Letter 7/2/2012

hello! it´s been a pretty good week. Lots of work and stuff. So I actually wrote stuff in my planner as I went through the week stuff I wanted to tell you so here goes..

So here in Chile there´s a ton of perros. like all over the place, all strays (wild) and they fend for themselves its actually really crazy but they´re all timid and nice I havent had a problem with any yet haha. So tell Stockton to be greatful everytime you make him go outside. Lots of people here listen to popular american music it´s funny because they don´t even know what it means! I wanted to let you know dearelder still works, and if you want to send any packages letters etc, do it through USPS and to this address-
Elder Stephan Hicken
Misión Chile Santiago Norte
Sucursal Correo Patronato
Casilla #60
Recoleta, Chile

also there is a mission website as well, www.chilesantiagonorthmission.org

cada jueves y domingo (each thursday and friday) there is a street fair called a feria. It takes place on the main street-ish of our sector and just has tons of people trying to sell tons of stuff. it´s actually pretty cool. very crowded. ummm... some food I´ve had so far that I´ve really liked is a completo, which is a hot dog with avacado, tomatos and mayo. super delicious next time though I´m going to put some picante on it. Chileno food is pretty bland they don´t like spicy from what I´ve seen so far. I´ve also had sopapillas which is like fry bread or a scone or something whatever wanna call it and I had it with  mustard haha. They´re mustard here is different and really good. also their mayo. weird. anyway I´ve also had berlines which is kinda like a donut with something sweet like jelly in the middle. they´re way good also. last saturday we participated in the stake activity which was way fun they were on a ¨cruise¨and they all could visit different rooms, some rooms were full of wholesome activites and others with dancing, games, etc, each room was 1 ticket to get in and the good rooms they got 2 tickets when they left, and the bad rooms nada (nothing). after a while they ¨wrecked¨ and took every one in to the chapel ¨heaven¨ and asked how many tickets people had etc. it was pretty cool I really enjoyed what I understood of it.

We have an investigator named Guillermo who has a baptism date of July 15 but still has a lot of work to do but he came to church yesterday WOOHOO and so hopefully he´ll keep progressing. We´re struggling with finding people to teach. A lot of people will listen to us, but don´t want to pick just one religion. I still don´t understand much of what the Chilenos say but I do pretty well with my companion. Other than that, not really a huge eventful week but got a lot done. I did quite a few contacts on my own. The members here are great haha but they´re starting to catch on to my tricks haha usually when I don´t understand I nod my head and say sí but now they laugh at me haha its fun.

anyway, running outta time so keep me in your prayers and the people of Chile.

les amo todos ustedes
Elder Hicken