Ok the time here is literally flying by, it seems like just
yesterday that I was emailing you all telling you about my first week in the
mission field, it is unreal. This week has definitely been a week a miracles
and hard work and I love it! It has been so amazing to see people and their
lives change in just a short period of time. However I am always thirsty
because Chilean people never hand out water, only juice or soda, and it kills
me. Pero, es no importa.
This past week Elder Jones and I have been doing a lot of
work with less active members of the church and we have been teaching lessons
to many people from Haiti, and they speak English!!!! It is really cool but
weird to speak in English now, it kind of freaks me out but it was easy to talk
so I loved it. Anyway our ward that we are serving in has a ton of people who
were baptized in the past, but they never come to church, so there are about
900 people in the ward, but only 60 come to church on Sunday. So Elder Jones
and I have been going to as many of their houses as possible and trying to talk
with them and to let them know that we love them and that the Lord loves them.
Many of these people have problems with drugs or alcohol, so we tell them that
we want to help them overcome their problems, which we do and it is amazing to
see how much people want to change, but how powerful addicitions can be.
Everyday as we work to find people to teach, we were not
having much success getting into peoples homes to teach, but that all changed
on Sunday. In the ward that I am in no one can play the piano, so I have to
play every Sunday, and people are very interested in playing the piano. So when
we go visit people we offer to give piano and English lessons if they will let
us teach them, and it has opened doors for us. Also, as we have gone and
visited people this week, I have used my nerdy math skills to help out people
and let them teach because all of them want me to tutor their kids. So the
moral of the story is, study hard in school and develop any talents that you
have because you never know how you can use them to help bless the lives of
other people.
All of you are probably wondering why my email has this
title, and it is a funny story. Down here in Chile, there are dogs everywhere
you look, literally if there is air to breathe I guarantee you there will be a
dog within 15 feet of you. That may sound cool, but all of these dogs are
scarred and dirty from living on the street, getting in fights with other dogs
or being hit by cars, so the dogs are nothing like the cute puppies you see on
social media. As Elder Jones and I were walking home this week we were almost
bit by a huge brown dog, it followed us and chased us, but luckily it turned
around and went back to its lair. There are also a ton of cats here too that
hop from roof to roof of the houses and fight each other on the roofs, it is
hilarious to be walking down the road and see a literal cat fight break out on
the roof hahahaha. So the snake part of the email is not about the animal, it
is about the women that are down here. So someone once told me there were
beautiful women in Santiago, but whoever told me that is a liar because they
are definitely not. As we walk home all the time they yell at us, I do not know
what they say but Elder Jones says they are calling us, and I quote,
"delicious gringos" and if you hear the way they say it, you would
barf. So we call them snakes because they are exactly like them.
Things are going good down here in Chile, we are working
hard and teaching everyday, and my Spanish is always getting better it is so
cool to see it improving. I love you all and miss you, and I hope you all have
fun with whatever you start doing this fall!
Love,
Elder Tilghman
1 Corintios 14:9
Así también vosotros, si por la lengua no dais palabra bien comprensible, ¿cómo se entenderá lo que decís?, porque hablaréis al aire.
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