Staying in Salamanca with Elder Hansen

I did not get transferred this week, neither did my companion, so we are going to stay together one more transfer. Then Elder Hansen will be going home, With lIamilett, her dad is really dumb so I don't know what we are going to do with him. I would like for then to just leave them all, but they are probably not going to do that. Sunday was really good. We had 46 people come to church. That is the most we have had since I got here, so that was cool. Then nobody showed up to give their talks in sacrament meeting, so my comp was a good sport and gave a talk. Another sister gave one and she had nothing prepared. They did a good job. I had to conduct. i like doing that. I got a little stressed when the people didn't show up for their talks, but we got it figured out. 

Today we have been helping people move all day to a different house, so that pretty much took our whole day. That stinks that Utah lost. If they win the rest of their games, do you think that they can get in the playoff hunt again?  Diid college basketball start? Are the Utes supposed to be good or not?  We have to do a lot of updating with the MSL. We got a new computer so that was not good, but we got it done so that is always good. 

Sounds like you have been keeping the roads hot with going to see everyone. Next week we are going to Canela for a meeting, so that will be fun. It's a place I haven't seen yet. There are like seven members there, so we are going to have the meeting in the church house.  Sorry this email is so short. Not much else happened that I can remember and I am very short on time. Love you guys. Have a good week .

Transfers this Week

That is cool that you got the bull elk Dad. So hopefully the next year one of those in the group will be saved for me! When will you know if I drew out for moose or not? That is a weird baseball playoffs, but its ok as long as it's not the Yankees. Also that is really cool about Utah. Do you think they could go undefeated this year? 

The girl that we are teaching is named Liamilett,  You might have to ask Dallas how to say that.  It's spelled different. She is really cool. Yesterday we had a lesson with her and I think she is going to break up with her boyfriend, hopefully. That is bad, but he is not going to help her with the gospel. He has to leave and we were talking with her, so hopefully she will do it. I noticed there are a lot of missionaries that have success marrying people. I am not one of those. I usually have to break them up because the guy is a bum, but we will see what happens.

Transfers are Tuesday night. I hope we will stay together for the next transfer. Then my companion will go home. He said his talk is the second week in December. Church was good. We had people come that hadn't come in fifteen years so that was really cool. Also a convert has been having problems getting a divorce, so they had to go to court.  The husband brought a lawyer and everything and she didn't have anyone, so she was really upset, so she went to pray and came back in and after awhile he just called it, because him and his lawyer had no chance. She had all the things good so that was really cool. We had a lesson that night with her and she told us about it how she felt her prayer was answered. It was really cool. Then the week Diego came. He was my old mission leader. It was good to see him after a year. Other then that, not much has happened It rained some this week. Hope you have a good week.

Love,

Elder Gillies

Working Hard

That is cool about the Ute's winning. I hope they can keep winning. It sounds like everything happened all at once for you guys, but sounds like you had a very busy week. Tell Eric Happy Birthday this week. That makes me sad the Buckner's got released as the missionary prep teachers. I wanted them to be there when I got back, but it's ok. This week we had a good week. We are using the ward list to find people to teach.  As far as our investigators, there is a lady who wants to get baptized and has everything checked off, but she has to talk to her boyfriend. If he doesn't live there, she can get baptized. We are working with her a lot. She is really a good person.

This week I went back to Los Vilos (my first area) for a meeting with the zone. It was good. It was a missionary's last zone meeting, so they bought him a apron and we all signed it.

Dad, I have a question. Is Mary Magdalene the lady in Luke 7 because it says something in John 2, but I wasn't sure. Yesterday a lot of people showed up for church late, and I had to direct them. So having them show up late wasn't fun. This week we will start tithing settlement. I don't know why we are starting so early. Are they doing that up there because I have never heard of that.

 Are you going to go to Donny's homecoming or what are your plans about that. This week a lady bore her testimony about the blessing that we gave her and how it helped her. That make me feel good. Then we gave a blessing to a 5 year old girl that has a tumor on her brain that is like 14 cm. So we will see how that works out. It's getting closer to transfers. This change has flown by. If my comp stays here, he will finish his mission here so that will be interesting to see what happens the next week. If he gets transferred, then I will have a new companion in a week and a half. Today we went and played some soccer. I don't know how to play offense, but with defense I am not too bad.  It was fun. I hope Kylie is doing good from her surgery and that Brandy is doing good with the new baby. Have a good week.

Love,

Elder Gillies

Tyson & his Companion Elder Hansen
Watching Conference
10/3/15 

Tyson & Elder Hansen
10/3/2015

Illapel Zone
10/6/2015

This is a letter we received from Tyson's companion Elder Hansen.

Hey, I just wanted to write you guys and say thanks for being some of the greatest parents of all time:) The scriptures say that you can be known by the fruits that you give and well, Elder Gillies is amazing. He has taught me so much from his example more than anything. He honestly is a pro in showing genuine love through service. So thank you very much.

Just so you know, I am Elder Hansen, and have been the companion of you son since the beginning of September. I was also was his District Leader back in December. I have had some great experiences with him and he has become one of my best friends here in the mission. He has taught me how to play basketball, well shoot well, during our exercise time. If we stay together another change, he will be my last companion and will be the one to send me home. I am from Chicago, Illinois, but I will be returning home to Draper, Utah, which from what we have been talking about, is like 10 or 15 minutes away from where your son Bryan lives. So that is pretty cool. 

Thanks so much and well just know that I love you guys from what  i have seen from your son:)))

 

Elder Hansen

This is a letter Elder Hansen sent to his family and added us to his email list. It was great to finally know what Tyson is doing everyday!

Hey Family. Let's just say every week when I come to write y'all I have the most mixed feelings that a little 20 year-old kid can have. For that I  have not been writing because I have no idea what to say. So let me just tell ya how my life is. Every day we wake up at 6:50 and jog to the church and since I am with a tall Gringo, we play Basketball and well lets just say I might nationalize myself as a Chilean and play for the Chilean Olympic TEAM!!! I'M DARN GOOD! Then we come home, shower and I drink something that is called MATE (see picture below) and eat Granola bars for Breakfast. SOMEBODY NEEDS TO FIND A PLACE THAT SELLS ARGENTINIAN MATE SO I DON'T DIE WHEN I COME HOME!!!! YOU HAVE 7 WEEKS AND COUNTING. GOOD LUCK! Sometimes my comp feels bad for me and is a really nice guy and he makes me Eggs!! I LOVE HIM. Then we study and well I am trying to finish the Book of Mormon before I go home. And well we just have fun... (missionary stories that never get told). Then before we leave to go to work at 11 , we throw a couple darts and that is about it. =MORNING OF ELDER HANSEN

We are in a temperamental climate that some days we walk around and are burnt like condemned sinners from the Salamanca Sun and others we are freezing from the cold chilly air that comes from the mountains on cloudy days.  And some days it can be both in one.

Lunches are always fun. The members are really nice and we eat a lot of noodles and stuff, so don't expect me to eat Spaghetti for like a year. I have a mission to find things that they call POROTOS and LENTEJAS over there in the states to eat Chilean lunches every now and then. Oh and also we need to buy a lot of LEMON and SALT to put it on everything. 

Well the work here in Salamanca is very interesting. It is unique from the other situations I have had in my mission. And well other than, my first sector this is where I have been the longest. So lets just say God wants me to learn stuff from the stress that I have here. I hope i don't ever have to be a Ward Secretary again in my life, because this sucks! We are working with a lot of people, but with a wide range of problems. Family problems, not being married to their partner, lazy people that don't go to church, and well others that just like to have the missionaries come over and eat and try to make us fat, but they are not progressing. LIFE OF THE MISSION. Then the contacts are always great. We find drunks, witches, and homeless guys that always ask the church for money because supposedly, we're rich. OH, CRAZY STORY!!! So Salamanca is like famous for all of Chile because of the witches that live here and they like cast spells and stuff. Well me and my comp have figured out that all those witches are in the Church on Sunday in Relief Society (Mormon Joke). I love Salamanca:)))) We find great people everyday too, just they aren't as fun to talk about.

THE NIGHT!- We get home the latest at 10 (sometimes you wouldn't think we were 20) and we plan for the next day, And then TALK all night... well until 11. Then we gotta go to sleep and well I have the habit of drinking mate at night too and well that makes it so i have to pee like 3 times a hour, so I lay down and listen to EFY music or General Conference until I like knock out. SLEEPING WITH THE SPIRIT. Then just onto the next day.

I am very grateful to be a missionary. I don't feel right talking about all the things that happen throughout the week because there is just so much, and well I am keeping a crappy journal too :( so I don't know what imma gonna do to remember these days... Ill just wait until I die and get my perfect remembrance to tell everything. The mission is honestly great and when you have a great companion it becomes even better. He has taught me a lot about life and how to prepare. Elder Gillies has had 3 brothers that have served missions, so he is a pro at the RM life, and has been giving me tips. So thank you to the Older Bros of my companion so I will have a successful life:))) 

I hope you enjoyed this email. If you want to know something email me and ask!!! IT MAKES REPLYING ALOT EASIER!!!! I have 6 P-days left!!! What do you want to know???? For those who haven't written me ,you have 6 weeks to redeem yourself! 

If you want ,next week I'll talk about General Conference, or if you have suggestions of topics, I am open to receive them.

--

-Elder Hansen

October Conference

So with the conference it was weird. We watched the first session in our church in Salamanca. One person came. We couldn't really watch it with all the pauses that happen, so we went to Illapel. I slept on the floor that night. For the rest of the conference, I got to watch it in English. That was a huge blessing. Sunday morning we watched the session we missed in the morning, so we got them all in. We had one investiagor show up, but with watching it in the church, we knew not very many people would come. The second talk of President Monson, I thought he was going to pass out. He was breathing very hard and moving and talking fast, The new apostles did a really good job. I liked Elder Hales talk, and Elder Hollands and Elder Bednars. All the speakers did a really good job. My companion and I started to "ponderize" with the scriptures. We each chose one and one as a companionship. It should help us a lot this week. We had a really cool lesson with this one guy, He is less active and the girl is our investigator. We watched the 20 minute Restoration video and I am pretty sure he almost started crying. It really touched him and you could feel the spirit really strong. It was cool. Then, my companion in another lesson with a member, he picked up their dog and it yelped. They got really mad and it was weird. The investigator was there, so that was not the way to start the lesson and all that for a stupid rat they call their dog. It was cool to see Elder Viñas talk in conference. He spoke in our mission last month. I didn't know he was going to talk in conference. It was weird to hear his voice in English though. That was way different than hearing him speak in Spanish. They all did the talks in English this time. 

We played basketball today for p-day.  My comp and I were playing. I want to be a shooting coach someday. I don't know how, but that would be really fun to do. Other then that, have a good week.

Love,

Elder Gililes