W29: Chilean Independence Day y Dar Jugo
This week we did both the most work and the least work. Since it was Chilean Independence Day on Wednesday, a member invited us to their parent's house. While we normally would say no as we are on the mission grind, we gladly accepted since hanging out with missionaries wasn't a top priority for most Chileans on Independence Day.
They mentioned their parents lived way out in the campo (country) so we were like, "cool lets go!" When you live in Entre Lagos you are an hour from anything (argentina in one direction or missionaries in the other) and so when you say you are going to the campo, you are legit going to the middle of nowhere. To get there we went on the highway for a good 15 min, then a dirt road (ok still cool), then back to pavement for 2 minutes, then 10 minutes on a gravel 2 way road before going back to dirt for 5 min. We were literally in the middle of nowhere. I had so many questions. Like what happens if someone in their family has a medical emergency but I decided not to ask. We eventually arrived at a nice house with lots of animals and proceeded to have an awesome BBQ. I was in a competition with their 14 year old son to see who could eat more at the BBQ. He put up a good fight but I won. I proceeded to not eat for the next 18 hours until some food digested.
After Wed we had to be in at 730 to avoid the Drunks in the streets. So we did that. Then Saturday we basically had a church party to celebrate Independence Day with another BBQ and tug of war (my team won both times). So this week was a lot of 'jugo' as we call it (can translate to 'Juice' or in Chile means time spent doing a whole lot of nothing) and something we try to avoid as missionaries.
The little time we had away from our fiestas was spent on the missionary grind. 6 of our friends came to church on Sunday. One of them accepted a baptismal date and 2 more are going to have baptismal dates at the end of this week so it is awesome to see people wanting to follow Christ.
We were knocking some of the doors of people that past missionaries talked with and this older lady opened the door and said that "Senor Garces" is her dad. I was surprised because this lady was not young. Turns out her dad is 96. He wanted to come to church so we invited him and coordinated with a member to pick him up and he wants to come again next week so that's pretty cool. He's pretty deaf so I communicate a lot with hand signals but he also can't see very well. There's a lot of hand signals and really loud talking.
Other than that, the next big highlight of the week was setting up a new pull up bar. Our house is one of the best missionary homes and has a garage. In our garage we have these rafters with huge 2x6s that hold up the roof and also an ideal place for a pull up bar for Americans. The chilean doorways are super short so my pull-ups usually involve bending my knees. So now the pull up grind begins.
While I completed my rabies shots today, the gift of the Chilean stray dogs keeps on giving. A couple days ago I woke up with some bites. I didn't really know where they were from. They weren't too bad so I just went about my monk life like normal. But I kept on having bites. I suspected that it was fleas, common housemates in Chile, but I was lazy and didn't really want to go through the process of washing my sleeping bag, liner, 2 blankets and pillows. Thought maybe they would just go away but they proved me wrong when one morning I woke up with a bunch of bites and was just tired of it. So I threw everything in the washing machine, went out and bought some bug killer spray, and went to town on the mattress with the spray. Hopefully they all died. I think part of my mattress died with them. But if not I still have a bunch of the spray. Another reminder that while in Chile just stay away from the dogs.
I hope everyone has a great week.
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