December 14 update

Another week... another companion! Elder Kenison is now comps with Elder Alonzo — he writes:

He's from Ecuador haha he's awesome. The best part is that he speaks really really good spanish. And he's been correcting me a lot. Haha so i've learned a lot :D so hopfully by the end of this change i'll have much better spanish. Haha that is if Elder Alonzo continues to be patient. Haha :D

Here is a photo of the new companionship:

Matt has now had companions from Honduras, Argentina, and Ecuador. He's getting a great introduction to different Latin accents and cultures!

They returned to their assigned area of "4 Poniente" in Maipú and got back to work. They were immediately confronted with a great prospect:

we have a Fetch!!! I mean a bautismal date! Hahaha for this Saturday :D we get a call from a member in our ward. And she said that her son, who is 13, wants to be baptized :D :D :D so we taught him. He's been attending church and mutual for a long time. So he pretty much knew everything. Haha the only problem is that everything happend so fast that we don't really know him. And he'll be leaving on vacation for 2 months next week. So i won't get to see him. Haha but he's an awesome guy. He'll be my first baptism, Elder Alonzo's too :D

We hope things work out for this young man. It's exciting for Matt to see this, but we hope the support will continue after he leaves for vacation.

Sunday was also an unusual day in the Santiago area:

This week was elections so church was earlier. 9 instead of 11 and it was only an hour long (just sacrament meeting) normally the barrio in Los Heroes meets at 10 and we meet at 11. but instead they joined us together. We had 38 people attend church this week — it was horrible. Mostly because lots went to vote and others were just lazy because the church is so far

Here's another classic Matt story. We're glad he's trying hard to improve his Spanish!

Also.... I have a story about learning spanish. :D So the other day i was telling a story about when sam shot a bird on his fence. The word for a little bird is Pajarito. But for the life of me i couldn't remember that word haha so i would say, "y mi amigo con su pistola le disparo un.... aaaaa..." and my companion would say "pajarito" haha then i would say yeah eso. Umm y un otro tiempo un........ my companion said "pajarito" haha again. So while trying to remember this word i remembered "elder kenison if you use it you'll learn it" so i decided to use it but i didn't remember it right so i said, "y mi amigo con su pistola le disparo un cucharita" Elder Alonzo gave me a weird look. Haha i looked at him then thought about what i just said "my friend, with his gun, shot a... little spoon...." hahahaha so for the past couple days whenever a bird flies by Elder Alonzo says "Mire Elder Kenison una Cucharita" haha then he laughs haha it's been funny haha

And then, he made the classic missionary blunder, that many Americans make in Spanish or Portuguese:

Ok i have one more :D Haha so another time i was telling a story about how i was embarrased from something. Haha but instead of saying embarrased (avergonzar) I said Embarazada which means pregnant so i told Elder Alonzo that after... something, i can't remember, I was really pregnant. Haha he laughed and laughed and laughed. Hahaha good times

Matt sure knows how to have a good time! One final photo. Not much description of this one; he just said it was taken in their area on the way home from an appointment: