward and now me and him are best buds.  I love crocheting (is that how you spell it? because i have no idea). why am i turning into such an old lady?  

I invited my first person to be baptized. We were talking to some guy in the street and we gave him an abbreviated plan of salvation lesson and then i invited him.  It was awesome. He rejected me. but i felt the spirit.  I guess he didn't.  But someone out there is waiting for me to invite them.  Missionary work is way fun. I love it.  Oh by the way i sent a letter to Tanner through the house. i hope that's OK.  But missionary work is the best.  I go to bed feeling fulfilled almost every night.  

Thanks for being such a great support to me and for all of the letters.  I love you guys a ton.

Love, 

Elder Steamer Lane Borup

The Bospue is a section of our sector that is huge.  It takes 30 min to walk from end to end.  So i thought that this sign was funny

we found real mac n cheese! there is a store down here that got bought by Walmart so they have all sort of different great value products

this is my companion looking like a dork.  He is super funny. But really goofy. i guess a lot like me. I made him the old lady hat.

So Much Better

Hello everyone.  How are you all doing? thanks so much for all of the letters! they were great.  Whitney I'm glad you enjoyed the fair so much. Dad those glasses were very nice. Mom I'm glad you are all healed up, and that you enjoyed chalk the block.  This week was much better. I am completely healthy now! So that's good.  Mission life is great.  I feel really fulfilled at the end of every day, and really excited for the next day.

The work is really hard.  We have been really trying to work with the less active this week.  And until Sunday night it had been going awful. We just kept getting rejected. It was hard.  But then sun. night we went out with a member and every house we went to let us in and we got to give a short lesson and then give them a small assignment for church next week.  I am super pumped.  We need to be working with the members a ton more.  There are members that are willing to go out with us and we just need to work with them to get these less actives active again.  

This week in district meeting, we were told that we weren't aloud to leave our house.  None of the other missionaries from our zone were told this. Just us.  We live right on the corner of the most dangerous part of Valdivia, and last year, just a block away from us, they stole a bus and set it on fire for the 11th.  So we were stuck in our apartment again this week.  But i am really happy that we weren't aloud to leave.  When we finally left the house, we walked out side and almost immediately had to go back.  The sky was full of tear gas residue.  We could hardly breath and my companions eyes were watering like crazy!  It was nuts.  we went back out with bandanas over our faces,  we got out of that area as quick as we could.  While we were hurrying out of the area we noticed that there were a ton of rocks laying around. We didn't understand why, so when we had a meeting with the ward mission leader we asked him.  He told us that some people decided to steal a taxi and set it on fire.  While they were watching it burn they would throw rocks at passerby's.  It was nuts.  but all over now.  

Next week we have the 18th, which is the complete opposite of the 11th.  The 18th is Chile's 4th of July.  Except my companion says that it is the biggest holiday of the year. bigger than Christmas.  And we aren't aloud to proselyte on the 18th or the 17th.  But the members have invited us to their houses to eat.  I can not wait there will be so many empanadas!

Well i think that is all from me.  Love you guys a ton.

Love 

Elder Steam Boat Willy

PS please, if it isn't too much trouble, send some bear grylls deodorant.

Let It Rain!

Hola.

How is everyone doing? I hope good.  It was really good to hear from all of you.  LOTOJA sounds awful but i am really glad you finished.  The BYU game sounds like it was awesome! that has turned into one of the hardest things for me to miss, college football.  But keep sending me the scores, i promise i wont let it distract me.  Well this week has been quite the experience..... 

It really has been hard.  On Wednesday we went back over to hermano Santiagos house for a noche de hogar. He told us that he would make us some Peruvian food.  All it was was a huge plate of rice and potatoes and this disgusting spicy sauce.  My companion was having a hard time with the spiciness so he got out these glasses that looked kind of gross and poured some soda into it. Once he finished his drink he noticed that there was something in the bottom of the glass. It was mold.  

We left his house feeling super gross.  That night i had a dream that i got shot in the stomach and was looking for a hospital. And then i woke up with awful stomach pain.  I got out of my sleeping bag and then went to the bathroom and threw up for about 10 minutes.  That pretty much describes my next two days.  My companion was also super sick.  We couldn't leave the house and it was awful.  

Well that took up lots of the week but we have been able to do some real missionary work as well.  We have given 4 blessings to members and 1 to a less active. We have given a whole bunch of lessons. But none of our investigators seem to be progressing a whole lot.  It is really hard. And it is even harder because i cant understand this language very well.  This is not Spanish. It is some other thing.  i have never seen peoples mouths move so fast... its ridiculous.  Even when i ask them to slow down they still sound like they are going a million miles an hour. but it will be good, because once i get this dialect down i will be able to speak any form of Spanish.       

This week has been nothing but rain.  I think i have seen the sun once. and that was last Monday. It rains a ton here, but at least it is starting to get warmer.  It no longer is 40 ever morning it has been bumped up to about 55 degrees.  

I love this place! it is super cool.  But on the 11th i don't  think it will be super cool.  all of the members have been warning us about that day because it is the 30th anniversary of the big uprising. It is supposed to be dangerous, and seminary has been canceled because no one wants to leave their houses.  But we will be out there! Trying to contact some people.  It should be fun.

Love you guys a lot! i cant wait to hear from you next week.

Love, 

Elder Steamer

This letter was sent to us at the same time we received the email from the Mission President.

Hola from The Chile Osorno Mission

Dear Family of Elder Borup,

We are pleased to inform that your son has arrived safe and sound and smiling to the Chile Osorno Mission.  It was a pleasure for us to greet your son upon his arrival and feel his desire to serve.  Enclosed is a picture that we took with him shortly after his arrival. Your son's address during his time in the mission will be:

                                                Mission Chile Osorno

Elder Borup

                                      Casilla 7-0

                                      Osorno, Chile

Sister Rappleye and I love our missionaries and are truly happy to have the opportunity to work with your son.  We appreciate your willingness to share him with us as he works as a missionary and ambassador for the Lord in Chile.  Sharing the gospel with these deserving children of our Father in Heaven will certainly bring great joy and satisfaction to him, and to you as well.  Thank you so much for helping him get to this point.

Please write him regularly–at least once a week.  Your love, interest, and support will be of great help to him.  Should there be any emergency or if you desire information regarding any urgent situation, please feel free to contact the Missionary Department in Salt Lake City rather than go to the expense of phoning the mission here in Chile. 

The missionary work is progressing rapidly here in southern Chile, and I hope that you will share in his exciting mission experience as he writes to you weekly and keeps you informed of his challenges and achievements and experiences.

Sincerely,

President John E. Rappleye

Chile Osorno Mission

CHILE

 

Hello! how is every one doing? this is weird. Every word that i am typing right now says that it is spelled wrong. I don't like this.  But oh well. besides that everything here is awesome!!! 

So we flew in on a little pane and it was super cool. It looked like we were flying into Yellowstone.  Everything here is super green and there are tons of water ways all over the place. This place is really cool. 

We got picked up in the airport in Puerto Montt.  I got sick on the small 2 hour drive to Osorno.  It really wasn't pretty... i ate duncan donuts in the airport in santiago and it all came up again..... 

When we got to the mission home we met with presidente Rapleye and he is super awesome.  We then had individual interviews with him.  He talked to me about being diligent and then he told me where i was going and who would be my companion. I am in Valdivia, my companion in Elder Randall.  We then went to a hotel and I had the best night sleep ever!

We woke up got our visas in order and then we went to the stake center to meet our companions.  My companion, Elder Randall, is super cool, he is soft spoken but he is a really good teacher.  he has been out for about a year and he is from Missouri. (i have no idea how to spell it).  After that we went and had some delicious hot dogs.  They call them completos here.  and they are amazing! what you do is get a hot dog, get some sturdy bun, and then you put chopped up tomatoes and guacamole (not real guac. it is just smashed avocados) and then you put on some cheese.  It is incredible. 

Then we went to our sector.  We are in the Estanque Branch.  They have been struggling in the branch for the last year.  Missionary work is really slow right now... we have three investigators right now so it has been really hard.  We spend most of our time knocking doors and street contacting.  We have got a lot of references this past week so we will see where we are by the end of the week.  My companion has only been in this sector for 2 weeks, so we are still trying to get to know all of the active people in the ward.  That is the thing, There are hundreds of members, i think about 550 just in our ward, but only 90 or so of them are active. most of our work is reactivating people.

The water here is amazing! i was never a believer in good tasting water until i came here.  It is amazing.  The water is super cold right out of the tap and super pure.  The Food is incredible! we do not have a mamacita like the rest of the mission. The members feed us here. And it is incredible.  They are always giving us bread and fruit. I love it.  Our house is probably the nicest apartment in the entire mission.  We just moved in and we have an awesome location an awesome shower and just a really nice set up.  It reminds me a lot of our apartment in Spain.  I'll send you pics of it next week.  Most of the houses here are wood heated so we have to split the wood. The weather is very cold. Its 50 degrees outside right now but it feels like a good 25.  My hands have not been warm for days.  But it makes things feel more like an adventure.  At least there are no Fleas right now. I hear they get really bad. 

I took this pic this morning.  It is the first day since i got here that it has been sunny. It is super nice.  

Quick story.  So we were just about to leave for our house when my companion got a call from one of the members inviting us over for cake.  It was pretty late but we figured we could make it.  We get there and This guy is absolutely bonkers.  He is super nice but completely crazy,  he has tons of ear hair and nose hair and a lazy eye.  When he was pouring the soda he drooled a ton and the drool missed my cup by about 2 inches.  But he was really nice and kind of funny.  He reminds me a lot of Pepe.

I love you guys a ton and i love to hear from you.  If you see alex or kline tell them that i love them and am looking forward to their letters.

Love, 

 

Elder Paco