From Kent 10/26

Y los desafíos vienen

‏

¡Hola Familia de mí!

Sounds like it's busyness (business?) ville up there, what with all the shenanigans and goings-on. Best of luck with the Wiggle! It's great to have Notorious coming back, they're fantastic! Too bad to hear that there are struggles with SYTYCD :(, it truly would not be the same w/o Mia.

We've stumbled all upon an obstacle. Juaqin, who was to be baptized yesterday was not. Friday evening when we were over at the house of his grandparents that were taking care of him to iron out details of the service, etc., his mom came a knocking at the door. Apparently his mother isn't the most stable as far as her word goes. Though we had been given permission from both his parents, his mom decided that it wasn't a good idea (I'm quite certain it had much more to do with troubles and angst betwixt her and her parents.) So she took Juaqin back to live with her (which is only a few blocks away). We went over to talk with her Saturday about the whole thing, she was in better spirits, said that she didn't have a problem with him going to church but still didn't think he was old enough to make a decision such as baptism (which is odd because she's a member, though hasn't really been active for 9 or 10 years). When we came to pick him up for church they weren't home. :(. We continue to pray for him, but things look bleak for the moment.

One of our more promising new investigators is Escarlet (It's against the rules in Spanish to have a word start with an S then a consonant, so you throw an E in front), she's 14 and was pretty interested in the church and wants to get baptized. Both her and her mom have a date for the 15th of November.

Good news! One of our eternal investigators, a boy named Diego, 12 years came to church yesterday! His parents are members, but aren't very active, and he trangled himself to church all on his lonesome and wants to get baptized! We went over the interview questions with him and he seems ready, but we still need to have the actual interview, and he could be baptized this Sunday, along with Habraham!

Onésima is still having a bit of a hard time with coming to Church, her husband is still not liking the whole thing and she's scared to come. On the good side, we did run into him in the street last week and he was very friendly toward us, which is a bit of a change. Hopefully we can get with him and explain a bit more about the church and things will work.

Yoselin had work (blast) and wasn't able to come to church this week, but we met with her later yesterday and had a great lesson of'bout the restoration and her mother and brother stayed and listened for the whole thing as well (usually they go off to their rooms/kitchen and do other things) We exhorted her to do her readings, she hadn't really done any this last week, so we exhorted Alexandra and Yoselin to read together (Alexandra is her sister that's a recent convert) Hopefully that will work well!

Things are starting to heat up, and summer is on its way (though it did rain for 2 1/2 days straight, which was very cold) I had my first mini-exchange over into the Chiguayante Chiguayante sector, it was very strange being with an Elder who spoke English as well. He had only been in the mission 3 months, so it was a bit tricky for the both of us, but we managed. My Spanish is getting a lot better, I'm able to understand people a lot more, though questions are still tricky because each word is important.

I saw the Qüeca (no idea how to spell it) which is the national dance of Chile while on my mini-cambio. From my understanding it's a dance that EVERYBODY knows like the pledge of allegiance, and it's not that simple. Not at all, I don't know how to really describe it, there's a lot of fancy foot work from the men, quick kicking and stomping, both waving around handkerchief type things. Slightly flamenco, but far more...Mexican? I don't know, but very interesting, I like. I won't of course be able to learn it though :(, but oh well. I heard a first while on my mini-cambio. One of the families said that I looked just like Arnold Schwerzenegger (minus muscles of course). Though I denied it they wouldn't hear it. So that's what they called me the rest of the night, Elder Schwerzenegger.

Last Tuesday we ran into a former investigator that had moved away right before being ready for baptism, I can't remember the name, it was really tricky, but she's 12 I believe and her Dad was ready for baptism too!(Yay, men in the church!) They're back in Tierra Bella and had set a date for the 15th!

Breakthrough with another eternal investigator, Hector. His whole family has been Catholic their whole life, but one of their sons (Yonatan I believe, I still have trouble with names) but from my understanding his mom passed away recently and so he was willing to listen more and religion had become a bigger topic of discussion. He feels good about the Church,he's seen a lot of the positive changes it's made in his son, and felt really good about the Plan of Salvation, which we went over with him. He's a bit hesitant because he doesn't want to turn his back on part of who he and his family have been for the past 40+ years, but felt more comfortable after I had explained that he's not turning his back on God, that the Catholic church had helped him come to know Him and that now God has more and wants more for him. It's an addition to that which he already knows.

Postal service is slow, I received that first letter that you sent and wanted to be waiting for me a week ago, but haven't received anything else, just been going off of the confirmation emails. The water here is good, no worries about that it's safe to drink from the tap. As for the toilets flushing they don't go the other direction, they don't go any direction actually, it's just a mess of splashing.

Thanks for all of your prayings! Love ya Love ya!
¡Cuidados!

Elder Kent Pimentel

From kent 10/19

Pero en serio esta vez.‏

¡Hola familia!

With hope, things will work this time, ay! (Ay is the Spanish version of Wo in the scriptures)

So, in looking over my last letter I saw an extreme error. When I said we ''did 9 of them this week'' I meant set baptismal dates, not actually performing the baptism. Bueno, so on to the stories!!

Chiguayante is a common (a bit bigger in area than a city, but not containing big ol' buildings). It's not all too different from the U.S., except it's much poorer, though not like the 'poor' areas in the U.S. as far as character of the people and safety goes. Most houses are very very small, but the people have what they need, and are very content with it. There's no insulation in the buildings, in fact we keep specific window slits open at all times to ventilate the building (otherwise nasty colonies of flies appear) so it gets wicked brisk in the night. Oh so very very cold. You'd think it was a desert with the difference of hot in the day and cold at night. That's a slight exaggeration, but yeah. The majority of the roads are paved, any of the big ones are. Once you get off into side roads and such you don´t have that. A little less often than you'd see a motorcycle in Utah you see a horse-drawn cart.

Bob Barker didn't bless Chiguayante with his daily reminders, and there are dogs EVERYWHERE!! Alllllllllll over the place. Cats too, but not as much as dogs. There also isn't a rule on how many you can have. Often we'll go to someone's house and up to six dogs will come running to the fence a-barking. Most don't have doorbells, so if they have a fence or such you shout ''¡Halo!'' (pronounced like the french allo, or something, don't pronounce the H)

The mission has a goal of 150 baptisms a month, and we get pretty close. Religion doesn't have a fraction of the taboo it does in the U.S. People are open and willing to talk about it all with whoever of whatever religion. I feel that it's a little bit like New York 1820. The strongholds of religion in Chile (and Concepción-Chiguayante specifically) are Evangelical, SUD (LDS), Catholic, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Not necessarily in that order though. The topics of usual conversation from what I've seen is 1. Futbol, 2. Politics, 3.Religion It's a big deal here. BUT, and there is a but, (and it's not Randi's)most don't have the same pride of ''this is my religion, my alliance, my loyalty to THIS church, and my value as a human rides on my being RIGHT in having made this decision'' as most in the U.S. For that reason, even if somebody's extreme Catholic, they'll still gladly have you over for a lesson.

The investigator we're most excited about is Habraham, a boy of about 15 years. He's investigated the church and gone multiple times, gone to activities and such and had a few questions. It was a Saturday activity at the Ward building and we sat him down in a room and taught him lesson 3. (Here in Concepción we start with lesson 3, then 2 then 1. Since doing so the baptisms have nearly doubled in this mission). We could absolutely tell that he felt the Spirit, and does so every time that we have a lesson with him. His family, and especially his mom are very evangelical, and so permission for baptism is being a slight speed-bump because she understands how significant and serious a thing it is, that it's a covenant and a commitment. So that's good that she understands that, because that means she'll be a faithful member when she gets baptized! (We started teaching her as well).

Then we have Onésima, a woman around 45 or so who cuts hair on the corner of the street (By the way, it's fantastically cheap to get your hairs cut here. It costs about 2.000 (2,000) pesos at the most, which is about $4 U.S. (Exchange is about 500 pesos = $1 U.S.) and was actually the first lesson that I taught when I got here to Chile. She still needs to come to church but she knows that what we're saying is true, and was excited to tell us how she had been keeping the word of wisdom and stopped drinking Coffee and tea. Her husband however is afraid of change and such, and doesn't really like the whole thing. That's very common here, the sisters are far more open and receptive to the Spirit than the men, goodness sakes it's ridiculous.

Juaqim is a 9 year old grandson of one of the members (who was taught originally by one of my teachers in the MTC, Hermana Beeston, who was then Hermana Law. She´s spoken of highly and much of the members, and I've seen her in many pictures here as well) who is progressing wonderfully. He's not as excited about it all as the others, but he's keeping commitments, understands the reasons for things, reading, praying, all the above, and enjoys it.

Up next is our tricky, slow but sure process. There's a neighboring family of ours, the Sepulbada family, who are some of the nicest people you'd ever meet. About 4 or so months ago, their youngest, Alexandra (18 years old) was baptized, and the rest of the family is a bit hesitant. The mother is very Catholic, but is happy to have us over and ''review lessons'' with Alexandra and sits in on many and most of them. In truth, our follow up lessons are heavily planned and pointed toward Alexandra's mother and sister, Yoselin. Yoselin has opened up a bit more and started listening to the lessons and came to church yesterday. She still has a way to go for baptism, she doesn't feel comfortable yet, but committed to keep coming to church and reading and praying.

The Church is fantastically true, as is the Lord's hand in His work. The 2nd day here I was doing my morning study and my bible flopped open ''on its own'' to Santiago (santiago = james)5:--something I don't remember but it says in effect: If there are any sick among you, let him call for the elders of the church who will anoint with oil and give a blessing. Then I realized I didn't know how to do that in Spanish, so I figured I should learn and did. Our first contact that morning (There are a LOOOT of less-actives that we work with) asked for a blessing. Similar things have happened with what I study that morning or the day before, Habraham's mom had a question about baptism and those who haven't had it, and I had read that morning 1 Cor 15:29 for the first time since 9th grade. Things like this are very common.

Things are cheap here as well, the buses are like taxis, there are two to four every minute that you can just flag down, it costs from 380-430 pesos to take you into the City. Lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day, will very very rarely cost more than 2.000 pesos. (four dollars) which we only do about once a week, we eat lunch with the members in the Concepción mission, more often those that need a little more get back to church.

Oh my hecks goodness, so on Tuesdays we have Correlation with the ward missionaries and mission leaders, but usually everyone's late. Punctuality isn't quite as much of a value here, only somewhat for church and work. So we spent an hour outside the church and invited passers-by to come in and see the building and all the paintings we had (which are so conveniently alligned in an order helpful for teaching) Only one woman and her absolutely adorable daughter (four or so years, she looked exactly like one of those children from church videos like Testaments and such) When we got to the painting of Jesus getting baptized and explained about it all and what is needed to make baptism valid, the woman (Verónica, which is a name more common than Maria here) asked with hope ''Could we get baptized again?'' That made us very happy. Once we got to the final painting of the first vision and explained and asked if we could come by and teach more at their house, the little girl looked up to her mom and ''whispered'' ¡Sí sí sí sí! I pretty much melted up right there. Hooray for children. Unfortunately, they weren't home when they said they'd be, so we're going to try again.

We have Juaqim's baptism scheduled for this sunday, the 25th, Habraham's for the 1st of November. If Onésima comes to church these next weeks we're looking on the 8th. Yoselin didn't want to set a date, so we're going to help her testimony grow a bit more before we can set one with her. There are many other investigators that are hopeful, but not like these'uns. I will report of those such things when they come of about.

Glad to hear about Grandpa's voice! That's great that he's getting some comforts back into his life.

Bread is fantastic here by the way. Food is usually spaghetti or some other noodles with a light sauce and whatever else you want on top of it: eggs, hot dogs, tuna, chicken, beef. And then desert is usually some delicious type of fruit collection. And as much as American's want to claim french fries as their national food, we don't eat it half as common as the folks of Chiguayante. Almost every other meal has had it.

Well, I must be a heading off and away, have thyselves a grand and wonderous week! The Church is True!

Siempre con amor,
Elder Kent Pimentel

From Kent 10/12

¡Hola de Chiguayante!‏

Hello Flamy!!

MyLDSMail must have something against me, I don´t know if I like, spilled Mountain Dew all over it or something, but it´s rejected the last two letters I´ve tried to send, both of them nice and dandy, so I´ve lost much of the will, I´ll get the rest of things back to you next week.

I´m in Chiguayante, a city 20 min south of Concepción, in an area called Tierra Bella. Beautiful Earth, and oh how it is. Very beautiful in landscape, and very white in field. We have 11 baptisms scheduled for the end of this month (9 of them we did this week). My companion is Elder Carazas, from Cuzco Peru, he doesn´t speak too much english, so I´ve had fun trying to figure out what´s going on. It´s only us two in our apartment, which is decent for an apartment in the U.S., pretty big for a house in Chiguayante.

I´ll have more next week, I don´t has much time now, Perdonadme.

Love ya Love ya!
Elder Kent Pimentel

From Kent's mission 10/9

From: Chile Concepcion Mission <2015528@ldschurch.org>
Date: Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 5:01 PM
Subject: Elder Pimentel


Dear Pimentel family,

Your son has arrived safely and securely in Concepción Chile. He has met his trainer and is now working diligently in his new sector. We are excited to have him here and expect to see many miracles through his service. Attached is a letter from him, a photo with President and Hermana Chavez, and a map to help you know where your missionary is serving. Thank you for your sacrifice and support.



Elder Eric Davis

Secretario

Misión Chile Concepción

From Kent 9/28

Una semana más en los Estados‏


¡Hola Famila!

Pues, es la fin! This is my last week here in America, we got our travel plans on Thursday, and we leave Monday morning bright and early. Our flight from Salt Lake leaves at 9 A.M. Oct 5 and we arrive in Concepción at 9 A.M. Oct 6. ¡Oy! Es difícil creer pero ¡el tiempo es aquí!

The weeks have gone past far too quickly, that's without doubt. There have been some interesting things happening this last week though. One of the Elders in our Zone, Elder Stephensen got extremely sick, he's been out almost all week, so we had to take him to the Instacare, it turns out that he's got some crazy infection in his throat and pink eye.. no fun.

Elder Jardine, the Opera singer in our zone sang a solo for the fireside yesterday, it was most fantastic! He sang ''I Heard Him Come.'' Umm... not a whole lot else to be of reporting. Oh! The Lindseys (Branch President and his wife) spoke with Uncle Tom Green and said that he had a Pimentel as a zone leader and Tom said ''Oh those Pimentels are great people!'' so that's good!

¡Oh! This Wednesday we hosted again, and guess who should come trangling out of the car I was to host? None other than Elder Kekoolani! (Henry Kekoolani was one of my roommates last year) It was a most joyous occasion to see him again, we thought we were going to miss each other and not come across each other in the MTC, but alas, we did! :) He's going to the same mission that Jordan is in, San Domingo East I believe.
It's amazing how close we've all gotten with one another in the course of a few weeks; I suppose that when everyone is united in a common goal it's very easy to connect and become friends. I feel that I have grown so much, but in having done so can see that there is so much more to go. I'm excited to continue to press forward.

The Spirit is without a doubt present and His power is manifest. In the exercise where we teach someone as though they were someone we really know incredible things happen. From the one brief paragraph describing Elder Dushku's friend that he wanted to share the gospel with, the Holy Ghost helped Hna. Scaife know a lot LOT more about the friend than was written. We asked a question about her family, the vast majority of details were not written on the sheet, and Hna. Scaife plunged into a great amount of detail and things that Elder Dushku had forgotten as well. Very powerful.

Pues, esta es la último carta puedo escribir a vosotros ante salo para Chile. Quiero sabéis que los quiero y amo mucho, y que la iglesia es verdadera. Estóy animo de enseñar y predicar el Evangelio en Chile y en español. Daniel, venga a el templo tanto como puede con sus amigos, estarás feliz hizo.

¡Los amo mucho!
¡Tiene un día buena, haz trabajo bueno, los amo los amo!

From Kent 9/21

For Pete's Peppers, I'm out of here soon!‏


Hola, Buenos días, buenas tardes, etc., all that jazz, Flammy!

Two weeks. Then I head south. Two of them. That is verily a few amount of weeks. Eeps.

I'm glad to hear that the e-mail worked, it was throwing a hissy fit last week, so hot diggity for that! This has been an interesting week for surely! Sadly, neither of the international Hermanas made it here... hopefully they'll show up some later time and be put into a suitable district. We know that the Korean Hermana was postponed and to be moved to another district, but the Tongan Hermana we haven't heard anything about :(. Pues, está bien.

Our district got to host the new missionaries this week, it was a jolly good time! Two of the Elders I helped around are going to Chile on their missions, one of them going to Concepción! So that was grand and interesting! On the subject of grand and intersting, I've met some people here of distant relation! We were coming back from dinner, I think it was Friday night and Elder Dushku took two stairs thinking they were one and brutally rolled his ankle, yea verily we did need to trangle to the trainer to whom it was appointed to tend to such injuries and wounds. Upon seeing my nametag of Elder Pimentel, he said "Hey, I've got some cousins that are Pimentels, A Lisa, Cari, and a Megan, whose parents were just called to be Mission presidents in Berlin!" Clearly, these were the same Pimentels to whom I am related. His name is Terry Eugene Jacobs, one of Aunt Becky's grandsons. So, there's another 2nd cousin to add to my growing list of family I've not known I have.

I also ran into another Elder Pimentel at service who traces his ancestry back to some Pimentels leaving the Azores for California, and others for Brazil, approximately 5 or so generations back; he is the Brazil half. We didn't get much time to figure out exactly when this split was, but it sounded quite possibly related.

Our teaching went nicely this week, we have three progressing investigators, and then the Teaching Appointment with volunteers in the RC every week, and then other ones as they come up. Our TA this week was very nice, we were teaching a non-Christian store owner from whom we were purchasing clothes. It's interesting the times when you go in having planned how you're going to teach the 1st lesson, and you only end up touching one point of it because they have different specific needs. The Spirit was very very strong and it did loose our tongues, it was the most seamless we've ever been teaching in Spanish, and the Holy Ghost did carry our message to the heart of this child of man.

Also had a very Very strong Spiritual Experience when we watched a brief clip about the Martin Handcart company and the three 18-year old boys who carried them all across the river. How powerfully and quickly it affected everyone in the meeting was phenomenal. To imagine that they could sacrifice so much, experiencing immeasurable pain, eventually at the cost of their lives for these people was too much to handle. And then to realize that that is exaclty what Christ has done for all of us... No puedo describir con palabras.

Needless to say, the Spirit is very strong here, and The Church is very true.

Tell Dave Happy Birthday two days ago, someone mentioned it was Talk like a Pirate Day and I did remember those things that had been spoken to me concerning his birthday being of the same day.

The new district that we got this week has officially settled in I think, they aren't as silent and nervous as they were the first day, it was pretty dreadsome. But they're good now, so huzzah!

I am verily stoked and excited to head to Chile, I'm feeling comfortable with the language (I can at least notice when I don't know a word and what it was I didn't hear, and can therefore ask) but of course I'm going to have to re-learn it Chilean style (i.e. pues=po, más o menos= maomao, and other bizarre dialect changes)

Well, I must begone of this place, I do hope that all is well on yonder home front, and if it's not now, it will be :). The Lord keeps his promises, of that I am sure.

Love ya Love ya! (Btw, I'm having good weeks and doing good works!)

Elder Pimentel

From Kent 9/14

Hola del CCM! (<--Spanish for MTC)‏


Helloo Hello!!

Things are just zipping along here like crazy, it's hard to believe that we're already six weeks into the MTC (Well, we will be on Wednesday). Many a things have been a happenin' here this past week!

We got a true taste of some good ol' quality time Zone Leader duties. There was a batch of contention in the oven of one of the districts, so after approximately four hours of prayer, meetings, prayer, interviews, prayer, discussions, prayer, deliberations, prayer, deliberations, and some phone callery and prayer, 'twas sorted out. Oy!

We get a new batch of missionaries this week! This district will be doubling the number of Hermanas in our Zone, bringing in four sisters, two of them we believe to be international. (Their ID numbers are different and their names are Soo Ryun Lee and Feofaakiakakau Funaki, and yes, that is those are actual names, not exagerations). So in addition to being host missionaries on Wednesday this week, we'll have to go find these two sisters the day they come, which will be on Tuesday instead of Wednesday like the rest of the clan. Then give the whole district the new and improved/lengthened intro to MTC, tour, rules layout, uplift and loved...ness thing. That we do. On Wednesday and Thursday nights with new districts. :)

We witnessed some great courage and wisdom from one of our Elders this week. Knowing he had left some unfinished things back home, he talked with the Branch President, etc., and flew back home yesterday for a time to get things all sorted out. He's already got a system set up to keep studying PMG and learning Spanish, and we hope to have him in Panama in a few months. Very humbling to watch him do it all on his own accord, and with determination.

This week we did our first SYL day, speaking only Spanish for all of Friday. It was a challenge, but it helped us all to focus and it was great to use the language that much. Hna. Scaife never ceases to amaze me, I am SOOO grateful to have her for a teacher. She was telling us about the need to teach from the heart, etc., not just teaching but TEACHING, and it took a while for me to figure it out, but then it hit me. Those are the exact, abstract, make-no-sense but actually does-make-sense words I use when I try to get dancers to DANCE and not just move. That kind of "meaning it" and "from the heart." It clicked, and it makes sense, and it has greatly improved my teaching I've felt.

On the subject of teaching, we taught four lessons this last Saturday, it was exhausting but great at the same time. Though technically all were "the first lesson" the investigator's needs differed so greatly that only one of them really followed "the script" so to speak. Though with limited Spanish it's hard to go too far off base, which is a good and bad thing. Oh yeah, we're teaching wholely and entirely in Spanish now.

Estoy lo encontrando difícil decir mucho más, la menos en inglés. Entonces, intentará hablar español! Vimos "Los Testamientos" ayer, y cada vez lo veo crece más y más poderoso. Cuando vi ayer El Espíritu fue lo más poderso de cualquier vez lo vía. No tenemos mucho tiempo más, entonces terminará pronto. La Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de los Últimos Días es verdadera, sin duda. Estoy animado enseñarlo con la gente de Chilé y Concepción. La gozo que trae no puede ser econtrado de tereneal cosas. Recuerdelo.

Los amo mucho, toman suerte!

Elder Kent José Pímentel.