My first P-Day in Viña!!

Hey guys! I hope all is well where ever you all are. Things are great in Viña del Mar.

So first off my compañero is amazing! His name is Elder Reis (pronouced Hays) and he is from Brazil. Hes basically trilingual because he speaks Portugese, Spanish and a little bit of English. I really couldnt have asked for a better trainer. Im so glad that I can spend the next 11 weeks with him!

My first branch is in a place called Chorillos. Its up in the hills of Viña. The entire city is built into the side of a hill. By hill I mean a small mountain. The roads here are so steep and really hard to walk up. By the time I get back my legs are going to be huge!

The food here is basically the same as in the CCM, rice and meat. One time we had soup which was really good, and another time we had mashed potatoes and some type of meat. I dont really know how dinner works here. First of all its called once here, and we dont have appointments for it. Everyday we have somebody that gives us lunch, but we dont have scheduled once. My first day we just walked into someones house, I thought to teach them, but instead we just sat down and ate. A couple of times we didnt have once so we just bought some stuff. Also people here are really generous with their juice. Theres also this stuff called Ecco that looks a lot like coffee, but Elder Reis told me its fine for us to drink. Its alright, but Im really excited to try this stuff called mate. You can only drink it in the mornings though because its tradition to sit around for hours drinking mate. 

The houses here are really small. They usually have one big room surrounded by lots of small rooms. They are also surrounded by tall fences. Sometimes they have door bells, but a lot of times they dont. If they dont we just walk up and yell "Halo" really loud. Sometimes they come out and sometimes they dont. We spend a lot of time waiting in front of houses.

The people here are really nice. A lot of them are just willing to talk to you. Especially the abuelitos. They are just old people that are lonely so they talk to us. They usually arent interested in the Gospel, but they are fun to talk to. I usually cant understand what theyre saying. They like to mumble a lot.

Anyway things are great here in Viña del Mar. I really love it here and I love this work. Hope you all have good weeks ahead of you. Ciao!

Sincerely,
Elder Thompson