First week in Santiago!

Hola Everybody! i feel like it's been forever since ive been able to talk to evberyone! Last time i wrote i was in Mexico CIty and now ive been in Santiago for exactly a week now!

 I have a new companion who is training me his name is Elder Garcia and he is from Veracruz, Mexico. He knows little to no english except a coupple phrases like "I dont care" "I win forever" "dont get angry" and "i need to go to the bathroom" hahaha its so funny when he speaks english. I'm in an area of Santiago called Los Manantiales and it's more or less part of the slums of the outer rim of the city. It's definitely been a change of scenery for me but it's me to develop a greater gratitude for the things that we all take for granted sometimes. 

Now onto the spanish, the spanish here in Chile is absolutely CRAZY! I'm convinced that it shouldn't be considered spansih a lot of the time. they talk so fast and they chop of words and they have their own chilean vocabulary that makes zero sense a lot of the time and they add -po to the end of everything for no reason at all. So much of the time when someone asks me something and i dont knwo what they said i'll just smile and say "si" if i dont know whats going on hahaha. Now don't get me wrong, I´m not a lost cause. I´m understanding more and more everyday but i´d say i´ve got some work to do before i´d considermyself fluent or even confident in this language but i know that if i work as hard as i can, the Lord will take care of the rest. 

Now I´ve only been an in-field missionary for week but my favorite part thus far has definitely been the service opportunities that I´ve had to help others. There´s this old lady in the ward here that makes bread for a living and she got sick so she couldn´t do what she needed to dfo in order to make her weekly income so we went over and did everything she needed us to do in order for her to have bread ready to sell this week. We also had the opportunity to help another family do some work around their yard which is actually part of a dumpyard so we helped them move materials that were invading their house area. It´s amazing how much people here dont have yet theyre able to still be happy and find joy in the things they do have.

Let us all be grateful for all the things we do have like technology, the houses we have, the heaters and airconditioners (which dont exist here) our cars, and most importantly our friends and family. For all things belong to our Heavenly Father and we should thank him everyday for what He is allowing us to borrow. 

Don´t get me wrong this is challenging at times, the language is hard, the adjustment is hard, going to sleep in winter without a heater is hard, but i know that this is where the Lord needs me right now. I love you all and i think of you all often. 

Until next week,

Elder Carlos Cabrera