Arica: First Letter From Chile

Arica: Elder Walker's First Area
12 hours by bus from the mission home in Antofagasta

Hey, well this is just a quick update for everyone back home wondering how things are going, nothing formal or anything.

After a 9 hour flight, a few hours delay and another 2 hour flight, we were in Antofagasta. We spent the first day in the mission home meeting the president, the office staff, and the AP`s. (for dad)---> The very first missionary I met when I got off the plane was an Elder Mangus. He and Elder Oribe de Argentina are the AP`s. We spent the night in a nice hotel. We woke up the next morning at seven thirty (This is typical), ate breakfast and went to more meetings. This meeting was an orientation meeting with the new trainers. The entire meeting we had no idea who our trainers were going to be. We all sat in a circle then one by one opened an envelope (while sitting in the middle of the circle) that said which sector and who our companion was going to be. It felt kind of like the sorting hat from Harry Potter.

I opened my call and read that I would be in the Arica sector, Arica centro district (Arica is a 12 hour bus ride from Antofagasta). I then read that my companion would be Elder Aleluya! Elder Aleluya is from Columbia and doesn`t speak a lick of English. We`re supposed to be teaching lessons today so we`ll see how that goes! 

Our apartment is pretty small. We have a mamita that does our laundry but we cook for ourselves. We only have two meals in the day, breakfast and lunch. Today we ate our lunch on a door supported by empty juggs of water as a room. It was pretty interesting. It`s super dusty here ALL the time and we wear glasses all the time, I might buy a better pair of sunglasses than the $10 ones I have now.

Since we cook for ourselves I do have one request, could you send me a recipe for the key lime pie that I cooked, and maybe the banana cream pie I made with will and also any other recipes that you can think of that are super simple in ingredients?

I love everyone and will write you guys more on p-day (which is every Monday). Supposedly we have lots of time to write e-mails on p-day, I'll try to send some pictures as well. I wish that I had spent more time studying the language before I came, I can barely understand anything here, and yet I keep recieving compliments from missionaries that I speak well and don`t have an accent, so I have no idea what to think. Elder Joos is also serving in Arica but we are in different zones. If you guys have any questions just e-mail me and I`ll be sure to e-mail you right back! On a monday!

Love,

Elder Walker

Antofagasta: New Continent, New Country--Arrived Safely

by Mary Anne

Yesterday we received an e-mail from Tommy's mission president's wife letting us know that Elder Walker arrived safely in the mission. He looks good.

Any letters or packages should be sent to:

Elder Thomas Walker
Mision Chile Antofagasta
Casilla de Correo 70
Antofasata
CHILE

His email address is still good, and he should generally have access to it on his Monday P-days.

twalker@myldsmail.net

MTC: Last Day

This week has been crazy! I'll try to recap last week because I didn't get to e-mail then:

The major points last week involved an epidemic where half of the MTC campus was throwing up.  Luckily my companion and I were safe from the plague. Last week I also had surgery (if you can call it that) on my in-grown toenail. They basically just had me sit on a table in a kitchen (the Enfermeria is under construction) and a doctor ripped my toe up and then cut it. Not too great.  I had to wear a sandal for about three days, and this also meant no cage soccer for awhile.

This week was crazy because we are leaving. We had a bunch of spiritual devotionals and said goodbye to all of our district members and other friends here. As I'm writing this, my companion and I have 50 minutes before we hop in a van that will take us to the Mexico City Airport.  We then have a nine hour flight to Santiago, Chile, a five hour layover, then a two hour flight to Antofagasta. I'm so excited to be serving the people of Chile! Not a lot of time right now because we're kind of in a hurry! I'll be sure to send some pics when I get e-mailing time in Chile!

Stuff is about to get real! Love everyone back home!

Elder Walker

MTC: Keeping a Sense of Humor

Que Honda! Mi amigos en Los Estados Unidos!

    This week was one that was full of lot´s of ups and downs! I´m so ready to enter the field but also a little terrified to be speaking only in Spanish. I´m super grateful for these last two weeks en El CCM to learn as much as I can before I get thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire!

    We are getting to the point though, where we are trying to stay sane. My favorite practice of sanity so far, is this game we invented called "spooning". The goal of the game is to sneak a plastic spoon from the cafeteria onto another missionaries person. Usually you slide it through a belt loop, into a suit pocket, or my favorite, into their suit collar. So one day we´re singing up in the choir for choir practice (It´s like the one musical outlet we have the option of doing here, and it was a men´s choir that day. Sounded pretty cool.) and I slide a spoon into the collar of the guy in front of me. Before I know it, one of the Elders in the choir slides another spoon into my hand. So of course, I slide it into this guys collar. This isn´t made easier by the fact that this guys collar is pretty tight and he is moving around A TON. Out of nowhere Elders just keep handing me spoons and I get a peacock tail of five of them sticking out of this guys collar. He stretches and I just about lose it thinking these spoons are going to fall out, but amazingly, none of them did. All the Elders around me are just struggling to keep straight faces and sing through fits of laughing. 

    We all walk off the stand and back to our seats in the auditorium for a closing prayer. The lady in charge asks for volunteers and who should volunteer, but spoon guy. He starts to walk up and the whole choir loses it, just breaking down in laughter. I think it suffices to say that I reached legendary spooning status that day.

    In more athletic news, We´ve been playing TONS of cage soccer this week. It´s kind of like indoor soccer, but it´s outside and the walls are like that of a tennis court. On the inside it´s just your typical pavement but with two goals protruding from either end (I´ll send a pic next week). The list of injuries that have accumulated include:

• My ingrown toenail getting completely obliterated
• One elder rolling his ankle, it swelling to twice the normal size and he needed a wheelchair
• One Elder´s eye bleeding, and temporary loss of vision in it
• And many other insignificant, yet still painful injuries

    My companion and I were struggling a little bit at the beginning, Me wanting to follow the rules with exactness and being somewhat strict, him being the polar opposite. We´re getting along much better now though, mostly because I think we´re understanding each other more and more. I think M. Russel Ballard said something along the lines of ´When there is contention between two people it´s because they don´t understand each other.

    I´m learning tons about Spanish, and about the Gospel of Christ and I´m loving it!

Spiritual Thought:

I´ve been thinking alot this week about investigators and how they will respond to my giving them commitments. I was reading In the First Epistle of John this week and found this little nugget of gold:

• 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

When I extend commitments and am teaching investigators, I shouldn´t be afraid, I should have a complete love for them. I´m reading alot out of the New Testament right now and just loving it! For anyone who hasn´t read it, you definitely should. In the LDS church we have the Book of Mormon and I feel like the Bible is overlooked more than it should be.

I love all you guys and am wishing you the best while I´m out here! Keep me updated with e-mails!

Elder Walker

MTC: Life in the Mexico City MTC

6 Jan 2014

Hey everyone! Greetings from Mexico city!

A Cool Picture of Mexico City

The language is coming, slowly but surely, and I am learning to love the gospel more and more every day! For all those of you who have never been to El CCM (MTC in Mexico), Let me walk you through a basic day in the life:

In the morning we wake up at 6:30 and cycle as many people through the shower as we can, as quickly as possible because by 7 we have to be dressed and in class. We then study for 45 minutes before going to eat breakfast. After breakfast we have gym time, where I have played tennis (undefeated, by the way), ping pong, lifted in a pretty nice weight room, ran, and one time sat around because everyone in my district was super tired.

After gym time we shower and go to our first actual class of the day. To start off the class two companionships teach 30 minute lessons to an investigator (actually our teacher). Afterwards Hermano Aguiñiga will come back into the class (as himself) and teach us how much we don´t know Spanish. This goes on until 12:45 when we have lunch.

Mexico City Temple Visitor Center

After lunch we go back to the classroom for an hour of personal study followed by an hour of companionship study. After study time our second teacher, Hermano Sanchez, comes in and follows the same process as Hermano Aguiñiga. We are with Hermano Sanchez until 6:15, when we eat dinner. After dinner we have an hour of language study. Usually my companion, Elder Joos, and I will go to the TALL (Technology Assisted Language Learning) building and memorize words and phrases, and learn grammar rules. After that hour we have our assigned Tall time for an hour, until 9. At nine we return to our classroom to plan for the next day and have a prayer with our district.

Some interesting things:

My companion is the district leader (which basically means I am as well)
My toe got infected the first week I was here and I got a fever and chills (it´s better now)

District 8C, Elders Dickson, Reeves, Godinet, Hermanas Bowles and Yeakey, Elders Weiss, Joos, Walker 

I love my district! We´re all very different, and it´s been such a strength to me!

This week we went to the temple! We didn´t get to go inside because it´s being remodeled but the visitors center is way cool!

Lots of kids are starting to call the CCM prison, but I don´t really mind it. I love learning the language and am super excited for when I get to apply what I´ve learned in Antofagasta, Chile!