Trenton's Mission: THE ADVENTURE HAS BEGUN!

Hello family! How is everything going? After an incredibly long flight, I have arrived in Chile! And guess what? It is NUTS! No matter how much I was told, I wouldn´t have been ready. Haha major culture shock. My first area is Linares, which is about 3 hours away from Concepcion. We first got there and traveled to the mission home which was about 10 minutes away from the airport. We met our mission president and wife, and they are super nice! Then we went to a church nearby, and ate and had a small testimony meeting. Us new missionaries had to go up and bear their testimonies in Spanish. Then after, we received our new companions/trainers.There were 2 possible white trainers from Utah I think, then two latins. Of course I got a Latin! My luck... but at least he knows English. Well most of it. He doesn´t know a lot of words. Like yesterday, he said it hurts when he drinks saliva. He meant swallow hahaha... I always have to tell him the right words. He grew up in Mexico, and then lived in Arizona for a short period of time. He´s pretty big... he´s like 250 pounds. And he snores so loud. It´s actually really frustrating because I can barely sleep at night. I live with 2 other elders.. Elder Rebollo and Elder Collins. Rebollo is from Uruguay and Collins is from Texas. Oh and by the way I don´t understand ANYTHING. Hahaha they definitely weren´t teaching me this Spanish in the MTC. All 3 of them think it´s hilarious that I don´t understand them, so they just talk really fast and then laugh at me. It sucks because I feel so alone sometimes but it´s all good! My companion asked me yesterday if I take a long time to email.. I said yes. He was like why? I said because I send my family long emails and I email my friends. Then he said oh.. well we´re going to be quick because I don´t have any friends to email. I was like umm sorry but no. (Sorry no quotation marks or whatever I don´t know where everything is at on this keyboard) Anyways back to the culture shock. It´s crazy! There´s so many stray dogs running around, tiny and disgusting houses, and just weird stuff! Like you already know, the milk isn´t refrigerated. So nasty, but it´s whatever. When I first walked into my house, I was so shocked. It was tiny, spider webs everywhere, and just plain disgusting. I was like are you freaking kidding me? Linares is a biking area! When I first met my trainer he just started laughing because he told me how awful my bike is. I got to our house and shortly after we took of on our bikes.. WOW! I sat on my seat and I felt like I was sitting on a metal bar. The pedals were all loose and torn apart. Haha but since then we have fixed it up! You´re not allowed to ride bikes on the sidewalks here, so I have to ride on the small streets right next to the cars. I have almost gotten hit by cars like 4 times already but it´s okay Mom I¨ll be alright! :) The ward members here are really nice! They understand that I don´t speak Spanish yet which is really nice. A bunch of them try to talk to me in English but that just doesn´t work out haha. It´s so funny.. I ride around on my bike and so many people shout, ¨Hello. What. Is. Your. Name?¨ People always try to speak English to me! My 2nd day here my comp. had a baptism interview and I went on splits with a zone leader. He was from Paraguay or something and didn´t know English. We went contacting and as he shouted to a house for them to come out, his phone rang! As they came out, he left me all alone! I was like wow... haha so I started talking to them and introduced us and told them why we were here. Thankfully after he spoke back in a language I don´t know, the zone leader came back. He just laughed afterwards because I told him I needed help. The food here is definitely different. The second day, a member fed us a weird type of egg, hot dogs, and pasta. The 3rd day was some weird squash crap. After I choked all of it down, they asked me if I liked it. However, I thought they asked if I wanted more.. haha I responded ¨no¨. The 3 other elders were like yes yes yes! I was like oh yeah I did like it! Haha it was embarrassing. Mom you said you saw lots of mountains and waterfalls in the picture... ummm I don´t think you´re looking at Linares. It is actually really ugly. Apparently it´s the poorest area in my mission... of course hahaha. Oh and it gets sooooo cold in the mornings here. There´s no heat in the houses, so I sleep with shorts on, then my long pajamas, and a jacket. In the morning I am just shivering the whole time I study. Apparently it´s supposed to get a lot worse here in a month or so! We´ll see how that goes. We had church on Sunday and it was alright! Obviously I didn´t understand everything but it´s all good! I can understand a lot just not everything. Chileans speak super fast here.. a lot of the time my companion will repeat to me what they just said to me just a little slower, and I understand everything. Anyways I had to get up and introduce myself and share my testimony. I think I did pretty well! Then after we just talked to members and stuff.. a lot of the time I have no idea where my companion and I are going.. I just follow him all the time. I´ll ask him but he usually just keeps riding his bike. Like thanks trainer you´re awesome! He´s not a huge help with Spanish.. the other day I asked him if he´s taught English classes yet. He said no because he hates teaching people languages. I was like oh okay, well that explains a lot. It´s all good tho! I haven´t seen my friend Peter yet, but I think I will on the 1st of next month. His trainer is in my mission right now, and he is our zone leader. He is white and is super nice. Of course Peter got him as a trainer and I get someone that doesn´t like to help people with languages! So I have a question, I get super hungry at night because we don´t eat dinner here. I´m not sure how much money lasts for how long yet, so I´m wondering how much it costs to withdraw money from the checking account at America First? Like if I go to an ATM here and withdraw money, how much is the international charge? Can someone please let me know..I want to buy some treats but I don´t want to withdraw money yet if it´s going to be super expensive. Anyways yesterday we went to go visit a new convert. Her house was soooo nasty. I can´t even explain it. We got inside and I had to hide my gagging. It smelled so bad. The 2 year old kid kept hitting me and pulling my hair. Did the mom care? Nope! Afterwards, my companion said there´s always pee everywhere and also poop from her kids. I didn´t see it but I don´t doubt it because that´s exactly what it smelled like. I always feel so nasty coming out of people´s houses because they don´t take care of it. Oh and mom, yes I do have hot showers thankfully. Like Jeremy knows, we have to buy like a propane tank to heat the water up. The bathroom is absolutely disgusting tho. Spider webs everywhere, and just stains of every kind everywhere. Hahaha I can´t even explain it. I´m just glad the members are super nice to me! They laugh because they know how fast Chileans speak and they wonder how anyone ever learns Spanish here. It´s really hard to adjust but it will just take time! I know everyone has told me give me time to learn the language, but usually how long do you guys think it´ll take? It´s so frustrating not knowing what´s going on! We have taught quite a few lessons but obviously my companion does it all right now. I help out with the contacts but when we get in he teaches the lessons. He looks over at me sometimes and I just shake my head like I don´t know what´s going on. Hahaha like I said it´s super frustrating. Anyways I can´t think of anything else to say besides it´s pretty crazy and definitely an adventure! I´m going to try and send a few pictures that I have taken here and see if these computers work better than the MTC ones! And sorry if this letter is confusing with punctuation or misspelled words, I haven´t gotten use to these computers. Every word on here has a red line under it because it´s in English! Anyways thanks for the letters and I love you guys so much! Until next week... Trempin out!!!!

Tweety Bird´s Seeds of Wisdom! Why are Starbursts called Starbursts? I mean if you really think about it and look at one.. they aren´t even shaped like a star. Even if you looked at it for 24 hours straight, it doesn´t burst. It´s a square, and it just sits there. Even when you put it in your mouth it doesn´t burst. What´s up with that? I have always wondered this.. am I the only one? I love you all and take care!