Matt's First Area (Sector)

Sector: Olivos
Mission President: President May

Matt loves Chile. It is an amazing place. His first companion was Elder Francia, from Peru. Matt had hoped for a companion that didn’t speak English, and that is exactly what he got. It was hard for him to communicate with him, but they made it work. Elder Francia has been a member for 2 years, and on his mission for 10 months. Elder Francia was also the District Leader.

The district was made up of 4 missionaries, and they all lived in the same house. The other companionship was Elder Elledge (AZ) and Elder Miser (KY). The house was small, so it was crowded. There was only room for him to have 2 hangers in the little closet things, so most things stayed packed in a suitcase.

People in Chile speak much faster than Matt was prepared for. Matt and Elder Francia continued to do language study where they spent 50% of the time teaching Matt Spanish and 50% of the time teaching his companion English. The service he completed in the MTC, helping others learn English as a Second Language, is coming in very handy on his mission. The mission schedule is a little different. They wake up at 730 a and work until 1130p with a break at lunch. They eat dinner when they return at 1130. Matt likes getting the extra work in.

There was one guy who said he could not speak Spanish so the elders could not talk to him, so Matt spoke up. Luckily the guy was receptive, and they even got a return meeting.

The summer Matt went to was not that bad. It only got 90 degrees at the hottest. They eat a lot of fruit. They eat large lunches so he has had to adjust to the change in the eating schedule. They eat lunch with members who feed them very well. When members can’t feed them, he cooks pasta, rice or makes a sandwich. They traveled 1 ½ hours to a place called Los Andes. They went to a store called Jumbo where he could get American products. He bought Dr Pepper & Peanut Butter. They ate a lot of PB & J Sandwiches after that, and absolutely loved it.

As the mission went on Matt has been to many trainings. He went to the mission home for a training, that was all in English. It was weird for him because he tries to do so much of the speaking in Spanish.

Olivos is really cool. It is just a little bit north of Central Chile. People don’t live in houses they live in something called a Pieza. It is a building with rooms on the outside and open area in the middle, and everyone lives in one of the rooms. Most of them are very small, and an entire family lives in the room. It takes 30-40 minutes to walk across his entire mission. The ward they attend is also part of a different area (sector) in the mission. The other sector used to be combined with his, but the missionaries didn´t work in the area that is now his sector, so the church split it up 3 months ago. The ward has like 500 members but only 60 attend every week.
The missionaries do a lot of walking and riding the bus. The public transportation is really good. The metro (subway) is pretty good too. It is just really really crowded. One time the door shut on him and that wasn’t too fun, but he survived!!