Chicken! Yuck!

Sorry if the writing is weird today, this computer for some reason autocorrects to Spanish so some English words might become Spanish, not my fault! But this week was crazy. SOOO about the baptism-- the bishop won’t let us do it today because we can’t have activities in the church Monday night because it’s a night for the family. So we went to Andrea and asked what other day works so we moved it to Friday. So we went and told the bishop and he said we have an activity in the church already Friday so yeah it’s frustrating but she passed her baptismal interview which is really awesome!! But we still don’t know when we are going to have it... So yeah there's that. We had 2 exchanges this week, one with other Elders and the other one with the zone leaders. So Tuesday I was with Elder Gonzalez, he’s from Chile. So I learned all the slang phrases from him ha-ha. He has less time in the mission than me though so I was senior companion for a day which was fun. We taught some lessons and what not, but I had to run the sector which was tough because I’ve been here for like 2 and a half weeks so I don’t know the sector like at all so we got lost a lot. I have a video that I’ll attach of him speaking, it will show you how fast the people talk here. Chileans talk really fast!. Then we had an intercambio (exchange) with the zone leaders on Friday. I was in central Osorno with Elder Ordoñez, he’s a Peruvian. Peruvians are super cool! But the intercambio was miserable. I’ve been sick all week and it has gotten worse and worse every day. Thursday my stomach was super bad. I didn’t eat like anything on Wednesday and Thursday but like every 10 minutes I had to go to the bathroom. So all Thursday I had like no energy from the lack of food but we still walked all day and taught lessons and what not...ah I was miserable. Then that night I spent all night in the bathroom so I didn’t sleep at all so I finally called the nurse the next day and have been taking medicine so I'm better now. But for 3 days I was like dying ha-ha I think I lost like 15lbs pounds. So all that weight I gained in Puerto Mont I lost again. I'm skinny again! So that’s a plus! Anyways...I'm almost positive it was from eating bad chicken, which is the second time in Chile. We had gone to lunch out in El Campo, which is like straight up red necks of Chile who own big barns and animals and talk terrible Spanish. It was funny. Next time I’m out there I will have to take pictures for you guys. It’s literally the Alabama of Chile Anyways we went there for lunch, and these people put a giant plate of solid chicken in front of me! I was like oh no...And I couldn’t like ask for less or say no or anything because these people are like pretty poor. They didn’t even have running water in their house. So I ate it...and was so ill afterwards. Chicken just isn’t the same anymore...so yeah. That happened. But it was also funny because those days I didn’t eat because I was sick I had to tell the mamitas (ours and the one in centro) that my stomach didn’t feel good so I wanted to not eat and the mamitas like freaked out and gave me like every single remedy they knew. They gave me like all these random herbs and like teas and these weird pill type things ha-ha it was hilarious. Every Chilean mom has their own like remedies. It was funny because when I went back to our mamita she was like "What did the other mamita tell you?!?! No that’s all wrong! You need to do this and this and this!!” ha-ha I love the Chileans here...they’re honestly such caring people. I got smothered this week with remedies. So what else happened...sorry this email is super-duper long...oh Spanish clicked this week! I don’t know what happened but I can speak Spanish. So weird! We were in a lesson and I just like started speaking and I remember thinking in my head wow how am I doing this? It was like a second language! Weird...so yeah that happened so I can randomly speak fluent Spanish now! Cool stuff! I taught the gospel principles class in church on Sunday that went well. Oh also!!!! I have another story!!! Sorry it’s so long!! So we contacted into this guy named Juan Carlos, and he’s this older guy and thinks he’s like an apostle or something because we went into his house and tried to teach him but the whole time he like preached to us about random stuff. We would ask him like "so do you know what happened after Christ died?" and he'd be like "Well John said this, and in Psalms it says this and in my heart I feel like and my grandson did this when he was younger and that’s why my hair is how it is now." He was so random hahaha. So we ended up just like extending a weak invitation to the church and got out of there. Well HE SHOWED UP to church. It was so random. We invite like 100 people a week to church and no one like ever shows up and he out of everyone did show up and he stayed all 3 hours and participated in the lessons and actually brought up like super good points in the lessons that actually were in line with the gospel! He loved church and says he’s going to come next week as well. So that just goes to show that don’t be afraid to talk to anyone and invite them to church because you never know who will actually show up. Anyways yeah I think that’s it ha-ha so bye! Hope everyone has a great week! And be careful eating chicken— Love- Elder Zack Walden