Elder Aaron Mayberry: Asado, Gallenas, Volantines, y mas asado!!

Hi everyone!
So yeah, the huge party here has ended finally after four days haha. It was good, but mission work, like Ryan said, came to a complete halt. So that made this week relatively FOME, in terms of the work. Fome is lame, but I use it like an english word now. It just kinda comes out cuz it works nicely. I actually have a lot of silly habits I've picked up from the Chilean culture, which I'll probably still do in the states and people will think I'm crazy haha. I'll make a little list of those later. But yeah. I'll start with the work and then talk more about the party.
So. First off, our investigators are doing ok. We've found a few that are progressing well, but the assistance at church was really bad. We only had one in church because of the festivities. Oh. I say assistance at church when it should be attendance, the word in spanish is assistencia, so all missionaries fall into the habit of saying the assistance at church. Anyway. We're teaching a few young guys and they are really interested in the gospel and I think they could see some good progress here in these next coming weeks. But other than that the week was rather fome, like I said. BUT....we had a baptism!!! Catalina, the brother of Mauricio and daughter of Mariela, the family me and Elder Sáenz baptized like 7 weeks ago, was baptized this Sunday. Woohoo! It was really cool. And guess who baptized her? Her own brother :D Mauricio was able to baptize her because he's got the Aaronic priesthood, so that was basically one of the coolest things of my mission. Watching the convert I baptized, baptize his own sister. That's what the gospel is all about. Helping people change their lives, and I can honestly say I've seen a change in the lives of that family. What a blessing to be able to know them. I love the mission.
Also, we went to the temple on Tuesday and it was super cool and amazing like always.
And that's about all we could do this week haha. Because starting Friday, Chile as a country shut down, no one answered doors, everyone was drinking, and it was a gigantic party. Not much work was done becaused of it, but hey, we were all expecting it.
¡¡¡FIESTAS PATRIAS!!!
So the party was pretty cool here in chile. It was the Bicentennial, the 200th anniversary of Chilean independence. And they threw a pretty big party. Like it says in the title, there was lots of barbeques, some fun with chickens, and flying kites, along with all the other great Chilean pasttimes during this time of year. So on Friday, we really didn't do too much in terms of celebrating. We did however help the familia San Martin in preparing for their big party, which lasted the entire 4 days haha. Our help was pretty interesting....we not really we, just Elder Mathews, Elder Deavers comp. He killed one of the 4 chickens that the San Martin's had to cook for the 18th. We were out back and they bring them out, and they just start breaking the chickens necks, it was actually quite interesting and I got it on video haha, and Elder Mathews wanted to try one, so they let him and he killed the chicken, no big deal. It was interesting. Then, our true selves showed out, as young 20 year old boys, and we took like a thousaand pictures of us with the dead chicken in different poses haha. Some people think we're super mature men but we really aren't haha. We're still young and like to do stupid things for no reason. But yeah, that was a lot of fun. And a note to Grandpa, I'm still going to eat chiken after seeing them killed hahaha. Anyway....Saturday, the big day. We were invited to eat lunch at a super rich members house and they had a huuuuge barbeque going, with all the types of meat you could ever desire. So that was delicious. After we got stuck in a HUGE traffic jam because apparently all of Santiago came to Pirque for the celebration, so we sat in traffic forever. And that was our 18th haha. Just a ton of eating and playing some Chilean games (I'll explain more later). On Sunday, we had the baptism, and after we went and ate with that family at the castle, and guess what we ate? Yup, more barbeque. And today, we had a zone activity here in Pirque where we played soccer, flew kites, and ate more barbeque haha. And I got to play some badminton on a makeshift court in the house :D So we ate really well these past few days. And that was how we spent the18th as missionaries.
Now, I'll explain some basic Chilean customs, foods, etc that they do here for the 18th. Food. They love their asado, and empanadas. They make empanadas de pino, which consist of ground beef, onions, half a hard boiled egg, and an olive. I'm not a big fan. But they also make empanadas de queso (cheese) which I love haha. They also drink lots of mote con huesillos, which Ryan already described. It's the juice, with oats at the bottom, and a dried peach. I also don't like it. But those are the only things really, I'm not as picky anymore trust me. :) Customs. They play lots of games and have their national dance, the cueca. It's an interesting dance that's impossible to describe to you over the internet, so I took a video and you can see it when I get home. Some games they play are, flying kites, playing with tops, a horseshoe like game, and like a relay race. On Saturday at lunch we did a relay race, and the first leg was a sack race, then get out of the sack and put a spoon in your mouth and balance a lemon on it, then go to a bowl full of flour and take out a candy at the bottom, and then go to a bowl full of water and take a candy out from the bottom (the last two without hands obviously) and then run to the start. Pretty fun stuff. They also have the tradition of climbing a huge pole to get to the top. It's fun stuff. We enjoyed ourselves.
And that was basically how we spent our week. It was a lot of fun, and we also got some good spiritualness in with the baptism. All in all a great week. I love chile. Even though it's a lot different I've come to lov it and definitely plan on bringing lots of Chilean things and traditions home. Which reminds me. I said in the beginning I do some Chilean things now, I'll say a few. One is the handshake hug handshake, whenever you greet someone. I don't even remember how to greet someone in the States now and I find it really weird that they don't shake hands, give a hug, then shake hands again. So that's funny. I've also gotten into the habit of pointing at things with my lips. Instead of using their hands and fingers to point, a lot of Chileans when they wanna point something out or say where something is, just extend their lips out and point them at the object. I do that one a lot now. Also. There is a noise the Chileans make, when you're talking to someone in a conversation and you disagree or think they said something stupid or think their lying. Really this noise applies in a ton of situations. but its basically, daaaaaaaaah. I find myself doing that one too, mostly just cuz it's really funny. You might not understand but I know Ryan will haha. But yeah. Those are some Chilean traditions/customs I plan on taking back to the states. You'll all probably think I'm weird though but it's ok.
As you'll see in the fotos, we have a great time living with a family. It's a really neat opportunity we have here in Pirque. They're great people and Luis, the dad of the family is a really funny guy. He isn't a member but he loves us like we are his own kids. He calls us all gringos, or gringitos and we have fun with him a lot. We're working on getting him baptized, all missionaries in the past here have tried, but without success. We'll see how it goes with us.
Yup. Así es. Esto es mi carta que les escribo para esta semana. Espero que todos tengan una semana bien buena llena de cosas bakanes y pulentos. Yo estoy tan feliz aqui en Chile serviendo al Señor por estos dos años. ¡Me encanta la misión muchisimo! Es la mejor cosa que he hecho. Les amo mucho. Espero que les haya gustado esta parte en español. Y ahora un poco Chileno. Wena cabro! Al tiro! El carrete fue rewena ¿cachai? y no solo pintamos monos, le dimos duro a la pega igual. La disfrutamos harto. Sipo. :D Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Aaron Mayberry
PICTURES, lots.

1. The good stuff